Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, January 22, 2021

01/22 Links Pt1: David Friedman: 'We left the Middle East in good shape'; The PA Is Still Paying Terrorists; Will America remain the strong horse on Iran?

From Ian:

'We left the Middle East in good shape'

One morning in the winter of 2017 a young, unknown man arrived at the Kesher Israel synagogue in the heart of Washington. He prayed fervently, as if his heart was filled with a special request. His tallit bag bore the name "Friedman," and it was the only time he had come to the famous synagogue. That same day, his father David M. Friedman, was undergoing Senate confirmation for his appointment as US ambassador to Israel.

In the best tradition of Jewish divisiveness, powerful forces were aligned against Friedman Sr., led by the J Street lobby. But a few weeks later, in a ceremony organized by B'nai B'rith International, Friedman made his first speech as ambassador.

"If you were wondering about my middle name, Melech, it's not because my parents expected great things of me, but because my grandmother was named Malka [the feminine version of the name]," he began the speech, causing the audience to double over with laughter.

The prayers of his son and his parents had come true. Not only was the appointment approved, but David Melech Friedman became the most influential US ambassador in the history of US-Israeli relations. And not only through the steps known to everyone – stamping down Iran, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, relocating the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli and shaping the Trump peace plan – but also through endless moves that never made headlines in the dramatic Trump era. For example, visits to the Golan Heights, to Ariel in Samaria, and the City of David in Jerusalem – all of which would have been inconceivable prior to Freidman's arrival.

After four intense years, Friedman sat down with Israel Hayom for an "exit interview." For decades, the American Consulate on Agron St. in Jerusalem served as a conduit through which the Palestinian Authority would spread its lies and incitement into Washington. Friedman shut down the consulate and turned it into the official residence of the American ambassador in Jerusalem.

David Friedman reflects on Trump's revolutionary Middle East policies

Friedman emphasized the extensive efforts the Trump administration took to make the agreements a reality, highlighting his senior adviser Aryeh Lightstone’s travels throughout the region to foster agreements between Israel and the other countries’ governments once normalization was announced.

“The Abraham Accords are still new; they need to be nurtured,” Friedman said. “I hope we can continue to nurture this relationship. It’s too new to leave it on its own.”

Friedman’s advice to his replacement would basically be to leave Israel be. He argued that there is a consensus that the Trump administration did a good job in the Middle East, and the next administration would do well to address other problems in the world and domestically.

“We left our relationship with Israel as strong as it has ever been, and it is reciprocal – we are getting an excellent return on investment in Israel that should be maintained. The Abraham Accords have been transformational and need to be maintained.... The issues that tend to occupy people’s attention are all in a good place,” he said.

As such, Friedman said, “the short answer [is that], oddly enough, of all places, the Middle East is pretty good. You should leave well enough alone.

“There are lots of other problems – China, Russia, domestic issues. There is plenty to work on. Leave the Middle East alone. Leave Israel alone, on the path that it is on,” he suggested.

Now that Friedman is no longer ambassador, what is next for him?

Trump’s former bankruptcy attorney said he does not plan to return to practicing law.

First, the departing ambassador plans to write a book about his experiences.

Then, Friedman says, he hopes to continue to have a positive impact in Israel.

“I’m going to find a way to be relevant in this space,” he promised.

I wish President Biden well and hope he succeeds for all Americans. No criticism for now but a simple question: Do you still support UNSC 2334 which US permitted to pass in lame duck days of your last term? If that’s still policy God help us all!
— David M Friedman (@DavidM_Friedman) January 21, 2021

The Palestinian Authority Is Still Paying Terrorists

In 2018, the United States Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, which ended U.S. aid to the PA unless the latter ceased paying stipends to terrorists and their families. The legislation is named after Taylor Force, a 28-year-old U.S. Army vet who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist while he was visiting Israel for his MBA program. Force's murder helped galvanize efforts to penalize the PA and end "pay to slay." In 2019, Israel enacted its own version of the Taylor Force Act, which deducted the amount that the PA pays to terrorists from tax revenues that the Jewish state collects and transfers to the authority.

Yet, the PA has been unbowed.

In a Sept. 26, 2019 speech before the U.N. General Assembly, PA president Mahmoud Abbas declared, "Even if I had only one penny, I would've given it to the families of the martyrs, prisoners and heroes." Abbas's boast of paying people to murder Jews was met with applause. And the PA's actions match his words. In the first five months of 2019 alone, the PA paid terrorists and their families $66 million—an 11.8 percent increase from the previous year.

Abbas has also tried to hide the "pay to slay" program. As journalist Donna Rachel Edmunds observed in May 2020, "monthly budget documents prepared by the Palestinian Authority for 2020 show that it is attempting to hide the salaries that it pays to terrorists from international donors, making a sham of its commitment to financial transparency." Edmunds cited research from Palestinian Media Watch, which found that "the PA is diverting the payments through the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a trick it has used in the past."

Indeed, as AFP reported in June 2020, Abbas ordered his security services to destroy "secret documents, fearing possible Israeli raids on their offices." The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis noted at the time that the PA might have had the past in mind. An Israeli raid in September 2000 resulted in the seizure of PA and PLO documents which showed that "senior Palestinian Authority officers were actively involved in terrorism, providing logistical and financial assistance" to other terrorist groups.

There is no evidence that the PA, facing a new U.S. administration, intends to reduce its support for terror. In January 2021, the authority announced that it was creating the "Alive and Provided For" initiative, which plants trees in honor of terrorists. Jibril Rajoub, a prominent PA official and possible successor to Abbas, declared, "these martyrs are the most sacred thing that we have."

Policymakers and press alike should take note.

It is accepted as a truism among the anti-Israel left that Israel uses archaeology as a political tool, to cement claims of Jews to the Land of Israel and to ignore (or even destroy) anything that shows Muslim ties to the land.

The only problem is that the facts don't support that claim.

Israeli archaeologists not only eagerly find Muslim sites, but Israel preserves them - even when they are near Jewish historic sites.

Here's a new example of one of the world's oldest mosques, just discovered by a Jewish archaeologist from Hebrew University:

When Islam started to spread in the seventh century, mosques were built across the Middle East, and many have endured to this day as holy places and pilgrimage sites; the most famous are in Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Cairo and Basra. Now it looks like Tiberias in northern Israel may be joining the list – excavations in recent years have uncovered an older layer of the city’s ancient mosque.

Katia Cytryn-Silverman of the Hebrew University, who is overseeing the dig, says this is the oldest mosque in the world that can be excavated; most ancient mosques are still being used for their original purpose.

The Al-Juma (Friday) Mosque is in the south of Tiberias at the foot of Mount Berenice; the city itself is on the shore of the Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee. Before Cytryn-Silverman began excavating there 11 years ago, scholars believed that the structure at the center of the site was a marketplace from the Byzantine period. Cytryn-Silverman discovered that it was a mosque from the eighth century in the early Islamic period.

But findings in recent years have shown that under this structure is an even older mosque, dating to the seventh century. Cytryn-Silverman notes that there aren’t many chances to excavate ancient mosques because, in most cases, other mosques were later built on top of them. Such is the case with the mosque in Fustat, currently part of old Cairo and Egypt's first capital under Muslim rule.

Israelis have found and preserved some of the most important Islamic archaeological sites. And that fat simply doesn't fit the lies of the haters.

(h/t Yoel)

Islamic Jihad - which supports suicide bombers - denounces suicide bombers in Iraq

The Islamic Jihad terror group "strongly condemned " the double suicide bombing that targeted a popular market yesterday, Thursday, in Tayaran Square in Baghdad, killing at least 32 people.

The terror group offered its sincere condolences and sympathy to Iraq, and to the families of the victims and the wounded.

This is the same group that is proudly behind dozens of similar suicide bombings in Israel, including the Maxim restaurant bombing in 2003, killing 21.

It is also the same group that pioneered double suicide bombings, as they are celebrating the anniversary of the Beit Lid massacre from 1995 today.

Evidently, when the targets are Jews, suicide bombings are something to be celebrated, not condemned. And this is not only Islamic Jihad's thinking, but mainstream Palestinian thinking.

Hespress, one of Morocco's leading news media outlets, has (as of this writing) a front page article about a Moroccan citizen singing Hatikva on top of the mountains near Tetouan.

The video was posted by the Israel in Arabic page. It shows a young man lip-syncing Hatikva in the mountains.

النشيد الوطني الإسرائيلي من جبال مدينة تطوان بالمغرب. فيديو أرسله مواطن مغربي. ما أجمل السلام 🇲🇦🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/WzlTN5OOBN
— إسرائيل بالعربية (@IsraelArabic) January 21, 2021

The tweet says that a Moroccan, presumably the same man, sent this video to them.

On Thursday, Israel and Morocco signed an agreement for direct flights between the two.

On Thursday, thousands of activists in Pakistan who belong to opposition Islamist parties, led by the Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Islam (JUI-F) party, held an "Israel Unacceptable" rally.

Speeches included explicit antisemitism.

Chief of JUI-F, Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Thursday asked President Joe Biden to revert the capital of Israel from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.

While he seemed semi-moderate for an extremist Muslim when he said that the recognition of Israel is unacceptable to the people of Pakistan without the establishment of a Palestinian state. At the same time, the rally welcomed a video address from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who would never recognize Israel.

Haniyeh said that Muslims will never recognize the Zionist state and called the Zionist state "illegal."

Mehmood Khan Achakzai, chief of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, said that Jews faced persecutions all across Europe and were expelled from Poland, England, Germany, and Spain, but acted like their oppressors to Palestinians. He said that Jews inflicted bloodshed on Palestinians and expelled them from the holy land.

He added that Pashtuns respect all religions.

Prisoners in Israel receive vaccine - including Palestinians. Also, PA coordinating with Israel to bring in the Russian vaccine.

Rotter reports that the vaccination program for Israeli prisoners has finished, only three days after it started.

73% of prisoners chose to receive the vaccine. I don't know what percentage of the Arab prisoners chose to.

22 female terrorists in the Damon prison received the vaccines, and 14 refused. Palestinian media also listed vaccines distributed to several other prisons.

The entire plan required cooperation of the Israel Prison Service, Magen Dovid Adom, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Public Health.

Meanwhile, Israel is coordinating with the Palestinian Authority to import 5000 of the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine doses next week, and 100,000 more in the middle of February. Those vaccines will be brought on Russian planes landing in Israel.

Also, Israel coordinated the delivery of hundreds of vaccines to Gaza tonight.

This is all exactly in line with what the Geneva Conventions require for lands under occupation, even though Israel does not accept that definition.

All the newspaper and NGOs and members of Congress that say otherwise are lying. And they know it.

(h/t iTi)

01/21 Links Pt2: Douglas J. Feith: Why I’m a Zionist; Describing Jews as ‘Privileged,’ Ethnic Studies Curriculum Sparks Backlash; Yom Kippur War deliberations declassified

From Ian:

Douglas J. Feith: Why I’m a Zionist

There are negative reasons to be a Zionist - that the Jews need a state because they need a refuge. That argument launched the Zionist movement in the 19th century and it remains valid to this day.

There are also affirmative reasons that relate to Jewish civilization. They boil down to the conviction that Jewish culture is an invaluable inheritance that only in the Land of Israel, in a state with a Jewish majority, can be developed fully and perpetuated reliably. As an adult, I came to appreciate the positive reasons to be a Zionist.

To be a Zionist is to revel in the ways Israel has integrated Jewish principles and traditions into the daily life of a large, modern, democratic society. Israel is where Jewish collective interests prevail, so they enjoy the dignity of self-reliance and self-defense. Hebrew is the main language. Jewish history inspires the geographical names. Jewish subjects have a special place in the schools. The Jewish religious calendar influences the rhythm of life.

In general, the American political tradition is averse to official privileges for particular ethnicities or faiths. But the way Americans practice democracy is not the only way. Most liberal, democratic countries were founded on an ethnic basis. Most give special consideration to the majority population's cultural interests.

CAMERA Op-Ed A Historian Who Forgets History

More than 100 years ago, George Santayana famously intoned that “those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” The Spanish philosopher’s warning has often been repeated. Regrettably, it is often ignored, including by many historians.

Avi Shlaim provides the latest example. In a Dec. 22 op-ed in Foreign Policy magazine titled, “If Biden Wants Israeli-Palestinian Peace, He Must Break with the Past,” Shlaim seeks to provide the incoming U.S. administration with advice on how to “achieve in the Middle East.” The Oxford University professor emeritus has even found the culprit for the lack of Israeli-Palestinian peace.

“The basic flaw in the U.S. approach to Middle East peacemaking since 1967,” he claims, is “the unconditional nature of its economic, military and diplomatic support for Israel.” He elaborates, saying “the United States has posed as an honest broker, but in practice, it has acted more as Israel’s lawyer. This has made its policy for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict incoherent, contradictory and self-defeating.” The United States, asserts Shlaim, has held a “monopoly” over peacemaking efforts and has failed “because it was unable or unwilling to use its massive leverage to push Israel into a final-status agreement.”

The implication is clear: Israel at fault for the lack of a permanent peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. And America shares the blame for its supposedly uncritical support of the Jewish state.

The solution, Shlaim tells Foreign Policy readers, is for the United States to “impose penalties for Israeli intransigence.” The United States should encourage Israel to adopt the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, and should it refuse, the Jewish state should be deprived of aid. That proposal, writes Shlaim, would have provided the Palestinians with an independent state on the Gaza Strip and a capital city in eastern Jerusalem.

But Shlaim’s recommended strategy is based on a selective reading of history.

Indeed, his commentary is replete with omissions and misrepresentations.

In fact, Palestinian leaders have been presented with numerous opportunities for statehood, and they alone are responsible for refusing them. In 1937 and 1947, Palestinian Arabs rejected British and U.N. proposals for statehood—proposals that were accepted by the Zionists.

WaPo, ABC, CBS Run with AP Piece Denouncing Israel’s Defense Against ‘Apartheid’ Smear

Major news organizations, including The Washington Post, ABC News and CBS News reprinted an Associated Press (AP) article that incorrectly portrayed as undemocratic a move by Israel’s education minister to bar members of B’Tselem from giving presentations or conducting other activities in publicly-funded schools. The decision was made after the controversial group, which supports the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, published a report in which it accused the Jewish state of being an “apartheid regime.”

Lost in the mix, however, is that the Israeli government has not banned B’Tselem from assuming any position; rather, Jerusalem has determined, in accordance with the law, that state-funded schools are not appropriate vehicles through which to slander Israel.

Apartheid: Not Part of the Israeli School Curriculum
When announcing the decision, Education Minister Yoav Gallant said that organizations like B’Tselem “contradict the goals of the education system, including calling Israel false disparaging names, opposing Israel as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state, discouraging meaningful service in the IDF, or acting to harm or degrade IDF soldiers during or after their service.”

Yet, the AP story casts doubt on the legitimacy of the move by Israel’s democratically-elected government by quoting a representative of Adalah, another pro-BDS organization that is innocuously described as an “Arab legal rights group:”
Adalah said it had appealed to the country’s attorney general to cancel Galant’s directive, saying it was made without the proper authority and that it was intended to “silence legitimate voices.”

In reality, the Israeli parliament in 2018 passed legislation authorizing the education minister to prevent members of groups that “act against the goals of education and against the IDF from entering schools.” The law was intended to curb organizations from fanning flames of hatred against Israel through the promotion of the BDS movement’s annihilationist agenda.

This critical fact is, by happenstance, mentioned in the AP article — buried in the ninth paragraph below the Adalah quote — but thereafter includes this modifier: “It was not clear if Galant’s decree was rooted in the 2018 law.”

Yes, it was.

B'tselem's Struggle For Relevance Continues To End In Failure (Daled Amos)

B'tselem's accusation of Israeli Apartheid has been a long time coming, after cynical comment made by their then-CEO Jessica Montell in a 2003 interview:

I think the word apartheid is useful for mobilizing people because of its emotional power

She noted approvingly how Palestinian Arabs called Israel's security barrier the 'Apartheid Wall'.

Such cynicism appears widespread within B'tselem --

1.) In 2019, B'tselem hired Simone Zimmerman to be their US director. Zimmerman is one of the founders of IfNotNow, a group that avoids addressing the right of Israel to even exist:

We do not take a unified stance on BDS, Zionism or the question of statehood.

In 2016, Zimmerman was let go from her position as Jewish outreach director for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign for a curse-laden attack on Netanyahu that she posted on Facebook.

B'tselem apparently thought that made her a good fit with their other employees --

2.) B'tselem's International Advocacy Officer, Sarit Michaeli responded to an article in Ha’aretz about a Palestinian psychologist who said that more than a third of the children in a Gazan refugee camp had been sexually abused -- tweeting that it was Israel's fault:

3.) In 2014, journalist Tuvia Tenenbom published his popular book, “Catch the Jew.” In it, he writes about a conversation with B’Tselem researcher Atef Abu Rub, who was serving as a guide to his group at Yad Vashem and told Tenenbom that the Holocaust was a "lie, I do not believe it."

B'tselem originally defended Abu Rub, who claimed the comment was made by a third party. In the end, however, B'tselem fired Abu Rub.

4.) In 2011, a B'tselem photographer, Nariman al-Tamimi providing video supposedly showing Israeli police arresting an 11-year-old Palestinian boy for stone-throwing, and deliberately putting him into a police car without his mother.

In fact, Nariman al-Tamimi staged the scene:

Yet, a careful viewing of the clip (with Hebrew and Arabic dialogue) reveals that the exact opposite was the case; the policemen invited the mother to accompany her child. At 2:07 minutes into the video, one of the policemen says to the mother, “Come, come, get in.” The cop then asks one of the people standing nearby, “Is that his mother?” When the bystander answers in the affirmative, the policeman repeats, “Get in with him” (the boy). The door is opened for her and she is about to get into the vehicle, as the policemen are saying “get into the car,” but then (2:27) the mother is pulled away from the car by the Palestinian man wearing a black jacket. After the policemen closes the van’s door, a woman wearing a pink shirt pushes the mother towards the vehicle, and then the mother bangs on the door, a heartrending scene.

5.) In April 2010, B'tselem staff member Lizi Sagie resigned under pressure for statements she made on her personal blog -- including: “The IDF Memorial Day is a pornographic circus of glorifying grief and silencing voices,” “Israel is committing Humanity’s worst atrocities…Israel is proving its devotion to Nazi values…Israel exploits the Holocaust to reap international benefits.”

6.) On January 8, 2016, the Israeli investigative news program “Uvda” (Fact) reported that B’Tselem employee Nasser Nawaja conspired with Ezra Nawi, a radical activist from the NGO “Ta’ayush,” to entrap a Palestinian man who was interested in selling land to Jews in the West Bank. They did this knowing that the sale was illegal according to Palestinian law and was punishable by death, not to mention the torture that would be likely to precede it.

B'tselem's response?

Responding to the piece with a statement on its Facebook page, B’Tselem said that while it opposed tortures and executions, reporting Palestinians interested in selling land to Israelis to the PA was “the only legitimate course of action.”

When they defended Nasser Nawaja on their Facebook page, B'tselem added a picture describing Uvdah as "Uvdah For Hire"

That is an interesting accusation, considering that B'tselem gets most of its funding from outside of Israel.

NGO Monitor reports that for the years 2012-2019, B'tselem donors include: European Union, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the US, and Germany -- and according to annual reports, donations from foreign countries amounted to 64.7% of total donations from 2012-2016.

And there is a reason that most of B'tselem's funding comes from outside Israel.

Writing in 2016, Shmuel Rosner writes in the context of the above-mentioned Uvda report about the B'tselem employee who helped entrap a Palestinian Arab, noting that "B’Tselem is an organization that many Israelis dislike, and they have reasons to dislike it."

Rosner explains:

Why do human rights activists turn to such immoral methods? Many of them do it because of anger and because of fear. They are angry at a country that refuses to accept their political recipe for Israel. They fear that their activity of many years will be in vain as the country moves in a direction they disagree with.

The angrier they become, the more apprehensive they become – the more they lose their inhibitions. Thus they turn to immoral methods, they turn to other countries to look for the support they cannot get among Israelis, and they turn to language that makes Israel a caricature – a fascist state, an apartheid state, a villain among nations. They say that they act out of love of Israel – and some of them certainly do – but with time and frustration some are made hateful. And hate makes them lose the ability to separate right from wrong, acceptable from unacceptable, useful from not-useful.

Speaking of the name-calling by human rights activists -- and by B'tselem in particular -- B'tselem recently came out with a report fulfilling Montell's admiration for the usefulness of the word Apartheid "for mobilizing people because of its emotional power."

The media jumped at the opportunity to spread the word about the report, with some describing B'tselem as a "leading human rights organization" -- just the shot in the arm B'tselem needed.

But CAMERA's Tamar Sternhal asks the nagging question: Is B'Tselem Israel's 'leading human rights organization'?

Progress in improving human r.ights in Israel and the West Bank is a legal battle waged in the Knesset and the courts, and in recent years B’Tselem has zero presence, activity and accomplishments in these areas. Tellingly, B’Tselem’s 2019 Activity Report mentions no action taken in the Knesset or courts...On the international level of advancing human rights, the battle is waged at the United Nations Council on Human Rights in Geneva, and B’Tselem is absent from that key venue as well.

What's left?

Social media.

That will certainly keep B'tselem in the news -- but those foreign governments may not necessarily feel they are getting their money's worth.

If those foreign governments are really interested in change, they might be better served supporting the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Worker's Hotline. Sternthal lists their activities -- and accomplishments.

The reason for their success might have something to do with the fact that they actually have lawyers among their staff.

B'tselem does not.

The media may have noticed the incongruity of non-lawyers weighing in on the legal definition of Apartheid.

The Seventh Eye reported that while the Israeli media did have stories on the recent B'tselem report, it was covered in English -- not in the Hebrew papers.

It quoted B'tselem's Roy Yellin, who asked Haaretz why they covered B'tselem's Apartheid report in English, but not in Hebrew:

Apparently, B'tselem's attempt to have a any impact inside Israel continues to end in failure.

Will their foreign investors notice?

I Think The Other Hamas Fighters Trapped In This Collapsed Tunnel Are Closer Than 2 Meters (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

I Think The Other Hamas Fighters Trapped In This Collapsed Tunnel Are Closer Than 2 Meters

by Hussein Halabi, Hamas commando

rubble Somewhere underground near the fence between the Gaza Strip and southern Israel, January 21 - Oh God. I think both of my legs are broken. And several ribs. And I can't feel my left arm. There's so little air in here, and it's dark. We were on our way across the border to wreak havoc among the Zionists, but then we heard a rumble and everything came tumbling down. And I think some of my comrades are half-crushed right near me in a non-socially-distanced manner!

This can't be good. No one can hear me, and it hurts to yell - I think that's my broken ribs. I don't hear anyone else, but maybe that's just my ears still malfunctioning after the loud crunch... I don't know. I'm really concerned I could get COVID my being so close to someone carrying the virus by spending all this time cooped up together with them in a confined space. If I don't suffocate or dehydrate and I end up surviving this, I could be in big trouble.

Oh, God, every part of me hurts. There's blood on my head from somewhere, probably a gash. My face feels like it's been battered in a boxing ring. I probably have dozens of cuts that will get infected from all the dirt getting in, but what concerns me most is possibly being near my buddies, one of whom might be a coronavirus vector. It can't be good to be stuck down here with that risk. My mask got torn off in the tunnel collapse and there's no way I can even dig to find it, let alone hope it's in any shape to be used; my guess is the same thing happened to the other seven guys, assuming any of them are still alive, meaning they could be breathing a viral load out into this enclosed area and I've got no choice but to inhale.

I've been so careful! I was always so considerate of the people around me. When we launched incendiary balloons at the Jews I always made sure to social distance. When we launched rockets at their school and hospitals I made sure my mask was always on. Same as when we came down this passage, both during practice runs and this, the real thing. And now, just my luck, I'm going to breathe in the pathogen and contract the disease. After all that preventive behavior. I call B.S.

Wait, is that light someone coming to rescue us? It seems to be drawing me closer... Whoever that is, keep your distance, I don't want to infect you...

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

From Ian:

Michael Oren: The Case Against the Iran Deal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Victims of an Arab Country

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We are only three weeks into 2021. Here's a survey of the antisemitism this year that the socialist Left wants you to ignore.

IfNotNow put up a petition to President Biden demanding that the new envoy to fight antisemitism only attacks right-wing antisemitism - and ignores all others.

The email that it generates says:

Pick a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism who will be committed to fighting neo-Nazis and white nationalists, not Palestinians and students.

Your Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism must be someone who will be a true leader of this larger effort in building long-term structures that can fight and dismantle the far-right and create a multiracial democracy so that everyone in our country can move forward together.

Of course, IfNotNow and the Jewish socialist Left condone and enable antisemitism. They not only ignore most types of antisemitism, but they use far-Right antisemitism as an excuse to attack their fellow Jews who are politically conservative.

And there is plenty of antisemitism that these groups don't want any US antisemitism envoy to battle. Here are some examples from the new year.

One which happened north of the border was the defacement of a Montreal synagogue this month with swastikas.

While it looks at first glance to be a far right crime, in fact the suspect, Adam Riga, is a left-wing BDS supporter who signed a petition against Concordia University hosting an exhibit about Israeli architecture.

It isn't a surprise that a leftist antisemite would deface a synagogue with swastikas., After all, he can claim not that he is promoting Nazism but pointing out how Zionists are Nazis, which is a perfectly valid form of expression to those who fight against the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.

The incessant attacks on Israel by the Left also attracts and emboldens more traditional antisemites.

People who actually care about antisemitism would be careful that their words don' t foment hate. That never happens on the far Left.

In Portland, three restaurants that serve Middle Eastern food were vandalized last week with graffiti accusing them of stealing cuisine.

The restaurants used to say they served Israeli street food but dropped that months ago. Even if they were proudly serving food they call Israeli, it is still clear that attacking a small business based on its cuisine is a hate crime. Imagine attacking Chinese restaurants because of China's human rights abuses.

IfNotNow and other Jewish socialists are silent for these attacks because they agree with the politics of the vandals.

Of course, the biggest antisemitic meme of the month was the libel that Israeli Jews are racists who are deliberately withholding vaccines from Palestinians. Rashida Tlaib said, "I think it’s really important to understand Israel is a racist state and that they would deny Palestinians, like my grandmother, access to a vaccine, that they don’t believe that she’s an equal human being that deserves to live, deserves to be able to be protected by this global pandemic. And it’s really hard to watch as this apartheid state continues to deny their own neighbors, the people that breathe the same air they breathe, that live in the same communities."

Tlaib doesn't have to say "Jews," when she says "they" it is understood that she is not referring to the 20% of Israelis who aren't Jewish and who are in the government, the army and the medical establishment.

She said this just as B'Tselem accused Jews in Israel of enforcing not only apartheid but "Jewish supremacy," an explicitly antisemitic formulation that wasn't rebuffed by the supposed antiracists of the Left - it was embraced by them.

Another example of how the new antisemitism is like the old antisemitism. Yesterday, someone on Twitter widely circulated this image:

This is a classic antisemitic meme - there are hundreds of similar graphics on the web seemingly showing Jews in positions of power in politics, entertainment, news media or banking.

But this one uses Israeli flags to represent the Jews. The designer is deliberately accusing Jews of dual loyalty, which is a common thread between both Left and Right antisemites, including Ilhan Omar.

This month saw "progressive" Jewish groups start a campaign against the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism because it could be "misused" to show that their political partners engage in antisemitism. Nearly all the examples on this page would fall under the IHRA definition of antisemitism under the examples the far Left wants to exclude.

Ironically, many of the people they claim to be protecting by fighting that definition know very well that anti-Zionism is often a mask for antisemitism. The definition was endorsed by the Global Imams Council, by the Muslim majority nation of Albania, the Mimouna Association of Morocco, and by the Kingdom of Bahrain.

If anyone knows that hating Israel is a proxy for hating Jews, it is Muslims who grew up with that idea.

There was plenty of antisemitism on the Right as well - no one is pretending there wasn't. The "Camp Auschwitz" man at the Capitol and the confederate flag at the Jewish museum in NYC were two prominent examples. The difference is that no one on the Right claims that those attacks weren't antisemitic - but the socialist Left is keen to either deny the obvious antisemitism from their side, or at best to sweep it under the rug.

Which makes them complicit.

Cartoon of the Day: I'm just anti-Zionist

Continuing my series of recaptioned cartoons....

Generally when people speak about Palestinians in Jordan, they think about the majority who have full Jordanian citizenship.

They are still treated as not real Jordanians, and the native Jordanians regard them as people who will leave one day to live across the river. But they do have all of the benefits of citizenship.

However, there are a lot of Palestinians in Jordan who have no citizenship, no health benefits, and very few human rights. They are mostly the Palestinians who came from Gaza after the 1967 war.

Although UNRWA counts them as "Palestine refugees," they are not refugees by any measure. They came over voluntarily, well after the Six Day War, because they didn't want to live under Jewish rule. This New York Times article from November 7, 1967 says that even then, hundreds of Palestinian Arabs who couldn't leave Gaza under Egyptian rule were crossing into Jordan every day, and the reporter could not find one of them who said that the Israelis mistreated them.

How many are there? According to UNRWA, there are 158,000 - about 7%. But a census done in 2016 counted an astonishing 634,000 Palestinians who do not have national ID numbers.

This means that they are barred from the majority of positions in the public sector.

They are banned from many professions such as dentistry, engineering and law.

They need special work permits to obtain jobs in the private sector.

They have limited property rights. Up until recently, they could not own land at all.

They have limited or no services from the Jordanian National Aid Fund.

They cannot attend state universities or are forced to pay much higher fees than citizens.

They are ineligible for government health insurance, which means that any major medical procedure keeps them in poverty.

Even the ones born in Jordan are not eligible to become citizens.

There are more stateless Palestinians in Jordan today than there were Arabs who fled Israel in the 1948 "nakba."

Yet who even knows about this huge group of people? Who talks about them? Why is there such a discrepancy between UNRWA's estimates and Jordan's census in even counting them?

This is real apartheid against some 28% of the Palestinians in Jordan. Human rights groups are mostly silent.

And no one calls this "apartheid."

What President Biden Will Mean for Israel (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’ll find out in the next few months.

-- Victor

01/20 Links Pt2: Israel’s Vaccine Triumph; Biden Changes U.S. Ambassador to Israel Twitter Name to Include West Bank and Gaza; Rachel Riley wins libel case against Vox journalist

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: Israel’s Vaccine Triumph

This lesson is the essence of Jewish identity. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik noted that “Israel,” the name given by the Bible to the chosen nation, originally belonged to the patriarch also known as Jacob. This, he argued, is no coincidence: Jacob, he pointed out, is the only biblical progenitor who is seen interacting not only with children but grandchildren. Drawing Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Menashe to him, the patriarch blesses them in the name of Abraham and Isaac, linking ancestors to descendants. We are all named for Israel because the original Israel, in joining generations, is our polestar; a nation that emulates his life cannot die.

With the coming of the vaccine, our forefather Israel was imitated in modern Israel. As Israeli seniors swarmed the vaccinations centers, one of them, Amnon Frank, expressed to the Israeli media what drew him there. “A grandchild without a hug is half a grandchild,” he reflected. “We haven’t hugged them since March.” This single succinct sentence captures the meaning of l’chayim; life is truly life when it is shared.

These two Israeli sets of statistics—the vaccination of the old and the perpetuation of the young—are two trends that are wholly connected with each other. A country that toasts l’chayim, a society that desires life, illustrates what life truly means. It ensures that grandfathers and grandmothers are written in the book of life, so that they are thereby able to embrace their grandchildren once again.

In one of the most famous of Talmudic tales, a group of rabbis beheld a Jerusalem devastated by Rome and wept, while one of their colleagues, Rabbi Akiva, laughed and stubbornly cited the prediction of the prophet Zachariah: “There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.” The story is cited as an example of profound faith, as indeed it is. But perhaps Akiva’s insight also is that the prophetic verse, joining grandparents and grandchildren, contained the secret of Jewish survival: A nation that reveres its elders and celebrates new life would outlast an empire that glorified war and death. In Israel today, Akiva’s seemingly preposterous prediction has come true, as the world discovers new meaning in the mantra am Yisrael chai—the nation of Israel lives.

I’m a so-called Palestinian.. I was born in Kuwait, now live in Israel on a permanent residency.. in this picture you see me getting my first covid shot..

How racist can Israel be to vaccinate a non-citizen Arab who is fraudenlantly claimed as a Palestinian refugee by PA & UNRWA https://t.co/OflSVLm4eS pic.twitter.com/ShwNmedjCU
— Mark Halawa - مارك حلاوه (@HalawaMark) January 19, 2021

Shumuely Boteach: Should Europe’s Jews move to Israel? - opinion

On Sunday, The Guardian reported the depressing fact that “almost half of British Jews avoid showing visible signs of their Judaism in public, such as a Star of David or a kippah, because of antisemitism,” according to a new study.

“The Campaign Against Antisemitism and King’s College London gave 12 statements that participants in the survey were asked to agree or disagree with,” The Guardian reported. “Twelve percent showed ‘entrenched antisemitic views’ by agreeing with four or more of the statements. The one that had most backing was ‘Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews,’ affirmed by almost a quarter (23%) of respondents.” That’s pretty sobering. But it gets worse. “Among the general public, a similar proportion agreed with one or more antisemitic statements put to them, pointing to a ‘deeply troubling normalization of antisemitism.’”

Is anyone surprised? The question is what to do about growing European antisemitism. Should Jews in Britain give up and move to Israel? On the other hand, making Europe “judenrein” is exactly what the Nazis sought through the annihilation of European Jewry, and should we give Hitler that posthumous victory?

Two of the greatest Jewish leaders of the 20th century had opposing views on this question.

Theodor Herzl concluded that antisemitism was unmovable, and the only hope for Jewish survival was the establishment of an independent Jewish state. He insisted on the necessity of using diplomacy to persuade the world that Jews have a right to self-determination in their historical homeland – Israel – and helped turn the centuries-old dream of returning to Zion into a reality.

Biden Changes U.S. Ambassador to Israel Twitter Name to Include West Bank and Gaza

The Biden administration on Wednesday reversed a change to the U.S. ambassador to Israel's Twitter account name to read, "the official Twitter account of the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza" after a Washington Free Beacon report highlighting the shift.

For a time on Wednesday, the official Twitter feed for the U.S. ambassador to Israel had its title changed to add "the West Bank and Gaza," territories the United States has for decades avoided taking a stand on due to ongoing peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. The title change sparked an outcry online, including among Republican lawmakers, and was quietly changed back to read only, "U.S. ambassador to Israel." The State Department would not comment on the initial change or why it was changed back to its original form.

Embassy officials have speculated that the title was inadvertently changed by Twitter due to a technical glitch when the accounts were switched from the Trump administration over to the Biden administration. The Free Beacon could not confirm the veracity of these claims.

"The U.S. doesn’t have ambassadors to any other disputed territory in the world. Singling out Israel, once again, is wrong," said Len Khodorkovsky, former deputy assistant secretary at the State Department. "Instead of building on all the progress that’s been made toward peace in the Middle East, the Biden administration seems to be reversing course toward the failed policies of the Obama years."

During the Obama administration, former ambassador Dan Shapiro was referred to in official communications as the "U.S. Ambassador to Israel."

While President Joe Biden has said he would maintain the U.S. embassy facility in Jerusalem—which former President Donald Trump moved in a historic policy shift—it is likely he will put greater emphasis on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which have long been stalled. Biden also will grapple with the last administration's decision to recognize the Golan Heights area along the Israel-Syria border as officially part of the Jewish state.