US says it’ll be ‘taking names’ of countries that oppose Jerusalem move at UN
United States Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said the US will be “taking names” of countries that support a draft resolution rejecting President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, set for a General Assembly vote Thursday.
Turkey and Yemen requested the urgent meeting of the 193-nation forum on behalf of the Arab group of countries and the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) after the US vetoed the measure in the Security Council. The two countries circulated a draft resolution that mirrors the vetoed measure, reaffirming that any decision on the status of Jerusalem has no legal effect and must be rescinded.
Egypt had put forward the draft, which was backed by all 14 other Security Council members in a vote on Monday. Like the Egyptian draft, the text before the assembly does not explicitly mention Trump’s decision but expresses “deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem.”
Haley reacted angrily to the move, tweeting, “On Thurs there’ll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names.”
In a letter sent to several UN ambassadors, Haley warned that she would report back to Trump on the countries that supported the draft resolution.
“The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those countries who voted against us,” she wrote. “We will take note of each and every vote on this issue.”
Caroline Glick: The international community and the liberal media
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley glared at her colleagues at the UN Security Council Monday as she cast the lone nay vote against a draft resolution presented by Egypt to nullify US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.Douglas Murray: Europe's "Arab Street" Rises Up
Haley then berated her UN colleagues for their assault against US sovereignty and for their prolonged efforts to delegitimize Israel and blame the Jewish state for the absence of peace. In her words, “The United States refuses to accept the double standard that says we are not impartial when we stand by the will of the American people by moving our US embassy, but somehow the United Nations is a neutral party when it consistently singles out Israel for condemnation.”
The liberal media, led by The New York Times chastised her.
“Punctuating America’s increasing international isolation, the United Nations Security Council demanded on Monday that the Trump administration rescind its decisions to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to put the United States Embassy there,” the Times wrote in a purported news article.
While attacking Trump and Haley for isolating the US, the Times and its colleagues failed to explain what an international community-aligned US foreign policy looks like.
Notably, just such a policy and its consequences were the subject of a 15,000-word investigative report published Monday morning by Politico.
“The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook,” by Josh Meyer, detailed how in the interest of advancing a policy supported by the international community, then president Barack Obama imperiled US public health, national security and its allies.
As Meyer recalled, Obama entered office in 2009 promising to turn over a new leaf with Iran.
By promising to turn over a new leaf in US-Iran relations, Obama signaled his belief that the sorry state of those relations was America’s fault. Because if it wasn’t America’s fault, then no American president could change the situation.
Obama’s assumption was entirely wrong.
It is now a fortnight since President Trump made his historic announcement about the status of Jerusalem. The speech which announced that America would drop the pretence that Jerusalem is not the capital of the State of Israel was relayed live around the world. Across the major networks and the world's front pages the response was almost unanimous. They proclaimed this a major foreign policy blunder which would lead to any number of problems including -- many predicted -- an immediate "third intifada."
The world's cameras immediately turned to Bethlehem where a small group of enterprising Palestinians burned an American flag for the cameras. This picture went around the world. Otherwise, not very much appeared to be happening. Hamas called for a "Day or Rage" -- as opposed to the days of peace and harmony the terrorist group ordinarily calls for -- but this did not spill out very far. The Friday immediately following the announcement might have been a flashpoint, tempers being famously frayed after the act of afternoon worship. And yet, as the BBC's veteran reporter Jeremy Bowen tweeted from the scene, "At Damascus Gate in Jerusalem press pack outnumbering demonstrators." The fabled "Arab Street" had been meant to rise up. And it did rise up. But not in the Arab world.
In London, the American Embassy was the scene of a protest called for by a number of prominent left-wing and Labour party activists as well as a some Muslim groups. The Labour MP Andy Slaughter was among those who addressed the crowds. This swiftly arranged protest soon degenerated into the usual anti-Semitic rally, with the crowds chanting "From the Rivers to the Sea Palestine will be free" (that is "There will be no Israel at all, not even a sliver of the land"). And the crowd also chanted "Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud, Jaish Muhammad, sa yahud". That is, "Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning." For the crowd outside the American embassy in London, threatening Jews with the memory of the seventh century obliteration of a Jewish community near Medina was clearly an entirely appropriate move.
Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, a man carrying a Palestinian flag and wearing a keffiyah headed to a heavily Jewish quarter of the city. There he proceeded to smash in the windows of a kosher restaurant. The whole thing was caught on camera. Again it appeared to make perfect sense to the assailant. The American president recognised Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel and this man headed out to carry out a replay of Kristallnacht at a Jewish business on a Dutch street.
Alan Dershowitz: The Conflict over Jerusalem Is ALL Obama's Fault
That has been the status quo for the last half century, until Obama engineered the notorious December 2016 Security Council Resolution that declared the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter and the access roads to be illegally occupied by Israel, thus changing the status quo. This unwarranted change — long opposed by United States administrations — made a negotiated peace more difficult, because it handed the Jewish holy places over to the Palestinians without getting any concessions in return, thus requiring that Israel "buy" them back in any negotiation. As the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority once told me, "If we have the Wall, we will demand much to return it to Israel, because we know Israel will give much to get it."The Israelis who chased Hezbollah's cash before Obama's on-and-off fight
By declaring this disputed territory illegally occupied by Israel, the Security Council enabled the Palestinian Authority to hold the sites hostage during any negotiation. That vote changed the status quo more than the declaration by President Trump. The Trump declaration restored some balance that was taken away by the Obama-inspired Security Council Resolution of a year ago.
Why did Obama change the status quo to the disadvantage of Israel? Congress did not want the change. The American people did not support the change. Many in the Obama administration opposed it. Even some members of the Security Council who voted for the resolution did not want the change. Obama did it as lame duck revenge against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he hated. His motive was personal, not patriotic. His decision was bad for America, for peace and for America's ally, Israel. He never would have done it except as a lame duck with no political accountability and no checks and balances.
Long before the US ramped up the pressure against Hezbollah’s financial network in 2006, and then dialed it down in 2009-2010, the Mossad and an Israeli NGO were going after the terror group’s monetary oxygen.Mainstream media silence on Politico report that Obama allowed Hezbollah drug running to appease Iran
In fact, even when the US returned to taking a backseat, Shurat Hadin – Israel Law Center – kept going after a major Hezbollah allied Lebanese bank and connected banks, winning a major US court decision in 2012.
With Politico’s story on Monday presenting new evidence that the Obama administration backed-off from its pursuit of Hezbollah’s financial network due to a combination of intelligence and diplomacy concerns – notably preserving the Iran nuclear deal – it is worth looking at this other unreported angle to the story.
Former Israeli government sources have told the Jerusalem Post that both their intelligence operations as well as lawsuits by Shurat Hadin and others “dramatically impacted Hezbollah’s budget and ability.”
Shurat Hadin Director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner’s October-released book, Harpoon, gives significant and vivid details about pursuing Hezbollah’s financial network long before the US got interested in fall 2006.
But this part of the book has been under-reported and, along with other details Shurat Hadin explained to the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, shed new light on the new Politico story about the US’s Operation Cassandra – an up-and-down fight against Hezbollah’s financial networks.
So far there is near silence from the mainstream media about the blockbuster Politico Magazine investigative report on how the Obama administration from the top down interfered with U.S. law enforcement efforts to take down Hezbollah’s drug running of cocaine into the U.S. in order to facilitate the Iran nuclear deal.Three prominent, biased commentators on Trump’s Jerusalem decision
I summarized the Politico findings in my post, Obama allowed Hezbollah cocaine running into U.S. in quest for Iran nuke deal.
I cannot find any mentions of the Politico story in any of the major newspapers or networks (except for Fox News). The same people who endlessly repeat shoddy reporting by other mainstream outlets when it comes to anti-Trump conspiracy theories, don’t feel the need to report on the Politico story. My hunch is that they are devoting resources to try to question the Politico story.
They don’t know what to do because this reflects so badly on the person they spent 8 years defending and covering for. Obama sacrificed Americans addicted to and dying from cocaine in order to appease Iran. That should be on the front page of every major newspaper and on every major newscast, but it’s not.
There also has been silence from Obama acolytes, who usually are quick to jump to his defense.
This dead silence from the media and Obamaworld tells you how toxic the Politico report is to Obama’s legacy. They are hoping it just goes away.
The hypocrisy of many prominent commentators concerning important political events regarding Israel can often easily be exposed. Their statements may reflect extreme bias, pseudo-expertise and doubtful predictions, as well as knowing silence about many bigger problems.176 nations at UN call for Palestinian statehood
One such event was the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by US President Donald Trump. The following three reactions from prominent people illustrate this lack of sincerity.
UN Secretary General António Guterres said: “In this moment of great anxiety, I want to make it clear there is no alternative to the two state solution.” He went on to say that Trump’s unilateral action would jeopardize the prospect of peace for Israelis and Palestinians. In addition to his doubtful predictions he also apparently suffered from self-imposed anxiety.
Has it escaped Guterres that the high salaries the Palestinian Authority pays to families of terrorist murderers have greatly damaged the prospects of peace? If so, then he is a pseudo-expert. If Guterres knowingly chose to close his eyes to this frequent occurrence, then he is a hypocrite applying a double standard. All the more so as his repeatedly stated view is that Israeli settlements are an obstacle to peace. One may recall that on his visit to Israel in August 2017, Guterres called himself an “honest broker.”
Pope Francis issued a plea to Trump to respect the status quo of the city and conform to UN resolutions. He said: “I cannot keep quiet about my deep worry about the situation that has been created in the last few days.” As head of the Catholic Church, should he not regularly express his deep worry about the position of the Christians in the Muslim world, with special emphasis on the Christians in Syria? In April 2017, the pope spoke at an international conference in Cairo. There was hardly a better place to mention the ongoing flight of Christians from a number of Muslim countries and the precarious situation of many of those remaining there. Instead, he called on Christian and Muslim religious leaders in Egypt and throughout the Middle East to join in building “a new civilization of peace.”
Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said of Trump’s decision: “The announcement has a very worrying potential impact for peace in the region.” She added: “It could send us backwards into even darker times than we are already living in.”
The General Assembly voted 176-7 on Tuesday to affirm the Palestinian right to self-determination, one day after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to renew his quest for state membership in the international body.PA looks to Russia, China to upstage United States
The vote is nonbinding and has no impact beyond underscoring international support for Palestinian statehood among most of the UN’s 193 members.
The United States, Canada and Israel were among the seven that opposed the text; four states abstained.
While the General Assembly approves a similar text each year, PLO Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said this year’s vote had to be seen within the context of international opposition to US President Donald Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
On Monday, the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution against the declaration that had the support of the other 14 nations on the 15-member body.
“The world rejects the new US position on Jerusalem, which increases its isolation, because it decided to stand by the occupying state, Israel, in violation of relevant Security Council resolutions,” Mansour said, according to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency.
It is one of a number of moves the Palestinians are taking at the UN this week to underscore their claim that Israel and the US are isolated on the world stage when it comes to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dispatched delegations to Moscow and Beijing on Tuesday, as part of efforts to find new sponsorship for the peace process, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.Restraint is wise, not humiliating
The move came as Ahmad Majdalani, a PLO executive committee member who is leading the delegation to China, ruled out any Palestinian officials meeting with US peace process envoy Jason Greenblatt during his upcoming visit to the region. “No one from the Palestinian side is going to meet with Jason Greenblatt, officially or unofficially,” Majdalani told The Jerusalem Post.
Majdalani told the Voice of Palestine radio station that the delegations would carry a message from Abbas to Russia and China about finding new sponsorship for the peace process within the framework of the UN to replace US sponsorship.
Abbas has said repeatedly that the US has forfeited its role as a mediator due to President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. “The US is with Israel and supports it and backs it,” Abbas told a Palestinian leadership meeting on Monday. The Palestinians say they will also boycott US Vice President Mike Pence when he visits the region in January.
The Palestinian delegation to Russia, which will include veteran Abbas adviser Nabil Sha’ath, will likely get a sympathetic hearing. The Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday criticized the US for vetoing a UN Security Council resolution aimed at overturning Trump’s move. “It is unfortunate that the US has chosen an approach that runs counter to the will of the international community and is diluting the international legal framework of the Middle East peace process,” the ministry tweeted.
It was not easy to watch that video showing teenage girls accosting and even hitting Israeli soldiers in the village of Nabi Saleh. There is no need to elaborate on how this came about: The Tamimi family in Hebron, the girls' family, has promoted such conduct ever since it realized that the IDF wants to avoid scenes of troops attacking civilians.IsraellyCool: “Shirley Temper” Ahed Tamimi’s Real Age Revisited
The family knows that international media outlets will not show the full context if the IDF actually uses force against provocateurs, and will only air the confrontation. The outlets prefer to show "occupation troops" attacking innocent civilians, not the restraint the soldiers show until they have to resort to force.
The latest incident may go viral and become a source of entertainment for young Palestinians, but anyone who thinks it managed to humiliate the IDF troops is wrong. The troops would have been humiliated if their weapons had been stolen or if their mission had been compromised. They were not humiliated by this unsuccessful attempt to provoke them and get them to act against good judgment.
The video is not going to convince anyone that the IDF has lost its power of deterrence. Rather, it will convince people that Israeli soldiers are wise enough not to walk into the trap laid by young girls. The soldiers in the video should receive a formal commendation by their superiors, although I suspect that won't happen.
With everyone’s favorite Pallywood actress back in the news, I have noticed how the Israel-haters post photos of her in her younger days – to emphasize she is just a child.
But she looks more like this these days rather than the little pipsqueek she once was.
The question is, and always has been, how old is she? News reports give her age as either 16-years-old or 17-years-old, but by my previous calculations, she is now 18.
I have now uncovered even more indications that is her true age. Like this anti-Israel site that has her as being 13 years-old 5 years ago:
The question is why then the mentions of her as being younger. But I think we all already know the answer.
And if they lie about this, you can bet they are lying about a bunch of other things as well.
UN rights chief Zeid al Hussein: Palestinian casualties in riots "can sadly be traced directly back to the unilateral U.S. announcement on the status of Jerusalem, which breaks international consensus and was dangerously provocative." #TrumpMadeMeDoIt https://t.co/dMMl9YQEyw pic.twitter.com/zNPo6zdrtT
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) December 20, 2017
Israeli probe clears troops in death of amputee; UN decries killing
A senior U.N. official said Tuesday that Israel's killing of a disabled Palestinian man protesting against U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital was "incomprehensible."Israel: Cold blooded killers/kidnappers? Or was something hidden from you?
But Israel said the paraplegic man had not been targeted, and an investigation on Monday by the Israeli military into the death cleared Israeli troops of wrongdoing, saying it found "no moral or professional failures" in the incident.
Palestinian health officials say Ibrahim Abu Thraya, 29, was shot in the head while demonstrating last week along the Gaza Strip's border with Israel, an area that has experienced heightened unrest since Trump's Jerusalem announcement on Dec. 6.
Abu Thraya's death has become a rallying cry among Palestinians against Trump's move, which upended decades of U.S. foreign policy and countered an international consensus that the fate of Jerusalem should be determined in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
The IDF said Friday's protest was "extremely violent," with protesters hurling stones, burning tires and explosive devices at troops. In its investigation findings Monday, it said no live fire had been aimed at Abu Thraya and it was impossible to determine the cause of death.
Mayor of Israeli Arab town: Down with USA
The mayor of the northern Israeli-Arab town of Tamra, was filmed burning a picture of US President Donald Trump in protest against the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
In the video, which was first published on the Arab news site Faunt, Tamra mayor Suheil Diab can be heard yelling "Burn! Burn! Burn!" in reference to the poster of Trump. The poster also featured the words 'Down with USA.'
Tamra is a town in the lower Galilee approximately 12 miles east of Acre, and has a population of approximately 33,000 people.
Diab defended his action to Yisrael Hayom. "I am shocked that what I have done has caused such media attention. What the media should be dealing with is the weapons that the great powers are selling and thereby causing death in the world, hunger in Africa, and things that are much more important."
"Donald Trump is a racist and a psychopath, and if he wants to come to Tamra one day he will not be allowed to enter. When he was elected president, I was shocked, but a few days ago I was at a conference attended by Jews, Arabs and Americans. Whoever condemns me [should look at that conference] will see that it is possible to live in peace and all together in coexistence ... We are against racism and against all the actions that the racist president of the United States is taking."
Houston, Texas Imam Denies Jewish Connection To Palestine, References Hadith About Killing Jews: On Judgment Day 'The Muslims Will Kill The Jews... The Stones And The Trees Will Say: Oh Muslim, There Is A Jew Hiding Behind Me, Come And Kill Him...'https://t.co/EBVMJFaDED pic.twitter.com/zVgX6bOp7p
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 19, 2017
The Palestinian grinches stealing Christmas
It came as no surprise that the Palestinian leadership responded angrily to US President Donald Trump’s recognition of the obvious reality that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.Billboards, buses and camels show love for Trump in Jerusalem
But beyond the usual “day of rage,” rockets shot at Israeli preschools and firebombs thrown at passing Israeli civilians’ cars, the Palestinian Authority decided to make like the Grinch and steal Christmas, only proving that Trump was right not to fold to the whims of the side that has a pattern of violating religious freedoms, when it comes to a city holy to three religions.
Bethlehem, thought to be Jesus’ birthplace, and Ramallah, the de facto Palestinian capital, turned off their Christmas lights within an hour of Trump’s announcement.
In Nazareth, the town where Jesus is thought to have grown up, now the largest Arab city in Israel, the Muslim mayor scaled back Christmas celebrations in identification with the Palestinians.
And ahead of US Vice President Mike Pence’s planned visit to Jerusalem this week, now postponed, Adeeb Joudeh, the Muslim man whose family has held the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for generations, announced that he wouldn’t let Pence, a devout Evangelical Christian, enter.
This tactic of protesting by denying Christians their Christmas celebrations reaffirms that Trump did the right thing in declaring Jerusalem Israel’s capital, and for his administration to say last Friday that it envisions the Western Wall within Israeli Jerusalem in a final-status deal.
Vice President Mike Pence might have postponed his trip to Israel, but the love for US President Donald Trump is still being felt throughout Jerusalem as 110 massive “God Bless Trump” signs went up in recent days throughout the city, on billboards, buses and even camels.
The campaign was created by Dr. Mike Evans, a prominent Christian Zionist and one of Trump’s first high-profile backers in the evangelical community, who is also the founder of the Friends of Zion Heritage Center in Jerusalem.
“No president in history has ever built such an alliance for the State of Israel and the Jewish people, and no president has courageously stood up for the State of Israel on the global stage as President Trump,” Evans said. “President Trump's historic recognition of Jerusalem will secure his place in history as the first American president to take that step since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948."
The campaign will run through Pence’s trip, rescheduled for mid-January.
Fathom 18 | ‘My Stability Plan offers only partial self-determination but will allow the Palestinians to thrive’: Naftali Bennett’s Bottom-Up Peace Plan
‘Forming a Palestinian state along the lines that many readers of Fathom believe is the way forward would guarantee 200 years of misery for the two peoples’. That was the message from Naftali Bennett, the Israeli Minister for Education, leader of the Jewish Home party, and a highly influential member of Israel’s coalition government, when he sat down with Fathom Deputy Editor Calev Ben-Dor. Bennett also made the case for his own vision for peace, ‘The Stability Plan’ – Israeli sovereignty in Area C of the West Bank, limited Palestinian self-government in Areas A and B – and invited Europeans to stop looking at a very tough neighbourhood through the prism of ‘Oslo and cocktail parties’.Palestinians don’t know what winning looks like
Calev Ben-Dor: In a speech on 7 May at the Jerusalem Post Conference in New York you said: “The left-wing doesn’t have a monopoly on peace, just like the right-wing doesn’t have a monopoly on patriotism. I am ready for negotiations without preconditions or pre-concessions.” What is your vision of peace?
Naftali Bennett: I’ve been both fortunate and unfortunate to have fought in many conflicts since the First Intifada – in southern Lebanon, Operation Defensive Shield during the Second Intifada, the Second Lebanon War, and I served as a Cabinet minister during the last round of conflict in Gaza in 2014 – so I think I have a very good perspective of our situation. First and foremost I will do anything in my ability to prevent war. Israel has no territorial claims over Lebanon, Syria, or Iran but we’re in the toughest region on earth. On our northern border we have the most concentrated area of rockets in the region in the hands of Hezbollah (and second on earth after the North Korean-South Korean border). To the north-east we have Iranian militias setting up on our borders. In the south we have ISIS’s strongest foothold in the Sinai, and in the south-west we have a border with Hamas. On the other side of each of those four borders are people who explicitly say they want to destroy Israel and the Jewish people.
When I look 100 years into the future and think how a country the size of New Jersey can survive and thrive, one principle is the capacity to be able to ‘defend ourselves by ourselves’. Israel’s brief history has taught us that the international ‘peacekeeping’ forces are great until you need to use them. They evaporated in 1967 and they are meaningless in Lebanon and in Syria.
The further back you go when looking at Palestinian advocacy the clearer it becomes that they’ve never really known what they were doing or why they were doing it. (When I say “they”, I mean the Palestinian leadership of the day). The present decision to boycott the arrival of Mike Pence to the region reminds us of the decision the Arab higher Committee made to boycott UNSCOP (United Nations Special Committee on Palestine) who traveled around the British mandate area in 1947 attempting to come up with a solution to the tensions boiling up there. The Zionists didn’t boycott it and history tells the tale.Federally-Funded US Institute for Peace Hosts Pro-Hamas Tunisian Group
Boycotting Pence might look like a bold gesture but it has doomed the PA to be mere spectators to events happening concerning themselves. There may have been an opportunity for them to gain concessions from the USA in the wake of Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. They’ll never know whether that was the case though.
Furthermore this idea of resistance over independence, belligerence over diplomacy can be seen in every aspect of the so-called Pro Palestinian media. Take for example the release of the so called Palestine Papers. This was a scoop by al Jazeera in 2011 that saw thousands of secret documents pertaining to negotiations with Israel leaked. The great thing about this in 2011 was that it showed not only that negotiations were happening but also that the two sides were pretty close to reaching an agreement. While Zionists were buoyed by the knowledge that something was happening pro Palestinian websites were outraged. See the articles Electronic Intifada published in the wake of the leaks here, the outraged headlines include “Palestinian Authority foils new Gaza war crimes probe” and “sex, blackmail and theft: leaks detail Israeli spy operations“. The outrage spilled into the Guardian where the Israeli member of Knesset Haneen Zoabi wrote that “Palestinian negotiators must not take key decisions on our behalf”, attacked the resolution of the right of return of Palestinian refugees (that had been negotiated apparently successfully) and claimed that “the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state – which was also apparently accepted by the negotiator Saeb Erekat – would delegitimise the citizenship of Palestinians in Israel.”
This was mind boggling. Here we stood on the cusp of the resolution of everything they detested; checkpoints, continued settlement, IDF patrols and incursions into Palestinian towns. Here we were moving towards a living, breathing state of Palestine and the pro-Palestinian world was outraged that it was happening.
Last month, a pro-Hamas leader of Tunisia’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked Ennahda Party met with the federally-funded US Institute for Peace (USIP) in Washington. The November 29 meeting covered the relationship between Islam and democracy.Why is Europe always against Israel?
In Washington, Ennahda Shura Council President Abdelkarim Al-Harouni led a delegation that met with USIP Executive Vice President William B. Taylor and Vice President for the Middle East and Africa Michael Yaffe.
The USIP defended its engagement with Ennahda, and said that it does not endorse Ennahda’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to a statement given to the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT).
“In order to prevent violent conflict and support Tunisia in its efforts to become a peaceful democracy, USIP has been facilitating dialogues in Tunisia since 2012. These efforts require USIP to engage with and maintain relationships with a variety of actors such as political parties, government officials, local officials, religious leaders, and civil society groups to ensure inclusivity. USIP does not endorse the actions or statements of any actor or political party,” USIP said.
But the “USIP consistently fails to do its homework, to discern Islamists and avoid them. Instead, it welcomes them and thereby counters its own mandate to foster peace,” Middle East Forum founder and President Daniel Pipes told the IPT.
The Europeans want to restore stability to the Middle East. This means the return of tyrannical regimes across the region, which the Europeans believe will block the stream of immigration and also make it easier to cope with Islamic terror.Liberal American Jewish Groups: No Room in the Peace Process for New Ideas (Satire)
Apparently, however, Europe is still cemented in the view that the Israeli-Arab conflict is the key to achieving stability in the Middle East, to easing social, economic, religious and ethnic tensions throughout the region; and that if only the Palestinians were appeased and peace is achieved to their satisfaction, terror would be defeated and radicalism eradicated. From this vantage point, in the eyes of the Europeans, Israel sabotages Europe's efforts to resolve the problems afflicting the Middle East, and thus its efforts to defend itself.
Many European politicians also realize the electoral benefits of catering to their Muslim constituency by being critical toward Israel. Indeed, for many Muslim immigrants in Europe – undergoing a crisis of identity – the conflict with Israel and the Jewish people is a way to find something in common with other Muslim immigrants; and it helps them forge a new identity to replace the one they left behind.
Europe's position toward Israel over the years, under left- and right-wing governments alike, has always been predictable. The considerations forming the bedrock of its policies, evidently, have not changed one bit.
Since President Donald Trump’s confirmation of Jerusalem as the Capital of the State of Israel, many liberal Jewish groups in the US have stated that they do not support the President’s position; chief among them is J Street, the political organization that describes itself as “the political home for pro-peace people who don’t live in any danger of rockets or terrorism.”Miss Iraq recounts ‘death threats’ and fears for family over selfie with Israeli
In a statement, J Street’s Executive Director Jeremy Ben Ami said that the Peace Process must continue as it was laid out in 1993 without deviation and that “We cannot, in good conscience, support any initiative from the White House that hasn’t been tried and tested for at least the last 20 years.”
For their part, the Palestinian leadership responded to the decision saying that they are no longer bound by agreements such as the Oslo Accords. J Street surprisingly called these statements “unhelpful” but also pointed out that “Palestinian threats of violence and or lack of compliance has not had any influence on our worldview before, and this will be no different”. Mr. Ben-Ami finished by saying that he saw no reason to change the organization’s stance, opinion, or worldview based on new information for any reason.
“We are committed to continuing trying this formula over and over again until it finally works. Anything else would be insane.”
An Iraqi Miss Universe contestant whose family was forced to flee the Arab country after a photo of her with an Israeli candidate went viral has spoken of her ordeal to CNN, recounting “scary” death threats and anxious calls to her mother back home.
Sarah Idan said she “didn’t think for a second there would be blowback” when she posted a selfie to Instagram with Israeli Adar Gandelsman. Both Gandelsman and Idan published the joint selfie on their Instagram pages, expressing a desire to promote peace, while participating in the Miss Universe International Beauty Pageant in Las Vegas.
The 27-year-old Iraqi said she had been on “on cloud nine” at the pageant, where she was the first Iraqi contestant in 45 years. “I had been dreaming of that forever.”
When she and her Israeli counterpart became friendly at the contest, Idan recounted, “I said ‘let’s take a picture so our people can see we don’t have a problem and we’re actually ambassadors for peace.'”