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Monday, November 02, 2020

11/02 Links Pt1: Whoever wins the US elections, Israel must always rely only on itself; IAM: 5 stunning Israeli mosques and Palestinian synagogues; UAE crown prince condemns terrorist attacks in France

From Ian:

Whoever wins the US elections, Israel must always rely only on itself
Unlike Trump’s unilateralism, Biden is expected to bring back the “old” American brokership to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The 2020 Democratic Party Platform calls for the creation of a “viable” Palestinian state where Palestinians “should be free to govern themselves,” and opposes “unilateral action” from either side.

Would that reduce the number of attacks against Israeli citizens and IDF soldiers? Unlikely. But, Biden has made it clear that he will “fully support the Taylor Force Act, which withholds aid to the PA based on payments it makes to terrorists in Israeli jails.”

Biden has also said that “Palestinians need to end incitement in the West Bank and rocket attacks in Gaza” and that the leadership “must begin to level with their people about the legitimacy and permanence of Israel as a Jewish state in the historic homeland of the Jewish people.”

What about Iran?

Israel considers Iran’s nuclear program its number one concern. According to intelligence assessments, if the Islamic Republic does decide to fully renege on the agreement, it wouldn’t take long to produce enough fissure material to make a nuclear bomb.

Biden has signaled that he will try to bring Iran back into the nuclear deal and that the economic sanctions placed on the country could eventually be eased. Nevertheless, he has acknowledged that there’s no guarantee Iran would return to compliance with the agreement.

Netanyahu has been one of the loudest critics of the deal. Although IDF officers and defense experts were concerned about some elements of the JCPOA, many believed that Israel was better off when the deal was alive and Iran was adhering to it. Should Biden win, he may only have a short time to bring Iran back to the agreement before hardliners, including members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, who oppose any engagement with the West, are expected to win Iran’s upcoming presidential elections.

And should that happen, Israel will not be any better off.

Nevertheless, no matter who wins the upcoming US elections, Trump or Biden, Israel has to remember one thing: When it comes to its security, Israel has to be able to defend itself, by itself, at any given time. At the very least, Washington will continue to reinforce that.
Settlers pray for Trump victory in Hebron, the city of Abraham
The sound of the ram’s horn resounded in front of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the biblical city of Hebron as settler leaders held a small rally and brief prayer service Monday for US President Donald Trump’s victory in the November 3 election.

“We are people of faith, and here – from the Tomb of the Patriarchs, we pray and express our gratitude to President Trump,” Binyamin Regional Council head Israel Ganz said.

As Ganz spoke, he stood on the stone plaza in front of the King Herod-era structure that housed the Tomb of the Biblical forefathers and foremother, including that of Abraham, whose purchase of the site is recorded in the Book of Genesis. The settlers and their right-wing supporters, out of all the Israelis, have the most to gain from a Trump victory.

Among those who stood there were leaders like Ganz and South Hebron Hills Regional Council head Yochai Damri, who opposed Trump’s peace deal with the Palestinians, but have in the last weeks still come out in support of the US president. Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, who held a Trump rally in his region of the West Bank last week, was absent from the event.

Both the settlers and Trump support Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank settlements, but the settlers want a more expanded annexation map and opposed the creation of a Palestinian state, even the demilitarized one that is part of the Trump plan.

Ganz said he hoped that Trump would “be granted additional years as President of the United States, and will strengthen the State of Israel, so that together, we can apply sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.”
Make America Great, or make America Somalia
America is at an inflection point more ominous and dangerous than the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Then, America elected a president who would fight for the good of the Union against misguided forces that broke with the Nation and sought to continue the evils of slavery.

Today, another great evil haunts the United States of America. It is an evil that has infected almost all of the Democrat party, as well as mainstream media and can be described as cultist woke-ism. Woke-ism is the accelerating set of “acceptable” ideas whose adherents dictate that if you fail to accept every single one of the cult's lunatic fringe “axioms,” you will be called a “racist,” “homophobe,” “transphobe,” Islamophobe,” be summarily "cancelled" and even lose your job.

Increasingly, the “end point” of this ghoulish intellectual infection appears to be that the only “cure” America’s “systemic racism” is to “burn it down.” Today, in the possible election of Joe Biden, we will have a president who will not fight for the forces of good, as did Lincoln, but instead, will be fighting to instill a new Fascist plan of Wokeness that enslaves Americans in a tyranny worse than the regime of hate and evil that would have ensued had the enemy defeated and occupied America in WWII. Our only salvation from this regime of Woke is for President Trump to win re-election in the coming election.

Why is a Biden victory more dangerous than America’s so far only Civil War?

The answer is first and foremost, that unlike the Lincoln victory which put the reins of power of America into the hands of the forces of Good, a Biden victory will put the awesome powers of the government into the hands of the faceless forces of political correctness, Woke-ism, and the Deep State.

Today, the media is keeping Biden’s blatant corruption off the front pages so as to elect Biden’s “name,” but then slip in Kamela Harris. If the Biden-Harris ticket wins, within three months the same media that suffocated the Biden corruption scandal, will blare it from every site and hound him from office, thereby installing the “most liberal Senator in the Senate” as President of the United States.

Biden is the Trojan Horse that hides a Harris extreme-Left Presidency. No Democrat seriously thinks Biden will last out his first year in office, most bets are on 3 months.


Israel Advocacy Movement: 5 stunning Israeli mosques and Palestinian synagogues



Israeli minister says normalization deals need US president tough on Iran
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among countries slated to establish relations with Israel under a regional rapprochement launched by US President Donald Trump, an Israeli official said on Monday.

Straying from Israel's reticence about Tuesday's US election, Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen said implementing further normalization deals could depend on the next president displaying continued "resolve" against Iran.

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden wants to rejoin the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal that the Republican incumbent quit, to the satisfaction of Israel and some Gulf Arabs.

Trump, who has played up his Middle East policy while campaigning, was asked last week which countries might follow the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan in normalizing ties with Israel. "We have five definites," he responded. Cohen said Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Morocco and Niger were "on the agenda."

"These are the five countries," he told Ynet TV. "And if the Trump policy continues, we will be able to reach additional agreements."

While not explicitly favoring either US candidate, Cohen argued that Trump's policy had prompted Arab and Muslim countries to seek accommodation with Israel.
Palestinian Authority communicating with Biden campaign
Two senior Palestinian officials have confirmed to The Media Line that the Palestinian Authority is maintaining direct channels of communication with the campaign of US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a Palestinian-American businessman had helped establish contact between the PA and Biden's top advisers.

"Having dialogue with the Democratic candidate is important to the leadership,” one of the officials told The Media Line. “We want to let Mr. Biden know that we are willing and ready to talk.”

PA officials have roundly condemned the policies of the incumbent, President Donald Trump. Under Trump, the US recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved its embassy there from Tel Aviv. The PA claims east Jerusalem as the future capital of a Palestinian state.

In response, the Palestinian leaders cut off contact with the Trump Administration and refused to enter US-led talks with Israel under the so-called deal of the century, which they swiftly rejected as biased toward Israel. Washington also terminated millions of dollars of annual financial aid to the PA and ordered the Palestine Liberation Organization office in the American capital shuttered.

The PA has proclaimed that under Trump, the US is no longer an honest broker to mediate peace. Biden, on the other hand, is closely associated with the Obama administration, regarded by Palestinians and most Israelis as having been far-more friendly to Palestinian aspirations.

“We are sure that if he wins, he will reassert the US position on the two-state solution and order the PLO office in Washington reopened," the second PA official told The Media Line.

Jihad Harb, a political analyst for several Palestinian media outlets, says the Palestinians are watching the election campaigns with great interest because whoever wins will have a major impact on the Palestinian cause.
Egypt tells Hamas to keep ceasefire until after US elections - report
During a visit by a Hamas delegation to Cairo last week, Egypt called on the terrorist group to maintain the ceasefire reached with Israel in August until after the US elections on Tuesday, according to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.

A Hamas delegation left the Gaza Strip for Cairo last week to discuss bilateral relations, mutual interests, regional politics, the humanitarian situation in Gaza and developments between Gaza and Israel, among other topics.

The delegation was headed by Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas's political bureau, who was joined by bureau members Izzat Al-Rishq, Khalil Al-Hayya and Rouhi Mushtaha.

While the Hamas delegation wanted Egypt to pressure Israel into implementing the understandings of the ceasefire, sources from Hamas told Al-Akhbar that Egypt's responses to the terrorist group's demands were "lackluster."

The Hamas delegation was informed that Israel had told Egypt that some of the requests, such as supplying natural gas to the Strip, would take years.

The Al-Akhbar report added that the Egyptians stressed to Hamas that an escalation should not be pursued currently, insinuating to Hamas that Israel may consider returning to targeted assassinations against terrorist leaders if an escalation occurs.

Explosive balloons were reported in southern Israel last week, as tensions rose between terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip and Israel, with the groups threatening action if the health condition of Maher al-Akhras, a Palestinian who has been on a hunger strike in Israel for almost 100 days – becomes too dire, or he dies.
What Does the Middle East Think of Trump VS. Biden?

Israel's Arabs Begin to Demand Their Own "Normalization" Deal
While Israel seeks "normalization" with the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan, all of which are 1,000 miles from Israel, a "normalization" process is already well underway closer to home.

MK Mansour Abbas of the Ra'am faction of the Arab Joint List party wrote Saturday on Facebook that Israel's Arabs were ill-served by the belief that their political role was limited to being the "reserve force" propping up the Israeli left. "I'm not afraid to say I'm introducing a pragmatic new political style." The post received over 4,300 "likes" and 700 comments, nearly all positive.

Ra'am, founded in 1996, emerged as the political home of the conservative Muslim impulse within Israel's Arab population. It is the political vehicle for the southern branch of the Islamic movement.

Islamism in Israel is divided into two branches: the anti-Israel northern branch headquartered in the Galilee town of Umm al-Fahm, and the pro-integration southern branch which draws much of its support from the Bedouin of the Negev. Both branches support Palestinian independence, but only the northern branch, declared illegal in 2015, openly supported violence and extolled terrorism.

Sheikh Abdullah Nimr Darwish, who led the southern branch for three decades until his death in 2017, urged Israel's Arab community to reject terrorism and integrate into Israeli society. Mansour Abbas, a student of Darwish, is deputy chairman of the southern branch.

As the Palestinian cause fades throughout the Arab world, it fades among Israeli Arabs as well. And the demand to integrate, to gain acceptance, to have a say in the affairs of a country they have come to accept as their own, has overwhelmed the old ideologies.
UAE crown prince condemns terrorist attacks in France
The prince stressed his rejection of hate speech, and any justification for crime, violence and terrorism

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan expressed his condemnation of recent terrorist attacks in France, during a phone call with president Emanuel Macron, state news agency WAM reported on Sunday.

The prince stressed his rejection of hate speech, and any justification for crime, violence and terrorism, WAM said.

Prince Mohammed, the first Gulf leader to strike a deal normalizing relations with Israel, has long been seen as a savvy politician who has driven the United Arab Emirate's rise to diplomatic prominence.

With his brother Sheikh Khalifa the nation's president, he serves as deputy commander of the armed forces and chairman of the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi, which controls the emirate's substantial finances.

Meanwhile in France, police made two additional arrests Sunday as the investigation continues into the church attack in the southern city of Nice that left three people dead, including one almost beheaded.

France has endured a spate of brutal, seemingly lone-wolf attacks in the last few weeks, for which the catalyst was Charlie Hebdo's republication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad - the original ones having sparked off a massacre of 12 people at the publication's Paris offices in 2015.
The Abrahamic House in Abu Dhabi will foster interfaith reconciliation
The Abraham Accords are not the only recent peace treaty to originate in the UAE. Beginning in 2019 in Abu Dhabi, the similarly named Abraham Family House began construction, aimed at being a major center for interfaith reconciliation.

The site is set to be completed in 2022 on Saadiyat Island, and will contain houses of worship for the three Abrahamic faiths, meaning there will be a synagogue, mosque and church.

According to Euronews, each house of worship will be carefully designed, incorporating traditional materials and architecture used in all three faiths. Even the smaller details will not go unnoticed, with the church's alter pointing east, the mosque pointed towards the Kaabaa in Mecca and the synagogue's bimah and Torah scrolls set to face Jerusalem.

And this level of detail is something the architect, Sir David Adjaye, is very proud of, making it distinctly different from other buildings seen in Abu Dhabi.

“We also realized that in each of the faiths there had been very unique details,” he told Rebecca McLaughlin-Eastham of Inspire Middle East, Euronews reported.

“The domes, vaults and arches of mosques, ideas of enclosure in Jewish tradition and the idea of deliverance and ecstasy in Christian churches, for example. So, they became the details that started to be amplified.”
From instant hummus to insect sensors: Israeli CEOs build ties, deals in UAE
If you had asked Israeli businessman Yehonatan Ben Hamozeg earlier this year where he’d be pitching his palm tree saving technology in October, there was no chance he would have said the United Arab Emirates.

But after a surprise US-backed normalization agreement between the UAE and Israel, the soft-spoken, grey-haired entrepreneur found himself doing just that in a Dubai hotel last week.

Ben Hamozeg is the founder and chief executive of Agrint, a company that uses seismic sensors to detect insects that eat — and destroy — palm trees from the inside.

He was one of the 13 business leaders who joined a four-day trip to the UAE organized by Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), a venture capitalist firm.

Before normalization, there had been discreet links between the Gulf nation and Israel’s flourishing high-tech sector.

But after the deal brokered by US President Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election on Tuesday, those links have come to the surface and are poised to expand.

“We’re learning, we’re opening our eyes, friendships and personal ties are being formed,” said JVP founder Erel Margalit, who led the Israeli delegation.


US seeks ending of Sudan sanctions over Darfur, citing human rights improvements
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday the United States would seek to end United Nations sanctions on Sudan over the conflict in Darfur as the new government makes peace.

The promise is another sign that the United States is eager to reward Sudan after it agreed to recognize Israel — a decision made at the urging of US President Donald Trump’s administration as it moved to delist Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Pompeo said the year-old civilian-backed government had made “substantial improvements” in human rights including in Darfur, the parched western region where the former dictatorship carried out a scorched-earth military campaign.

“The United States is committed to working with the Sudanese government and our international partners to identify circumstances that could result in lifting sanctions related to the Darfur conflict at the earliest opportunity,” Pompeo said in a statement.

“We have already begun consultations at the UN with this objective in mind,” he said.

Sudan’s new government a month ago signed a landmark agreement with rebels that have been active in Darfur as well as the southern states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan.
New Israeli coronavirus test shaves off almost 5 hours until results
A new Israeli PCR testing system developed by the Health Ministry will reduce the wait time for coronavirus test results from eight hours to four hours, the Health Ministry announced on Monday.

The new system, which is run by robots, will enter service at labs and hospitals around the country in the coming weeks. While usually it takes about an hour to transfer the sample to a sub-test tube, with the robot, which does not need a sub-test tube, the transfer process in the lab will take about five minutes.

The process to neutralize the virus will also be shortened from an hour to 40 minutes. In kits from abroad, the production of nucleic acid used in PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests takes three hours, while with the Israeli system, the process only takes about one hour and 15 minutes.

The test itself will be shortened from two hours to an hour and the software that displays the results will process the data in just ten seconds instead of the half hour it currently takes.

The new testing kits are now entirely Israeli-made in contrast to the old kits which were mostly from outside Israel. The new software for displaying results is also Israeli-made.

"Israeli technology is breaking records time and time again. Even now, the world will be able to see the shortcut as risk-reducing, more efficient and, no less important, based entirely on Israeli products," said Health Minister Yuli Edelstein. "I thank the Laboratories Division of the Health Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office for assisting in this matter."
JCPA: The Long-Simmering Feud between “Inside” Palestinians and the Outsiders from Tunis
Tensions between Mohammad Dahlan supporters and Mahmoud Abbas loyalists have escalated in the West Bank. In Ramallah, Palestinian Authority security forces entered the al-Am’ari refugee camp, close to the city center, to arrest Dahlan supporters and quash the potential for an armed takeover of Ramallah. In the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, one of Dahlan’s senior commanders was killed on October 31, 2020.

The tensions came to an explosive head because of the peace agreements between Israel and the Gulf States and reports that Dahlan is affiliated with the Emirates.

In east Jerusalem, Dahlan supporters were expelled from the ranks of the “official” Fatah, but they are organizing separately. While Ramallah mobilizes violent elements from the underworld, the Dahlan people are organizing around former Orient House personnel, who represented the “inside” Palestinian leadership against the “outside” Fatah leaders from Tunis who arrived after the Oslo Accords.

It is a mistake to view the competition for the Palestinians’ leadership as just a battle of personalities. The example of east Jerusalem illustrates that the real struggle is between the local Palestinians and the “outside” Tunis leadership imposed on them during the Oslo Accords.

Israel could never have closed the Orient House in Jerusalem in 2001 that served as the PLO’s Jerusalem office under Jerusalemite Faisal Husseini if not for the actions of the main PLO headquarters in Ramallah. Under Arafat, the Palestinian Authority had already abolished the Orient House’s authority, minimized its standing, and clipped Husseini’s wings and budget. Israel was just the official locker of the gate. Faisal died in Kuwait in May 2001; Israel closed the gates in August 2001.
PMW: PA: Balfour the devil has horns and fangs
Today, on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the PA portrayed Arthur Balfour as a devil with horns, fangs, and large red ears.

In 1917, Arthur Balfour, then British Foreign Secretary, wrote the letter stating that Britain was in favor of “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” This was later adopted by the League of Nations, which made the British Mandate “responsible for putting into effect the declaration,” leading to the UN vote in favor of partitioning Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state in 1947.

Every year, PA leaders condemn the Balfour Declaration as “the ominous promise,” “the most despicable plot,” and “a crime against humanity,” as Palestinian Media Watch has documented, and this year the PA is sticking to tradition.

In the official PA daily, the PA put a bloodstained image of a poster with a distorted image of former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour together with a collage of images of Israeli Prime Ministers David Ben Gurion, Moshe Sharett, Levi Eshkol, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Shamir, Shimon Peres, and Ehud Barak, with an Israeli flag behind them.


Senior Hamas Official Mahmoud Al-Zahhar: Normalization with Israel Is Betrayal of Allah
Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar said in an October 27, 2020 interview on Al-Alam TV (Iran) that normalization with Israel is an act of betrayal against Allah and the Prophet Muhammad, and he argued that the Quran strictly forbids striking alliances with the Jews and the Christians. Al-Zahhar also said that the Palestinians have been able to manufacture their weapons domestically and without the aid of countries that are now normalizing with Israel (see MEMRITV clip no. 8307 for more info about Hamas weapons manufacturing in Gaza). In addition, he said that the people of Gaza and Palestine must fight the Israeli occupation and that an alliance between the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and others who have been affected by the Israeli occupation would surely spell the end of Israel.


Iran Responds To Bahrain And UAE Normalization With Israel: Israel's Destruction Is Near, The Gulf State Regimes Are In Danger
The normalization between Israel and the Sunni Arab Gulf states of Bahrain and the UAE is perceived by the Iranian leadership as a direct threat to it, and as trespassing in its backyard in the Gulf. The normalization agreements endanger Iran's hegemony in the Gulf – an exclusive hegemony that the Iranian regime has taken care to establish.[1] Furthermore, the Arab Gulf states' public joining up with and normalization with Israel deal a severe blow to Iran's narrative of Islamic unity and Islamic values, and to the ideological messages of the Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran that claims to be the standard-bearer of the defense of the pure and correct Islam.

Tehran called the UAE "a traitor to the Islamic ummah and to Palestine" and issued warnings and vague threats to it (see MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 8928, Iran Reacts To UAE-Israel Normalization: UAE Rulers Are 'Traitors'; The Agreement 'Heralds A Dangerous Future... Particularly For The Residents Of The UAE's Glass Palace,' September 11, 2020). However, Tehran's threats against the Bahraini royal Aal Khalifa family and its rule, after Bahrain announced that it too was normalizing with Israel, were much blunter and more and explicit.

Until 1971, as the Iranian regime mouthpiece Kayhan underlined on September 13, 2020, the Shi'ite-majority Bahrain was Iran's 14th province. On September 19, 2020 Kayhan claimed that Bahrain is "a province belonging of the Iranian people." Iranian officials regularly stress Iranians' sentimentality regarding Bahrain, and even reiterate Iran's demand for Iranian sovereignty over it.[2] Bahrain is perceived by Iran as the latter's strategic stronghold against its Sunni Arab rival Saudi Arabia, because of Bahrain's Shi'ite majority which Iran backs and cultivates. The Iranian regime has more than once been accused by Bahraini authorities of encouraging civil rebellion against Bahrain's Sunni regime.

Iranian spokesmen clarified to the Arab Gulf states that now, as they have openly stood alongside Israel, Tehran will treat them like an enemy, and warned them again that their move destabilizes their regimes. They also explicitly warned, on behalf of the resistance front and the Palestinians, of a decisive response and of the destruction of Israel.
Iran and Hezbollah have war plans for the Golan Heights
The Syrian media this week reported that Israeli aircraft had dropped leaflets over the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, warning local residents and members of the Syrian Army's 1st Corps stationed there that anyone who assists the Hezbollah terror organization in acts of aggression towards Israel would be targeted by the IDF.

"While Hezbollah sits comfortably in Lebanon, they have put you on the front line. Be warned," the leaflets read. The leaflets were dropped a day after another Syrian media report (that was not corroborated by Israel) that the IDF fired an anti-tank rocket at a target near Quneitra and hit Hezbollah and other pro-Iranian fighters.

Those incidents are further proof that the border area on the Golan Heights is deep in military conflict.

Israel and Russia jointly agreed to allow Syrian forces back into the region in order to restore stability, but that stability has not come to pass.

The fighting continues. Pro-Assad forces, anti-Assad fighters, pro-Iran, Hezbollah proxies and others are all fighting each other. Dozens of fighters are killed each month and occasional crossfire even crosses the border into Israel.

Israel is in a strategic race against Iran and the Assad regime over influence on the Syrian Golan, with Russia playing a key role in events.

Iranian forces were already seen entering the region at the end of 2018, even before the IDF dismantled its field hospital on the border that offered medical assistance to Syrian citizens affected by the country's civil war. Hezbollah forces soon followed. Now, two years later, all humanitarian efforts by Israel have ended.



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