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Monday, December 13, 2021

12/13 Links Pt1: Abraham Accords herald a new normal for Israel, Arab allies; The Arab Apartheid No One Talks About; Israeli airstrikes targeted chemical weapons facilities in Syria

From Ian:

Abraham Accords herald a new normal for Israel, Arab allies
The Abraham Accords that Kushner championed made all of these things a real possibility for the first time since 1948. THE BIDEN administration was right to signal its support for the signed peace agreements between Israel and Arab countries. This, too, helped accelerate the momentum for peace.

If the wave of peacemaking translates into tangible benefit for Arab youth, pan-Arab support for peace with Israel will only grow.

We need a new regional order where Israel is a stakeholder and no longer a foreigner in its own region. This new regional order should not be seen as against anyone, but, rather, as beneficial to all. Also, this new regional order should be based on an updated joint assessment of threats, but also on how to generate opportunities that promote stability and future development.

This time of year in America, it is common to pray for peace. Simply put, security and prosperity demand peace between people.

The Biden administration should accordingly push for a broader effort at cultural reform with the potential to generate the popular support necessary to sustain a peace process.

Doing so means urging and equipping Arab allies to roll back generations of rejectionist messaging in Arab establishment-owned media, mosques and schools. It means supporting the rising tide of bold, grassroots Arab voices that have been calling for specific relations between Arabs and Israel.

Rather than returning to the old clichés of the “peace process,” we could encourage America’s diplomats and scholars to see the extraordinary power in ordinary things.


MEMRI: Saudi Writer: War With Israel Not An Option; Palestinians Must Renew Negotiations Under Arab, Gulf Aegis
In an article in the daily 'Okaz, Saudi writer 'Abd Al-'Aziz Munif Bin Razen called for the renewal of the negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel under the aegis of Arab and Gulf countries, based on the 2002 Arab peace initiative. He argued that a policy of hostility or disregard towards Israel will not yield a solution to the conflict but will only serve the interests of manipulative elements such as Iran. The region cannot withstand another war, he added, especially given the Covid pandemic and the economic crisis that attends it. Therefore, the need for peace has become more urgent and vital than ever, he concluded.

The following are translated excerpts from his article:[1]
"For several decades, the Palestinian issue, or the Arab-Israeli conflict, as those who trade in it like to call it, has remained without a definite victory for either side. The ones who benefit the most from trading [in the Palestinian cause] are the ones who have manipulated it and interfered in it without any justification, except for their [desire] to pose as the policemen of the region – although in practice they have been more like paper tigers.

"The clashes between the Palestinians and the Israelis [over the years] have resulted in nothing but bloodshed on both sides and a psychological barrier that each generation inherits from the last. That is why no [Palestinian] state has been established, no refugees have returned [to their homes] and international law has remained unimplemented. What has happened is the creation of hostility for its own sake.

"This hostility and this psychological barrier do not characterize only the Palestinians and Israelis. They exist throughout the Middle East, including in Arab countries that do not share a border with Israel. The hostility [to Israel] grew out of the sense of solidarity with the Palestinian people, and is based on Arabism and blood [ties].

"However, [at some point] several Arab countries came to the conclusion that the policy of hostility and boycott was useless, and that ignoring the enemy is a defeat in itself. For this reason, some countries in the Gulf and elsewhere began building bridges of peace with Tel Aviv, not out of submission or obedience, but out of recognition and appreciation of the other, so as to break the psychological barrier and address the Palestinian issue in a more balanced manner, far from high-flown slogans and while safeguarding the Saudi initiative, called the 2002 Arab peace initiative… [an initiative] that Saudi Arabia still regards as a basis for peace with Israel.
Khaled Abu Toameh: The Arab Apartheid No One Talks About
"Not all of the professions will be opened to Palestinians under the new decree...." — L'Orient Today, December 8, 2021.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon "are socially marginalized, have very limited civil, social, political and economic rights, including restricted access to the Government of Lebanon's public health, educational and social services and face significant restrictions on their right to work and right to own property." — UNRWA, September 2020.

There are several reasons why the Lebanese do not want the Palestinians. One reason is that since the 1970s, the Palestinians have brought war and destruction to Lebanon and turned refugee camps into bases for terror groups.

"It is time to end this history of discrimination and systematic segregation... Qualified Palestinians should be allowed to practice their professions, especially in fields where they are most needed.... Very few Lebanese would share my view." — Sawssan Abou-Zahr, senior Lebanese journalist, Reliefweb, August 1, 2021.

What is clear...is that the international community has long been ignoring the abuses and human rights violations by an Arab country against the Palestinians.

The demonization of Israel by so many journalists, officials and so-called human-rights groups leaves little time to ask why a Palestinian in Lebanon is not permitted to practice medicine while a significant portion of the medical staff at Israeli hospitals consists of Arab doctors and nurses.


Bennett, on landmark UAE visit, meets crown prince to discuss booming ties, Iran
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met Monday with Emirati Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the latter’s palace in Abu Dhabi, as part of the first official visit by an Israel premier to the United Arab Emirates.

The meeting with the UAE’s de facto ruler was set to focus on the shared threat posed by Iran, as well as advancing economic cooperation between the countries, Bennett’s office previously stated.

Shortly after the meeting, the official Emirati news agency WAM reported bin Zayed as expressing hope the meeting would “contribute to further cooperation for the benefit of the peoples of the two countries and the peoples of the region.”

WAM said both leaders “reviewed bilateral cooperation and means to further develop them” in various fields.

The report said the crown prince “highlighted that the UAE’s foreign relations are based on firm principles of mutual respect, cooperation and upholding the values of coexistence and peace… expressing his hope that stability will prevail in the Middle East.”

“Concluding the meeting, the two sides highlighted the keenness to boost bilateral cooperation and joint action in an endeavor to enhance mutual interests and contribute to the consolidation of stability, security and development in the region,” WAM reported.

Bennett also met Monday — on the second and last day of his visit — with the UAE’s Industry and Advanced Technology Minister Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber and Culture Minister Noura bint Mohammed Al Kaabi.


Moroccan King Orders Restoration of Hundreds of Jewish Sites
King Mohammed VI of Morocco recently introduced an initiative to restore hundreds of historical Jewish sites in the kingdom, according to Arab media reports.

The move is part of the rapprochement between Rabat and Jerusalem, which resumed diplomatic relations earlier this year as part of the Abraham Accords, according to the reports.

The plan is expected to see the renovation of hundreds of synagogues, cemeteries and Jewish heritage sites in several cities in Morocco, among them the Jewish cemetery in the city of Fes, which includes 13,000 graves.

The monarch has also reportedly decided to reinstate the original names of some of the country’s Jewish neighborhoods.

Several Jewish museums have already been opened in Morocco, alongside other initiatives seeking to cater to the growing interest in preserving Moroccan Jewish heritage.

Israel welcomed the initiative, which comes as the two countries mark the first anniversary of their newfound alliance.
JCPA: Hamas Is Preparing to Attack Israel from Southern Lebanon
On Dec. 10, an explosion at a weapons and ammunition depot located under the Hamas-affiliated Obei al-Kaab Mosque in the Burj al-Shamali refugee camp in Tyre, Lebanon, wounded 12 people and killed Hamas "martyr" Hamza Shaheen.

During his funeral, four more people were killed in a gun battle between Hamas and Fatah supporters.



The arms depot is part of the military infrastructure built by Hamas in southern Lebanon in recent years.

The new infrastructure was used against Israel during the Gaza war in May 2021 when Hamas operatives fired several rockets at northern Israel.

Israel has been monitoring Hamas activities in southern Lebanon and has even tried to attack it with clandestine Mossad activities.

Hamas' infrastructure in Lebanon, including several hundred Palestinian operatives, was established with the approval of Hizbullah and Iran and with the blind eye of the Lebanese government.

Iran is instructing Hamas operatives in Lebanon on how to manufacture rockets and drones.
Israeli airstrikes targeted chemical weapons facilities in Syria - report
Alleged Israeli airstrikes in June targeted three chemical weapons facilities in Syria, The Washington Post reported on Monday. The June 8 airstrikes that targeted the three military targets, located near Damascus and Homs, killed seven soldiers including a Syrian colonel who worked at a top-secret military lab, according to the report.

The officer, identified as Ayham Ismail, was reportedly stationed at a chemical weapons manufacturing facility in Masyaf as a military engineer.

The alleged Israeli airstrikes, which in the past have targeted pro-Iranian militias - Iranian proxies - based in Syria, were deemed unusual due to their targeting of Syrian military facilities.

The strikes were reportedly part of an Israeli campaign to halt attempts by Syria to restart its production of chemical weapons before any weapons could be made, two intelligence officers told the Post. A strike on an existing stockpile of nerve agents, or nerve gasses, could release dangerous and lethal gasses to nearby Syrian towns and villages in the area.

Israel ordered the airstrikes after intelligence reports suggested Syria was rebuilding its chemical weapons capabilities and after Syria's military successfully imported a chemical that can be used to make sarin gas, four western intelligence officers said, according to the Post.
Car owned by Jewish resident of Sheikh Jarrah firebombed
A car belonging to a Jewish resident of East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was torched Sunday night, amid rising tensions in the flashpoint area.

Security camera footage of the incident showed a masked suspect hurling a rock at the car’s back window before another tosses what appears to be a Molotov cocktail into the vehicle.

A fire can then be seen in the car as the suspects run away.

According to the Walla news site, the owner has had his car set ablaze seven times since the start of the year.

The news site also reported that Molotov cocktails were thrown Sunday at homes of Jews on the outskirts of Beit Hanina, another Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

The incidents came after a group of masked suspects vandalized several cars owned by Palestinians near Sheikh Jarrah overnight, before fleeing.
Palestinian gunman dead after shootout with security forces
A Palestinian gunman was killed on Monday following an operation by border police undercover fighters along with IDF forces in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Israel Police reported that the initial operation took place in the home of a man previously wanted for his involvement in a prior attack on security forces. The man was arrested and a Carlo-type submachine gun was seized.

Following the operation, as security forces left the scene explosives were thrown by rioters, endangering the lives of the officers, who responded by firing at the terrorists. One of the terrorists was hit by the fire and was evacuated by the Palestinian Red Crescent for treatment, but succumbed to his wounds shortly after.

Three other Palestinians were reportedly wounded.

Tariq Ezz El-Din, spokesperson for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement in the West Bank, responded to the incident overnight, saying that "the resistance will continue to confront the occupation's incursions into West Bank cities, whatever the cost."

Hamas responded to the incident as well, saying that the terrorist's death would "serve as fuel for the escalation of the resistance." The movement stated that increased clashes with Israeli security forces operating in the West Bank show that the Palestinians are "facing a new stage of struggle."
Worker at pharmaceutical company indicted on terrorism charges
A worker at a pharmaceutical company was indicted on Monday on charges of aiding terrorist activity after he provided terrorists with five liters of hydrogen peroxide for the production of explosives in the West Bank.

In the first half of 2020, Mohammed Sunuqrut, a resident of Israel, met with his friend B.A. in a mosque in Ramallah, where his friend asked him to join a terrorist operation against Israel.

Sunuqrut declined but agreed to provide his friend with five liters of hydrogen peroxide for the purpose of producing explosives for terrorist activity. A few days later, he took five liters from the company he worked at and brought them to his friend in Bidu.

Sunuqrut refused to accept payment for the hydrogen peroxide because it was being used for terrorism.

According to the request filed to detain Sunuqrut until the end of the proceedings, he has confessed to the charges.

During a widespread operation in September to arrest a Hamas terrorist cell that was planning attacks against Israelis, three Palestinian terrorists were killed in clashes with Border Police YAMAM in Bidu.
Taxi driver to be charged with aiding terrorist in Jerusalem stabbing
Police said Monday that a man suspected of aiding a Palestinian terrorist who committed a stabbing attack near Jerusalem’s Old City earlier this month would soon be indicted over his role in the attack.

Separately, two female teenage suspects were remanded in custody for an additional four days over another stabbing attack, in the capital’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, last week.

In the first case, a Palestinian assailant stabbed a Jewish civilian near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem on December 4 and then attacked two Border Police officers, who subsequently shot him dead. The civilian was seriously wounded in the attack.

In a statement Monday, police said a 48-year-old taxi driver from Kafr Qasim had been arrested shortly after the attack, and that the man had now been arraigned in court and remanded in custody for four more days ahead of a formal indictment for allegedly aiding the terrorist.

Police said the driver’s investigation had ended, concluding that he had given a ride to the terrorist — a Palestinian without a permit to enter Israel — from a roadblock near the West Bank city of Qalqilya to a place near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, where the attack was carried out.
UN Commission Finds Jews to Be “Only Ethnic Group That Doesn’t Really Belong Anywhere” (satire)
The “Jewish Question” is a lot like the Kardashians – a lot of people have tried to understand what all the fuss is about, but no one seems to have a 100% convincing explanation. Recently however, the United Nations tasked a commission with finally answering the question of “where all these damn Jews are coming from, and where do they belong?” After several months and following an investigation rivaling those of Encyclopedia Brown himself, the Commission has released its findings.

“Jews,” according to the Commission, “despite genetic testing showing they’re all related, don’t really come from or belong anywhere.” The UN statement read, “We are currently working off the hypothesis that the People of the Book are produced via a process we call ‘Spontaneous Jewneration.’” A process of elimination led the group to that conclusion, after they narrowed the most likely choices to Europe/Russia and the Middle East. The Commission announced that, “we asked Arabs, Iranians, smaller Middle Eastern groups, and others such as BDS and Roger Waters. They all seemed to think that Jews came from Europe and Russia. Thus, we approached European nations (Germany, Poland, Spain, etc.) and Russia. But as it turns out, Jews didn’t do too hot in those places either.”

Therefore, without any other options, the group came up with the idea of Spontaneous Jewneration. Most people seem to think that Jews come from somewhere, and if that’s the case, it follows that they belong somewhere as well. However, given that Jews having a right to live in the Mideast, let alone their own state, is such a contentious issue, and given past failures to live in Europe, it seems that the Jewish question will forever be the Kylie Jenner of the Kardashians. People know they should care but don’t have the energy to do all the research needed to have an informed opinion.
PA Builds 7 Illegal Structures in Israeli Territory Every Day, Data Shows
The Knesset’s Land of Israel Lobby convened on Monday for another emergency session on the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) strategic illegal takeover of Area C in Judea and Samaria, which is under full Israel control.

The Regavim Movement, which combats illegal takeover of Israel’s state lands, revealed to the Knesset new mapping data on the frightening scope of the phenomenon, including the extent of illegal Arab construction in the area.

Between the years 2019-2021, the Arabs built 5,097 new illegal structures, in areas under the full control of the State of Israel. This means that every day, about seven new illegal buildings are added to the area. The total number of illegal Arab buildings built in Area C over the last decade is now up to 72,274.

At the same time, a PA-guided agricultural takeover of 7,125 dunams of land under Israeli control was recorded during this two-year period, reaching a total of 93,071 dunams.

Agricultural activities include cultivating huge areas, planting hundreds of thousands of trees each year, paving agricultural roads at an annual volume of tens of kilometers, and digging water cisterns for irrigation. When continuous agricultural cultivation is carried out, the land actually passes into the hands of the Arab farmers.

However, the data show a certain decrease in the volume of illegal Arab construction from the corresponding period between 2017 and 2019, when 7,957 new illegal structures were erected, 11 structures per day, on average. The agricultural takeover of the land remains almost the same.
Firebrand Arab Israeli Islamist released from prison, given hero’s welcome
A controversial Muslim cleric was greeted by cheering supporters in his northern Israel hometown on Monday after his release from prison, where he served 17 months for incitement to terrorism.

ٍSheikh Raed Salah has long been one of Israel’s most prominent Islamists. Salah led the Islamic Movement’s radical Northern Branch until it was banned by the government in 2015 for its alleged terror ties. Israeli authorities charged that the Northern Branch had helped incite a wave of stabbing attacks and car-rammings against Israelis.

Salah was arrested two years later and eventually convicted of incitement to terror, as well as supporting a banned organization — in this case, his own Islamic Movement.

“They tried, by prosecuting me, to prosecute the Holy Quran, and the Prophet’s ways, and our heritage,” Salah told reporters at a press conference in Umm al-Fahm.

Salah was incarcerated for praising a 2017 attack by three Arab Israeli terrorists at the holy Temple Mount site in Jerusalem’s Old City; the assailants gunned down two Druze police officers before being killed by Israeli forces.
PMW: Israel's prisoner exchanges have ruined Israeli deterrence
A Palestinian accused of aiding the six terrorist prisoners who recently escaped from an Israeli prison expressed a common Palestinian conception of Israeli weakness.

The length of Israeli prison sentences is nothing to fear because Israel will give in to demands to free terrorist prisoners prematurely in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages:
Iyad Jaradat, accused of aiding terrorist fugitives (in Hebrew): “This is the first victory! The second victory [will be] a prisoners and missing persons [exchange] deal soon by our brothers from the Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades (i.e., Hamas’ military wing), God willing. Soon we will come out [of prison], God willing.”

[Official PA TV, The World Far From Politics, Nov. 13, 2021]

Official PA TV helps facilitate this belief by broadcasting interviews with terrorist prisoners who were released early through exchange deals. Both potential terrorists and imprisoned terrorists - who watch PA TV in prison - are thus told that Israeli prison sentences should not be taken seriously nor deter anyone from carrying out terror attacks.

In the following PA TV broadcast, a man states that the premature release of a murderer of 16 Israelis in the Shalit prisoner exchange deal “is a message of hope” for all the imprisoned terrorists. A Fatah official from Gaza similarly explains that prisoners serving life sentences should not believe that their sentences will be upheld, but rather expect to be released early. Additional terrorists who were released through the Shalit deal despite being given long sentences also participated in the program. In the Shalit prisoner exchange deal between the Israeli government and Hamas, Israel released 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held hostage by Hamas for more than 5 years.


The latest revelations of Israel’s covert war on Iran - analysis
Much of what was in Saturday’s New York Times report about Israel’s covert war on Iran’s nuclear program was previously known, but some important new details tie together some dots in critical ways. Here are two new takeaways:
• Mossad/Israel like to hit Iran when it angers the IAEA

Israel and the Mossad will hit the Islamic Republic when it deems necessary, but it particularly likes to do so juxtaposed to when Tehran has angered the IAEA. The latest example the new report appears to reveal was on September 26.

Only weeks before, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi had celebrated cutting his first new deal with the incoming government of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. But on September 26, the IAEA leaked that Raisi had reneged on the deal. That same day, the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group – part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and of Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization responsible for Iran’s liquid-fueled ballistic missile program, including the medium-range Shahab-3 – experienced an explosion and a fire.

With Iran’s routine of trying to kill the spread of negative information, it was initially unclear how significant the incident had been, though they mentioned two operatives were killed. However, by September 27, AP reported the site was the IRGC’s Research and Self-Sufficiency Jihad Organization, which the US Treasury sanctioned in 2017 over its work “researching and developing ballistic missiles.”

On September 30, Image Sat. Int’l had revealed additional details about the identity, location and serious impact on the IRGC secret ballistic missile base. The base is connected to the same ballistic missiles that could be used to mount a nuclear warhead if Iran is able to complete its uranium enrichment.
US rejects Israeli request for tanker aircraft as Iran plans advance
The US has rejected an Israeli request to fast-track the delivery of two tanker aircraft which had been ordered by Israel, as plans for a possible military option against Iran's nuclear plan move forward, Ynet reported on Monday.

In October, sources in the Defense Ministry stated that senior Israel Air Force (IAF) officers had requested that the supply of four KC-46 tanker aircraft from the US be sped up, asking that two of the aircraft be delivered immediately. The officers asked that the other two be supplied within the next two to three years.

According to the Ynet report, the IDF hopes to convince the US over the next year.

The US State Department approved the possible sale of up to eight KC-46 tanker aircraft and related equipment to Israel for an estimated cost of $2.4 billion last March, marking the first time that Washington has allowed Jerusalem to buy new tankers.

Israel was set to receive two of the Boeing-made planes by late 2023, and during former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s last visit to Washington, he raised the issue that two of the eight tankers be supplied in the next year.

The KC-46 tankers will replace Israel’s Ram (Boeing 707) tanker aircraft that are required for long-range missions and nearing the age of 60. Israel’s fleet of Ram planes, the number of which remains confidential, are former civilian aircraft adapted for military uses such as aerial refueling for fighter jets, as well as its fleet of transport aircraft. They were grounded last year.
Saudi and Iranian experts hold ‘security dialogue’ in Amman
Regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran sent experts to hold talks on security issues and cooperation, Jordan’s official state news agency reported Monday.

The “security dialogue” took place at the Arab Institute for Security Studies in Amman, the Petra news service said, without identifying any of the representatives from either side.

Discussions were in “an atmosphere of mutual respect,” according to the institute’s secretary general, Ayman Khalil, the report said, and covered issues such as reducing missile threats, ballistic weapons delivery vehicles and technical measures needed to build confidence over Iran’s nuclear program.

The parties reportedly also discussed cooperating on nuclear fuel.

A follow-up session is expected to be hosted in Amman soon, Khalil signaled, according to the report.

There were no statements from either Iranian or Saudi officials, though Iran’s state-affiliated Tehran Times carried the Petra report in a tacit confirmation that the talks took place.

Talks for a détente between Saudi Arabia and Iran have been going on for months, but the Saudi ambassador to the United Nations on Monday dismissed Tehran’s attitude in negotiations with various regional countries as “playing games.”







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