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Saturday, February 26, 2022

02/26 Links: As Russians assail Kyiv, Zelensky says Ukraine has ‘derailed their plan’; Delegitimization links UN Anti-Israel Commission, Vladimir Putin, Ken Roth

From Ian:

As Russians assail Kyiv, Zelensky says Ukraine has ‘derailed their plan’
Russian troops closed in on Ukraine’s capital Saturday after a night of explosions and street fighting sent Kyiv residents seeking shelter or fleeing the city. The country’s leader claimed Ukraine’s forces had repulsed the assault and vowed to keep up the struggle.

“The real fighting for Kyiv is ongoing,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message, accusing Russia of hitting infrastructure and civilian targets.

“We will win,” he said.

Zelensky urged Russians to pressure Russian leader Vladimir Putin to stop the invasion. He accused Moscow of seeking to overthrow him and establish a puppet state in Ukraine.

“We’ve derailed their plan,” the 44-year-old leader said, stressing that the Ukrainian army was in control of the capital Kyiv and main cities around it.

A US defense official told Reuters there was growing frustration among the Russians “that they have not made the progress that they have wanted to make, particularly in the north.”

The unnamed official added: “They have been frustrated by what they have seen is a very determined resistance. It has slowed them down.”

Zelensky said Russians have deployed “missiles, fighters, drones, artillery, armored vehicles, saboteurs, and airborne forces” against Ukraine and have hit “residential areas.”

Zelensky said Ukrainians had been fighting against Russians troops in a number of cities including the southern city of Odessa, the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the capital Kyiv. The western city of Lviv and other cities in western and central Ukraine have been targeted with air strikes, he said.
CAMERA Op-Ed Delegitimization links UN Anti-Israel Commission, Vladimir Putin, Ken Roth
Since its inception, Israel has been subject to a constant barrage of delegitimization campaigns. From Arab dictators to antisemites masquerading as “human rights activists,” the right of the Jewish state to exist has been constantly called into question.

A favorite tool of the delegitimizers has been the co-opted and corrupted United Nations, used as an ostensible authoritative source to constantly put to question Israel’s right to exist. Consider, for example, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ infamous New York Times opinion piece, in which he argued for “Palestine’s” admission to the U.N. as a way to “pave the way for the internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a political one.” (Don’t worry, though – the Palestinian Authority still believes in and incentivizes violence.)

The new U.N. Commission of Inquiry (COI) is the latest and arguably most dangerous iteration of this strategy, which is why Israel has decided to refuse to cooperate with it. With an expansive and unparalleled mandate – obviously intended to engage in historical revisionism, label Israel a unique evil and absurdly accuse it of all manner of atrocities – the COI is, in the words of Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Meirav Eilon Shahar, “an effort to delegitimize and even criminalize [Israel’s] very existence.”

The purpose of delegitimization is perfectly clear. Even as Arab regimes and the Soviets manipulated and corrupted the U.N. into efforts such as declaring that Zionism was a form of racism, they were also waging military campaigns to wipe Israel off the map.

One can see the same strategy at play in another horrifying spectacle. On Monday, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin gave an hour-long sermon with singular theme: delegitimizing the right of Ukraine to exist through wild accusations of atrocities and historical revisionism.

Sound familiar?
Ricochet Podcast: #UkraineUnderAttack
Hosted by James Lileks, Peter Robinson & Rob Long With guest Eli Lake

Is anybody else wondering why we’re seeing more coverage about politicians chattering or journalists ducking from skirmishes than, you know, military movements, logistics and strategy? Our hosts sure do, and that’s why they’re eager to hear from Eli Lake, Bloomberg’s foreign policy columnist. Eli gives his take on the Russian pipe dream, Europe’s need for a wakeup call, and how Biden can get serious about his promise to stand up to Putin (hint: some crow eating would be in order).


Clifford D May: Putin's winter war
In my column on Feb. 1, I offered a prediction that Russian President Vladimir Putin would "not start a war during the Olympics, which take place in the People's Republic of China, Feb. 4-20. He has too much respect for – and fear of – its president, Xi Jinping." So Putin was right on schedule when, on Monday, he ordered Russian forces into eastern Ukraine.

What I didn't know then, and we don't know as I write this is, how far he will go. Is it his intention to slice off Donbas, a region where a low-intensity conflict – with Putin backing pro-Russian separatists – has been ongoing since 2014? Or will he order his troops to march on and conquer the entire country?

I'll say more about that in a moment, but first I'm going to argue that this crisis could have been averted if American and European leaders, years ago, had designed and implemented a strategy to contain Putin – as they should have.

As noted in the earlier column, Putin regards himself as a latter-day czar whose mission is to restore and expand the shriveled empire that was bequeathed to him.

He has more money than he can ever spend (his Italianate palace on the Black Sea is valued at over a billion dollars), a much younger girlfriend (a former gymnast and model, if the tabloids are to be believed) and powers unconstrained by any laws. De facto, he has a license to kill, one he doesn't hesitate to exercise.

What he lacks and wants is a legacy – confidence that he will be remembered as Vladimir the Great or maybe Vladimir the Terrible but, in either case, as a man of action, a shaper of history, a lion. He's pushing 70. He has no time to waste.
My Last 24 Hours in Kyiv
The 24 hours leading up to Vladimir Putin’s invasion were disquieting in their combination of surrealism and tedium. The population of Kyiv was clearly deeply anxious, either engaging in seemingly over-the-top preparations for war (every cable news network reported on some little babushka learning to shoot an automatic rifle) or else ignoring it completely. Ukrainians in the capital were oblivious and stoic in the effortlessly graceful manner of men and women who have authentically embraced fatalism.

Along with my fellow Ukraine hand Nolan Peterson—a tall, avuncular, strapping, former combat pilot who is a real life version of Captain America— I wound up spending the eve of the war with the American actor Sean Penn over whiskey, vodka, and cigarettes. Penn was in good form and told us a story about meeting a young President Putin along with Jack Nicholson in a dacha near Moscow. I can confirm that hanging out with Sean Penn was also the last thing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did before the invasion began.

My memory of that night, before war advanced ever farther into Europe, is of an utterly bored international press corps continuing to imbibe copious amounts of spirits in Kyiv’s finest dining establishments, waiting for something to happen.

For my own part, camped out in the Hyatt Hotel, I wrote in the mornings, and spent time in the banya in the afternoon. I would run on the treadmill in the basement gym and watch BBC live feeds being shot on the floor above me. Nikolay Karabinovych, my friend from Odessa and the creator of the conceptual art movement Neue Judische Kunst, called me as I was trying to sweat out the toxins from the drinking bout of the previous evening. Everyone at the time was discussing the existence of supposed “kill lists” that the Russian army was ordered to carry out against dissidents and civil society types.

Karabinovych wanted to know if I knew anything about these lists—a European diplomat had called him to say that his embassy suspected he might be on them. Given my affiliations with the Atlantic Council and Tablet, had I heard if I was also on the kill list?

“Now that you mention it,” I replied. “Probably.”
Ukraine synagogues prepare for tense Shabbat under heavy security
Ukraine's Jewish communities are preparing for an unusually tense Shabbat, without knowing if they will be under Russian or Ukrainian rule when the Sabbath is over, or what the war will bring.

Synagogues in the country were under heavy security for fear of looting and antisemitic attacks.

"I don't have the faintest idea what will happen here on Shabbat. The last time sirens sounded in the city was probably during World War II," said Rabbi Ariel Markovitch, head of the Israeli congregation in Kyiv and the son of Chabad House Rabbi Jonathan Markovitch.

Rabbi Ariel, his family, and other people were at Kyiv's Chabad House, which was stocked with food and extra mattresses.

The head of security at the Federation of Jewish Communities in Ukraine, an umbrella organization that represents 160 Jewish communities throughout the country, urged Ukrainian Jews to stay at home in accordance with local government instructions and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's request that all Ukrainians do the same.

The federation recommended that "everyone pray at home this Shabbat."

Rabbi Baruch Efrati explained that because Ukraine is in a state of emergency and lives are at stake, the principle of pikuach nefesh is in effect, making it permissible to leave cellular phones on during Shabbat, and if there is no alternative, radios.

"Jews living in war zones can reach an agreement with non-Jewish friends or neighbors that if anything unusual happens that demands movement or organization, they will call. Therefore, cell phones can be kept on for Shabbat. If there is no non-Jew, or concern that they will not inform Jews, then a radio can be kept on if tuned to a station that mainly provides news," Efrai said.
'This is our Yom Kippur War,' Ukrainians say



Lee Smith: Ukraine’s Deadly Gamble
Of course, Ukraine was hardly the only American client state to involve itself in domestic political gamesmanship. By appearing before the U.S. Congress to argue against Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took sides with Republicans against a sitting American president—which seems like an even bigger potential faux pas.

The differences between the two situations are even more revealing, though. The Iran deal touched on a core Israeli national interest. As a U.S. ally, Israel was challenging the wisdom of handing nuclear weapons to its own (and America’s) leading regional competitor and rival. By contrast, Ukraine had no existential or geopolitical reason to participate in the anti-Trump operation, which allowed it at best to curry favor with one side of the D.C. establishment while angering what turned out to be the winning party. Russiagate was the kind of vanity project that a buffer state with a plunging GDP and an army equipped with 40-year-old ex-Soviet weapons in a notoriously risky area of the world can ill afford—especially one that lacked a nuclear arsenal.

And that was only the beginning. Just as Russiagate seemed to be coming to a close in July 2019, U.S. national security officials injected yet another Ukraine-related narrative into the public sphere to target the American president. This one appears to have been initiated by Ukrainian American White House official Alexander Vindman and his colleague Eric Ciaramella, a CIA analyst who had served as Vice President Biden’s point man on Ukraine during the Obama administration. When Vindman told Ciaramella about a phone call in which Trump had asked the Ukrainian president for information regarding allegations about the Biden family’s corrupt activities in Kyiv, they called on help from U.S. intelligence services, the State Department, the Pentagon, Democratic Party officials, and the press. Quick, scramble Team Ukraine—Trump is asking questions!

In order to cover up for what the Bidens and perhaps other senior Obama officials had done in Ukraine, a Democratic Congress impeached Trump for trying to figure out what American policymakers had been doing in Ukraine over the past decade. As for the Ukrainians, they again put themselves in the middle of it, when they should have stayed home.

The end result was that the Ukrainians had helped weaken an American president who, unlike Obama, gave them arms to defend themselves against the Russians. More seriously, they reinforced Putin’s view that, especially in partnership with the Democrats, Ukraine did not understand its true place in the world as a buffer state—and would continue to allow themselves to be used as an instrument by policymakers whose combination of narcissism and fecklessness made them particularly prone to dangerous miscalculations. The 2020 election victory of Joe Biden, a man whose family had been paid by the Ukrainians to protect them, can have done little to quiet Putin’s sense that Ukraine needed to be put in its place before it was used yet again as a weapon against him.

From the perspective of the U.S. national security establishment, Biden’s victory over Trump signaled that its actions in Ukraine would stay hidden. So long as the media continued to bark that the 45th president of the United States is Putin’s stooge, no one would be held accountable for anything. Except, as it turns out, D.C. political operatives aren’t the only people who can make history. Putin can, too. And the people of Ukraine will come out much the worse for both of their efforts.
Ukraine’s Zelensky Asked Bennett to Broker Ceasefire With Putin: Report
i24 News – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to intercede on behalf of Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin and halt the Russian invasion, Israel’s Kan broadcaster reported on Friday.

According to an official Israeli statement Friday, the two leaders discussed the situation in Ukraine, and particularly the fighting around the capital Kyiv.

The Israeli Prime Minister “offered Israel’s assistance with any humanitarian aid needed and updated President Zelensky on the steps already taken in this regard,” his office said.

“Prime Minister Bennett reiterated his hope for a speedy end to the fighting, and said that he stands by the people of Ukraine in these difficult days,” it continued.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel later confirmed to The New York Times that the request for Israeli mediation was made on the call.

“We do believe that Israel is the only democratic state in the world that has great relations with both Ukraine and Russia,” said Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk of the request, according to the outlet.

“They didn’t say no,” he said. “They are trying to figure out where they are in this chess play.”


JPost Editorial: The Ukraine crisis presents a moral dilemma for Israel - editorial
On Friday, Israeli Ambassador to Russia Alex Ben-Tzvi was summoned to the offices of Russia's Foreign Ministry in Moscow where he was reprimanded for Foreign Minister Yair Lapid's condemnation of the invasion of Ukraine a day earlier.

In a meeting with Mikhail Bogdanov, the Deputy Foreign Minister and special representative of the president of Russia to the Middle East, Ben-Tzvi was asked why Israel "supports neo-nazis,” a reference to Ukraine.

While the reprimand and its consequences will need to be analyzed in the days to come, the truth is that Israel did all it could to avoid condemning Russia.

On Wednesday, a day before the invasion, the Foreign Ministry put out a statement declaring its support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence without mentioning Russia.

The next day, after the Russian invasion had begun, Israel increased the volume. “The Russian attack on Ukraine is a serious violation of the international order,” Lapid said in a televised address. “Israel condemns the attack, and is ready and prepared to provide humanitarian assistance to the citizens of Ukraine.”

The fact that it was Lapid who spoke and not Prime Minister Naftali Bennett showed Israel’s delicate management of this situation. So far, it is only Lapid criticizing Russia. When Bennett speaks it is far more neutral.

Two senior government sources told The Jerusalem Post’s Lahav Harkov that Lapid and Bennett’s messages – and the differences between them – were coordinated and meant to be complementary.
Israel fails to sign onto US text condemning Russia at UNSC
Israel did not sign onto a United States-backed resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine that failed to gain United Nations Security Council approval on Friday night.

Nor has Israel clarified what its stance will be on an upcoming UN General Assembly resolution that is expected to take Russia to task for its military action in Ukraine.

Israel is not one of the 15 UNSC members and so could not vote on the resolution submitted by the US and Albania.

The US, however, had asked for its diplomatic allies that were non-UNSC member states to make good on an option to sign onto the text as a sign of support.

At least 49 states nations heeded that call. Diplomatic sources said that Israel had refrained from taking a stand on the UNSC resolution because Jerusalem knew that it had no chance of passing. With respect to the UNGA resolution, the source said that Israel was waiting to see the language of the resolution before solidifying its position.

"Our allies know exactly what our position is on the issue," a diplomatic source said.
Top Israeli Officials Hold Assessment on Russian Invasion, Efforts to Assist Ukrainian Jews
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held an assessment of the situation regarding Ukraine and Russia on Thursday with senior officials.

According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the leaders said that the main points for Israel during the crisis were a continuation of efforts to evacuate Israelis from the area; aid to the Jewish community in Ukraine and preparations to receive olim; preparations to render humanitarian assistance as necessary; and continued discussions on the situation as it pertains to Israel.

“The consequences of the crisis, in its diplomatic, economic and security aspects, were reviewed in the discussion,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

Participating in the discussion were Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, National Security Adviser and Director of the National Security Council Eyal Hulata, the Prime Minister’s Office director-general, the Foreign Ministry director-general and the Finance Ministry director-general, as well as representatives from the IDF, the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry and National Information Directorate.

In remarks on Thursday, Bennett avoided outright condemning the Russian invasion and mentioning Moscow by name.

Speaking at an IDF officer graduation ceremony in southern Israel, Bennett noted that the “world order is changing” and that it is becoming “much less stable, and our region too is changing every day.”

“These are difficult, tragic times,” the Israeli leader said. “Our hearts are with the civilians of eastern Ukraine who were caught up in this situation.”
10,000 Ukrainian Jews to immigrate to Israel in the next few weeks - exclusive
Israel's government estimates that around 10,000 Ukrainians will immigrate to Israel in the coming weeks, government officials told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday.

The Ministry of Immigration and Absorption would not comment on this estimate, but responded saying: "The Ministry of Immigration and Absorption is prepared for the emergency immigration of Ukrainian Jews, and in view of the escalation in Ukraine, the ministry, headed by Minister Tamano Shata, is preparing all sectors to assist and absorb any Jew seeking to immigrate to Israel."

"In light of the drastic increase in applications for immigration from Ukraine and in view of the security situation in the region", the ministry said that Tamano-Shata and Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman agreed on providing additional budgets to actualize the emergency immigration operation from Ukraine.

The Ministry of Immigration and Absorption convened an emergency discussion last Thursday during which Tamano-Shata assembled an inter-ministerial team to remove bureaucratic hurdles for potential olim and to issue immigration visas digitally, in light of a drastic increase in applications. This is in addition to reinforcements in the Absorption Division at Ben Gurion Airport and the cooperation with the IDF.

The Ministry concluded, "We call on the Jews of Ukraine to immigrate to Israel - your home."
400 Aliyah Requests From Ukraine Made in 24 hours
Israeli Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata spoke on Thursday night with one of Ukraine’s chief rabbis, saying the government is “strengthening the Jewish community in Ukraine and that the ministry is ready to welcome any Jew who wishes to immigrate to Israel.”

Rabbi Moshe Asman thanked the minister and spoke of concerns raised during his meetings with Jews from different communities as war broke out in his country.

The doors of the State of Israel “are open to you, Israel is your home and the ministry will help any Jew who wishes to make aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel),” the minister said.

Earlier in the day, Tamano-Shata assessed the situation with the participation of Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai and representatives of government ministries and partners.

In Lviv in western Ukraine, around 400 people applied for aliyah on Thursday — compared to 60 before Thursday morning.

Three consuls in Lviv receive Israelis and Jews residing in the country. The need to open an additional consul in Kishinev will be considered.
Israeli diplomatic staff in Lviv to spends their nights in Poland
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has instructed Israeli embassy staff in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv to cross over into Poland in the evenings, amid ongoing fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russian troops following Moscow’s invasion of its western neighbor on Thursday.

The Israeli diplomatic staff will stay in Poland and cross the border into Ukraine every day to continue their diplomatic work and provide consular services to help Israeli citizens leave Ukraine, the foreign minister said.

The Foreign Ministry said it instructed thousands of Israeli citizens still in Ukraine and arriving at border crossings to prominently display a sign bearing the letters ‘IL’ on their clothing or on vehicles so they could be identified by embassy staff in lines and crowds.

“We ask all Israeli citizens exiting Ukraine at the border crossings to display on their bodies (if pedestrians) or in their vehicle (if in a vehicle) a prominent sign with the letters ‘IL’ so that Israeli representatives can locate Israeli citizens in queues and assist them as much as possible,” the ministry said in a statement.

Israeli diplomatic staff would be present at the following crossings, the ministry said: the Medyka/Sheiny crossing into Poland, which officials said was extremely busy and crowded; the Uzhhorod/Vysne Nemescke crossing into Slovakia; the Zahony/Chop crossing into Hungary; the Siret crossing into Romania; the Palanca crossing into southern Moldova; and the Mogilev-Podolskiy crossing into northern Moldova.


After Putin highlights Russia’s nukes, France retorts: NATO is a nuclear alliance
Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to understand that NATO is a nuclear alliance, the French foreign minister said Thursday, after the Kremlin chief boasted about Russia’s nuclear arsenal as he launched the attack on Ukraine.

According to NATO, the nuclear weapons held by members France, the UK and US are a core component of its overall capabilities for deterrence and defense.

Emphasizing that Russia was still one of the “biggest nuclear powers in the world,” Putin had launched the offensive on Ukraine early Thursday with a warning that a direct attack on Russia would lead to “destruction.”

“Vladimir Putin must also understand that the Atlantic Alliance is a nuclear alliance,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the TF1 channel.

He also promised “spectacular” European sanctions which will “strike to the heart” of Russia.

Le Drian said France is also studying a series of requests for assistance from Ukraine, including military.

“They made us a list (of military equipment), we are in the process of studying it, to try to respond as best as possible to their request as quickly as possible,” he said.
Lithuania Closes its Airspace to Russian Airlines, Ending Direct Flights to Kaliningrad Exclave
Lithuania will ban Russian airlines from using its airspace from 2200 GMT on Saturday, the government said, joining other European countries which have taken the same step following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Lithuania is the shortest route from mainland Russia to its Kaliningrad exclave, sandwiched between NATO members Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic Sea’s eastern coast. The ban would force Russian flights to take a longer detour via the Baltic Sea.

“No flights for aggressor planes in the freedom sky,” Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte tweeted after a government meeting.

Russian forces pounded Ukrainian cities with artillery and cruise missiles on Saturday for a third day running.

Lithuania’s northern neighbor Latvia has also decided to close its airspace for Russian aircraft from midnight to Sunday local time (2200 GMT), the country’s foreign minister Edgars Rinkevics said on Twitter.

The third Baltic state, Estonia, is expected to do the same, its minister of economic affairs said on Saturday.


Kyiv residential apartment block hit in Russian shelling
The mayor of the Ukrainian capital said Saturday that a missile hit a residential apartment building but no casualties were immediately reported.

Rescue workers later said six civilians were injured in the strike and 80 people were relocated from the building.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the missile slammed into a high-rise building on the southwestern outskirts of Kyiv near Zhuliany airport on Saturday.

Klitschko posted an image on a messaging app, showing a gaping hole on one side of the building that ravaged apartment units and several stores.

He said in a video that the night had been “difficult,” with Russian “sabotage groups” in the capital. He insisted that there were no regular Russian troops in Kyiv, but said they were trying to enter from several directions.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine began Thursday with massive air and missile strikes and ground troops moving in from the north, east and south. The Russian military said on Saturday it had targeted Ukraine’s military infrastructure using cruise missiles fired from the air and sea.


Yoseph Haddad’s Speech to Members of the Oireachtas (24-Feb-2022)
"Are you afraid that I will expose your lies and hypocrisy about the State of Israel as an Israeli Arab? Are you afraid that I will expose the true motivations behind your obsession with my country, that maybe, just maybe it’s not about 'human rights' but about a disproportionate focus on the one state in the world which defines itself as Jewish?"

Ceann Comhairle and members of the Oireachtas, thank you for allowing me to address you today on this important subject. I know that in recent days you have heard from a number of speakers about my country, Israel, and the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. I come to you today as a private citizen of the State of Israel to share my experience and provide the truth about what’s happening in Israel from the perspective of a minority.

My name is Yoseph Haddad and I am an Israeli Arab. I was born in Haifa, which is the largest mixed city of Arabs and Jews in the country, and I was raised in Nazareth, the largest Arab city in the state of Israel. This may surprise some of you after what you’ve heard about Israel, but myself, my friends and all my community regularly interacted with Israelis from all sectors and a huge part of my childhood was playing football. I grew up playing football with Jewish, Christian and Muslim kids and let me tell you – the Jews didn’t think “Oh, he’s an Arab” before passing the ball. We didn’t see each other as any different, and in fact through these childhood friendships we learned about each other’s religions and lifestyles, even taking part in each other’s holidays for Eid or Christmas or Passover.

Now fast forward to age 18, in Israel, military service or national service is mandatory for Jewish citizens, but every year, thousands of Israeli Arabs volunteer, a number that’s increasing with time. When I turned 18, I saw my Jewish friends go to the army and I didn’t understand why I, as an Arab, wouldn’t also serve my country. After all, it is my home just as much as theirs. Even more important is that the IDF does not stand for the Jewish Defense Forces rather the Israeli Defense Forces, meaning its purpose is to protect ALL its citizens, including 2 million Arab Israelis.

Just before my service was about to begin, I experienced a trauma that made me realise without any doubt that joining the army to defend my country, and my community, was absolutely the right thing to do. The Maxim restaurant in Haifa was a symbol of partnership in the city; it was owned by Arabs and Jews and it was a place my family regularly frequented for celebrations like birthdays. Yet on the 4th of October 2003, just days after my family was last there, the Maxim restaurant was targeted by a Palestinian terrorist who suicide bombed the restaurant killing 21 Israelis – Arabs and Jews and injuring 51.

I learned a painful but important lesson that day. These terrorists did not care that they were killing Arabs: they targeted us because we are Israeli. Just the same as Hezbollah in Lebanon fired rockets on Israeli Arab cities in the second Lebanon war. Just the same as how nearly half the Israeli civilian casualties from the Second Lebanon War were Arab Israeli Muslims. Just the same as Hamas who fired rockets on Israeli Arab towns throughout the country in May 2021, killing Arab Muslims.
Israeli citizen arrested in Saudi Arabia after publicly praising Israel
An Israeli citizen is being held under arrest in Saudi Arabia for an angry rant in a pharmacy during which he praised Israel as the best country in the world.

Sammi al-Obara, 40, a resident of the Bedouin city of Rahat in the southern Negev region, suffers from diabetes, which was likely the cause of his behavior, his family said.

He was arrested on Tuesday during a pilgrimage to the kingdom, according to Hebrew media reports.

Israel has no diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, which could complicate any efforts to secure his release.

Mussa Obara, a relative, told Channel 12 that the arrested man suffers from diabetes and “sometimes, because of the disease, he can’t control the way he behaves.”

Mussa said that Obara was in such a state of mind when he entered the pharmacy and became agitated at the service he was given. Workers summoned police, who arrested Obara.

The family has appealed to Saudi officials, explaining that Obara is unwell and was not in control of himself. They have also asked MK Mansour Abbas, leader of the Islamist Ra’am party, which is part of Israel’s ruling coalition, and others for help, Mussa said.

The Foreign Ministry said it was looking into the matter.
ISIS Resurrection Is a Cause for Alarm
The same week as the Syrian prison assault, the Islamic State of Central Africa Province (ISCAP) was able to spring 20 prisoners and kill three people while executing a strikingly similar attack on a Congo prison. “The soldiers of the Caliphate attacked a post of the Crusader Congolese army in the town of Nobili, near the Ugandan border, two days ago, causing its personnel to flee,” said an ISIS communique.

The ISIS branch in Congo killed an estimated 849 people in 2020, the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office reported.

ISIS launched hundreds of terrorist attacks in the Middle East and Europe between 2014 and 2019. Last month, Sweden and France launched a joint probe to investigate ISIS atrocities against the Yazidi minority in Iraq and Syria. It is believed that 10,000 Yazidis were killed and around 7,000 women were enslaved by ISIS during its reign of terror.

The death of a terrorist group’s leader can trigger power struggles and other setbacks. But ISIS is better able to move on with a new leader because it has “well-managed leadership structures and succession protocols,” wrote Haroro Ingram, Amira Jadoon, and Andrew Mines, in a recent piece.

“The death of al-Qurayshi is unlikely to affect the operations of Islamic State group’s affiliates in any meaningful way,” they concluded.

The recent coordinated ISIS attacks cannot be ignored. The previous iteration of the group, which caused havoc across the globe, started in the same manner in Iraq and Syria before it declared its state and Caliphate in Mosul in 2014. A series of attacks on Iraqi prisons in 2012 and 2013 freed a large number of jihadists who later join the Islamic State. These attacks were masterminded by al-Baghdadi.

“We remind you of your top priority, which is to release the Muslim prisoners everywhere,” said al-Baghdadi.

As Iraqis begin to heal from the scourge of the ISIS and rebuild, news of the increase in ISIS attacks in Iraq and neighboring Syria is alarming.

The dangers of a possible resurgence remain high, and the group’s ability to coordinate terrorist strikes can inspire a lot of its followers in the West and others across the world.
Russia Sees Military Coordination with Israel on Syria Continuing
Russia sees its military coordination with Israel over Syria continuing, the Russian embassy said on Saturday, after Moscow signaled displeasure with Israeli statements about the Ukraine crisis.

Following the 2015 Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war, Israel set up a “deconfliction mechanism” with the big power to prevent them clashing inadvertently during Israeli strikes against Iranian deployments and arms transfers in the neighboring Arab state.

“Our military officials discuss the practical issues of this substantively on a daily basis. This mechanism has proven to be useful and will continue to work,” the Russian embassy in Israel said in a statement.

But while voicing support for Israel‘s security needs, it also reiterated opposition to violations of Syrian sovereignty.

The Israeli military, asked about prospects for continued coordination with Russia over Syria, said only that its forces “will act when needed to counter threats, defend the people of Israel and our sovereignty.”

Israel, whose main ally is the United States, condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Thursday as “a serious violation of international order” and has since remained largely muted on Moscow’s actions.
Assad says Russia’s Ukraine invasion a ‘correction of history’
Syrian President Bashar Assad, in a telephone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday, praised the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying it was a “correction of history.”

Damascus is a staunch ally of Moscow which intervened in the Syrian civil war in 2015 by launching airstrikes to support the Assad regime’s struggling forces.

Assad spoke to Putin a day after Russian forces invaded Ukraine on the orders of the Russian president, drawing strong international condemnation.

“President Assad stressed that what is happening today is a correction of history and a restoration of balance in the global order after the fall of the Soviet Union,” said a statement from the Syrian presidency.

Assad also said that “Syria stands with the Russian Federation based on its conviction that its position is correct and because confronting NATO expansionism is a right for Russia.”

Russia’s intervention in Syria marked a turning point in the conflict.
Almost all European aid to the PA held up as officials discuss reform of textbooks
Millions of euros in European Union aid to the Palestinian Authority are stuck in Brussels as officials in the European Commission discuss whether to condition parts of the foreign assistance on reforms to Palestinian textbooks, The Times of Israel has learned.

The European Union, the PA’s largest single donor, helps to pay the salaries of the PA’s many civil servants, which constitutes a significant chunk of the West Bank economy. Between 2008 and 2020, Brussels sent around $2.5 billion in direct budget support to the PA.

But citing “technical difficulties,” the bloc has donated almost no aid to the authority since 2020. The lack of funding has contributed to fears that Ramallah will see a fiscal crisis.

According to a diplomat who asked for anonymity to freely discuss the sensitive subject, the delay in sending EU funds to the Palestinians began as a technical matter.

But the process was substantially gummed up when an official in the European Commission in Brussels sought to condition parts of the aid on changes to Palestinian textbooks, the diplomat said.

“It was a technical matter that became a political matter,” the diplomat summed up.

EU aid to the Middle East is allocated to all the countries in the region as a single package. Neither Jordan, Syria, or Lebanon have received their aid since 2020, with the EU citing the same “technical difficulties.”

Israeli, European and American officials have long criticized alleged incitement in Palestinian textbooks. Palestinians reject that argument, saying that the curricula express the Palestinian national narrative.
Close ties with Russia stop Palestinians from taking sides in Ukraine war - analysis
Similarly, Hamas has also been careful not to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Like the PA, the Hamas leadership is also keen on preserving its good relations with Moscow, especially in light of the group’s increasing isolation in the international arena.

Late last year, a senior Hamas delegation headed by Musa Abu Marzouk and Izzat al-Risheq met in Moscow with Bogdanov and top officials from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Russia had previously hosted meetings officials from Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction and Hamas as part of an effort to end the rivalry between the two parties. Hamas leaders have visited Moscow several times over the past 14 years, and they too have no intention of letting the Ukraine crisis burn the bridge between their group and Russia.

That’s why Hamas was quick on Saturday to deny a statement attributed to Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. According to the statement, Mashaal reportedly said that Putin “must halt his invasion of Ukraine and the killing of civilians.”

Concerned that the alleged statement would alienate Putin, the Hamas leadership denied the “fabricated” remarks attributed to Mashaal. “Mashaal did not make any statement to any media outlet regarding the Ukrainian crisis,” said a Hamas spokesperson.

The only Hamas official to comment on the Russia-Ukraine crisis was Abu Marzouk, who wrote on Twitter that the lesson of the war was that the era of America’s status as unipolar superpower has ended.

The US, the Hamas official argued, “was unable to take the decision of war in the face of Russia.”

Abu Marzouk added: “Those who can’t decide on war can’t be decision-makers on international politics. This is where we can talk about the future of the Zionist entity.”


Here Is Why Iran's Mullahs Are Excited About Biden's Nuclear Deal
That the ruling mullahs are asking the Biden administration for guarantees that the US will never be able to leave the new nuclear deal, even after President Joe Biden leaves office, should signal that the mullahs want this deal badly and set off all sorts of alarms.

It is worth noting that Iran's ballistic missile capability is one of the most critical pillars of Tehran's national security policy -- the third-most important program of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), along with Iran's nuclear program and supporting the country's foreign proxies.

[A] nuclear deal will be a victory for Iran's foreign militias and terror groups. The 2015 nuclear deal allowed the flow of billions of dollars into the treasury of Iranian regime, thereby providing the revenues that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) needed to escalate their military adventurism in the region. That project included financing, arming and supporting their militias and terror groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Gaza and Yemen. After the nuclear agreement, Iran's meddling, interventions in the region, and funding militia groups immediately escalated.

Iran also increased deliveries of weapons and munitions to its foreign militias, and the number of ballistic missiles deployed by Iran's proxies rose to an unprecedented level. When the JCPOA nuclear deal was scuttled in 2018, some of Iran's authorities publicly announced that they did not have money to pay their mercenaries abroad.

That the ruling mullahs of Iran seem to be so delighted with what the Biden team is apparently offering, that Iran even wants assurances from the administration that the US can never pull out of the deal, should blowtorch the US negotiators out of the room.

Will the US and the international community reward yet another predatory, expansionist regime with nuclear capability and billions of dollars and the ability to have increased oil and missile production?

How much punishment to his legacy is Biden eager to take on?
Antisemitism is back and Ben and Jerry's is now feeding the beast
Even before Susannah Levin’s resignation from Ben & Jerry’s over its decision to halt sales in what the company terms Occupied Palestinian Territory, the graphic designer found herself at odds with the ice-cream maker’s high-profile social activism. Some three years earlier, a project manager in the Social Mission Department approached her with an assignment intended to promote the narrative “A incarcerates more people than any other country per capita in the world."

Wanting to secure the statistics behind that premise, she asked the manager for its source. Surprised by Levin’s push for documentation, he inquired, “Oh, do you think we need a source on that?” The source he gave was CNN, but Levin probed further and discovered the data CNN used were derived from a study noting in its fine print that China, Venezuela, Iran and North Korea – arguably some the world’s biggest human rights violators, she proceeded to point out – were excluded due to lack of information.

The campaign ultimately was changed to “America incarcerates too many people.” But Levin, a contractor with Ben & Jerry’s for 21 years, whose artwork is ubiquitous in the company’s branding materials, also noticed a change in the nature of her assignments. “I don’t think I got many social mission jobs after that,” she said. “I think I got a reputation.”

Similarly, the ice-cream maker’s decision to effectively pull out of Israel appeared to be a foregone conclusion, she said, bolstered by yet another skewed source that reinforced the company’s preconceived premise. That source was Omar Shakir, a well-known activist for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement whose co-founder, Omar Barghouti, has advocated for “euthanasia for the Zionist experiment.”

Shakir is the lead researcher and author of a scathing Human Rights Watch report published in April, which lists him as HRW’s Director of Israel and Palestine. The report’s allegations about Israel have been refuted by numerous authorities and HRW’s own founder, the late Robert Bernstein, slammed the organization for having “lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked.”

But Ben & Jerry’s executives told Levin they had invited Shakir for a briefing prior to the company’s announcement. And there was no response to Levin’s call for a deeper dive and an accompanying offer to connect management with Bassem Eid, a Palestinian from Jericho who condemns the BDS movement as being harmful to Palestinians (and has since filed suit over the company’s decision to boycott). Management’s silence signaled the inevitability of its move and a turning point in Levin’s career.

“A company that chooses to appease an interest group by making a political statement is really selling their company’s name and reputation in exchange for what they think will win points with activists and they are altering the workplace for their own employees,” Levin told me, speaking as well for others who shared with her their trials in the business world. “It feels threatening to work for a company that makes strong public statements for a cause with which you disagree. The result is that people just ‘self-censor’ – or shut up.”
Fighting anti-Semitism where it starts
FBI Director Christopher Wray recently acknowledged “that the Jewish community in particular has suffered violence and faces very real threats from really across the hate spectrum.”

Tragically, each week brings further examples of that hate Wray referenced. During one seven-day period in February, Massachusetts School superintendent John Buckey reported that anti-Semitic taunts and swastikas were found in elementary school bathrooms as well as a middle school in another part of the state, while three different South Carolina schools experienced anti-Semitic incidents. In New York, home of the nation’s largest Jewish community, a Jewish school bus carrying children, was attacked by a man who used his car to block the bus and then got out and smashed the bus windshield.

Fighting skyrocketing anti-Semitism in K-12 schools requires mobilizing federal, state, and local government resources to combat this scourge, and a critical component, and one that is particularly timely right now, is for the U.S. Department of Education to expand its Civil Rights Data Collection.

Data-gathering must cover religious bias more extensively, and it should specifically identify which religious group is being targeted. This is important because you can’t solve a problem unless you know what the problem is. Schools, local educational authorities and the federal government need this valuable and specific information. They need to understand precisely which religious groups are being victimized and which specific hate crimes students face to know how to effectively reverse the trend in religious harassment. The FBI takes the same approach to hate crime reporting. Now, with religious crime in schools on the rise, we must apply the same standards. As Brandeis Center Chair as well as former Assistant Secretary of Education Kenneth L. Marcus, said “The appalling number of religious offenses underscores how essential this data is.”

The Department should also require the same amount of information pertaining to religious discrimination, bias, harassment and bullying as it does with respect to other bias categories such as race or LGBTI issues, demonstrating clearly the seriousness with which it views the problem.


'Nazi sympathizer', 24, started building homemade submachine gun in his Leamington Spa garage 'to kill Jews', court hears
An alleged Nazi sympathiser started building a homemade submachine gun in his garage in order to fulfil his 'mission' of fighting in a religious war against Jews and other targets of right-wing terrorists, a court heard.

Birmingham Crown Court heard Ben Styles posted in an online group called '#Kill All the Jews' and described the holocaust to friends as the 'holohoax', adding: 'I hope the holocaust is real next time.'

Prosecutors allege the 24-year-old, who has a B-tec in Engineering from Warwickshire College, told his friend he was 'just getting as strong as possible for the war' and sent a picture of his phone lock screen which had images of swastikas on it.

Referring to the lock screen, the defendant allegedly told his friend: 'Waking up and seeing this lock screen to start my day is far more important than some non-person NHS clapper shouting at me about primary school history.'

The court heard messages were also recovered from Styles in 2019 following the terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, which said: 'I just got back from New Zealand - it made me super racist. Then that happened and I had a good day.'
Credit Suisse scandal is nothing new for bank that helped Nazis - opinion
An investigation by 47 international news media outlets revealed this week that Credit Suisse, one of Switzerland’s most prominent banks, protected the secret fortunes of dictators, autocrats, spies, human rights abusers, shady businessmen and other clients involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption from the 1940s to the 2010s.

A whistle-blower leaked data on more than 18,000 bank accounts worth more than $100 billion to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which has shared the information with other news organizations, including The New York Times. No public figures were among some 100 Americans holding questionable accounts, the Times noted.

Switzerland’s bank secrecy laws have made it a sanctuary for hiding wealth, dodging taxes, laundering money and concealing assorted crimes.

Credit Suisse said it “strongly rejects the allegations.” The bank has paid $7.9 billion in fines, penalties, restitution to the US government and others over the past decade for helping Americans evade taxes and for securities-related offenses, the Times reported. Additionally, it has been “accused of allowing drug traffickers to launder millions of euros through the bank,” the paper noted. It is also under investigation by the US Justice Department and the US Congress.

In the latest revelation, Jordanian King Abdullah II and the sons of the late Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were among the clients. 80 years ago, SS chief Heinrich Himmler and dictator Benito Mussolini had Credit Suisse accounts.

None of that should come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the role Swiss banks, particularly Credit Suisse, played in one of the greatest thefts and most heinous crimes in history.

They were Adolph Hitler’s bankers, money launderers and most valuable allies. Hitler waged a war of plunder, looting the central banks of Europe, and the treasures and wealth of the conquered lands – including the lives and property of six million Jews.






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