Monday, March 28, 2022
NY Sun Editorial: The Ben-Gurion Summit
The conclave of foreign ministers from the Middle East gathering for what is being dubbed, after its desert location, the “Negev Summit” would be newsworthy no matter what happens. That’s by dint of convening, as it will today and tomorrow, Arab envoys and their Israeli counterpart within the borders of the Jewish state. It’s astonishing and delightful, though, that the meeting will take place at Sde Boker.NYTs: Israel Summit Shows Ties with Arabs Moving from Ceremony to Substance
That’s the dusty desert kibbutz where is buried the leader who, nearly 74 years ago, proclaimed the independence of the Jewish state. We speak of David Ben-Gurion, who rose from day worker to become Israel’s first prime minister. Not only that but the foreign ministers — from Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, America, and Israel — will pay homage at the grave of the visionary leader.
If anyone had asked us five years ago, or two years, whether this could happen, we would have chuckled with incredulity. Not that it’s so all-fired unusual for Israeli and Arab leaders to meet, especially after the Abraham Accords. It’s that by going to the final resting place of “the Old Man,” as Israelis call Ben-Gurion, they are acknowledging the very idea, and the success, of the political Zionism that inspirits Israel.
It is worth, in respect of Sde Boker, recalling the history that this small town outside of Beersheba evokes. David Ben-Gurion — born ??David Grün — hailed from Plonsk, in what is now Poland, before making his way to the Land of Israel in 1906. Just less than a decade before, a journalist living in Vienna, Theodor Herzl, had convened, at Basel, the first Zionist Congress.
Israel's meeting with top diplomats from the U.S. and four Arab countries - Egypt, the UAE, Morocco and Bahrain - on Sunday is one of the strongest signs yet that the country is beginning to reap the dividends of normalization deals, confirming a profound realignment of Middle Eastern powers. The deals have also prompted Egypt, a longtime peace partner, to engage more meaningfully with Israel as Cairo tries to revive its role as Israel's bridge to the Arab world.
Polls suggest that many people in the Arab world do not support normalizing ties with Israel. But to Gulf leaders, the cost is outweighed by the benefits of sending a strong message to both the U.S. and their shared enemy, Iran. For Gulf countries, "the optics of sending a message about a new security alliance, pushing the relationship with Israel out in the open and then sending a message to Iran, and in a way to the U.S. - that is the main priority," said Elham Fakhro, a Bahraini political analyst. In any case, she said, "They've found that there isn't much of a price to pay domestically."
Israel and other countries in the region are also working to formalize a communication system that will allow each partner to warn one another in real time about incoming drones from Iran and its proxies, according to a senior Israeli defense official. As American attention diverts elsewhere, Arab leaders have realized that Israel is a long-term partner, said Yoel Guzansky, an expert at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies.
The meeting is being held in the Negev desert town of Sde Boker on Sunday and Monday. The decision to hold the meeting in the Negev, rather than in Jerusalem, reflects how that city is still a highly delicate issue for Arab leaders. To attend a summit in Jerusalem was considered a bridge too far for Arab ministers.
Biden’s Israel Ambassador vs. Yitzhak Rabin on Israel’s Security
Nothing has changed in the last 26 years that would diminish Israel’s need to retain the areas referred to by Rabin. The topography of the region has, of course, not changed, and threats to Israel have hardly disappeared.
In contrast to his harsh words for Rabin’s position and that of all those who share what were Rabin’s concerns for Israel’s security, Nides sees little to criticize on the Palestinian side. He did express some displeasure with the Palestinian Authority’s “pay for slay” policy — its incentivizing of the wounding and killing of Israelis by providing often lavish financial rewards to Palestinian perpetrators and their families. But the practice apparently does not infuriate him, and among his articulated grievances against it was not concern for its victims, but rather, concern that the policy gives (in his words) “the haters” an excuse to oppose the PA.
Elsewhere, Nides expressed his gratification that “lots” of funds for the Palestinians are provided in the new American budget. These include what is now $219 million in economic support. The appropriations would seem to be in violation of America’s Taylor Force Act, which prohibited subsidizing the PA as long as it continues to divert millions in foreign donations to financing “pay for slay.” Perhaps Nides reserves his fury at this state-sponsored murder for the members of Congress who voted to no longer underwrite it.
Nor is Nides infuriated — despite his fervently asserted devotion to a two-state solution — by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’s repeatedly declared insistence that he will never recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state; that the Jews have no history in the area and no legitimate claims to it; and that their state must be expunged. No Palestinian leader talking of two states has ever accepted that one will be the Jewish state. But that apparently doesn’t bother Nides as much as Israel wanting defensible borders. Nor does Abbas’ complaining about Jews defiling the Temple Mount with “their filthy feet” get the ambassador’s dander up.
But Nides’s twisted morality — where he is outraged and where he is indulgent vis-à-vis the Palestinian-Israeli conflict — should not be surprising. He is, after all, the appointed representative of an administration that, in negotiations overseen by Yasser Arafat apologist Robert Malley, is about to give in excess of a hundred billion dollars and a path to a nuclear bomb to a regime that has repeatedly vowed to annihilate Israel.
Yair Lapid and Secretary of State Blinken pay respects at the grave of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister.
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) March 28, 2022
Ben-Gurion said, “History is not written - history is made.” The #NegevSummit is proof this is true. pic.twitter.com/tH154JL9Cb
Israel in the New Multipolar World Order
Perhaps there is another unexplored option: economic. In an essay for American Affairs, I recently made the case that the shift to a new multipolar world would likely cause the decline of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. If that is correct, Israel might have an opportunity to position itself as the Middle East's financial hegemon.
The Middle Eastern economy is a strange contradiction. It is awash with extravagant wealth but totally undeveloped. This is due to the region's massive oil wealth and autocratic political structures. While Israel is not the wealthiest country in the region, it is by far the most "Western." That is, the wealth is produced through investment and is distributed broadly throughout the population—as opposed to being extracted out of the soil and handed over to the elites.
Much Middle Eastern wealth currently washes through the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe. But as I argue in my essay, recent developments will lead these countries to diversify how they manage their wealth. Israel could be in a perfect position to take advantage. For one thing, the new shekel is a reliable currency—over the long term it tracks the U.S. dollar. Property rights are well-established in Israel and the political system is stable.
Where Israel really stands out against the rest of the region though is that it could, if it tried, develop a top-class financial sector. Culturally Israel is quite Westernized, so it would not be hard to attract top financial talent into the country to help build a sophisticated financial sector. This new financial sector could attract wealth from across the region and position Israel as the financial hub of the Middle East. This would drastically increase Israel's economic and diplomatic strength in the region.
The emerging world order will create opportunities for countries that are smart enough to take advantage of them. The broad theme will be economic and geopolitical decentralization. A multipolar world will still have polar regions, and the countries that will emerge stronger will be those that figure out a way to ensure they are close to the center of these regions.
I am not sure I have ever heard a more powerful 90 seconds than these words spoken by UAE foreign minister @ABZayed in Israel, today.
— Rev. Johnnie Moore ? (@JohnnieM) March 28, 2022
wow! pic.twitter.com/snJN7l6PRd
JPost Editorial: Negev Summit sees Israel enter new era
Although Blinken traveled to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and paid lip service to the two-state solution, to a certain extent, the summit is another sign of the “dehyphenation” between Israel and the diplomatic process with the Palestinians. There are more pressing concerns in the region than the Palestinian issue. Europe and the US might be slow in recognizing or acknowledging this, but countries in the Middle East are well aware of it.
Chief among the current concerns is Iran and the likelihood that a new nuclear deal with it, reviving the 2015 JCPOA, is imminent. The new deal along the old guidelines presents an even worse threat to Israel and the Gulf states.
It is not by chance that Bennett on Saturday tweeted a message to Riyadh saying: “The State of Israel expresses its sorrow to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia after the horrific attack by the Iranian-backed Houthis,” adding that it is “further proof that Iran’s regional aggression knows no bounds,” and saying it reinforces the concern about Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp being removed from the US Foreign Terrorist Organization list.
While Blinken reiterated America’s “iron-clad” commitment to Israel and said the US would not let Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, none of the countries being directly threatened by Tehran feel confident of America’s stand against a strengthened Shi’ite Islamic Republic. This week’s meeting demonstrates the regional realignment in which the Jewish state and the Sunni Muslim states are creating an unofficial bloc to deal with these and other common issues.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is also very much on the agenda, as its impact is also being felt in this region. Both the energy crisis and the expected shortages of wheat and other commodities are of immediate concern. Here, too, relations with the US and the Gulf have been strained. Part of the realignment we are witnessing is Israel taking center stage by providing the bridge between the US and the Arab countries, a role reversal to what we have seen in the past.
A meeting in Israel that includes top diplomats from four Arab countries would have been unimaginable just a couple of years ago. Israel is firmly on the diplomatic map. Against the backdrop of the Iranian threat and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which brought about the parley, the Negev Summit itself provides welcome room for optimism.
Statements Are Not Enough
Regional leaders are well aware of the fact that the old-new nuclear deal the Biden administration is about to ink with Tehran will provide the Islamic Republic with a legitimate path to a military nuclear program, afford it billions of dollars and bolster it militarily, economically and politically.The Changing Status of Israel's Closest Strategic Ally
Such an agreement will change the regional order and constitute an existential threat to multiple countries; prospects such that it is impossible to maintain a political routine that separates the Iranian issue from the other issues.
Washington’s concessions to Iran, as well as the hesitant US response to Iran’s demand to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from its terrorist blacklist, and the decision to exclude the Houthi rebels—who only last week attacked vital oil supply sites in Saudi Arabia—from that list provide good reasons for the skepticism that exists regarding US policy in the region.
For the summit to exceed the importance derived from its very existence, the United States must be able to convince Gulf leaders of its commitment to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, stopping its aggression and exacting a painful price from Tehran for sponsoring global terrorism by proxy.
It is likely that the Americans understand that they are expected to show that the summit was not called simply to sugarcoat the situation or mitigate criticism of their policies.
The statements made by the Biden administration are important, but they are not enough. The images of war in Ukraine are a stark reminder of their limited power. It is expected that the United States will learn this lesson with respect to Iran.
Even with this in mind, it is still difficult not to be moved by a photo of the foreign ministers of Egypt, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, standing alongside the US secretary of state and the Israeli foreign minister, near the grave of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, in Sde Boker.
The Abraham Accords are becoming tangible before our very eyes and their vision is blending into regional norms, reflecting hope and optimism, even in the face of troubling trends.
This past year has been a reflection of America's diminishing standing in the eyes of many Arab nations after a series of disastrous policy moves, beginning with the hurried withdrawal from Afghanistan, removal of the Houthi rebels in Yemen from the list of terror organizations, and the rushed efforts to renew a nuclear deal with Tehran.America is dismantling the pillars of its own empire - Saudi editor to 'Post'
There is a perceived indifference in Washington toward attacks targeting Sunni states in the Gulf by Iran and its proxies. Iran has also repeatedly struck American forces in Syria and Iraq. And now, the administration is seeking to elevate Qatar's status as a key regional ally despite its animosity towards neighboring Gulf states and support of terror organizations in the region.
The war in Ukraine has increased the distrust of America. The Arab world appears to be unimpressed by Western sanctions imposed on Russia, and is watching NATO's refusal to join the fight. The Sunni Arabs know they have no alternative strategic power to rely on, but recent White House policies make them wonder whether Washington would be willing to offer any assistance to them in times of trouble.
Seemingly nothing will deflect the White House from its goal. During the negotiations in Vienna, attacks from Iran have grown ever more brazen. Not even an attack by Iranian proxies on American forces in the Tanf region of Syria and repeated attacks on the American embassy in Iraq have deflected Biden from his goal of delivering hundreds of billions of dollars to the IRGC.Al Jazeera: U.S. Still Views Golan as Israeli Territory
The incoherence of this policy is stunning, as is the scale of the human and economic destruction it has already caused over the course of the past decade.
In Riyadh, it is not forgotten that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was followed swiftly by the rise of a Russian-Iranian alliance in Syria that leveled most of the major cities of that country and awarded Moscow with a military base on the Eastern Mediterranean – cementing Russia’s first foothold in the Middle East since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
When the Saudis protested Obama’s passivity, he told them they must “learn to share the region with Iran.” And it is not lost on America’s regional allies now that, even as Biden asks Saudi Arabia to raise oil production to help support the campaign against Russia over Ukraine, he is granting sanctions waivers to Russia so that it can continue to guarantee the nuclear deal with Iran that it helped broker — in part by husbanding Iran’s uranium reserves and protecting its underground nuclear facilities filled with illegal centrifuges spinning material for weapons.
Why should America’s regional allies help Washington contain Russia in Europe when Washington is strengthening Russia and Iran in the Middle East?
The guiding American assumption here, if there is one, is that the country’s old regional allies have little choice but to eat whatever is served to us for breakfast, and to eat it again for lunch. This assumption is arrogant and false.
While American policy is beset by baffling contradictions, Chinese policy is simple and straightforward. Beijing is offering Riyadh a simple deal: Sell us your oil and choose whatever military equipment you want from our catalogue; in return, help us to stabilize global energy markets. In other words, the Chinese are offering what increasingly appears modeled on the American-Saudi deal that stabilized the Middle East for 70 years.
What is not yet clear is whether the Chinese can be helpful in deterring Iran, or whether they share the American belief in “balance.” But Xi Jinping will visit Riyadh in May. It is a certainty that Saudi leaders will ask him if Iran’s rocketing of the oil facilities of the world’s most reliable oil producer is in the interest of China and, if not, can Beijing make stop?
Three years after former U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Israeli claims to the Golan Heights, the Biden administration has not reversed the decision.Abdullah: No more unilateral steps in Jerusalem or on Temple Mount
Since coming into office, President Joe Biden has avoided publicly endorsing U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, but has quietly kept the policy in place.
Israel captured the Golan in the 1967 war and formally annexed the territory in 1981.
After a media report claimed in June that the Biden administration was undoing Trump's decision, the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs explicitly said, "U.S. policy regarding the Golan has not changed, and reports to the contrary are false."
While a historic Arab-Israeli summit was taking place at Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah met in Ramallah. Abdullah's son, Crown Prince Hussein, accompanied his father.
A press release published in Palestinian media reported that Abbas told Abdullah that "We [Palestinians] and you [Jordanians] are one, Your Majesty, and actually Jordan and Palestine are one – one interest, and the same concerns and hopes.
"We always welcome your important visits, and this is a very important visit for consultations on what is happening. We do not forget that the Jordanian stance on the Palestinian issue is the Palestinian stance," Abbas said.
Abdullah was quoted as emphasizing that Jordan would always back its "Palestinian brothers and their rights," and continue to stand with them despite the many challenges.
"The region cannot enjoy security or stability without a just, comprehensive solution to the Palestinian issue, based on the two-state solution that promised the establishment of an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital."
Meanwhile in Ramallah, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Crown Prince Hussein greet PA President Mahmoud Abbas https://t.co/e5FhSw3Lou
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) March 28, 2022
What? Can't hear you from the party from the Peace Cruise. Only those interested in peace showed up. https://t.co/MmwcBW4lJW
— The Mossad: The Social Media Account (@TheMossadIL) March 27, 2022
— ???? ???? - Yair Lapid?? (@yairlapid) March 28, 2022
Washington's lost voice
[A briefer version of the opinion piece by Arnold Roth below was originally published by FORWARD on March 14, 2022 under the title "Israel set our daughter’s murderer free. We’re on a quest to hold her accountable". The text below includes additional hyperlinks and other content.]
In an airy apartment some 65 miles from our Jerusalem home lives a woman who has impacted our lives profoundly. My wife Frimet and I have spent years trying to get her imprisoned for the rest of her life.
On March 14, 2017, a little over five years ago, the Department of Justice in Washington charged Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi with “conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against US nationals outside the US, resulting in death.”
Her weapon of mass destruction was a human being: a man with an explosives-and-shrapnel-filled guitar-case on his back which he detonated while standing at the counter of a crowded Sbarro pizzeria in the commercial heart of Jerusalem on August 9. 2001, decapitating himself and destroying the bustling premises and everything inside.
Tamimi, who later called the massacre that killed 15, including seven children, “my operation” in one of her many triumphant social posts, selected the site, brought the bomb to its door and instructed the young zealot when and how to explode. By the time he did that, she had already fled to safety.
Some hours later in Ramallah, she presented the evening TV news at a Palestinian station where she had a night job. We weren’t watching.
It is owned by Jews. What makes it a Palestinian hotel? https://t.co/LZJF8vMDL4
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) March 27, 2022
Why I'm Suing Ben & Jerry’s
Requiring that I stop selling my ice cream to any customers—Palestinians or Israelis, Christians or Druze—based on where they live is illegal. That is why Ben & Jerry’s’ claim that this is not a boycott of Israel is disingenuous. Under the law, no one can lawfully do what Ben & Jerry’s is demanding I do. So unless Ben & Jerry’s finds someone willing to violate the law and go against Israeli and U.S. public policy, there will be no Ben & Jerry’s anywhere in Israel when my current license ends at the end of this year.
I proposed alternatives. I suggested having a Palestinian distributor handle distribution in the West Bank—a significant economic opportunity. But when Ben & Jerry’s learned that the distributor, naturally, wanted to increase sales in the territory, they nixed it. As they explained, we had to get the number of pints in the West Bank down to zero, because they were determined that Ben & Jerry’s ice cream not be sold, at all, in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
When I refused to bow to the boycott and to break the law, Unilever essentially fired me despite assuring me on multiple occasions that my contract would be renewed. Terminating my license solely because I refused to commit a crime is a violation of U.S. law. You cannot, as a condition of a contract, demand that a party do something illegal.
Even more upsetting is the hypocrisy. First, Unilever continues to sell thousands of its own products, including Hellman’s mayonnaise, Dove soap, and its own Magnum and Strauss ice creams, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Second, how can Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s look at themselves in the mirror? They speak about social justice yet are quick to throw hundreds of employees who have been loyal to the company for so many years under the bus. I refuse to abandon my people like that. And it is Palestinians who will be harmed the most. Today, a company is demanding that I stop providing ice cream to customers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but tomorrow it could be medicine or life-saving technology. Discrimination is wrong and treating human beings as political pawns is shameful.
I’m not the only one who recognizes what Unilever is doing is unlawful and misguided. Since the boycott was announced, Unilever has suffered innumerable blows. The state pension funds of New York, New Jersey, Florida, Illinois, Arizona and Texas have withdrawn nearly $1 billion in investments; members of Congress have urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate; and Terry Smith, one of Unilever's biggest investors, has slammed the company publicly for losing its way and focusing on political issues at the expense of financial performance.
I expected, after all this, that Unilever would recognize its mistake. But instead, after months of silence, the company recently claimed it is working on a “new arrangement” to remain in Israel—presumably without me or my employees. So I had no choice but to take them to court.
Earlier this month I sued Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s to stop them from shutting down my business and harming the people we have worked so hard all these years to support: my nearly 200 employees; hundreds of suppliers, distributors and farmers who rely on Ben & Jerry’s Israel; students who participate in coexistence programs we sponsor; and millions of consumers. If Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s sincerely desire to help, rather than harm all of these people, they will reverse their decision and renew my license.
Happy birthday to my brother and partner in crime @Ostrov_A! Wishing you the best possible, and beyond.
— Ido Daniel ???? (@IdoDaniel) March 27, 2022
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P.S. @benandjerrys & @Unilever we still don’t like you. ????
pic.twitter.com/g9CH5dywj6
Steven Salaita - The Canned Professor
Steven Salaita is a disgraced Professor from Washington D.C. who lost two teaching positions at different Universities after his atrocious antisemitic social media posts were exposed.
In 2014, Salaita became the focus of a national controversy after the University of Illinois at Urbana rescinded an offer of a tenured position of professor of American Indian Studies following the revelation of Salaita's tweets regarding the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teenagers. Salaita's tweet read "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing." Salaita claimed his statement wasn't antisemitic but his words clearly incite violence against Jews.
In 2015, Salaita was hired as the Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut. After just one year he was dismissed from the position as news about his controversy from the University of Illinois at Urbana surfaced. Salaita later complained on social media that he was forced to become a bus driver to make ends meet.
Losing two teaching positions didn't deter Salaita from continuing his demonization of the Jewish state, backing the antisemitic Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and supporting known terrorists.
In 2018, he alleged that pro-Palestinian speech is being censored and went on an antisemitic tantrum on Twitter:
"Zionists insist that Israel doesn't just shoot unarmed demonstrators. They're right. Israel also shoots journalists and doctors."
"Israel practices anti-Black racism. Israel brutalizes migrant workers. Israel oppresses Muslims."
"The USA and Israel both dispossess Indigenous nations, brutalize Black people, imprison children, torture dissidents, cosset dictators, arm reactionaries, abuse protestors, elect racists, and demand to be seen as avatars of virtue. #SharedValues."
Salaita also outrageously compared himself to convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh who was involved in a terror bombing that resulted in the death of two young Jewish students. Fanning over the cold-blooded murderer, Salaita claimed that like Odeh, he's being prosecuted and tweeted a photo of himself with Odeh stating "I was lucky enough to meet a true hero tonight..."
Tomorrow Edinburgh Council votes on twinning with Gaza
— David Collier (@mishtal) March 28, 2022
Last night I received a racist email from the proposer. He ridiculed me, Jews & denied the Holocaust
I forwarded it to the @Edinburgh_CC Councillors
Tomorrow we'll see if they've any morals
I'll publish all after the vote
Prof. Phyllis Chesler: The politics of the lentil in the New York Times
I have been reading the New York Times all my life. Once, I fervently believed in it. That is no longer possible given their unbalanced and defamatory coverage of Israel and Jews. I do not write about such coverage very often anymore—I’ve already done so hundreds of times—but every so often, something crosses even their (or my) “red line” and I’m compelled to say something.Bay Area Anti-Zionist groups sponsor talk with member of Israeli Knesset
This week's Sunday magazine (3/27) in the “Eat” column, describes a recipe for lentils. It includes lentils, cumin, onion, cilantro, flour, garlic, oil, etc. All very familiar ingredients. It is titled “Humble Beginnings: In the Middle Eastern dish rqaq w adas, the simple lentil becomes pageantry on the plate.” So far, so good. There is a photograph of the dish which looks absolutely luscious. It draws me in.
The piece is by Ligaya Mishan, who grew up in Hawaii. This is her inaugural column. Mishan tells us that this lentil dish “has its origins in thrift. As the Palestinian artist and chef Mirna Bamieh explains, it was traditionally a way to use scraps of dough left over from baking bread. Bamieh was “born in Jerusalem” but did not “grow up eating at home…she found it later in life when she began to research the cuisine of her heritage in 2017…she was worried about what was being lost in the fragmentation of life under occupation.”
Bamieh then interviewed individual families, one after the other, in order to document their cooking practices and “repeated displacements.” Bamieh went on to found The Palestine Hosting Society, a platform which has allowed her to politicize her otherwise quite creative “staged dinner performances.” In her own words, in “This Week in Palestine,” in a piece titled “Rooted in the Future,”here’s what Bamieh says she’s about:
Yesterday, some of the most extreme anti-Israel groups in the Bay Area got together to sponsor a talk by an Israeli member of the Knesset.Instagram Reverses Ban on Anti-Israel Group Without Explanation
In a gesture of startling hypocrisy, If Americans Knew, Sabeel, Arab Resource Organizing Center, Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, CAIR, Al Awda and others ignored their own established policies against "normalization" and hosted a member of Israel's government.
Oh, but he wasn't a Jew. That matters, apparently. These extremists hosted Sami Abu Shehadeh, a member of Israel's Knesset member of the representing the Arab nationalist party, Balad. If you ever had a doubt that BDS and the movement to isolate Israel economically, politically and socially was directed solely toward Jews, now you have evidence.
The very presence of of Sami Abu Shehadeh within the Israeli government negates the claims of these groups that assert that Israel is an "apartheid" state.Incidentally, although Jewish Voice for Peace has, on paper at least, denounced white supremacist Alison Weir, they had no trouble promoting and co-sponsoring this event with her and her group "If Americans Knew". So much for that "formal policy".
Arabs make up nearly 20% of Israel’s population. They have full citizenship, including the right to vote, and have a major presence in the fields of medicine, academia and in government. Whatever these groups original intention was in sponsoring Sami Abu Shejadeh, it was lost in translation. The event only served to shine a spotlight on the hypocrisy and the falacies of their own movement.
“We’re back:” After a four-day ban from the social media platform, those words overlaid a picture of Within Our Lifetime (WOL) leader Nerdeen Kiswani in a March 13 Instagram post.Wes Streeting: NUS at ‘one of the lowest points in its history’ over Jewish students
WOL’s detractors, who applauded Instagram’s decision to ban what they said is not only an anti-Zionist group but “an extremely antisemitic” one, said they were dismayed by what amounted to a wrist slap for WOL. Its account had been taken down after it posted a collage of terrorist women on March 8 in celebration of International Women’s Day.
Liora Rez, executive director of StopAntisemitism.org, told JNS, “I’m extremely disappointed. We have reached out to our contacts [at Instagram], and we have not yet received a reply as to why they were reinstated.” Rez’s group had been one of those petitioning to have WOL’s Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts taken down.
She said “we think behind the scenes, either CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations[ and possibly Palestine Legal, which works hand-in-hand with them, might have stepped in to get their accounts reinstated, perhaps under the guise of free speech. We do know for a fact that Nerdeen Kiswani is represented by Palestine Legal. So we think that’s what happened.”
Rez said that Instagram’s failure to respond to their requests for an explanation is “sadly, pretty standard. Social media companies are notoriously known for not being transparent. Whether it’s watchdog groups like us, congressional members, law enforcement—it’s an ongoing battle with them. So we’re not surprised that this is happening, unfortunately.”
Labour’s Wes Streeting has insisted the National Union of Students has reached “one of its lowest points in its history” over the current crisis in relations with Jewish students.BBC referred to Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel 16 times since promising to stop error
The shadow health secretary, himself a former president of the NUS, told Jewish News that he believed “Corbynism has left a long legacy, including poisoning the well of the student movement.
Streeting, who was out campaigning for his party in Barnet on Sunday ahead the May local elections, added that in his view “Jewish students are being failed completely by the tin-eared response from the NUS leadership.”
Elected NUS president in 2008, Streeting said that since becoming the Ilford North MP he had tried not to provide a running commentary on the student body because “it is for each generation of leaders to set their priorities.”
But he continued: “I just don’t feel I can stay silent when you have got such obvious problems.”
And in a direct message to the current NUS leadership he said: “It should never be for the Union of Jewish Students to fight antisemitism alone.
“I would appeal to student unions who ultimately call the shots in the NUS, whether in policy terms, or the people they elect to lead the organisation.
“Student unions need to really get a grip on this and take NUS back.”
Asked how much of what has happened to the NUS in relation to Jewish students was a legacy of the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, which oversaw the closure of moderate organisations such as Labour Students, Streeting said: “I think Corbynism has left a long legacy including poisoning the well of the student movement.
The BBC’s Arabic service has repeatedly referred to Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel rather than Jerusalem, despite having promised to avoid what critics have called a “politicised” error.BBC’s Knell once again sidesteps PA payments for terrorism
The broadcaster has made the mistake on 16 occasions since it made the pledge in January 2021.
Media-monitoring organisation CAMERA Arabic had collated 12 previous instances from before that time.
The BBC acknowledged to the watchdog: “The Israeli government should not be referred to in our output as ‘Tel Aviv’.”
It is a common journalistic practice to use a nation’s capital city to denote its centre of government.
Some critics of Israel have disputed the legitimacy of Jerusalem as the country’s capital. However, the city is the site of the Knesset and all the main arms of government.
In an email sent to CAMERA, seen by the JC, the BBC acknowledged previous instances of the mistake in its Arabic-language output, promising it had corrected them and taken “internal action with the journalist who edited the piece”. The corporation also claimed to have reminded “all staff” about its impartiality guidelines.
Jamal al Nawati [or a-Nawati] is the boy’s uncle. Knell does not explain why she interviewed him rather than the boy’s parents. When the same story was covered by Nurit Yohanan for Israel’s public broadcaster Kan 11 in early February, it was reported that “because the official request was submitted too close to the date of the treatment, Israel in the beginning did not approve his exit [from the Gaza Strip] and the second request was rejected by the Palestinian hospital itself. When he arrived in Nablus after a month, the real trouble began”.Guardian's Jerusalem reporter has ignored months of Palestinian terror
Salim was refused treatment by the hospital in Nablus, the Augusta Victoria and al Makassed hospitals in Jerusalem because of Palestinian Authority debts to those hospitals. A commission of inquiry set up by the PA ministry of health found that the hospital managers were responsible, along with “the MoH Department for Treatment Abroad, Medical Patient Transfer System”.
Knell’s reports note the scale of the debts owed to one of the hospitals concerned, Augusta Victoria:
“…the main cancer centre for the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip has been refusing new patients. Some 500 have been turned away since September 2021.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) – which is supposed to fund their medical care – owes the hospital some $72m (£55m; 65m euros). This has left it unable to afford the expensive drugs needed for chemotherapy and other treatments.”
In all of McKernan’s reports since early December, the only time she even mentioned any of these attacks was in a Dec. 19th article about Israeli settler violence. The two sentences were buried in the 13th paragraph of the 1545 word article:McGill Daily Repeats Anti-Israel Talking Points in News Report
The Palestinians can also turn to violence. Earlier this week, gunmen ambushed a car with Israeli license plates as it left Homesh in the northern West Bank, killing a 25-year-old and wounding two others.
So, since Dec. 1st, 2021, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent has devoted 34 words, in total, to the issue of Palestinian terror over the course of 15 terror events. Further, though, in previous years, the Guardian would sometimes publish wire service reports (from AP, AFP or Reuters) on Palestinian terror attacks if their Jerusalem correspondent wasn’t available at the time, no such wire service reports on the terror incidents listed above were published.
As we observed in a post in December, we’ve written about McKernan for years prior to her Guardian appointment – when she was the Middle East correspondent for the Independent, and we documented her egregious pro-Palestinian bias. The recent failure of McKernan and her editors to report on Palestinian terrorism – and the impact such racist-inspired violence has on Israeli-Palestinian relations – is another reflection of the Guardian’s institutional hostility to Israel and (at best) indifference to antisemitism.
Across the Western world, university and college campuses are notorious for their anti-Israel activities. From Israel Apartheid Week programs and BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) resolutions, as well as campus media, activists have frequently turned the post-secondary marketplace of ideas into a cacophony of anti-Israel disinformation.New York State’s stalled Holocaust education bill is given new boost by sponsor
The Students Society of McGill University (SSMU), the official body representing students at Montreal’s McGill University, has long engaged in this anti-Israel activism, but it seems their luck may have run out.
The SSMU recently proposed an anti-Israel referendum on campus, which culminated in a successful March 21 vote in favour. The referendum called on the student union to publicly reaffirm each semester “the SSMU’s solidarity with Palestinian students and with Palestinian liberation from settler-colonial apartheid.”
Fortunately, the university administration pushed back, with Fabrice Labeau, Deputy Provost of Student Life and Learning, demanding that the SSMU take “remedial action” against the anti-Israel resolution.
As welcome and powerful as McGill University’s push back against the SSMU is, there is another malicious actor on campus which frequently demonizes Israel: the McGill Daily.
The McGill Daily, an independent student newspaper, recently covered a public demonstration on campus against the university’s criticism of the SSMU’s recent resolution, but rather than straightforward coverage of the dispute between the university and the student union, author Saylor Catlin simply repeated the talking points of anti-Israel student groups on campus.
State Senator Anna Kaplan (D-Great Neck) brought a Holocaust exhibit to Albany last week to draw attention to a bill that would deepen and expand Holocaust education in the state.New ADL Report Urges Action Against ‘Fanatically Antisemitic’ Scandinavian Neo-Nazi Organization
The bill would provide oversight into how the Holocaust is taught in schools across all of New York State.
The bill, currently before the Senate Education Committee, stalled in the legislature last year over debate whether it should include other topics, including slavery and the Irish Potato Famine.
New York is one of 23 states requiring schools to teach the Holocaust, but a study by the Claims Conference in 2020 revealed New Yorkers ages 18-39 have a lack of awareness and understanding of the Holocaust.
Twenty percent believed that Jews caused the Holocaust, 28% believed the Holocaust is a myth or exaggerated and 58% were unable to name a concentration camp.
According to the study, New York ranked 41st among 50 states based on the percentage of Millenials and Gen Z adults who met the study’s Holocaust awareness criteria.
The bill directs the state commissioner of education to conduct studies on how the Holocaust is being taught in school districts. The findings would then be delivered to the governor and other senators and Assembly members.
The Holocaust exhibition shown last week at the New York State Capitol included 40 education panels that have already been displayed across the world.
A new report into the activities of a violent Scandinavian neo-Nazi organization has urged governments in the region to “contain” the threat it poses by working across national borders.'I became toxic molten lava': LA music journalist reveals how she was canceled by woke mob after she blasted BLM for vandalizing LA synagogues during George Floyd protests
The report into the activities of Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) was published on Monday by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Expo Foundation — an anti-racist NGO based in Sweden, where the NRM is registered as a political party.
The “fanatically antisemitic” NRM had made hatred of Jews “the centerpiece of its propaganda and its activism,” the report said.
“What is so alarming about the Nordic Resistance Movement is its obsession with violence and its antisemitic core beliefs,” Sharon Nazarian, ADL Senior Vice President of International Affairs, said in an accompanying statement. “Their name refers to its belief that it is fighting a war of resistance against Jews and they have held hundreds of combat training sessions in preparation for what they claim will be the overthrow of European democracies.”
The report noted that in 2020, NRM activists distributed propaganda materials in all of Sweden’s 290 municipalities. In the same year, viciously antisemitic posters and stickers appeared at several synagogues on Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day, their purpose to “make the Nordic people aware of foreign customs and Zionist ruling plans throughout the Nordic region,” according to the NRM. As a result of those outrages, Aron Verständig — chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Sweden — called for a region-wide ban on the organization.
A rising-star journalist has shared how she was canceled by her colleagues and the internet for blasting BLM for vandalizing synagogues during summer 2020.Broadcaster Angela Epstein reveals her son was rounded upon for wearing skullcap
Eve Barlow was enjoying a soaring career as a music writer, with the journalist - who is Scottish, gay and Jewish - once told she was 'magic' by a senior editor for the quality of her copy.
But Barlow - who was on track to become one of New York magazine's star writers - says she was shunned after blasting BLM vandalism days after George Floyd's murder.
Recalling the editor who branded her abilities 'magic,' she wrote for Common Sense with Bari Weiss: 'Well, I was. But now that I was a “racist,” none of that was real.'
The tweet that saw Barlow was posted four days after Floyd's killing in Minneapolis, on May 31 2020.
She wrote: 'Woke up to see that synagogues in LA have been graffiti'd during the riots with the words FREE PALESTINE and F*** ISRAEL, and that dua lipa is spreading antisemitic posts on her IG feed,' she wrote in the tweet in May 2020. 'how dare you bring the jewish nation and community into the killing of black american lives.'
Barlow wrote on Common Sense that she wished she could keep her mouth shut for the sake of her career, but that she could no longer remain silent.
'Me being me I can never keep my mouth shut, even when I really wish I could, and I put my foot in it,' she wrote. 'I tweeted, “How dare you,” and all hell break loose.'
Since then, Barlow has faced a barrage of online hate. Editors stopped replying to her emails. Staff and fellow writers unfollowed her on social media.
The journalist and broadcaster Angela Epstein appeared on the most recent episode of Podcast Against Antisemitism where she revealed that her son was nearly assaulted by three men after they had seen him wearing his skullcap, or kippah.Making history: the achievements of Zionism studied in the UAE
When Ms Epstein was asked by our host whether she was surprised that polling by Campaign Against Antisemitism showed that a shocking 46% of British Jews said that they do not display visible signs of their Judaism due to antisemitism, she replied that she was not.
“Antisemitism is the oldest hatred documented in terms of people’s disregard, hatred, dislike for cultures that they feel are alien to them,” Ms Epstein said. “I completely understand why in certain circumstances, loathe as we are to admit it considering our history, that people would want to not display their Jewish credentials.”
Ms Epstein went on to reveal that the issue of Jewish visibility was a personal one to her after her son was nearly attacked.
“One of my kids was rounded upon by three Arab-speaking men when he was travelling recently in Europe. They were staying in the same place…the night before they had seen him and he wasn’t wearing his kippah and they were perfectly friendly. And the next day, when they saw him and he was, they rounded upon him,” Ms Epstein said.
She added: “Fortunately, the German police were very good and they have since been arrested.”
Ms Epstein stated that the incident was an example of what happens “when you display your Judaism in certain situations,” adding: “There are lots of people who are amenable and reasonable but equally, it’s an age-old hatred and we still haven’t found out why they don’t like us.”
For the first time since the signing of the Abraham Accords, an Israeli research book has been published in Abu Dhabi. The UAE's largest public research institute, the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, has published Zionism in Arab Discourse by Prof. Uriya Shavit, Head of the Religious Studies Program and the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, both at the Entin Faculty of Humanities at Tel Aviv University, and Dr. Ofir Winter, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies. Translated into Arabic at the initiative of Egyptian Rami Abd el-Hai Kabil, this is the first Hebrew research book ever published in the UAE.10,000 have immigrated to Israel in wake of Russian invasion of Ukraine — ministry
Initially published in Hebrew in 2013 by HaKibbutz HaMeuchad Publishing House and in English in 2016 by the Manchester University Press, the book has aroused considerable interest. Its main thesis is that, alongside animosity towards Zionism and Israel, quite a number of Arab thinkers since the end of the 19th century, including members of the Muslim Brothers, have regarded various aspects of the Zionist enterprise as models which the Arab world should also adopt. Arab texts noted by the book glorify a range of Zionist qualities, such as Israeli democracy, the figures of Herzl and Ben Gurion, the status of women in Israeli society, the revival of the Hebrew language, relations between Israel and the Jewish diaspora, and the achievements of Israeli science and academia.
Since the establishment of the State of Israel, dozens of Israeli books have been translated into Arabic, but most were published without the author's consent or any copyright agreements. In contrast, the publication of the book by Prof. Shavit and Dr. Winter two weeks ago in Abu Dhabi was based on a binding copyright contract – attesting to the warm peace prevailing between the two countries.
Sasha Zlobjn from Kharkiv, Ukraine, is the 10,000th person to immigrate to Israel from the former Soviet Union since Russia invaded Ukraine last month, as of Monday afternoon, the Immigration and Absorption Ministry said.2022 Demographic Update: Israel’s Solid Jewish Majority
Zlobjn arrived in Israel with his grandparents on Monday, fleeing the brutal flighting in Kharkiv, on a flight with dozens of other Ukrainian refugees.
“I fled Kharkiv with my grandmother and grandfather, but unfortunately my parents stayed there. It was an exhausting trip that ended with this nice reception,” Zlobjn told immigration officials, according to the ministry.
More than two-thirds of the 10,000 people who have immigrated to Israel in the past month have come from Ukraine, according to the ministry. The rest have come from Russia and Belarus. As the government considers all of these immigrants from the former Soviet Union as fleeing humanitarian crises — the war in Ukraine and increased repression in Russia and Belarus — the ministry has taken to lumping all of them in one group for the purposes of its statistics.
Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata hailed the massive wave of immigration from Ukraine, but acknowledged that it is driven by “difficult circumstances.”
“The State of Israel sees this as its hour of need, and there is great national and governmental effort toward the absorption of immigrants,” Tamano-Shata told the 90 Ukrainian refugees who arrived on Zlobjn’s flight.
Israeli officials have estimated that tens of thousands of people from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus will immigrate to Israel in the coming weeks and months in light of the war.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, in 2022 Israel is not facing a potential Arab demographic time bomb in the combined areas of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and pre-1967 Israel. In fact, the Jewish state enjoys a robust Jewish demographic tailwind.
The political and demographic establishment in Israel and the West persist in blindly echoing official Palestinian population figures, ignoring an artificial 50% inflation. In 2022, Israel is the only Western democracy with a relatively high fertility rate, which facilitates further economic growth with no reliance on migrant labor.
Moreover, Israel’s thriving demography provides for bolstered national security (larger classes of recruits) and a more confident foreign policy.
In 2022, for the first time — in defiance of projections made by Israel’s demographic establishment since the early 1940s — Israel’s Jewish fertility rate exceeds its Muslim fertility rate. Indeed, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than that of all Arab countries other than Yemen, Iraq and Egypt.
Moreover, Israel is currently facing a potential wave of aliyah (Jewish immigration) of some 500,000 immigrants from Ukraine, Russia, other former Soviet republics, France, Britain, Germany, etc.
The ongoing Westernization of Arab demography is a derivative of modernity, urbanization, women’s enhanced social status and enrollment in higher education, and increased use of contraceptives.
In 2022, the Jewish demographic momentum (since 1995) persists, with the secular Jewish sector making the difference, while the ultra-Orthodox experience a slight decline in fertility rate.
