Tuesday, October 11, 2022

10/11 Links: The Palestinian illusion; Israel walked into a Lebanese trap; IDF soldier Ido Baruch killed in drive-by shooting; Kanye spews hate speech against Jews on Twitter

From Ian:

The Palestinian illusion
Prime Minister Yair Lapid has recently announced his vision at the United Nations for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the two-state solution.

While many lauded Lapid, including President Joe Biden, a policy recommendation based on an illusion is unlikely to succeed. The idea that Jewish and Arab states will coexist peacefully is widespread in contemporary academic and political circles but ignores the reality on the ground.

Unfortunately, a stable and peaceful outcome per the two-state solution is unlikely to emerge soon for two reasons: the Palestinian Arab and the Zionist national movements are not close to reaching a historic compromise, and the Palestinians have proven themselves unable to build a state.

The two are too far apart when it comes to the core issues – Jerusalem, refugees, and borders – and bridging the differences appears impossible. Israel's positions have hardened since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 and the intermittent Palestinian terror after the Gaza Strip became a launching pad for thousands of missiles aimed at Israeli civilians after 2007.

At this juncture, Palestinian society, under the spell of a nationalist and Islamic ethos, is unable to reach a compromise with the Zionist movement. Recent polls (March 2022) show that two-thirds of the Palestinians say Israel is an apartheid state, and 73% believe the Koran contains a prophecy about the demise of the State of Israel. The current Palestinian education system and official media incite hatred of Jews, who are blamed for all Palestinian misfortunes.

Indeed, Palestinian rejectionism won the day whenever a concrete partition was on the agenda, such as the one offered by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000 or the one proposed by former premier Ehud Olmert in 2007. Even the "moderate" Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas rejects the idea that Israel should be a Jewish state. Any Palestinian state will be dissatisfied with its borders and intent on using force to attain its goals.

Finally, the two dueling societies still have the energy to battle and, more significantly, to absorb the anguish required to achieve their respective political objectives. Nationalism inspires people to endure pain and hardship during national wars. Often, societal exhaustion – rather than an opportunity for an optimal compromise – ends protracted ethnic conflict. If pain is the most influential factor on the learning curve of societies, it seems that Israelis and Palestinians have not suffered enough to settle.
JPost Editorial: The Palestinians must lay down their weapons to achieve peace
What has been going on in the West Bank in recent weeks is an example of what happens when the Palestinian Authority neglects its responsibility and decides to allow terrorist groups to thrive, to accumulate illegal arms and to operate with impunity.

Israel prefers not to have to enter places like Jenin or Nablus but – as Israeli officials have repeatedly declared – they will continue to do so as long as intelligence shows brewing threats. This was the case on Yom Kippur, a time that the IDF usually rests, when soldiers went into a town near Nablus to apprehend a wanted terrorist suspect.

And while the PA claims it is concerned with the ongoing violence and the activities of armed groups that do not heed its authority, President Mahmoud Abbas has not been taking harsh action to rein in those armed men.

Many of the gunmen are said to be affiliated with Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Palestinian leadership is particularly worried that the current security deterioration could prompt the IDF to launch a large-scale military offensive similar to 2002’s Operation Defensive Shield, which resulted in the deaths of dozens of gunmen in Jenin and Nablus.

Israel might in the end need to launch such an operation. If Abbas truly wants to prevent that from happening, he will need to be more forceful and take more aggressive steps within the PA and the cities it controls to stop the violence.

It was the late Golda Meir – Israel’s prime minister 49 years ago – who famously said, “If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.”

Five decades later, this statement still rings true and will continue to be the case until Palestinians decide that they prefer a different life, one of peace, prosperity and coexistence.

They do not have to look far. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco are three Arab countries that decided two years ago to set aside differences, to reconcile and to normalize relations with Israel. While the peace with Jordan and Egypt is not warm, there still is peace, and those treaties are pillars of stability in this volatile region.

The Palestinians can have the same. They just have to decide that a better future is what they want.
Johnathan Tobin: Israel walked into a Lebanese trap
Unfortunately, however, the Americans clearly hope that strong-arming Israel in order to help Iran-proxy Hezbollah – which will presumably profit, directly or indirectly, from Lebanon's natural-gas business – will influence its masters in Tehran to stop stalling and sign a new, and even weaker, nuclear deal with the West.

If this happens after more humiliating US concessions to Iran in the negotiations that will likely resume after the midterms, it ought to get Iranian oil flowing freely to the West. That could impact the price of oil in the long term and help the Democrats' efforts to hold onto the White House in 2024, even if it also guarantees that the Iranians will eventually obtain a nuclear weapon. It will also constitute a betrayal of the courageous demonstrators who have taken to the streets in Iranian cities to resist the theocratic regime.

Lapid walked into this trap because he is committed to a strategy of avoiding public disputes with Biden at all costs. For months, as the Americans moved closer to an agreement with Iran that he knew was antithetical to any notion of protecting the security of Israel or its Arab allies, he spoke of trying to influence the US not to go down the path of appeasement.

Iran's hardline stance in negotiations momentarily seemed to vindicate him. Yet, when Biden gave him his marching orders on Lebanon, he appeared to have believed that he had no choice but to blindly obey.

Seen from this perspective, it's clear that Lapid was not so much surrendering to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as he was to Biden, though the blow to Israel's national interests was much the same.

It remains to be seen whether Biden will tolerate, even if only for the five weeks until the election, Lapid's act of political survival in moving away from the Lebanon pact that the US administration has ordered him to accept. What is obvious, however, is that Lapid has not yet learned what Netanyahu came to understand during the course of his 15 years as prime minister.

Managing relations with Israel's sole superpower ally is the nation's top foreign-policy priority. And though doing so is vitally important, Washington can't be allowed to dictate to its small Israeli ally. The true measure of an Israeli prime minister's diplomatic acumen is not how close he can stay to an American president. The real test is showing that a premier can say "no" to the Americans when it's absolutely necessary, as it was with respect to the natural-gas-fields dispute.

Lapid failed that test. Biden and his team now understand how far they can push him, even when Israeli security is on the line. That's a fatal flaw in any leader.


Expert: 'Hezbollah now overrides Israel's democracy'
Professor Eugene Kontorovich on Tuesday slammed the agreement with Lebanon, saying that the Hezbollah terror group is now overriding Israel's democracy.

Prof. Kontorovich is an expert on International Maritime Law and Director of International Law at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum which petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court against the maritime deal with Lebanon.

"The agreement to cede territory to Lebanon certainly involves territory Israel has claimed as its sovereign territory," Prof. Kontorovich said. "This is the first time Israel has ceded territory over which it has declared sovereignty (unlike Sinai, Gaza, etc). This is the first time an Israeli government gives away territory without the support of the Knesset, and the first time a minority government does so."

"Transferring any national territory requires Knesset approval in Israeli law, as well as the constitutions of countries from the US to Egypt. The reason the government claims it must do this now, before elections or a Knesset vote, is that this is Hezbollah's demand to prevent war.

"This means Hezbollah now overrides Israel's democracy."
Report: Lapid ignored Attorney General's recommendation for Lebanon deal
Israel's Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara on Thursday recommended at a Cabinet meeting that the maritime agreement with Lebanon be brought for a Knesset vote.

Baharav-Miara explained that it would be worthwhile to bring the agreement for the Knesset's approval due to the fact that the current government is a caretaker government, and the agreement is irreversible. She added that the Knesset's vote would strengthen the government's position against appeals submitted to the Supreme Court against the deal.

According to Globes, Israel's caretaker prime minister, Yair Lapid, rejected Baharav-Miara's stance and decided to place the agreement on the Knesset table, but not hold a vote on it. On Wednesday, the government will vote according to Lapid's position to present the agreement to the Knesset without a vote.

Baharav-Miara will defend Lapid's position if she is required to do so by the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Otzma Yehudit chairman MK Itamar Ben-Gvir has announced that he will appeal to the Supreme Court against the agreement, since the deal, as he called it, is "underhanded opportunism."

"In addition to the fact that this agreement is an embarrassing capitulation, it is also an illegal agreement. Basic Law: Referendum requires that the transfer of territory from the State's sovereignty to foreign sovereignty must pass a referendum, or pass with the approval of 80 MKs," Ben-Gvir said.

"In the current situation, Lapid and [Defense Minister Benny] Gantz (National Unity) are trying to do this quickly and pass the agreement, which includes the transfer of sovereign areas, from Israel's hands to Lebanon, by means of a decision by a caretaker government on the eve of elections.

"We will not allow this underhanded opportunism to take place, and we will submit an urgent appeal to the Supreme Court, demanding that they stop this illegal agreement - immediately."
Netanyahu calls Lebanon maritime agreement 'historic surrender'

What is in the Israel-Lebanon maritime border agreement?
Washington will provide a written guarantee for the maritime border agreement between Israel and Lebanon, a source involved in Israel’s side of the negotiations said on Tuesday.

The main points in the agreement, according to the source, are that the "buoys line," a physical obstacle in the Mediterranean Sea extending out 5 km from the Israel-Lebanon border, will be recognized as the status quo which could only be changed in an agreement between Lebanon and Israel.

The entire area of dispute will be considered Lebanese waters, in accordance with the map Lebanon submitted in 2012, up to what is known as line 23, not the extended triangle that Lebanon demanded in late 2020, known as line 29.

In addition, Israel will receive royalties from TotalEnergies' income from the Kana Reservoir, which reached from Lebanese waters, across the entire area in dispute, and into Israel.

Israel and the French company will continue to negotiate a side deal to protect Israeli economic interests, in which Israel will be paid in proportion to its part of the natural gas field.

Total will not be able to begin developing Kana until it reaches an agreement with Israel.
Israel's gas deal is not suitcases of cash and not a surrender -comment
The Lebanese deal is different for a few reasons: First, there is a royalty that Israel will receive that could amount to billions of dollars, assuming that there is even gas under the waters that are being declared as part of Lebanon’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The president of TotalEnergies, which has the license from Lebanon to explore the zone, arrived in Beirut on Tuesday, a sign that now with a deal in place, work can begin.

Starkly different than Hamas cash payments
The second reason this is starkly different than Hamas cash payments, is because of who is receiving the EEZ. It is not Hezbollah. On the contrary - Hezbollah has been able to take credit for Iran’s supply of fuel that helps provide a few hours a day of electricity in Lebanon. Once there is an operational gas rig, Iran will no longer be needed.

This breaks the dependence on Iran and removes one of the reasons the Lebanese look to Hezbollah as its provider.

In addition, this deal – assuming gas is even found – will see the establishment of a gas rig within the Lebanese EEZ not too far from the Karish gas rig that will soon begin pumping gas to the shore. This creates a deterrence and an asset that Lebanon can potentially lose if Israel is attacked.

And finally, this deal has the potential to boost Lebanon’s economy, a clear Israeli interest. Israel is doing the right thing trying to avoid war with a minimum cost. Giving up on economic rights that may or may not be worth something is a price worth paying to prevent war and create regional stability.

While this is far from being a peace deal with Lebanon, the uproar by some on the Right over a surrender of territory is disingenuous. EEZ is not territory. It is the right to exploit natural resources. Giving up that right is economic, especially when taking into consideration the fact that under the deal, Israel is supposed to receive royalties from Total.

This is the position of top Israeli legal experts, including people like Col. (ret.) Pnina Sharvit Baruch, the former head of the international law department in the Military Advocate General’s Office. Sharvit Baruch’s job was to approve targeted attacks in places like Gaza and potentially Lebanon. Her opinion matters.

Nevertheless, there are some so-called maritime experts who claim that Israel is surrendering territory. That would be the case if Israel has given up water within 12 nautical miles of its territory – not yet known – as the former commander of the navy Eliezer Marom explained on Tuesday.
MEMRI: Marking The Anniversary Of Saladin's Conquest Of Jerusalem, Muslim Intellectuals, Islamists Express Hope, Conviction That Muslims Will Reconquer Jerusalem
On October 2, 2022, hundreds of Muslim intellectuals and Islamists online marked the anniversary of the 1187 conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin, the Muslim sultan of Egypt and Syria who took the city from the Crusaders. Many of those who commented on the anniversary circulated videos and posters produced by the Qatar-based-and-funded TV channel Al-Jazeera marking the anniversary and providing historical details about the conquest. In recent years, the channel has taken to marking historical Islamic conquests, especially by Qatar's Islamist ally Turkey, on social media. As they marked the anniversary, the users expressed their hope and conviction that Muslims will take over Jerusalem again sooner or later.

Commenting on an Al-Jazeera poster about Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem, titled "Saladin enters Jerusalem as a liberator and conqueror," Secretary-General Of The International Union Of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) 'Ali Al-Qaradaghi tweeted: "In the anniversary of our grandfather Saladin. Today, the policy of arrogance backs the dancing in our sacred places, the distorting of our creeds and when a war takes place, they threaten to strike with chemical [weapons], which they have done and waged a first and a second world war and they are beating the drums of a third war in the world despite its wealth of knowledge, it is still in need of a richness of conscience. Show us one of you who is like our Saladin."[1]

In another tweet, Dr. Al-Qaradaghi stressed that "Allah's promise that Al-Quds will be liberated will definitely take place" and he reminded the reader that while the Muslims were divided during Saladin's time, he managed to unite them and return them to their Sunni identity.[2]

On October 3, 2022, Algerian veteran Al-Jazeera anchor Khadija Benguennak shared an Al-Jazeera poster titled "The Liberation Of Al-Aqsa" and commented "The anniversary of the liberation of the city of Jerusalem by Muslim commander Saladin. [The Islamic] ummah generates resistance fighters, activists, and conquerors. With Allah's promise, it will generate pious men of the kind of Saladin."[3]

Qatari prominent writer Jaber Al-Harami, who has over 900,000 followers on Twitter mentioned Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem in a tweet in which he used the hashtag "the promise of the hereafter," which is a reference to Quran 17:107: "And We said to the Israelites after him: Dwell in the land: and when the promise of the next life shall come to pass, we will bring you both together in judgment." He then wrote: "The situation in the city of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque was much worse when Saladin took it over on October 2, 1187 and liberated it from the Crusaders. They hung crosses [in Al-Aqsa] and turned it into a churche and horse stable and they turned mosques into churches. The future liberator will be able to wash it with perfumes as Saladin did."[4]
MEMRI: Qatari Media Campaign In Support Of Hend Al-Muftah, A Qatari Diplomat Who Was Rejected For A UN Role Due To Antisemitic, Homophobic Views: 'She Spoke For All The Qataris'
Hend Al-Muftah, Qatar’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, was recently rejected as chair of a UN human rights forum after a detailed report by the UN Watch organization exposed racist, antisemitic, and homophobic views she had expressed on Twitter, as well as false information and conspiratorial views about Western societies and liberalism.

According to reports in the Qatari media, these views were the reason she was denied the position.[1] The affair sparked rage against the West in Qatar, as well as a wave of support and admiration for Al-Muftah and her views.

Al-Muftah's Twitter account was shut down, perhaps by Twitter and perhaps by herself, but on September 30, 2022 she opened a new account, on which she wrote that a systematic smear campaign was being waged against Qatar, and that, as part of this campaign, old tweets of hers had been taken out of context and publicized in order to harm this country. She added that these tweets expressed only her personal opinion.

In response to this affair, a Twitter campaign in support of Al-Muftah was launched using the hashtag "Hend Al-Muftah Is Suitable [for the Position]." According to the Qatari daily Al-Watan, within days this became the top-trending hashtag in the country, with over 300,000 tweets.[2]

On September 29 Al-Watan also published an article by journalist Hamad Hassan Al-Tamimi, which praised Al-Muftah and her positions, and claimed that the West upheld freedom of expression only as long as this "served its own narrow interests." The West, he added, "supports every position that contravenes [the values of Islam]… yet silences all those who do not voice the ideas and values dictated to them."

This report presents Hend Al-Muftah's response to the affair, and the campaign in support of her on Twitter and in the Qatari media.
MEMRI: Prominent Islamists And Arab Intellectuals Condemn UAE For Opening Hindu Temple In Dubai, While Liberal Muslims Consider It Promotion Of Tolerance
Soon after the October 4, 2022 opening of the first Hindu Temple in Dubai, prominent Islamists harshly condemned the UAE for its action and accused it of rewarding the Hindus for oppressing Muslims in India. Meanwhile, liberal Muslims praised the UAE, saying allowing for the building of the Hindu temple promotes tolerance and co-existence. The new temple is not the first in the UAE, which has had a Hindu place of worship going back decades. Bahrain, another Gulf state, has had a Hindu temple dating back to the early 19th century.

Islamists Condemn Construction Of Hindu Temple, Saying It Was Built 'While Muslims Are Being Exterminated And Killed Every Day In India'

Citing an Al-Jazeera report on the opening of the temple, Egyptian Islamist cleric Muhammad Al-Sagheer, who is also a member of the Qatar-supported International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), posted a tweet to his 1,200,000 followers condemning the UAE saying: "At the time when India is tormenting Muslims in India, demolishing mosques and harassing mosque goers, the UAE opened in Dubai the largest Hindu temple in the Arab world, whose building cost 16,000,000 dollars and occupies 2,300 square meters with the capacity of about 1,000 people. It is as if they are in a state of provoking Muslims' feelings."[1] He concluded his tweet with the hashtag "expelling Hindu workers," calling on Arab Gulf states to expel their Hindu workers.

Turkey-based Saudi Islamist Ahmad bin Rashid Bin Saeed also condemn the UAE in a tweet in which he cited Quran 7:152: "Indeed, those who took the calf [for worship] will obtain anger from their Lord and humiliation in the life of this world, and thus do We recompense the inventors [of falsehood]." He then mentioned the temple's cost, size, and capacity and mockingly wrote: "A UAE official whispered his wish in the temple's cow ear."[2]

Turki Al-Shalhoub, another Saudi Islamist writer with 1,000,000 followers on Twitter, where his account is described as a "parody account," condemned both the UAE and Saudi Arabia in a tweet in which he wrote: "Tell your children that the UAE opened the first Hindu temple in the Arabian Peninsula and that Bin Salman [MBS] allowed the Zionists to enter Makkah and Madina so that they know who the enemies of Islam are."[3]

In another tweet, the pseudonymous Al-Shalhoub claimed that "radical Hindus are exterminating Muslims in India with governmental support and the UAE instead of defending them, opened the first Hindu temple in Dubai, which costs 16,000,000 dollars."[4]
Russian pop diva who denounced war says she is in Israel
Alla Pugacheva, the queen of Soviet pop music, on Monday said she was in Israel, three weeks after she denounced President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine for turning Russia into a global pariah.

"I thank my multi-million army of fans for their love and support, for the ability to distinguish truth from lies," Pugacheva, 73, a Soviet and then post-Soviet icon who is probably Russia's most famous woman, said on Instagram.

"From the Holy Land, I pray for you and for peace," she said. "I am happy!"

Pugacheva is known across Russian generations for hits such as the 1982 song "Million Scarlet Roses" and the 1978 film "The Woman who Sings." Why did Pugacheva condemn the war in Ukraine?

Pugacheva said last month that the war was killing soldiers for illusory aims and burdening ordinary people.

Pugacheva has in the past been feted by both Putin and his predecessor as president, Boris Yeltsin. When Mikhail Gorbachev died in August, she praised the last Soviet leader for allowing freedom and rejecting violence.
IDF soldier Ido Baruch killed in drive-by shooting, army confirms
A soldier was killed in a drive-by shooting near the Shavei Shomron settlement in the northern West Bank, the IDF said Tuesday afternoon.

Twenty-one-year-old St.-Sgt. Ido Baruch, who served in the elite Sayeret Givati unit, was initially described as being in moderate condition with gunshot wounds to the upper body, but his condition deteriorated en route to Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba.

Video reportedly from the scene showed at least one attacker fleeing in a black car toward the Palestinian village of Deir Sharaf. The Lions’ Den militant group from the nearby city of Nablus reportedly took responsibility for the attack.

Baruch, a Gedera resident, was wounded around noon while securing a march by settlers in the nearby town of Sebastia, which takes place every year around Sukkot. He had been at a guarded military post at the Ganot interchange when a car sped by and opened fire. Baruch's funeral will take place in the cemetery in Gedera on Wednesday at 2 p.m.

A preliminary investigation found that several bullets were fired from an automatic 9 mm.-weapon toward the post, and not toward the march. The soldier was hit by one bullet. Troops did not return fire.

Shortly after the attack, the Lions’ Den took responsibility for a second shooting attack in the same area.

The terrorist group, which formed in recent weeks as a response to the ongoing arrest raids in the area by the IDF’s Operation Break the Wave, has claimed a number of shooting attacks in the northern West Bank. In return, the IDF has been focusing its operations in Nablus and nearby villages against gunmen belonging to the group, including an arrest operation on Yom Kippur, which saw heavy gunfire leveled at troops.

At the beginning of the month, the group shot at settlers who had held a rally at the entryway to Nablus, lightly wounding a soldier and sending dozens of civilians, including children, to shelter behind cars. The rally had been held to protest a shooting incident in Samaria earlier in the day and to call on the government to halt the increase in such attacks.


The Current Palestinian Terror Wave
The current Palestinian terror wave has persisted for seven months. This wave has new and unique characteristics, thus intercepting it requires a different mindset. Most of the attacks in recent weeks were carried out by Palestinians aged 30 and younger and primarily targeted Israeli security forces.

The Lions' Den, a new Palestinian terror group, is an example. In Nablus, several local young criminals obtained firearms, carried out attacks, and became a source of inspiration and imitation to other young Palestinians. When interrogated by the Israel Security Agency, they often admit they didn't act out of ideological, political, or religious motives, but rather from the desire to become a social media star.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not leading the ongoing terror wave. Instead, they incite and fund it directly and indirectly while sitting on the sidelines and enjoying the fruits of terror. Most of the Palestinian population is not involved nor encourages the terror wave because it interferes with their daily lives and harms their livelihood.

If the IDF were to halt its daily operations and nighttime raids in Palestinian localities in the West Bank, in an ongoing counter-terrorism operation called "Break the Wave," Palestinian militants will not lay down their weapons. Instead, they will seek confrontation with Israeli security forces in other places, such as checkpoints, the West Bank security barrier, and other flashpoints.


Bethlehem gunmen attack hotel for displaying Star of David, menorah
Unidentified gunmen on Monday fired shots at a hotel in Bethlehem that was accused of displaying the Star of David and a menorah in one of its meeting halls.

No one was injured in the shooting attack.

Palestinian social media users claimed that the hotel, Bethlehem Hotel, was preparing to host a group of Jews for Sukkot. They accused the hotel and the Palestinian Authority of “promoting normalization” with Israel.

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced in a statement on Facebook that it has closed the meeting hall and launched an investigation into claims that the hotel was preparing to celebrate the Jewish holidays.

The ministry did not provide further details.

Denial of claims
Elias al-Arja, the owner of Bethlehem Hotel, denied the claims. He said that a group of tourists from the Philippines was preparing to hold a Christian religious conference in the meeting hall.

“I was surprised to see that they installed the Star of David,” al-Arja told the Palestinian radio station Mawwal. “I removed it and told them that they are not permitted to hold the conference in my hotel. I don’t want any problems.”

The hotel owner said that those who leaked the photos from the meeting hall want to “destroy” the city.


Palestinian gunmen in Nablus reject PA request to surrender weapons
The Lions’ Den is opposed to the Palestinian Authority’s offer to lay down its weapons and join the Palestinian security forces, one of the armed group’s leaders said on Monday.

Addressing the PA government, Wadee Alhouh, a leader of the Nablus-based group, wrote on Facebook that the timing of the offer was “unsuccessful.” He said that his group was determined to pursue the “path of glory until victory or martyrdom.”

The Lions’ Den, which consists of dozens of gunmen belonging to the ruling Fatah faction, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, has claimed responsibility for several shooting attacks against IDF soldiers and Jewish settlers in the Nablus area over the past few weeks.

Last week, the PA governor of Nablus, Ibrahim Ramadan, revealed that he had offered the members of the group to hand themselves over to the Palestinian security forces. Ramadan promised to protect the gunmen and negotiate a solution to their case with the Israeli authorities.

The mother of Mohammed al-Azizi, one of the founders of the group who was killed during a clash with IDF troops in July, also rejected the attempts by the PA to convince the gunmen to lay down their weapons in return for being incorporated into the Palestinian security forces.

The mother, Um Udai, said that the PA was wrong to think that the Lions’ Den would cease to exist if some of its members accepted the offer. She denounced those behind the offer as “traitors” and “conspirators.”

Palestinian sources said that the PA has been exerting pressure on the gunmen to hand themselves over to the Palestinian security forces. The sources claimed that a small number of gunmen accepted the offer to join the Palestinian security forces.


Iran Toughens Crackdown as Some Oil Workers Reported to Join Protests
Iranian security forces intensified a crackdown on anti-government protests in several Kurdish cities on Monday, as demonstrations elsewhere in Iran spread into the country’s vital energy sector.

Protests have swept Iran since Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old from Iran‘s Kurdish region, died on Sept. 16 while being held for “inappropriate attire”, marking one of the boldest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.

While university students have played a pivotal role in the protests with dozens of universities on strike, unconfirmed reports on social media showed workers at Abadan and Kangan oil refineries and the Bushehr Petrochemical Project had joined in.

Iran‘s oil ministry was not immediately available to comment.

A combination of mass protests and strikes by oil workers and Bazaar merchants helped to sweep the clergy to power in the Iranian revolution four decades ago.

With US sanctions imposed on Iran‘s oil exports over the country’s nuclear program, analyst Karim Sadjadpour said large and sustained strikes among energy workers could bring the Islamic Republic to its knees.

“Iran is less dependent on oil as a percentage of GDP than they were in 1978, but energy exports are still the lifeblood of the economy,” said Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.


Alan M. Dershowitz: Berkeley Clubs Ban Zionist Speakers
The alleged justification for this total ban on all Zionists -- that is, people who believe that Israel has a right to exist -- is to protect the safety and welfare of Palestinian students. This is patent nonsense. No students have been physically threatened by Zionists, and no student is entitled to be protected from ideas.

Those clubs are engaging in a combination of Stalinism and antisemitism: Stalinism in the sense that they allow no dissenting views from their "politically correct" doctrine of no Israel; antisemitism in the sense that among all the nations of the world which are involved in controversies -- Russia, Iran, China, Belarus, to name a few -- they have singled out for banning only the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Imagine if a university club were to exclude all speakers who support Black Lives Matter?

The University of California at Berkeley is a public institution. If it in any way supports these organizations -- financially or by allowing them to have offices on the campus -- then it is effectively the State of California that is enacting and enforcing these bans. This constitutes state action and is governed by the First Amendment. The question is which way the First Amendment cuts. Does it give the clubs the right to exclude all speakers who are Zionists? Or does it prohibit state actors from demanding that all speakers disavow Zionism as a condition to exercising their First Amendment right to speak? And what about the rights of their potential audience members to hear them? The answers may also implicate federal funding for the university.

Clubs and universities generally have a right to choose their speakers, but there is a vast difference between individually deciding who will speak and making a collective decision banning all people of a particular ideology, religion or race.... These clubs are effectively banning most Jews.

The ban is, sadly, also akin to a "loyalty oath" of the kind imposed by McCarthyites in the 1950s and opposed back then by both liberals and civil libertarians.

Universities have an educational and moral duty to foster dialogue and learning, not banning and censorship. Public universities have a constitutional obligation to prohibit religious and ethnic discrimination. Berkeley is failing both tests.

The question remains: is their failure protected or prohibited by the First Amendment?
Some Berkeley Law "Jew Free Zone" Updates
(3) One point I didn't mention in my previous post is that SJP's statement seems part and parcel of a nationwide SJP campaign to specifically try to exclude Jews from "progressive spaces" unless they will specifically denounce Israel's existence. To take one of an unfortunately growing number of examples:
Two Jewish students at the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz say they were booted from a support group for sexual assault victims and harassed by members of the group due to their Jewish identity, according to a complaint filed with the Education Department.

One of the victims, student Cassandra Blotner, says members of the support group threatened to spit on her in public for proudly being Jewish, while others called her a "dumb bitch" who supports "mass genocide" due to her support for Israel. The complaint alleges the university was "fully aware of the situation," yet did nothing to protect the students from the anti-Semitic hate campaign.

Again, this is a political strategy, rather than simply isolated incidents. Recall that the Women's March collapsed because its founders decided that Jews were not welcome. Also note that Palestinian lobby mouthpiece Rep. Rashida Tlaib recently stated that you can't be a progressive and support "Israel's apartheid government" and Linda Sarsour similarly remarked that one can't be a feminist and a "Zionist."

(4) But, you might object, that when Tlaib says "Israel's apartheid government" she doesn't mean "Israel," just the policies she objects to. That would make more sense if Tlaib wasn't on the record as supporting the replacement of all of Israel with "Palestine." Similarly, one commenter was quite insistent that when SJP says "Zionism" it does not mean "the existence of Israel," "the apartheid state of Israel" means only Israel's bad policies that they think is akin to apartheid, and the "occupation of Palestine" means only the occupation of the West Bank, not all of Israel. Anyone who knows SJP's history and politics would know that they mean, exactly, that anyone who supports Israel's existence should be forbidden from speaking. But just for the heck of it, I perused SJP Berkeley Law's Facebook page, which talks about "Israel's apartheid" going back to the late 1940s, ie, when Israel was founded, and well before the "occupation" of the West Bank. So when you see Tlaib, SJP, and others talk about "apartheid Israel," there is a very simple question to ask: Is there a time when you think Israel wasn't guilty of "apartheid," and is there anything Israel could do, short of surrendering in favor of a Palestinian Muslim-majority state, that would make Israel "not apartheid?" Once they evade that question, or maybe even answer honestly, you can be convinced, if you aren't already, that in practice the apartheid libel has nothing to do with Israel's policies, and everything to do with opposition to Israel's existence and the desire to replace it with a Palestinian Muslim majority state.
Report Exposes Rot In Middle East Studies Centers, Connection to CRT
Neetu Arnold, Senior Research Associate of the National Association of Scholars (NAS) has done what amounts to an expose of the politicization of campus Middle East studies centers. What began as – let’s say, a coincidence of timing between generous Arab donations to university study centers offering a pro-Arab, anti-Israel slant, has combined with U.S.-funded radical leftist politics, expanding the politicization trend into K-12 schools.

Arnold dates the phenomenon to a change of tactics after Arab failures to achieve their goals on the battlefield in the Six-Day and Yom Kippur Wars. By making generous dedicated gifts to universities, Arabs could subvert universities’ educational mission into a propaganda mission. The report’s introduction explains.

In the aftermath of the Six-Day War (1967) and the Yom Kippur War (1973), whose outcomes turned significantly upon American diplomatic and military support for Israel, wealthy Arab nations realized these centers could be useful tools to influence American policy in the region.

In 1975, Georgetown University academics and administrators collaborated with government officials from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, and Libya to establish Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS). Critics quickly accused the center of propagandizing for their foreign sponsors instead of pursuing disinterested academic study and serving the American national interest.

Concerns over Georgetown’s CCAS prompted Congress to include a foreign donation disclosure requirement in the Higher Education Amendments of 1986. Proponents of this provision believed that a transparency mandate would at least increase public awareness of the extent and nature of foreign influence, even if it failed to stop it entirely. The Department of Education (ED) rarely enforced this requirement until the Trump administration initiated investigations into several prominent universities in 2019. These investigations prompted universities to back-report more than $6.5 billion in foreign donations. Many of the donations came from governments, institutions, and individuals from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

While prior investigations “found few smoking guns to link foreign funding to the alteration of academic content,” they “revealed a troubling pattern of bias, obfuscation, and opacity in the centers’ policies and finances. Our report finds that MESCs still suffer from endemic bias, obfuscation, and opacity to this day.”
Aberdeen University rejects IHRA in favour of rival antisemitism definition
Scottish communal leaders have reacted angrily after Aberdeen University rejected adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism in favour of an alternative version.

After a two-year consultation, the university has adopted the Jerusalem Declaration of Antisemitism (JDA) instead of International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) guidance, claiming the later impacted on freedom to criticise Israel.

At one meeting of a task force held to discuss the definition, supporters of the JDA cited “recent high-profile cases which had resulted in academics losing their jobs” – an apparent reference to the dismissal of Professor David Miller from Bristol University.

Claims that IHRA had been “weaponised in the sector” were also raised at the same meeting.

The decision to adopt the JDA definition – which stressed that evidence-based criticism of Israel as a state is not antisemitic – ignored an earlier recommendation by the institution’s race definitions task and finish group who proposed in May 2021 that the IHRA definition should be adopted, according to a report by Scottish online publication The Ferret.

Condemning Aberdeen’s decision to adopt the JDA a spokesperson for the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities said: “If the critics of the IHRA Definition (originally devised by the EU Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia) had taken the trouble to read it, they would see that far from ‘defining antisemitism as any critique of the state of Israel’, it explicitly says the opposite – the second paragraph begins ‘criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.’

“Unfortunately however there is no shortage of antisemitism of all kinds on campuses, and universities and their staff should be at the forefront of stamping it out.

“If they claim to oppose racism but tolerate antisemitism of any kind, they are simply proving David Baddiel’s thesis that ‘Jews don’t count’ and indulging in second-order antisemitism.”
Kanye spews hate speech against Jews on Twitter
Jewish activist and Tel Aviv Institute senior fellow Hen Mazzig joins Guy Azriel to explain why Kanye's hate mongering against Jews is so damaging.




Candace Owens defends Kanye West, says tweet about Jews wasn't antisemitic
Conservative political commentator Candace Owens dismissed the charges that Kanye West was antisemitic in a recent tweet stating that he would "go death con 3 on Jewish people." Owens said that West's statement was not actually demonizing Jewish people.

"If you are an honest person, you did not think this tweet was antisemitic," Owens, who works for the Daily Wire news site run by Jewish political commentator Ben Shapiro, said Monday. "You did not think that he wrote this tweet because he hates or wants to genocide Jewish people. This is not the beginning of a Holocaust."

"If you were an honest person, when you read this tweet, you had no idea what the hell he was talking about. I had no idea, when I read this tweet, what the hell he was talking about," she continued. "This tweet inspired questions, not answers."

Owens made these comments on an episode of her political talk show Candace, which is produced by the news website The Daily Wire.

Owens further gives her opinions on West's tweets, asking what is "death con 3." She then argues that West may have meant to tweet "Deafcon 3," which is an alert state used by the US Armed Forces, to which Owens says "would be a military defense position - not an offense position for those of you who are offended."

West recently had his Twitter and Instagram accounts locked over his antisemitic posts.

"Is [West] tweeting this because he's reading the Newsweek headline - calling him antisemitic? Is he angry because he can't believe he's not free to talk about people in his life who happen to be Jewish without being accused of antisemitism?"

Owens then alleges that if one is "lying" about West's tweet, it's because "they were scared and thought that Kanye West was going to launch a military strike at Israel." She further alleges that it was "the reaction that was met with this tweet."

Despite this, Owens stressed that her statements are not a defense of his tweet, "but an open question which never seems to happen anymore.

"It's like you cannot even say the word 'Jewish' without people getting upset."


BBC NEWS COVERAGE OF TERRORISM IN ISRAEL – SEPTEMBER 2022
The Israel Security Agency’s report on terror attacks during September 2022 shows that throughout the month a total of 254 incidents took place: 212 in Judea & Samaria and 42 in Jerusalem and inside the ‘green line’. No incidents were recorded in the Gaza Strip sector.

In Judea & Samaria, Jerusalem and inside the ‘green line’ the agency recorded 139 attacks with petrol bombs, 53 attacks using pipe bombs, 34 shooting attacks, fourteen arson attacks, four stabbing attacks and four vehicular attacks.

Two people were killed and fourteen people were wounded in attacks during September.

On September 14th an IDF officer – Major Bar Falah – was killed near Jalame. Although BBC Jerusalem bureau staff were aware of that incident, it did not receive any coverage at the time on the BBC News website. Over two weeks later, on October 1st, the BBC News website published a rambling report (which will be addressed in due course) that includes a brief refence to Major Falah in its 61st paragraph.

On September 20th an 84-year-old woman was murdered in Holon. That story was likewise ignored by the BBC.

A soldier was wounded in the Hebron area in a stabbing attack on September 2nd. Four people were wounded in a shooting attack in the Jordan Rift Valley on September 4th and four members of the security forces were injured on the same day in a separate attack. On September 9th a civilian driver was wounded in a shooting attack and on September 12th one person was injured in an assault. One soldier was injured in a vehicular attack on September 22nd and two civilians were wounded in a stabbing attack at Shilat Junction on the same day.

None of those attacks – or any others – received any coverage on the BBC News website during September.

By contrast, visitors to that site were repeatedly told that “[s]ince January, more than 90 Palestinians, including militants and civilians, have been killed in the West Bank, mostly by Israeli security forces”.
Camera Arabic prompts corrections to erroneous Tel Aviv references
A post by CAMERA Arabic

Throughout the months of August and September 2022 CAMERA Arabic was able to prompt four media outlets in four countries to correct 17 erroneous references to Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital/seat of government. Below is a full list of the corrections.

For more about this recurring problem in Arabic-speaking Western media outlets, see CAMERA’s main website here, the CAMERA UK website here and the Jewish Chronicle here.


Leading New York Reform rabbi launches push against anti-Zionism in the movement
A prominent Reform rabbi in New York City is launching a program that aims to push back against anti-Zionism within the religious movement, as younger US Jews slide away from steadfast support for Israel.

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the senior rabbi of Manhattan’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, said his Amplify Israel initiative aims to “breathe new life into the principles we’ve been committed to for decades” with an array of programs aimed at bolstering support for Israel and aligning Zionism with liberal ideology. He views the struggle as existential for the Reform movement and American Jewry.

“We want to impact first and foremost on the Reform movement and through the Reform movement to the broader American Jewish community, to slow down, eventually stop and reverse the anti-Israel, anti-Zionist encroachment,” he said during a recent interview with The Times of Israel.

“A movement of Jews separated from the root of Jewish peoplehood will eventually be like leaves falling from the tree,” he said. “There won’t be enough substance for them to sustain Judaism.”

Polls have shown that younger American Jews are increasingly estranged from Israel, with many frustrated by its treatment of the Palestinians, right-wing politics and Orthodox religious establishment, among other issues. A firm majority of US Jewry continues to support and connect with the Jewish state, though.

In a Democratic group’s survey of US Jewish voters last year, 20% of respondents under 40 believed “Israel doesn’t have a right to exist.” For all ages, the figure was nine percent. A third of all younger voters believed Israel was committing genocide against the Palestinians, and over a third believed Israel was an apartheid state.

Another survey conducted in 2020 found a steady decline in support for Israel among younger US Jews, with a slim majority of respondents under 30 saying they were not attached to the Jewish state.

For US Jews as a whole, and the Reform movement, 58% said they were attached to Israel. Eighty-two percent of US Jews and 86% of the Reform movement said caring about Israel was important or essential to being Jewish.




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