Monday, June 12, 2023

06/12 Links Pt1: Israel shouldn’t make concessions to Biden for Saudi normalization; UN Targets 35 U.S. States over Laws Banning Anti-Israel Bias; UN postpones conference on antisemitism

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: Israel shouldn’t make concessions to Biden for Saudi normalization
The truth is that the obstacles to Saudi normalization are entirely American.

As The Wall Street Journal reported back in March, the Saudis made clear what they need in exchange for normalization with Israel. They want the United States to formally commit to guarantee their security. And, in addition to more arms sales, they want aid for a civilian nuclear program, though that is widely interpreted as the beginning of a Saudi quest for a bomb with which they can deter Iran. Conspicuous by its absence from the list of Saudi demands was any assurance from the United States or Israel about creating an independent Palestinian state.

Most of all, they don’t want the Americans concluding a new weak Iran deal that will, despite their recent pact with Tehran, pose a direct threat to the existence of the Saudi monarchy. Yet as reports continue to indicate, and despite official denials of an imminent agreement, the Americans are pressing ahead with efforts to achieve a new accord with the Iranians.

Even if no nuclear deal emerges, Biden is unlikely to give the Saudis what they want.

No American administration wants to give them nuclear capability of any kind. But the Chinese will, especially if a new Iran pact guarantees, as Obama’s did, that Tehran will eventually get a bomb.

Just as much of an obstacle is the fact that his own party is unlikely to go along with arms sales or other concessions to the Saudis. The liberal corporate press has been working hard to demonize the Saudis for years, portraying MBS as a monster. The Saudis’ unpopularity was on display this week after the announced merger of the massively funded Saudi-sponsored upstart LIV Golf tour this week with the long-established PGA tour.

Even Americans who don’t care about golf seemed to be dismayed that Saudi oil billionaires successfully bought effective control of the sport. Liberal journalists have been raising the specter of that country’s responsibility for the 9/11 attacks to bash the deal, in spite of the fact that the whole point of the changes MBS has been pushing forward is to demonstrate that the desert kingdom wants to turn away from its past as a funder of fundamentalist Islam and terrorism.

In this atmosphere, most Democrats are not going to vote to give anything to the Saudis.

There has always been a school of thought that believed the Saudis will never jeopardize their standing as the guardians of Islam’s holy places by formalizing their strategic alliance with Israel. But even if they have decided, as they should, that the economic, diplomatic and military benefits of normalization far outweigh the damage it will do to their reputation among Muslims, the inducements that will convince them to do so can only come from the United States, not Israel.

Beleaguered as he is by the anti-judicial reform demonstrations, Netanyahu is, if anything, even more in need of a diplomatic triumph and a distraction from his political woes than Biden. Still, he should be smart enough to know that giving the Americans any concessions—no matter how valuable—will not guarantee Saudi normalization, stop a new Iran deal or secure Washington’s acquiescence for a strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities if it comes to that. As he has in the past, Netanyahu must say “no” to Washington’s latest diktats.
Bassam Tawil: The United Nations' Jihad Against Israel
The UN, ostensibly dedicated to protecting human rights, and has, in fact, devolved into hurling bogus, tabloid-style allegations as it joins other blood-libel false charges by considering the addition of Israel to its list of blacklisted entities in its 2023 Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) Report.

The UN resolution draft bizarrely, with no evidence, "accuses Israel of recruiting three Palestinian minors as human shields and combatants," among other offenses....

One of the leaders, in the zeal unjustly to add Israel to the UN blacklist, is World Vision International. It circulated an open letter -- with 18 co-signatory NGOs -- addressed to UN Secretary General António Guterres, repeating the phony and libelous charges against Israel regarding child recruitment.

In addition to this evangelical missionary organization's own anti-Israel history -- which features comparing Israel to Hitler's army and falsely accuses it of funding Hamas -- World Vision International's list of co-signers features a "Who's Who" of anti-Israel organizations, including Human Rights Watch, authors of the notorious report accusing Israel of "apartheid" and "crimes against humanity".

Importantly, Israel is recommended for blacklisting while Palestinian and Iranian armed groups are distinctly not.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) disassociates itself, when it is convenient, from its armed wing, Fatah, and other terror groups while "unofficially" inciting them to violence and even genocide. This is the PA we are talking about -- dominated by the ruling Fatah faction headed by Mahmoud Abbas -- not Hamas or Islamic Jihad,

"In response to threat that this posed to IDF forces, the IDF repeatedly conveyed warnings to the hospital staff, Palestinian officials, and international aid organizations, including the World Health Organization, requesting that they act in order to stop the hospital from being used for military purposes." — Mission of Israel to the UN in Geneva, July 27, 2104.
UN Report Targets 35 U.S. States over Laws Banning Anti-Israel Bias
The UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Thursday issued a new report that attacked rights of U.S. states to pass legislation banning discrimination against Israel via boycotts and whitewashed the antisemitism of Palestinian political organizations, said Israel's UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan.

"Yet again, the biased COI has released another sham report about Israel. This illegitimate committee, composed of three antisemites, is incapable of writing an impartial report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The proof is their inability to include any references to Palestinian antisemitism in their latest attack on the Jewish state despite the Palestinian Authority which continually incites Jew-hatred and Hamas which seeks the destruction of Israel."

In what critics see as UN interference in domestic U.S. politics, the COI singled out states that bar anti-Israel boycott measures, including Florida, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Texas.


UN postpones conference on antisemitism that was slated for next week
A UN conference on antisemitism that was scheduled to take place next week in Cordoba, Spain has been postponed.

The confab was supposed to feature the rollout of the United Nations Action Plan of Monitoring Antisemitism, but the Israeli mission to the UN and several Jewish organizations have been pushing back in recent weeks upon reportedly learning that the draft dropped the assertion that anti-Zionism is equivalent to antisemitism.

“We look forward to continuing to work with United Nations Undersecretary and High Representative Moratinos to ensure that the UN Action Plan on Antisemitism is credible and useful,” said conference of presidents CEO William Daroff.

“American Jewish organizations work closely with our international partners, foreign governments, and the US State Department in dialogue with the United Nations to emphasize our priorities, including continuing recognition by the UN of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which was adopted by 41 UN member states. The IHRA definition remains the gold standard, as highlighted by the fact that no other definition of antisemitism has been adopted by any country in the world, he said.

Conference participants received a letter on Friday from the UN office organizing the gathering, saying that “after very careful consideration and aiming to ensure the Action Plan is inclusive and benefits from the inputs of all stakeholders, I would like to allow more time for further work and finalization of the Plan during Summer 2023.”

The conference has been pushed to September, organizers say in a letter shared with The Times of Israel. No exact date has been set yet.


U.S to rejoin UNESCO after break for anti-Israel bias
The U.S. State Department said it had delivered a letter seeking re-admission to the Paris-based body, known as UNESCO, late last week.

Details of the proposal were not immediately clear. The U.S. owes a significant amount of money to the organization for arrears in dues payments. But earlier this year, the administration set aside $150 million in its current budget plan to pay for a return to UNESCO.


MEMRI: Qatari Daily Presents Israeli Prime Minister As Hitler
On June 12, 2023, the Qatari daily Al-Watan published an image of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as Hitler with his mask slipped. The image accompanied an article titled "The Mask of Democracy Has Slipped," which claims that the social and political situation in Israel is further proof that this country is not a "democratic oasis in the Middle East," as it is often described in the West.


The article states: "This is Israel, the country that Western leaders present to their citizens over the media as an oasis of democracy in the Middle East. Since [Israel's] establishment, they have used this [Israeli] mask as an excuse to turn a blind eye to the occupation and to its illegal and inhuman actions. But now the false mask of democracy has slipped, and even many in Israelis admit this, in front of Tel Aviv's Western patrons. Cries of 'save us' are being heard, but this time they are not the cries of the Palestinians, who suffer from the occupation and from the silence of the Arabs and the international community. They are the cries of Israelis, who have discovered that their false democracy is [threatened by] the hammer of the extremist right and the fanatic settlers."[1]

It should be noted that the image was originally published on February 3, 2023 by the news site arabicpost.net, as part of a different article by the same name,[2] which condemned what it called the anti-democratic orientation of Netanyahu's current government.[3] The website arabicpost.net was established in 2018 by Integral Media, a company founded by media figure Wadah Khanfar, formerly the director of Qatar's Al-Jazeera network.[4]


Israel attacked ISIS in 2015, killing hundreds of terrorists, former IDF chief says
Israel attacked the terrorist organization ISIS in 2015, killing hundreds of its terrorist members in the process, former IDF Chief of Staff, Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot revealed on Sunday at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

"ISIS knows best how much the IDF operated in the Middle East - they paid the price of hundreds of casualties and injured. In 2015, there was an event in a specific location where we were asked to carry out an attack. We conducted a very extensive attack and hit many ISIS operatives.

"The campaign against ISIS was intensive and far beyond that of any other country," he added. "With results that in some places surpassed all imagination regarding the type of operations and attacks carried out. Some of the actions went under the radar."

"There aren't many countries in the world that know how to identify targets the size of a postage stamp and insert a missile into a target within a radius of one thousand kilometers around Israel," explained Eisenkot.

"Our enemies saw it, the Russians saw it, the Americans saw it. Those who know best how much the IDF operated throughout the Middle East are the ISIS operatives because they paid the price of the hundreds of casualties, injuries and damages and they knew who knew how to carry out these operations."

Israel is ISIS's biggest threat - and they know it
Towards the end of 2015, a German journalist spent 10 days with Islamic State and said that the radical jihadist group that has captured vast territories of Syria and Iraq was deterred by only one Middle Eastern country - Israel.

In an interview with the British Jewish News, Jurgen Todenhofer reflected on his brief time with the group, during which he engaged in conversations with ISIS fighters.

According to Todenhofer, ISIS expressed a distinct fear of Israel and the strength of the Israeli army. He conveyed the militants' belief that the Israeli forces were too formidable for them to contend with. In contrast, ISIS aimed to lure British and American troops into Syria and Iraq, areas where they believed they held an advantage.
Israel: Police Foil Murder at Hospital; Netanyahu Instructs New Directive
Three Arab-Israelis were arrested as they prepared to carry out an assassination at a hospital in the north of the country. In the same Sunday evening, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed officials to prepare the Shin Bet security agency for the war against crime families in the Arab sector.

A suspicious vehicle was reported at the Holy Family “Italian” hospital in Nazareth, which led to several armed men being arrested. On arrival at the scene, the police spotted three masked men preparing to get out of the car. The officers proceeded to search the interior, and recovered two loaded pistols. The three suspects were then apprehended.

According to the police announcement, the car used by the gang was a stolen vehicle, as were its license plates. Inside, police found a screwdriver used for quickly changing the plates, as well as a tank of fuel which, in all likelihood, was to be used to set fire to the vehicle after their crime.

“We see once again that the war between criminal organizations knows no bounds. If it hadn’t been for the courageous action of the police, we would have had to mourn the loss of life and collateral casualties within the hospital,” said North District Police Commander Superintendent Shuki Tachocha.


Watch: IDF Soldiers Operate in Old City of Shechem, 1 Terrorist Dead
The Torat Lehima group on Monday morning posted images of a largescale IDF raid in the Kasbah of Shechem.

Israeli security forces operated overnight Monday to thwart terrorist activities throughout Shechem and Jenin. According to Arab reports, the forces shot and hit one of the terrorists in the old city of Shechem.


JPost Editorial: Boycotting municipal elections harms Arab Jerusalemites
Eastern Jerusalem faces numerous unique challenges, including housing shortages, inadequate infrastructure, and limited access to municipal services. As this paper noted recently, the disparity between the two halves of the city is stark.

While the city is plagued by high poverty overall – 42% of city residents live below the poverty line – its Arab population is disproportionately affected. A striking 60% of the city’s Arab residents live under the poverty line, compared to 31% of Jewish residents (the Jewish poverty rate is driven in large part by poverty among the city’s haredi community, which is at 43% – still significantly below the rate among Arab Jerusalemites).

The sorry state of affairs in eastern Jerusalem is evident in the condition of local streets, in the accumulation of garbage throughout the area’s neighborhoods, and in the shortage or absence of basic municipal services. One need only walk across the light rail line dividing the city’s two halves to see the differences between them.

The Jerusalem city council does not have a single Arab member due to the ongoing boycott. That’s a shame, and it is easily rectified. By voting in municipal elections, Arab residents can elect representatives who will concentrate on addressing their unique challenges.

Participating in municipal elections carries the potential for improving the standard of living for the city’s Arab population: they can advocate for affordable housing initiatives, improved transportation networks, and the expansion of social services. Engaging in the electoral process gives residents a chance to hold elected officials accountable and advocate for the allocation of resources in a fair and balanced manner, leading to an overall enhancement of their daily lives. Municipal elections being boycotted achieves nothing

Boycotting the municipal elections, on the other hand, achieves nothing. It has no meaningful effect on the city’s status and it does not impact the chances that eastern Jerusalem will remain under Israeli rule in any potential peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. All it does is shut Arab Jerusalemites out of the municipal decision-making process, ensuring that their concerns go unheard and unaddressed by the city’s leaders. While this may be exactly what Palestinian extremists want, as it deepens Arab Jerusalemites’ sense of discontent and disenfranchisement, it directly harms the overwhelming majority of the city’s Arab residents, who deserve a higher standard of living than they currently have and have the democratic means of pursuing one.

Jerusalem’s Arab residents should reject calls for yet another pointless boycott of the municipal elections and participate actively in the democratic process.

The municipal elections are a little more than four months away. Now is the time to start getting out the Arab vote.


Euronews Asks Hamas Terror Official To Comment on Israeli ‘Attacks’ on Children
To suggest that Hamas, the internationally designated terror group that controls the Gaza Strip, cares about the rights of children is preposterous.

After all, Hamas stands accused of recruiting minors into its terror ranks, killing Palestinian kids by firing rockets from populated areas, and putting innocents at risk by converting schools into military bases.

Yet in its latest report from Gaza, entitled “A living ‘war museum’: Palestinian artists turn rubble of Gaza house into art exhibition,” France-based Euronews turns reality on its head by giving the terror organization airtime to falsely vilify Israel as a violator of children’s rights.

The May 11 propaganda video, complete with emotional piano music, reports on an anti-Israel exhibition in Gaza’s Deir al-Balah neighborhood. Staged in a house destroyed during last month’s IDF operation against Islamic Jihad terrorists, “Occupation kills childhood” charges Israeli forces with deliberately targeting minors in violation of international humanitarian law.

According to the uncritical captions accompanying the segment, the art “depict[s] the actual scene of what occurred.” However, basic journalistic due diligence would have quickly revealed that the Abu Obid family home housed an alleged Islamic Jihad target, making it a legitimate military target under international law. Furthermore, as Israel had given advance warning to civilians in the area, no children were harmed in the May 12 airstrike.

But a closer examination of Euronews’ one-sided sources reveals an even more serious lapse in journalistic standards, casting doubt on the international channel’s stated commitment to “provid[ing]… viewers and readers with a variety of viewpoints while remaining grounded in factual reporting.”

Besides interviewing homeowner Eyad Abu Obid, Euronews speaks with Mohamed Thoraya, who is solely referred to as a “member of the exhibition’s organizing committee.” Crucially, readers are left unaware of Thoraya’s sinister day job: Arab media previously identified him as the head of Hamas’ “artistic production department.” He also worked for Al-Aqsa TV, which the US State Department says “recruit[s] children to become Hamas armed fighters and suicide bombers.”

It is important to note that Thoraya’s purported concerns for the position of civilians in conflict can hardly be given credence. On Facebook, the Hamas member is a vocal supporter of violence against innocent Israelis, having saluted arch-terrorist Mohammed Deif in a 2017 post. A year earlier, he glorified the actions of Mesbah Abu Sabih, whose shooting attack left a police officer and a 60-year-old civilian woman dead. Thoraya moreover used social media to incite stabbings and shootings, in addition to sharing antisemitic cartoons.


Israel Accuses Islamic Jihad of Killing Four Gazans with Failed Rocket Launches
The Israeli military on Thursday accused Palestinian Islamic Jihad of killing four Gaza civilians with failed rocket launches.

The four were killed in separate incidents on Wednesday as the terror group fired more than 500 rockets at Israel. According to the Israel Defense Forces, 108 of those launches failed, with the rockets coming down inside the Gaza Strip.

In one of the cases, a rocket landed in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, killing 16-year-old Rami Shadi Hamdan and 51-year-old Ahmed Muhammad al-Shabaki, according to the IDF.

Other failed launches killed 10-year-old Lin Belal Abd al-Salam Loh and 16-year-old Vizen Juda Aliyan.

During a previous military operation against PIJ, in August 2022, the terror group fired around 1,000 rockets, of which 120 misfired. Fourteen Palestinians were killed by misfired rockets, leading to widespread anger in Gaza against the terror group.

The IDF published a video on Thursday morning showing PIJ rockets falling inside Gaza.

We are fighting against a terrorist organization that also endangers the lives of the residents of the Gaza Strip,” said IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari.


Hezbollah fans flames of Israeli border tensions
Tensions continued along Israel’s northern border this weekend as Lebanese civilians, encouraged by Hezbollah, tried to prevent the IDF from carrying out engineering work for a concrete border wall—inside Israeli territory.

Disturbances at the Lebanese border village of Kfar Chouba, on the slopes of Mount Hermon, began after morning prayers on Friday as residents tried to prevent Israeli bulldozers from working.

Lebanese residents crossed the barbed wire fence erected by Israeli soldiers and threw stones at the soldiers who were compelled to disperse them with tear gas.

Although the IDF engineering work is taking place on the Israeli side of the border and the land in question was captured from Syria, residents of Kfar Chouba and other villages claim the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is failing to stop alleged violations of Lebanese sovereignty by the IDF.

Due to territorial disputes, there is no officially recognized border between Israel and Lebanon. The U.N. drew up the de facto border known as the Blue Line in 2000 after Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon.

Further complicating the issue is that Israel seized Kfar Chouba and the nearby Mount Dov (aka Shebaa Farms) from Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967. After Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, the U.N. Security Council in June of that year certified the Israeli withdrawal as complete.

The pro-Hezbollah Al-Mayadeen TV channel reported that the residents of the villages managed to damage the border markings and waved Lebanese flags inside Israeli territory.


Likelihood of U.S.-Iran Agreement on Nuclear Program Increasing
The likelihood of a U.S. agreement to curb Iran's nuclear program is increasing, according to senior Israeli officials. Washington is engaging in talks with Iran through Gulf intermediaries Oman and Qatar.

Tehran is not enthusiastic about reaching an interim agreement and wishes to return to the original 2015 pact from which the U.S. withdrew in 2018. Washington is opposed to returning to the original agreement, especially in light of Iran's involvement in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Jerusalem has told Washington that a credible military threat will be more effective than diplomacy, which Israeli officials claim Tehran is taking advantage of to buy time and continue charging toward obtaining nuclear arms. Prime Minister Netanyahu told U.S. Secretary of State Blinken that "a return to the nuclear agreement with Iran will not stop Iran's nuclear program, and no arrangement with Iran will obligate Israel, which will do everything to defend itself."
JCPA: A New Iranian Nuclear Agreement Poses a Threat to Israel
The secret negotiations between the U.S. and Iran for a new nuclear agreement are based on the principle of "less for less." This means Iran halting uranium enrichment in exchange for releasing its frozen funds in the West, which amount to several hundred billion dollars.

A new interim nuclear agreement poses several dangers to Israel: The agreement would immediately provide $20 billion to Iran, with several hundred billion dollars to follow. With this influx of funds, Iran could strengthen its military capabilities and those of its proxies in the Middle East.

While the agreement may temporarily halt uranium enrichment, Iran is already on the verge of becoming a nuclear-capable nation. During this period, Iran will likely continue its development of nuclear weapons technology and ballistic missile programs. It may also complete the process of burying its nuclear facilities deep underground to protect them from potential airstrikes.

Moreover, it would be challenging for Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities while Iran is engaged in a new international nuclear agreement with the world powers.
Bipartisan Congress letter calls on Europe to 'snapback' Iran sanctions
A bipartisan letter from 35 members of Congress called on European parties to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal to "snapback" sanctions on Iran.

Reps Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) led the letter to the leaders of the UK, France, and Germany, urging them to trigger "snapback," which allows any party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to unilaterally revert to pre-2015 sanctions on Iran if it violates the deal.

Per the JCPOA's "sunset clauses," the conventional arms embargo on Iran was already lifted; snapback would bring that back, as well as stop the lifting of sanctions on long-range drones and missiles this year and the expiration of nuclear sanctions in 2025.

The representatives pointed to "Iran's significant noncompliance" with the nuclear agreement.

"We ask that you stand together with us...to counter Iran's rapid progress toward nuclear weaponization," they wrote, in the letter first published by Jewish Insider. "Iran’s rapid ascension to becoming a nuclear threshold state and continued noncompliance with the JCPOA is incontestable and a matter of public record, having been verified by several entities, including the independent technical experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency."

The members of Congress argued that "time is running out to curb their nuclear ambitions."

Iran violated the sanctions by arming Russia
Sanctions on Iran's export of long-range drones and ballistic missiles are set to expire on October 18. Iran has been in violation of those sanctions, arming Russia in its war in Ukraine, which makes it "of the utmost importance for you to begin the process of triggering snapback sanctions before the October 2023 expiration," the US representatives wrote.

Other violations include uranium enrichment over the JCPOA limit of 3.67% to the 60% level, and to a lesser extent, to 84%. Uranium must be enriched to 90% purity for a nuclear breakout, though larger quantities of less-enriched uranium can also produce a bomb.

Iran has also accumulated an enriched uranium stockpile beyond the permitted 300 kg; the most recent IAEA report says they have over 10 times as much enriched uranium.




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