Friday, July 14, 2023

07/14 Links Pt1: WSJ: Biden Treats Israel Worse than He Does Iran; Just say no to ‘Palestine’; Israel protests as Sweden allows Torah burning outside embassy on Saturday

From Ian:

WSJ: Biden Treats Israel Worse than He Does Iran
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board on Thursday night published a scathing attack on President Biden’s Israel police, especially the way he’s been mistreating PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

To remind you, last Tuesday, NY Times pundit Tom Friedman wrote (White House Urging Israelis to Play Nice, Tom Friedman Says US to Reassess Relationship with Israel): “US diplomats … find it hard to believe that Bibi would allow himself to be led around by the nose by people like Ben-Gvir, would be ready to risk Israel’s relations with America and with global investors, and WOULD BE READY TO RISK A CIVIL WAR IN ISRAEL (sic.) just to stay in power with a group of ciphers and ultranationalists.”

In its response to that and similar brazen attacks fueled by the administration, the WSJ editorial board (What Does Biden Have Against Israel? – The President treats the governing coalition in Jerusalem worse than he does Iran) asked: “Why does President Biden go out of his way to snub, criticize and give marching orders to the government of Israel? At least rhetorically, the President and his Administration treat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his governing coalition worse than they do the ruling mullahs in Iran.”

The WSJ is critical of Biden’s repeated declaration that he will not invite the Israeli PM to the White House, while US Ambassador to Jerusalem Tom Nides has been warning that Israel is “going off the rails,” and both men know that their statements provide shameless support to Netanyahu’s enemies.

“When Mr. Netanyahu was most vulnerable, in late March, Mr. Biden needlessly decreed that Israel ‘cannot continue down this road’ on judicial reform,” the WSJ editorial continued, noting that “the Prime Minister had already changed course and agreed to moderate the reforms—a domestic Israeli affair in which the US President has no business. Mr. Nides publicly instructed Mr. Netanyahu, as if with his chauffeur, to ‘pump the brakes.’”

“This is no way to treat a democratic ally,” argues the editorial, and suggested “the President’s Israel policy has been counterproductive. US aid to anti-Israel international bodies has resumed, and all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is treated as ‘occupied territory.’ This is now a liberal article of faith, but how does it advance peace to indulge Palestinians in the belief that Jews are interlopers in Judea and at the Western Wall?”

The WSJ says Biden is undermining Israel’s democratically elected government while “Hamas and other Iranian proxies are gaining power in the West Bank, activating another front against Israel.”

The paper warns: “The new wave of terrorism against Jewish civilians will set back the Palestinian cause but advance Iran’s.”

The editorial also lists Biden’s other failures in the Middle East, including abandoning the Abraham Accords, one of his predecessor’s most brilliant achievements. Biden also failed to keep Saudi Arabia in the Western camp, driving it instead to deepen its relations with China. And the administration’s promises about a better nuclear deal with Iran are all gone.
US, EU, UN pan Israeli eviction of Palestinian family from Jerusalem’s Old City
The United States, the United Nations and the European Union condemned the Tuesday eviction of a Palestinian family from their home in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City where they had been living since the 1950s.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Sub Laban family’s eviction earlier this year, citing a law that allows Jews to reclaim properties in East Jerusalem that were owned by Jews before the formation of the state in 1948. At the same time, Israeli law bars Palestinians from reclaiming property in west Jerusalem from which they were removed as a result of that same war.

Asked to comment on the eviction, a US State Department spokesperson said Wednesday, “We have been clear that it is critical for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution.”

“This certainly includes evictions of families from homes in East Jerusalem in which they have lived for generations,” the spokesperson added.

The EU’s Delegation to the Palestinians tweeted that it “regrets the decision by the Israeli authorities, noting that hundreds of other Palestinian families face similar evictions in East Jerusalem. “We urge the Israeli government to respect international law and let these families live where they have been living for decades.”

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement citing UN experts who argued that the eviction “is representative of a widespread and systematic practice by Israel to forcibly evict and displace Palestinians from east Jerusalem and ‘de-palestinize’ the city.”

During British rule over Mandatory Palestine, before the War of Independence over Israel’s creation in 1948, the Sub Laban’s apartment was owned by a trust for Kollel Galicia, a group that collected funds in Eastern Europe for Jewish families in Jerusalem.

The Palestinian family says it moved into the property in the early 1950s and rented it from a “General Custodian” for abandoned properties, first under Jordanian authorities and then under Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967. The case dragged on for decades, as the Israeli custodian and then the Kollel Galicia trust contested the family’s “protected” status.
Just say no to ‘Palestine’
Amid the domestic strife over the government’s proposed judicial reform, Israelis received a stark reminder this week of the danger that a Palestinian state would pose to Israel’s existence.

In a frightening development, Palestinian terrorists near Jenin in northern Samaria fired two rockets at the nearby Jewish community of Shaked. Fortunately, no one was injured, but that in no way diminishes the importance and severity of the incident, which demands an immediate Israeli military response.

Simply put, the Jewish state must take action to prevent Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) from developing an effective capability to fire rockets, which would further amplify the threat to Israeli cities throughout the center and north of the country.

Consider the following: The distance from Jenin to Haifa is just 49 kilometers; to Tiberias it is 43 km.; and to Afula, it is less than 17 km. If the Palestinians in Samaria succeed in replicating the technologies developed by their terrorist comrades in Gaza, they could easily turn Israel’s North into a shooting gallery.

And that, it would appear, is precisely what they have in mind.

Indeed, the attack earlier this week was reportedly just the latest in a series of recent attempts by a Hamas-linked group called the Al-Ayyash Battalion. While thus far their efforts have been crowned with failure, there is no reason to assume that will continue.

But Hamas is not the only band of thugs working on perfecting rockets.

On May 17, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs published a paper by Yoni Ben-Menachem titled “Islamic Jihad Is Trying To Establish a Rocket Force in Judea and Samaria.” It noted that the Palestinian terror group is aiming to create the necessary infrastructure in Judea and Samaria in order to manufacture and fire rockets. The report came just days after Shin Bet director Ronen Bar said at a press conference, “In the last few weeks, we thwarted a squad in the Jenin refugee camp area, which had already started producing rockets and a launcher to fire rockets from Samaria towards Israel.”

Clearly, a concerted effort is underway by various Palestinian factions in Judea and Samaria, one that must be stopped at all costs.

Over the past two decades, we have all seen the havoc, fear, and trauma periodically caused by Palestinian terrorists based in Gaza, whose rockets have reached Tel Aviv. Israel cannot and must not allow Judea and Samaria to turn into another Gaza, which would mean possibly contending with rocket attacks simultaneously from both areas in any future conflict.

It is therefore essential for Israel to nip this threat in the bud.

Left to their own devices, it is only a matter of time before the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria either develop or acquire the technology needed to bombard the Jewish state.


Avi Mayer: Why the US-Israel alliance endures
Americans love Israel and Israelis love the US
The love is very much mutual.

A 2021 poll conducted by Gallup found that three quarters of Americans (75%) had a favorable view of Israel – the highest figure in thirty years. A Pew survey from last year found that two-thirds of Americans (67%) have a positive view of the Israeli people. Surveys conducted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) have found that more than eight-in-ten Americans view anti-Zionism – that is, denying Israel’s right to exist – as a form of antisemitism (full disclosure: I oversaw those surveys in my previous role as an AJC executive).

American elected officials support the US-Israel alliance not only because it’s good policy to do so – though, of course, it is – but because it’s good politics. America supports Israel because Americans do.

As former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren writes in his seminal book, Power, Faith, and Fantasy, the notion of Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish people’s homeland has captured Americans’ imagination for as long as America has existed. The sheer number of American towns that trace the origins of their names to Israel, of communities and individuals who feel a deep emotional and religious attachment to the Jewish state and its people, is overwhelming, and it speaks to the remarkable role that Israel plays in the lives and consciousness of so many Americans.

When Americans look at Israel and when Israelis look at America, they see themselves: two democracies that came into being under trying circumstances and have persevered despite crushing odds; nations of innovators and entrepreneurs, of farmers and philosophers; societies rooted in deep and enduring values that seek to do right not only by their own people but by the world.

More than shared interests, even more than common values, America and Israel are bound to one another by the mutual love of their respective peoples, and it is that deep and abiding sense of attachment that will enable the two nations – and the bond between them – to weather any storm.
US-Israel relations strained over judicial reform
Josh Hasten, Danny Ayalon and Jose Aristimuño debate the "special" Israel-US relations and whether judicial reform poses a threat to the alliance.


Israel protests as Sweden allows Torah burning outside embassy on Saturday
Israeli officials protested to Sweden on Friday after local police gave the go-ahead to a request to allow the burning of a Bible outside of the Israeli embassy in Stockholm on Saturday, saying that the decision was tantamount to a “hate crime.”

Local police two weeks ago said they had received an application from an individual in his 30s to burn a Jewish and a Christian Bible outside Israel’s Embassy in Stockholm on July 15 as “a symbolic gathering for the sake of freedom of speech.” It comes just weeks after Quran burnings took place in the city.

It was not immediately clear if the person planned to burn a copy of the Bible or a Torah scroll.

The move sparked widespread outrage in Israel and Jewish groups.

President Isaac Herzog said the act was one of “pure hate.”

“I unequivocally condemn the permission granted in Sweden to burn holy books. As the President of the State of Israel, I condemned the burning of the Quran, sacred to Muslims world over, and I am now heartbroken that the same fate awaits a Jewish Bible, the eternal book of the Jewish people,” Herzog said in a statement.

“Permitting the defacement of sacred texts is not an exercise in freedom of expression, it is blatant incitement and an act of pure hate. The whole world must join together in clearly condemning this repulsive act.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “Israel viewed very severely this shameful decision to harm the holy of holies of the Jewish people.”

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen also condemned the plans and said the ministry had conveyed to the Swedish embassy in Israel “the severity with which Israel views the police permission to harm sacred Jewish objects.”

Cohen called the decision “a hate crime, a provocation causing grave harm to the Jewish people and Jewish tradition.”

“I call on the authorities in Sweden to prevent this shameful act,” he said.


Jamaal Bowman becomes 2nd Democrat who will skip Israeli president’s speech to Congress
New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman has announced that he will join his colleague Ilhan Omar in skipping next week’s address by Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Congress.

Bowman’s office told Haaretz that the progressive Democrat would not attend Herzog’s address.

“I don’t think Israel has gone far enough in protecting and uplifting Palestinian rights and Palestinian lives,” a reporter for the Epoch Times, a right-wing anti-China newspaper, said Bowman told him; the reporter tweeted that several other progressive Democrats had declined to say whether they would attend the speech.

Omar’s boycott pledge preceded the official announcement from the White House that President Joe Biden would meet with Herzog while the Israeli president is in Washington. During the visit next Tuesday, Biden will “reaffirm the ironclad commitment of the United States to Israel’s security” in addition to discussing Israel’s ties with its Arab neighbors and the ongoing danger of Iran, according to the White House’s announcement Thursday afternoon.

The announcement also hints at two of the biggest wedges between the United States and Israel right now, as Israel’s right-wing government advances legislation to weaken the country’s judiciary. “President Biden will stress the importance of our shared democratic values, and discuss ways to advance equal measures of freedom, prosperity, and security for Palestinians and Israelis,” the announcement says.


The Caroline Glick Show: Israel Needs to Start Calling the Shots with Hezbollah
Biden deems the Israeli government "the most extreme", Hezbollah increases attacks in the North, and Israel braces for "Days of Rage".


The Israel Guys: BREAKING: Lebanon Might Be Preparing to DECLARE WAR On Israel. . .Full border update
Lebanon seems to be trying to start a war with Israel. The Iranian-backed terror group, Hezbollah, in Lebanon is trying to pick a fight with Israel and lure them into a war. They are using their border disagreements with Israel as an excuse to rally the Lebanese public to embrace the war efforts. Flare-ups on Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah are becoming frequent as Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s supreme leader, senses weakness in Israel due to the internationally driven cue unfolding on the streets of Israel.

Stay tuned for the full breakdown from Joshua on the unfolding drama on Israel's northern border!




The speech Abbas should have made in Jenin
Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas visited Jenin on July 12, just days after Israel’s action against terrorists there. What a great opportunity for him to tell the people of Jenin what they needed to hear.

When Abbas arrived in Jenin, he was greeted by PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh and other officials. Abbas could have set the proper tone for his visit right then and there.

—What Abbas should have said: “Prime Minister Shtayyeh, I was deeply disappointed that you recently praised the murderers of Mrs. Lucy Dee, and her daughters Maia and Rina, as ‘martyrs’ who have ‘ascended to Heaven’ and that you declared, ‘Glory and eternity to our righteous Martyrs.’ And I deeply regret that the official PA news agency WAFA and the official PA daily newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, publicized your outrageous remark. We need to fulfill our obligations in the Oslo accords to refrain from praising terrorists. Publicly praising terrorists helped inspire other young Arabs to become terrorists, which led to the terrible situation in Jenin. Therefore, I insist that you publicly retract your remarks, or resign.”

—What Abbas actually said: Nothing. He made no public remarks at that point.

Abbas then visited the graves of twelve local terrorists who were killed while trying to murder Israelis in Jenin last week.

—What Abbas should have said: “These young men should not be dead. That did not have to be their fate. They could have been raised to cherish peace and coexistence. Instead, they were raised to hate and kill. I deeply regret that under my leadership, the Palestinian Authority constantly encouraged them to murder Jews, by praising and paying killers. Their violence was morally abhorrent, and Palestinian Arab society must reject what they did.”

—What Abbas actually said: He praised the terrorists as “martyrs” and placed a wreath on their graves. In other words, he treated them as heroes and held them up to the people of Jenin as men whose behavior should be admired and emulated.


Journalist who claimed Palestinian Authority arrests dissidents arrested by PA
Palestinian security forces have detained a Palestinian journalist after he wrote critical posts on social media, an activist group said Thursday.

The committee of families of political detainees said that Akil Awawdeh was arrested earlier Thursday after he disparaged claims by a spokesman for the security services that there are no political arrests in the West Bank.

“For God’s sake,” he wrote on Facebook. “You should respect our minds more than that.”

Awawdeh, a reporter for a local radio station, is an outspoken critic of the Palestinian Authority and has had problems with security forces before. Two years ago, he was severely beaten inside a police station after covering a protest against the Palestinian Authority.

Human rights groups have repeatedly accused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of stifling dissent by arresting people who write critical posts on social media and employing harsh tactics to disperse protests.


Seth Frantzman: Hezbollah slowly rewrites the rules on the northern border
Although it had some minor political setbacks, it muscled its way into a more powerful position in Beirut in clashes in 2008. It was then able, after 2011, to play a role in the Syrian conflict. After this, it was able to also hijack the Lebanese presidency and get its ally Michel Aoun appointed.

From that point on, it began to try to dictate terms in southern Lebanon. It assassinated dissidents like Lokman Slim and also created a kind of balance of deterrence with Israel. This meant that Hezbollah would respond to any actions by Israel, including in Syria.

Several incidents increased tensions on the border through around 2018 and 2019.

This is when Hezbollah was able to capitalize on Syria’s regime returning to the Golan border to increase its power. Although the US killed Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, close friends of Hassan Nasrallah, and even though other key Hezbollah members were killed over the years, the group expanded its power.

Now it has sought to redraw the rules in the north. It seeks not just a balance of deterrence but to move pawns into disputed areas and show it can get the land and maritime borders re-drawn. It calculates that Israel is distracted internally. It also works in concert with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Iran and Iranian-backed militias in Syria and Iraq to accomplish this.

The recent moves by Hezbollah, therefore, have major ramifications for Israel and the region. It shows that the “war between the wars” campaign may have been an important focus for Israel, but that Hezbollah can now move its pawns, in the shape of tents and demands, closer to Israel. This is part of Iran’s overall goal to “unify” fronts against Israel in the region and force Israel to focus on problems closer to the northern border and Jenin.


Israel Says It Foiled 50 Iranian-Ordered Attacks in Recent Years
Israel and its foreign partners have foiled more than 50 Iranian-orchestrated attacks on Israelis and Jews abroad in recent years, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday during a visit to Azerbaijan.

Israel and Iran have been locked in a Cold War-style shadow war for decades, with mutual allegations of sabotage and assassination plots.

On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen accused Iran of being behind a thwarted attempt to attack Israel's embassy in Baku. Azeri officials did not immediately confirm that.

"At its supreme leader's orders, Iran has in recent years waged a worldwide terror campaign of unprecedented scale, focused on Israelis and Jews. ... We are talking about more than 50 attempted attacks," Israeli media quoted Gallant as saying.

He credited Israel's security services and "close cooperation with many countries" for the foiling of the alleged attacks.

Iranian officials had no immediate comment.

Azerbaijan is a major Israeli defence partner on Iran's border.


Kerry Defends Secret Meetings With Iran During Trump Admin
John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, on Thursday defended his decision to conduct backdoor negotiations with Iranian officials during the Trump administration in a bid to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal.

Kerry, who was not in government at the time, held at least three secret meetings with former Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, during which he attempted to undermine the Trump administration’s hardline policies towards Tehran. Kerry defended these powwows under questioning from Rep. Michael Waltz (R., Fla.) during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Thursday.

"Shadow diplomacy," Kerry said, is permissible "depending on what it does. Shadow diplomacy has also saved us from a war," Kerry said, referring to back-channel discussions that helped diffuse the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Kerry’s behavior, Waltz said, "undermined current administration diplomacy." At the time Kerry met with Zarif, then-president Donald Trump was working to kill the nuclear accord and reimpose tough sanctions on Tehran. Kerry’s meetings drew widespread scrutiny after Zarif claimed the former secretary of state passed him sensitive information about Israeli strikes in Syria.

Kerry denied disclosing that information, saying that conversation "never took place," but also claimed details about Israel’s attacks on Iranian positions were "in public circulation" at the time.

Waltz dismissed this rationale, saying, "I would posit that your shadow diplomacy now has us on the verge of Iran having a nuclear weapon."




Iran’s president: Homosexuality will end ‘generation of human beings’
The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, criticized the LGBTQ+ community during his visit to Uganda on Wednesday, declaring homosexuality will end the “generation of human beings.”

Raisi's visit, part of his whirlwind tour of African countries such as Kenya and Zimbabwe, comes on the heels of Uganda passing a radical anti-LGBTQ+ law in May that imposes severe criminal penalties on gays, including capital punishment.

The Iranian president said “The West today is trying to promote the idea of homosexuality and by promoting homosexuality they are trying to end the generation of human beings. “ He added, “The Western countries try to identify homosexuality as an index of civilization, while this is one of the dirtiest issues.”

The theocratic Iranian regime has executed 4,000-6000 gays and lesbians since its Islamic revolution in 1979, according to a 2008 British WikiLeaks cable.

Iran's president says homosexuality is part of the pre-Islamic Era of Ignorance
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) first located a television statement from Raisi that appeared on IRINN TV (Iran) on September 1, 2022, in which he said the modern Jahiliyyah, the "very ugly and despicable" practice of homosexuality, is used to depict nations as civilized.

MEMRI wrote that Jahiliyyah is an Islamic term used to refer to the “Era of Ignorance” that preceded Islam.




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