Saudi Arabia’s appointment of its first ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, who will also serve as consul general to Jerusalem, was not coordinated with Israel, and Israeli diplomatic figures are struggling to gauge its implications for the efforts to normalize relations with the kingdom.
Senior Israeli officials said Sunday that Riyadh’s weekend announcement that the Saudi Ambassador to Jordan, Nayef bin Bandar Al-Sudairi, will henceforth also serve as the kingdom’s nonresident ambassador to the Palestinian Authority and consul general in Jerusalem, created facts on the ground for Israel and was not preceded by a dialogue between the countries on the issue.
The only Israeli official to comment Sunday on the Saudi announcement was Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who stated in an interview with Radio 103FM that Israel “will not allow the opening of any kind of diplomatic mission.”
His remark is based on Israel’s official policy for decades of not permitting the opening of diplomatic missions in Jerusalem, with the exception of those that operated in the city before 1948 in the western part and before 1967 in East Jerusalem. Since Saudi Arabia is not planning at this stage to establish a new diplomatic mission in the city, the appointment does not violate Israeli policy.
So if Saudi Arabia had no consulate before 1948 in Jerusalem, Israel wouldn't allow one now.
However, al-Sudari then tweeted a photo of a Saudi consulate in Jerusalem from 1947! The signs indeed say "Saudi Arabian Consulate of Palestine."
Under the guidance of His Majesty the late King Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman in 1947, Uncle Abdulaziz bin Ahmed Al-Sudairy sponsored the opening of the Saudi Consulate General in Jerusalem (Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood).
Indeed, there was a Saudi consulate in Jerusalem, since about 1940. Here is a Palestine Post article that mentions it and the consul general's name in January 1945.
They aren't asking for a consulate at this point, but if Israel's official policy listed above is accurate, then things might get interesting - and not just vis a vis the Saudis, but also the Biden administration as well that wants to open up a consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem as well. Even if Israel allows the Saudis to do this in some fashion as part of the deal for normalization, it would have a hard time saying "no" to the US.
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Following last week’s election, the veteran Middle East reporter Thomas Friedman authored a New York Times column under the headline “The Israel We Knew Is Gone,” full of dire predictions about what will befall the Jewish state now that its citizens have returned its longest-serving prime minister to power. Daniel Gordis dissects the column’s faulty assumptions and misguided conclusions, which distill misconceptions that plague much American commentary on Israel:
Here’s the heart of the problem. There are many people around the world who want Israel to be something it does not wish to be. They want it to be successful, but humble. They want it to be strong and secure, but still desperate for foreign support of all sorts. They want it to be Jewish, but in a “nice” kind of way. Israeli dancing (which I haven’t seen here in years), flags at the right time, a country filled with “Hatikvah moments,” as some call them. A country traditional enough to be heartwarming, but not so traditional that it would dare imply that less intense forms of Jewish life cannot make it. A country steeped in memory, but also one that is finally willing to move on.
An Israel moderate in every way would be an Israel easy to love. It would be a source of pride, but not a source of shame. It would be an Israel that would make us feel great as Americans and as Jews. The only problem is that that Israel doesn’t exist, and it never has.
And what of Friedman’s more specific gripes?
Tom Friedman writes that “Netanyahu has been propelled into power by bedfellows who see Israeli Arab citizens as a fifth column who can’t be trusted,” intimating that Israeli Arabs are not a fifth column. Some are; some aren’t. . . . I’ve interviewed many Arab women and men who are quite the opposite. But if you live in the Negev, if you have farmland you can’t protect from Arabs in the south or the north, you’re fearful. If you’re a young Jewish Israeli woman afraid to walk in downtown Beer Sheva, you don’t think a “fifth column” is a ludicrous claim. . . . Friedman can dismiss it, but Israelis increasingly don’t. The left and center ignore the issue, and now, Israelis are ignoring them.
The victory of Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition has many on the left bemoaning the end of democracy in Israel. Even before voting began, Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) threatened harm to bilateral relations should Israelis vote to the right. The State Department has said it would boycott some right-wing ministers, and President Biden waited almost a week before calling to congratulate Mr. Netanyahu. Yet Secretary of State Antony Blinken apparently had time Friday to phone Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who last stood for election (to a four-year term) in 2005.
What has degraded Israeli democracy, according to critics, is the electoral success of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s party. Mr. Ben-Gvir’s critics cite his past in the far-right Kahanist movement. For all the consternation, one would think he was the future prime minister, rather than the head of a second-tier party, with seven of 120 seats in the Knesset.
Yet those saying Mr. Ben-Gvir’s inclusion in the government is unacceptable were untroubled by the departing government, which included Ra’am, a party affiliated with Israel’s Islamic Movement, which was founded by a convicted terrorist; or the far-left Meretz, with roots in an actual Stalinist party; or by Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s apparent willingness to accept support from Hadash, a still-Communist party whose members of the Knesset recently justified terrorism against Israeli civilians.
Another theme in the dire forecasts for Israeli democracy are legal-system reforms that the new government may pursue. The measures would actually reinforce democracy and introduce checks and balances to a political system in which the Supreme Court has far more power than its American counterpart.
Like the U.S. Supreme Court, Israel’s strikes down laws as unconstitutional—even though Israel doesn’t have a written constitution. The court has, without statutory authority, taken upon itself the power to strike down any law or government action as “unreasonable”—that is, anything the justices don’t think is a good idea. The justices—they currently number 15—decide what laws to bestow “constitutional” status on. They also dominate the committee that appoints new justices as well as lower-court judges. Candidates don’t undergo confirmation hearings before the Knesset.
The legal reforms being discussed would weaken the ability of sitting justices to pick their successors. The reforms would allow the Knesset, in some cases, to override Supreme Court decisions based on interpretations of Knesset legislation—much as the Canadian Parliament can do. Such a measure would be a far less radical check on the court’s power than the court-packing U.S. Democrats have entertained as a way of reining in the judiciary.
For years, Israeli prosecutors have pursued Mr. Netanyahu for the crime of “breach of trust.” Some in the incoming government seek to do away with this offense because no one knows what exactly it prohibits. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Skilling v. U.S. (2010), struck down as unconstitutionally vague a similar statute about denying “honest services.”
The potential legal reforms don’t undermine the values Israel shares with the U.S. Instead, they would bring Israel closer to the American model.
The Jerusalem Municipality on Tuesday published the zoning description for a new US Embassy complex in the capital city.
The embassy will be on Derech Hebron between Hanoch Albek Street and Daniel Yanovsky Street, an area known by its British Mandate-era name, “Camp Allenby.”
The complex will include an embassy, offices, residences, parking and security structures. The buildings can be no more than 10 stories high, and the wall surrounding the area will be 3.5 meters high.
Time to start planning the move
Members of the public will have 60 days to submit their opposition to the plan to the municipality.
“After almost four years of hard work with the American Embassy in Jerusalem, we are pleased that the zoning plans were published this morning for the new Allenby complex,” Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum said Tuesday.
“The US Embassy in such a central part of the city will upgrade the urban landscape of the neighborhood and connect it to all areas of the capital through the [Jerusalem] Light Rail network that will stop almost at its doors,” she said. “We hope that more countries will follow and move their embassies to our capital, Jerusalem.”
The US Embassy moved to Jerusalem in 2018, a few months after President Donald Trump recognized Israel’s capital.
Middle East Eye, an anti-Israel UK news site, has been closely following the potential "disaster" of Great Britain considering moving its Israel embassy to Jerusalem, which Prime Minister Liz Truss has mentioned she is considering.
They claim to have discovered a briefing note by Conservative Friends of Israel, which seems legitimate - and is a very good list of reasons why the UK, or any nation, should move embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem:
It has long been customary for sovereign countries to choose their capital city and for embassies and other diplomatic offices to be located there.
It is understood that the UK Government already owns land in West Jerusalem for an embassy to be built there.
The State of Israel’s main institutions are all located in Jerusalem, including its Parliament, government ministries, Supreme Court and the residences of both the Prime Minister and President. UK diplomats arriving in the country will receive their credentials from the President in Jerusalem and throughout their service will routinely hold meetings in the city.
Efforts to secure a lasting peace agreement and a viable and prosperous Palestinian state will continue.
At its core, a move to relocate the British Embassy to Jerusalem would be a bureaucratic one that recognises the reality on the ground. It would not preclude the Palestinians from establishing their capital in East Jerusalem in the future, nor would it alter the UK’s longstanding view that the future status of the city is an issue that must be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinians in bilateral negotiations.
Under any realistic two state solution, West Jerusalem would remain under Israeli rule – this has been long-accepted in peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians over decades.
The United States has formally recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved its embassy there,as have Taiwan, Nauru, Honduras, Guatemala, and Kosovo. Australia and Russia have both recognised West Jerusalem as the capital.
The ground-breaking U.S.-sponsored Abraham Accords were negotiated following the U.S. relocating its Embassy to Jerusalem.
Remember how all the "experts" predicted that the US moving its embassy to Jerusalem would spark war and waves of terror?
They are claiming that again in the UK. And it is just as false.
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Under the Obama administration, virtually all mentions of "Jerusalem, Israel" were scrubbed from the State Department websites, and the city became merely "Jerusalem" - without a country attached.
This was fixed during the Trump administration when the US Embassy was moved to Jerusalem, but last year I found some indications that the policy was regressing back towards the Obama-era policy of not recognizing that Jerusalem was in Israel.
Here is some more evidence that things are going backwards.
The form to get visa services allows you to choose a country and then it lists what cities there are consulates and embassies. Here's what it says for Israel:
Tel Aviv is the only city in Israel. If you want services from the US Embassy for Israel in Jerusalem, you must choose the non-existent country of Jerusalem:
It looks like the State Department never updated the address of the Embassy to say what country it was in.
From what I can tell, according to the State Department, the US Embassy to Israel is in Jerusalem, but the "US Embassy Jerusalem" is not in Israel.
This should be clarified.
(h/t Avi)
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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
From the time that Donald Trump won the election in 2016 -- and even before then -- there was nothing he did or said that was not open to criticism. After all, he had never held public office before and had no experience in government.
A similar criticism was applied to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
An online post on The National Review in 2020 called Kushner "a national disaster":
Perhaps the most stubbornly stuck-on piece of chewed gum on the White House walls has been Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who, it is always necessary to point out, had no experience in anything like government before being catapulted to one of the most important roles in the administration. [emphasis added]
It was assumed to be ridiculous that Trump had tapped the 39-year-old Kushner, not a diplomat or an expert in the region, for this role and assumed that everything he did afterward was ridiculous, if not nefarious.
Rarely has so much mockery been directed at an approach that, in the event, was methodical, creative, and ultimately achieved a breakthrough.
Kushner did not make peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, but no one else has, either. What he did was find a path for historic deals to normalize relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, with perhaps other Arab countries to follow. [emphasis added]
In his book Sledgehammer: How Breaking With The Past Brought Peace To The Middle East, David Friedman turns around the issue of experience back at the critics:
The US-Israel policy that existed when we took office was simply beyond repair. It was dominated by self-proclaimed experts with no real-world negotiating experience. [p. 8; emphasis added]
This problem of "experts" lacking the key skill of knowing how to negotiate has been an issue in the Iran deal as well.
Actually, the criticism about lacking expertise leveled at Kushner could easily be applied to Friedman as well. He himself readily points out that he was the first US ambassador to Israel with no previous diplomatic or government experience. [p. 49]
But while Kushner brought skills as a negotiator, Friedman was skilled as a lawyer and litigator. Many of the accomplishments of the Trump administration in the Middle East were a result of Friedman's knowledge of the law in general and his legal skills and ability to analyze a problem.
Friedman became the US ambassador to Israel on March 29, 2017 -- and hit the ground running.
He had a meeting in the State Department with the Office of the Legal Adviser -- and asked outright why the US did not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as required by the Jerusalem Act of 1995. In response, he got a lecture on how that law was subject to a presidential waiver and was an option exercised by both Democratic and Republican presidents ever since the law was first enacted.
Friedman's response was to point out that they were wrong, that they failed to see a key distinction:
The Jerusalem Embassy Act permits the move of the embassy to be delayed by presidential waiver. But the recognition of Jerusalem is not waivable--it simply is declared in the statute. [p. 65; emphasis in original]
The State Department lawyers refused to agree, but it is unlikely they had ever had their legal arguments parried by an ambassador before.
And it was only the beginning.
In September 2017, Friedman "began to push the envelope on political issues." In a press interview, he referred to Israel's control of Judea and Samaria as an "alleged occupation." He followed this up with another interview where he said that the West Bank settlements were part of Israel -- based on the fact that the residents serve in the IDF, have Israeli citizenship and are considered Israeli by the government. [p. 90-91]
That month Friedman also visited the UN with Trump. Trump spoke to the General Assembly, and so did Abbas, threatening to prosecute Israelis at the International Criminal Court. When the issue came up the following month, Friedman pointed out that by encouraging the ICC to prosecute Israelis, Abbas went against the diplomacy that the Palestinian mission was supposed to be engaged in -- which was legal grounds for closing the mission.
Rather than push the point and jeopardize the political capital needed down the line to make recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital a reality, he sent a note to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laying out the issue and saying he would abide by his decision. Tillerson started the process of setting the PLO mission on the path to closure. [p. 93-94]
By November 2017, the issue of official recognition of Jerusalem was on the front burner. Besides having to provide all the 'pro-recognition arguments' for a memo drawn up by the head of national security (the memo only contained the risks), Friedman also had to argue for recognition against Secretary of State Tillerson and National Security Advisor HR MacMaster in front of Trump. [p. 98-103]
He won the argument and the US officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on December 6, 2017. In February, the State Department claimed, however, that actually moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would take 10 years and cost a billion dollars. Friedman found a way to open the new embassy in 3 months at a cost of $150 thousand. Trump authorized $500,000 and the US embassy in Jerusalem opened on May 14, 2018 -- the 70th anniversary of Israel's independence. [p. 112]
Before May 14, 2018, the US Embassy was in Tel Aviv and the consulate (established in 1844) was in Jerusalem -- as a mission to the city rather than to the country as a whole. This made no sense once the state of Israel was established, and created conflicts since technically the US ambassador from Tel Aviv was out of his area of jurisdiction in Jerusalem, where he met with Israeli officials. On the other hand, the consulate administered to Jerusalem but did not have any responsibility for the US-Israel relations.
During the summer of 2018, with Mike Pompeo replacing Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, Friedman pursued these finer points of having the US embassy located in Jerusalem. As a result, Pompeo announced on October 18, 2018:
I am pleased to announce that following the May 14 opening of the US Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem, we plan to achieve significant efficiencies and increase our effectiveness in merging US Embassy Jerusalem and US Consulate General Jerusalem into a single diplomatic mission. I have asked our Ambassador to Israel David Friedman to guide the merger. [p. 140-146]
The issue of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights came up a couple of months earlier, in March 2018. It was an issue that Netanyahu was pushing. On the US side, national security advisor John Bolton raised the issue with Friedman, who saw it as an application of UN Security Council Resolution 242 entitling Israel to "secure and recognized borders," a framework which could then be extended to the Vision for Peace being worked on for Israel and the Palestinians. Friedman then raised the issue with Trump, who agreed with the idea. [p. 156-157]
By September 2019, with another round of deadlocked elections in Israel, Friedman addressed the State Department's use of the term "occupied territory." He writes that:
I was willing to go along with "disputed territory" or even "West Bank," but I wanted the nomenclature changed to eliminate the term "occupied." I argued that territory is "occupied" only when the party in control has no rights to the land except by reason of military conquest--and that was not the case here. [p.161]
According to Friedman, following the Six Day War, the captured territory was considered disputed. It was Carter, who saw settlements as an obstacle to peace, who had Herbert Hansell, the legal advisor to the State Department, issue a 4-page memo claiming that they were illegal.
In his book, Friedman lists "basic errors" in the Hansell Memo.
o It fails to acknowledge that Israel's legal right to the "West Bank" was confirmed by both The Balfour Declaration and San Remo Resolution and incorporated into the League of Nations resolutions that were the legal basis for restructuring the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
o Hansell claims Israel is a belligerent occupant in relation to Jordan, but fails to show how that is relevant when Jordan itself had no legal claim to the territory.
o He claims the settlements are the result of illegal "forced transfer" when in fact Israel did not force anyone to move.
o The memo also does not account for the fact that the Six Day War was a defensive war.
o Hansell does acknowledge that belligerent occupancy would no longer apply if the state of war would end between Israel and Jordan -- and it did, making the Hansell memo irrelevant.
For his part, Friedman asked a group of lawyers to provide support for the Trump administration's view that the West Bank was notoccupied:
I'm asking the question because in the circumstances you have outlined, where legitimate arguments can be made on either side of an issue, I would think you would want to act at the direction of your client...
Guys, when Jimmy Carter wanted an opinion from his State Department legal adviser that settlements were illegal, he got it from Hansell. Not a dissertation on the various positions or an acknowledgement that things could go either way. He got a full-throated finding of illegality. Why isn't Mike Pompeo entitled to the same courtesy, assuming what he's asking for is intellectually honest?
Friedman is not making an obscure point.
Carter did not ask Hansell for a legal decision evaluating the different sides to the issue. What he asked for was legal justification for a position that had already been made by the Carter administration and given to Hansell to support.
Secretary Vance has asked me to reply to your request for a statement of legal considerations
underlying the United States view that the establishment of the Israeli civilian settlements in the
territories occupied by Israel is inconsistent with international law. Accordingly, I am approving the
following in response to that request. [emphasis added]
Friedman was asking for the same courtesy from the lawyers, that given the different sides to the issue, they should support the position of the administration.
And that is what he got. On November 19, 2019, Pompeo announced:
After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this administration agrees with President Reagan. The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.
By saying the settlements were not per se illegal, the door was left open that individual settlements may be open to "local competing claims," but as a whole, the settlements were disputed, not occupied. [p. 161-165]
Earlier, in August 2019, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib announced their plan to visit "Palestine" -- a plan that the Israeli government resisted facilitating, because of their plans to exploit the trip against Israel. Israel had passed a law a year earlier, prohibiting tourists from advocating boycotts or sanctions against the country.
Friedman explains the nature of Israel's law:
Nothing prevented Israelis or Palestinians from engaging in this activity--the law simply prohibited foreigners from advocating boycotts of Israel on Israeli soil.
Many liberal Americans were opposed to this law. They argued that principles of free speech were paramount in balancing the issues. This argument missed the point. Israelis and Palestinians had free speech. But Israel had the right to control its borders and had no moral obligation to facilitate visits for those who sought Israeli's destruction. [p. 168; emphasis added]
When Friedman got a copy of the planned itinerary of Omar and Tlaib's trip, he saw that the visit was entitled "US Congressional Delegation to Palestine" and that the visit was focused exclusively on the West Bank with no meetings with Jews.
He considered this as crossing a line regarding US law and policy:
Not because it's my business who Israel lets into its borders, but because here were two isolated members of Congress seeking to establish a new foreign policy of the United States. The United States did not recognize a state or even a place called Palestine, and this end run around our policies and our values should not be tolerated.
The decision of what to do was Israel's to make, and Israel decided the visit violated Israeli law. When the decision was announced and there was an uproar in response, Friedman released a statement, which read in part:
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is not free speech. Rather, it is no less than economic warfare designed to delegitimize and ultimately destroy the Jewish State. Israel properly has enacted laws to bar entry of BDS activists under the circumstances present here, and it has every right to protect its borders against those activists in the same manner as it would bar entrants with more conventional weapons.
...the Tlaib/Omar Delegation has limited its exposure to tours organized by the most strident of BDS activists. This trip, pure and simple, is nothing more than an effort to fuel the BDS engine that Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar so vigorously support.
Like the United States, Israel is a nation of laws. We support Israel’s application of its laws in this case.
By October 2020, one of the last things that Friedman wanted to accomplish was recognition by the State Department that US citizens born in Jerusalem would be recognized as having been born in Israel, and have that fact reflected in their passports. While it seemed a natural outgrowth of US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the State Department -- then still under the direction of Rex Tillerson -- blocked such a move.
But Mike Pompeo, on the other hand, was supportive -- but asked Friedman to work with the Legal Advisor to the State Department, the same office that had supported Tillerson in blocking the passport change. Friedman wrote a lengthy legal analysis showing that recognition had created a legal certainty that Jerusalem was in Israel. But the State Department lawyers responded that Jerusalem remained a final status issue. He offered a compromise, where US citizens born in Jerusalem had the choice to list Israel as their place of birth while retaining the option to list Jerusalem instead. With Pompeo's help, this was found acceptable. [p. 223-224]
As Trump's term started to draw to a close, Friedman addressed 3 bilateral agreements between the US and Israel -- and the "dirty little secret in the State Department." These agreements, The Binational Science Foundation, the Binational Industrial Research & Development Foundation, and the Binational Agricultural Research & Development Fund all contained the same limitation:
Projects financed by the Fund may not be conducted in geographic areas which came under the Administration of the Government of Israel after June 5, 1967, and may not relate to subjects primarily pertinent to such areas. [emphasis added]
In other words, the US government was officially boycotting research and development projects it was conducting with Israel in the West Bank. Fixing the problem required dealing again with lawyers was well as several government agencies and their insistence that no amendment could be made to the agreements without renegotiating them -- despite the fact that all that was at stake was deleting the one sentence.
Friedman arranged a special signing ceremony with Netanyahu at Ariel University for October 27, where the amending of the agreements would be formalized --
And I informed everyone involved that the necessary, and only the necessary, approvals must be obtained prior to October 27 or I would inform the secretary of state of all those who stood in the way of the ceremony and contributed to a diplomatic embarrassment. [p.225-226]
Problem solved.
One last problem addressed in November 2020 centered on how products made in the West Bank were labeled. Before the Oslo Accords, under US law such products could be labeled "MADE IN ISRAEL" -- but afterward, the labeling had to specify "WEST BANK," including products made in Area C, which were under Israeli control.
Friedman discussed the issue with the head of US Customs and Border Protection, whose main focus is avoiding confusion, rather than getting into geopolitics:
I explained to them that the term "West Bank" was itself misleading, as a product emanating from that area could be made under the authority of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, or the State of Israel. You can't get more confusing than that!
They came to an agreement where the labels would specify "Gaza" for the Gaza Strip, "West Bank" for the territory in Judea and Samaria controlled by the PA and "Israel" for the areas under Israeli control. [p.227-228].
Reading about the various issues that Ambassador Friedman focused on and was able to resolve, it is hard to believe that someone without legal training could have pinpointed the key points and pushed the legal arguments necessary. It would not have been enough to be pro-Israel. The proof is the fact that these issues were not resolved by the experienced US diplomats who preceded David Friedman. It also helped that he was not content with the status quo and was determined -- with Trump's backing -- to make necessary changes.
Friedman's knowledge and abilities as a lawyer helped, just as Jared Kushner's background and negotiating skills helped bring about the Abraham Accords.
But that is a different book.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
From the start, the "pro-Palestinian" movement has not been pro-Palestinian at all. It has been anti-Israel. And its supporters, no matter how educated or articulate, are so consumed with hate for the Jewish state that they literally cannot tell the difference between the two concepts.
Noura Erakat, the "human rights attorney" and assistant professor at Rutgers University, wrote an op-ed for NBC News that crystallizes this basic fact - and thereby reveals a major reason why the Palestinians have remained stuck in limbo for so long.
Notwithstanding several early steps that distinguish him from his predecessor, President Joe Biden promises to continue [Trump’s] legacy. It’s true that the new administration intends to reinstate critical U.S. humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees and will reopen the PLO mission office in Washington, D.C. Just Monday, it announced that it will rejoin the U.N. Human Rights Council, from which the Trump administration withdrew mostly in protest of its scrutiny of Israel.
But none of these policies, welcome though they are, will challenge the oppressive status quo sustained by the United States. Worse still, the Biden administration will uphold several of the Trump administration’s most damning precedents.
These examples are most revealing:
The new secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has made clear that the administration will not move the U.S. Embassy from Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv; it will maintain, and celebrate, Israel’s normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan without ensuring a single enduring concession for the Palestinians; and it will continue to provide Israel with unconditional military support in the amount of $3.8 billion annually — a precedent established by Biden’s former boss, President Barack Obama.
Late last week, the Biden administration also expressed “serious concerns” over the International Criminal Court’s effort to exercise jurisdiction over Israeli officials to prosecute them for war crimes, and is even considering maintaining the Trump administration’s sanctions on the court’s leading personnel.
She brings three examples of what she considers anti-Palestinian policies: keeping the embassy in Jerusalem, supporting peace between Israel and Arab states, and maintaining military aid that gets spent in the US.
None of these policies hurt Palestinians. None of them affect Palestinian lives at all, except for Gaza terrorists who want to murder Israeli civilians with rockets. None of them are speedbumps towards a Palestinian state.
They do support Israel as a sovereign nation – which this “human rights lawyer” considers “damning.”
The rest of the article is more of the same, complaining that a definition of antisemitism that includes demonizing the Jewish state’s very existence is somehow anti-Palestinian.
Erakat is so filled with hate for Israel that she literally cannot tell the difference between “pro-Israel” and “anti-Palestinian,” nor the difference between “pro-Palestinian” and “anti-Israel.” She fully subscribes to a zero-sum mentality that what is good for Israel is automatically bad for Palestinians – and, worse, that nothing can be considered good for Palestinians unless it is also bad for Israel.
The UAE and Bahrain (and to an extent Morocco and Sudan) have abandoned the zero-sum mentality. No one can call them “anti-Palestinian” although the Gulf Arabs are justifiably critical of the current Palestinian leaderships. They see Israel not as an enemy but as a partner that can help them thrive; not as a open Jewish wound in the Arab Middle East but as a permanent feature that improves the region and that can lift up Arab states. Instead of zero-sum, they seek a win-win. The zero-sum mentality that they maintained for so many decades did not help them – or the Palestinians – one bit.
The zero-sum mindset is childish and counterproductive. If there is one lasting change from the Abraham Accords, it is that this puerile way of thinking is finally on the wane in the Middle East.
As long as the Palestinians – including their Western “defenders” – cannot grasp that basic concept, they will never get anywhere.
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her
cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not. If I set not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy. (Psalm 137:
5-6)
The deadline for delaying the implementation of the Jerusalem Embassy
Act of 1995, has come and gone, with no signature having been affixed to the provision. President Trump hasn't signed the waiver
that lets the U.S. off the hook for moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. It is
the first time this has happened since 1998, when the provision for what turned
out to be a permanent biyearly delay, signed by president after president, took
effect.
On Tuesday, President Trump announced he would indeed be moving the embassy, however it would take time to plan and execute the move. Four years. So he's going to sign the waiver yet again.
For technical reasons involving funding, Trump will have to sign that waiver until such time as the doors of a new embassy open in Jerusalem, the official said.
“The specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations,” [U.S.] officials said.
This, in other words, is President Trump saying that Jerusalem is for sale, a property that can be negotiated. Whether or not Israel agrees.
In what universe is this friendship?
This sort of "recognition" is the last thing Israel needs.
Even the president's declaration that the U.S. embassy will be moved to Jerusalem, meanwhile feels like it may be a bluff, a cover-up for kicking that can down the road.
To underscore that new policy understanding Trump [will direct] the State Department to create a plan to relocate the embassy to a site in Jerusalem, the officials said, adding that it could take at least four years to execute the move.
This is nonsense. All the talk of security needs, of finding a suitable physical
plant, and etc., is very nice and all these things can be implemented with the
passing of time. But moving the embassy technically requires only changing
a sign. The American Consulate is already in Jerusalem. The sign affixed to that building can be changed to read "embassy" instead of "consulate."
And that can be done right now. It could have been done in
May. It could have been done on the first day that Trump assumed office.
All these years, Jerusalem has been shunned. Her honor sullied. And some people think that Jerusalem has now regained her rightful place in the eyes of the world, as a result of the announcement of the intentions of a sitting U.S. president.
This man, at the same time, says that the borders of Israel's sovereignty in Jerusalem are yet to be determined. This being the case, how is it that those on the Trump Train remain gleeful? What right does anyone have to say that our capital, our holy city, is negotiable?
I am jealous for Jerusalem, as all of us should be.
Jerusalem has now been snubbed, scorned, and rebuffed every six months by
presidents Clinton (who let the Jerusalem Embassy Act pass by leaving it
unsigned on his desk) through Trump. Trump signed the waiver in May, breaking
his promise to the Jewish people. Now Trump says he will move the embassy, but will sign the waiver anyway; recognizes Jerusalem, but says it is a piece of real estate to be negotiated.
In this game of opposing statements: a capital that can be negotiated, recognition and nonrecognition, President Trump lets the State Department win, and spurns Jerusalem once more.
And still, everyone knows the truth. Which makes this worse in a way. Makes all these machinations of U.S. officials ugly and dishonest toil. Because we all know that the Jews were in Jerusalem before Christ, and before Mohammed. Before there was an Arab people.
Jerusalem is mentioned 850
times in the Torah, not once in the Quran.
The Jews have prayed for Jerusalem for generations, yearned
for it to be rebuilt speedily in our time, at weddings, holidays, and in our
daily prayers. No other people has Jerusalem playing so central a part over thousands
of years.
The Christians know it. The Muslims know it.
Everyone knows that Jerusalem is ours.
No one gets a pass. Not Donald Trump. Not anyone.
Situating and maintaining the American Embassy in Tel Aviv has
been a continuous slap in the face to America's best friend in the Middle East:
Israel. It's been an ongoing slap in the face to the Jews. And a slap in the
face to God Himself, many times over.
Europe
(plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose), which tried and failed to eradicate
the Jews, has been desperate to keep Trump from recognizing Jerusalem as a Jewish
city. Various Arab
and Muslim
entities, meanwhile, threaten
to go out and kill the Jews should the embassy be moved. And the State
Department uses these threats to pressure the president to sign the waiver once more.
It's ironic. The Arabist State Department uses terror as its cover to rob the Jews of Jerusalem. Yet terror is ever-present in Israel. So it's a very flimsy cover that doesn't make sense to any thinking person.
And if Israel is willing to take the risk of terror in exchange for moving the embassy, why should
it be any concern of the U.S.?
The State Department fears that the entire region could blow up with internecine warfare (with attendant universal fallout)?
This is not to say that moving the embassy would not bring an increase in terror. Of course it will. They'll go out and do their thing, the terrorists, if
Trump moves the embassy. That will happen even with this half-recognition of Jerusalem using mere words. The terrorists? They'll
call terror "legitimate resistance."
Which means: Kill the Jews.
But the terrorists would do that anyway. They're always doing that. Trying
to kill us and sometimes succeeding.
If we were to let that stop us, let the killing deter us
from reaching important goals, the State of Israel would not now be here. We
wouldn't be the awesome friend that we are to the U.S., sharing technology and
knowledge, and helping to defend U.S. interests.
If we allowed the terrorists to win, Israel wouldn't be, would
cease to exist.
And anyway, the State Department could, if it truly wished, put a damper
on that terror. All it has to do is close the wallet. Close the PLO office.
Here is something President Trump needs to know: Arabs respect strength. If you live in the Middle
East, you come to understand this and appreciate it. You have to meet their
bluff, even when it's not a bluff, but the real thing.
It's how you end up on top. The only way.
Weakness is the reason the Arabs hated Obama. They hated him because he actively supported terrorists, and looked away from evil.
For all that it looks as though Trump is the most friendly president ever, a good friend to the Jews, by not changing that sign on the consulate, and by saying that Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem is negotiable, Trump is slapping
the Jews in the face, and showing weakness to the Arabs. He's giving the terrorists
a leg up, and pushing the Jews down, forcing
them to grovel for tidbits.
It's wrong. And it's no way to treat a friend.
We should all be jealous for Jerusalem's honor. We should demand that justice be done instead of congratulating ourselves over President Trump's recognition/nonrecognition of our capital.
The president should have moved the embassy
on day one of his presidency. He should have had that sign on the American Consulate changed.
He could do that today.
It is sad to say, but the president has wronged Jerusalem.
And this has been recorded in the annals of history.
For all time.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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