Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Isaac Herzog

Showing posts with label Isaac Herzog. Show all posts

Sunday, March 26, 2023

More "Apartheid:" Israel helps free Israeli Arab anti-Zionist activist from UAE prison

An Israeli woman was released from prison in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday night and was flown back to Israel early Sunday, after UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan granted her amnesty as a personal gesture to President Isaac Herzog.

Fidaa Kiwan was serving life in prison for drug smuggling. She was originally sentenced to death in April 2022, but the Abu Dhabi Federal Appeal Court canceled the punishment and sentenced her to life behind bars in July.

Kiwan, a 44-year-old Haifa resident who owns a photography studio, reportedly came to Dubai for work at the invitation of a Palestinian acquaintance. She was arrested a short while later, on March 17, 2021, after a search of her apartment turned up the drugs. She claimed that the cocaine was not hers.

World Israel News fills in some details:

Kiwan, a staunch anti-Zionist, previously made headlines in 2010 for refusing to serve a uniformed IDF soldier in a café she once owned. The café eventually closed.

According to Hebrew language media reports, her brother, a one-time employee of public broadcasting station Kan, trashed a room at his workplace in which Israeli flags were displayed.

After her Kiwan’s arrest in Dubai, she initially resisted help from Israeli officials because of her political views. However, she eventually reached out to Israeli authorities for assistance.

Her family vocally accused the Israeli government of racism, claiming in a press conference that officials weren’t doing enough to help her case because of her Arab ethnicity.

President Isaac Herzog personally asked UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan to pardon Kiwan and he agreed, according to a statement from Herzog’s office.

Kiwan’s release came on the first day of Ramadan.

The president of the Jewish state put a great deal of his own political capital on the line to save the life of an anti-Zionist Arab - because she is a citizen of Israel and that is the government's job.

(h/t iTiIL972)

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01/26 Links Pt1: Mark Levin, Eugene Kontorovich Explain Israel’s Judicial Reforms; 9 Palestinian gunmen killed as IDF foils terror cell in Jenin; The Saudis are growing sick of Palestine

From Ian:

HRC Op-Ed In The Hill Times History Doesn’t Support Giving Israel An ‘Occupier’ Label

HRC’s Op-Ed entitled: “History Doesn’t Support Giving Israel An ‘Occupier’ Label” was published in The Hill Times on Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people, is not an “occupier” of its own land and of its own eternal and undivided capital, Jerusalem.

No UN resolution or political proclamation can distort these historical truths.

Furthermore, Jews have historical ties to Judea and Samaria which dates back thousands of years. Israel strenuously disputes claims that it’s an “occupier,” citing pre-existing legal, ancestral, and biblical claims to lands it acquired in a war of self-defence in 1967 against pan-Arab armies seeking its destruction and as there was no recognized sovereign of these areas at the time.

Jordan controlled the area now regarded as the “West Bank” from 1948-1967 following the War of Independence, which saw combined Arab armies try to wipe the nascent State of Israel off the map. Jordan didn’t have rightful title to the land according to international law. Same equally applies for Egypt, which controlled the Gaza Strip from 1948-1967, unlawfully, and which Israel acquired in 1967, but from which, in 2005, it unilaterally disengaged, removing 21 settlements, 8,000 settlers, and its combined armed forces in a unilateral concession for peace.

Importantly, the Palestinians have never had sovereignty and statehood, and according to Israel’s position and many leading international jurists, the laws of occupation aren’t applicable.

Melanie Phillips: Netanyahu at bay, but what about the facts?

So, how’s Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faring in his supposed program to smash democracy at the behest of the religious extremists in his government?

Well, as Israel’s newly-minted dictator, he’s not doing too well in that regard.

Consider: Netanyahu has demonstrated his supposed craven subjection to the ultra-nationalist Bezalel Smotrich, to whom he gave authority over civilian administration in the disputed territories, by brutally slapping Smotrich down when he attempted to overrule an IDF and Defense Ministry decision to tear down an illegal Israeli outpost.

Netanyahu has shown his allegedly despotic determination to ditch the rule of law by bowing to the Supreme Court’s ruling against his minister and long-time ally Aryeh Deri and firing him.

And Netanyahu showed himself captured, bound and gagged by the zealots in his government who want to turn Israel into a theocracy when he effectively overruled the Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar, who said he would stop funding cultural activities on Shabbat.

In other words, in every case, Netanyahu has chosen to uphold the existing order rather than overthrow it.

Undoubtedly, the fight between Smotrich and the defense establishment has further to go. Netanyahu has said he will somehow bring Deri back into his government. We have yet to see how these and other issues will turn out.

Maybe Netanyahu will yet morph into a cross between Viktor Orban, Herod and Mussolini. But so far, he has been behaving as a cautious, risk-averse prime minister determined to keep the liberal, constitutional show on the road.

Of course, this has received no acknowledgment from the “progressive” Jewish world, both in Israel and the Diaspora. To such people, Netanyahu is personally irredeemable, and because the government he has formed is committed to defending Jewish interests rather than left-wing principles, it is deemed incapable of doing anything sensible or good.

Gadi Taub: The Struggle for Israel’s Democracy

In his previous administrations Netanyahu was careful not to pick a fight with the country’s judicial oligarchy, preferring to spend his political capital on other subjects—primarily Iran and economics. He assumed, based on experience, that Israel’s judicial oligarchy would continue to abide by an unwritten rule: If a politician doesn’t try to reform the justice system, they will leave his person—though not necessarily his policies—alone. The flip side of this arrangement was, in any case, more obviously true: Try to advance a reform, and you almost always end up with a criminal investigation, often one that was fabricated, as in the cases of Yaacov Neeman and Reuven Rivlin, both of whom were among those barred from serving as justice ministers by contrived investigations that ended up with nothing. The judiciary had its own praetorian guard in the Office of the State Attorney, which cultivated a culture of promiscuous yet slow-moving investigations that made sure politicians didn’t step out of line.

After Netanyahu won his fourth term in 2015, the despair on the left reached a fever pitch, and the various centers of left-wing power began to clamor for Netanyahu’s head. The press led the way with investigative pieces accusing Netanyahu of corruption. Despite the speculative nature of these investigations, law enforcement pursued them with new vigor, leading, finally, to indictments.

The indictments had a paradoxical effect on the struggle for power between bureaucracy and democracy. First, they showed Netanyahu that the judicial oligarchy posed a direct threat to his political fortunes that could not be reasonably abated through the usual program of mutual noninterference. Second, the attacks by the judiciary on Likud’s undisputed leader had an energizing effect on his voters.

While removing a justice minister can be seen as a peripheral event, taking down a prime minster, and thus overturning the results of a national election, is a wholly different matter. It can fly, even with his supporters, when a prime minister is clearly proven to be corrupt, as was the case with Ehud Olmert, who ended up serving jail time. But when more than half the public feels its standard-bearer was framed and its ballots effectively shredded, it is unlikely to just accept that result. So both Netanyahu and his voters came to see, more clearly than before, the severity of the problem and the urgency in restoring the balance between the branches of government.

But the indictments and later trial also threatened to neutralize Netanyahu’s ability to act. It is difficult for a prime minster to reform the judicial system and put checks on politicized law enforcement when he himself is facing a trial. How would he escape the obvious suspicion that he is trying to save himself and is willing—as the left dramatically phrases this talking point—to “smash the justice system just to save his own skin”? True, judicial reform is unlikely to interfere with an ongoing trial, except maybe by making the judges more hostile. But perception is crucial here, and so Netanyahu seemed caught in a bind. The question came down to this: Will voters support a reform, or will enough of them see it as cynical, self-serving move on his part?

Last year’s election turned precisely on that question. And the voters gave a clear answer.

"Herzog thanking Morocco for saving Jews during the Holocaust is part of a grand plan to plunder the country"

The Jerusalem Post reports:

During the Second World War, when Morocco was more or less under French rule, King Mohammed V defied the Vichy government and refused to deport the country’s 250,000 Jews to Nazi concentration camps.

Moroccan Jews therefore credit him with being their protector and their benefactor.

In a letter that President Isaac Herzog sent to King Mohammed VI last week on the second anniversary of Morocco’s accession to the Abraham Accords, he noted this fact and wrote: “During some of the darkest hours of Jewish history, Morocco has served as a beacon of light and hope for the Jews. When expelled from Spain in the fifteenth century, many Jews found safe haven on the other side of the Mediterranean. And when millions of Jews faced the horrors of the Holocaust in the twentieth century, King Mohammed V provided a safe haven for his Jewish subjects.”

Who can object to an Israeli president complimenting an Arab leader?

Meet Moroccan writer Abdul Salam Benaisi, writing in Rai Al Youm.

He says that if Isaac Herzog has the audacity to compliment Morocco on how they treat their Jews, then he is also giving himself the right to insult Morocco some other time if he thinks that they mistreat their Jews. That shows that he is sticking his nose in Moroccan private business and illegally interfering with Moroccan state affairs.

That would be delusional enough, but Benaisi isn't finished.

The Zionist entity’s eye is on the fertile Moroccan lands, it is working to turn it into a farmland in which it plants agricultural materials that can be exported to Europe, and which drains the water bed of the Moroccans, after they dried up the water in Palestine, and the entity’s eye is also on the mineral resources that exist in the Moroccan subsoil. The Zionists have established giant companies that are now exploring for oil and gas in different regions of Morocco.

When Isaac Herzog sends a message to the Moroccan King Mohammed VI acknowledging the protection that his grandfather, King Mohammed V, provided to Moroccan Jews, he does not want to acknowledge how wonderful Morocco is....Herzog is, in fact, pursuing Morocco, seeking to consolidate and perpetuate normalization, and obtain with it a large share of the wealth in the country and plunder it. In clearer terms, the goal of Herzog's message to Mohammed VI is blackmail and then extortion, and this is behavior that the occupying entity is good at doing.

The conspiracy theories and paranoia one can see every day in Arab media is something to behold.

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11/02 Links Pt1: Netanyahu’s bloc appears primed for victory with nearly 86% of votes counted; Biden shouldn’t try to ‘save’ Israeli democracy from election victors

From Ian:

President Isaac Herzog: Honor the Election Results – Regardless of the Outcome

Election day for the 25th Knesset has arrived, and the fifth election campaign in less than four years is coming to an end. Although the election repetitiveness is likely to lead to despair among some Israelis, we must all remember: exercising our right to vote is most prominent expression of democracy in its simplest and most necessary sense – and we must not give up our right to be part of a process in which Israel's sovereignty is realized before our eyes.

I call on the entire Israeli public, from all communities, sectors, beliefs, and ways of life – to go out and vote and exercise your ability to influence our lives here.

Just as it is important that we all show up at the ballot boxes and choose the faction that reflects our views, it is important that we, the country's citizens, show up and stand behind the democratic process as well. Each and every one of us, from all walks of Israeli society, must assist - and not harm, God forbid – the optimal implementation of this process, in all its stages, and those who carry it out. Of course, it is no less important to honor the results of the election – whatever they will be. It is a fundamental obligation for us as a civilized society, the kind that not only creates common ground for us but also prevents chaos and anarchy.

Sadly, the months of the election campaign led to a disturbing increase in the extent of physical and verbal violence – in the field and on social media. Now is precisely the time to alter course, take a deep breath and adopt moderation, responsibility, and respect.

We must not forget, even for a moment: those who think differently from us are not enemies. Those who support a party that represents views and opinions we disagree with is not a traitor or fifth columnist. True, disagreements are and will always be an integral part of the democratic landscape. Still, we must ensure that they are conducted in a respectable manner and give room to others and their opinions.

Johnathan Tobin: Biden shouldn’t try to ‘save’ Israeli democracy from election victors

The votes in Israel’s latest Knesset election are still being counted, but the exit polls confirmed the worst fears of the Biden administration. While Israel isn’t getting the same kind of obsessive attention it has received at times in the past, there’s no question that President Joe Biden and his foreign-policy team have strong opinions about who should be running the Jewish state that are echoed by most Democrats and the liberal mainstream media.

They liked interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid and feared the possible return to power of Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.

The prospect of not only a victory for Netanyahu and his Likud Party, but the formation of a government with a prominent role for the Religious Zionist Party and one of its controversial leaders, Itamar Ben Gvir, is enough to set the hair of Democrats and the foreign-policy establishment on fire.

Ben Gvir was a supporter of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane’s in his youth and has a well-earned reputation as a right-wing provocateur who often clashed with the police. The attorney/activist moderated his views somewhat however, as he became more politically viable. But he is still treated by both Israeli and American liberals as anathema and a mortal threat to democracy.

That sets up a situation where the temptation for Washington to try to influence the coalition negotiations that will follow the counting of the votes may prove irresistible.

It wouldn’t be the first time American administrations had tried to play that game. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both sought to defeat Netanyahu and then aid his opponents in their quest to thwart his efforts to form governments. But this time, the motivation is slightly different.

In the past, those attempts to topple Netanyahu-led governments were primarily part of a campaign to promote the peace process with the Palestinians. Now, the main focus of American intervention—which may well be seconded by many leading American-Jewish groups—will be an effort to prevent the Religious Zionists and Ben Gvir from being part of a governing coalition.

The same group of Democratic foreign-policy hacks have largely staffed the Clinton, Obama and now Biden administrations. They all refuse to acknowledge the reality that Palestinian nationalism is inextricably tied to century-old Arab war on Zionism. That renders them incapable of accepting the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders might be drawn.

Israel Elections 2022: Netanyahu’s bloc appears primed for victory with nearly 86% of votes counted

With more than 4.1 million votes officially counted, or 87.6% of the total ballots cast in Israel’s elections on Tuesday, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-religious bloc appears primed for a victory.

According to Central Elections Committee (CEC) figures released on Wednesday, Netanyahu’s bloc will pick up 65 seats, though this number and the prospective electoral map could still change if the far-left Meretz and anti-Zionist Arab Balad parties enter the Knesset.

Both parties are currently sitting below the minimum 3.25% electoral threshold to enter the next parliament, although the CEC still needs to count some 500,000 “double envelope” ballots. These are essentially absentee ballots, cast primarily by diplomats, soldiers and prisoners outside of assigned polling stations, which are determined automatically in the voter registry based on one’s place of residence.

As things stand, Netanyahu’s Likud Party was projected to receive 32 seats, with his likely coalition partners the Religious Zionist Party, Shas and United Torah Judaism receiving 14, 11 and eight mandates, respectively.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid was predicted to garner 24 seats, followed by Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s National Unity at 12. Yisrael Beytenu, the Islamist Ra’am and the predominantly Arab Hadash-Ta’al were all sitting at five seats. The Labor Party would take four seats.

Palestinians upset that Abbas gave New Year greetings to Herzog, Gantz

On Monday, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas sent Rosh Hashanah greetings to Israel's President Isaac Herzog and to Defense Minister Benny Gantz. (For some reason, he did not send any such greetings to Prime Minister Yair Lapid.)

Naturally, the Palestinians are upset.

Felesteen quotes angry analysts who are convinced that New Year greetings are yet another sign of how Abbas is collaborating with Israel.

Politicians believe that the congratulations of PA President Mahmoud Abbas to the leaders of the Israeli occupation on "Jewish holidays and occasions" reflect the extent of the state of political weakness that the PA has reached in front of Israel, and proves that "its president tweets outside the flock."

Member of the Future Electoral List, Hatem Shaheen, considered that the PA President's congratulations to Gantz and Herzog show the state of disregard and humiliation of the rights that the authority has reached, at a time when the occupation is escalating its violations in the occupied territories. Shaheen explained to Felesteen that such a position constitutes an affront to our people and our capabilities, and is completely rejected, because of what our people suffer from Israeli crimes. "Abbas's congratulations to the leaders of the occupation express a state of weakness, lack of self-esteem and confidence, and a lack of belief that we are able to extract our rights in the future, and it represents begging."

Writer and political analyst Khaled Sadiq said: "Abbas' contact with Gantz and Herzog comes within the framework of the relationship with the occupation, which he is trying to strengthen with the aim of returning to the negotiating table." He cautioned that "this congratulations encourages the occupation and its leaders to commit more violations and crimes against our people and realize its ambitions, so that the authority appears to be a partner in the tragedies and crimes that the occupation causes against our people, and attempts to change the reality in Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque."

However, Abbas knows that Israel has nothing to offer the authority. Sadiq continued: "The positions of Abbas and the PA do not reflect the will of the Palestinian people, but rather reflect the positions of the personality of the PA president, to maintain his presence at the head of the PA, to please Israel and to return to the path of settlement and achieve personal gains."

The researcher and writer Magdi Hamayel stressed that the congratulation on Jewish occasions reflects the state of contradiction in the head of the Palestinian Authority. While he calls at the United Nations to protect the Palestinian people from the violations of the occupation, he contacts his leaders to congratulate them on the arrival of a new Hebrew year. He pointed out that the state of anger among the Palestinian people is supposed to be accompanied by the anger of the presidency and the authority, and to take a political position commensurate with the sacrifices it is making against the occupation, and the president of the authority must be in harmony with the position of the Palestinian street and the revolution in Jenin. Hamayel stressed that "Abbas is still gasping for the leaders of the occupation and the mirage of the settlement project," and this will not make him gain anything, as the occupation wants to control all of Palestine.

Abbas regularly sends greetings on other countries' national holidays; in fact such greetings take up at least half of the press releases from his office.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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01/09 Links Pt1: Netanyahu: Israel thwarted 'major' terror attacks in Europe involving planes; Palestinian Authority paid terrorists nearly $350 million in 2017

From Ian:

Netanyahu: Israel thwarted 'major' terror attacks in Europe involving planes

Israeli intelligence has thwarted mass terrorist attacks in Europe that “involve civil aviation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday, in a possible reference to September 11-type attacks planned against European targets using hijacked aircraft.

Netanyahu, speaking in Jerusalem to ambassadors of NATO countries, said that the world is threatened by radical Sunni groups, initially led by al-Qaeda, but now by Islamic State, and radical Shi'ites led by Iran.

“When we talk about ISIS, it's important to understand that Israel helps Europe in two fundamental ways,” Netanyahu said.

“The first is that we have, through our intelligence services, provided information that has stopped several dozen major terrorist attacks, many of them in European countries. Some of these could have been mass attacks, of the worst kind that you have experienced on the soil of Europe and even worse, because they involve civil aviation. Israel has prevented that, and thereby helped save many European lives.”

He did not elaborate. Netanyahu has said numerous times in the past that Israeli intelligence has helped thwart numerous terrorist attacks in Europe.

JPost Editorial: Shut down UNRWA

The US under the leadership of President Donald Trump is rightly reconsidering the logic of funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine – at least as it operates presently.

Some $125 million, which makes up about a third of the United States’ annual support for the organization, has already been frozen.

Judging from a tweet by Trump that preceded the decision to freeze aid, it seems the US president wants to make funding conditional upon Palestinian cooperation in helping to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Trump’s concern is legitimate. UNRWA, which has been around since 1949, was supposed to be a temporary solution, until the “Palestinian refugee problem” was sorted out. But with the Palestinian Authority refusing to cooperate with the US in solving the problem, there is little reason for the US to continue footing the bill for the agency indefinitely.

We can think of a few additional reasons why UNRWA – which employs 11,500 employees in Gaza alone – should be radically revamped, if not disbanded altogether.

The first problem is that UNRWA perpetuates the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. While the original Palestinian refugees from 1948 – both those who left their homes willingly and those who were forced – might legitimately have deserved refugee status, why should their grandchildren or great-grandchildren share that status? Most other refugees are cared for by the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees, and their status is not passed on to grandchildren or great-grandchildren. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have their own agency.

This leaves millions of Palestinians in a state of limbo. Instead of getting on with their lives, the Palestinians in places like Gaza continue to grasp a false dream of one day returning to Jaffa, Haifa or Jerusalem. This also allows the kind of apartheid that takes place in Lebanon, where more than one million Palestinians live without official status. They do not have Lebanese citizenship and are confined to dismal refugee camps where terrorism and crime thrive. But because they are refugees, the Lebanese government can wash its hands of having to integrate them into society.

All this can change if UNRWA is reformed or shut down. While UNRWA is an organization that nominally is dedicated to transforming refugees into fully self-sufficient individuals, it has allowed the myth of the “right of return” to persist. Within UNRWA it is heretical to say that repatriation to Israel is unrealistic.

Palestinian Authority paid terrorists nearly $350 million in 2017

The Palestinian Authority paid terrorists and their families over $347 million last year, according to its own records, the Defense Ministry reported to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday.

The average income of a Palestinian is $580 per month, which is what the PA pays terrorists who are sentenced to three to five years in prison.

The PA pays terrorists who are sentenced to 20 years or more in prison – in other words, those who committed more severe crimes, and likely were involved in killing Israelis – five times that each month for the rest of their lives.

Terrorists who are Israeli citizens receive a $145 bonus, which, when added to the amount PA pays for the most severe crimes, comes to over $2,900, more than the average Israeli income of around $2,700 per month. There are also increases in pay for being married and for each child a terrorist has.

Palestinian terrorists' income per month. (JPOST STAFF)Palestinian terrorists' income per month. (JPOST STAFF)

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said, “The PA pays over a billion shekels a year to terrorists and their families, thus encouraging and perpetuating terror.”

“The minute the amount of the payment is decided according to the severity of the crime and the length of the sentence – in other words, whoever murders and is sentenced to life in prison gets much more – that is funding terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. There is nothing that better illustrates the PA’s support for terror. We must stop this,” Liberman said.

Defense Ministry drafts bill to cut PA funds over terrorist stipends

The Defense Ministry on Tuesday publicized a draft bill that would deduct welfare payments paid out by the Palestinian Authority to Palestinian prisoners and their families from the tax revenues Israel transfers annually to the PA.

“The Palestinian Authority pays over a billion shekels a year to terrorists and their relatives, thereby encouraging and perpetuating terrorism,” Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said in a statement. “The moment the payments are set based on the severity of the crime and the prison sentence, namely that those who murder and are sentenced to life receive a lot more, this is [tantamount to] funding terror attacks against Israelis.”

The bill, which targets cash payments by the PA to jailed or injured terrorists and their relatives, will also apply to Palestinians who committed other crimes for which they are being compensated by the PA, the ministry said in a statement.

The Palestine Liberation Organization gives monthly payments to all Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel, no matter the reason for their incarceration, and also to families of so-called “martyrs” — a term used by the PLO to refer to anyone killed by an Israeli, whether the person was killed attacking Israelis or an innocent bystander.