Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Opinion

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Thursday, October 29, 2020

Want Peace in the Middle East? Vote for Trump! (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

The end of the historic “Arab-Israeli conflict” may be on the horizon, depending on the outcome of the US presidential election.

Oh, It wouldn’t mean that the Palestinian Arabs will soon give up on the idea that they can flood Israel with the descendants of 1948 refugees and reverse the result of the War of Independence. It wouldn’t mean that the antisemitism and misoziony that are rife in our neighbors Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, are likely to end in our lifetimes. It wouldn’t mean that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will stop trying to re-establish the Ottoman Empire, including Jerusalem, or that the revolutionary regime in Iran will stop planning to wipe Israel off the map and establish a Shiite caliphate in the region. ISIS, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood will not be normalizing relations with the Jewish state no matter what. There will be plenty of conflict and terrorism in our region for the foreseeable future.

But the classical Arab-Israeli conflict, as expressed by the Three No’s of 1967 may soon be history. The idea that no Arab nation can accept the existence of the Jewish state – or even mention it by name – until all of the extreme demands of the Palestinian Arabs have been met has already fallen by the wayside. It is becoming obvious to any honest observer that the reason the Palestinian issue has festered for so many years is that the Palestinians, encouraged by the Arab nations and European antisemites, have never entertained any possibility short of total victory. Now Arab support for their intransigence and rejectionism is falling away.

The UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan have already made normalization agreements with Israel. Others are expected to follow. The most important of those would be Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Sunni Muslim world, the custodian of the Holy Mosques, and the source of funds for countless Islamic institutions around the world. There are reliable reports that the Saudi regime, which is increasingly under the control of Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Defense, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), will normalize relations after the US election – if Donald Trump wins.

It’s hard to imagine that any of this would have happened if not for the change in US policy initiated by the Trump Administration. The recognition of Israeli rights in Jerusalem and sovereignty over the Golan, and the downgrading of relations with the PLO, sent an unmistakable message that America did not support the Palestinian program to replace Israel with an Arab state. Trump’s peace plan, unlike those proposed during the previous administration, is not based on the transformation of the 1949 cease-fire lines into borders, but respects the concept of “secure and recognized boundaries” as expressed in UNSC resolution 242.

In order to truly appreciate the change in policy, compare it to that of the previous administration. Even before his inauguration in January 2009, Barack Obama forced Israel to abandon its campaign to oust Hamas from Gaza, probably the last practical opportunity to do so. In June of that year he visited Cairo and made a speech in which he directly compared the Holocaust to Palestinian “suffer[ing] in pursuit of a homeland” (he didn’t visit Israel until 2013, and then chose not to speak to the Knesset in Jerusalem but rather informally to students). Obama deliberately refrained from helping Iranian dissidents in Iran’s failed Green Revolution. He supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Arab Spring conflicts in Egypt, endangering Israeli-Egyptian relations. He demanded a freeze on all “settlement activity” which was used by the Palestinians as an excuse to refuse to talk. He deliberately humiliated PM Netanyahu when he visited the White House in 2011. He stopped a shipment of missiles to Israel during the 2014 conflict with Hamas in Gaza. At the same time the FAA ordered flights to Israel canceled, in an action that many thought was ordered by the administration.

Obama rammed through the Iran deal over the objections of a majority in Congress, including huge cash payments that the regime used to finance terrorism and Hezbollah’s military buildup. In 2013, his administration leaked information to the press about Israeli attacks against Iranian weapons shipments in Syria, making a wider conflict more likely. Finally, as a lame-duck parting shot at Israel in 2016, he encouraged the introduction of an anti-Israel Security Council resolution, and instructed his ambassador to abstain, ensuring its passage. And there is much more.

One can understand why Arab leaders might have thought that there was no percentage in improving relations with Israel while the US was kicking her to the curb.

Joe Biden was deeply involved in the Obama Administration’s relationship with Israel. You may recall that Biden was “furious” after an Israeli official announced the completion of a step in the process of approval for the construction of apartments in eastern Jerusalem while he was visiting Israel, precipitating a 45-minute angry phone call full of demands from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to PM Netanyahu.

Biden has said that he would “rejoin the [nuclear deal with Iran] … as a starting point for follow-on negotiations.” He opposes Trump’s “maximum pressure” approach and even blames it for Iranian progress toward nuclear weapons. He is likely to reopen the American consulate in eastern Jerusalem that was the unofficial “US Embassy in Palestine,” and the PLO office in Washington that were closed by Trump. He will restore financial aid to the Palestinian Authority that was cut off by Trump because the PA would not agree to stop payments to convicted terrorists (“pay to slay”). He will probably restore payments to UNRWA, which supports the descendants of 1948 refugees and is closely aligned with Hamas in Gaza. And he will bring back the tired rhetoric of the impossible “two-state solution” based on 1949 lines. It’s doubtful that he would be as hostile to Israel as Barack Obama, but he would undo much of the progress made by Trump.

This explains the statement by MBS that he would not normalize relations with Israel immediately if Biden becomes president. There is plenty of opposition in Saudi Arabia to such a bold step, which could even express itself violently. MBS is willing to take the risk if it will lead to the development of a powerful, US-supported Sunni-Israel bloc which could challenge Iran for regional leadership. Why should he do so if the US returns to the Obama-era policy of appeasement of Iran? And the same applies to other Arab countries that are waiting in the wings.

The development of a Sunni-Israel bloc in the region would be a breakthrough that would fundamentally alter the balance of power, and reduce the need for the US to physically intervene to keep the peace. It might set the stage for greater regional independence, so that outside players like Russia, the US, and Turkey would be less able to use its nations as pawns in their power struggles. It might lead to the Iranian people finally throwing off the corrupt and oppressive regime of the Mullahs. It might even bring a solution to the Palestinian problem somewhat closer. It would not fix all of the region’s problems, but it would be a good start.

But all of this depends on continuing Trump’s sharp turn towards rationality in Middle East policy. And Joe Biden is not the guy to do it, especially since he has already adopted some of the same advisers and former officials of the Obama Administration that were responsible for its destructive policies, including several architects of the Iran deal. Biden’s mental condition is a matter of dispute, but the specter of the enormous power of the US president in the hands of unelected and unaccountable operatives who have demonstrated their hostility to Israel and their approval of Iranian regional hegemony is truly frightening.

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Khaled Abu Toameh, Veteran Israeli Arab Journalist, Wins Victory in Israeli Courts (Judean Rose)

Khaled Abu Toameh won a victory in a small Jerusalem courtroom this week when Ted Belman at last agreed that his defamatory articles, social media posts, and newsletters were factually baseless. Belman is now required to make public apology to Abu Toameh within 14 days. If Belman again defames the award-winning Israeli Arab journalist and distinguished senior Gatestone fellow, he will have to pay 5000 shekels per defamatory item published, in compensation to Khaled.

By way of disclaimer, there was a personal victory here as well, as Belman’s countersuit against Abu Toameh, this author and Bat-Zion Susskind-Sacks was rejected out of hand by the court. The interesting thing about this is that I was approached by the 86-year-old Belman in court on Monday. “Who are you?” Ted asked me. “Are you the enemy?”

He was suing me, but didn’t even know me.

Here we must go back and explain why Ted was suing me. Ted Belman, you see, asserted that Khaled was running a spy ring in Israel for the Jordanian king, and that I was one of his operatives, the other being Bat-Zion Susskind Sacks. Well goodness I’m relieved. An Israeli court has rejected a lawsuit accusing me of working on behalf of His Majesty, King Abdullah of Jordan. Not guilty! Acquitted.

But I digress. The main thing is that all three of us—me, Batzi, and of course, Khaled—are victorious.

So ends this courtroom saga that began in late 2017, when Abu Toameh had finally had enough of the defamatory campaign of words and memes waged against him since at least 2013. Readers of this column will recall my exposé of self-proclaimed “putative prime minister of Jordan” Mudar Zahran (see for instance, HERE, HERE, and HERE). Zahran, banned from entering Israel as a security risk, tried to enlist me in his smear campaign against Khaled Abu Toameh. I refused, but Ted Belman apparently did not.

What followed was an endless campaign of baseless defamation, an ongoing attack that lasted seven full years. Articles were published in numerous publications, all smearing Khaled. The defamation of Khaled was an ongoing theme in newsletters, Belman's personal website, and on Facebook, too. The worst part of this defamation, of course, is that Khaled Abu Toameh is a fine person: the only Israeli Arab journalist I know of who writes the honest truth about Israel and the Middle East.

Khaled is one of the good guys. And everyone on our side knows this. Which is why Khaled Abu Toameh has won plaudits and numerous awards by distinguished bodies. From Wikipedia:

Recognition and awards

· Abu Toameh received the 2014 Daniel Pearl Award. Abu Toameh shared Israel Media Watch's 2010 award for media criticism with the satirical Israeli website Latma.

· On 10 May 2011, Khaled Abu Toameh won the Hudson Institute Award for Courage in Journalism.

· Canada's Toronto Sun columnist Salim Mansur praised Abu Toameh for his courage and knowledge of the politics of the Arab world.

· Abu Toameh is the 2013 recipient of the Emet award given by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA).

· He was chosen on the Algemeiner Journal's 2013 list of The Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life.

All during this trying time, while Khaled was being smeared, important people came to the fore to defend the embattled journalist. People like Caroline Glick, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Ruthie Blum, and Harold Rhode, couldn’t offer enough praise for Khaled. And still, this creep Zahran spread horrible lies about Khaled to all and sundry through anyone he could rope into his web.

Well, all’s well that ends well, and in that small Jerusalem courtroom on October 26, 2020, justice won out with victory on many counts:

1. Ted Belman finally admitted that he has no evidence to support the libelous publications.

2. Ted Belman agreed to publish an apology and retraction, admitting that what he published was factually baseless.

3. Ted's main witness, the Jordanian fraudster Mudar Zahran, who is banned from Israel for security reasons, never got a chance to testify before the court, not even by video.

4. Ted's counterclaim against Khaled Abu Toameh, Varda Meyers Epstein, and Bat-Zion Susskind-Sacks, was rejected.

5. The court ruled that if Ted republishes the same material against Khaled Abu Toameh, he will pay 5000 shekels in compensation per piece.

After three years of refusing to do so, Ted will finally apologize and admit that what he published about Khaled Abu Toameh was factually baseless. Assuming Ted fulfills his promise to the court, he now has 14 days to issue the apology and retraction. This is good because Ted’s own lawyer admitted in court that Belman had no proof to back up any of the nasty things he published about Khaled. It’s icing on the cake that Belman’s counterclaim was rejected. And if he tries to republish the defamatory items, he’s going to get slapped with a fine of 5000 shekels per article. Pretty nifty.

Judge Moriah Cherka, addressing Belman, said that what he did was unethical and against journalistic standards, because Ted never sought Khaled's response before publication. Judge Cherka also noted that Khaled Abu Toameh is a renowned and respected journalist, therefore it is inconceivable that his credibility should be questioned or harmed.

Nadav Haetzni, representative for the plaintiff, Khaled, said, "At long last, this grievous smear campaign against one of Israel's leading journalists is over. This was a campaign aimed at destroying this man's reputation; it caused him great damage and suffering, but in the end, this was a victory and we hope others will learn from it."

“For me,” said Khaled Abu Toameh, “The lawsuit was never about money, but about getting Belman to publicly admit that every bit of what he published about me was factually baseless. I initiated the lawsuit as a matter of principle, to defend ethical standards in journalism, and to serve as a deterrent to others,” said Khaled.

The judge made a point of rebuking Ted Belman in court, for behaving in an unethical manner. Which is as it should be. Journalists, and bloggers like Ted Belman, need to check the facts before they publish, to ascertain the truth, and to seek a response from the person in question, when preparing to publish something that might be defamatory.

Let us hope that this lawsuit will underscore this point for anyone who takes to the blogosphere to randomly and without proof, trash-talk and damage others. This is wrong and should not be countenanced in a country ruled by law. And on Monday, in that small Jerusalem courtroom, a judge did in fact, determine that such baseless defamation would not be countenanced in Israel.

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Why is There Still a World Zionist Organization? (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

The Zionist Organization and its parliament, the Zionist Congress, were established by Theodor Herzl in 1897 (the “World” was added to their names later). Their function was to develop and implement a program of Jewish settlement in Eretz Yisrael. The Zionist Congress included delegates from a wide range of ideological streams; the bottom line was a Jewish home in our historic homeland (although other locations were considered in the early years), but the nature of that home – even whether it should be a sovereign state – was subject to dispute.

Today’s World Zionist Congress (WZC) appoints the heads of several organizations that control large amounts of property and funds that come from Jewish charities abroad and the Israeli taxpayer. These include the Jewish National Fund (JNF) which manages most of the land in Israel, the Jewish Agency which facilitates Jewish immigration to Israel, the United Israel Appeal which raises funds, and others.

These organizations are closely connected to the government of Israel, but they are independent bodies. This can be confusing. For example, someone applying to make aliyah to Israel must deal with both the Jewish Agency (the sochnut) and the Israeli consulate.

The most important fact about the WZC is that its sub-organizations spend about $1 billion annually. These organizations, whose utility ended on 14 May 1948, have hundreds of employees (many of whom are politically connected individuals), and hundreds of contractors and programs are supported by them. To the extent that they perform useful functions, they could and should be done by the government of Israel. The waste of funds that come from the high taxes paid by Israelis and the generous donations of diaspora Jews is colossal. Many highly-paid functionaries do essentially nothing, and are there because somebody important owed them a favor.

But in addition to being wasteful, these organizations are dangerous, because they represent an easily-opened door to infiltration by those who not only want to benefit from the fruits of the Jewish state, but to attack it in the process.

Recently many diaspora organizations, particularly in the US, which were originally established to benefit the Jewish people as a whole, the State of Israel, or individual Jews, have been pressured to include representatives of anti-Zionist groups like J Street. In 2012, “Open Hillel” was formed in order to try to change the guidelines of college Hillel houses for acceptable programs, in the words of one reporter, to “legitimize and include groups that advance anti-Israel (and sometimes anti-Semitic) agendas in mainstream Jewish campus life.”

In 2014, J Street applied to become a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, and was turned down after an acrimonious debate. Last week, a guy that previously worked for Bernie Sanders, and previously was the State Department’s liaison to Congress to promote Obama’s Iran deal, became Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress.

The WZC has also become a focus of conflict between right-wing and left-wing factions. Delegates from the Diaspora are chosen by elections, while Israelis are apportioned according to the parties in the Knesset. Although the Left was battering at the gates here as well, a new group of American delegates has recently been added, a slate called “Eretz Hakodesh” that appealed to non-Zionist Haredim. It’s platform did not include the words “State of Israel” or “Zionist.” A campaign in the Orthodox and Haredi communities gave the religious and right-wing bloc a slight edge over the Reform/Conservative/Left bloc among the total of 521 delegates (complete results by country are here, in Hebrew).

It’s possible to take comfort in the fact that the American Hatikvah slate, which included such “Zionists” as Peter Beinart, got only ten seats. It’s absurd that they or anti-Zionist Haredim should be represented at all.

The largest delegation from the US is the one representing the Reform movement, with 39 seats. Together with Reform delegates from other countries, they hold a total of 63 seats. Considering that “Reform Zionism” means misinformed American Jews telling Israelis how to run their country (because the US is doing such a good job at home), they too are not in the “helpful” category.

72 years after the founding of the state, Zionism as an ideology is still relevant. But the World Zionist Organization is not.

Indeed, it’s long past time to end this jobs program for shady politicians that didn’t make it into the Knesset, former mayors that were not re-elected, and so forth. The unnecessary bureaucracy only makes life harder for people who must interact with it, like prospective olim. And just like Israel’s bloated unity government with its 36 ministers – at least 18 of which are unnecessary – it is obscene to shovel cash into a black hole when Israelis and diaspora Jews are struggling in a wretched economic environment.

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.

Joe Biden had his first meeting with an Israeli leader, Golda Meir, on the eve of the Yom Kippur war, right after meeting with officials in Cairo. During the then junior senator’s meeting with Meir, Biden suggested that Israel make a unilateral withdrawal from settlements for peace, criticizing the settlement policies of the Labor Party, and suggesting they represent a form of “creeping annexation.” Though Biden assured Meir that Egyptian officials were convinced of Israel’s military superiority, 40 days later, Sadat initiated a surprise attack against Israel.

This is the gist of a bombshell tweet from Israel’s Channel 13 reporter Nadav Eyal containing excerpts from a classified memo from an Israeli official who attended that fateful meeting. While it may have been the first meeting between Biden and an Israeli prime minister, it was certainly not the last. In subsequent meetings with Israeli prime ministers, Biden threatened Menachem Begin with withholding U.S. aid, and publicly upbraided Benyamin Netanyahu because it had been announced in a town council meeting that 1600 homes were to be built in future in the Jewish Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo (more about this here).

Here is the tweet:

1/Golda Meir and Joe Biden, the Israeli memo.
By far, the story Biden most frequently tells about his relationship with Israel leadership is his first meeting with Golda as a young senator. Here's Biden describing the encounter and Golda's punch linehttps://t.co/UsroQHRwog
— נדב איל Nadav Eyal (@Nadav_Eyal) October 15, 2020

Here is the content of Eyal's tweet, edited for readability:

Golda Meir and Joe Biden, the Israeli memo.

By far, the story Biden most frequently tells about his relationship with Israel leadership is his first meeting with Golda as a young senator. Here's Biden describing the encounter and Golda's punch line:

I've published this evening a classified memo documenting the meeting, made by a senior Israeli official present in the room. A fascinating meeting.

Biden comes from Egypt, some 40 days before Sadat ordered a surprise attack which will become the Yom Kippur war. He tells the Israeli PM that all the officials he met in Cairo assured him that they accept "Israel's military superiority.” Of course, they lied (not [Biden’s] fault, of course. Israel was misled by its own intelligence community).

American Politics.

Biden criticizes the Nixon administration for being "dragged by Israel" [into supporting Israeli policies]. He says, according to this government memo, that there is no debate in the Senate about the Middle East because the Senators are "afraid" to say things that Jewish voters will dislike. (He SAYS THAT TO GOLDA)

He criticizes the Israeli labor platform arguing that it’s leading to a creeping annexation of the occupied territories. Considering Israel's military dominance, Biden suggests it will initiate a first step for peace by unilateral withdrawals. This will be done from areas with no strategic importance—not the Golan.

Golda responds with a long speech about the history of the Zionist movement from its very establishment. The instability of Arab regimes, the unfairness of Supreme Court decisions.

Golda rejects Biden comments on the Labor platform, rejects his offers of unilateral withdrawal and continues to argue that Israel can make no major mistakes considering the situation of the Jewish people after the Holocaust. The official making the notes remarked that Biden was full of respect to the PM yet his "enthusiasm as he spoke" signaled his lack of experience in the diplomatic field.

REMARKS: Biden warning to the PM on the eve of the war that Israel must make some concessions is prophetic. Some historians argue that Golda's refusal to consider Egyptian diplomatic initiatives led to war. Biden's suggestion that Israel make unilateral concessions is interesting. The only time Israel opted for such a move is in 2005 when Ariel Sharon as PM initiated Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza strip. Much more to say.

Part of the original Hebrew document from the unnamed Israeli official:

It is important to note that it was the Labor Party that initiated the policy of settling all parts of Jewish indigenous territory, including Judea and Samaria. From the Jewish Virtual Library:

In the past, Labor was more hawkish on security and defense issues than it is today. During its years in office, Israel fought the 1956 Sinai War, the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War. Labor agreed to UN Resolution 242 and the notion of trading land for peace. Nevertheless, successive Labor governments established settlements in the disputed territories and refrained from dismantling illegal settlements, such as those established in 1968 at Qiryat Arba in Hebron by Rabbi Moshe Levinger, and others set up by Gush Emunim. By 1976, more than thirty settlements had been established on the West Bank; however, their population was fewer than 10,000.

Joe Biden paints that early meeting with Golda as something precious that cemented in his mind how important Israel is to the Jewish people. It is clear, however, that Joe Biden has always been against the Jewish people settling their indigenous territory. The very thought of Jews planning to build homes in Jerusalem makes him furious. Therefore, contrary to the love fest with Golda he has often described, Biden used the first chance he had to meet with an Israeli prime minister to broach the subject of unilateral concessions.

One wonders how much clout the young senator wielded at that time. Not to mention the timing of subsequent events, with the surprise attack on Israel by Egypt occurring just 40 days after Biden’s meeting with Meir. Is it possible that Golda Meir incurred wider U.S. displeasure by refusing to entertain Biden's suggestion of unilateral concessions? Was Egypt perhaps emboldened by this state of affairs to attack Israel without fear of American intervention?

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Information Warfare in the West (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

Information Warfare in the West

The “Information War” is the struggle to attack or defend the image of the State of Israel in the consciousness of the world. It is truly a world war, but the two main active fronts today are the Arabic-speaking world, where for the first time there are signs of pro-Israel initiatives, and the West.

A striking feature of the Information War in the West is the imbalance between the resources of the two sides. The pro-Israel list is much shorter. We have sporadic and uncoordinated attempts at hasbara (public diplomacy, or “propaganda,” if you prefer) by the Israeli government, the most recent of which is the allocation of funds to the Ministry of Strategic Affairs (MSA) to fight BDS and delegitimization. In 2019, MSA granted about $5.3 million to individuals and organizations. As of September 2019, it had 32 employees (Hebrew link). Al Jazeera alone has about 100 times as many.

The most important and well-known private individuals that support pro-Israel messaging, of course, are Miriam and Sheldon Adelson. Their family foundation has given millions to Birthright Israel. They are also involved in other causes, such as Holocaust education, that are only tangentially related to the cognitive conflict over Israel’s image. Other Jewish philanthropists give large amounts of money to Jewish and Israeli causes (Jewish education, hospitals, Magen David Adom, etc.), but little for hasbara.

There are also a few private organizations. Some conservative think tanks like the David Horowitz Freedom Center give grants and fellowships to pro-Israel writers. Its 2018 Form 990 shows total expenses of about $6.8 million. Considering its wide range of activities, its contribution to specifically pro-Israel hasbara is small.

Evangelical Christians that support Israel have some positive effects. Christians United for Israel had a budget of about $1.3 million in 2018, a surprisingly small amount given that group’s status as a bête noire for liberal American Jews.

Many large Jewish organizations, such as the Jewish Federations of North America, the ADL, and the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) do publically oppose BDS and anti-Israel extremism (misoziony), but because of their need to appeal for funding from a wide political spectrum, take positions that are bland at best and negative at worst (e.g., the URJ’s failure to oppose the JCPOA, President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran). Their net contribution to pro-Israel hasbara is zero.

Turning to the other side, the mainstream media in North America and Europe is almost unanimously critical of Israel, with many important media channels – the New York Times, the BBC, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, National Public Radio (see also something I wrote about NPR 10 years ago) and the AP in the US – clearly on the anti-Israel side. And we mustn’t forget what has been called (video link, 1:36:00) the “first blood libel of the 21^st century,” the false report by Charles Enderlin of France 2 on the alleged killing of Muhammad al Durah.

The United Nations and its agencies are a potent source of anti-Israel propaganda. There are countless anti-Israel resolutions passed by its Human Rights Council, the General Assembly, UNESCO, and even the Security Council. There is a “Division for Palestinian Rights” which does such things as organizing international conferences, conducts “training programs,” and puts on the annual “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.” I have no idea of how to put a dollar value on its work – for the Palestinians, it’s priceless.

The European Union, collectively and from its members, has provided tens of millions of Euros to NGOs hostile to Israel, which are responsible for demonization and delegitimization in the information sphere, and lawfare against Israel. It also provides practical aid supporting illegal Arab colonization in Area C of the territories, which is supposed to be under full Israeli control according to the Oslo agreements. In the past nine years, the EU has even granted 38 million Euros to NGOs linked to EU-designated terror groups. All this is in addition to its own political activities, like demanding that Israeli products from the territories be given special labeling to facilitate boycotters.

There are major charitable foundations, like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), the Ford Foundation, and groups linked to George Soros’ Open Society Institute. Together these foundations funnel tens of millions of dollars into groups and activities that support BDS or simply produce anti-Israel propaganda. For example, the RBF has made grants to IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, two BDS-supporting groups in the US, and to dozens of other anti-Israel actors.

These groups are linked together. For example, the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), which paid misozionist writer Peter Beinart $110,000 in 2018 as a “consultant,” also received a contribution of $135,000 from the Alex Soros Foundation (Alex is the son of George). Perhaps the idea was to make the Soros-Beinart connection less obvious.

The FMEP, incidentally, while a small player in the Israel defamation racket, is quite active in the realm of social media, as well as producing lectures, presentations, op-eds, and so forth.

Finally, there are the direct donations from Arab countries and Iran to Western universities, primarily in the US and the UK, but also in Canada and on the continent, amounting to billions of dollars. That is not a typo: one country, Qatar, gave $1.4 billion to American universities between 2012-2018. Of course these countries have other goals in addition to defaming Israel, but still there is no doubt that a great deal of the influence they are buying is directed to the cognitive war against the Jewish state.

Given all this, and considering the tepid support for Israel from liberal Jewish communities in North America, I’m surprised that so many Americans say they support Israel (I’ve been unable to find a poll of Canadians that is fair and reasonably recent). There is a red flag: support for Israel seems to weakest in younger people, getting stronger with age. I speculate that this could be related to the increasing bias in the educational system, both schools and colleges – the product of the massive investment made by Arab countries.

Although we can’t dream of matching the investment being made by our enemies, there are a few things we can and should do.

First, we can make their propaganda activities a major issue in our normalization negotiations with Arab nations. They are not doing us a favor by normalizing; if they want our economic and military cooperation they will have to end all of their information warfare against us. That means direct propaganda, but also financial support for groups that are working against us – even if it is a department of Middle East studies in a university.

We can’t make antisemitic Europeans change their attitudes. But we can shut off the flow of their money into our country that goes to anti-state organizations. Just as we (finally) have started barring BDS supporters from entering the country, we can bar their Euros too. Let “Breaking the Silence” and the others survive on contributions they get from Israelis – if they can.

News organizations live and die by access. It should be withheld from hostile reporters and organizations. They will scream bloody murder, but ultimately they will see that we only want fairness. Or they’ll have to do their coverage from outside.

There is nothing that we can do about the UN. We are probably better off not resigning from it. Someday it will collapse from its own worthlessness.

We can’t afford to imitate Al Jazeera. But we can set up internet news and culture channels in several languages, professional in every respect. Countries used to spend huge amounts of money on shortwave broadcasting with all of its technical problems. Today we have the means to deliver high-quality content all over the world at reasonable cost. People are curious about Israel – why do we leave it to our enemies to tell them about us?

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.

Enthusiastic Crowds at Trump Rallies a Contrast to the Hate of the Mainstream Media (Judean Rose)

President Donald Trump, if you believe the media spin, is the most reviled person ever walk the earth. A search for “Trump” in Google News overwhelmingly generates negative headlines. A more nuanced search, however, suggests that voter enthusiasm is for Trump, while the response to the Biden Harris ticket is somewhere between lackluster and nonexistent.

Here are the first seven results generated in a search I did for “Trump” on October 13, 2020, all negative:

I next turned to some work-related research on the creative use of cars during the pandemic. Here, too, the election figured large in the search results. It seems that cars in the 2020 election cycle have been enlisted as a safe way for people to rally for their preferred presidential candidates while adhering to social distancing standards. But this time, when I did my search, the shoe was on the other foot. The search results were mostly positive, and they were mostly about Trump.

The rallies with the largest, most enthusiastic turnouts were clearly for Trump. Similar rallies held for Biden, by contrast, yielded fewer attendees, and sometimes none, as happened in the battleground state of Arizona.

Biden and Harris hold a campaign event in Arizona and the local news can’t believe that not one supporter showed up! pic.twitter.com/JKj0fPi6Jj
— David Croom - (ツ) (@dailycallout) October 11, 2020

Only one week earlier, an Arizona rally with Vice President Pence drew a large crowd:

Here is a view of the crowd and line as we are a few minutes from the Vice President Pence’s arrival. #12News pic.twitter.com/kb96IdeK8A
— Michael Doudna (@MichaelDoudna) October 8, 2020

Here's a tweet from Jenna Ellis, senior legal adviser for the Trump campaign, noting that the crowds turned out to see her and other lesser Trump campaign figures, including Trump Campaign Director of Strategic Communications Marc Lotter, and Senior Trump Campaign Adviser John Pence, compared to NO people, whatsoever, turning up to see presidential candidate Joe Biden himself, in the flesh.

This is embarrassing. 100x more people showed up just to see @Marc_lotter, @jepence, and me on our @TeamTrumpOnTour!! 😂 https://t.co/ceNW1kbhVE
— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) October 11, 2020

A drive-in event in Toledo, at which Biden spoke, appeared to have just six Biden supporters in attendance, sitting in their cars.

.@JoeBiden brings his economic message to Toledo, Ohio where how main message besides selling his “Build Back Better” plan to union members gathered at the drive-in is promising to never turn his back on them like Pres. Trump has in the last several years. pic.twitter.com/P9UrRCVcaa
— Marianna Sotomayor (@MariannaNBCNews) October 12, 2020

There were more Trump supporters in attendance than Biden supporters.

Dozens of Trump supporters were loudly chanting a mix of “Four more years,” “Trump” and “USA” throughout the event, growing louder anytime @JoeBiden mentioned the president. pic.twitter.com/7M0iZWdmRf
— Marianna Sotomayor (@MariannaNBCNews) October 12, 2020

Trump rallies, it is clear, generate large cheering crowds. Biden rallies, by comparison, are poorly attended. Hundreds of cars decorated with American flags, Make American Great Again signs, and Trump posters, for example, made up a rolling caravan that ran all the way from Plymouth, Massachusetts to Nashua, New Hampshire.

A Vietnamese family decking out their van with Trump posters and flags. Apparently there’s a contest to see who has the most swagged out car.

Rally goers say they’re not here to change people’s views—just to voice their support for the President. #WBZ pic.twitter.com/glBGnHbNrV
— Tiffany Chan (@TiffanyChanWBZ) October 3, 2020

By contrast, 70 cars came out for Biden in Des Moines, in September.

Next stop in Cedar Rapids: a drive-in campaign rally with @DrBiden and @DouglasEmhoff. Here’s my view. @FoxNewsMMR pic.twitter.com/gIJYKlSi4C
— Mitti Hicks (@MittiMegan) September 26, 2020

In the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, some said as many as 30,000 cars took part in a Trump rally on October 10, waving American and Cuban flags. There were so many cars that police officers had to come direct traffic. Biden may think the Latino community is incredibly diverse, but they appear to have a single-minded preference for Trump.

The same day the “incredibly diverse” were cheering for Trump in Miami, a “Trump Train” made of cars took over an oversized parking lot in St. George, Utah, before setting out in support of President Trump. This time, hundreds of people lined the streets for blocks, straining for a glimpse of the event, already an hour before it was slated to begin. The crowds had put aside the danger of contagion in favor of showing support for their favored presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump. People said the “train” of cars seemed to go on forever.

The mainstream media has left no doubt as to what it thinks you ought to think about Trump. You should hate him with every fiber of your being, and do everything you can to make him lose the election. For the media, it’s not about generating love for Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris. Especially since neither of them are especially loveable. Instead, this election cycle has been all about hate—in particular, about hating President Trump.

The good news is that it’s not working. People would rather love than hate, especially when the object of that feeling is the holder of the highest office in the land, the president of the United States. The people have made their choice and they choose veneration over hate. So the crowds turn out for Trump. And they turn out with enthusiasm.

This, of course, is good news for Israel, where an October 12 poll found that 63.3% of Israelis favor Trump over Joe Biden for president. Maybe this has to do with the way Biden upbraided two Israeli prime ministers. Or maybe it’s because Biden plans to reinstate the JCPOA. What we know for sure: Israel won’t be naming any city squares or neighborhoods for Joe Biden Jr., at any near point in time, and probably not ever. Because Joe Biden hasn’t shown much love for Israel. And like the people of America ignoring the hate-filled spin of the media in favor of flocking to those rallies for Trump, Israelis choose love over hate.

Joe Biden is no friend to Israel, which means he’s no friend to the Jews, which is why Israelis are glad that when it comes to presidents, Americans would rather choose love over hate.

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Social Media and the Cognitive War Against Israel (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

Time to take a break from giving and receiving abuse on Twitter and do some work.

Last night we watched the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma.” It’s about the big tech companies and how their systems manipulate us into giving them what they want, which is our time and attention.

About 25 years ago I was stuck in the airport in Reno, Nevada, where there were slot machines available for waiting passengers to entertain themselves. I recall watching a woman play one, rhythmically swaying back and forth to the musical accompaniment from the machine as she pulled the lever over, and over, and over. I could see from her glazed eyes that she was in a trance, one with the machine. I wondered if she would succeed to pull herself away in time when her flight was announced, or if indeed she would even hear the announcement. Later, I recognized the same look in the eyes of someone scrolling through Facebook or Twitter on their phone.

These systems, which although they have been developed by humans, work autonomously and learn from experience how to control the behavior of their subjects. Their developers only care about getting us to sit still and eat the ads we are “served” (I love that locution), but of course it has destructive side effects. The creation of ideological bubbles, the dispersion of fake news, and the encouragement of extremism are some of them, but there are other, deeper changes that are not obvious, like the contraction of the subject’s attention span, the forced withdrawal from normal social activities, the decline in risk-taking, and the abysmal waste of time.

The abuses of political correctness, cancel culture, and the wide popularity of absurd, self-contradictory theories and ideologies are all epiphenomena of the ubiquity of social media. They would not be possible without the ability to disseminate emotion-loaded stimuli widely and instantaneously to groups of like-minded people, people who are often in the receptive trance-like state engendered by the medium.

How, for example, did the Israeli-Palestinian conflict come to take over the mind-space of the Western world? Almost none of my Twitter abuse comes from actual Arabs or Palestinians. Most of the folks accusing me of supporting “land theft,” apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Palestinians live in the US or Europe, places which have their own problems. And yet they care so much about the Palestinians!

The Palestinization of the Western mind is a long story. It started with the KGB, who wanted to find a lever to get support for its Arab clients in the Middle East. It continued via the massive inputs of Arab oil money into Western educational institutions and “human rights” groups. It got a big boost from 2001’s Durban Conference on Racism, where the popular theme of anti-racism was successfully applied to Israel – a remarkable feat of reality inversion, since the Arab rejectionism that underlies the conflict is at bottom a particular rejection of Jewish sovereignty, and a desire to ethnically cleanse the region of Jews.

But the advent of the Internet multiplied – exponentiated – everything. It first became available in universities in the 1980s with email and Usenet newsgroups (like mailing lists) facilitating the democratization of the distribution of information. The first rudimentary social networks like Compuserve and America Online arrived in the 1990s. The dam burst with the creation of Facebook and others in the early 2000s.

The universities have always been repositories of misoziony, extreme and irrational Israel-hatred. This is because of the general leftward tilt of university faculties, who were fertile soil for the Soviet anti-Israel propaganda that began in the late 1960s and continued through the dissolution of the USSR. There was also the effect of the aforementioned Arab oil money donated to create departments of Mideast studies that were little more than indoctrination units. Students and faculty, early adopters of new technology, used it to organize and propagandize for all of their causes, including the increasingly popular Palestinian one.

Some important characteristics of social media that particularly affect cognitive warfare in this conflict are the immediacy of transmission of information, its bias toward emotional content, its tendency to create opinion bubbles, its encouragement of extremism, and the effect of numerical superiority of one side or another in a dispute. Let’s see how this works.

One of the propaganda techniques used against Israel is the “spaghetti test,” in which false accusations are rapidly thrown against the public in the hope that they will stick. By the time the information to refute them has been collected, the damage has been done and new accusations have been launched. The ability of social media to plant an idea in numerous receptive minds instantaneously with no filtering (such as is at least supposed to occur in traditional media) greatly increases the effectiveness of this.

It is well known that emotional content makes a story memorable, as well as serving as a motivation for action in a way that factual information cannot. Social media tends to be biased toward the transmission of emotionally affecting content, since that is what drives a person to share or retweet an item. Emotionally moving items (“IDF soldiers shoot Palestinian children for fun”) tend to dominate the timelines of its targets, arriving faster and more frequently than factual, but boring, corrections (“nobody was shot”).

The opinion bubbles prominent on social media, in which a person tends to collect “friends” and followers with similar political opinions means that propaganda will be repeated and amplified by the echo chambers formed by the bubbles. As it bounces around in an eagerly accepting environment, it creates anger and indignation, as well as accumulating greater authority (everyone is talking about the murder of Muhammad al-Dura, so the story must be true).

A participant in a social media opinion bubble is a player in a social game in which points are won by being first with the most shocking information. The “alphas” in the group are the ones whose opinions are the most exciting, which usually means that their positions are the most extreme. This forces the window of discourse in the direction of extremism, which is why it seems so shocking when it escapes from the bubble. The group “Canary Mission” often exposes social media posts in which students and academics express themselves against Jews or Israel in a way which is acceptable within their group but appears (and is) appallingly vicious to an outsider.

Jews and Israelis are a small minority compared to their enemies, and defenders of Israel are an equally small minority on social networks. The numerical advantage on one side makes it possible to “pile on” to a person and overwhelm them with verbal abuse. It seems that the Palestinians and their supporters are using social media much more effectively than those on the Israeli side. I am not sure if this is simply a consequence of their numerical advantage, or something else.

Technology of this kind has made everyday life much more convenient. Can you imagine life without Google? As the documentary points out, social media has reunited families and made it possible to become acquainted with people that one would otherwise never know. It can provide a lifeline for shut-ins, especially in this time of pandemic.

But – as its effects in facilitating cognitive warfare in our own sphere show – it has changed the world in ways we are just beginning to understand, and have made no effort to control. It has increased political polarization in general, fostered extremism, and seriously damaged traditional journalism.

No, I don’t want to be without Google (I think). But I wouldn’t cry if Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. disappeared.

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.

How Come Christian Missionaries are allowed to Enter Israel during the Lockdown, But Most Jews May Not? (Judean Rose)

Christian missionaries, whose explicit goal is to convert Jews in Israel to Christianity, are entering Israel when most Jews cannot, through a loophole in Israeli government-mandated regulations for the country’s latest coronavirus lockdown. The lack of government sensitivity and response to this issue, when queried, suggests that the loophole was purposefully created. It seems someone wants these missionaries here badly, perhaps the farmers in Samaria, whose vineyards these missionaries toil for free, as they swear up and down that converting the Jews is the furthest thing from their minds. No doubt they are told it is permitted to lie for this purpose. The loophole is that international volunteers are allowed in, while thousands of Jews trying desperately to get to Israel, are not.

The following photo shows Dean Bye’s Return Ministries group arriving in Israel. Return Ministries shared the photo on Facebook as an announcement of the loophole for missionaries, the year-long volunteer visa, during the coronavirus lockdown:

This was shared by Tommy Waller, of HaYovel who remarked that this had opened the way for others. Such as his group of missionaries. And that of Bishop Glenn Plummer and his wife, Dr. (Ruth) Pauline Plummer.

Longer version with Hebrew subtitles:

It is the belief of Glenn and Pauline Plummer that they are "grafted" onto the Jewish people through Jesus. The two are in Israel specifically to target the Ethiopian community. Bishop Plummer believes God’s promise to bring the people out of Egypt/Africa includes those of African descent. He also believes Martin Luther King was not being at all metaphoric in his mountaintop speech when he referenced being allowed to reach the Promised Land. It wasn’t suburbia to which MLK was describing, from Plummer’s perspective, but a scenario in which African Americans belong to the actual physical land of Israel and must return.

Judy Maltz of Haaretz has previously looked at Tommy Waller and Hayovel, wondering who gave them visas during a lockdown when Jews are barred. Now she has addressed the issue of Bishop and Dr. Plummer claiming to make aliyah. Maltz, being that she writes for Haaretz, made sure to underscore the point that it is the settlers who benefit from the work of the Christian “volunteers.”

In August, the Interior Ministry announced that 12,000 yeshiva students and another 5,000 foreign exchange students and participants in Masa educational and social programs, aimed at young Jewish adults, would also be allowed into the country.

As reported in Haaretz several weeks ago, an exception was also made for a group of 70 volunteers from a U.S.-based evangelical organization, known as Hayovel. The volunteers obtained special government permission to enter the country so they could help with the grape harvest on West Bank settlements.

Event poster announces Bishop Glenn and Dr. Pauline Plummer in Jerusalem

At the same time, Maltz made one small, incidental mention of proselytization only at the end of her piece, as if to minimize the importance of the issue.

Asked to address concerns that COGIC had set up a presence in Israel in order to persuade Jews to convert to Christianity, Plummer said: “That’s not our mission. I, as a Christian believer and Christian leader, am fully convinced that Yeshua, Jesus, is the messiah. I believe that with every fiber in me. But I’m not going to try to convince you to believe that. If you ask me why I believe that, though, of course I’m going to tell you.”

This, of course, is a lie. Let’s look at what Bishop and Dr. Plummer themselves said in the video (earlier in this piece), regarding their purpose in coming to Israel, and in fact, their purpose in life:

What is the church called to do? In my humble opinion, it rests on two things. One is to win souls and the second is to make disciples. Disciple-making is really a big call.
That's exactly the call and the mission and the goal of the church. "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost.”
We lead people to the lord. The church is commissioned. The church is called to go forth and teach, to instruct all nations, to do as Jesus did and make disciples. We are called to tell people everywhere about Jesus.

Facebook about page

Tweet after participating in a congressional caucus on black and Jewish relations

Mission as declared on the website of Bishop and Dr. Plummer

A colleague who lives in Samaria, where so many evangelicals are residing while working the vineyards for free, when he heard my concerns about Bishop Plummer commented, “Just you should know, there are highly-placed individuals who have known him for decades who will make sure he understands the situation he is in and if you want, I can try to ask him specifically not to reach out to you.”

It is not, of course, my concern that these people will reach out to me personally. My concern is that they are here to “win souls” and “make disciples.” I find this sort of proselytization highly offensive. The Jewish people did not survive the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Muslim Conquest, pogroms, terror, and the Holocaust in order to have missionaries infiltrate the Jewish State of Israel to rob our children of their souls, in order that the settlers of Samaria benefit from free labor to harvest their grapes.

Plummer: first "bishop of Israel in the 112 year history of the church"

The focus of the work of Bishop and Dr. Plummer in Israel: outreach to Ethiopian Jews

It sure does look as though the one sure way to get into Israel right now is to be Christian and committed to converting the Jews. It's a definite exception to the otherwise unusually severe lockdown measures mandated by the Israeli government. And it worked great for Bishop Glenn and Dr. Pauline Plummer. But it also worked for Return Ministries, manned by Dean Bye and Chaim Malespin. The entire group of their evangelical volunteers received one-and-a-half-year visas.

It's important to note that evangelicals do not qualify to live in Israel under the Law of Return, despite the claim of Dr. Plummer that she and her husband are not in Israel to be tourists, but have actually made aliyah. When asked about this by Judy Maltz at Haaretz, a spokeswoman from Israel’s Interior Ministry, responsible for issuing visas to the Plummers and the other evangelicals, said only that she, “wasn’t at liberty to discuss individual cases because of privacy issues.”

All we really know is that Israel is in the middle of a pandemic lockdown in which thousands of Jews cannot get into the country, but the government has announced this loophole that mainly serves evangelical Christians.

It’s not a good look.

Breaking Israel News is calling this loophole for international volunteers the fulfillment of the prophecy that “strangers,” or “Christians,” have been allowed into Israel to harvest:

Strangers shall stand and pasture your flocks, Aliens shall be your plowmen and vine-trimmers; Isaiah 61:5.

This prophecy, the missionaries see as both literally and metaphorically true. For while so many Jews cannot visit Israel during the holidays or see family, the strangers are here for the harvest. They're here for the grapes and the souls.

(h/t Shannon Nuszen of Beyneynu)

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.