Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Times of Israel

Showing posts with label Times of Israel. Show all posts

Monday, September 04, 2023

Saudis, Palestinians, US all negotiating Saudi peace with Israel - but Israel isn't in the room

A delegation of top American officials is slated to travel to Riyadh this week to meet with Saudi counterparts in order to discuss a potential normalization agreement between the Gulf kingdom and Israel, a US official and a Palestinian official told The Times of Israel on Sunday.

The visit by White House Middle East czar Brett McGurk and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf will come just over a month after US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan visited Saudi Arabia with the same objective, pointing to Washington’s continued determination to broker an elusive deal. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also visited Riyadh on the same mission in June.

McGurk and Leaf’s visit will overlap with that of a Palestinian delegation led by Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee secretary-general Hussein al-Sheikh, who will be in Riyadh to discuss what Ramallah is hoping to obtain from a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal, the two officials said.

So the US is speaking to Saudi Arabia about conditions on Israel to accept a normalization deal.

The US is speaking to Palestinians about conditions on Israel to accept a normalization deal.

The Palestinians are speaking to the Saudis about conditions on Israel to accept a normalization deal.

Everyone is speaking to each other - about Israel, but not to Israel.

Are there backchannels from Israel to Saudi Arabia? Probably. Is the Israeli government in charge of these backchannels?

We have no idea.

But we do know that the Biden administration and the Palestinians are not keen to negotiate with Netanyahu, so my guess is that some Israeli peacenik organization is leading the backchannel negotiations with the intent to manipulate the Israeli government, not to appease it, about what strings would be attached to the deal.

Maybe I'm being a bit too sensitive after reading the Gidi Grinstein book I reviewed on Sunday and how a backchannel was used by the Israeli Left, the US and Palestinians to collude to bring down Netanyahu in his first term, but the impression I am getting is that a purpose of these negotiations may include finding a way to make the current coalition government fall, something that would being a sigh of relief to the Americans, the Palestinians and not a small number of Israelis.

Holding these meetings in Saudi Arabia is a convenient way to exclude Israeli officials who cannot officially travel to the kingdom. But all other negotiations between Israel and its erstwhile peace partners took place in neutral territory - Europe or the US.

Excluding Israel from these talks seems to be a way to marginalize the Jewish state and put it on its back foot when the offer is revealed - a deal that, it appears, will be all but imposed on Israel rather than one that Israel has a say in. If Israel refuses an offer backed by the US, Saudis and tacitly Palestinians it will look like an intransigent player who only pretends to want peace. If Israel accepts a bad deal, the government probably will fall.

It feels like deja vu.,

Most Israelis and Zionists would love to see Saudi normalization, myself included. Every new revelation makes me wonder if the price would be too high - especially when the major benefits of peace are already effectively there.

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Apartheid! Israeli firefighter dies, another seriously injured trying to rescue an illegal Palestinian worker who fell into a pit

Another story of how little Israel cares about Palestinian lives:

Two people were killed and a third was in critical condition after falling into a pit in the northern village of Deir al-Asad on Sunday.

Two of the men were firefighters who fell into the hole during an attempt to extract the third, a Palestinian laborer who had earlier plunged inside and lost consciousness.

The firefighters were pulled from the eight-meter-deep hole by other rescue personnel at the scene, according to a Magen David Ambulance service statement.

Medics tried to revive them while they were being taken to Nahariya’s Galilee Medical Center in critical condition, MDA said.

One of them was later declared dead. He was named as Adnan Assad, 40, from Beit Jann.

Rescue workers at the scene also pulled the Palestinian man, in his 20s, from the hole. He was also taken to the hospital in critical condition and was declared dead several hours later.

According to police, he was a Palestinian laborer staying in the country illegally.

Two firefighters risked their lives - and one paid the ultimate price - to save a Palestinian.

And notice that the Israeli firefighter was an Arab himself - working on helping people alongside his Jewish colleagues. There is no distinction between them.

In other words, reality is completely different from the lies you see in the anti-Israel media.

But anyone who cares to know the truth already was aware of this.

Adnan Assad was a 40 year old father of three, including a two month old baby. May his memory be a blessing.

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

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Jenin militants sprinkled explosives on their own roads. Where are the anti-landmine activists? (UPDATE)

The Times of Israel reported last week during the Jenin operation:

The Israel Defense Forces says troops located and destroyed at least 11 improvised explosive devices hidden along roads in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank.

Operatives of terror groups “are planting IEDs and bombs on the roads in the refugee camp and in the city, in a civilian environment. This poses a threat to the security forces who use the roads in counterterrorism activities and to innocent people who also use them,” the IDF says in a statement.

The military says that during the last few hours, dozens of combat engineering vehicles have been combing the streets for such IEDs.

This is confirmed by the Washington Post:

One long street was plowed like a farm furrow where Israeli bulldozers had intentionally detonated explosives embedded in the pavement.

Embedded explosives in the ground are pretty much the definition of landmines. The Jenin terrorists are burying landmines in their own town, where their own people could be killed.

If the mines can be triggered by a person, they are considered illegal under the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention.

It sure looks like many of these IEDs can indeed be triggered by someone stepping on them. Here is a relatively small one being detonated by the IDF.

I have yet to see a condemnation by any NGO or state about Palestinians putting their own people at risk of being blown up by these IEDs.

Israel's clearing of the mines is considered a bigger crime than the mines themselves.

Which tells you a lot.

UPDATE: The "State of Palestine" acceded to the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, which proves yet again that the only reason they signed these conventions was to be accepted as a state, but had no intention to actually do anything to adhere to the various conventions' rules. (h/t Ian)

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The double standard: Only Palestinians are allowed to be angry

There is a subtext behind all reporting out of Israel. This subtext is both bigoted against Arabs and antisemitic at its core - at the same time. And it is a subtext that is accepted not only by the media but by many Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs as well.

The unwritten rule of all media coverage is that only Arabs are allowed to be angry. Only Arabs are allowed to act irrationally. Only Arabs gain sympathy for reacting to things that upset them with violence.

After every terror attack, without fail, the terror groups and Palestinian apologists say as a chorus, "This attack was a natural reaction to their suffering at the hands of Israelis."

Yet when Jews act with 10% of the irrationality and anger that the Palestinians are expected to act with all the time, it is proof that there is something deeply wrong with the Jews.

From Times of Israel:

Israeli settler vigilantes tore through several Palestinian towns in the West Bank following a deadly shooting attack on a nearby settlement Tuesday night, setting cars and fields on fire, vandalizing homes and terrorizing residents in a grim repeat of an incident some termed a pogrom earlier this year.

Palestinians in Luban a-Sharqiya, Huwara, Beit Furik, Burin and other towns south of Nablus in the northern West Bank said carloads of settlers rampaged through the villages Tuesday night, hurling stones and setting cars, fields, homes and other property ablaze.

Three Israelis were arrested over the attacks, Israel’s Ynet news reported.

The rampage was set off by an attack hours earlier in which two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a hummus restaurant and gas station in the settlement of Eli, killing four people, including two 17-year-old boys, and injuring four others.

I want to be crystal clear: these vigilante actions are wrong and should be condemned.

But both Jews and Palestinian Arabs should be judged the same way. When Palestinians riot, it is just as wrong as when Jews riot. When Palestinians attack civilians, it is just as wrong as when Jews attack civilians. While Jews are expected to hold themselves to a higher standard and not attack random Palestinians, Palestinians should be held to the exact same standard and not excused when they attack random Jews.

Anything else is bigotry - bigotry that says that Arabs are naturally violent, and bigotry that says Jews must not show anger when their friends are murdered.

When Jews get targeted and murdered by Palestinians, the media shows lots of photos of crying Jews at the funeral. When a Palestinian dies and Jews are blamed, it shows angry crowds. Jews are expected to rise above such base emotions as anger and vengeance while Arabs are not.

Double standards for Jews and for Palestinians is bigotry, by definition. It is a bigotry that is embraced by the media as well as by Palestinians and terror supporters who justify every terror act, no matter how heinous, as natural and acceptable and part of a "cycle of violence." . And to an extent Israelis are guilty of it as well, priding themselves on being on a different moral plane than Palestinians are. For the most part, that is true, but that attitude also helps keep the status quo of Palestinians being expected to act like animals.

Both sides should be expected to act morally and according to the law. Neither side should target civilians, ever. Neither side should celebrate the deaths of innocents on the other side (and only one side ever does that.) And each side should strive to always be better, to improve, to be more moral.

It is up to the players themselves to choose to act morally, to rise above the desire for blind vengeance. It is not for the world to impose one set of morality on one side and a completely different set of standards, or no standards whatsoever, on the other.

By the same token, it is human to get angry when something truly outrageous occurs, and Jews have that right as much as Palestinians do. Chanting "Death to Arabs" is unacceptable, but "Death to Hamas" is appropriate. It is antisemitic to insist that Jews react to Palestinian atrocities with nothing but coolness, logic and restraint.

All of this should be obvious. But the reality is that expectations are very different for the two sides. The world tolerates and encourages this bigotry, and the violence is partially a result of these double standards. The Western world, by accepting Palestinian irrationality as normal, encourages more terror.

Judge everyone equally. Be more critical of the side that acts with less regard for human life and that literally celebrates death.

Why is that such a difficult concept?

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Two can play the Neturei Karta game

Anti-Zionists like the extremist, fringe Neturei Karta sect because they share the ir desire to destroy Israel and the embrace terrorists. But the real reason they love them is because they use them as evidence that they are not antisemitic - after all, they like some Jews!

It's a stupid game, but it is one that both sides can play.

From Times of Israel:

Police on Thursday said officers arrested a man who entered the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank earlier this week along with two other members of the fringe anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox sect Neturei Karta, and met with Palestinians from local terror groups.

Elhanan Lax, 38, from the central city of Petah Tikva, was detained on suspicion of “supporting and associating with a terror group” and illegally entering Area A of the West Bank, where Jenin is located. Israeli citizens are barred from entering Area A, as it is under the Palestinian Authority’s civilian and security control under the Oslo Accords.

The three men were filmed meeting with prominent Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group officials as well as families of terrorist attackers on Monday.

Police said they are seeking to arrest the other two men. The trio could face lengthy prison spells if convicted of supporting terror.

Hold on - I thought that Israel was all about Jewish supremacy! About anti-Palestinian racism! How could Israel arrest fellow Jews, and threaten them with long prison terms, when they only treat Palestinians that way?

Moreover, how could Israel ban Jews from Area A? Arab Israelis can, and do, go to Palestinian controlled areas all the time. Isn't that the exact opposite of Jewish supremacy?

By the logic of the anti-Israel crowd themselves, Israel cannot be racist - just as the Israel haters use the NK idiots as proof that they cannot be antisemitic.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Large cache of Jewish objects hidden by Jews in Lodz in 1939 unearthed (lots of photos)

From Times of Israel:

About 400 items believed to have been hidden in the ground by their Jewish owners during World War II have been accidentally uncovered during home renovation work in a yard in Lodz in central Poland.

History experts say that the objects found in the city’s Polnocna Street include Hanukkah menorahs and items used in daily life, TVN24 reported.

Another Polish media outlet, o2.pl, said that perfume bottles and cigarette holders were also found in the trove, located some 70 centimeters underground.

The stash was found in December, and two of the menorahs were lit on December 22 during Hanukkah celebrations organized by the city’s Jewish community.

Some of the items were found wrapped in Polish, Yiddish, and German language newspapers, which were dated to around October 1939, Israel’s Ynet news site said.

Gazecie Wyborczej, an archaeologist in Lodz, said that the items appeared to have been buried in a hurry, likely when the owners were ordered to appear in the Lodz Ghetto. According to Wyborczej, the site of the building used to be a synagogue.

The items are mostly silver-plated tableware, menorahs and glass containers for cosmetics, according to the regional office for the preservation of historic objects. The office’s experts said on Facebook last week that the objects will be handed over to the city’s archaeology museum.

This is a heartbreaking story, especially when you look at the recovered objects themselves. They aren't for the most part made out of silver or gold but rather silver-plated; they were not objectively that valuable - but they were valuable to the owners. These were personal items that the Jews wanted to keep in their families.

YNet shows some of the objects:

Here are some photos from the scene as the objects were being uncovered (there's also video on the same site):

The broken, dented and tarnished objects are more affecting than the cleaned-up, polished ones.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Times of Israel blog justifies campus antisemitism

Kenneth S. Stern was the lead author of the IHRA's (flawed) Working Definition of Antisemitism, and regarded as an expert on the topic. But his latest blog post at Times of Israel is incomprehensible, and appears to justify modern campus antisemitism.

What should universities do when those Jewish students who are also Zionists are told they are not welcome in progressive spaces? After all, why should any student have to choose between their identity and their desire to be part of a political community? And if that’s the “ask,” pro-Israel Jewish students, whether desiring to join a progressive group or not, get the message, hurtful to them and harmful to the academic vibrancy of the campus: they either have to self-censor what they say about Israel, or risk the ostracism and pain of social shunning.

...But groups also have a right to be selective, to set their own rules for membership. The potential benefits may include allowing members to feel they share something important (such as a women’s group or one based on ethnicity or religion). That applies to politics too. One wouldn’t want to force a Young Republican club to include a Bernie Sanders supporter (or vice versa).

...Groups – including those on campus – have a right of association. Most famously, years ago the organizers of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City refused to include a gay Irish group. As much as I had wished the organizers had made a different decision, they had a right to decide what their march would stand for. Likewise Hillels have the freedom to choose what speech they will allow under their banner.

...Universities must not tell groups what their principles have to be. If Israel/Palestine is a contentious issue on campus, there should be courses and other initiatives to encourage deep discussions of not only the issue, but why it is so divisive, and of how students might maintain their principles while avoiding the too easy temptation to paint classmates with different views as racists or antisemites. But if a group decides that in order to be a member, one has to have a particular view of Israel and Zionism, the right to make that decision must be respected. Those not invited in, even though exclusion hurts, can find other ways to express themselves, including by creating new groups and coalitions.

No.

Stern has a point that campus groups have the right to decide on the rules of membership. It makes sense that a Muslim group or a Black group or a women's group define themselves as spaces where they can feel free to express themselves and feel safe, and not have to self-censor because an outsider might be listening. The same would go for groups for victims of sexual abuse, for example.

But political groups are not the same - there should be no litmus test to join such a group. Bernie Sanders supporters should be allowed to attend the Young Republicans club as long as they are respectful and not disruptive. This is true even if they will report back what they have heard. Group meetings should be public and the speakers and attendees should not say anything that they would be embarrassed to say in public.

Yet even if one accepts the progressive idea of "safe spaces" for political opinions, Stern goes way beyond that. He is saying that a group about climate change or against racism and sexism can exclude Zionists, even though that is not at all what the group is about. He says that any progressive organization, on any issue, can include anti-Zionism as a litmus test for attendance and membership.

That is absurd. If the organization whose purpose has nothing to do with Israel says all members must be anti-Zionist, they are indeed adding an antisemitic dimension to their group. The proof is that they do not have similar litmus tests for other political opinions - they do not exclude those who support the death penalty or Bashar Assad or Vladimir Putin. They don't ask prospective members their opinions on nuclear energy or Uyghurs. The only issue that they consider beyond the pale is Zionism.

That double standard is antisemitism.

Even worse, Stern downplays the pain of Jewish students who feel unwelcome from these spaces where they have so much in common with the group members. He disingenuously says that Zionists can simply create new groups when excluded from progressive spaces.

Really? Is it so trivial to create a competing Zionist group against sexual abuse or against racism, to get funding, to get enough members? That is nonsensical. And it is offensive.

I cannot believe that Stern doesn't realize that. The entire reason Jews created their own hospitals and medical schools and hotels and clubs a century ago is because they were reacting to systemic and endemic antisemitism. Stern is saying that we should accept modern antisemitism and act the same way our Jewish ancestors did in the face of bigotry.

He is saying to accept this bigotry and work around it, rather than expose it and fight it head on.

This doesn't sound like the position that someone who fights antisemitism would take.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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"Human rights" activists and groups silent as Hamas executes "collaborators"

Times of Israel reports:

The Hamas terror group announced on Sunday that it had executed five Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including two for “collaboration” with Israel.

“On Sunday morning, the death sentence was carried out against two condemned over collaboration with the occupation (Israel), and three others in criminal cases,” Hamas, which rules Gaza said in a statement.

It added that the defendants had previously been given “their full rights to defend themselves.”

Hamas media is reporting that "experts" and "activists" are supporting the executions. Many use a hashtag, #القصاص_حياة, "Retribution is Life," from a Quran quote.

I can find no "progressive" anti-Israel activist who is condemning Hamas' death penalty for either the Gazans convicted of murder or of "collaboration."

Moreover, the "human rights" groups that Israel has outlawed are not saying a word either. Al Haq, "Protecting and Promoting Human Rights & the Rule of Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory," is silent.

Also silent, as of this writing, are the social media of Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, who regularly condemn the death penalty in the US.

PCHR, a Palestinian human rights group not considered illegal by Israel, to its credit, does consistently condemn the death penalty. But B'Tselem hasn't said anything about this.

So-called human rights groups pretend that they are even handed and condemn Hamas when appropriate. But except for rocket fire, they tacitly support everything Hamas does with their silence, while they spend thousands of hours looking for new things to accuse Israel of.

The "collaboration" crimes occurred in 1991 and 2001.

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

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Latest "Iran catches Mossad spy ring" story doesn't add up

From Times of Israel:

An alleged Israeli spy network made up of five individuals has been arrested in Iran, an Iranian media outlet claimed Thursday, the second such group detention announced within a week.

The semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency said the five suspects were the leader of the cell and four associates, all of whom were “affiliated with the Israeli regime” and had allegedly been in contact with the head of Israel’s Mossad.

The report said Iran claimed the alleged spies had told the chief of the Israeli spy agency that they would “collect information from important and vital areas.”

Maybe they caught some spies and maybe they didn't. But you can be certain that whoever Iran arrested was not in direct contact with the head of the Mossad!

That is not how any organization works, let alone an intelligence operation!

And if the absurd story was true, Iranian spy agencies are idiots, because they could use these spies to directly send misinformation to the head of Israel's Mossad! That is a lot more valuable than exposing them.

This alone is enough to make one think that the entire story is fabricated.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!