Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: UAE

Showing posts with label UAE. Show all posts

Monday, September 12, 2022

As usual, Palestinians try to make the death of Queen Elizabeth II about...Palestinians

An editorial at Amad shows anger at various Arab states for declaring days of mourning for Queen Elizabeth, saying that this is an insult to...Palestinians.

Hassan Asfour, the editor of Amad, wrote an article saying that various Arab countries who declared days of mourning and that flags should fly at half-mast are showing support of the British Balfour Declaration and of Zionism, and insulting Palestinians.

The Arab countries that declared days of mourning include Jordan, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Asfour notes that none of these countries did anything similar when Yasir Arafat was "assassinated," or when Gamal Abdel Nasser died.

Far from empty compliments, what these countries have done is a new attack on the Palestinian people and their national cause, as if they are blessing what [Great Britain has]done. Just days ago, the Prime Minister of Her Majesty’s Government announced that if Israel did not exist, it would need to be created..and that it is more Zionist than the Zionists themselves.

(I couldn't find that Liz Truss quote.)

As always, Palestinians need to make everything about themselves, and when any other world event happens that knocks their position in the daily news items down a peg or two, they are livid that they aren't the top story.

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!

Does this Palestinian brewery have access to enough water? Depends on who is interviewing them

The Media Line has an article on the Oktoberfest in Taybeh, happening this month for some reason, which features Taybeh Beer:

It was the first microbrewery in the Middle East. Nadim says that, despite their great success, they operate under harsh conditions.

“We face many challenges; many stem from the Israeli occupation and the harsh restrictions it imposes on our exports and imports of ingredients we need for our operation,” he said.

Madees says her goal is to turn her family brewery into a global beer brand, and they must overcome many hurdles.

“But our biggest challenge is the occupation, it’s disruptive. We don’t have our own water, we don’t have enough water, 95% of beer is water and we can’t produce as much as we are able to because of the lack of water,” she explained.

Which is interesting, because in 2015, Eater.com had a story about Taybeh beer, where they said:

All the beers are brewed in small batches, without additives or preservatives, and using natural spring water flowing from a nearby village. The other ingredients are imported from Europe: Belgian and French malts, Bavarian and Czech hops, and yeast from London that, as Nadim says, "gives good characteristics to the beer."

It doesn't sound like they had any problems with imports then, and their access to water is from a spring, not through Israel's water carrier.

Similarly, the Boston Globe reported about the brewery in 2014:

There is also the question of water — a scarce resource in this arid part of the world. Continued Israeli settlement expansion has led to a disparity in water access, though Taybeh is able to use fresh water from a local spring. While they are all right for now, Khoury worries that in the future there may not be enough water to meet an increasing international demand.

The Jerusalem Post identifies the spring:

Taybeh’s secret is high-quality water from the Ein Samia spring five kilometers away, explains Buthina Canaan Khoury, Nadim’s and David’s youngest sister, in charge of brewery tours during the festival.

The "Israel is stealing our water" theme seems to have only become part of the Taybeh beer family's narrative recently, such as in this DW article from 2019:

Today, an end to the occupation seems far off. And Taybeh needs access to water from a nearby spring that has fallen under the control of Israel. Hops, malt and yeast are imported from Europe.

The Israeli authorities can shut off that water supply at any time, Khoury said; they have done so more than once in the past. "We can't work without water," he said.

I am not aware of any changes of the status of Ein Samia in recent years. The spring itself seems to be under full Palestinian control, according to B'Tselem's map of the territories. The UN declared in 2011 that Ein Samia was at "risk" of being taken over by "settlers" but it never happened.

Apparently, Taybeh's owners have realized that the narrative of brewing their beer under horrible Israeli occupation, with restrictions on imports and exports that seem to not affect their ever-increasing sales, is a good business move, no matter what the truth is.

Oh, and they have a new market:

“We are in 18 countries; we started in Palestine, now we are selling in San Francisco, Boston, Denmark, Japan, Canada, all over the world,” he [Nadim] said, adding that “next week we’ll send the first shipment to the United Arab Emirates. For the first time.”

If Israel hadn't normalized relations with the UAE, that wouldn't have happened. So maybe Israel is helping Taybeh Beer more than they are hurting it

Not that the current September Oktoberfest wave of articles would mention that.

(h/t Irene)

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!

The Abraham Accords are helping Palestinian businesses

It has been two years since the Abraham Accords were signed. Trade between Israel and the UAE is booming - over $1.4 billion so far this year, more than all of 2021.

However, it isn't only Israel and the UAE that are benefitting. Palestinian businesses are gaining as well.

DANA describes itself as "an Abu Dhabi based venture builder and investment platform that supports women-led startups in desert tech, including sectors of agritech, water solutions, food security, waste management, and renewable energy through regional collaboration, innovation mentorship, impact community, and funding."

They currently support "six startups from different countries including the UAE, Israel, Palestine, and KSA, all of which are led by at least one female founder, focusing on sustainability in the desert climate, that address pertinent pain points in the region’s most significant industries. "

The three women who founded DANA include a Jewish American, an Arab Israeli and a Jewish Israeli.

Majd Mashharawi, founder of Gaza's SunBox

Currently, companies that are being nurtured by DANA include BioCloud, an Israeli company that makes herbal pesticides; Sunbox, a Gaza-based solar power startup which is now reliably powering water treatment facilities; Eco-Bricks, which converts polluting stone slurry water from quarrying into quality bricks for construction; and The Food Engineer, a UAE-based vertical farming firm that created a misting technique that uses 95% less water than standard farms.

While the media has taken note of the skyrocketing increase in trade between Israel and the UAE in the wake of the Abraham Accords, one sees very few articles on how the normalization is helping Palestinian firms. They are getting know-how and funding as well as access to world-class expertise that simply would not have been possible before the Accords.

Moreover, DANA fosters women-owned businesses in the notoriously patriarchal Palestinian society.

Israel haters deride the idea of "economic peace" as a basis for a stable Middle East, but this is how real peace can take root and grow. The UAE is an ideal bridge that allows Palestinian businesses to work with Israelis while bypassing the stigma of direct "normalization."

The peace between Israel and the UAE is also creating unforeseen benefits for Palestinians, especially Palestinian women, and this is something to be applauded.

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!

Member of Emirati royal family has been spouting antisemitism in her Twitter account

Despite the warm peace between Israel and the UAE, at least one member of the royal family has maintained her hate for Jews.

Sheikha Hind bint Faisal Al Qasimi has been sending out some outrageous tweets recently, displaying her hate and ignorance.

One was a bizarre attempt at a comparison between Jews killed in an organized, planned genocide in the Holocaust and millions of Muslims killed mostly by...each other.

Of course, Israel killing terrorists is the exact same thing as the Holocaust, in her twisted mind:

To hammer the point, she says that what Israel is doing is the "systematic annihilation" of Palestinians, just like the Nazis.

Yet she insists she is not antisemitic - one of her best friends is Jewish!

Al Qasimi makes her antisemitism crystal clear in this tweet:

"You know who."

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!

The Arab League calls to restart the Israel boycott. (They do this every year.)

From KUNA, the Kuwait News Agency, July 31:

The Arab League called on the Arab States on Sunday to reactivate the boycott of Israel, describing it as a peaceful resistance to press Israel to abide by international resolutions.
The League Assistant Secretary-General for Palestine and the Occupied Arab Territories Affairs Saed Abu Ali made the remarks at the 95th meeting of the Arab boycott offices in Cairo.
He said Israel's international boycott had achieved success at both popular and official levels.

Compare with an Arab League press release from October 24, 2017:

The Arab League (AL) called on Arab States on Monday to reactivate boycott of Israel, describing it as a peaceful resistance to press Israel to abide by international resolutions.
AL Assistant Secretary General for Palestine and the Occupied Arab Territories Affairs Saed Abu Ali made the remarks at the 91st meeting of the Arab boycott offices in Cairo.
He said that the international boycott of Israel had achieved success at both popular and official levels.

Yes, they are practically word for word the same.

And the idea of an Arab League boycott is now a joke with direct trade relations between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain and the UAE, and indirect relations with who knows how many others.

But the Arab League Boycott Office continues with its annual or semi-annual meetings, and they have to justify their existence, so they call the reactivate the boycott. Again and again.

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!

WSJ: Israel met with Arabs including Qataris, Saudis on defending against Iranian threat

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The U.S. convened a secret meeting of top military officials from Israel and Arab countries in March to explore how they could coordinate against Iran’s growing missile and drone capabilities, according to officials from the U.S. and the region.

The previously undisclosed talks, which were held at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, marked the first time that such a range of ranking Israeli and Arab officers have met under U.S. military auspices to discuss how to defend against a common threat.

The meeting brought together the top military officers from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Jordan and came as Israel and its neighbors are in the early stage of discussing potential military cooperation, the officials said.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain also sent officers to the meeting. The U.S. was represented by Gen. Frank McKenzie, then the head of the U.S. Central Command.

The talks were enabled by several changes, including common fears of Iran, improved political ties signaled by the Abraham Accords and the Trump administration’s decision in January 2021 to expand Central Command’s area of coverage to include Israel.

Another factor driving expanding military cooperation has been Arab countries’ desire for access to Israeli air defense technology and weapons at a time when the U.S. is shifting its military priorities toward countering China and Russia.

After initially distancing itself from the Abraham Accords, the Biden administration belatedly started to embrace them and now to expand them to include other Arab countries.

Recall that there was another meeting in March in Sharm el-Sheikh, between the leaders of Israel, Egypt and the UAE, on March 22.

The date of the military meeting is not known, but General McKenzie gave a hint about it in a media briefing from Centcom Headquarters in Tampa, Florida on March 16.

"Iran's ballistic missile threat has continued to advance and expand with greater ranges and accuracy," he said, adding that land attack cruise missiles and small unmanned aerial vehicles also are part of that threat.

Partner nation air defense systems in the region far outnumber those that the U.S. has there, he said. Air defense systems, including high-end ones like the Patriot system, are used by the Gulf States and others.

"The task in the theater is really how do you knit those together so that you create more than a simple sum of the component parts," he said.

"By doing so, you create a common operational picture, so everybody sees the same thing. Everybody gets early warnings; everybody can be prepared to react very quickly to a potential Iranian attack. That's where the future in this theater is," he said.

Iranian ballistic missile threats have provided some opportunities for the United States to advance regional cooperation in the area of air defense, he said.

"Centcom is focused on operationalizing the Abraham Accords as we brought Israel into our area of operations, and missile defense is one area of cooperation that all our partners understand," he said.

The focus, according to the now-retired general, was to facilitate communication between all regional states so everyone can share early warnings of Iranian attacks. This has the advantage, he hinted, of Israel being able to cooperate with Arab countries that it has not made peace with by not requiring any physical presence of Israelis in Arab countries or vice versa.

Such cooperation is still in very early stages, but the Trump decision to incorporate Israel into Centcom is paying off in closer military cooperation between all Arab states and Israel, via the US.

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!

Time magazine continues on its anti-Israel jihad, even saying Jews "storm Al Aqsa mosque" without scare quotes

Time magazine has an Israel problem.

It has managed to publish biased pieces against Israel in each of its last four biweekly print editions. I discussed two of them here and here.

The previous edition, dated June 6/13, included another piece on Shireen Abu Akleh where it emphasizes that Israel has refused to start a criminal investigation on her death. As we have noted, the IDF is performing an operational investigation into her death; a criminal investigation is only to be done if there is evidence of a criminal act on the part of Israelis. By saying that Israel is refusing a criminal investigation, Time is implying that it is trying to cover up a crime - when in fact it is evidence that there has been no crime at all.

Also in that issue was the Time list of most influential people, the Time 100. I looked up the Time 100 for last year, which would have covered the timeframe of the Abraham Accords, and no one involved in the most historic Middle East peace deal since the Israel-Egyptian treaty was mentioned.

Likewise, in the most recent Time edition, dated June 20/27, there is an article that mentions a historic Middle East story - only to downplay it.

Written by Mat Nashed of Al Jazeera, it tries to diminish the importance of a trade deal between Israel and the UAE:

Israel and the United Arab Emirates deepened ties on Tuesday with a historic free trade agreement—the first of its kind between Israel and an Arab country—at a time of growing criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Both Israel and the UAE are touting the major economic benefits that such a deal could bring. But experts tell TIME that it’s too early to assess the economic impact of the free trade agreement and that the main value of the agreement is political in nature.

Here is a free trade agreement between Israel and an Arab country - and instead of discussing why this is clearly a historic event, the entire article tries to detract from it.

That's bias.

Both Israel and the UAE are already predicting annual bilateral trade will reach $10 billion in five years, more than 10 times the figure recorded in 2021...However, experts are skeptical about the $10 billion figure. According to World Bank data, that amount would make the UAE one of Israel’s largest trading partners. A local Gulf expert, who asked TIME not to disclose his name out of fear that he could lose his livelihood for challenging the information of regional governments, says that the prediction is a stretch. “Look, if the governments are the source, then they usually exaggerate.”

Oh, an anonymous "expert" says $10 billion is unlikely - so is $6 billion not worth even talking about?

Despite the headline news, the UAE’s budding ties with Israel remain deeply controversial across much of the Arab world—particularly as tensions between Palestinians and Israelis mount. Three days ago, the UAE foreign ministry condemned what it called Israel’s “extremist settlers” for storming Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.

Tensions between Palestinians and Israelis have been "mounting" for 74 years.

But most of all, here we see the depth of Time's hate of Israel. Only Arab media uses the terminology of Jews "storming Al Aqsa mosque."

No Jews "storm al Aqsa mosque." No Jews even enter Al Aqsa Mosque. Only in recent years have Palestinians started to refer to the entire Temple Mount as "Al Aqsa Mosque" rather than just the silver domed building on the southern side of the Mount, but the actual mosque itself is off limits to Jews. Time is adopting the nomenclature of those who deny any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, and it doesn't even use the normal formulation of "Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount," instead implicitly denying any Jewish connection to the site.

Jews walk peacefully around the perimeter of the Temple Mount, they aren't "storming."

Time also emphasizes that the mosque that the Jews don't enter is the "third holiest site in Islam" but somehow doesn't mention that the Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism - not second or third.

The print article is worse than the online version - the print article downplays all Israeli relations with the Arab world and claims that the Palestinian issue is a significant roadblock for the Gulf states, when the online article notes that this really isn't true. But both versions include the bias shown above, and together with the print items in the previous three editions at least, it shows that Time's anti-Israel bias is no accident.

It is an editorial decision.

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!

Muslim clerics have always used Jerusalem as a political fatwa football

Yesterday I reported that the Mufti of Jerusalem issued a fatwa saying that UAE residents are “forbidden by law” to visit Al Aqsa.

Now a major Islamic scholar, former deputy at Al Azhar University, says that the Palestinian Mufti doesn’t know anything about Islamic law.

Dr. Abbas Shoman, a member of the Supreme Council of Senior Scholars of Al Azhar Al Sharif, expressed his astonishment over a fatwa forbidding Emiratis’ prayers at Al Aqsa Mosque, issued by the Mufti of Jerusalem after the announcement of the UAE-Israel peace treaty.

Dr. Shoman said: “I refuse to issue Sharia fatwas that are not based on sharia rules, and I do not know as a specialist in Islamic jurisprudence that there is a justification that annuls the prayers of an entire people of a Muslim country in a mosque on the grounds of a political position taken by their state.”

He added: “Indeed, the fatwa is selective and not based on Sharia….As far as I know, there has never been a fatwa in our Islamic history that prevents a person or a group from praying in a mosque for Muslims.”

This actually is similar to another dispute from 2012 when a former Mufti of Jerusalem Ekrima Sabri criticized Egypt’s Grand Mufti visiting Jerusalem. He used bizarre logic:

Sheikh Sabri said from a political perspective Gomaa’s visit implied the recognition of Israeli’s occupation.
“Recognition is a form of normalization because no one can enter Jerusalem without an Israeli visa or without proper coordination with the Israeli security forces.”
But if Muslim citizens of Europe or America visit Israel, their visit would not be considered as an act of “recognizing the occupation,” Sabri said.
“If German or French Muslims visit Jerusalem, this is not normalization since their countries already recognize Israel.
“Some Arab governments might not boycott Israel, but their people do and they reject normalization.”

Another dispute over whether Muslims can visit Jerusalem erupted in 2010 when an Egyptian soccer team planned to play a friendly match against the Palestinian team in the West Bank, and Egyptian extremist clerics issued a fatwa against it.

Similarly, major Muslim Brotherhood cleric Yusuf Qaradawi once issued a fatwa against non-Palestinian Muslims visiting Jerusalem:

He stressed in remarks published yesterday in Doha, "We should feel that we are deprived of Jerusalem and fight for it so that Jerusalem is ours, and that the responsibility to defeat the Zionist aggression is the responsibility of the Islamic nation as a whole and not the responsibility of the Palestinian people alone," he said, adding: "It is not reasonable to leave the Palestinians alone in the face of the Zionist state with a large military capabilities."
He said that "Jerusalem will not return except through resistance and jihad, and the combined efforts of the Arab and Islamic nation."

Muslim clerics like to use Jerusalem as a political football, just like Muslim politicians do. Indeed, there seems to be little distinction between Islamic jurisprudence and politics based on how Muslim clerics have issued contradictory (and sometimes self-contradictory) fatwas on Jerusalem in ways that happen to align with their political positions.

Palestinians keep shooting themselves in the foot

Palestinians continue to respond to the Israel/UAE agreement in the worst possible way for them.

The Mufti of Jerusalem issued a fatwa saying that UAE residents are “forbidden by law” to visit Al Aqsa. UAE residents will of course ignore it – they aren’t bound by his fatwas. If he thinks that this will make them want to support Palestinians, he’s not too bright.

Similarly, the Palestinian prime minister Muhammad Shtayyeh said that Palestinians will boycott the Dubai Expo scheduled for October 2021.

The main weapon Palestinians have is propaganda, and in these two instances they are giving the chance to tell their story to a captive Arab audience away. And in both cases, nothing is accomplished by their supposedly principled positions.

It’s a wonderful way to ensure they never get a state.

UAE doesn't issue a visa for the Mufti of Palestine - but may allow Israelis to enter freely

Anadolu Agency reports that the United Arab Emirates has not issued a visa to the mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein.

He was slated to attend a conference in the UAE and was to arrive on Sunday.

A Palestinian official told the agency that the Palestinian authorities have been working on this, saying that a solution is on its way.

Yet it is Wednesday and nothing has been reported about this being resolved yet.

The UAE has been frosty with the PLO for a while now, partially due to its support of Abbas rival Mohammed Dahlan.

Palestinian media is bitter, pointing out that Israelis have been welcomed with open arms to the UAE in recent months, even to the point of the deputy tourism minister of one of the emirates welcoming Israelis visiting a high tech expo without a visa, telling Ynet, "Bruchim Habaim" - "Welcome" in Hebrew. And it is possible that the lift on limitations of Israeli visitors to the UAE may become permanent.

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.