Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: normalization

Showing posts with label normalization. Show all posts

Monday, March 06, 2023

Israel looking at direct flights for Palestinian pilgrims from Ramon Airport to Saudi Arabia for Hajj

Palestinians from the West Bank could fly directly from Israel's Ramon Airport, near the southern city of Eilat to the Muslim Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia

Amid the recent spike in violence and hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians, and with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Jewish Passover festival weeks away, Israeli officials are weighing creative ways to tamp down regional tensions.

i24NEWS learned that one of the initiatives being examined by Jerusalem is enabling Palestinians from the West Bank to fly directly from the Ramon Airport, near the southern Israeli city of Eilat, to Saudi Arabia for the Muslim Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca.

A recent meeting attended by a long list of Israeli security officials, including representatives of Israel's national Security Council, the Israeli military (IDF), transportation ministry and Israel's Airports Authority, examined the possibility of operating flights for Palestinians out of Israel's Ramon airport directly to Saudi Arabia. Such a decision would of course hinge on the approval and cooperation of the Saudi government.

I don't think the Saudis would go for this, as a direct flight from an Israeli airline landing in Mecca would be close to normalization. They might be warmer towards a one-stop flight that stops in Cyprus or Turkey.

The pilot flights for Palestinians from Ramon Airport that flew last August to Cyprus have not been repeated. Instead, Israel has been working to improve travel to Jordan so Palestinians could save time on that trip - where Jordan was the real bottleneck.

Whatever gets decided, one thing is certain: Palestinians will complain.

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Some Arabs very upset by a synagogue in Abu Dhabi

Last week, to much fanfare, the Maimonides synagogue was formally opened in Abu Dhabi as part of the Abrahamic Family House interfaith project spearheaded by the UAE royal family.

Many reports say that this is the first synagogue in Abu Dhabi, but in fact there was a modest synagogue that had been operating quietly for years in a rented villa for Jewish businesspeople in the Emirates.

Most of the Arabic language articles about the new synagogue have been respectful, but many - especially from outlets sympathetic to Iran - have been upset over this.

It appears that the articles that are upset over the complex are trying to manufacture and stoke the outrage rather than report on it.

Watanserb dug through social media to find critics of the synagogue. They found a couple of prominent critics but they also sought out Tweeters with only a few dozen followers to fill out the story.

Ahmed al Khalili, the Mufti of Oman, believes that giving equal weight to Christianity and Judaism with Islam is a violation of the Quranic decree not to take Christians and Jews as allies.

Popular tweeter HureyAksa also says that the complex is "heretical" and fights against Islam. (More recently, he took video of the "Chief Rabbi of Saudi Arabia" promoting the Saudi Neom project, saying that it will be built specifically for the use of the "occupation.")

Some Saudis seem to be afraid that the UAE is trying to supplant the Kaaba as the central religious site in the world. A Yemeni site even said that the UAE is trying to change the direction of the qiblah, the prayer direction, away from Mecca.

Of course, many in Arab media are calling this house of prayer more evidence of "normalization" with Israel, citing Israeli newspapers who are reporting on the story.

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A Sudanese commentator puts Israel in proper perspective

Ever since Israel first started taking steps to normalize with Sudan, that country has shown the that its media is more free than most Muslim nations. There is robust debate with articles both for and against. (In Morocco, the media seems to be instructed not to say anything negative about Israel, and anti-Zionist Moroccans are only covered by Algerian media.)

This commentary by Yusriya Muhammad al- Hassan is titled "Welcome to our Cousins."

Whoever says that the State of Israel must be wiped out of existence is delusional. Now the Israeli Knesset has more than twenty Palestinian members. The Palestinian leaders signed peace treaties with Israel, and the first one to sign a peace agreement from the Arab leaders was the late Egyptian President Muhammad Anwar Sadat - Camp David Accords. Egypt was the first Arab nation in the lines of defense. The whole Arab world is now heading in the same direction in signing permanent peace agreements with Israel.

Most of the countries of the continent have opened or will open their embassies in Israel. So I say we have wasted a lot of time chasing after false slogans raised by regimes for their absent peoples and from under the table looking for Abrahamic normalization with Israel (the Al-Bashir regime as a model!!)... Israel is a country that implements true democracy to the letter and its people practice responsible freedom in full transparency, as is the government. How many television screens have broadcasted to you public trials of the Prime Minister of Israel on charges that they see and announce publicly - there is no one above the law!!

Compare to here and watch a country whose government raises the Book of Religion!! Corruption in the noses, thefts in broad daylight, your fate is known !!! And they deafen your ears morning and evening with prophetic hadiths and Quranic verses that forbid murder, theft and corruption!!

It is time for us to extend our hands without harm to everyone who desires relations between his brother and him. The State of Israel is very welcome. I believe, like others, that this is a great opening for our two countries in the field of investing in our country which is full of enormous natural resources. It will open the door for Israeli investors and others from the four corners of the world, which will benefit our country with abundant goodness, especially in the agricultural field. Israel possesses modern agricultural technologies, which makes it the first in the world in this field.

So, all that is said about the fear of this step in full normalization between Sudan and Israel is basically a form of political chaos for the self-interests of a group isolated from society. This country will be extricated from the total destruction that was just around the corner. Freedom is ours, so give good news, O beautiful country, of a better tomorrow after the darkness of the night has been lifted, the dawn of salvation has dawned, and the emancipation from the clutches of international isolation has begun.

This is interesting on two levels. For one, it is a full throated support for closer relations between Sudan and Israel. And the other is that, at the same time that Israeli and world media are screaming about how Israel is sliding towards "fascism" and "theocracy,"Muslims dream to live under a government that is as flawed as Israel's.

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US gives millions to Palestinians without reporting where, exactly, the money goes

The United States has a very nice web page that shows how much foreign aid is given and the specific recipients every year.

Here's a detail of what the West Bank/Gaza page looked like in 2020:

The highlighted text says, "USAID redacted this field in accordance with the exceptions outlined in the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act of 2016."

I count about $90 million given to these anonymous Palestinian recipients since 2016.

Looking at the text of that Act, it appears that there are only two reasons to redact the names of the recipients:

(3) REPORT IN LIEU OF INCLUSION.—
(A) HEALTH OR SECURITY OF IMPLEMENTING PARTNERS.—
If the head of a Federal department or agency, in consultation with the Secretary of State, makes a determination that the inclusion of a required item of information online would jeopardize the health or security of an implementing partner or program beneficiary or would require the release of proprietary information of an implementing partner or program beneficiary, the head of the Federal department or agency shall provide such determination in writing to the appropriate congressional committees, including the basis for such determination.
(B) NATIONAL INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES.—If the Secretary of State makes a determination that the inclusion of a required item of information online would be detrimental to the national interests of the United States, the Secretary of State shall provide such determination, including the basis for such determination, in writing to the appropriate congressional committees.

Could it be that the reason that some of the recipient names are redacted is because they would be threatened if it was known they were accepting aid from the US? Or perhaps some of the programs are "under the radar" grassroots peace initiatives, that the Palestinian Authority tries to quash as "normalization"?

Either way, it seems like there is a bit of money sloshing around without any transparency.

One other interesting note. In 2019, the Trump administration announced that it ceased all aid through USAID to the Palestinians. Yet somehow USAID still managed to send millions to the Palestinians in 2019 and 2020 - much less than during the Obama and Biden administrations, but not close to zero.

It seems that the "Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act of 2016" leaves a lot of wiggle room for non-transparency.

(h/t Irene)

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Sudanese website: Welcome to the Jews!

With the announcement last week that Israel and Sudan plan to complete a signed agreement this year, Sudanese media has been discussing the pros and cons of normalizing relations with Israel.

Here's one that is very supportive by Salah El-Din Awdah:

And with logic we speak; And logic does not know the language of emotion; Rather, it is the language of the mind. And this language we respond to those who reject normalization.

Whether with Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, Jordan, or the Emirates, finally with Sudan.

From a religious standpoint, there is nothing that precludes the conclusion of peace treaties with the Jews. Our Holy Prophet himself did it before.

And from a political point of view, every treaty is possible with any side; Politics is the art of the possible.
From a moral point of view, there is no crime in such a step.

Nor can we Sudanese be more Palestinian than the Palestinians. The Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Accords with Israel And that during the life of its late leader, Arafat.

My attitude towards the Jews is not new.

I have praised their democracy as opposed to our government. I have said that they have a million reasons to be proud of it; they describe it as an oasis in the middle of the desert, a democratic and rustic oasis, in the midst of a totalitarian arid desert.

It is strange that among the things that these rejecters blame Israel for is its killing of the Palestinians. They do not blame Islamic regimes for the same thing.

Israel kills those it considers its enemies and does not kill its people. As for these Muslim regimes, they kill their own people....even killing because of a veil, as in the Iranian tragedy of Mahsa. Or because of a protest, as in Syria. Or because of a social grievance, as in Al-Bashir’s Sudan. Or because of opposition to the government, as in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Or because of a political dispute, as in Abdel Nasser’s Egypt.

Those who oppose any agreement with Israel belong with all these killers. They are either Baathists, Nasserites, or Bashirites or even Iranians, as the mullahs of Iran arm their people and kill Mahsa without her veil.

Then there is an argument: What do we gain from the relationship with Israel? As if this Israel is a charitable organization and not a country like the rest of the world.
We respond to their question with a counter- and logical question: Why do we not ask such a question when establishing a relationship with any other country? Are relations between countries based on this condition?

Welcome to the Jews!

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Will Tunisia withdraw from "African Lion" exercises because of Israeli participation?

From the US Army website:

African Lion 2023 is U.S. Africa Command's largest, premier, joint, annual exercise hosted by Morocco, Djibouti, Ghana, Senegal and Tunisia, between May 15 and July 18, 2023. More than 10,000 participants from 20 nations and NATO train together with a focus on enhancing readiness for U.S. and partner nation forces. AL23 is a joint all-domain, multi-component, and multinational exercise, employing a full array of mission capabilities with the goal to strengthen interoperability among participants and set the theater for strategic access.

In last year's exercises, Israel sent two "observers" who appear to have participated fully. Possibly the lack of outrage in Arab media last year was because they were characterized as mere observers.

However, Arab media is reporting that Israel's participation is planned to be much more extensive this year - which puts Tunisia into a bind.

Tunisia is proud to be one of the main partners with the US in these exercises, but it is facing domestic pressure to quit this year because that would indicate "normalization" with Israel. Tunisia's Republican Party called on the government to withdraw from the exercises.

The decision by Tunisia is especially interesting since the President of Tunisia, Kais Saied, has described normalization with Israel as "high treason."

It will be interesting to see how they try to walk the line this year.

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Arab people still overwhelmingly oppose recognizing Israel, but there is a silver lining

The Arab Opinion Index for 2022 has been released by the Doha Institute, and it shows that Arabs in the countries surveyed overwhelmingly oppose their countries recognizing Israel:

Moroccans were the least opposed, but that is only 20% of those surveyed.

Unfortunately, Bahrain and the UAE were not part of this survey.

One other question where Israel is a prominent component was more interesting.

When asked which world country is the biggest threat to their home countries, Israel received over 50% from only two set of nationals: Palestinians and Lebanese.

The other answers are fascinating:

In 2014, Israel's and the US' scores were much higher as to being considered a threat:

Look how Saudi Arabia's score for Israel plummeted from 40% to only 3% thinking Israel is their biggest enemy. Iraq's score also dropped a huge amount, from 42% to 7%, Libya's from 44% to 7%, Tunisia from 42% to 9%.

I would say that while the diplomatic recognition question reflects sky-high Arab antisemitism, the "threat" question is more reflective of whether the respondents believe the anti-Israel conspiracy theories claiming that Israel wants to take over the entire region, as well as a more sophisticated understanding of how Arab states relate to each other and to other nations.

At any rate, far fewer Arabs look at Israel as their main enemy than eight years ago. That is a very big deal. It means that the opportunities are opening at least for the possibility of dialogue and to discuss common interests, something impossible with a perceived enemy.

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Most Arabs still oppose normalization with Israel, but there are pockets of hope

Arab Barometer released the results of a survey of selected Arab countries last September. One of the questions was about whether the people supported their country normalizing relations with Israel.

As one may expect, the percentages of supporters of normalization were quite low.

I'm not quite sure why this was not widely reported.

Even though the numbers are generally quite low, I find it interesting that Lebanon, traditionally extremely anti-Israel, was in third place behind Morocco and Sudan which had already started normalization. My guess is that with Lebanon's economy is a dumpster fire, a significant number of Lebanese think peace with Israel could help them out.

Egypt and Jordan, as well as the Palestinian Authority, all of which have peace agreements with Israel, are among the least interested in full normalization. Their leaders keep using Israel as a convenient scapegoat. But Israel trades with all of them and the Egyptian and Jordanian leaders have steadfastly resisted demands from their people to cut off relations - because their own basket-case economies need Israeli gas and/or water.

The leaders will continue to insult Israel while quietly making sure that the relationship endures.

Israelis might want it, but they don't need to be loved. In the Middle East, it is more important to be respected.

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Moroccan media remains pro-Israel

While the Arab world is trying to claim Morocco's success at the World Cup is a victory for Palestinians, Moroccan media itself has remained pro-Israel, as it has been since the normalization agreement was signed.

Hespress, the most popular Moroccan news site, published an article today about Miss Morocco 2021 and her visit to Israel for the 2021 Miss Universe pageant.

Kawthar Benhalima, Miss Morocco 2021, discussed how there was a lot of criticism towards having the pageant in Israel on social media, and in Algerian media. Her grandmother came from Algeria.

Benhalima discussed her walking through Jerusalem, which she described as the city of peace despite the conflict, noting that there are houses of worship for all religions there, and expressing her hopes that only peace will prevail.

She explained that Moroccan Jews in Israel express their pride in their origins, and she received a special welcome from them, noting that this feeling prompted her to read about the history of Moroccan Jews.

Benhalima related that she was invited to a dinner party along with Miss Universe 2020, Miss USA, and Miss Israel, at the house of the mayor of Eilat, where the pageant was held. The mayor's wife was born in Morocco and she prepared a selection of Moroccan dishes for the meal as she discussed her childhood.

An article like this would have been unfathomable before the Abraham Accords.

While there are many anti-Israel comments on the article, we also see this:

I remember two years ago, when the name Israel was mentioned on this newspaper, commentators would come out insulting and cursing.
Glory be to God, the changer of conditions and the prank of hearts, the Moroccan has become a day that does not shy away from praising and enlarging the Zionist state.

Bravo, these are the Moroccan women, the beautiful movements, who do not pay any attention to the hatred of the racist Arabists and the extremist Islamists. I, in turn, and most Moroccans dream of visiting this brotherly country, and there is no consolation for the haters.

Bravo to you, you have honored your dear country, Morocco, despite the nose of envious people, haters and enemies. The proud Moroccan people know the friend from the enemy.

Hespress is not associated with the Moroccan government, so this is an independent news site that chooses to publish articles that praise Israel and Jews.

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Moroccan education unions against coexistence and tolerance (of Jews)

This week, the Atlantic Council held the N7 Conference on Education and Coexistence in Rabat, Morocco.

Oren Eisner, President of the Jeffrey M. Talpins Foundation, explained the purpose of the conference: “It is critical to the future of normalization that the region’s younger generations engage with each other and learn from each other. Our Conference on Education and Coexistence is designed to produce actionable policy recommendations for the region’s governments that will increase cooperation and foster tolerance in education.” Eisner added, “We are thrilled to bring the N7 nations together to the conference and are grateful to the participating governments for working together to develop stronger and lasting friendships in the Middle East.”

The Kingdom of Morocco supported the conference, which included participants from Sudan, Jordan, Bahrain, the UAE, the United States and Israel.

Two Morocco education unions wrote a letter denouncing the conference, and the idea of coexistence altogether. The letter is a crazed combination of paranoia, lies and antisemitic conspiracy theories.

For example, it says, "They consider normalization to facilitate the future control of the Zionist entity over the wealth of the region and its people, and in an effort to complete its expansionist colonial project, and the ensuing dangers to future generations."

In a classic case of projection, the education union "considers the process of normalization in the school curricula as part of many manifestations of the attempt to normalize under the justification of spreading a culture of tolerance and coexistence..., while the Zionist educational curricula perpetuate absolute hatred of the Arabs."

And these open-minded educators also recommend that a "blacklist of shame" be created with the names of anyone who supports coexistence with Israel and Zionists.

It's hard to tell how widespread these opinions are in Morocco. There is a very noisy and active anti-normalization contingent, but mainstream media in Morocco has been treating Israel relatively fairly, and there have been lots of articles about the Jewish community and history there. There are more articles about the Moroccan anti-normalization movement in Algerian media than in Moroccan media.

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Palestinians describe their nightmare "normalization" scenario

Bahrain's one synagogue

Al Resalah, which is a Hamas news site, is upset over Israeli President Isaac Herzog visiting Bahrain - not so much for the visit itself but for all the terrible things they predict will happen in its wake.

The headline says that Bahrain is opening up a loophole for Israeli espionage in all Gulf states, and here's how.

The main part of the scheme is based on a rumor that Bahrain was creating a Jewish neighborhood. As described last September:

In an interview with Lebanese radio station Al-Nour on 4 August, Yousef Rabie, a member of the Bahraini opposition party Al-Wefaq, reiterated his warning to the people of Bahrain about the kingdom’s plans to change the country’s identity.

Rabie accused Al-Khalifa of attempting to “Judaize Bahrain” in light of the surge in employment of recently naturalized Jewish foreigners or locals in administrative jobs.

Moreover, Rabie highlighted the increase in land purchases by international Zionist organizations in Bahrain, which was echoed by the spiritual leader of Al-Wefaq, Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassem, in his sermon on 4 August.

Bahrain Mirror has reported that the project for the Jewish “quarter” or “neighborhood” in Manama is being carried out by the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, and will be complete within the coming two years. As a result, 40 percent of Manama’s national Muslim identity will be compromised in order to make way for the Jewish portion of the capital, which will become a major tourism destination for Israelis.

Ayatollah Qassem called on Bahrainis not to sell land to Jews, stating “whoever sells land or a house is not selling soil and stone, but rather a homeland, a people, a nation, history and dear sanctities. He is betraying Islam.”

After the Jews buy the land, they will attempt to become Bahraini citizens. Then all hell will break loose, because when the Jews obtain a Bahraini passport, they will be allowed to travel to all Arab countries.

Not only that, but these Jews and Israelis will then be able to invest, trade and sell land in other various Gulf countries, according to the rules of trade in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

This could represent a security loophole for Israelis to enter different countries, specifically Iran and Lebanon, taking advantage of the social and sectarian ties that unite a number of Bahraini residents with these countries.

So Bahrain can be the Trojan horse that allows Jews to infiltrate and take over the entire Gulf!

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Arabic media upset that UAE will teach students about the Holocaust: "normalization"

Times of Israel reports:

The United Arab Emirates is taking major steps to combat a regional culture of Holocaust denial in the wake of the 2020 Abraham Accords that normalized its relations with Israel.

Once entirely absent from the learning materials of children in the UAE — which also blacked out Israel from world maps and globes — the Holocaust is now set to be fully included in the curriculum, as the Gulf country moves to position itself as a regional peacemaker.

Emirates Leaks published this news with the headline "the new shame of normalization." It got picked up by Iraqi and Iranian Arabic media as well.

If teaching the Holocaust is considered a shameful act of normalization with Israel, then it follows that Holocaust denial is merely "anti-Zionism."

As always, there is no distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. And the Western anti-Zionists never, ever denounce the antisemitism in the Arab world.

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Egyptian Writers' Union expels three members for "normalization," warns of Zionist "penetration of Arab culture"

Cairo24 reports that Dr. Alaa Abdel-Hadi, head of the Egyptian Writers Union, stressed the union's firm position rejecting normalization with Israel, warning of the danger of this entity penetrating Arab culture.

What exactly does that mean? How can Israel "penetrate Arab culture?"

Perhaps we can get a hint of what this means from the steps being taken to expel three members of the union for the heinous crime of "normalization" with the "Zionist entity."

Alaa Al-Aswany, a prominent Egyptian writer, gave an interview to an Israeli radio station.

Youssef Ziedan, a scholar and writer of over 50 books, had said that he would like to visit Israel and lecture there.

Mona Prince, a lecturer in English literature at Suez University, had a photo taken with Israel's ambassador to Egypt.

All of these are bizarrely seen as threats to Arab culture.

If mere speaking to Israelis is a danger to Arab culture, then it sounds like Arab culture is not very strong.

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Normalization? Egyptian Muftis translate part of the Quran into Hebrew

Arabic media is filled with dozens of mentions of this story:

Dr. Mohamed Mukhtar Gomaa, Minister of Awqaf, confirmed that the ministry has finished translating 20 chapters of the Holy Qur’an into Hebrew, and added that the aim of the translation into Hebrew is that there are Jewish orientalists who translated the Qur’an and there are big mistakes that lead to deviation in the meaning, so it was necessary to translate into Hebrew..

It is interesting that even though the story is widely reported, I am not seeing anyone accusing the Egyptian Waqf of "normalizing" with Israel because of this translation. Islamic scholars are especially sensitive to any misrepresentations of the Quran.

The most famous translation of the Quran into Hebrew was by Professor Uri Rubin, who was a scholar at the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Tel Aviv University. This abstract of an Iranian paper about his Quranic translations would explain why the Muslims might respect Rubin's scholarship but would not accept it as a translation that they would trust:

The Hebrew translation of the Quran by Uri Rubin, (1944-2021) was first published in 2005. In 2016, the translator after 11 years, published its edited version. The importance of this translation, regardless of linguistic debates, is the existence of a lot of footnotes under the verses; the content of some of them will definitely help interpretive- Intertextuality discussions, but in some cases the footnotes have conflict with the Muslim views. In fact, the final text is something beyond translation, but a commentary.

The content of the footnotes can be categorized in four main parts: I. Purely explanatory texts for literal explanation of the meanings of verses; II. Referring to exegetical views and disagreements of commentators; III. Referral to similar verses in the text of the Qur'an; IV. Referring to the similar concepts in Torah, and Midrash. The present article focuses on this new version and its changes in two subjects of basic issues and its references to pre-Islamic texts.

At any rate, it is clear that traditionalist Muslim scholars cannot allow any Quranic translation that includes commentary showing how it corrupted earlier Jewish texts to be considered an accurate translation, and why they would want to counter it.

Among other things, Rubin specialized in finding Jewish sources for Quranic episodes. It is well known that nearly all Quranic descriptions of Biblical events are based on Talmudic and Midrashic sources.

I looked up one of Rubin's papers about the famous Quranic story of sinning Jews, who gathered fish on the Sabbath, turning into apes and pigs. Rubin attempts (not very convincingly, IMHO) to tie the "apes" story with Midrashic interpretations of the Biblical story of God punishing the children of Israel with excessive amounts of quail, claiming that the description of the meat coming out of the sinners' noses is akin to turning them into animals, even though their sin had nothing to do with the Sabbath. (Since the quail came from the sea, and the Jews complained about a lack of meat and fish, he links the quail to the fish in the Quranic story.)

One of his footnotes, to a 1902 German paper on the topic, seems a little more likely an explanation to me:

Hartwig Hirschfeld, New Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the Qoran (London, 1902), 108. Cf. Reynolds, The Qurʾān and Its Biblical Subtext, 114 n. 339. According to Hirschfeld, the Quranic story is “a mistaken rendition” of the biblical episode about the manna that became worms after the Children of Israel had disobeyed Moses by saving it for the morrow (Exodus 16:20). Hirschfeld posits that in the Quranic version, the people who left the manna overnight became insects themselves – qirāda (vermin). He maintains that the compilers of the Quran eventually preferred qirada (apes) to qirāda.

I did find another Hebrew translation of the Quran online, I do not know if it is based on Rubin or on another; there have been Jordanian and Saudi translations in recent years.

The earliest Hebrew translation of the Quran was published in 1857 by a German scholar. I was surprised to see that the lengthy introduction was written in "Rashi" script, I was unaware that this script was ever used for anything non-sacred.

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Al Haq: If Israel is involved in climate agreements, better to screw the environment

Al Haq issued a statement about Israel's participation at COP27, "Cooperation with Israel on Climate without Palestinian Self-determination Entrenches Colonial Climate Vulnerability of Palestinians."

It is a very interesting document. It looks at everything Israel agreed to with other countries to help the environment - and denounces them.

For example,

The Abraham Accords are not only a shameful, dangerous acceptance and endorsement of Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime, they also violate third states’ legal responsibilities under international law not to recognise the illegal situation arising from Israel’s violation of peremptory norms of international law.

Essentially, they are saying that any agreement with Israel is illegal.

The EuroAsia Interconnector, an EU infrastructure project that aims to connect the national electricity grids of Israel, Cyprus, Greece and wider Europe, is denounced because...

...the electricity grid receives electricity from illegal settlement solar panel fields. Under the rubric of cooperation to address the climate crisis, the implementation of this project would in fact, contribute to the further entrenchment of grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Conventions, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the violation of peremptory norms under customary international law against the Palestinian people.

Yes, solar panels in Judea and Samaria are crimes against humanity!

The East Mediterranean Gas Forum, a cooperative group that includes Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority, is denounced as "a political smokescreen which enables Israel to perpetrate the exploitation and pillage of Palestinian gas resources." But why is this bad if it includes the Palestinian Authority? "Al-Haq warns that Palestinian Authority presence at the East Mediterranean Gas Forum table, does not qualify as consent for the exploitation of Palestinian gas resources by Israel, whose ownership vests in the occupied Palestinian population."

Essentially, if the PA makes any deal with Israel, that makes the PA illegitimate as well!

The only common denominator in the examples of things Al Haq condemned at COP27 was anything that treated Israel like a normal nation. The deal between Israel and Jordan to provide desalinated water from the Mediterranean in exchange for electricity was twisted into somehow taking away Palestinian water rights. An agreement for Israel's water carrier to provide expertise to Bahrain is condemned for the same reason, even though Israel has signed agreements with the PA on water and is adhering to them.

What this press release proves is that when anti-Israel groups pretend to care about other social justice issues like the environment, it is only meant to either recruit more dupes to their cause or to hijack it. Because when it comes down to it, they clearly don't care in the least about the environment - not as long as Israel is part of the solution.

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Two interfaith events between Muslims and Jews, on opposite sides of the Middle East

The JC reports:

In the shadow of the UAE’s elaborate Grand Mosque and its white marble spires, interfaith representatives from across the world are gathered to listen to, of all people, a rabbi.

It is a scene that would have seemed unlikely a few years ago, and at times impossible. In the ballroom of Abu Dhabi’s Ritz Carlton, among the chandeliers, dates and gold, Chief Rabbi Mirvis made an unprecedented address to the audience of hundreds of Islamic scholars and leaders.

The first UK chief rabbi to ever visit the Emirates, Rabbi Mirvis was welcomed to the Abu Dhabi Peace Forum by its president, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, a revered Islamic scholar.

Addressing the crowd in a mixture of Biblical Hebrew, Arabic and English, Rabbi Mirvis called on leaders of all faiths to “achieve the unachievable” and build on the historic peace brought about by the Abraham Accords two years ago.

Over 7000 km away, another kind of interfaith gathering happened recently - in Morocco:

After a forced two-year hiatus linked to the pandemic, the emblematic Atlantic Andalusian Festival returned this year for its 18th edition.

President and Founder of the Essaouira Mogador association, André Azoulay, adviser to King Mohammed VI. speaks of it with passion and fervor: “It is an indescribable festival, which never ceases to amaze and which, in the eyes of some, brings together all the paradoxes: a festival which has not always been understood. We were often seen as somewhat naïve dreamers, expressing a reality that many had turned their backs on.”

Azoulay repeats it frequently: this meeting is the only one in the world to bring together thousands of Muslims and Jews, who have chosen to meet in Essaouira for the simple “happiness of being together."

This is more than a slogan for the followers of this committed festival: against the current of a culture of indifference and denial. And this year, more than 10,000 came to listen to the songs and music of the malhun or the Judeo-Arab matrouz.

“We blew the numbers. Never - I who dream a lot for my country, my city and my Andalusia - had I dared to imagine that they would be there by the thousands from Israel, France, Canada, the United States, Latin America, from Africa and the Arab world… Shoulder to shoulder to sing and dance together.

On social networks, explains Azoulay, the videos of the concerts and the forums of the festival amount year after year in millions of views.