Friday, September 07, 2018

From Ian:

The Oslo handshake, 25 years on
From the perspective of 25 years, however, it’s clear that Rabin’s deep skepticism was sound and the public’s euphoria groundless. The Oslo process didn’t lead to peace. Arafat’s pledge to renounce “terrorism and other acts of violence” was a sham. In an Arabic-language broadcast on Jordanian TV the very day of the White House ceremony, he assured Palestinians that he was signing the accords not to end the conflict, but to acquire territory from which the war to “liberate” all of Israel could be pursued.

The Oslo process was the worst self-inflicted wound in Israel’s history. Palestinian terrorism didn’t end, it spiked. In the 24 months following the handshake, more Israelis were killed in bombings and suicide attacks than in any previous 24-month period in the country’s history.

Yet Rabin, of all people, refused to pull the plug. He had declared at first that the Oslo accords were reversible; if Arafat and the new Palestinian Authority didn’t uphold their commitment to halt all violence, Rabin had said, Israel would reoccupy the territory it relinquished.

It was a threat he never carried out. Instead, as terror attacks surged, Rabin grimly repeated that the empowerment of the Palestinians must go forward. “For all his exasperation, he could not bring himself to break with Arafat,” writes Karsh. “Acknowledging that Arafat had made no serious effort to fight terrorism or to enforce law and order in Gaza, he nevertheless insisted that ‘there is no other partner. . . . We must abide by our commitments.’ ” It was as if, having surmounted such a steep psychological barrier and forced himself to publicly shake Arafat’s hand, nothing could ever again induce him to reverse course. Perhaps that would have changed had Rabin not been assassinated, but there’s no way to know.

Twenty-five years on, Oslo is a monument to the folly of magical thinking in diplomacy. Land-for-peace was a deadly delusion. The crowd swooned at the White House that day, but it was Rabin whose instincts were right. He should have trusted his intuition and refused to take that anti-nausea pill. Instead he shook hands with a mass killer, and led his nation into disaster.
David Singer: Jordan’s Re-entry into West Bank Looms Large as Trump Dumps PLO
2. The PLO announced it had refused Trump’s proposal to create a Jordan-West Bank confederation:

Israel and the PLO have been unable to agree on the creation of an additional Arab State between Israel and Jordan after fruitless negotiations conducted over the last 25 years.

Rejecting a Jordan-West Bank confederation now sees the PLO hoisted by its own petard– leaving Jordan to fill the yawning diplomatic void by stepping in and negotiating with Israel to engineer Jordan’s return to a large part of the West Bank – occupied by Jordan from 1948 until its loss to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

Restoring Jordanian citizenship to the West Bank Arab population – as existed between 1950 and 1988 – would once again see parity of rights re-established between the Arab populations spanning both sides of the Jordan River.

The 29 refugee camps in Jordan and the West Bank could be closed and their inhabitants integrated into the general population. “Palestinian refugees” would be relics of the past.
No Arab or Jew living in the West Bank would be forced to move.

Palestinian Arabs residing in other Arab countries could emigrate to this newly-merged Jordan-West Bank entity – which might even choose to rename itself “Palestine” – comprising as it would about 80% of the territory contained in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. Israel would end up exercising sovereignty in about 19 per cent – leaving sovereignty in the remaining 1 per cent – Gaza – to be determined by Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

As with any good settlement – no-one would be 100 per cent happy – but 100 years of conflict would be ended and Trump would have pulled off yet another stunning success.

Palestinians: Spitting in the Well
In reality, the Palestinians have one main message for the US administration: We hate you and incite against you, but we fully expect that you will continue providing us with cash, to the tune of billions of dollars. And, when you do try to help us, we reserve the right to spit in your face.

The entire existence of Fatah, the faction that dominates and controls the Palestinian Authority, relies heavily on financial aid from the US, EU and other Western donors.

So, while the protesters in Ramallah were demanding that the US rescind its decision to cut off its funding to UNRWA, Abbas's men in east Jerusalem were trying to block a US-sponsored meeting to discuss ways of helping the Palestinian economy.

Abbas and his top officials in Ramallah evidently want to have it both ways -- to continue their incitement against the Trump administration while being bankrolled by US taxpayer money.

Abbas and company would do well to learn that when they spit in the well they drink from, the water they draw will be bitter indeed.

  • Friday, September 07, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
From PMW:



Fatah Salfit Branch Secretary Abd Al-Sattar Awwad: "We see the occupation’s policy and the methods of the occupation’s policy. I've seen our young men, the young men of the Committee [to Resist Settlements and] the Wall, and our young men in the Jerusalem district, and everyone located there, and the ways in which they are treated. When an Israeli soldier directly grabs a civilian in this way, his body immediately receives blue or red marks. They have a policy that they can harm in a certain way. They harm a person in this way despite the cameras. The cameras can’t reveal this policy that they implement. I've seen their bodies [that were harmed] in this way - blue and red marks - by the occupation forces, which the cameras are incapable of revealing."
[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, July 10, 2018]
Maybe their cameras have red filters on the lenses?





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  • Friday, September 07, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
Haaretz has a long article on the wave of DJs who have decided, many at the last minute, not to play in Israel - even though many of them have played in Tel Aviv in the past.

It quotes some of them giving their varied and hypocritical reasons for not playing now. But one section tells the truth:

Amotz Tokatly, who’s responsible for bringing DJs to Tel Aviv’s Beit Maariv club, isn’t feeling much of a change. “The cancellations or refusals by DJs and artists based on a political platform didn’t begin just this year. I’ve been encountering this for many years now. There are even specific countries where we know the prevailing mood is political and tending toward the boycott movement. For example England. The rhetoric there is a priori much stronger,” Tokatly says.

“But take Ben UFO, who has played in Tel Aviv in the past. When we got back to him about another spinning gig he said explicitly, ‘It simply isn’t worth it for me from a public relations perspective, and it could hurt me later on.’ DJs like him make their own calculations.”
 Ben UFO has played in Lebanon, whose Palestinians would love to trade places with their brethren under "occupation." He's played in China and Russia and Turkey, where human rights are a joke. He's played in Morocco, the occupier of West Sahara.

At least he admits privately that he has no principles.

Other DJs who now pretend to be so moral by not playing in Israel have also played in nations whose human rights records are abysmal like DJ Seinfeld (Russia, Turkey), Shanti Celeste (Russia, China), and Leon Vynehall (Morocco, UAE).

And all of these artists hate Donald Trump and US policy but happily play to big crowds in the US.

I'm not saying that these artists should play in Israel because there are other countries that are worse. I'm saying that they are so brainwashed that they don't understand that Israel's human rights record is outstanding for a nation in a state of war for 70 years which must interact with millions of people who are taught from birth that killing Israeli Jews will get them to Paradise.

The hypocrisy is crystal clear. But until people actually point out to them that we all see what hypocrites they are, nothing will change.




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  • Friday, September 07, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
I received a fundraising email from UNRWA-USA where they give a reason why UNRWA must exist:

UNRWA was created nearly 70 years ago by the United Nations at the will of the international community to provide assistance and protection to Palestine refugees until a just and durable solution to their plight was achieved.

If we look at UN General Assembly resolution  302 that created UNRWA - on the UNRWA webpage - here is the entire part of the resolution describing the creation and purpose of the agency:

7. [The General Assembly] Establishes the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East:
(a) To carry out in collaboration with local governments the direct relief and works programmes as recommended by the Economic Survey Mission;
(b) To consult with the interested Near Eastern Governments concerning measures to be taken by them preparatory to the time when international assistance for relief and works projects is no longer available.
Nowhere does it say that UNRWA must exist until a permanent solution is found to peace in the Middle East. On the contrary - UNRWA was always meant to be a temporary agency, to work with all the countries in the Middle East (later reduced to Gaza/Egypt, Jordan/West Bank, Syria and Lebanon) to provide works projects and temporary aid with the goal of integrating the Palestinian Arabs into the existing countries of the region. The expected lifetime for UNRWA was meant to be only a year or two, because the resolution didn't expect to continue funding UNRWA forever - the refugees from the 1948 war were expected to be integrated into the countries they fled to as all refugees had throughout history and UNRWA's job was to assist them.

The original mandate of UNRWA has been trampled upon by the Arab world and self-declared Palestinian "leaders" who insist that Palestinians must remain stateless and "refugees" until "return."

The UNRWA of the early 1950s was conscientious and actually tried to do its job. It tried to find permanent solutions to the refugee issue. It tried to create works programs so the Palestinian Arabs could be integrated into the economic life of the Arab world. It tried to reduce the rolls of those it provided assistance to, eliminating tens of thousands who pretended to be refugees in order to get free food and shelter. All of these efforts were fought against and ultimately thwarted by a cynical Arab world and the so-called Palestinian leaders themselves, against the wishes of the majority of actual Palestinian refugees who just wanted to have a home in an Arab country to raise their families with honor.

The UNRWA of today is a joke that justifies its existence on the back of millions who are now permanently considered "refugees" by its bizarre administrative definition that it now claims (falsely) is international law.

The idea that UNRWA was always meant to exist until there is a diplomatic and "just" solution is just another lie its spokespeople tell a gullible world. The only reason that Palestinians are uniquely considered refugees forever - not Syrians, not Iraqis, but only Palestinians - is because of the Arab desire to destroy the Jewish state.




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Thursday, September 06, 2018

From Ian:

Trump to US Jews: I won’t give Palestinians aid until they make deal with Israel
US President Donald Trump told Jewish leaders Thursday that the US would not give aid to the Palestinians until they reach an agreement with Israel.

In a conference call with several dozen American Jewish leaders ahead of Rosh Hashanah, Trump noted that he had recently slashed immense amounts of US aid to the Palestinians — a reference to the administration’s recent cuts in overall aid to the Palestinian Authority and its complete defunding of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA. The US would resume funding, he said, but only if the Palestinians reached a deal with Israel.

“What I will tell you is I stopped massive amounts of money that we were paying to the Palestinians and the Palestinian leaders,” Trump said to the Jewish leaders in a recording of the conversation aired by Israel’s Channel 10 news. “The United States was paying them tremendous amounts of money. And I say, ‘You’ll get money, but we’re not paying until you make a deal. If you don’t make a deal, we’re not paying.'”

“I don’t think it’s disrespectful at all” for US aid to be utilized as a bargaining chip, the president added, according to a transcript of the call published by the Jewish Insider website. Rather, “I think it’s disrespectful when people don’t come to the table.”

The president said that the Palestinians couldn’t have it both ways, according to a participant on the call who spoke to The Times of Israel. They couldn’t criticize him and rebuff negotiations on the one hand, while seeking financial aid from the US on the other.
Telegraph : 'Jews are only safe because of Israel'
For perhaps the first time in a mainstream British newspaper, the narrative of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries, who found refuge from persecution and death in the Jewish state, is used as a moral argument against the anti-Zionism of the hard left. Column by Allister Heath in the Telegraph:

I’m a Zionist, dear reader, and I cannot understand how any mainstream politician in Britain today could not be. I find the fact that so many on the extreme Left and at the top of the Labour Party now routinely describe themselves as anti-Zionists to be not just baffling but absolutely horrifying. The implications of their ideology fill me with dread, and the fact that the Labour Party has now adopted, with a key caveat, the international definition of anti-Semitism resolves very little.

Zionism involves accepting a simple proposition: the Jewish people should have their own country in the historic Land of Israel, from where they were expelled all those years ago. Zionism is not a programme for government; it is neither “Left-wing” or “Right-wing”. Apart from agreeing that there should be Jewish national self-determination in a viable, secure homeland in Israel, Zionists disagree on everything else, including on where borders should be drawn. Plenty believe that Palestinians have been very badly treated.

It was one thing to be an anti-Zionist in 1896, when Theodore Herzl published Der Judenstaat, launching the modern Zionist movement; or in 1898, when Emile Zola wrote J’accuse in defence of a Jewish officer set up by the French establishment; or even in 1917, when Lord Balfour issued his declaration officially supporting “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.

Israel didn’t exist then, even though tens of thousands of Jewish refugees had already fled to Palestine. Some were even tempted by alternative locations, including Uganda, or by the view that America was the real promised land, despite the fact that Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and the Western Wall are to be found in Jerusalem.
Indigenous Rights and Israel: A Historical Perspective
Are Jews indigenous to Israel, and why does it matter today? Take this journey through history to find out.


Corbyn loathes Israel, and Labour’s new anti-Semitism rules won’t change that
This was the week in which many Labour MPs expected, hoped and predicted that the party would draw a line under a disastrous summer of stories about anti-Semitism and begin the process of closing the huge, widening gulf which has opened between Labour and Britain’s Jewish community.

But such optimism was a total misreading of the character of the United Kingdom’s main opposition party and the man who now dominates it.

On Tuesday, Labour’s governing body, the National Executive Committee, revisited its July decision not to adopt in full the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.

After several hours of rancorous debate, it was announced that the NEC had given way and accepted the four IHRA examples — all of which define the point at which legitimate criticism of Israel can dip into anti-Semitism — which it had struck from Labour’s new code of conduct at its previous meeting.

There was, though, a sting in the tail. Alongside the IHRA definition, the NEC adopted a statement saying that its decision would not “in any way undermine freedom of expression on Israel or the rights of the Palestinians.”

As the Jewish Leadership Council declared, this so-called “free speech” caveat “drives a coach and horses through the IHRA definition.”

  • Thursday, September 06, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
I found this infographic by Pew from 2014:


That's 64 countries with a religious symbol on their national flags. 

Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Shinto - no one worries about minority rights in those countries because they are closely tied to a religion.

Only the Jewish state gets criticized as "racist."

Yes, saying that you hate Israel is based on its supposed racism as symbolized by its flag or national anthem really is antisemitic.





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 Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column



Who is rich? He who is happy with what he has. – Shimon ben Zoma (2nd century CE)

As the new year approaches, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics released its annual report. It contained the astonishing detailthat 89% of Israelis – including Jews, Arabs, and other minorities – say they are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their lives.

This is the case despite the fact that everyone believes that we are on the verge of what promises to be a bloody war with Iran and its proxies, and that despite the vaunted success of the Israeli economy, some 31% of Israelis have trouble “finishing the month” – their income fails to cover their expenses. It is the case despite the high cost of living, especially the cost of housing, and despite the fact that of all 37 OECD countries, Israel has the largest share (19.5%) of her population earning less than 50% of the median income. Most Israelis aren’t rich, many are poor, and the amount of money (public and private) allocated to the social safety net is comparatively small.

But this isn’t a fluke. The 2018 World Happiness Report (WHR) came out in March, and like the last few years Israel was in 11thplace out of 117 countries (the US came in 18th). The ratings are based on survey respondents’ subjective evaluation of how happy they are. 

Israelis prove they are happy in other ways, too. The fertility rate of 3.1 children per woman is by far the highest in the OECD.  The number of Israelis that left the country for a year or more was the lowest since 1990. I’ve often heard that Israelis take out their considerable frustrations on each other when driving, but surprisingly the rate of injuries or deaths per million from road accidents is among the lowest in the developed world.

So what is the explanation?

Obviously, there are some things that are necessary, though not sufficient, for a happy population. Israel has a decent, relatively inexpensive health care system. The educational system is generally acceptable, although not outstanding, based on test resultsUnemployment is low. There is poverty, but not starvation. But none of this stands out among developed nations.

The answer lies in the social structure, the relationships between people and their families, and the individual’s feeling about his or her place in the world. 

The WHR evaluates six factors: per capita GDP, healthy life expectancy, social support, generosity, freedom to make life choices, and perception of corruption. Then it attempts to correlate them to the reported perception of happiness. In some cases (e.g., Singapore and Hong Kong), the correlation between the six factors and reported happiness is high; in others, like Israel and some Latin American countries, there is a larger “residual” component of happiness: in other words, people are happier than one would expect, given their circumstances. Something else explains why people in those countries are happy.

The WHR discusses the special case of Latin America, noting that “…high happiness in Latin America is neither an anomaly nor an oddity. It is explained by the abundance of family warmth and other supportive social relationships” which counterbalance to some extent the negative influence of low income and high rates of crime and corruption. Their data suggests that Latin American cultures emphasize close and long relationships between immediate and extended family members and close friends, while civic and political connections are relatively weak. This is also the case in more traditional Jewish and Arab cultures here in Israel.

But there’s more to it. Despite the perception that Israelis are a rude, pushy bunch, there is actually a large degree of consideration for others in everyday life, especially if someone perceives that another person, even a stranger, is in trouble. Alongside the real phenomenon of Palestinian terrorism, there are also cases of Jews and Arabs helping one another. Possibly there can even be an excess of empathy, as when the government is forced by public pressure to exchange hundreds or a thousand murderous terrorists for one or two hostages.

Rogel Alpher, the post-Zionist Ha’aretz staffer whose specialty seems to be supercilious bleating about how Israel doesn’t live up to his moral standards and atheist sensibility, has argued that the happiness of Israelis comes from their being in engaged in a long-term war. It’s having a common enemy that gives us a warm feeling about our country, he says. 

In addition to this being enormously offensive to victims of terrorism, his argument doesn’t account for the happiness reported by Arab citizens of Israel, which was somewhat less than that of Jews, but still remarkably high. Perhaps some of the Arabs have looked over their shoulders at Gaza and the Palestinian Authority (not to mention Syria) and decided, although they would never admit it, that there could be worse things than living a Jewish state. The fact is that Israel, over all, is a good place to live for Jews, and even for Arabs.

Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that the pressures of the conflict drive us – at least within the Jewish and Arab cultures – closer together, even while it separates the cultures from each other.

Ben Zoma might have said that happiness is closely related to gratitude to Hashem. The bitter post-Zionists like Alpher and his Ha’aretz colleagues practically ooze ingratitude, to Hashem for giving the Jewish people another chance at the Land of Israel, and to those who gave their lives so that we could realize this gift. No wonder they are so unhappy!




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From Ian:

What Palestinians Mean When They Talk about a "Two-State Solution"
To American ears, the meaning of "two states" is straightforward. The struggle between Israel and the Palestinians, to them, is a struggle between two indigenous peoples fighting over the same space of land in which they share a history.

As Shlomo Avineri, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the Hebrew University, wrote in Ha'aretz, "According to the Palestinians' view, this is not a conflict between two national movements but a conflict between one national movement (the Palestinian) and a colonial and imperialistic entity (Israel). According to this view, Israel will end like all colonial phenomena - it will perish and disappear. Moreover, according to the Palestinian view, the Jews are not a nation but a religious community, and as such not entitled to national self-determination."

From my extensive experience speaking with Palestinians, I have come to learn that the Palestinian version of the two-state solution leaves no room for a Jewish state.

This year, I led an in-depth seminar in Israel trying to understand what Palestinian citizens of Israel want. To almost all Palestinian citizens of Israel I spoke with, a state of the Jewish people is illegitimate in their eyes; Zionism is a colonizing enterprise of Jews stealing Arab land. They view the Jewish historical claim to the land as fictional and Zionism as racism.

Their idea of a fair "two-state solution" is one completely Arab state in the West Bank and one democratic binational State of Israel that allows the right of return for descendants of Palestinian refugees.

They said they would not consider Israel a legitimate democracy until the Jewish star is removed from the flag, Hatikvah is no longer the national anthem, and the right of return for diaspora Jews to Israel is rescinded.

Shift to UNHCR criteria would strip refugee status from millions of Palestinians
At a cabinet meeting in January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to gradually take over the mandate of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Netanyahu argued that the former, the UN agency charged with aiding refugees fleeing persecution and conflicts around the world, has legitimate criteria for granting refugee status, whereas the latter, the UN body tasked with supporting Palestinian refugees, does not.

He also contended that UNRWA “perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem.”

Netanyahu’s comments raised the question of how UNHCR and UNRWA differ in their definitions of a refugee, which they use to determine to whom they grant refugee status.

Eight months later, that question is even more resonant after US President Donald Trump’s administration announced that it is completely defunding UNRWA, with a reported goal of shutting it down altogether.
The UN flag at the Fawwar Palestinian refugee camp, southern West Bank, near Hebron, on September 2, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / HAZEM BADER)

Were responsibility for the designation transferred to the UNHCR, millions of Palestinians would lose their refugee status — which is a key factor in the longstanding demand by the Palestinian leadership for refugees to be granted a “right of return” to today’s Israel. How many exactly of the 5.4 million Palestinians registered by UNRWA as refugees would lose that designation under UNHCR? It’s complicated, as we will see.

But based on a comparison of UNRWA’s refugee figures and the assessments of James Lindsay, a former UNRWA legal adviser who has written extensively on the differences between UNHCR and UNRWA, almost all of Jordan’s 2.2 million UNRWA-designated refugees would likely lose their status under UNHCR criteria, as would most of Syria’s 560,000 and just under half of Lebanon’s 521,000. All 2.17 million UNRWA-designated refugees in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem would lose that status were those areas to become parts of a sovereign Palestinian state. This would leave a refugee total of a little over half a million.
Is Jordan Palestine?
For all of his talk about wanting to see a sovereign, independent Palestinian state on the West Bank, that is about the last thing Jordan’s King Abdullah II wants if he expects to keep his job. As my mother would say, he needs it “like a loch im kopf,” and that goes for the latest recycled idea being floated by the Trump administration.

First son-in-law Jared Kushner has been tasked with putting together the “deal of the century” to bring peace to the Israelis and Palestinians – even if neither side has shown any real interest. The Trump plan, according to those who’ve been briefed, notably Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, recycles a short-lived 1972 proposal for a confederation between Jordan and the West Bank. It envisioned no Palestinian state and no peace with Israel.

Israeli officials denied Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the one who sold the idea to his friend Jared. Netanyahu has long regretted his heavily conditioned 2009 endorsement of the two-state solution in favor of what he calls “state-minus,” a semi-autonomous state with Israeli security control – a proposal no Palestinian leader, present or future, is likely to accept.

Unlike its predecessors, the administration of US President Donald Trump has avoided endorsing the two-state solution, which is opposed by top Jewish Republican donors, Kushner and his team of Orthodox Jewish lawyers and the president’s evangelical Republican base.

Abdullah has personally urged Trump not to rush into reviving peace talks. He knows better than most that neither side is ready to get serious, maybe not even ready to begin talking about beginning. For now, Palestinians can’t make peace with each other, much less with Israel.

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman privately told a group of American Jewish visitors that regional powers are no longer pushing for revival of peace negotiations. He added that the rollout of the Trump peace plan is “not imminent,” according to The Jerusalem Post.


Jewish Rights to Israel (part 1):
Declaration of Independence
Once Jewish rights to Israel were obvious. Even those who had no connection or sympathy to Zionism knew where Jews came from, about Jewish connection to the Holy Land. To top it off, Jew haters often demanded Jews “go home to Palestine.” Then everyone knew that Palestine was just another name for Zion.

Now, somehow, Jewish rights to Israel are not so obvious. Interestingly, both anti-Semites and modern liberal Jews find themselves asking the same questions (albeit for different reasons): Is it legitimate to found and maintain a State specifically for the Jewish People?

The antisemite denies the legitimacy of the Jewish State out of hatred for the existence of the Jewish People. Jewish sovereignty is abhorrent because Jewish existence is abhorrent.

The liberal Jew on the other hand is taking into consideration the questions of pluralism, equality and an innate aversion to anything that could remotely be considered racism. In a time when political movements are calling for the abolition of borders and nationalism is equated with extremism it can seem difficult to defend the idea of a State for a single people.

Added to this is the additional complexity of the Arab population both within and without Israel, many of whom object to the existence of the Jewish State in its entirety while others say that their objections are to specific laws and policies of the Jewish State.

Many of us find ourselves at a loss to explain Jewish rights to the Jewish land to the modern progressive, post religion, low information (but loudly opinionated) person. My friend Ryan Bellerose has gone to great lengths to teach us effective terminology, explaining the concept of indigeneity and how this differs from people of longstanding presence in a land. Reference to the Bible, while a very powerful motivator to the religious person, are counterproductive in dialogue with the non or anti-religious. Indigenous status is a whole different ballgame.

Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly), Israel’s Declaration of Independence spells out Jewish rights to the land of Israel in exactly the format Ryan suggests. There is no “Because God said so” while indigeneity is placed above all other explanations. It also addresses the difference between the indigenous people and the inhabitants who are not indigenous, while declaring that in the Jewish State all individuals will have the same, equal rights. This is the precursor to the recently passed Nation State Law which I will address in a separate article (Jewish Rights to Israel: Part 2). 

As part of my work at the Israel Forever Foundation I did something few of us bother to do – I read the most basic document regarding the foundation of the Jewish State – the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. It fascinated me to discover that, although the document was written before the questions of this time arose, it addresses them clearly and concisely, spelling out the reasons for the legitimacy of the Jewish Nation State. 

Israel’s Declaration of Independence
“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.”

In Hebrew there is no word for indigenous however, the description that opens the Declaration of Independence is the definition of indigeneity: the land in which a nation was born, the place where that nation first formed their culture, built spiritual, cultural and political institutions.

Israel is the land in which the Jewish people were sovereign and the place from which, as a Nation, the Jewish People influenced the world (through the ideas laid out in the Bible).  

Indigeneity is the strongest claim any People can have to any specific land: this specific piece of land and no other is the ancestral homeland of my People. While lacking the word for indigenous in Hebrew it was clear that the writers of Israel’s Declaration of Independence had clear understanding of the meaning and the power of this concept.

“After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.”

This second paragraph reinforces the first with the explanation that the Jewish People were forcibly removed from their ancestral homeland and did not leave or abandon the land from their own free will. Despite centuries of exile, the Jewish People never gave up the hope to return and regain sovereignty in their ancestral homeland. This is an extraordinary and unparalleled testament to the deep connection of a People to the land.

“Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, defiant returnees, and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.”

This paragraph takes Jewish hope to the realm of practicality: Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, impelled by Jewish history in the land and the connection that was continued in exile through hope and prayer, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. Jews not only retained esoteric hope but took action, in every generation, to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades (prior to the Declaration of Independence) Jews returned in their masses. Following this is a description mirroring the first paragraph of the document and elaborating the revival of the Jewish People in their indigenous land – reviving the language in which their original culture was articulated, building thriving communities, taking custodianship of the land (making the desert bloom), controlling their own economy and culture.

Here, for the first time, the document refers to “all the country’s inhabitants” – in other words, the Jews and non-Jews (Arabs). This was written after the Arab massacres of their Jewish neighbors:

·         In 1920 a number of settlements in the Galilee were attacked (among them Tel Hai where Trumpeldor and seven others were murdered) and in Jerusalem. Some 30 Jews were murdered and hundreds injured.

·         In 1921 Jews were attacked in Tel Aviv, Petach Tikva and Mikveh Yisrael and other communities, dozens were murdered and many more injured. 

·         In August of 1929 Jews in Jerusalem were attacked and entire neighborhoods were destroyed. In Hebron 69 Jews were massacred, many others were severely injured and the community was wiped out. Jews were also attacked in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Gaza, Ramleh, Akko, Beit Shean and more.

·         The great Arab revolt of 1936-1939 in which 630 Jews were murdered and some 2000 were injured. At first Jews hoped that if they kept their heads down, the violence would subside. Then Orde Wingate decided to help the Jews, teaching them self-defense tactics which changed the balance of power (and have since become fundamental elements of the IDF’s doctrine). 

It is within this context that the Declaration of Independence explains that the Jewish community 
while, loving peace knows how to defend itself and will bring the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants.

“In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.
This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.”

Here the document moves from the explanation of indigenous rights to the discussion of Jewish rights under international law – from the first Zionist Congress, to the Balfour Declaration, it’s reaffirmation by the League of Nations which recognized the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.

“The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the community of nations.”

The Holocaust as an example, not a reason – in this paragraph the Declaration mentions the Holocaust, explaining that this is a clear demonstration of the need to solve the problem of homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State. It is important to note that the Holocaust is not brought as a reason or justification for the establishment of Israel but as an example of what can happen when the Jewish People have no Israel and are not seen by the community of nations as equal and with full privileges.

Survivors of the Nazi Holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland.

Here too as an example - also after the Holocaust, survivors and other Jews continued to make aliyah undaunted by difficulties and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland. It was not because of the Holocaust survivors that the State of Israel was established but they, whose dignity had been stripped from them, joined those already struggling to establish a life of Jewish freedom and were followed by additional Jews who all came together in their national homeland

“In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom- and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations.”

This paragraph is an interesting assertion of rights of Israel’s Jewish community, not because they are freely given (as one might expect) but as something earned due to behaving like other peace-loving nations and through the blood of its soldiers.

“On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.”

The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel but this was not something the nations swooped in and did for the Jewish People; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution – which they did. Was the statement of legal fact, that the recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable, a premonition of future questions regarding the legitimacy of the Jewish State?

“This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.”

The right to be master of your own fate is a natural right. The Jewish People, like all other nations, have the right to their own sovereign State.

Accordingly we, members of the People's Council, representatives of the Jewish Community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist Movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.

In accordance with all the reasons given above, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, on the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz Israel the representatives of the Jewish Community of Israel (not the Jewish world community) and of the Zionist Movement (the National Movement for Jewish self-determination) declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. This was an important determination that the Jewish historic name of the land would be the name by which the new State would be called.

“We declare that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People's Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People's Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called "Israel." 
The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

Here the document declares the State of Israel open to immigration of all Jews, the basis for what is now called the “Law of Return”.

While the document clearly discusses Jewish rights, it is important that here, we see for the second time, mention of “all inhabitants.” The addition of these two little words explains a crucial concept - the Jewish People are recognized as indigenous and have the rights of an indigenous people returning to their ancestral homeland. The other inhabitants, while not indigenous, are recognized as having rights do to their residence within the land and thus, in accordance with the visions of the prophets of Israel who described what the Jewish State needs to look like and in accordance to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations the State of Israel will provide for the benefit of all, not just the Jews but for Jews and Arabs alike: the development of the country, freedom, justice and peace, complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions.

These rights were later established in Israeli law but it is important to note that those were a realization of this declaration which was based on the ancient visions of what a Jewish State needs to be.

“The State of Israel is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.
We appeal to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building-up of its State and to receive the State of Israel into the community of nations.”

The declaration expresses the willingness of the new State to cooperate with international bodies and requests that the United Nations assist the Jewish People and receive the State of Israel into the community of nations.

“We appeal - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.”

Here, for the first time, the Arab inhabitants of Israel are addressed directly, in the context of the previous pogroms against the Jews of Israel and the winds of war that were recognized by the declarers - with the request to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

“We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.”

The declaration does not stop with the Arab inhabitants of Israel but extends a hand of peace to all neighboring Arab countries and an offer of collaboration – that they assist with the settling Jews in the sovereign Jewish State (a request that includes the Jews living at the time in Arab lands) and a promise that the State of Israel will do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.

“We appeal to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream - the redemption of Israel.”

The last request is to Jews around the world to assist with the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and stand by the Jews of Israel in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream - the redemption of Israel.

Placing our trust in the Almighty [the first and only time God is mentioned in the document], we affix our signatures to this proclamation at this session of the provisional Council of State, on the soil of the Homeland, in the city of Tel-Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the 5th day of Iyar, 5708 (14th May, 1948). 
David Ben-Gurion
Daniel Auster Mordekhai Bentov Yitzchak Ben Zvi Eliyahu Berligne Fritz Bernstein Rabbi Wolf Gold Meir Grabovsky Yitzchak Gruenbaum Dr. Abraham Granovsky Eliyahu Dobkin Meir Wilner-Kovner Zerach Wahrhaftig Herzl Vardi Rachel Cohen Rabbi Kalman Kahana Saadia Kobashi Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin Meir David Loewenstein Zvi Luria Golda Myerson Nachum Nir Zvi Segal Rabbi Yehuda Leib Hacohen Fishman David Zvi Pinkas Aharon Zisling Moshe Kolodny Eliezer Kaplan Abraham Katznelson Felix Rosenblueth David Remez Berl Repetur Mordekhai Shattner Ben Zion Sternberg Bekhor Shitreet Moshe Shapira Moshe Shertok






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The BBC reports:

Israel's Supreme Court has rejected appeals against the demolition of a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank whose fate has been a subject of international concern.

Judges upheld an order to raze Khan al-Ahmar, where about 180 people live in shacks between two Jewish settlements.

Israel's government says the structures were built illegally, but Palestinians say permits are impossible to obtain.

An injunction against the demolition will expire within seven days.

The United Nations has called on Israel to allow the Bedouin to remain on the land, saying such demolitions are against international law.
The real story behind Khan al Ahmar can be seen in this video by Regavim and in a must-read article at JNS:




Khan al Ahmar is a huge symbol for Palestinians and their European fans, even though every structure there was built illegally and it is not at all against international law for Israel to enforce building regulations. Many members of the clan have already agreed to move to free, new houses built by Israel for them, houses hooked up to municipal plumbing and electricity.

An interesting story from Wafa today shows how much Palestinian leaders are willing to weaponize children to make Israel look bad:

 The Palestinian Ministry of Education decided on Thursday to transfer Jordan Valley students to study at the School of Khan Al Ahmar.
The ministry pointed out that this step comes in conjunction with the decision of the Israeli High Court to demolish Al-Khan Al-Ahmar village and its only school, stressing that the decision of the Court is unfair and contrary to international resolutions that provide for children's right to education and ensure their access to a safe and stable educational environment .
 The PA is going to disrupt the studies of children and will bus them miles from their local schools to a shack near Jerusalem in the hope of getting some good photos of "children being evicted from their school."

This by itself shows that the PA cares nothing about its own people and will use them in any way possible as public relations pawns against Israel.



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  • Thursday, September 06, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the Palestinian Authority's official Wafa news agency:

Israeli police watched without intervening as a group of fanatic Jews held prayers on Thursday inside Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif compound in Jerusalem’s Old City during visit hours breaking standing rules and provoking Muslim worshippers, according to Muslim Waqf (endowment) officials.

They said the number of extremists visiting Al-Aqsa has increased as Jewish holidays approach and calls on fanatics to be present at the Muslim holy site in larger numbers.

The standing rules say that non-Muslims can visit the site during regular visit hours but are not allowed to perform any religious ritual.

While Israeli police, who accompany the extremists on their tours, have previously prevented breaking the law on this matter, they recently have become lax in implementing them.

Waqf officials said the police did not intervene when the fanatic Jews started to pray, but rather forced the Muslim security guards of the Mosque to keep away from the extremist Jews and not to interfere in their prayers.
The Fatah Facebook page has video:



Wafa in Arabic has more, saying that the Jews were all "settlers" and that they "attacked" Muslims.

Even Jews taking pictures is considered a crime to the PA, as the article says that "The ultra-Orthodox rabbi Yehuda Glick led the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque yesterday and led silent Talmudic rituals, and took provocative commemorative pictures off the Dome of the Rock mosque."

The video above shows the "fanatics" and what they would do if allowed to pray. It doesn't bother anyone except Jew-haters who are looking to be offended.

It is important to point out that the official Wafa news agency, by calling any Jew who prays a "fanatic" and an "extremist," is antisemitic.

Recently the Israel Supreme Court decided it would listen to a petition to officially allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, drawing a strong condemnation from Jordan, which falsely claims that such a move would violate the peace agreement between Israel and Jordan.





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Wednesday, September 05, 2018

From Ian:

Ahead of 5779, Netanyahu Offers a Hopeful Message, Despite Threats Against Israel
In advance of Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu provided a message of hope despite the threats his country faces, such as Iran.

“We live in a challenging area and we are equal to the task. We hit our enemies when necessary and we are capable of hitting them even more,” Netanyahu told the personnel who work under him in a toast, according to a spokesperson for the prime minister. “We are defending our borders, and we are also dealing with threats while they are far away and have yet to reach us, with foresight, preemptively.

“But I must tell you that while we are doing this, we are acquiring friends around the world and within the region here,” he continued. “They see our strength and they see our commitment to defend our state—to develop it and become an economic, technological, military, and intelligence power, and this brings us friends.”

“Who but you, the employees of the Prime Minister’s Office, knows this?” he asked rhetorically. “This tent is like a railway station; leaders from around the world arrive every day, sometimes several times a day, hundreds of leaders.”
On this day: Remembering the devastation of the Munich Massacre
46 years ago, September 5, 1972 Palestinian terrorist group Black September took hostage and later killed 11 Israelis Olympic athletes and a German police officer during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany.

As the Israeli team member slept, eight members of the terrorist group scaled a fence to to enter the Olympic Village at 4:30 a.m. Clad in tracksuit and carrying duffel bags of weapons, the Black September members entered the two Israeli apartments with stolen keys.

Wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Yossef Romano were killed during an initial struggle.

The intruders captured nine hostages: Yossef Gutfreund, a wrestling referee, sharpshooting coach Kehat Shorr, track and field coach Amitzur Shapira, fencing master Andre Spitzer, weightlifting judge Yakov Springer, wrestlers Eliezer Halfin and Mark Slavin, and weightlifters David Berger and Ze'ev Friedman.

Soon after the massacre began, a Black September spokesman called for the release 234 Palestinian prisoners and West German-held founders of the Red Army Faction, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof.
Why is Germany silent on Corbyn’s praise of Munich terrorists?
The barn-burning revelations in the British newspaper Daily Mail in August that Jeremy Corbyn – head of the UK’s Labour Party – laid a wreath at the graves of the Black September terrorists who executed 11 Israeli athletes and a German police officer 46 years ago today (September 5) raise unsettling questions about Germany’s reaction to the events of Munich in 1972.

Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel and her social democratic Foreign Minister Heiko Maas have remained silent about Corbyn’s 2014 visit to Tunisia to commemorate the Black September Palestinian terrorists. Dr. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post that Germany’s government “should have said something” because Black September murdered German police officer Anton Fliegerbauer.

“It was out-and-out terrorism in the heart of Europe, in Munich,” said Zuroff, of the Munich massacre. “This is something you would assume would get universal condemnation,” he added.

Zuroff, the Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi-hunter, believes “Germany is hoping to avoid any sort of confrontation with Corbyn because Brexit is not a done deal. If Corbyn comes to power, Corbyn could bring England back into the EU.” The German government is an energetic proponent of the European Union and opposes the UK’s decision to the exit the 28-state union.

Corbyn’s visit to honor the Black September terrorists prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to tweet: “The laying of a wreath by Jeremy Corbyn on the graves of the terrorists who perpetrated the Munich massacre and his comparison of Israel to the Nazis deserves unequivocal condemnation from everyone – left, right and everything in between.”

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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