Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

US budget includes funding for Israeli-Palestinian peace in the Middle East. Too bad Palestinians aren't on board.

Qantara reports:

This week United States Congress passed the Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, historic legislation delivering unprecedented levels of funding for peacebuilding in Israel and Palestine. This follows over a decade of advocacy by the Alliance for Middle East Peace – ALLMEP – toward the creation of an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.

The law provides $250 million over five years to expand peace and reconciliation programmes in the region as well supports projects to bolster the Palestinian economy.

Spearheaded by House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey (D, NY-17), Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R, NE-01), Senate State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), the law contains language that encourages international co-operation. It prioritises peacebuilding and reconciliation programming to disrupt growing polarisation and dehumanisation in the region over the long term.

It is worth reading the text of the act:

NITA M. LOWEY MIDDLE EAST PARTNERSHIP FOR PEACE ACT OF 2020

SEC. 8002. Congress finds the following:
(1) Economic development in conflict settings has been shown to support stabilization by empowering entrepreneurs, growing the middle class, and mitigating unemployment.
(2) In 2018, unemployment in the Palestinian territories was 32.4 percent. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the Palestinian territories declined from 2017 to 2019, and it is projected to further decline in 2020.
(3) According to the World Bank Ad Hoc Liaison Committee’s April 2019 Economic Monitoring Report, ‘‘to achieve sustainable economic growth, in the Palestinian territories, growth and job creation going forward will need to be private sector driven’’.
(4) According to the 2018 Joint Strategic Plan of the Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development, ‘‘assistance can help prevent new recruitment to terrorist organizations, reduce levels of violence, promote legitimate governance structures that strengthen inclusion, and reduce policies that marginalize communities’’.
(5) Although economic development is an important tool for stabilizing conflict-prone settings and establishing connections between communities, economic development by itself will not lead to lasting peace. People-to-people peace-building programs further advance reconciliation efforts by promoting greater understanding, mutual trust, and cooperation between communities.
(6) While the United States and its international partners continue to support diplomatic and political negotiations between the representatives of the parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such efforts require broad popular support among the people on the ground to succeed.
(7) Achieving sustainable, high-level agreements for lasting peace in the Middle East must come through, and with the support of, the people who live there, and the United States and its international partners can help the people of the region build popular support for sustainable agreements for lasting peace.

SEC. 8003. It is the sense of Congress that—
(1) building a viable Palestinian economy is central to the effort to preserve the possibility of a negotiated settlement leading to a sustainable two state solution with the democratic, Jewish state of Israel and a demilitarized, democratic Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace, security, and mutual recognition;
(2) United States and international support for grassroots, people-to-people efforts aimed at fostering tolerance, and building support for such solution, can help counter extremist propaganda and the growing issue of incitement;
(3) strengthening engagement between Palestinians and Israelis, including through people-to-people peace-building programs can increase the bonds of friendship and understanding;
14) investing in the development of the Palestinian economy and in joint economic ventures can advance multiple sectors to the benefit of local, regional, and global parties; and
(5) Congress encourages cooperation between Palestinian, American, and Israeli business sectors in order to benefit the Palestinian, American, and Israeli peoples and economies.

PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE PARTNERSHIP FOR PEACE FUND
SEC. 8004. Chapter 4 of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2346 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:
SEC. 535 PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE PARTNERSHIP FOR PEACE FUND.
(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—Beginning on the date that is one year after the date of enactment of this section, the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development is authorized to establish a program to provide funding for projects to help build the foundation for peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians and for a sustainable two-state solution. The program established under this subsection shall be known as the ‘People-to-People Partnership for Peace Fund’ (referred to in this section as the ‘Fund’).
...

It all sounds great, right?

Except that the Palestinian Authority forbids any "people to people partnership" programs. They have opposed any such programs for many years, no matter who sponsors it. The EU used to have lots of funding for such programs, and perhaps they still do, but the programs have morphed into intra-Israel cooperation between Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews.

While the Palestinian Authority does not subscribe to BDS, they have been very keen in stopping anything that sounds like "normalization" - which is what most of this Lowey Act is concerned with.

Israelis would love to engage in people to people dialogues and cultural initiatives with Palestinians. Some Palestinians would, too. The problem has always been the Palestinian Authority.

Even today, it is considered taboo to talk about Palestinian intransigence. But that is the key issue that stops any sort of real peace, and these sorts of programs prove it, year after year.

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The political splits between Hamas and Fatah, along with the other Palestinian factions like the PFLP, Islamic Jihad and many others, are well known.

But the terror wings of those groups have no such issues.

Today, the Joint Chamber of the Palestinian Resistance Factions announced that its member organizations will, for the first time, carry out joint military maneuvers.

Details and timing will be officially announced in the future.

These terror groups include the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas), the Al-Quds Brigades (Islamic Jihad), the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades (DFLP), the terror arm of the Popular Resistance Committees, and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (Fatah.)

The only unity that Palestinians can muster is in unifying terror groups.

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Palestinian Arabs: forever jealous, bitter and clueless

Al Jazeera has an op-ed by Jalal Abukhater whining about normalization between Israel and the UAE.

Abukhater went to the University of Dundee, Scotland, and since then has used his English skills to write for Countercurrents, Electronic Intifada and most recently The Guardian. He lives in Jerusalem.

In his Al Jazeera piece, he complains that Emiratis visiting Israel are a "slap in the face" for Palestinians.

He writes:

In the second half of the year, a series of Arab states added to our collective misery by announcing their decision to normalise their relations with Israel. By effectively abandoning their supposed commitment to supporting Palestinian self-determination for money, weapons and a few short-term political gains, they sent us a clear message that our suffering and struggle for the most basic human rights no longer matter to them.

If there is one skill that is completely lacking in Palestinian DNA, it is the ability to view the world from any other perspective besides their own bitter viewpoint. They have been so blinded for so long that they simply cannot comprehend that there has been a huge change happening under their feet for two decades in how the Arab world views them.

Arab leaders would speak about their support for Palestinians out loud every day, drafting lots of anti-Israel resolutions in Arab and international forums, but beneath the surface everyone but the Palestinians themselves could see the fissures in the relationship. Arab nations would pledge hundreds of millions of dollars for "Palestine" or "Jerusalem" and pay only a tiny portion, if anything. They expressed deep frustration at how Palestinians couldn't unify under one leadership. They saw how the Fatah and Hamas would fight, bicker and arrest members of the other groups. They saw Palestinian leaders say "no" to repeated peace offers by Israel. And, of course, the Arab nations saw how Palestinians continued to cozy up to Iran as Iran threatened the Arabs of the Gulf.

Palestinians kept themselves blind to this. Their newspapers would rarely report on these stories. Their anger at the UAE "betrayal" is more because of their own choice to ignore 20 years of warning signs than anything the UAE is actually doing.

As far as the UAE not caring about Palestinians, this is clearly not true - they have sent COVID aid to the Palestinians, which was rejected by the PA even before the Abraham Accords but which Hamas has accepted. The UAE has been arranging to bring the Russian COVID vaccine into the PA territories.

More manifestations of Palestinian cluelessness manifest in Abukhater's op-ed:

The arrival of hundreds of Emiratis in Israel to enjoy the historic sites of Jerusalem and pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque was a slap in the face for us. After all, millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, just two dozen kilometres away from Al-Aqsa, can only dream about stepping foot in the mosque that is the third holiest site in Islam.

They can only dream about it? In recent years, Israel has issued hundreds of thousands of travel permits for Palestinians to visit Jerusalem - and even Tel Aviv! - during Ramadan, and Palestinians over 40 didn't even need a permit. In fact, some years the PA itself prohibited Palestinians from traveling!

There's another irony here. Abukhater lives in Jerusalem, meaning that he can visit Al Aqsa every day. He can also visit the rest of Israel every day. And he can also visit Ramallah every day. He, an Arab, has more freedom of movement than any Jew in Israel, including Jews who want to visit holy sites in Nablus or Jericho or elsewhere.

Of course, we Palestinian Jerusalemites were already used to seeing Muslim pilgrims from Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia or other non-Arab Muslim-majority countries at Al-Aqsa. Over the years, Palestinians rarely had any problem with these visitors, as they overwhelmingly believe this holiest of mosques should not be monopolised by any subset of Muslims, even under the devastating conditions of an occupation.

But the Palestinian Jerusalemites were not as accepting of Emirati tourists as others.

So who is intolerant?

Abukhater doesn't even realize what he is saying here. Citizens of countries that make peace with Israel are given the right to visit Israel proportionate to the closeness of relations. This should not be surprising - it is natural.

A Jewish woman was murdered, apparently by Palestinians, only two days ago. There was a Palestinian terror shooting also this week in Jerusalem. Is it really so strange that Israel limits Palestinian access to areas with Jews?

If Palestinians would act like Emiratis, they would have a state. If they accepted Jews as natives of the Middle East as Emiratis do, accept Israel as a Jewish state, and end their rhetorical and monetary support for terrorists, they would be able to visit Israel freely as well.

Israel's peace with the UAE and other Arab states proves this. Israel isn't anti-Arab or Islamophobic - it wants peace, security and acceptance, and is willing to bend over backwards to accommodate Arabs who provide that.

Palestinian hate and antisemitism and intransigence are the obstacles to peace. The UAE and Bahrain and Morocco prove it.

(h/t Josh Korn)

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12/22 Links Pt2: Stop Ignoring Antisemitism in Inconvenient Places; Bob Dylan’s ‘Neighborhood Bully’ Gets Memory-Holed; JVP Got One Thing Right

From Ian:

Stop Ignoring Antisemitism in Inconvenient Places

An exhibition that is currently running at the Wiener Holocaust Library in London reveals that in every European country that fell under Nazi control, there were Jews who mobilized and formed underground resistance organizations while also participating in armed uprisings. Their heroism was also displayed through cultural resistance. Risking their own lives, they held clandestine religious gatherings, established underground schools, and helped smuggle important documents out to be preserved by history. Even in the face of unspeakable terror, Judaism was not viewed as an inconvenience.

Today, for some Jews, our religion is primarily being redefined by our entrenchment in social activism. We have become so deeply embedded in promoting tikkun olam, that we ignore instances of antisemitism when they come from sources claiming to represent social justice.

This past summer, the horrific and criminal killing of George Floyd ignited months of social unrest in this country. As was the case during the 1960s civil rights movement, many Jews sprang into action and were quick to attach ourselves to the largest and most popular civil rights organization of our time, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

Yet with Martin Luther King, Jr. at its helm, the civil rights movement of the 1960s does not mirror some of the ideals currently espoused by the BLM movement. And while everyone can agree that all Black lives matter, there is a difference between that sentiment and some formal organizations affiliated with BLM.

Dr. King’s protection and love of the Jewish people was shown through numerous speeches he made, including one at Harvard in 1967, where he remarked: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking antisemitism.”

The Zionist tenets encompassing Dr. King’s movement contradict one BLM platform, which labeled Israel an “apartheid state” and accused it of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people. (This version was later retracted.)

In May, a BLM rally in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles resulted in the defacement of Jewish institutions and businesses, with participants yelling anti-Israel obscenities. While the violence was never called for by BLM, there was hardly any repudiation or rejection of it.

EU court prioritizes animals over Jews and Muslims in backing ritual slaughter ban

Without question, Thursday’s ruling stands in stark contrast to Europeans’ preferred image of themselves as open-minded and tolerant. Insisting that Jews and Muslims adapt religious laws, which seek to minimize animals’ pain, simply to suit contemporary sensibilities is anything but that. European Christians might also note this decision overturns the logic of Genesis, with Muslims and Jews no longer “rul[ing] over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

This decision will also have tangible consequences. As Benizri foreshadowed to me in a July exchange, this ruling not only “matters as a [legal] precedent. It also matters in terms of the security of the supply chain, and we know from the current sanitary crisis that we cannot rely solely on imports." He went on, "Some damage has been done, but the Brussels region may be tempted to adopt similar rules if the Walloon and Flanders laws are upheld, and other countries might follow suit.”

In other words, this ruling won’t be contained. Kosher meat, which is already expensive, will likely become even harder to obtain in a growing number of countries. Further, this ruling is likely to encourage political extremists who would relish making life inhospitable for their countries’ Jewish and Muslim minorities.

Reflecting from abroad, Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, president of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, which represents rabbis in 12 Muslim countries, told me, “It seems at times that Rabbis in Muslim countries are more respected and enjoy more religious freedom than their counterparts in Europe. We have been able to practice our Judaism without interference or disturbance for thousands of years. Kosher slaughter is done in many Muslim countries.” Chitrik continued, “The ruling of the European Court should also serve as a reminder that Jews and Muslims are facing similar religious struggles in Europe and elsewhere, and it is high time for Jews and Muslims to confront together both Islamophobia and antisemitism.”

Europe’s hostility toward religious outsiders is a centuries-old tradition. It appears that it will always find a way to justify bigotry.

Bob Dylan’s ‘Neighborhood Bully’ Gets Memory-Holed

I wanted to hear the Bob Dylan song “Neighborhood Bully” off his 1983 record Infidels. That’s how I discovered that YouTube won’t let you hear the song. It turns out that this man Bob Dylan, so beloved by the American cultural establishment and winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature, is guilty of hate speech. Sooner or later, they all are.

I wanted to hear “Neighborhood Bully”—a jaunty four-and-a -half minute rock ‘n’ roll number—but I can’t remember why. The song has its charms, including a driving three-chord electric guitar, but it’s nowhere near Dylan’s best and I’m not some kind of fanatic who enjoys wallowing in the master’s obscurities. The impulse might have come to me while I was trying to Google something else, and the search results triggered the association.

I can assure you that Googling “Neighborhood Bully” was in no way intended by me as a political statement or gesture. “Neighborhood Bully” is assumed to be a song about Israel being singled out and maligned among the world’s nations, but Dylan has rejected this interpretation just as he always denied narrow political readings of his work. “I’m not a political songwriter, he told an interviewer shortly after the record came out. “‘Neighborhood Bully,’ to me, is not a political song, because if it were, it would fall into a certain political party. If you’re talkin’ about it as an Israeli political song—in Israel alone, there’s maybe 20 political parties. I don’t know where that would fall, what party.”

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land He’s wandered the earth an exiled man Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn He’s always on trial for just being born He’s the neighborhood bully

My intentions were not to make trouble. It's not as if I started off the day seeking out banned materials and deviant songs. It's just that one thing led to another. You know how it is: The links start thinking for themselves, the minutes turn into hours, and you end up watching some YouTube video with no connection to whatever you’d been looking for in the first place, hazily trying to recall how you got there like a drunk guy who’s woken up in a strange room. Only, I was brought up short. I couldn’t listen to “Neighborhood Bully” because the song wasn’t there. It had vanished. (h/t Yerushalimey)

Demonization is Caring: Cartoon of the Day

Continuing my series of recaptioning single panel cartoons...

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Esther Horgan, HY"D

Esther Horgan went for a run in the forest, as she was wont to do on nicer days. The air would be crisp and pine-scented, and she loved the feel and smell of being free in such a beautiful part of Eretz Yisrael. Here she could sing as loud as she wished, with only the clouds to hear. It felt good to stretch her limbs.

No doubt she came here often to run and to think, to exercise and stay in shape, while pondering life’s issues, large and small. There was bound to be always something to think about and resolve. After all, Esther Horgan was a mother of six and an immigrant who sought refuge in Israel from France, a European country that has seen more than its share of violent antisemitism over the past decade or so. Here in Israel, Esther might have thought, one can worry about things like where to send a daughter to high school or a son’s religious studies, instead of worrying that a child might be killed, God forbid, in the halls of a Jewish school, for the crime of being Jewish.

And that might have been true. And Esther Horgan may have been safer in that forest in Samaria, in the heart of Eretz HaKodesh, except that evil exists and infiltrates everywhere. Even in the Jewish State, or perhaps especially so. For many are the Arab terrorists who covet our beautiful land and want it, Jew-free, for themselves.

And the thing is, Esther Horgan wasn’t stupid. She knew that Arab terrorists might be anywhere, looking for opportunities to kill Jews. But the forest where her children were robbed of their mother was not just a random, isolated wood, but a nature preserve, a protected Jewish tourism site. The Israeli government invested here in bike paths and signage. It should have been safe.

It should have been safe for Esther Horgan to run and think and stretch her limbs in this part of the ancient Land of Israel. There should have been no danger to breathing in the pine-scented air of a forest whose name means “fragrant basil"—to bask in the glorious freedom of being alive in the Jewish State and of “coming home” to live in Tal Menashe in Samaria, indigenous Jewish territory for thousands of years.

But it wasn't safe. Eitan Melet, a field coordinator at Regavim posted about it on Facebook with this stunning 360 degree photo of the Reihan Forest, where Esther was murdered:

(photo credit: Eitan Melet/Regavim)

Eitan Melet tells us that while the forest is beautiful, and the Israeli government has invested in developing the nature reserve, there's absolutely no police or army presence there, and it's become a shooting gallery and a dangerous hangout for all the Arabs of the area—from Umm el Fahm and Reihan and the entire area—who do unspeakable things there. Melet was there only recently—a fully-armed, combat-trained male—and he was very uncomfortable.

And still, Esther Horgan went out of her home that morning, as she always did, seeking nothing but the peace of the forest. Nothing had ever happened to her before. But this one time, when she didn't come home, they found her dead, with signs of violence on her body.

From the Jerusalem Post:

"We walked together for 30 years and yesterday you went and did not return. How can a few words describe the depth and breadth of your beauty and goodness?" said Esther's husband, Benyamin. "You built both a physical house and a spiritual house – everything – and it was supposed to be just the beginning. There were so many more plans.”

Nothing had ever happened before, but she was a small thing. You can see it in the pictures. She may have been fit, but she was no match for a brutal murderer, filled with lust for Jewish land soaked with Jewish blood. It shouldn't have happened, but it did.

And still, if Esther Horgan could speak, she would tell you how much better it is to run in the forest, to die as a Jew in the Land of Israel, than to die on the foreign soil of a France that never loved us. She would tell you to keep running in all the forests and beautiful parts of our indigenous territory, land that God gave us alone, to build on and live in. Land where we might someday run, free of any danger from the enemy within.

My neighbor Jocelyn Reisman Odenheimer, not to be deterred, runs on the security road behind her home, in memory of Esther Horgan. (photo credit: Ephraim Odenheimer)

(Thanks to Naomi Linder Kahn, director, international division of Regavim, for her assistance with this piece.)

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12/22 Links Pt1: Mother-of-6 killed in apparent terror attack remembered for her ‘joy for life’; The Battle for Washington’s Foreign Policy Has Begun; The Olympics must ban Iran

From Ian:

Mother-of-6 killed in apparent terror attack remembered for her ‘joy for life’

Esther Horgen, who was found dead in a northern West Bank forest in an apparent terror attack, was eulogized for her love of life as she was buried on Tuesday morning.

“For 30 years we walked together, and two days ago you went for a walk and didn’t return,” said her husband Benjamin. Horgen’s body was found a day after she went for a run in a forest near their West Bank home.

“How can a few words manage to express the depth of your heart and your generosity, your joy for life and love for others?” he said.

Esther’s daughter Odelia mourned the loss of her mother and expressed pain that she would not be at her future wedding.

“My mother is my best friend. She came to visit me at the end of the world, in Australia. Where are you now, mother?” said Odelia. “I am sorry that you will not dance at my wedding.”

Dozens of mourners attended the funeral including Settlements Minister Tzachi Hanegbi.

Community leader Rabbi Reuven Uziel said that Horgen’s killer would not be able to “sully” Israel.

“On Friday we sat together at a Shabbat meal. Not for a second we did not think this was the last time we would meet. You were a person of love and lightness, of joy and a smile,” Uziel said. “The murderers will not be able to sully the land of the Land of Israel, which will remain blessed and holy, and you will remain blessed and pure.”

In an interview on Tuesday morning, Benjamin said that his wife had lived life to the full.

“She lived every moment of her life. She had so much to give,” Benjamin Horgen told the Kan public broadcaster. “I trust the defense establishment to do their job, they have updated [us] that things are progressing.”

The Moroccan deal with Israel fills me with joy

There were 20 years of silence. And then, last week, Trump announced that Morocco and Israel would be resuming diplomatic relations. In a tweet afterwards, the President reminded the world that Morocco was the first country to recognise the United States as a nation, in 1777 and, simultaneously, urged for an international recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.

Good news is flowing from the region: the Jewish state, also at the behest of Trump has established ties with Bahrain, the UAE and Sudan. Of course, the most recent news did not please everyone. Some frowned upon the fact that the US released the information before Morocco or Israel; others criticised the power imbalance between Morocco and Israel on one hand, and Palestine and Western Sahara on the other. The latter has been waging a war of independence against Morocco for several decades, led by a socialist separatist group with Islamist ties.

Hamas, naturally, is outraged and denounced the Moroccan treachery; while in its customary partiality against the Moroccan monarchy, the French media — both mainstream, such as Le Monde, and more independent sites such as Mediapart — quickly attacked both Trump and King Mohammed VI of Morocco for an agreement in which both Palestinian and Sahraoui self-determination was jeopardised.

This grumbling contrasts with the elation and relief felt by many Jewish families around the world as the first candle of the Menorah was lit, and by many Muslims in Morocco who can recall what things were like before the 1960s. Having grown up in Morocco, and with a father who remembers those happier times of coexistence, I was moved to tears by the sight of Israelis dancing in the street to traditional Moroccan song, waving flags of both countries and pictures of the King Mohammed.

Almost a million people in the Jewish state are of Moroccan descent, from families who were exiled six decades ago, a mere blip in time compared to the thousands of years they’d spent in the Maghreb. For them, as well as Jewish North African communities in France and increasingly in London, the deal is a hugely welcome Hanukkah gift during a difficult year.

How Moroccans are Reacting to Normalization with Israel

Peace with the Arab world? Tunisian musican sings of peace, is threatened and fired

United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan. The list of countries of the Arab-Islamic world that have made peace with Israel in recent months is impressive.

A Tunisian singer thought it was time to put this atmosphere of normalization into music. So, on December 13, Noamane Chaari uploaded a video of a song he had just recorded with an Israeli musician. The song, in Arabic, speaks of dreams of peace, of olive trees, of the sea, of Tunis, of Jerusalem. Chaari recorded it with Ziv Yehezkel, an Iraqi Jew. An invitation to build bridges between Jews and Arabs.

In the supposedly most moderate country in the region, the only "Arab Spring" of any success, it is still a crime to sing peace with the Jews. Host of a broadcast of the famous radio station Mosaïque Fm, the young musician was the subject of death threats. Stressing that the author of the lyrics, a Yemeni poet, remained anonymous so as not to risk beheading in his country, host Hedi Zaiem asked: "What will happen to the man who sang it?".

Threatened with death, fired by his employer, Channel 1 of public television, Noamane Chaari now tells L’Obs: "I have been accused of espionage and treason. Some media have deliberately tried to antagonize Tunisian public opinion, invoking the violence against me ".

Thus, in the supposedly most moderate country in the region, the only "Arab Spring" of any success, it is still a crime to sing peace with the Jews. Conservative president Kaïs Saïed speaks of a "Zionist entity", like the Iranian ayatollahs. And the Ugtt union, which won the Nobel Peace Prize, has put back on the table the idea of a law that criminalizes the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. The union of music professionals, affiliated precisely with the Ugtt, condemned Chaari's "provocation against the Tunisian people and all the Arab people".

The singer had also traveled to Israel with an Arab delegation. His "fault" is also that of having written the song with a Jew of Iraqi origin and a Moroccan mother, while images of Baghdad appear together with those of Tunis in the music video.

Yesterday, a tweet went viral that claimed that the COVID-19 relief bill that was passed by Congress included $500 million for Israel.

It is a pernicious lie, to make people think that aid that could have gone to COVID instead is being directed to Israel. In fact, it was a separate 6000 page budget bill, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, that included the money for Israel.

The antisemitism that followed the tweet - written by a journalist, no less, who defended it while admitting it was incorrect - was predictable.

And this is textbook antisemitism, where Israel is singled out as somehow uniquely stealing US tax dollars.

The bill also gives money to Arab and Muslim countries. A lot of it.

SEC. 9026. Of the amounts appropriated in this title under the heading ‘‘Operation and Maintenance, Defense Wide’’, for the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, $250,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2022, shall be available to reimburse Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman under section 1226 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (22 U.S.C. 2151 note), for enhanced border security, of which not less than $150,000,000 shall be for Jordan.

Page 1436:

Of the funds appropriated by this Act under the heading ‘‘Economic Support Fund’’, not less than $125,000,000 shall be made available for assistance for Egypt, of which $40,000,000 should be made available for higher education programs, including not less than $15,000,000 for scholarships for Egyptian students with high financial need to attend not-for-profit institutions of higher education in Egypt...

And apparently a separate item on page 1437:

Of the funds appropriated by this Act under the heading ‘‘Foreign Military Financing Program’’, $1,300,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2022, should be made available for assistance for Egypt.

Back to Jordan, page 1442.

JORDAN.—Of the funds appropriated by this Act under titles III and IV, not less than $1,650,000,000 shall be made available for assistance for Jordan, of which: not less than $845,100,000 shall be made available for budget support for the Government of Jordan; not less than $10,000,000 shall be made available for programs and activities for which policy justifications and decisions shall be the responsibility of the United States Chief of Mission in Jordan; and not less than $425,000,000 shall be made available under the heading ‘‘Foreign Military Financing Program’’.

While there are various strings attached to many of these programs, not a word is in the budget about conditioning aid to Jordan on its extraditing terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to the US.

Where's the outrage over that? (UPDATE: There actually is such a condition - one that was ignored in 2020, which is a different kind of outrageous. See here.)

The ‘‘Afghanistan Security Forces Fund’’ is allocated $3,047,612,000. The ‘‘Counter-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Train and Equip Fund’’ gets $710,000,000.

If you care about how the US government is allocating money to foreign countries during a time of domestic COVID economic woes, then why not mention the far higher amounts earmarked to other countries besides Israel?

You know the reason. Because these people are so immoral they will even use the pandemic to push their anti-Israel agenda.

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Moroccan peace and Kazablan (full movie!)

Today an Israeli delegation is going to Morocco to sign several normalization agreements.

Jews whose ancestors lived in Europe generally don't look back nostalgically at their history there. But that is not the case for Jews who immigrated from Muslim countries. The Jews whose grandparents came from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco speak with a warmth about those countries that you never hear from those whose ancestors lived in Poland or Tzarist Russia.

In this sense, the normalization with Morocco is much more personal for many Israelis than the agreements with Bahrain or Sudan or the UAE, which only had tiny Jewish communities. There are hundreds of thousands of Israelis whose ancestors lived in Morocco and they want to be able to visit.

Moroccan media is humanizing Israel as well in conjunction with the agreements. This article interviews Abd al-Rahim Chehaibi who realized that he has been fed antisemitic propaganda about Israel and went there to see the country for himself, visiting in 2015 and 2017.

Chehaibi went on to say that during his visit to Israel he was impressed by the urban and economic development of this country, and was very impressed by the way in which cultural and religious pluralism was managed there.

He says that he understood through his visits that “this country really deserves to be a role model,” and that “many of the things that we see in the media are false and ideological,” adding that “Morocco's political and economic rapprochement with Israel can benefit everyone."

Israel haters like to point to the experience of Mizrahi Jews in the early days of the State as proof that Israel is racist, saying that Israeli Ashkenazim didn't treat their fellow Jews from Arab lands as equals. It is true, but the haters don't really care about the Mizrahim. They are just looking for new excuses to call Israel racist.

Which brings us to Kazablan.

Kazablan was a popular Israeli musical from the 1960s that was made into two movies in 1973 - one in English and one in Hebrew.

The movie is cheesy, although the songs are catchy. It is not easy to find, so I uploaded it, at least until it gets taken down for copyright reasons. (This is the Hebrew version with English subtitles.)

A gang leader named Kazablan, named after his hometown of Casablanca, lives in a slum in Jaffa along with many other Mizrahi Jews and a smattering of Ashkenazim. (His gang seems to do nothing but dance.) He falls in love with an Ashkenaz girl but he has to navigate always being treated less than human by the Ashkenazim. He gets framed for a crime by a romantic rival, and it is too easy for the police to believe that he is guilty because of his background. A subplot has the entire neighborhood in danger of being condemned by the authorities and the neighbors needing to work together to save it.

One of the songs - this one from the English version - shows Kazablan singing longingly about his home in Morocco.

The counterpoint song is "Kulanu Yehudim," "We Are All Jews," where Jews celebrate their unity even as they have so many differences in origins and temperaments, even as they are insulting each other.

This tension between the huge differences among Jews and their commonality is the story of Israel.

The play and movie are notable because they were so popular. Clearly the Israeli public was receptive even in the 1960s to the theme of how there was a second class in Israel who had been unfairly mistreated.

Since then, of course, Israel has integrated its Mizrahim. The idea of Ashkenaz and Mizrahi Jews marrying doesn't raise an eyebrow.

The theme of the movie, that Jews are unified despite their differences, is the polar opposite of the message from the "anti-Zionist" Jews. They want to divide the Jewish community. They are against not only unity, but the concept of unity among Jews.

Kazablan is the anti-"Jewish Voice for Peace," the anti-J-Street.

Moroccan feelings about Israel are complex. There are Islamists who have been preaching anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric for a long time, but that is not the mainstream. However, I am not seeing the overwhelming enthusiasm for normalization that we saw in the UAE. It is seen more as a small price to pay to strengthen Morocco's claim to Western Sahara.

Kazablan should be translated to Arabic. (It wouldn't be hard to create an Arabic subtitle track.) Moroccans should be able to watch this if they want to understand Israel's history with Jews from Arab countries and the love that they have for their heritage there as well as the underlying Jewish unity that helps Israel be a role model for the region.

A 1973 movie could help solidify a peace deal in 2020.

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A terrorist attack took place in Jerusalem's Old City on Monday evening, Israel Police reported.
Police reported a shooting incident at the Lion's Gate in the Old City between an armed terrorist and police officers who were on the scene.

The suspect, reportedly a 17-year-old Palestinian from Qabatiya in the northern West Bank, was armed with a Carlo-type submachine gun according to police, and shot at a police post before being neutralized by Border Police officers.

Whenever these sorts of things happen, Palestinian media does one of two things: either they frame the terrorist as the victim, or they praise him as a brave fighter and martyr.

Within hours, Palestinian media did both.

The official Wafa news agency reported the story this way: "A boy was shot dead by the Israeli occupation police, Monday evening, near Bab Hatta, one of the doors leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque."

Even though there is video of the terrorist with his submachine gun.

But terror groups are cheering.

The PFLP-GC said,

....that the commando operation in the occupied city of Jerusalem proves the continuation of the Palestinian youth uprising and is increasing its flame, flare up and quality day after day, and attempts to abort it or conspire against it "will not succeed."

The PFLP blessed the heroic Jerusalem operation to the Palestinian people, considering that it came within the framework of responding to the crimes of the occupation and the settlers ’assault against our people and our holy sites in Jerusalem and the occupied homeland.

The PFLP stressed that the blood of the martyrs and martyrs who died in defense of Palestine will remain a beacon that will light the way for us; Until the return and liberation of all Palestinian soil from the filth of the occupiers.

Hamas said,

Today, martyrdom weddings are held in homes for the sake of Al-Aqsa and in defense of it."...the blood of martyrdom at Bab Hatta is a message to extremists and settlers who storm Al-Aqsa and try to perform their Talmudic rituals. ... The Bab Hatta operation is a message to everyone who chose normalization, bypassing the rights of our people and our nation in the Al-Aqsa Mosque. "

Maybe one day Palestinians can end their obsession with martyrdom and death.

12/21 Links Pt2: The dangerous logic of anti-racism; Fauda became a bridge between Arabs, Jews; Life sentence for Halle synagogue shooter who killed 2 in Yom Kippur rampage

From Ian:

The dangerous logic of anti-racism

We all know that racism is about prejudice and power. Or at least that is an increasingly popular definition, one that has become more mainstream during this most racially-conscious of years.

By this logic, evidence of prejudice is insufficient qualification for racism; the group you are prejudiced against also needs to be structurally oppressed. This explains why many say that white people can’t be victims of racism; they may suffer prejudice, but they are not systematically disadvantaged in school, employment and the criminal justice system on the basis of their race. And this is why, for many, there is no distinction between racism and structural racism; racism is structural by definition.

But this definition raises an important question: that if racism is about disadvantages in education, employment and the criminal justice system, what does this mean for ethnic minorities who are not disadvantaged in contemporary Britain along those lines?

The Labour Party, an avowedly anti-racist movement, has been plagued in recent years by accusations of anti-Semitism. The recent EHRC report found “a culture within the party which, at best, did not do enough to prevent anti-Semitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it”.

Many Labour supporters and sympathisers have tried nobly to make sense of this contradiction. In a recent article, Novara Media writer Ash Sarkar distinguished anti-Semitism from other forms of racism. Anti-Semitism, she contended, is unrelated to “systemic disadvantage in either the jobs market or the criminal justice system”. Sarkar emphasised in a later tweet that she does not think Jews are privileged, or that they don’t face racism; she simply thinks that the racism they face is different from the racism other minorities face.

Nevertheless, Sarkar seems more sympathetic to the structural definition of racism. She argues, for instance, that “better party strategy, or fairer media coverage, does not result in a healthier anti-racist politic”. This is because “the bullying of black MPs might be stamped out, but it would not mean that Labour’s policy on policing or immigration would improve”. So a “healthier anti-racist politics” is one that focuses on structural inequalities rather than interpersonal prejudice.

The anti-Semitism scandal within the Labour Party has been specifically about the spread of noxious ideas and instances of interpersonal abuse. Sarkar, on the other hand, argues that anti-racism is actually about dismantling the material inequalities in our society, and that “racism against Jewish people does not result in the harsher prison sentences, wage gaps, stop and search or unequal healthcare outcomes that we see with other groups“.

Jews, by this logic, do not qualify under this definition of racism, which emphasises structural inequalities — that same definition to which Sarkar and many others are most attached to. If structural inequalities are the basis for racism, then Jews in contemporary Britain cannot by definition be victims of racism.

Fauda became a bridge between Arabs, Jews

It might have taken Israel years of political manoeuvring to strike the latest peace deals with its Arab neighbours, the UAE and Bahrain. But much before the powers in Washington’s White House negotiated the Abraham Accords on September 15 and ended hostilities, the popular Netflix series ‘Fauda’ had melted the ice between traditional foes --- the Jews and the Arabs.

The award-winning Israeli show – in Hebrew and Arabic – that depicted the heat and gore of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was a cross-border success and won over international audience, including those in the Arab world, on Netflix, an American over-the-top (OTT) content platform and production company.

‘Fauda’ was rated the most-watched series in the UAE.

The high-octane action-drama centred around a counter-terrorism Commando Unit called “Mista’arvim’ of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) that went undercover into the Palestinian territory to nab a Hamas operative. The ensuing chaos packed with raw, unflinching violence, hostage drama and nail-biting plot twists were driven by the protagonist, Doron Kavilio, who had co-authored the show with his old friend, Avi Issacharoff.

When Khaleej Times sat down with Lior, at a private villa in Tel Aviv during our trip to Israel last week, he was excited about the sweeping political changes happening in the region. ‘Fauda’, Lior said, had set the tone and became a bridge between the Arabs and the Jews because it humanised people from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We showed Israelis like human beings for the first time… our soldiers as human beings. And we also were showing Palestinians as human beings. So, I think this is the achievement of the show. I hope that it helped people understand that there are people behind the headlines of the newspaper. We showed both the narrative.”

A Holocaust Fairy Tale From France

Jean-Claude Grumberg finds the unbelievable truth in ‘The Most Precious of Cargoes’

Grumberg grapples with the enormity of the Shoah through the principle of synecdoche—a part standing for the whole. Paring away superfluous verbiage and nonessential details, his spare prose, trenchantly translated by Frank Wynne, bears the weight of Six Million. Though Grumberg calls the father who saves his infant daughter by abandoning her by the tracks in the forest “our hero,” he never names him, as if individuation would diminish the general devastation. To appreciate the anonymous man’s heroism, and the generosity of a strange benefactor, it is necessary to reach the heartrending conclusion of a story meant to be read in a single bated breath.

The work’s epilogue teases the reader’s credulity. “You want to know if this is a true story? A true story?” Grumberg asks. His answer, “Of course not, absolutely not,” reaffirms his claim that it is all a fairy tale. But then he proceeds to support that claim through a long series of disavowals that only the most obdurate and malicious of Holocaust deniers could support: “There were no cargo trains crossing war-torn continents to deliver urgently their oh-so-perishable cargo. No reunification camps, internment camps, concentration camps, or even extermination camps. No families were vaporized in smoke after their final journey. No hair was shorn, gathered, packaged, and shipped. There were no flames, no ashes, no tears. …” Since we know that these genocidal horrors did occur, that—hard as it is to believe—there were in fact cargo trains that transported human beings to extermination camps, we are forced to read Grumberg’s indelible “fairy tale” as accurate history.

For all his cunning irony, Grumberg is probably sincere about his distaste for “mawkish” fairy tales. His own fairy tale, a story of villainy and valor, loathing and love, earns a reader’s fears and tears without being sentimental. The standard disclaimer on the copyright page—“This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental”—is a blatant lie in the service of truth.

From TheDrive:

The U.S. Navy has publicly announced the transit of USS Georgia, one of its four Ohio class guided-missile submarines, or SSGNs, from the Gulf of Oman into the Persian Gulf by way of the highly strategic and often tense Strait of Hormuz. This is the first time one of these boats has sailed into that body of water in eight years. These four submarines are among the most in-demand across the service's submarine fleets and Georgia's rare appearance in the region would seem to be, at least in part, a signal aimed squarely at Iran and its regional proxies.

Georgia passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Dec. 21, 2020, accompanied by two Ticonderoga class cruisers, USS Port Royal and USS Philippine Sea. This trio traveled into the Persian Gulf following the movement of the supercarrier USS Nimitz, and elements of its carrier strike group, further south in the Arabian Sea to support Operation Octave Quartz, the repositioning of the bulk of U.S. forces out of Somalia.

The Ohio class SSGNs are best known for their ability to carry up to 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles. However, they typically only carry around 100 of these weapons – a still impressive amount – and are actually multi-mission platforms capable of carrying special operations forces and other highly specialized equipment, including various unmanned platforms, all while acting as discreet underwater intelligence fusion nodes and command centers.

That is a lot of firepower.

But that's not all:

Kan News in Israel reports that an Israeli submarine on its way towards Iran , openly crossing the Suez Canal with Egyptian clearance.

הצוללת הישראלית בדרך לאיראן - חשיפת כאן חדשות | גורמי מודיעין ערביים: צוללת של חיל הים חצתה את תעלת סואץ באופן גלוי ובאישור מצרי, לכיוון המפרץ הפרסי. הגורמים העריכו שישראל ניסתה להעביר מסר לטהראן. מצה"ל נמסר שהם לא מתייחסים לפרסומים מסוג זה @kaisos1987 #חדשותהערב pic.twitter.com/T67OG9QrMw
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) December 21, 2020

Sources said that Israel was trying to send a message to Tehran. The IDF wouldn't comment.

Seems like a bit more than a coincidence.

This might be more than just a message.

(h/t J. E. Dyer, Lahav Harkov)

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How do you think 2020 was for Palestinians compared to previous years?

How was 2020 for Palestinians, using the metrics of supposed Israeli oppression, compared to previous years?

According to OCHA-OPT, the number of Palestinians killed by Israel went down over 90% since 2018 - from 299 to 28.

The number of injuries plummeted by over 92% - from over 31,000 to just over 2400.

The number of hours of electricity in Gaza has doubled from an average of 7 hours a day in January 2018 to 14 hours a day this month.

Now, reading the mainstream media or the anti-Israel media seemingly obsessed with Palestinians, would you have any clue that anything has changed that dramatically?

The great unreported news is that Israel isn't out to hurt Palestinians or make their lives miserable. When possible, Israel tries to make sure Palestinians can live dignified, safe lives. The number of attacks against Israelis has gone down as well (from 14 killed in 2018 to 3 in 2020) and this is reflected in the response.

Peace brings peace.

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12/21 Links Pt1: Mother-of-six murdered in West Bank, in what police believe was terror attack; Kushner: Jerusalem not cause of problem, it's core of solution

From Ian:

Mother-of-six murdered in West Bank, in what police believe was terror attack

An Israeli woman in her 50s was found dead in a northern West Bank forest in the early hours of Monday after she went for a run on her own a day earlier, with authorities investigating the case as a suspected terror attack.

Police said in a statement that there were signs of violence to her body and that the woman’s death was considered a suspected murder. The Shin Bet security service was also taking part in the investigation.

The woman was later identified as Esther Horgen, 52, of the Tal Menashe settlement, a mother of six.

The police and Shin Bet were “increasingly convinced” that the killing was terror-related, security officials said Monday afternoon, though the police officially said that “all directions are being investigated.” The Shin Bet declined to officially comment on the matter.

The head of the Samaria Regional Council, Yossi Dagan, said Horgen was killed with a large rock.

There were no initial reports of any arrests. Police requested and received a court-issued gag order on Monday morning, barring media outlets from identifying the identities of any suspects or any other details of the investigation.

Despite the gag order, security officials told reporters that there was growing evidence to indicate that this was a nationalistically-based crime, though it appeared unlikely to have been carried out by a well-trained, established terrorist group, given the brutal and unmethodical manner in which Horgen was killed. The officials said that investigators were looking into the possibility that the suspected terrorist was an Arab-Israeli from the nearby Wadi Ara area.

West Bank: Woman Murdered in Suspected Terror Attack

Husband of woman slain in apparent terror attack urges West Bank construction

The husband of an Israeli woman found dead in a northern West Bank forest called for an increase in settlement building and “an appropriate Zionist response” to the apparent terror attack.

“Esther raised a beautiful family and loved her grandchildren, and now they will have neither a mother nor a grandmother. Esther will be missed by us all, her family and everyone who knew her,” Benjamin Horgen told reporters outside his home in the Tal Menashe settlement.

His wife Esther, 52, a mother of six, had gone out for a run in the Reihan forest near their house Sunday afternoon and did not return, whereupon Benjamin called police. Her body was found overnight in the forest with signs of violence on it.

“Esther went out yesterday as she often did, to stroll through the nature that she loved so much around the settlement,” Benjamin Horgen said through tears. “She was so full of life, light and love for everyone, and all of that was cut short in an instant.”

“We attribute the great success of our family and community as a whole to her,” he continued, calling on the government to put forth “an appropriate Zionist response to the murder and to add [to settlement] construction and light for our children.”

Horgen’s funeral is to be held on Tuesday at 10 a.m.

Security forces are increasingly convinced that the death was a terror attack committed by a Palestinian assailant, officials said on Monday afternoon.

The impending peace agreement between Morocco and Israel has been causing a bit of embarrassment to Morocco's Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) which is a major part of the ruling government.

The PJD has been anti-Israel and they are worried about the optics of having to be photographed with Israeli officials this week.

PJD Secretary-General Saad Al-Othmani discussed thiswith party members by emphasizing that the issue of the US recognizing Western Sahara as Moroccan is a priority.

He also said that the Palestinians themselves disagree on the solution to their issue.

A source told the Hespress newspaper that ministers from the Justice and Development Party are preparing "psychologically" to greet their Israeli counterparts and take pictures with them upon signing the partnership agreements between Morocco and Israel, and that that they don't even object to any future visit by an official Israeli delegation to the PJD headquarters in Rabat.

To justify this, they are mentioning that even Turkish leader Erdogan shook hands with Ariel Sharon and laid a wreath on Herzl's grave.

Another op-ed in Hespress also justifies the impending agreements, saying that the old methods of hiding behind the Palestinian issue as a reason not to move forward is not effective, and emphasizing how much Morocco has supported the Palestinian cause.

The lesson from all this is that even when a carrot helps being a peace agreement, as it did in Sudan, that doesn't take away from the fact that these agreements can cause huge changes in the psychology of Israel's most determined opponents.

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