Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

11/16 Links Pt1: Israel, UAE begin talks on free-trade agreement; At UNESCO, the oppressors represent the oppressed; Erdogan's veneer of respect conceals blatant antisemitism

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: Israel at the Dubai Air Show symbolizes new Middle East

This growing regional partnering has ramifications that go beyond specific defense deals or even joint training. It’s about a consensus that views stability and moderation as key pillars of foreign policy.

This is in contrast to the policy of countries like Iran and Turkey that prefer confrontation in the region. That is why wherever Iran has a role there is poverty, chaos and civil conflict. In Lebanon and Iraq, people – including Iraq’s prime minister – are targeted for assassination by Iran’s proxies.

Meanwhile, Ankara has played an aggressive and threatening role in places like Syria and Libya, often heating up conflicts, rather than turning down the tensions.

However, the emerging consensus between Israel and the UAE is not all-inclusive. The US, for instance, ostensibly opposes the UAE’s outreach to Damascus.

For Israel, hopefully, Syria will dial back the Iranian role there. Reports say that the Assad regime may have been nonplussed by an IRGC-backed attack on the US Tanf garrison.

That could also be a talking point in regional media. What is clear is that there are a lot more meetings coming between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain and the UAE and their partners in Asia and the West.

While Israel’s role at the Dubai Air Show can be seen through specific deals and companies – such as the participation of UVision, an innovative company that makes loitering munitions – the greater symbol is that Israel is now in the room with big players in the region.

In the past, Israel often felt isolated or even bifurcated from the region, not even included in US Central Command, for instance. Now, the inclusion of Israel in the room alongside others in a multilateral framework provides a space in which to build upon the Abraham Accords in a way that was only a dream a few years ago.

Defense Minister Gantz to visit Morocco next week

Defense Minister Benny Gantz will make an official visit next week to Morocco, where he is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding with the North African kingdom.

Gantz will meet with his Moroccan counterpart, Abdellatif Loudiyi, and will sign an MoU that will outline defense cooperation between the two countries.

According to foreign reports, Gantz and Loudiyi will sign defense cooperation deals that include plans to develop a domestic industry to produce loitering munitions, also known as suicide drones.

According to Defense News and the French publication Africa Intelligence, the two countries are currently working on the development of a project to manufacture the drones to strengthen Morocco’s air power.

The report said that defense giant Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) subsidiary BlueBird Aerosystems has been negotiating with Moroccan teams for several months about developing a business incubator to manufacture such drones.

Israel, UAE begin talks on free-trade agreement

Israel and the UAE began talks for establishing a free-trade agreement when Israel’s Economy and Industry minister, Orna Barbivai, met her Emirati colleague, Abdulla bin Touq Al Mari, to launch discussions on Monday night for a deal that will significantly strengthen trade between the two countries.

Since the Abraham Accords were signed in September 2020 normalizing relations between Israel and the UAE, trade between the two countries has increased dramatically. While trade between the two was about $125 million in 2020, that figure reached nearly $500m. in the first seven months of 2021.

The Foreign Trade Administration anticipates that these figures can continue to grow at a rapid pace and reach much higher levels.

Some have estimated that trade will exceed $1 billion this year and reach $3b. within three years. That does not include direct foreign investment between the two countries, which will likely reach tens of billions of dollars.

“This meeting opens the door to the many meetings on the way, and there is no doubt that this agreement will help significantly strengthen trade between the countries, remove barriers, and expand economic cooperation,” Barbivai said. “I hope that we will be able to realize the enormous potential inherent in the friendship between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.”

Ohad Cohen, director of the Foreign Trade Administration who is leading Israel’s negotiators, said, “We intend to conclude a meaningful and comprehensive agreement with our fellow colleagues, which will include, among other things, issues relating to trade in goods including regulation and regulation, customs, trade in services, government procurement, e-commerce and the preservation of intellectual property rights.”

History in the making! Mazal Tov and Mabrouk Your Excellency. https://t.co/dlhHo8XA13
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 16, 2021

Another "innocent" Palestinian victim

Al Jazeera reports:

Israeli forces have shot dead a 26-year-old man in the northern occupied West Bank city of Tubas after a confrontation broke out during a raid early on Tuesday, Palestinian medics said.

The man was identified as Saddam Hussein Bani Odeh, from the village of Tammoun – about 5km (3 miles) south of Tubas city. A bullet fired by an Israeli soldier at the entrance to the city penetrated his shoulder, heart, and left lung, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Al Mayadeen helpfully adds:

Palestinian sources for Al Mayadeen have confirmed that the Israeli occupation forces were under no threat.

The IDF disputes that:

“During the operation, shots were fired at the soldiers and an explosive device was thrown at them from a moving car. The soldiers returned fire at the suspicious vehicle,” the military said.

So, innocent victim or terrorist?

Luckily, we have Islamic Jihad to tell us the answer:

Today, Tuesday, November 16, 2021, the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine mourned its righteous son, Saddam Hussein Bani Odeh (26 years), from the town of Tammun in the occupied West Bank. Responding to the call of duty to defend the land and the holy sites against the aggressions of the occupation.

The movement said in a press statement: "The waterfall of the pure blood of the Mujahideen of the Islamic Jihad movement is still flowing and running in the beloved plains of Palestine throughout the lost homeland."

The movement added: "Our heroic mujahid left his town of Tammun to the city of Tubas, the martyrs, as soon as he received the news that the occupation forces had stormed the city in a massive campaign of arrests, in order to carry out his jihadi duty in advance of his duty to defend his people."

They admit that he went to Tubas to "carry out his jihadi duty."

And Abu Ali Express found an earlier video of Saddam Hussein Bani Odeh - throwing rocks at an IDF vehicle from a moving truck.

It's a miracle he survived this long.

Inconsistency: Israel withholds funds from the PA for paying terrorists but encourages other countries to donate

Times of Israel reports:

Israel will push for more international aid to the Palestinians at a conference of donor countries in Norway this week, Regional Cooperation Minister Issawi Frej told The Times of Israel on Monday.

“During our meetings in the coming days, our message to donor countries will be to provide more aid to the Palestinians. The neglect over the past years has created a financial crisis that threatens not just the Palestinian Authority, but the region as a whole,” Frej said in a phone call.

Foreign assistance to the PA has plummeted over the past year. According to publicly available filings, Ramallah received $480 million in foreign budget aid between January and September 2019. Over the same period in 2021, it received just $32.75 million in budget support.

It adds:

Israel confiscated NIS 600 million from taxes it collects on Ramallah’s behalf in July. Under a 2018 Israeli law, Israel regularly confiscates money from the revenues to penalize Ramallah for its policy of paying stipends to Palestinian security prisoners held in Israel, and the families of Palestinians killed during violent confrontations with Israeli forces — including those who committed terror attacks against Israelis.

These two parts of the Israeli policy are contradictory. What good is withholding tax revenues when Israel is also encouraging other countries to make up the PA's budget shortfall?

Mahmoud Abbas has said, explicitly and multiple times, that the payments to terrorists and their families are his top priority and the most important part of the budget. “Even if we have only a penny left, we will give it to the martyrs, the prisoners and their families We view the prisoners and the martyrs as planets and stars in the skies of the Palestinian struggle, and they have priority in everything,” Abbas said.

Israel has an interest in the PA not collapsing. The PA has doubled down on saying that it will pay terrorists first before even its own employees. How can these be reconciled?

The answer comes, paradoxically, from the Palestinian Authority itself:

In his remarks to the cabinet on Monday, [PA prime minister Mohammad] Shtayyeh said he would ask international donors to pressure Israel into ending the policy.

Israel must make clear at the conference that it supports funding the PA - but only if the donors ensure that their funds are spent transparently and not on terrorist payments. There must be a professional audit system in place to trace every euro.

The international community is already leery of giving money to the Palestinians without strings, because of the PA's endemic corruption. Israel needs to tie its demands for transparency to that existing desire not to waste these funds. And the Europeans must pressure the PA to stop its pay-for-slay program.

Palestinian newspaper defends the Mufti's collaboration with Nazis

Mark Regev wrote an article in the Jerusalem Post on November 11, marking the anniversary of the British victory at El Alamein, Egypt in 1942. He says that had the British lost that battle, the Nazis would have overrun Palestine and all the Jews there would have been murdered - because the Palestinian Arabs would have become willing collaborators with the Nazis.

Regev brings proof by noting the well-documented antisemitism and Nazi collaboration of the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin Husseini, whom Palestinians still revere, as well as the adamant Palestinian Arab opposition to allowing Jews in mortal danger to immigrate to Palestine.

Palestinian writer Amani Qurum is very upset at Regev, saying that his article is filled with lies.

Writing in Al Quds, Qurum is angry at Regev for his "fierce and repeated attack on Hajj Amin al-Husseini, may God have mercy on him, accusing him of anti-Semitism and cooperating with the Germans and support for what is known as the final solution to the Jews and genocide and help in the killing of a million and a half Jews and pressure on Britain to close the gates of Palestine in front of Jewish immigration."

Regev didn't say Husseini directly contributed to the murder of 1.5 million children, but that Husseini preferred to see them die rather than go to Palestine. This is documented in an incident, recounted by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum:

In the spring of 1943, al-Husayni learned of negotiations between Germany's Axis partners with the British, the Swiss, and the International Red Cross to transport thousands of Jewish children to safety in Palestine. He sought to prevent the rescue operations with protests directed at the Germans and Italians, as well as at the governments of Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Demanding that the operations be scuttled, al-Husayni suggested that the children be sent to Poland where they would be subject to "stricter control." Although his preference that the children be killed in Poland rather than transported to Palestine appears to have been explicit, the impact of the letters was nil.

Qurum denies or ignores nearly all of the crimes of Amin Husseini. But she admits one - and justifies it:

Of course, Husseini’s relations with the Germans cannot be denied at all, but they must be placed in their proper circumstances and context. Germany did not occupy Palestine and did not give it to the Jews falsely. On the contrary, Britain and France shared the region as a whole between them as the two largest colonial powers at that time. Within the framework of the game of alliances, isn't it natural for al-Husayni to bet politically on Germany, only in order to defend Palestine, which colonial Britain unjustly gave to the Jews?

Qurum proves Regev's main point: Palestinians need to acknowledge their support for a Nazi collaborator, not treat him as a hero. Because of his stature, it is unthinkable for a Palestinian writer to criticize the Mufti, whose hatred for Jews cannot be papered over - he was quite proud of it.

11/15 Links Pt2: By funding blacklisted NGOs, European governments are financing terror; The Judenrein Movie Museum; J Street Pushes to Make Israel a Partisan Issue

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Cracks in the bulwarks of decency

Why are The Critic and the Spectator rehashing inane anti-Israel malice?

Two things stand out from this. The first is not just the number of errors in these articles, but their eye-watering dislocation from easily ascertainable reality and factual evidence.

The second is that this malicious propaganda aimed at destroying Israel’s right to exist is the hallmark of elements on the left, which trade on both ignorance and ideological obsession. Both the Spectator and The Critic are supposed to stand against all that by providing intelligent and informed writing that elevates public discourse. Yet with these two pieces, they have joined the ranks of those who instead are corrupting public discourse and closing the western mind against truth and decency.

What on earth were these two editors thinking by publishing them? They appear to have seen nothing wrong with them. Perhaps they thought — if they thought anything at all about them — that they were merely “a point of view” just like any other? A controversy on which these editors need not have an opinion, since all they have to do is hold the ring in suitably Socratic editorial fashion? Valid contributions to public debate?

But these lies, distortions and malicious libels against Israel are not valid contributions to public debate. They are part of a strategy to demonise, delegitimise and destroy Israel through a sustained propaganda campaign that has colonised the collective mind of the western intelligentsia.

A strategy deployed against no other country, people or cause in the world. A strategy that incites hatred, paranoia and murderous violence. A strategy cooked up in the sixties by the Soviet Union and Yasser Arafat to knock the west off its moral compass so that it could be weakened and defeated. A strategy that has paved the way for the hijack of language and destruction of reason which fuel “intersectionality” and identity politics, and which are de-moralising the west in every sense of that word.

This is the madness against which the Spectator and The Critic purport to act as a vital bulwark. Now, alas, that bulwark has cracked and is gaping wide open on a lethal battleground.

Amb. Tzipi Hotovely: Are we for free expression and dialogue or intolerance and violence?

Last week, I was invited to talk to students at the London School of Economics. The event was an open discussion about the new era in the Middle East, an era of collaboration between new partners who took the bold step of opening a fresh chapter and starting a dialogue.

While inside the hall a very interesting conversation took place about the role of Israel as the only democratic state in the Middle East and the challenges we face, while outside the venue crowds of people called to silence me. The contrast in the two scenes speaks volumes. Dialogue and critical thinking are the cornerstones on which universities were founded. In the Jewish tradition, open discussion is a fundamental value in which generations of Jewish scholars have been educated.

Freedom of expression is a core tenet of the Israeli system of government. Therefore, as an ambassador, I see it as my duty to have frank discussions with diverse groups about the realities in our region.

The situation in our region is complex and does not fit into a 280-character tweet. Only through in-depth conversation can one unravel those complexities. It is clear that the crowds who gathered to shout outside LSE did not seek discourse.They sought to achieve their will by violent means and the suppression of alternative voices.

I wish I could say this was the first time I have encountered such behaviour, but unfortunately, it is all too common. During the recent conflict in Gaza, we saw similar crowds demonstrating in front of the embassy, burning Israeli flags and trampling on them. Scenes that we see frequently in Iran.

In the neighbourhood where I live, there was a convoy of cars calling for death to Jews and inciting assaults against Jewish women because of a conflict happening in Israel. This is not only my experience: many in the Jewish community are living with the impact of such violence with the rise in anti-Semitic incidents reaching unprecedented levels in the past year.

Gerald Steinberg: European Funding for Palestinian NGOs as Political Subcontracting

Analysis of the 20-year history of European government funding for Palestinian NGOs reveals a number of important findings that contrast sharply with the declared objectives. Of particular importance is the constancy of this funding for a relatively small group of organizations, both in terms of the repetitive grants that are provided over numerous funding cycles (vertical clustering), and the practice by the numerous government frameworks (direct and indirect) in supporting the same recipients (horizontal clustering). The primacy of political subcontracting is reflected in the detailed patterns and close examination of the evidence, in contrast to official declarations and reports.

Although the label “civil society” is used repeatedly by European officials to describe and justify these policies, the term is ambiguous and problematic in the Palestinian framework. In closed systems, as is the case both the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank as well as Hamas-controlled Gaza, these organizations would not be able to operate or receive funding without the approval of the authorities (the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, respectively). In addition, the centrality for the PFLP’s NGO network in European policy is particularly inconsistent with the concept of civil society.

These processes and relationships, through which hundreds of millions of euros were provided by European governments to Palestinian NGOs during a twenty-year period, have and continue to have substantial impacts. Instead of advancing the formal objectives of promoting peace, economic development, Palestinian democracy, and rapprochement, these policies sustained the conflict through campaigns alleging Israeli violations of “international law” and “apartheid,” as well as active participation in lawfare and boycott campaigns.

The application of the political subcontractor model clarifies many of the otherwise inexplicable and inconsistent explanations for the deeply entrenched relationships between European governments and the selected group of Palestinian NGOs. When viewed from this perspective, the exchange of state funds for NGO services, through means that European officials and diplomats are unable to pursue themselves, is consistent with the evidence and the evolution of these policies. Although European support did not begin as a form of subcontracting, as officials recognized the influence and capabilities of the NGOs, these links evolved and strengthened, while benefiting from the image of altruism and independent civil society.

The subcontractor model also helps explain the unusual scale of European support for Palestinian NGOs, the small number of organizations involved, the overlapping contracts and the clustering, both vertical and horizontal, and the intense secrecy—all of which are unique when compared to other civil society relationships. European officials give very high priority to involvement (or at least the perception of involvement) in the Palestinian-Israeli arena, and for the reasons explained in this analysis, close cooperation with the specific group of NGOs provides an important addition to the otherwise limited sources of influence. From this perspective, the actual impacts on officially proclaimed objectives (Palestinian democracy, peace) are less important than this influence.

After twenty years, however, with little to show for hundreds of millions of euros in budgetary allocations, and in the light of recent revelations of terror links for a number of Palestinian NGO subcontractors, it might become more difficult to justify these relationships.

By funding blacklisted NGOs, European governments are financing terror

For over 10 years, NGO Monitor has published reports documenting the ties between numerous Palestinian civil society groups and the PFLP (full disclosure, I served as NGO Monitor’s managing editor and Canada liaison in 2016-2020). Using only open-source information, often simple Google and Facebook searches, the research institute has, piece by piece, put together a clear network of foreign government-backed organizations with leadership serving dual roles in the NGOs and in the terror group.

NGO Monitor staff traveled to governments around the world and to the United Nations, presenting this information and showing government officials the first-hand evidence linking the six NGOs to the PFLP terror group. Concerned members of parliament and senators have questioned their foreign aid offices in the public record about the suspicious funding, yet time and time again the governments refused to take action and cut funding.

The issue of the PFLP-tied NGO network even gained public and donor government attention in 2019, following the disclosure of a 50-person strong PFLP terror cell responsible for, inter alia, the murder of the 17-year-old Israeli girl Rina Shnerb. The cell included numerous members of these same government-funded NGOs. For instance, UAWC’s accountant Samir Arbid was, according to Israeli security officials, responsible for commanding the PFLP terror cell that carried out the bombing.

It is therefore almost laughable that governments are decrying the Israeli decision to formally designate the groups, and utilizing precious international resources like the UN Security Council to call for more “credible evidence.” These governments – whether the elected officials or government bureaucrats – have known for years that the six organizations had links to the PFLP terror group.

They have been presented with ample and publicly available and verifiable evidence. Only now, because an official government designation of a terror group will finally pressure governments to act on their own domestic terror laws and cease financing, are they up in arms and pretending as though they did not know the risks of using taxpayer funds to support such groups.

We can only hope that the public in each of the countries guilty of financing these six organizations will recognize this sheer failure of accountability and oversight and demand not only a cessation of funds but a reform in the foreign aid system to prevent such a farce from occurring again.

After seeing another idiotic tweet about how Israel is stealing Palestinian cuisine (and, no, shakshuka is in no way Palestinian) I wondered what it would be like if Jews were as insecure about their food inventions as Arabs seem to be.

Think about Kariot.

Kariot is an Israeli cereal that placed chocolate or nougat inside a pillow-shaped grain cereal. (Kariot means "pillows.")

It was created in Israel in 1994. A very similar cereal was introduced in the US by Kellogg's as Krave in 2012 after success in Europe.

Kellogg's has stolen an Israeli food!

Nowhere in their literature do they mention the origin of their cereal. One would think it is ...American! (Or British!)

Cultural appropriation! Disrespect for Israeli culture! Theft of sugary breakfast innovations!

Imagine how utterly stupid that would sound. No one would take it seriously. But there have been hundreds of articles decrying Israelis putting their own twist on foods like falafel and shakshuka, using the term "Israeli salad," freaking out over their popularizing hummus worldwide with the brand name Sabra.

Food, like language, moves and morphs as it goes through different cultures and geographies. No one owns it. Jews would be amused if Palestinians claimed Bissli or matzah or sabich as their own. And if they make a sabich that is better than the Israeli version, or if they want to make a new Palestinian food that uses cherry tomatoes, great.

Yemenis don't accuse Saudis of stealing their foods, nor do Turks get upset when their cultural foods are consumed throughout the Arab world. The constant accusations of "cultural theft" are only hurled at Israel.

Cuisines always change as they move through time and place. So does antisemitism.

In Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War, Jonathan Schanzer provides what the mainstream media avoided during reporting on the May conflict: Context.

Schanzer, who is senior vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has written a short but essential book that describes not only the mini-war itself, but also why it was inevitable and why the next one cannot be avoided.

Unlike most analysis that was in the mainstream media, Schanzer points out the events that preceded the fighting. The Palestinian Authority had announced elections for March and then, after it was apparent that Hamas would win, canceled them. Hamas took advantage of Palestinian disappointment at being let down yet again by Mahmoud Abbas and positioned itself as the real leader of the people, taking advantage of the Sheikh Jarrah unrest to pretend to "defend Jerusalem" by shooting rockets at Israel. Yet, he notes, Hamas had been preparing for this war for weeks before Sheikh Jarrah.

As with the visit by Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount in 2000, the machinery for attacking Jews was already prepared and in place, just waiting for an excuse to trigger. The "spark" is not the reason for these wars, they are excuses that the media is too happy to use to blame Israeli actions for Palestinian attacks.

The book travels back and forth from the events of May to how we got there. He describes the founding of Hamas during the first intifada and how the PLO leaders, then exiled in Tunisia, had to embrace the myth of peacemaking to remain relevant and to return to the region. He shows how the PLO threw away the chances of peace and embraced terror itself in the second intifada.

Most of all, Schanzer describes how Iran is using Hamas and Islamic Jihad as their proxies against Israel. The May war must be seen in context of the constant tug of war between Israel and Iran in the region: Iran strengthening its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, and Israel attacking hundreds of targets in Syria, Iraq, the high seas and Iran itself to slow down Iranian nuclear weapons and Iranian transfers of sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah and Hamas.

Iran wants a Shiite Crescent that stretches to the Mediterranean. Israel is in its way. Gaza terror groups are Iranian tools, and it is naive to think that the May conflict was about Sheikh Jarrah and part of Iran's strategy to prod Israel and prompt the world media to claim war crimes.

Schanzer's context goes even beyond Iran. He notes the importance of Russia in limiting or permitting what Israel can do in Syria. also notes that Turkey and Qatar compete with Iran on influence in Gaza, and even Malaysia has helped train Palestinian jihadists. He describes the drama behind US-Israel tensions on the Iran nuclear deal. He has a chapter on how UNRWA keeps the artificial "refugee" crisis alive to continuously pressure Israel. All of these impact the regular flare ups of fighting by Gaza terror groups against Israel.

This is the sort of analysis that is woefully lacking in the media.

Every reporter should read this book before writing another facile story that takes the claims of terrorists seriously.

11/15 Links Pt1: UNRWA doesn't need more funding, it needs to be shut down; Israel is taken for a ride on Erdogan's 'Midnight Express'; Hezbollah Targeted Israeli Ex-Intel Official in Colombia

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: UNRWA doesn't need more funding, it needs to be shut down

UNRWA was founded in 1949 to provide what was meant to be a temporary solution until the “Palestinian refugee problem” was sorted out. Most other refugees are cared for by the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees and, unlike the Palestinians, their status is not passed on to future generations.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, have their own agency and have been granted perpetual refugee status. According to UNRWA, Palestinian refugees are not just people who fled from the nascent Jewish state during the 1948 War of Independence and have yet to be resettled, but they include descendants of those refugees. Someone born this week, during the UNRWA donor meeting, can be considered a refugee of a war that occurred more than seven decades ago.

There is some irony in Jordan being the sponsor of the meeting given that the majority of the Jordanian population is Palestinian and many meet the UNRWA definition of being “refugees,” despite having Jordanian citizenship.

UNRWA has not solved the “refugee problem.” On the contrary, it has created a bigger one than ever before. While some 726,000 Arabs originally fell under the agency’s auspices in 1949, the number more than 70 years later now stands at 5.7 million – almost eight times as many. In other words, it has added to the refugee problem and, at the same time, perpetuated the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Instead of getting on with their lives, the Palestinians in places like Gaza, with UNRWA’s encouragement, continue to grasp a false dream of one day “returning” to Jaffa, Haifa, Safed or Jerusalem. Far from transforming refugees into self-sufficient individuals, the agency has fostered dependency and a culture of entitlement. It is this that the donor countries are now being asked to fund with even greater sums of money than before.

If, after 70-plus years, the Palestinian refugees still need more help than any other group of refugees, such as those struggling to enter Europe in the humanitarian crisis along the Polish-Belarus border, then UNRWA has clearly failed.

UNRWA doesn’t need more funds – it needs to be closed down.

Israel is taken for a ride on Erdogan's 'Midnight Express'

The Israeli couple, who found themselves arrested in Turkey last week after taking a picture of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's residence during a tour of Istanbul, are merely unfortunate pawns in the decrepit sultan's twisted game of political survival.

The pair could have easily been Dutch or American, but Israelis are far "sexier." The term "connections to the Mossad" always makes great headlines.

This is all part of Erdogan's plan: Get as many headlines as you can to divert the Turkish people's criticism away from himself, his party and his ebbing popularity.

Concocting diplomatic crises — preferably with non-Muslim nations — has been a reoccurring strategy to boost his standing in the polls. Over the past few years, Erdogan has already played this trick with Germany, Russian, the Netherlands, the U.S. and even China.

He is willing to be subjected to both European and American sanctions, all for the goal of uniting the nation around him and keeping himself in power.

Now, when the Turkish opposition is poised to become a real threat in the 2023 general elections, as had previously happened with the municipal elections in Istanbul in 2019, tall tales of Mossad agents make a comeback.

Israel Must Not Let Erdogan Exploit His Israeli ‘Hostages’

Against expectations, a court in Istanbul has extended the detention of Israeli tourists Natali and Mordy Oknin on the grounds they allegedly spied on the country for Jerusalem by 20 days. It appears the Turkish attorney's demand their detention be extended is sending signals that the innocent incident, which took place at the new tourist observation point in Istanbul, is turning into a diplomatic crisis between Jerusalem and Ankara.

In retrospect, the timing of the couple's arrest is no coincidence. Just one month ago, the two states experienced another crisis of faith when 15 Palestinians were arrested by the Turkish intelligence agency for allegedly spying for the Mossad intelligence agency. Despite widespread coverage of the incident in Turkey, given the fact the suspects were not Israeli citizens, Jerusalem chose not to make the arrests an issue with Ankara. Nevertheless, if the Israeli couple is not released the next time the court convenes on the matter, their arrest could lead Israel straight into a new "hostage" crisis with Turkey.

Those who follow Turkish foreign policy know all too well that such "hostage" cases can be solved in one of two ways: the soft power displayed by Berlin or the tough diplomatic stance adopted by former US President Donald Trump.

Israeli reporter detained on air in Turkey while covering couple held in custody

Israeli officials believe the coming 48 hours will be critical in seeking to secure the release of an Israeli couple detained in Turkey after photographing a presidential palace, according to television reports.

Channel 13 news says officials believe that if not the saga is not resolved in the next two days, the couple could remain in Turkish custody for years.

The network also reports that other Israelis have been snapping photos of the palace in Istanbul without incident. And a Turkish journalist tells Channel 12 that thousands of people would be facing espionage charges if taking pictures of the palace is considered to be an act of spying.

A separate report by Channel 12 news quotes unnamed diplomatic officials saying they have been unable to get a response from Turkey on the matter.

Earlier, a Channel 13 news reporter was detained while broadcasting live from Turkey. The reporter, Ali Mograbi, was later released.

Mohammed Shtayyeh, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, is considered a moderate. He is looked upon as someone the West can deal with.

He received a Western education, getting his PhD from the University of Sussex in Brighton. He does not have a history of being involved in terror attacks. He has published books and has written at least one op-ed in the New York Times. He was received with respect in his latest trip to Europe this month.

And it just so happens that he is an antisemite.

This week's Palestinian cabinet meeting was in Al-Ram, just outside Jerusalem's municipal borders. During the meeting, Shtayyeh spoke about Jerusalem:

We are on the outskirts of the eternal capital, the jewel in the crown, the point where heaven and earth meet, the flower of all cities, the object of longing of the hearts of the Muslim and Christian Believers who come to it to pray in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and to walk on the Via Dolorosa in order to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which witnessed the signing of the Pact of Umar, in which the Caliph Umar pledged to the people of Iliya (the Arab version of Aelia Capitolina/Jerusalem) that no Muslim would pray in their church. “Iliya Al-Quds” has Canaanite, Roman, Islamic, and Christians antiquities and is theirs alone, and no one else has any traces in it.

Denying Jewish history, and deliberately denying the historic importance of Jerusalem to Jews, is antisemitism.

Before Palestinian nationalism, no Muslims ever denied the Jewish history of Jerusalem. It is well accepted that the entire reason the Dome of the Rock was built was as a successor to Solomon's Temple. The Waqf used to admit this as "beyond dispute."

Temple denial is only a few decades old, and only became popular when Yasir Arafat denied the Jewish Temples were ever in Jerusalem to Bill Clinton.

Shtayyeh is going beyond that, denying the clear historical, archaeological, cultural and religious evidence of the unbreakable Jewish attachment to Jerusalem.

This is antisemitism, and this respected face of Palestinian politics is an antisemite.

Unfortunately, antisemitism isn't enough to disqualify Palestinian politicians from being respected and honored by Western leaders.

In a fair world, he should be treated exactly as if he would have denied slavery of Black people. But antisemitism in the guise of "anti-Zionism" is not only respected, it is celebrated.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

UPDATE: In English, Shtayyeh said only last week, “The issue for us is not about Jews and Judaism. We have a great respect to every single Jewish person in the world.”

Rabbi Yehuda Gerami, chief rabbi of Iran, has been touring the US for the past couple of weeks, meeting with other rabbis and speaking in shuls.

The rabbi gave a speech at the Chabad of Northern Virginia last night where he essentially admitted that antisemitism in Iran is institutional and official.

Rabbi Gerami has publicly slammed Israel in Iranian media and voiced support for the worst of Iran's terror leaders, drawing condemnation from other Jews, and his speech broadly implied that he has no choice.

Iran’s chief rabbi said on Sunday evening that the country’s Jewish community feared physical attacks from some Muslim neighbors in the wake of the January 2020 killing of Iranian al-Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani by the United States.

“The situation was very sensitive,” said Rabbi Yehuda Gerami, speaking at Chabad of Northern Virginia in Fairfax, Virginia. “We felt that sensitivity, not from the government, from the people. They talked about revenge.”

Gerami said that he decided to condemn the strike publicly on the news and to pay his condolences to Soleimani’s family in order to calm the situation, which was effective.

“We felt there could be danger,” he explained. “Then we had to go give interviews and say we were not for it, that we don’t agree with this war.”

As far as official antisemitism, he addressed it in the context of a joke:

He admitted that there are some positions in the military and senior management roles that are closed to Jews. “Maybe they can’t learn atomic energy,” he added with a smile.

But perhaps the most telling indication of Iranian antisemitism came when he defended Iran's tolerance towards Jews. “Iran is the only place where synagogues don’t need any security. But we have to use our wisdom, we are guests and we have to be diplomatic.”

Saying that Jews are guests in Iran says it all.

Even after living there for thousands of years, Jews are not considered full citizens.They are guests - guests who are not full members of society, guests who are only there at the forbearance of the hosts, and guests who can be forced out at any time if they are impolite.

Iranian Muslims and Iranian Jews both know that the Jews aren't really Iranians, just as Jews have not been considered full citizens by antisemites in every country they ever lived in.

Could the next Arab country to make peace with Israel be - Libya?

Israel Hayom reports:

The political camps in the North African country, which has suffered two brutal civil wars over the past decade, are preparing for a highly charged election campaign that will determine Libya's future.

According to senior Libyan officials with close ties to the leading presidential candidate, Gen. Khalifa Haftar, it appears the large Arab country is moving toward normalization with Israel. Haftar has recently voiced his desire on several occasions to normalize ties with Israel, and declared he would work to that end if he is elected president on December 24.

Israel Hayom reported in late October that an Israeli consulting firm was advising both Haftar and his main rival, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the former tyrant Muammar Gaddafi, who was deposed and killed in a violent uprising 10 years ago.

Haaretz reports that Haftar actually secretly visited Israel at the beginning of the month.

Libya was one of Israel's most implacable foes under the elder Gaddafi.

Its media has not been reporting these rumors, although they did report about both major candidates using the same Israeli PR firm for their campaigns, using different UAE addresses.

The current Libyan Government of National Unity has not warmed up to Israel, though. They announced that if Israel would attend the Paris Conference on Libya, they would refuse to attend themselves. It is unclear if anyone invited Israel in the first place.

If it happens, it would be the strongest signal yet that Arab leaders are realizing that shunning Israel does not accomplish anything and can even put them at a competitive disadvantage.

It doesn't look like this would be a peace of warmth and normalization, if it occurs. Libya is still teetering on the edge of chaos and most citizens would oppose peace. It would be more a peace treaty for convenience, where each party will get something they want out of it.

A bad peace is still a lot better than a quiet state of war. But a treaty that would cause the government to fall would signal to other Arab leaders that the price of peace with Israel could be more costly than the benefits, and it could hurt longer term integration of Israel into the region.

(h/t Yoel)

Military experts agree: Israel didn't break international law in Gaza, but Hamas did - and the media failed to report it

JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security in America, created a Gaza Task Force to go to Israel and report on what they found out about the Gaza conflict last May.

The members of the task force are:

LTG Robert Ashley, USA (ret.), Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
LTG John M. Bednarek, USA (ret.), Former Senior Defense Official in Iraq; former Chief of Office of Security Cooperation in Baghdad
LTC Geoffrey S. Corn, USA (ret.) Former Chief International Law for U.S. Army Europe
Lt Gen Jon Davis, USMC (ret.) Former Deputy Commandant for Aviation
LTG Karen Gibson, USA (ret.) Former Deputy Director for National Intelligence for National Security Partnerships
LTG Stephen Lanza, USA (ret.) Former Commanding General of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis McChord
RADM Brian Losey, USN (ret.) Former Commander of Naval Special Warfare Command
Lt Gen Richard Natonski, USMC (ret.) Former Commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command
LTG Raymond Palumbo, USA (ret.) Former Deputy Commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command
GEN David Rodriguez, USA (ret.) Former Commander of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM)
Lt Gen Thomas Trask, USAF (ret.) Former Vice Commander of United States Special Operations Command
Gen Charles Wald, USAF (ret.) Former Deputy Commander of United States European Command (EUCOM)

I'd say that this group has orders of magnitude more expertise in the laws of armed conflict than the entire staffs of Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, the UN Human Rights Council and Oxfam combined.

They released their report last month, with nearly no coverage in the media. And no wonder: they prove that the media and the NGOs they adore have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to international law.

The report does not only discuss what Israel did right. It also expands on Israel's missteps, mostly with messaging (the bombing of the Al Jalaa media building and the apparent deception to the world media that a ground operation was starting, for two.) It describes how Hamas learned lessons from previous wars and how they attempted to gain specific advantages. It discusses what lessons other democracies can learn from how Israel fought terrorists who are willing to make their own people human shields.

The report emphasizes how Hamas and its allies used the media to spread lies about the laws of armed conflict. Two examples of egregious ignorance about the laws of war from two popular comedy news hosts are given:

Trevor Noah, The Daily Show
On May 11, 2021, Trevor Noah did a segment on The Daily Show in which he argued that, because Israel is more militarily capable, it should refrain from defending itself: “If you were in a fight where the other person cannot beat you, how hard should you retaliate when they try to hurt you?”
John Oliver, Last Week Tonight
Oliver’s viral May 16, 2021, segment about Israeli actions included the unfounded accusation that it “targeted the al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan,” and that the IDF’s strike on a multi-story building in Gaza used by Hamas “sure seems like war crime, regardless of whether you send a courtesy heads-up text.” Oliver dismissed Hamas' firing of rockets at Israeli civilian population centers because “most of the rockets aimed toward Israeli citizens this week were intercepted.”

Both of these examples were multiplied, subtly or not, by mainstream media coverage that amplified Hamas' and its supporters' lies that every civilian killed in a war is a war crime.

Two of the members of the task force wrote an op-ed in the New York Post today that summarized the findings and what it means for America in the future:

In its conflict with Hamas in May, Israel endured a barrage of rockets — as well as war-crime accusations. Iron Dome intercepted most of the former. The latter are more dangerous, for Israel and even the United States.

After reviewing the Israeli Defense Forces’ operations during the Gaza conflict as retired senior US military officers, we find these accusations spurious — fed by Hamas’ disinformation and a widespread misunderstanding of the Law of Armed Conflict, or LOAC. These dynamics could soon feature in conflicts involving the US military.

Delegitimizing Israeli operations — not military victory — was one of Hamas’ main objectives in this conflict. “The real crimes,” Hamas’ spokesperson told the media, “were committed by [Israel] targeting civilians … killing more than 100 children and women and demolishing buildings.”

With such false claims, Hamas casts any civilian casualty as illegal. Unfortunately, many in the media and public embraced this false narrative.

“Destroying a civilian residence sure seems like a war crime,” comedian John Oliver opined on his show. Seeming like a war crime and being one are quite different.

LOAC requires militaries to distinguish between — and only attack — military, not civilian, targets. Commanders are obliged to make a good-faith effort to take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian risk.

These rules do not preclude unavoidable civilian casualties. It is a sad but undeniable reality of war that international law tolerates harm to civilians if it’s not deliberately inflicted, caused by indiscriminate attacks and avoidable with feasible precautions.

In our professional opinion, Israeli actions in Gaza reflected a consistent and good-faith commitment to respect and implement these LOAC principles.

As we've noted numerous times, modern wars involve messaging no less than munitions. The report shows that Israeli officials are almost resigned to the fact that the world will report unfairly anyway, but that doesn't mean they should give up improving how they get the truth across. The spokespeople should be involved nearly as much as the lawyers are in determining how to target and what information needs to be available instantly after an operation.

11/14 Links: Peace-Processing Like Its 1993; Did US cover up airstrikes in Syria? What does it mean for Israel, ICC?; Documentary on worst antisemitic attack in US shows courage under fire

From Ian:

Peace-Processing Like Its 1993

The Palestinian Authority incites against Jews and Israelis, pays “salaries” to terrorists in violation of US law, and in an ultimatum in September, PA strongman Mahmoud Abbas told Israel: “Our patience and the patience of our people have limits. This is our land, our Jerusalem, our Palestinian identity, and we shall defend it until the occupier leaves.” Hamas fired more than 4,000 rockets into Israeli towns and villages.

And yet, according to Ross, the onus is on Israel. It is incumbent on the government in Jerusalem to “show it is doing its part to reduce friction, make life better, enhance movement, and preserve an outcome other than a single, binational state.”

And Israel had better get on with it — for its own sake, of course — lest it face the rise of left-wing anti-Israelism in Congress and pressure from the administration.

A more worthwhile approach would recognize that the world has changed since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. Since then, the Palestinians have proven themselves corrupt, incompetent, and dictatorial in the governance of their own people in the Gaza Strip and in Judea and Samaria. They have taught their children that Israel will disappear and that the land will be liberated by brave Palestinian children, many of whom will die in the effort — but that’s OK with their parents. Hamas fires its weapons into civilian centers in Israel (a war crime) and places its weapons amid its own civilian population to maximize Palestinian casualties that can be blamed on Israel (another war crime). They have maintained a state of war against Israel, even as Israel permits 130,000 Palestinians to work in Israel every day.

But still, Israel has to do something, says Ross.

But it did. The actual genius of the Abraham Accords is that Israel allows countries with a progressive attitude towards their own people’s health and well-being to operate freely and remove the artificial barrier to Arab-Israeli cooperation in fields from tourism to defense to scientific endeavor. All the Palestinians have to do is be as forward-thinking as the United Arab Emirates, as open-minded as Morocco, as welcoming as Bahrain, and as realistic as Sudan.

Then we can peace process like its 2021.

Biden’s Israel Policy and America’s ‘Course Correction’

Biden’s persistent and inappropriate pressure on Israel to open a consulate in Jerusalem for Palestinians will also be a wedge issue. Such a move would not only be a violation of American law; it would be a waste of the American taxpayers’ money, since the US embassy in Jerusalem already performs all the functions that the proposed consulate is supposed to perform.

It would also divide Jerusalem — something that, for the past 50 years, Biden has said he’d never do. He also had his State Department criticize Israel for giving the green light to building 3,140 housing units in Judea and Samaria. His administration also gave Israel a hard time over designating six Palestinian NGOs that are fronts for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as terrorist organizations.

Biden will find out that all of the above factors will hurt him significantly in the midterm elections. This reality is coming into sharper focus with each passing day.

Did US cover up airstrikes in Syria? What does it mean for Israel, ICC? - analysis

The dust still has not settled following the stunning New York Times exposure this weekend of a series of US airstrikes on an ISIS camp in Baghuz, Syria on March 18, 2019, which may have killed dozens of civilians.

But the smell is awful and allegations of war crimes and a cover-up are in the air.

Of course, there are major differences between emotional reactions and legal analysis when it comes to the tragic killing of civilians in the midst of the fog of war.

If the narrative provided by official US spokespeople regarding the incident is accurate, there may not have been any war crimes.

According to US defense establishment claims, there was an imminent attack on Syrian Democratic Forces allies who desperately needed aircover. ISIS had unleashed a counter-attack from its camp including a mix of armed attackers and mobile suicide bombers.

Moreover, large numbers of civilians had fled in anticipation of further US attacks on one of ISIS’s few remaining strongholds. So those who remained were viewed as very hardcore.

PM on Israelis detained in Turkey: ‘Innocent citizens, we are doing all we can’

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said at the opening of Sunday’s cabinet meeting that he was working to secure the release of an Israeli couple detained in Turkey for taking photographs of the president’s palace.

“They are two innocent citizens who accidentally got into a complicated situation,” Bennett said. “I spoke with the family yesterday and we are doing everything we can to resolve the issue. I ask the family, despite the great difficulty, to be strong. We are with you. Beyond that, it wouldn’t be right to expand [on the matter] at the moment.”

Turkish authorities detained Natali and Mordy Oknin, residents of Modiin, on Thursday for photographing Erdogan’s palace in Istanbul. The couple and their family insist they did not know it was illegal to do so.

Earlier on Sunday, Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid held urgent consultations on the issue.

Bennett and Lapid reviewed the efforts made over the weekend and agreed to continue to work to find a solution as soon as possible. Foreign Ministry Director General Alon Ushpiz, National Security Council head Eyal Hulata and other officials participated in the talks.

Lapid is leading the effort to secure the couple’s release and is in talks with Israel’s consular representative in Ankara.

Turkey considers charges against Israeli tourist couple

Interview with Amb. Alon Liel, former Head of Israeli Diplomatic Mission to Turkey.

Prosecutors considering espionage charges against Israeli nationals for taking photos of presidential palace

Prosecutors in Turkey say that they are weighing charges of espionage against an Israeli couple detained in Istanbul for taking photographs of the president's palace.

The couple could still face the lesser charge of engaging in acts that harm the country's national security, according to Israeli TV reports.

Business site Globes (Hebrew) reports that while the Saudis are not interested at this point in joining the Abraham Accords or to make relations with Israel official, they want to reap some of the benefits without risking angering the Arab street.

According to the report, the Saudis are ready to promote commercial, economic and civil relations with Israel.

Examples include additional transportation agreements and promotion of joint ventures in countries that already have relations with Israel.

A political source in Saudi Arabia told Globes that the business, government and private sectors have been given the green light to trade with Israeli companies, at this moment age through Bahrain and the Emirates. While there have already been some transactions of that kind in recent months, this green light is expected to expand the initiative and reduce any hesitation that Saudi businesses might have had.

It is yet another Abraham Accords breakthrough that Israel-haters hate to admit.

(h/t Yoel)

Palestine Online tweeted:

Villages?

No one claims that there was more than one village there, Umm al-Rashrash so we immediately see the lie.

According to Zochrot, which claims to catalogue all of the "depopulated Palestinian" towns, it had a population of 50. It has several photos of the area, all taken by the Israeli Palmach on March 10, 1949, the day it was conquered: three mud huts that comprised the British police station in the area and photos of the IDF raising a hand-drawn Israeli flag on top of the same British police station.

The British police station was empty when Israeli forces took it. Transjordan claimed a skirmish between Israeli troops and its forces near Aqaba, but apparently they hugely exaggerated a couple of pot shots taken by the Jordanians when a patrol hastily withdrew from the area which was never within Transjordan's borders.

Where was the village and the villagers?

I cannot find any photos of them. I can't even find evidence that such a village existed at the time.

Accounts of Israel's Operation Uvda, the last ditch effort to control the Negev before permanent borders were drawn, do not mention any village or Arabs leaving the area.

Wikipedia mentions evidence of people living there in the 7th millenium BCE and during the Umayyad reign, but nothing between then and the building of the British police post there.

Eduard Rüppell, a German explorer, drew a detailed map of the region in 1822 and showed no village where Umm al-Rashrash had been.

Modern Eilat is located between the mountain "Gatal Mahamar" and the area labelled "marais saumâtre" (brackish marsh).

The Wikipedia page of "List of towns and villages depopulated during the 1947–1949 Palestine war" says the village had a population of 46, and it bases this (and all other statistics on the page) on Salman Abu Sitta's 2010 Atlas of Palestine.

The Abu Sitta Atlas, in turn, says that its detailed list of villages is based on the British Mandate government's publication Village Statistics. Jerusalem: Government Printer, 1945 and a 1970 PLO publication, Sami Hadawi, Village Statistics 1945, A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine, With Explanatory Notes, Facts and Figures No.34. Beirut: PLO Research Center, September

1970.

The original Village Statistics does not mention Umm Rashrash. Here is what ist says about the population of every village in the Beersheba (Negev) District from 1945:

The 1970 Sami Hadawi book publishes a slightly different version:

While there are over 47,000 Bedouins in the Negev, there is no indication whatsoever of any settlement in Umm al-Rashrash.

Abu Sitta's own table said that there was a population of 38 - among various other purported Negev villages with the unlikely coincidence of exactly the same number of people.

It is hard to escape the idea that most of these statistics - and even communities - are simply made up.

Israel Magazine 1974: Vol 6 Issue 3 has an article about how important the Negev was to David Ben-Gurion, especially access to the Red Sea. It describes Umm al-Rashrash as three mud huts - the same huts used by the British police (including their living quarters.) It described the area as "a place usually avoided even by desert dwellers."

British Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, fretting over the possibility of Israel gaining a foothold at the Red Sea, described the entire area as a "purely tribal area," - meaning, no permanent villages. (Quoted in Benny Morris' Road to Jerusalem.)

I've seen some sources say that Umm al-Rashrash was a place for Egyptians to rest on their way to Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage, and that it was also called Bet El Hujaj (House of the Pilgrims.) But I cannot find any source for an actual permanent village in Umm al-Rashrash in the 20th century before Israel built Eilat there.

If I'm right, then how many of the hundreds of Arab villages supposedly destroyed by Israel have been made up or exaggerated?

If anyone can find evidence of this village that Israel supposedly depopulated, let me know. I'll happily update this.

(h/t Jim W)

UPDATE: Irene notices what looks like they might be buildings in the distance on the right of this photo.

It is hard to tell, to me one structure on the left of the detail seems large enough to be a residence (and it appears to have a roof overhang) and the others might be animal shelters.But it is so fuzzy, they could be vehicles as well.