In February 2016, BDS South Africa praised a decision to cancel a water crisis conference that was scheduled to take place in Johannesburg.
BDS South Africa said at the time it was pleased “the rug has been pulled from the Israeli ambassador, who will not be able to exploit our very serious water crises for his own cheap publicity and whitewashing of his regime. Israel water technology is not unique or special; such technology is widely available through other more friendly countries.”
Two years later, South Africa is experiencing a major water crisis. Unless a last-minute solution is found, Cape Town will soon have the dubious honor of becoming one of the few – if not the first – developed cities in the world to run out of water.
On April 12, known as “Day Zero,” water reservoirs across the city are expected to hit 13.5% of capacity – at which point, according to Mayor Patricia de Lille, taps will be turned off and severe rationing will begin.
Once “Day Zero” hits, Cape Town’s 3.7 million residents will have to travel to one of 200 water collection points to collect their daily water rations: 25 liters per person.
If, two years ago, or even earlier, South Africa had put aside its self-defeating boycott of Israel, could it have avoided “Day Zero”? Perhaps. What is undeniable is that South Africa is in no position to refuse help from Israel, a world leader in desalination, water recycling, water preservation and irrigation.
The Z Street application was at first delayed, then frozen, because the IRS claimed as a defense, that Israel was viewed as a “terrorist entity,” and a country “with terrorism.”
Many of us suspected that Obama’s administration had politicized Homeland Security, the DOJ, the FBI, and the American relationship to the United Nations in ways that favored Islamism, Islamic terrorism, Palestine, Iran, and that demonized Zionism and Israel’s attempts at self-defense.
Z STREET”s successful lawsuit exposes how the Obama administration, through its power to grant or withhold tax-exempt status to groups, politicized and corrupted a policy of even-handedness, transparency, and accountability at the IRS.
Like the Western media, professoriate, international organizations, and very much like an Islamic world view, the American IRS viewed Israel, especially Israelis who lived “across the Green Line—the nonborder that delineates pre-1967 Israel from the territories it acquired in the Six Day War” as related to “terrorism” or as “terrorists.”
According to Marcus, "Our own investigation disclosed that between 2009 and 2016, while Z STREET’s application was stalled, the IRS needed no special scrutiny to grant numerous applications for tax-exempt status that explicitly proclaimed donations would be spent in Gaza—a territory formally under the jurisdiction of Hamas, which the U.S. State Department designates as a terror organization."
According to Marcus, in a personal interview, the following is merely a sampling of not-for-profits, which she obtained via Guidestar; the IRS had okayed these “charities” during the period that Z STREET’s application remained pending.
If Republican lawmakers held strategy sessions with David Duke, the party would be held to account.
Hillary Clinton tried to make Louis Farrakhan an issue when she ran against Barack Obama in 2008. The Nation of Islam leader—infamous for calling Judaism a “gutter religion”—had praised the future president as “the hope of the entire world.” In a February debate, Mrs. Clinton demanded that Mr. Obama reject Mr. Farrakhan’s support, insisting: “There’s a difference between denouncing and rejecting.” Mr. Obama obliged and added: “There’s no formal offer of help from Minister Farrakhan that would involve me rejecting it.”
Three years earlier, Mr. Obama posed for a photo with Mr. Farrakhan at a Congressional Black Caucus gathering. The photographer, journalist Askia Muhammad, told the liberal site Talking Points Memo that a CBC staffer contacted him “sort of in a panic” about the photo. “I promised and made arrangements to give the picture to Leonard Farrakhan, ” Louis Farrakhan’s son-in-law and chief of staff. But he kept a copy, which he released last week.
Mrs. Clinton might have become president had the photo come out a decade earlier. It isn’t clear from the photo to what degree Mr. Obama was associated with Mr. Farrakhan. But the Congressional Black Caucus’s association is scandalous. Its members have met with Mr. Farrakhan on at least one other occasion.
Matthew Finkelstein, in hat, and Susan George (right) from Vallejo,
and other members of Oakland United Against Hate,
protest outside of Reem's California bakery in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday, January 28, 2018.
They are protesting a mural of Rasmea Odeh located inside of the bakery.
(Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
Last Sunday, on the afternoon of January 28, about fifty people arrived at the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland, California, for the purpose of staring at one another across a notoriously ugly, racially-grounded, political divide. The problem revolves around Reem's Cafe...or, as I like to think of it, Reem Assil's Racist Flatbread and Terror Joint. For emotional reasons of her own, political activist Reem Assil has taken it upon herself to introduce Jew hatred into the Oakland culinary scene by featuring a floor-to-ceiling image of anti-Jewish murderer, Rasmea Odeh in her little bakery/cafe near a major Bay Area transportation hub. Odeh, along with her partner, Aisha Odeh and their friends within the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), killed 21-year-old Leon Kanner of Netanya, Israel, and 22-year-old Eddie Joffe on February 21, 1969, in a Jerusalem grocery. Both were college students. I find it profoundly disconcerting that within living memory of the Shoah - the genocide of the Jews - the very city that I live in, a city that proudly claims itself against race hate is perfectly comfortable... with race hate. What the City of Oakland is showing the rest of the United States is that urinating on Jews is just fine and that honoring the murderers of innocent Jews in a public manner is a righteous matter of "social justice." So on that perfectly beautiful Sunday afternoon those who despise Israel sat with Reem Assil in the cafe - in a closed, RSVP-Only event - and discussed with professor Sunaina Maira (UC Davis), author of Boycott!: The Academy and Justice for Palestine, how best to eliminate Jewish self-determination and self-defense from the world stage. Jewish people and friends of Jewish people - maybe twenty of us total - stood outside in the courtyard beside the leadership of Faith Meltzer, Susan George, and Matthew Finkelstein.
Faith Meltzer and Lara Kiswani
In a video for the East Bay Times under an article entitled, Palestinian mural protesters, bakery backers face off in Oakland, reporter George Kelly gives his readership clips of statements by pro-Jewish / pro-Israel advocate Faith Meltzer, for Oakland Unified Against Hate, and anti-Zionist activist Lara Kiswani who writes for the anti-Zionist online journal, Electronic Intifada.
George Kelly: Did the group begin in response to Reem's opening? Faith Meltzer: Only in response to the mural. Reem's has had a presence in the farmers' market. My family has actually eaten there. And it is only since this mural of Rasmea Odeh that we realized that this was something that we needed to mobilize against because this is the glorification of terror and violence in our community. (My emphasis.) Lara Kiswani: Today there is an event here that is put on by Sunaina Maira who published a book through the University of California about the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement... And so, because of the event and the subject matter is about BDS, boycott, divestment, and sanctions, Israel, and that is we are being critical of apartheid and the colonialist state of Israel at this time, the demonstrators have called for another protest today.
Kiswani also refers to the Jewish people and friends of Jewish people who object to the mural of a Jew murderer as "racist." The fundamental difference between Meltzer and Kiswani - aside from the fact that Meltzer cares about the well-being of the tiny Jewish minority around the world and Kiswani obviously does not - is that Meltzer wants to organize against the murder and hatred of Jewish people while Kiswani, despite her best intentions, promotes it. Kiswani favors opposing Israel (i.e., the Jewish people) by any means necessary. She calls us apartheid-enthusiasts and colonialists on the very land of our own heritage, the very land where Jewish identity was forged. This would be like calling indigenous Métis activist Ryan Bellerose a colonist in Alberta.
George and Finkelstein Demonstrate the Failure of Liberalism within Progressive-Left anti-Zionism
While Meltzer stood before the press directly prior to the vigil/protest at Reem's, Susan George and Matthew Finkelstein endeavored to talk to Reem's anti-liberal supporters. The most important moment in this entire event came when Finkelstein and George requested that those who faced us actually speak with us. They wanted to know just why it is that as progressives and Democrats and alleged liberals they were standing up for a retail establishment that venerates the murdering of Jewish people? We can unpack that question... we can put it into the nicest possible terms... but we can only do so through dialogue and dialogue is the very foundation of Enlightenment liberalism. But make no mistake, as recent polling definitively shows, the progressive-left and the Democratic Party honestly believes that the Jews in the Middle East deserve a good ass-kicking. Look at these numbers:
According to 2018 Pew polling, 79 percent of Republicans sympathize more with Israel - by which they essentially mean the Jews - than they do with the Palestinian-Arabs. Only 27 percent of Democrats do so. That is a tough fact, but it is a fact that must be acknowledged. Another fact that must be acknowledged is that the progressive-left, in the United States, is straying well beyond liberalism. You cannot be a liberal if you refuse to engage in discourse and what Susan George and Matthew Finkelstein showed us is that the other side refuses to engage in honest dialogue.
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A decision by the Jordanian government to open administrative offices in Jerusalem that will allow residents of the holy city to renew their documents including their passports has been well received by Jerusalem’s Palestinians who hold Jordanian travel documents.
Palestinians living in Jerusalem are considered residents of the city yet they are not citizens of any state. They are neither citizens of Palestine, Israel nor Jordan, but are allowed to carry Jordanian travel documents. In the past, Palestinians in Jerusalem needing to renew a travel document or file a birth or marriage certificate had to travel across the King Hussein Bridge to Jordanian Interior Ministry offices in Amman. Israeli-issued permits to exit across the bridge (costing NIS 230) and an exit tax (around NIS 180) amount to around $120 per person. The fee for a passport is JD200 ($282). Some of these costly fees can be removed or reduced simply by bureaucratic decisions of the various parties responsible for the bridge crossings.
Fawaz Shahwan, head of the Civil Affairs Department at the Interior Ministry, said on Jordanian state television on January 22 that Jerusalemites will soon be able to process personal documents without having to travel to Jordan to do so.
Shahwan described the change in Jordanian policy “as part of King Abdullah’s interest in Jerusalem’s holy places and the people of Jerusalem, these services are being made to help strengthen the steadfastness of the people of Jerusalem in their city”.
Kuttab adds in Al-Monitor that "Jordanian officials plan to open offices in Jerusalem as part of the Jordanian Waqf."
Israel doesn't allow any Palestinian government offices in Jerusalem, it seems odd that they might allow this administrative part of Jordan's government to operate there as well, especially as part of the Waqf, which is a religious institution. There is a Jordanian liaison office in Ramallah, I'm not sure why that cannot be the place to renew passports.
It would be interesting to see an official Israeli reaction to this story.
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The Palestine Liberation Organization’s top leadership opened the way to suspending its recognition of Israel on Saturday, but stopped short of ordering the drastic measure immediately.
Withdrawing the PLO’s 1988 recognition would threaten decades of Israeli relations with the moderate Palestinian leadership and raise doubts over security coordination between the two.
It would also be seen as a fatal blow to the two-state solution.
The PLO’s Executive Committee released a statement after a three-hour meeting Saturday saying it would set up a committee to study the derecognition move.
The body also called for the Palestinian Authority to cut off all ties with Israel, including security coordination in the West Bank.
The executive committee urged Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to “immediately start preparing plans and projects for disengagement steps with the Israeli occupation government at the political, administrative, economic, and security levels.”
The disengagement plans will be presented to the PLO Executive Committee for approval, the statement said, without setting a deadline.
From everything I can see, the PLO's leaders (which means the PA's leaders) honestly believe that the world will impose their will on Israel. They are willing to bet their existence, and their people's autonomy, on it.
Boy, have they misjudged things. Again.
The Arab world no longer cares about them. Egypt and Jordan, the two nations that they think are the most on their side, rely on Israel for their defense. The Saudis and the rest of the Gulf have been so hostile that Palestinian pundits have already written them off.
The think that UN votes indicate real support for them - it doesn't. There are lots of real refugees and real problems in the world, and a whiny wanna-be nation that refuses to talk to Israel is not in the world'd top 500 problems. Their ability to gain an automatic majority in the General Assembly or UNHRC is meaningless in the real world.
They think Europe is on their side. To an extent, that's true, but the EU is not nearly as relevant as it pretends to be in the Middle East.
They think that BDS is making serious inroads to hurting Israel. It isn't. There has always been a tiny but noisy minority of antisemites that have complained about Israel and its alleged human rights abuses since 1948. Most people think they are crackpots.
The PLO, seeing the world through their own media that won't report the truth, is vastly overestimating how much the world cares about them. And all the while, Israel is making friends around the world - not so much in the halls of the UN but in real terms, with business dealings and exports and shared interests.
This decision to undo Oslo will be a historic mistake, just as deciding to take over Jordan in 1970 or supporting Saddam Hussein was.
This is not going to end well for the PLO.
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While claiming to be investigating Z Street’s funding of terror, the IRS never asked how or where Z Street spent its money. The IRS ultimately granted Z Street’s application, in October 2016, without asking anything about terror, or money, or anything else it hadn’t known in 2010.
As the IRS knew within six weeks of our case being filed, Z Street was sent for special scrutiny by an IRS employee using an outdated list of countries affected by terror. The new list didn’t include Israel. The IRS didn’t resume processing our application after it discovered this error, and it didn’t disclose the error for six years. Because we sued, the IRS froze Z Street’s application. It stayed on ice until August 2016, when a court held the IRS couldn’t get our case thrown out until it processed our application. Two months later we got our exemption.
The “terror” error turns out to have been a pretext. Within weeks of President Obama’s inauguration, IRS and State Department officials began considering whether they could deny or revoke tax-exempt status for organizations that provided material support to Jews living across the Green Line—the nonborder that delineates pre-1967 Israel from the territories Israel acquired in the Six Day War. The theory was that a Jewish presence in those areas is inconsistent with U.S. policy. The IRS drew up lists of such organizations based on information from anti-Israel websites such as Electronic Intifada and MondoWeiss.
The New York Times and the Washington Post ran articles that advanced the policy espoused by the Obama administration and its nonprofit ally, J Street. Unnamed “senior State Department officials” were quoted as saying that Jewish activity over the Green Line isn’t “helpful” to peace efforts. (h/t Esther)
A European Union report leaked to The Guardian newspaper expressed ire over Israeli tourism in and around Jerusalem’s Old City, calling the ongoing development of Jewish infrastructure a form of “touristic settlement.”
The EU Heads of Mission in Jerusalem issued a report warning that the development of Jewish tourism in the ancient City of David, currently located within a heavily populated Palestinian neighborhood, and a planned cable car that would transport tourists from the Western sections of the city to the Western Wall plaza within the Old City, were “a political tool to modify the historical narrative and to support, legitimize, and expand settlements.” The report asserts that the projects promote the “historic continuity of the Jewish presence in the area at the expense of other religions and cultures.”
The cable car, which EU diplomats have dubbed “highly controversial,” is anticipated to be operational by 2020, and is being erected to ease traffic on the narrow streets surrounding Jerusalem’s Old City, and drastically reducing travel time. An estimated 25,000 people are expected to utilize the system per day.
Additionally, the report states that, “critics have described the project as turning the World Heritage site of Jerusalem into a commercial theme park while local Palestinian residents are absent from the narrative being promoted to the visitors.” The further suggested that the cable car project would pose a security threat, as one of the cable car stations would be a little over 420 feet from the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif site administered by the Jordanian Wakf.
Over 30 registered World Heritage sites around the world are accessible via cable car systems.
Nor can liberals claim that opposition to the recognition of Jerusalem merely puts them on the same page as opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Backing for Trump on this point was a consensus issue in Israel for every party with the exception of the very far left and the anti-Zionist Arab factions. With both Labor and the centrist Yesh Atid backing the president’s gesture, it’s hard for Democrats to say they’re simply being liberal Zionists by refusing to acknowledge that Trump did the right thing on Jerusalem.
In that context, it ought to be possible for Democrats to cheer a move that they would have supported had it come from a president from their own party. But in the bifurcated America of 2018, there is no such thing as a bipartisan issue anymore. Though Trump’s relentless trolling of his opponents on Twitter has exacerbated this trend, Democratic opposition to the president is so deep and bitter that they feel that endorsing anything he does legitimizes his presidency. Since their base is hoping a Democratic win in the November midterms will lead to impeachment, Jerusalem is just one more issue on which they will never give Trump credit, even if many of them don’t disagree with him.
There are reasons why Democrats are drifting away from Israel that have nothing to do with Trump. But the more their leaders send signals that treat pro-Israel gestures as being unacceptable if they mean applauding Trump, the worse it will get.
It was a disconcerting sight when Democrats all sat while Republicans stood to applaud the mention of Jerusalem as well as Trump’s vow to cut off aid to those — like the Palestinians — who oppose US policy. But friends of Israel shouldn’t draw too many conclusions from it. So long as Trump is president, their opposition to his reversal of Obama’s daylight policy is rooted in partisanship and not necessarily animus toward Israel. It will be up to Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — who was one of the few who did stand for Jerusalem — to help their party separate its emotions about Trump from Israel. But so long as Trump is sticking close to Israel, this won’t be the last time that Democrats send the country a message that this is not an issue on which they are prepared to set aside partisan feuds.
Last week I asked my readers to come up with captions for this photo:
A protester sits in a chair in front of a barricade during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, near the West Bank city of Ramallah December 17, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
The best ones:
One of the many Palestinians that are stuck in wheel-chairs as a consequence of the occupation regime's violence. (DHL)
"No, guys, you go ahead without me. I have to finish this expense report for the Raïs." (Thag)
"Honey, the Mossad stole my desk ... again." (dabney)
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If there were any doubt about the need for Congress to pass the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, it was erased yesterday when the United Nations’ Office for the High Commissioner on Human Rights issued a report about companies doing business in the West Bank. The Geneva-based UN agency said it was examining the activities of 206 companies that are connected to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Though it didn’t name the companies, the intent was clear. The goal of the effort is to establish a list endorsed by the international community that would make it possible to boycott the 143 Israeli and 22 U.S companies cited as well as others.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein. Credit: U.N. Photo/Pierre Albouy.
UN Ambassador Nikki Haley was right to denounce the step as a waste of time and evidence of the UN’s anti-Israel obsession. But with this step, Congress’s obligation is also made clear. If it doesn’t pass the bill updating and expanding existing legislation banning discriminatory commercial boycotts of Israel, some Americans will be effectively boxed out of international commerce.
But while this ought to add urgency to the effort to pass a law that will stop the BDS — boycott, divest, sanction — movement from discriminating against Israelis and Jews in this fashion, the campaign on its behalf is bogged down by two deceptive arguments.
The first is the claim that boycotts of the settlements are both legally and morally distinct from boycotts of Israel as a whole.
The second is the assertion that the Anti-Boycott Act is an attempt to prohibit constitutionally protected free speech.
The fury was because many don’t accept that antisemitism is utterly deranged. Unspeakably, they believe the bad stuff said about the Jews is actually true and that the Holocaust has unjustly shielded them from rational complaint.
That’s why, when Jews call the anti-Israel madness “the new antisemitism,” they are accused of trying to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel. Their accusers actually think that claims such as the Jews have too much power/manipulate American foreign policy/further their own interests at the expense of others’ lives and so on are merely criticisms of true Jewish characteristics.
It was not enough, however, for other groups just to claim victim status. They had to knock the Jews off their victim perch altogether.
That’s because the Jews really are the world’s ultimate victims. So false “victims” had to deny Jewish victimization order to continue their dishonest leverage of guilt. Those who have made most murderous use of this strategy are of course the “Palestinians.”
So antisemitism, the most lethal bigotry in the world, became the prejudice that dare not speak its name. Those who continued to draw attention to it found themselves either ignored or deplored. Those who connived at or gave cover to it came to dominate the universities and media and culture – and one became president of the United States for eight years.
And now some of those who supported him are shocked – shocked! – to discover that their hero had feet of poisoned clay.
A pro-Israel organization that found its nonprofit status subjected to undue scrutiny by the Obama administration's IRS as a result of its advocacy on the Jewish state's behalf reached a settlement Thursday with the Department of Justice that included a formal apology from the U.S. government for subjecting the group to unfair treatment, according to an announcement.
The Trump administration's DOJ announced Tuesday that it had reached a settlement with Z Street, a conservative pro-Israel advocacy group that sued the government over allegations the Obama administration subjected the organization to unfair scrutiny as a result of its pro-Israel views. Z Street was just one of several conservative organizations to sue the U.S. government.
The case had been locked in court since 2015, when judges rejected the Obama administration's claims that it did not act improperly.
"Z Street alleged that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) applied heightened scrutiny to applications for tax-exempt status received from organizations connected in any way to Israel, and applied this policy to Z Street's application, resulting in delay," the Justice Department announced in a press release. "The settlement agreement includes an apology from the IRS to Z Street for the delayed processing of the group's application for tax-exempt status."
DOJ lawyers issued a formal apology to the group over its unfair treatment and vowed equal treatment for groups of all political stripes.
What is your impression of the reaction to Ahed Tamimi’s slapping of an Israeli soldier?
Gottlieb: The response to Ahed Tamimi’s slap by many Jewish people reveals the sexist and racist attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that impact a large portion of the Jewish community. The vile accusations against this child are stunning. Their purpose is to flip the script on Palestinian suffering and blame the victim instead of assuming responsibility.
I wonder: who would not slap a soldier after years of trauma as a result of recurring night invasions, administrative detentions with no possibility for justice or a fair hearing, daily destruction of village houses, and direct assaults, one of which targets your cousin in the head?
If the IDF was indeed an army that had no moral compass, then slapping a soldier should result in an instant fatal gunshot. Hell, no soldier on the planet outside of Israel would stand there and let a young woman physically assault him without reaction. They would defend themselves by hurting or killing the attacker.
The question isn't who wouldn't slap a soldier - but who would slap a soldier? Nobody on Earth except for Palestinians, who can act with such impunity because they know, first hand, that Israeli soldiers do not target civilians even when provoked.
And to say that for the girl to be arrested for assault - captured on tape - is sexist and racist? That is beyond stupid. It is just throwing keywords at the wall and seeing what her leftist buddies will think sticks.
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On Tuesday in Bethlehem, the Palestinians demonstrated the choice the Americans now face in their dealings with Fatah – the supposedly moderate PLO faction that controls the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. President Donald Trump and his advisers can play by Fatah’s rules or they can walk away.
On Tuesday a delegation of diplomats from the US Consulate in Jerusalem came to Bethlehem to participate in a meeting of the local chamber of commerce. When they arrived in the city, Fatah members attacked them. Their vehicles with diplomatic license plates were pelted with tomatoes and eggs by a mob of protesters calling out anti-American slogans.
After the Americans entered the hall where the meeting was scheduled to take place, some of the rioters barged in. They held placards condemning America and they shouted, “Americans Out!”
Some of the demonstrators cursed the Palestinians present, accusing them of treason for participating in a meeting with Americans. According to the news reports, the scene became tense and violent. The American officials beat a speedy retreat. As they departed the city, the Fatah rioters continued attacking their cars, kicking them and throwing eggs at them, until they were gone.
The attack on Tuesday was a natural progression.
On Saturday, Fatah members in Bethlehem-area UN camps convened to carry out a very public “people’s tribunal.” Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were tried for “racism” and “bias” against the Palestinians.
The “tribunal” found them guilty and sentenced the president and vice president to death by hanging. Their bodies, the “judges” decided, were to be burned.
In the event, the crowd burned effigies of Trump and Pence.
The implication of the “trial” was clear. Americans like Israelis should be killed.
Bennett-Erekat debate with Christian Amanpour on CNN
A year ago it looked like Donald Trump was going to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Some of his closest advisers pushed for it. U.S. allies like Egypt quietly made the case too. Many Republicans in Congress also believed the movement that created political Islam should be treated like al Qaeda.
It didn't happen. Trump administration officials tell me the initial proposal last year to designate the entire Muslim Brotherhood, which includes chapters and offshoots in countries all over the world, stalled out. By the time the White House approved its national security strategy in December, it didn't even mention the Muslim Brotherhood by name.
Instead the Trump administration has settled on a more refined approach, seeking to designate violent chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists, but not going after the entire organization. As the national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, told reporters in December: "We will be evaluating each organization on its own terms. The organization is not monolithic or homogenous."
In some ways this approach is not new. The Obama administration managed to reach out to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt after the Arab Spring in 2011, and nonetheless treat its Palestinian wing, Hamas, as terrorists. There are no plans for the Trump administration to attempt to find common ground with the Muslim Brotherhood, U.S. officials tell me. But the administration is getting more aggressive against the Brotherhood's violent affiliates.
The evidence linking Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah to the 2012 bomb attack in Burgas, Bulgaria, is undeniable.
Yet, astoundingly, the Bulgarian state prosecution does not even mention the word “Hezbollah” in its indictment of the two living men allegedly involved in the attack. Nor does the indictment mention that the bombing, which left five Israelis and their Bulgarian bus driver dead and 32 Israelis wounded, was an act of terrorism.
Why would Bulgaria’s prosecutor leave out the terrorist dimension of the attack and omit the involvement of Hezbollah?
Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Bulgaria’s interior minister at the time of the attack, announced in 2012, “We have established that the two [accused] were members of the militant wing of the Hezbollah.” He added, “There is data showing the financing and connection between Hezbollah and the two suspects.” Tsvetanov’s successor made similar comments.
In 2013, then-foreign minister of Bulgaria Nikolay Mladenov said the government would not have issued a statement linking Hezbollah to the Burgas bombing if it did not have evidence.
Europol, which coordinates policing across the 27 European Union states, has linked Hezbollah to the attack. So has the US.
Three Hezbollah terrorists were involved: the bomber, Lebanese-French national Muhammad Hassan El-Husseini, who died in the explosion, and two additional suspects: Lebanese-Australian Meliad Farah and Lebanese-Canadian Hassan El Hajj Hassan, who fled to Lebanon where the country’s political leaders have ignored Bulgaria’s extradition requests.
The Bulgarian prosecutor’s strange unwillingness to implicate Hezbollah in the bombing is reminiscent of a recent Politico report on the Obama administration’s purported intentional obstruction of investigations by the US’s Drug Enforcement Administration into drug trafficking and money laundering by Hezbollah.
According to the Politico report, in its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran and out of a realization that going after Hezbollah at a time when the US was negotiating with its patron might kill the deal, the Obama administration purposely stymied the investigations, which were code-named Project Cassandra.
Mahmoud Abbas, from website of the
President of the Russian Federation
On January 14, at a meeting of the Palestinian Central Council in Ramallah,Abbas reacted - badly - with a major tantrum that lasted for over 2 hours. It was televised, yet covered only partially by the western media. Aside from conjuring up a number of historical fabrications undercutting Israel's historical ties and rights to Israel, Abbas went so far as to curse Trump: “May God demolish your house.”
If he was figuring on getting Trump to backtrack or get some other kind of concession, Abbas miscalculated. Instead, there were those who saw the tirade as revealing the growing weakness of the Palestinian Authority.
Time has come for Israel and the US to tell PLO that the game is up. With or without Abbas, PLO is a dead man walking and is in no position to demand anything from anyone. Only a mad megalomaniac despot living in fantasyland, issues threats to powerful nations like the US and Israel.
They [the Palestinian Authority] actually are losing all the direction. They have no idea what to do now because they have no agenda. Everything which they believed in turned out to be actually nothing and this frustration I think will bring the end of the Palestinian Authority.
Roger Cohen, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times and no fan of either Netanyahu or Trump, writes that It’s Time for Mahmoud Abbas to Go. He notes what he considers the intransigence of Netanyahu and the danger of Trump --
But even in this environment, Mahmoud Abbas, the 82-year-old Palestinian president, cannot escape responsibility for failure. His government is now widely seen as a corrupt gerontocracy. It is inept, remote, self-serving and ever more authoritarian. Elected to a four-year term in January 2005, he’s entering the 14th year of a largely unaccountable presidency.
And Bill Maher on his show Real Time flat out agreed with Trump's decision on Jerusalem: "I hate to agree with Donald Trump, but it doesn’t happen often, but I do."
[W]e delivered a letter today to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestinian refugees in the Near East – UNRWA. We committed a voluntary contribution of $60 million for 2018 so far. This will be divided into tranches. Sixty million is what we have indicated as the first available tranche. That money is going to sustain schools and health services to ensure that teachers and also health care providers can be paid their salaries. One of the reasons we decided to do this is that we felt that not providing that money would run the risk of having the organization and the people there run out of funds and that those entities would have to be potentially closed down.
...We have people on the ground who take a look at some of the UNRWA activities and things they do, how the money is being spent. And one of the things this administration would like to do, just as we talk about UN reform, is take a look at UNRWA, trying to make sure that the money is best spent and best spent so that people can get the services, whether it’s school or the health care services, that they need.
If Trump's recognition of Jerusalem and promise of an embassy move was not enough, this announcement was yet another indication that change was in the air. Trump was going to back up the things he said. In the Middle East at least, there were going to be consequences -- this time for those who opposed US interests and not for those who were its allies.
Compared with 8 years of Obama, this came across as a novel approach.
At the Middle East Forum, Gregg Roman wrote that Trump Is Right to Cut Funding to UNRWA, but he also saw this as part of actual Trump policy in the Middle East:
Asked about the decision, the State Department said deliberations are ongoing about how to move forward. This presents a tremendous opportunity, but it will take more bold action by the White House. The administration must continue to hold the Palestinians accountable for their rejectionism.
Like Trump's December move on Jerusalem, this represents a bold step that is long overdue. UNRWA, the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, long has needed reform, but with Palestinian leadership unwilling to even feign serious commitment to peace, it's probably time to scrap the agency altogether. It stands in the way of peace.
But Trump was not finished yet.
At Davos on January 25, Trump announced that not only is Jerusalem the capital of Israel - now Trump was going to take the issue of Jerusalem off the table altogether:
Trump said he was removing the issue of Jerusalem as a negotiating point: "They never got past Jerusalem. We took it off the table. We don’t have to talk about it anymore” -- contrary to what he originally said in December.
At the same time, Trump made clear removing Jerusalem from the negotiations would eventually require a concession from the Israeli side. He told Netanyahu, “You won one point, and you’ll give up some other points later on in the negotiation — if it ever takes place. I don’t know that it ever will take place.”
Trump said that the millions the US gives to the Palestinian Authority each year is on the table and would no longer be considered automatic - especially in the face of the Arab refusal to meet with Vice President Pence when he visited Israel.
All assets belonging to Haniyeh under US jurisdiction will be frozen. This designation allows us to dry up the sources of funding and kick them out of the international financial system. We don’t want to only stop the bomber, but the person who buys the bombs.
And now it seems that Trump may still not be finished yet.
The Middle East Forum welcomes reports that the Trump administration might "refuse to accept UNRWA's special status for 'Palestine refugees,'" and suspend all U.S. government funding of the group.
The Forum has long sought the end of U.S. recognition of fake Palestinian refugees who never lived in what is today Israel, removing a source of irredentism and terrorism.
Has any president ever\ tried to "fix" so much in the Middle East in so short a time?
For that matter, has any president so openly criticized aspects of the Palestinian problem and then actually taken steps to try to address it?
Meanwhile, Abbas is taking some unilateral action of his own.
Abbas wanted renewed support from the EU, by way of European High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini. She obliged, reiterating EU support for both the two-state solution and for Jerusalem as a shared capital - claiming "East Jerusalem" for a Palestinian Arab capital. However, on the other hand, Mogherini made clear the EU was not willing to take over and push for the elimination of a US role in future peace talks.
Abbas also turned to the African nations to take a role in peace talks. Speaking this week at the African Union in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, Abbas called for "an international multilateral mechanism under the umbrella of the United Nations." If Abbas cannot eliminate a US role, he seems to want at the very least to minimize and dilute it.
The choice of the African nations is interesting.
Israel has been trying to create stronger ties with Africa, requesting observer status within the African Union. Israel was going to send a delegation last October to a conference there to meet with 54 African countries in an Israel-Africa summit. In September, the summit was canceled, apparently at Abbas's request. In light of the summit cancelation, bringing in the African Union would illustrate that Netanyahu's efforts to forge alliances there still have a ways to go.
Those who claim to see hints of the weakening and deterioration of the Palestinian Authority in Abbas's rant in January may be overlooking something. The Palestinian Authority is perpetually deteriorating. After all, Abbas's term ended back in January 2009, and elections are long overdue. All those Palestinian officials who speak on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, actually have no authority to speak of -- and according to the polls, the Palestinian Arabs know this and resent it.
There are those who say that the Palestinian Arabs need to face the consequences of losing a war. Well, what about facing the consequences of losing an election, or of not even having one. Here too, an artificial situation is being propped up by the EU and others in the West.
Trump is clearly intent in removing those props.
It remains to be seen if he will succeed.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Antisemitic hate crimes in the UK have hit a record high, new figures show, prompting calls for more “visible and frequent” prosecutions for such incidents.
The Jewish community was targeted at a rate of nearly four times a day last year, according to statistics from the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity that monitors antisemitism, which recorded 1,382 antisemitic incidents nationwide in 2017.
This was the highest tally the organisation has registered for a calendar year since it began gathering the data in 1984, with the figure up by 3 per cent compared with 2016 – which had itself been a record annual total.
A breakdown of the crimes shows the number of violent antisemitic assaults increased by more than a third (34 per cent), from 108 in 2016 to 145. Three-quarters of all the antisemitic incidents were recorded in Greater London and Greater Manchester, where the two largest Jewish communities in the UK are located.
The most common single type of incident in 2017 involved verbal abuse randomly directed at Jewish people in public, the figures show.
The report itself notes the motivation of the attackers when known:
Of the 221 antisemitic incidents in 2017 showing ideological motivation or beliefs as well as antisemitism, 140 showed far right motivation or beliefs; 67 showed anti-Israel motivation or beliefs; and 14 showed Islamist motivation or beliefs.
Violent antisemitic assaults increased 34% in one year:
There were 145 violent antisemitic assaults reported to CST in 2017, an increase of 34 per cent from the 108 violent incidents recorded in 2016 and the highest number CST has ever recorded in this category. The previous record high was 121 antisemitic assaults in 2009. A wide spectrum of incidents falls within the category of Assault, from minor acts to more violent ones.
And incidents are significantly under-reported:
It is likely that there is significant under-reporting of antisemitic incidents to both CST and the Police, and that the number of antisemitic incidents that took place is significantly higher than the number recorded in this report. A 2013 survey of Jewish experiences and perceptions of antisemitism in the EU found that 72 per cent of British Jews who had experienced antisemitic harassment over the previous five years had not reported it to the Police or to any other organisation; 57 per cent of British Jews who had experienced antisemitic violence or the threat of violence had not reported it; and 46 per cent of British Jews who had suffered antisemitic vandalism to their home or car had not reported it (despite this, UK reporting rates were the highest of the eight countries polled). The same survey also found that, over the previous 12 months, 21 per cent of British Jews had suffered antisemitic harassment, three per cent had suffered antisemitic violence or the threat of violence and two per cent had experienced antisemitic vandalism to their home or car.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Actors Hugh Grant and Viggo Mortensen are among more than 25 celebrities and public figures expressing "horror" over President Donald Trump's decision to cut funding to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, an advocacy group said Thursday.
"The real target of this lethal attack is the Palestinian people themselves," the group said in a joint statement. "It has been launched with the clear aim of dismantling their rights, by dismantling the institution that is charged with protecting them."
Actresses Gillian Anderson, Olivia Wilde, Emma Thompson and Tilda Swinton were also among the signatories.
So rich celebrities, instead of funding UNRWA themselves, insist that you pay for a UN agency whose entire purpose is to encourage statelessness, An agency that does nothing to actually end the "refugee" status of millions of people. An agency that says it must exist until Palestinians are allowed to overrun Israel. An agency that is against turning "refugee camps" into permanent towns with normal infrastructure and housing.
Are they raising a couple hundred million dollars from their rich friends, telling them to commit to spending more every year for the foreseeable future to keep UNRWA alive?
Somehow I think if it was their money, they would suddenly be looking at UNRWA's actions a lot more critically than when they simply say that the US should spend the money.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Sunday, February 04, 2018
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