Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 04, 2018

06/04 Links Pt2: When Democrats embrace an anti-Semite; J Street Chapters Aiding BDS Campaigns on Campuses; Swedish FM to PA Arabs: We will fight with you and for you

From Ian:

In both cases, Democrats have made a meal of this embarrassing situation, despite the fact that the GOP in both California and Illinois has condemned and disowned these candidates, who have no more chance of being elected to Congress than they have of flying to the moon.

But what’s going on in the Virginia district that just so happens to include Charlottesville is something very different.

The Democratic candidate for Congress in Virginia’s Fifth District is Leslie Cockburn, an author and film producer who is presenting herself to the voters as nothing more than an ardent liberal critic of Trump. But far from a garden-variety Democrat, Cockburn is a veteran left-wing propagandist with a troubling history of anti-Israel extremism.

Along with her husband, Andrew, Cockburn was the author of 1991 book Dangerous Liaisons: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship. The book was a compendium of conspiracy theories and smears that sought to depict Israel as manipulating U.S. foreign policy. The Cockburns weren’t content to feed the notion that Jews were the tail wagging the American dog to the detriment of American interests. Instead, they sought to blame Israel for a host of international problems, including South American drug cartels, Central American massacres and apartheid in South Africa.

As no less a critic of Israel than The New York Times noted in its review of the book at the time, it was dedicated to “Israel bashing for its own sake,” and that its message was that Israelis “are a menace” who are responsible for “everything that ails us.”

Women’s March Co-Founder Condemns Founding of Israel as ‘Human Rights Crime’

Women's March co-founder Tamika Mallory said during an event Friday that Israel committed a human rights crime in doing "whatever" it took to take land from Palestinians.

"This is not about stopping one side. This is about ensuring that the native people are able to enjoy the land. They shouldn’t have to ask anybody for their land. This is their land," Mallory said in remarks made via video at an event hosted by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Justice Delegation, and flagged by The Forward.

Mallory, who joined the group of lawyers and civil rights activists on a trip to the Holy Land last month, accused Israel of obtaining the land by force.

"When you go to someone’s home and you need a place to stay, you ask ‘Can I come into your home and can I stay here, and can we peacefully coexist?’ You don’t walk into someone else’s home, needing a place. It’s clear you needed a place to go – cool, we got that! I hear that!" Mallory began.

"But you don’t show up to somebody’s home, needing a place to stay, and decide that you’re going to throw them out and hurt the people who are on that land. And to kill, steal, and do whatever it is you’re gonna do to take that land! That to me is unfair. It’s a human rights crime," she added.

Memo to @TamikaMallory, Jews didn’t just need “a place to go” after the Holocaust, we had a right to our ancestral home & created a democracy w/full rights for all citizens. Your malevolence toward Jews is rivaled only by your complete ignorance of history https://t.co/uouEZ9ipsc
— AJC (@AJCGlobal) June 3, 2018

J Street Chapters Aiding BDS Campaigns on Campuses

Campus branches of the liberal group J Street have been helping anti-Israel activists gain support for student government resolutions calling for boycotts of Israel, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of BDS campaigns on college campuses during the recently concluded 2017-2018 school year.

At many schools where boycott and divestment campaigns have taken place, J Street chapters provided key assistance to BDS activists through statements, lobbying, and activism that fueled the anti-Israel climate on campus and reinforced accusations against Israel made by BDS groups. Despite J Street claims that the group is an important progressive opponent of BDS, at many schools J Street chapters did not oppose BDS campaigns and sat on the sidelines during contentious fights over student government divestment resolutions.

The revelations, compiled from Free Beacon interviews with campus activists and pro-Israel professionals who fought BDS resolutions this year, call into question the group's publicly claimed opposition to the BDS movement. Catie Stewart, deputy director of J Street U, recently boasted that her organization "does not support Israel Apartheid Week or BDS campaigns and joins anti-BDS coalitions." This year's campus fights suggest a different record.

At the University of Minnesota, where a BDS referendum succeeded in March, a pro-Israel coalition launched a campaign to oppose the vote. J Street U refused to participate in the effort, instead releasing a statement condemning the campus Hillel for being insufficiently anti-Israel. The president of J Street U at UMN, Imogen Page, is a donor to Jewish Voice for Peace, a BDS group that endorses terrorism and calls for Israel's destruction. Page was seen handing out anti-Israel flyers during the voting period of the referendum. Weeks later, she was arrested for disorderly conduct during an anti-Israel protest staged by a different BDS group.

Fatah tells Argentina soccer team that all of Israel is occupied

As I mentioned last week, Palestinians are very upset over an upcoming friendly soccer match between Israel's team and Argentina in Teddy Stadium, Jerusalem.

Fatah published a poster to shame the team into not coming:

As far as I know, the team was not planning any trips over the Green Line. Teddy Stadium is within the part of Jerusalem that Israel controlled before 1967 that Palestinians usually pretend in English to have no claim over.

This poster betrays the real opinions of the Palestinian ruling party - the "moderates" who supposedly are willing to compromise. To them, there is no Israel, and everything is

"occupied."

They are even willing to say this in English.

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06/04 Links Pt1: Why History Still Matters: The 1967 Six Day War; Amb. Friedman: If reporters can’t get Gaza story right, keep mouths shut; The Danger to Jordan of a Palestinian State

From Ian:

Why History Still Matters: The 1967 Six Day War

Today, there are those who wish to rewrite history.

They want the world to believe that there was once a Palestinian state. There was not.

They want the world to believe that there were fixed borders between that state and Israel. But there was only an armistice line between Israel and the Jordanian-controlled West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

They want the world to believe that the 1967 war was a bellicose act by Israel. It was an act of self-defense in the face of blood-curdling threats to vanquish the Jewish state, not to mention the maritime blockade of the Straits of Tiran, the abrupt withdrawal of UN peacekeeping forces, and the redeployment of Egyptian and Syrian troops.

All wars have consequences. This one was no exception. But the aggressors have failed to take responsibility for the actions they instigated. They want the world to believe that post-1967 Israeli settlement-building is the key obstacle to peacemaking.

But the Six Day War is proof positive that the core issue is and always has been whether the Palestinians and larger Arab world accept the Jewish people’s right to a state of their own. If so, all other contentious issues, however difficult, have possible solutions. But, alas, if not, then all bets are off.

These people want the world to believe that the Arab world had nothing against Jews per se, only Israel. Yet they trampled with abandon on sites of sacred meaning to the Jewish people. In other words, when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, dismissing the past simply won’t work.

Can history move forward? Absolutely. Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 prove this. At the same time, however, the lessons of the Six-Day War illustrate just how tough and tortuous the path can be, and are sobering reminders that, yes, history does matter.

‘Nakba,’ ‘Naksa’ … Nowhere

When it comes to the Palestinian “original sin” theory of Israel’s creation, there are two key milestones: the flight of approximately 750,000 Arab refugees during the 1948 War of Independence and the 1967 conquest of eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip during the Six Day War. The events of 1948 are known in Arabic as the nakba (“catastrophe”) and the events of 1967 are called the naksa (“setback”).

This week, with the 51st anniversary of the Six Day War upon us, Palestinians will mark “Naksa Day” on June 5 with protests and demonstrations — and it will be interesting to see whether any new wave of protests fizzles out in much the same way as those on the Israel-Gaza border in recent weeks, which were presented as a commemoration of the events of 1948. It will also be interesting to see whether Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and allied Islamist groups will use the occasion to fire another barrage of missiles at Israel.

It’s increasingly clear to everyone that neither of these strategies is working for the Palestinians. Compare the international reaction to Gaza in 2018 to that of summer 2014, when Israel took military action to end the daily missile launches from Gaza, and which the Palestinians similarly depicted as a total war designed to deliberately kill and maim civilians. Four years on, especially among European governments, there is much greater recognition that Hamas uses Gazans as human shields and far less lecturing Israeli leaders about the moral perils of a “disproportionate response.” As for the expected convulsion of international protests, there really hasn’t been one so far.

Instead, the Palestinians are confronted with a region that no longer places them front and center, as well as an impatient international community, less willing to indulge Palestinian tales of Israel’s inherent brutality. In her speech to the UN Security Council emergency meeting on the Palestinian missile attacks on Israel — called by the United States — US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley openly declared that the time had come for the Palestinians to consider alternative leadership that can adopt a peace strategy. Haley, significantly to my mind, made no distinction between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Hamas rulers of Gaza, puncturing yet another prevailing myth that the former is dramatically more moderate than the latter.

PMW: Trump is “the copy of Hitler,” says official PA daily op-ed

Following the US veto of a UN resolution, which called for "international protection" for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over Israel's response to the violent March of Return riots, US President Trump was described as "the copy of Hitler" and a "racist" in an op-ed in the official Palestinian Authority daily:

"This racist [Trump], the copy of Hitler, does not want to see us free but rather dead, uprooted, expelled, and captive. He is happy to see us hungry, chasing the American sack of flour and leaving the principle of freedom thousands of miles behind us." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 3, 2018]

This is how writer Muwaffaq Matar, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, interpreted the American motives behind the decision to veto the Kuwaiti resolution that was brought to a UN Security Council vote on June 1, 2018. The resolution did not mention Hamas' rule over the Gaza Strip or the violent demonstrations and attempts to breach the border into Israel, nor the recent escalation of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.

Erdogan and Other Turkish Politicians: "The State of Israel Emulates Hitler"

Last time, I talked about what it means to live a worthy life and how Israelis’ existential condition – in which each of them is responsible for defending and building a nation – has made them some of the happiest people on the face of the earth.

For those of us who do not live under similar conditions, which includes most of Israel’s friends and supporters, her enemies and detractors, and huge swaths of humanity both friends and foes are trying to reach, might there be something about human nature we all ignore as we settle on strategies to communicate our messages, persuade others, and build alliances?

The list of things mentioned last time which add up to a worthy life (meaningful work, a loving relationship, genuine friends, and a life committed to truth and beauty) was informed by the ancient philosopher Aristotle whose writing on ethics identified happiness as the ultimate goal all our efforts drive towards. Why do we want money? To live in comfort. Why do we want comfort? Because comfort makes us happy. Why do we want happiness? No answer is needed to this question because happiness is the “final cause,” the end point where all other efforts and ambitions lead.

But by “happiness,” Aristotle wasn’t talking about simple giddy joy. Rather, he was using a Greek term better translated as “flourishing.” And if you build into your life the components needed to call it worthy, you can live a happy (in all senses of the word) flourishing life.

Getting back to Israel advocacy, as we argue our cause are we offering listeners anything that might help them achieve the ultimate human desire to be happy and flourish?

Within the pro-Israel community, discussions of strategy and tactics still tend to boil down to a debate over offense vs. defense (or “going on the attack” vs. “positive messaging”).

Advocates for “going on the attack” argue that we cannot perpetually take punches from Israel haters who relentlessly assault and malign the Jewish state and its friends with the most outrageous calumnies, accompanied by outrageous behavior no one should have to tolerate. This strategy can be boiled down to: Let’s tell the truth about Israel’s enemies (including their bigotry, misogyny and violent intolerance) as aggressively as they tell their lies about us.

In contrast, calls for “positive messaging” highlight how little impact shouts and insults have on crucial undecideds who can be swayed by getting to know Israel and its people, culture, food, and marvelous gifts to the world (in the form of cures for illness and high-tech wonders as well as progressive values).

I’ve written a number of times about pragmatic reasons why each of these approaches is flawed. A complete treatment of the subject can be found here, but the key problem with an attack strategy is that we as a Jewish pro-Israel community lack the militant goals needed to sustain what would need to be a decades-long, non-stop smearing of our foes. And if we were really playing by BDS rules, we would have to drag innocent third parties into our fight, without any concern over what harm that might cause others. For better or worse (better, in my opinion) our community lacks the ruthlessness needed to give our opponents a full taste of their own medicine.

Positive campaigning seems to be a way out of this dilemma, but the things that tend to be highlighted in such campaigns (whether it’s High-Tech Nation, Gay Pride parades, hummus recipes or Eurovision Song Contest victories) aren’t much of a shield against an enemy arguing on behalf of freedom, justice and international law (regardless of how much they have drained all three terms of any meaning).

Beyond these practical considerations, the big problem with both the “Offense” and “Positive” positions is that neither offers listeners anything that talks to the human need for meaning and purpose. I’ll admit to a certain glee when I see Israel haters forced to flee when faced with an argument they can’t counter or their latest BDS failure. But such emotional satisfaction on the part of the activist is not the same as providing others the satisfaction derived from striving for a flourishing life (meaningful work, loving relationships, etc.).

Similarly, while I’m in awe of the technological prowess of the Israel people and the openness of their society, a strategy based entirely on telling these stories strikes me as a continuation of the Diaspora tradition of endlessly having to prove to the majority culture our worthiness as a minority.

But there is another story the remarkable achievement of Israel taps into, one that can spill over from giving Israelis a life full of purpose to providing the same satisfaction to all who support or just befriend the Jewish state.

Few would argue that the nadir of the last century (if not all centuries) was the Holocaust which exterminated six million men, women and children for the crime of being Jews. But too few follow this up by seeing the rebirth of the Jewish state just three years after that disaster as one of the most monumental achievements in human history.

Ingathering exiles, making the desert bloom, defeating larger and more powerful enemies again and again and – yes – building a tolerant nation with a growing population and economy are all part of this magnificent story, the story of that much maligned word “Zionism.”

And, with all due respect to those who see us as a “Chosen People,” Israel’s accomplishments have nothing to do with Jews being special in any way. For if a people at death’s door can achieve such wonders, anyone can do it. And many have (think about South Korea that built a flourishing state by investing in their own people after national ruin in war).

This dynamic tale, the Zionist story of what a society can achieve if its citizens have purpose and are ready to live for the future as well as the present, is what stirs many of us to genuine love for (not just appreciation of) the Jewish state – more so than the defeat of enemies or the latest Israeli-built microchip or app.

And why shouldn’t it? For this move turns our pro-Israel advocacy into meaningful work, creates bonds of true friendship between fellow Jews (including happy Israelis) and other Jewish and non-Jewish activists. It dedicates us to fighting for the truth and enjoying the beauty of one of history’s most inspiring tales. In short, it provides us many (although by no means all) of the things necessary to live a worthy, flourishing life.

In contrast, the demented behavior of our foes is a testament to where a life dedicated to destruction and ugliness leads. And for those our opponents demand follow their lead (such as intersectional allies in minority communities, biased journalists and partisan scholars) the price of abandoning reason, ethics and professional standards to join the cause are sources of suffering. For deep down, even the most corrupt journalist writing about “peaceful marchers” on the Gaza border know they are communicating a lie, just as academics committed to spreading ignorance and bigotry understand they have not just abandoned the quest for truth or beauty but are actively fighting against it.

This explains why Israel’s foes spend so much mental effort blocking out and shouting down reality they want to avoid. For their lives are dedicated to things that are the opposite of what brings happiness, which is why they are so damned miserable. In a way, the contrast between flourishing Israel and the basket cases that represent the rest of the Middle East is a macrocosm of what can be achieved at the societal level by embracing the quest for a worthy live vs. battling to live an unworthy one.

So we friends of the Jewish state should offer not slams against our enemies or hummus parties, but steps towards living a meaningful life – a sharp contrast to the slavery and self-loathing on offer from our enemies. Put in such terms, is there really a contest?

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Ma'an reports:

A member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Saleh Rafat, reiterated that the Central Council will meet after the Eid al-Fitr holiday and in the forefront of the issues to be discussed is the cessation of all forms of security coordination with Israel.

Rafat told Voice of Palestine radio on Monday morning that the National Assembly had made it clear that Israel had renounced all its obligations under the Oslo Accords, and that it was necessary to stop all forms of security and economic relations with it.

Regarding Israel’s intention of deducting the amount of damage of the (burning) kites from the tax revenues, Rafat stressed that this measure is illegal and illegitimate. He said that this comes in the framework of the piracy that Israel conducts. He demanded that Israel compensate the sons of our people that have been driven out with trillions, and enable them to return to their lands (or houses), in accordance with UN resolution no. 194.”

Trillions? Is that all?

That's pocket change for those people who own the banks, right?

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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The Palestinian Coalition for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights sounds like one of the scores of NGOs set up in the territories just to attract European cash and bash Israel.

It has a number of members, including the Ramallah Center fo Human Rights Studies, the Stars of Hope Foundation, the Kader Foundation for Community Development, Al Haq Foundation and a number of trade unions.

Its most recent press releases all are missing the word "Israel." Amazingly, they are blaming the PA for what every Palestinian (and few Westerners) know - that the government of Mahmoud Abbas has been systematically oppressing Gazans for well over a year now for political ends.

Last week it issued a statement saying "the Palestinian Authority has taken punitive measures against its employees in the Gaza Strip, which accounted for a 30% to 60% reduction of their salaries since April 2017, in the context of pressure on Hamas to resolve the administrative situation of the sector and enable the government to exercise its functions, These measures have affected all aspects of life in the sector, especially after imposing more penalties and wage cuts, and the transfer of a large number of employees to forced retirement, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis to the detriment of the citizens' decent living. "

Moreover, the group started a social media campaign "#ارفعوا_العقوبات" - Lift the Sanctions - directed not at Israel but at the Palestinian Authority. Graphics have been published for a rally that was planned for yesterday in Ramallah to protest the PA's treatment of Gaza. (I have not seen any news articles about such a rally, which was to be held at Manara Square. If it did occur the PA-run media would not have covered it.)

It is difficult to know if this has an impact on the PA, but one thing is for sure: despite over a year of the PA restricting electricity, fuel, medicines, exit permits and more from Gazans, Western media and NGOs will continue to only blame Israel.

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06/03 Links: Iranian blood money, Palestinian blood; The UN’s Sordid Embrace of Antisemitism; Are Medics the latest Human shields in Gaza?

From Ian:

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Iranian blood money, Palestinian blood

A significant escalation in the situation prevailing at the Israel-Gaza border took place this week. The prattle about demonstrations and attempts by "returning" Gaza residents to infiltrate Israel was replaced by missiles and mortars on a level not seen since Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Up to the time of this writing, on Wednesday morning, there have been several wounded, but no casualties, on the Israeli side. However, it is clear to all that chance alone separates a mortarshell that digs a crater on an empty street from one that hits a home or kindergarten leaving wounded and dead in its wake.

The immediate question is why? Why is this erupting now? Is it a reaction to the direct hit the IDF carried out on an Islamic Jihad observation post of in Gaza, eliminating the three terrorists inside it? Or are there other factors behind this escalation? Another question is: Why are Hamas and Islamic Jihad working together on this after a long period of tension between the two? And why are they operating beyond the area near Gaza from which they tried to kidnap Israeli soldiers?

For years now, Israel has been acting with a large measure of freedom against Iranian presence in Syria, bombing various targets and eliminating soldiers and officers, with Iran doing almost nothing to avenge the blood of the tens of Iranians killed in these bombings or the damage to Iranian military infrastructure in Syria. The reason Iran has not reacted to Israeli strikes is its inferior military intelligence and operational ability. Israel has inflicted serrious damage on Iran's ability to protect itself and using the new anti-aircraft systems it brought into Syria. Israel destroyed them as soon as they arrived, before they were activated and before they became operational.

Israel also proved its exceptional intelligence ability, because its attacks on Iranian forces were exactly aimed and successfully pinpointed. This caused the Iranian command to concentrate on its own defenses for fear that Israel would hit the Iranian commanders in Syria headed by Kassem Sulimani. Israel destroyed Iranian targets all over Syria, not just near the Golan Heights, and showed the Iranians and their Russian supporters just how much strength and resolve Israel has when it comes to attacking distant Iranian targets – hinting obliquely at Israel's ability to hit them within Iran itself.

Anne Bayefsky: The UN’s Sordid Embrace of Antisemitism

The following is a speech delivered by Anne Bayefsky, Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and the President of Human Rights Voices, at the Special Forum on “Evolving Hatred: Antisemitism & BDS Today” convened by the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations, UN, May 30, 2018.

The United Nations is an institution built on the ashes of the Jewish people and the devastation wreaked by antisemitism upon all civilization.

And yet, the UN has never adopted a resolution or commissioned a report singularly devoted to exposing, denouncing, and eradicating antisemitism wherever it occurs. Just this month, the Security Council was asked and refused to issue a “firm and unequivocal rejection of antisemitism and Holocaust denial.”

Why not? The answer is painfully clear: antisemitism itself. Right here in the United Nations.

Antisemitism at the UN does more than stymie opportunities for prevention. It creates occasions for promotion. The marketing strategy has three identifiable steps.

Step one: Deny. As a matter of routine, antisemites say they aren’t antisemites.

Except they are.

Two weeks ago — in this very room — a two-day forum on the “Question of Palestine” was convened. Under UN auspices. With UN-invited speakers and UN-accredited participants.

Speakers deprecated “the idea of a chosen people” and railed against a “Jewish lobby.” The Palestinian UN representative claimed Palestinian land was “exactly like” German-occupied France and Poland.

PMW: “The fetus, a proud Martyr in his mother’s womb” – Songs on official PA radio

When Palestinians tune in to the official PA radio station, The Voice of Palestine, they hear songs encouraging them to seek Martyrdom-death and to sacrifice themselves for Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and “Palestine.” Catchy lyrics pass on the message that Palestinians are “not afraid of death,” and teach them that already in its mother’s womb, the fetus is “a proud Martyr” who has “Palestine etched on the heart”:

“Our Martyrs are convoys and our bones are mountains They don’t surrender to the lowly We aren't deterred by imprisonment Palestine is etched on the heart of the fetus A proud Martyr in his mother’s womb And the Arab state will remain ours - Arab, Arab PalestineWe [hold] the rifles to our chests and our eyes are raised to you Our homes are trenches and our souls are the sacrifice for youO Jerusalem, you will not remain stolen.” [“The First Direction of Prayer” by Syrian singer Assala Nasri, Official PA radio station The Voice of Palestine, Feb. 3, 2018]

From TOI:

Hadashot television news reports that the fires sparked by Gazans in southern Israel today are reaching farther into Israel because the Gazans have changed their tactics.

In recent weeks, Gazans have launched firebomb-carrying kites into Israel, where they fell into dry fields and sparked major brushfires.

Today, authorities are battling helium balloons carrying long-burning materials like charcoal. The balloons are capable of flying several kilometers into Israel and sparking fires farther afield.

Firefighters are battling at least four brushfires today sparked by Gazan arsonists.

Why is Israel allowing helium into Gaza to begin with?

Because helium is needed for many medical applications, including many respiratory diseases. I'm guessing, but it is entirely possible that the helium in Gaza is coming from hospitals.

Now imagine what would happen if and when Israel bans helium imports into Gaza to protect itself from massive forest fires.

Yup, the "human rights" NGOs will castigate Israel for depriving Gazans of the medical benefits of helium. Reuters will have stories about Gazans with COPD who cannot breathe because of Israel's evil.

Just wait.

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US sanctions on Iran already starting to bite - without the EU

The Trump sanctions on Iran might end up being far better than anyone expected.

Iran does not want Europe to join the sanctions regime, so the parts of JCPOA that were helpful - as flawed as the JCPOA was - must stay in place.

And the US sanctions are already starting to hurt the Iranian economy in some specific areas.

The WSJ reports:

It will be months before new U.S. sanctions against Iran take hold, but global shipping operators are already pulling back from the big oil-exporting nation.

The world’s two biggest shipping lines, Denmark’s Maersk Line and Swiss-based Mediterranean Shipping Co., said they were winding down general cargo shipments, while tanker owners said they plan to move their vessels to other oil-producing countries in the Middle East or West Africa.

Even though the U.S. is alone in imposing the new sanctions, “I don’t think any shipping line that operates globally will be able to do business in Iran if the sanctions arrive in full force, the way they are intended,” said Soren Skou, chief executive of Maersk Line and parent company A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S.

Maersk and privately held MSC have been moving everything from electronics and household goods to food and heavy machinery to Iran. Mr. Skou said Maersk’s Iran operations are small, but with an Iranian population of 80 million, carriers heralded the lifting of earlier sanctions in 2016 as the opening of an important Middle East trade destination.

From Reuters:

Two Indian banks have asked exporters to complete their financial transactions with Iran by August in response to the threat of new U.S. sanctions, according to the country’s main exporters’ organisation and bank letters seen by Reuters.

India and Iran have long-standing political and commercial ties, but New Delhi has been careful to not fall foul of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

The Federation of Indian Exporters Organisation (FIEO) said IndusInd and UCO, the two banks facilitating exports to Iran, had set August 6. as the deadline for winding up deals.

“IndusInd and UCO bank are telling exporters that you complete all Iran business by August 6,” Ajay Sahai, director general of FIEO, told Reuters.

Being able to pressure Iran without having Iran pull out of the deal, as every "expert" predicted? Not bad at all.

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Iranian proxies claim Israeli planes bombing Yemen

Pro-Iran Arabic media are reporting the latest bizarre rumor: that Israeli warplanes are bombing Yemen.

Ma'an Arabic has the story, but so do many other outlets including Syrian and Iranian media.

According to the report, the leader of the Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement in Yemen, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, said that the Israeli warplanes were "monitored" by his people, flying over the province of Hodeidah.

Ma'an illustrated the story with a photo of three Hellenic Air Force F-16s that flew over Israel for its 70th Independence Day.

Interestingly, I've seen other stories recently by Sunni Muslims claiming that Israel was cooperating with the Houthis.

Those crazy Israelis, playing both sides against each other!

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06/02 Links: Do Jews Get to Define Anti-Semitism?; MSNBC Guest Leads Org Donating to Palestinian Terrorist Groups; IDF thwarts tractor ramming attack near Hebron

From Ian:

Evelyn Gordon: Baby Layla Shows What’s Wrong with Israel’s PR

Instead, Israel’s critics treated Ghandour’s death as proof of Israel’s evil. In other words, they effectively declared that Israel had no right to defend its border by any means whatsoever–even with non-lethal means like tear gas–unless it could somehow achieve the impossible feat of guaranteeing that no Palestinian would ever be killed under any circumstances. And if the only way Israel can win the PR war is leaving its border completely undefended, that war would indeed be inherently unwinnable; at least, among this portion of its critics.

But many people do understand that leaving a border undefended against angry mobs isn’t a tenable option. If Israeli public diplomacy had been even minimally competent, it would have made clear that this is the logical implication of blaming Israel for Ghandour’s death.

Critics might retort that even tear gas shouldn’t be used against completely peaceful demonstrators. But as the Times’ story makes clear, Ghandour wasn’t in a peaceful demonstration when she died. She had been deliberately taken from a peaceful one into a violent one.

On May 14, as in all the preceding weeks, there were actually two demonstrations taking place. One, which was largely peaceful, was hundreds of meters from the border fence. The other, which was right up against the fence, was anything but peaceful. Members of terrorist organizations threw bombs, Molotov cocktails, and slingshot-propelled rocks at soldiers. They flew incendiary kites across the border to set Israeli fields ablaze (to date, some 300 of these kites have ignited 100 fires, destroyed more than 3,000 acres of wheat and caused millions of shekels worth of damage). They vandalized the fence and tried to break through it. These are the “demonstrators” Israel targeted with measures ranging from tear gas to, when necessary, live fire, as evidenced by the fact that 53 of the 62 killed belonged to terrorist organizations.

Baby Layla was taken to the nonviolent protest by her 12-year-old uncle, who mistakenly thought her mother was there. Upon discovering his mistake, he responsibly kept her in the nonviolent section until late afternoon, when she began crying. Then, wanting to hand her off to an older relative, he “pushed forward into the protest in search of her grandmother, Heyam Omar, who was standing in a crowd under a pall of black smoke, shouting at Israeli soldiers across the fence,” the Times reported. Panicked by Layla’s crying, he deliberately brought her into the most violent part of the protest, where Israel was exercising its legitimate right of self-defense and where no baby should ever have been. And she died.

But even if it was Israeli tear gas that killed her, Israel cannot be held culpable for her death unless you start from the premise that it had no right whatsoever to defend its border against violent attacks of the type launched during this protest, even by the most nonlethal of means. That, of course, is precisely what many of Israel’s critics do think. And this is the point that Israel and its advocates should have been hammering home.

Jonathan Marks: Do Jews Get to Define Anti-Semitism?

Carly Pildis, a political organizer, is a critic of the left from within. She has been doing the good work of pleading with her fellow progressives to stop tolerating anti-Semitism. She did so admirably in her widely-read piece for Tablet, “Jews Get to Define Anti-Semitism: Not Shaun King.” The kind of anti-Semitism to which Pildis objects has brought back the “Zionism is racism” slur. That is a paradigm through which Jews are judged unfit for social justice work and the deeply anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan, is rehabilitated. Tamika Mallory, a co-chair of the Women’s March, was happy to be present at a speech in which Farrakhan said, among many other equally anti-Semitic things, that “the powerful Jews are my enemy.”

Apart from a boilerplate assertion of her opposition to anti-Semitism, Mallory has not reckoned with her embrace of Farrakhan. Indeed, in the thick of the controversy, Mallory tweeted, “If your leader does not have the same enemies as Jesus, they may not be THE leader.” Law professor and blogger David Schraub spoke for many Jews of various political persuasions when he described this comment as “less of anti-Semitic dog-whistle than a bullhorn.” Mallory has since focused on shifting attention from her downplaying of the virulent, naked anti-Semitism of Farrakhan, which is still a problem on the left, to her hatred of Israel, which mostly isn’t.

Shaun King, a columnist best known for his Black Lives Matter activism, chose to focus on what he considered the most important aspect of the story. His preoccupation was with the fact that people like Schraub, who criticize Mallory for, at the very best, warmly embracing an anti-Semite, are not merely oversensitive but damned liars. Having given Mallory a clean bill of health concerning anti-Semitism, he added, “Your lies won’t work.”

This is where Pildis’s criticism comes in. How dare Shaun King give Mallory a clean bill of health, when a “central tenet of anti-oppression work is that marginalized communities are the authors of their own experiences,” and “those who experience a specific oppression get to define it”?

German intelligence: Iran still working to acquire WMD technology

Iran has been continuing its efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, Fox News reported Saturday, citing an intelligence report published by a German state intelligence agency.

“Iran continued to undertake — as did Pakistan and Syria — efforts to obtain goods and know-how to be used for the development of weapons of mass destruction and to optimize corresponding missile delivery systems,” said the dossier put together by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the intelligence agency of the German state of Baden-Württemberg — the German equivalent of the FBI that operates at a state level.

The Iranian efforts were heavily focused on the southern German state, which is home to many specialized technology and engineering companies, the report said.

The Baden-Württemberg intelligence officials said they had gathered “intensive intelligence on activities of Iran’s spy agencies.”

The report said Tehran’s activities focused on trying to acquire “German software, sophisticated vacuum and control engineering technologies, measurement devices, and advanced electrical equipment for its missile program.”

The German intelligence agency said that Iran has also carried out espionage activities against government offices in Berlin as well as continuing to spy on Iranian dissidents in Germany.

06/01 Links Pt2: BDS Group Linked to Palestinian Terrorist Orgs; Joy Reid endorsed Ahmadinejad's plan to forcibly relocate all Jews from Israel to Europe; The European media's Palestinian propaganda

From Ian:

BDS Umbrella Group Linked to Palestinian Terrorist Organizations

Over the past decade, as the prospects of peace between Israelis and Palestinians became ever slimmer, there has been a growing attention to—and, in some quarters, acceptance of—the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, or BDS. Those drawn to the cause have likely come across the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a Virginia-based non-profit organization that serves as the American umbrella group of the BDS movement and is arguably the most prominent promoter of BDS in the United States. The US Campaign, which is officially called Education for Just Peace in the Middle East, coordinates the efforts of 329 different pro-BDS organizations “working to advocate for Palestinian rights and a shift in US policy… bound by commonly shared principles on Palestine solidarity as well as our anti-racism principles,” according to the group’s website.

But as Tablet confirmed , the group also helps facilitate tax-exempt donations to a Palestinian coalition that includes Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other groups the US State Department designates as terror organizations.

The US Campaign, Tablet has learned, is the fiscal sponsor of a group called the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the main West Bank and Gaza-based cohort advocating for sanctions against Israel. The BNC was created in 2007 in Ramallah with the intention of serving as the Palestinian arm of the international BDS campaign. According to the BNC’s website, one of the group’s members is the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine, commonly known as PNIF. Among PNIF’s members are five different groups designated by the US as terrorist organizations, including Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Popular Front – General Command (PFLP-GC), the Palestine Liberation Front, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Since its founding, the BNC has frequently and openly collaborated with known leaders of these terror organizations: In 2015, for example, the BNC held a press conference to pressure the Palestinian government not to import gas from Israel, featuring a speech by Khalida Jarrar, then a member of the Palestinian parliament for the PFLP and still an active official in the terror group. A video of the BNC-hosted press conference features Jarrar seated alongside BNC secretariat member Omar Barghouti.

Michael Chabon delivers jihad speech for Hebrew Union College

He is no casual hater of Israel, this Chabon. For him it’s a full-time business. He invites other writers to join him, and his wife, Ayelet Waldman, in demonizing the Jewish State.

What did his mother ever do to him, and what did they see in him, those who run the university, that made him so emblematic for the Reform Movement?

Perhaps they heard that he is best friends with “Breaking the Silence” contrarians, or maybe they read him in The Forward, where he said about the Jewish State –

“It is the most grievous injustice I’ve seen in my life.”

That was the theme of his commencement address.

For one graduate, Morin Zaray, it was a rant too much. In a blog titled, “How My Graduation Was Ambushed,” she writes –

“As I heard Chabon’s simplified takedown of my country [Israel], the room began to spin…I felt ashamed for being part of this gathering, ashamed that many in the audience were just nodding at this reductionist view of a multilayered and complicated country…I was nearly brought to tears as I heard the crowd of Jews give Chabon a thunderous applause.”

Coming to a Temple near you.

David Collier: Beyond the great divide, a trip inside the Palestinian areas

It was a long time coming, but during the recent trip to Israel I went back to areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. A decade ago, this type of visit would not have happened given the upsurge in violence in Gaza. Violence in one area, raised tensions in another. Since the Gaza withdrawal and the rise of Hamas, this is progressively proving to no longer be the case. Why? Recent history isn’t the only reason.
Palestine as colonial construct

In 1919, as the British prepared plans for their temporary control of areas in the Middle East, they considered the southern regions of what is now Israel as ‘Egyptian’ because of the tribal affiliation of those living there. Take this extract from a memorandum on British understandings during the early days of the 1919 Peace Conference (Versailles):
‘As to the southern boundary, there are a number of different considerations. On the one hand it is contended that the cultivable areas south of Gaza ought to be part of Palestine, because they are necessary to the subsistence of the people. On the other hand this area is inhabited by Bedouins of the desert, who look really towards Sinai, and ought not to be associated with Palestine at all. It is suggested by the Foreign Office it would be a sound principle to include in Palestine all the southern country capable of cultivation, e.g. in the direction of Rafa and Beersheba; and that the remaining area south of Gaza and to the Dead Sea, should be reserved to the Bedouins and attached to Egypt since the tribes are identical with those in the Sinai Peninsula and the pre-war frontier is quite arbitrary from the tribal point of view’.

Decolonising Palestinian identity
The British cut the cloth for the mandate that was then given a name, ‘Palestine’. As a national identity, Palestine was a colonial construct whose borders were first defined in European cities less than a hundred years ago. Had the British not interfered, Palestinians would not exist as *a nation of people* today. If the British cut the cloth differently, then many of those in Gaza would wave an Egyptian flag. Had the British designed the Northern border differently, then some of today’s Palestinians would be proud Lebanese citizens. This is historical game-play that ardent anti-Israel activists should consider. ‘Decolonising Palestine’ doesn’t touch the Jews, nor the Jewish homeland, it only deconstructs the colonial identity the British created within the borders that they called ‘Palestine’.