Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 27, 2018

08/27 Links Pt1: Ron Prosor: UNRWA is not the solution; The Great Middle Eastern War of 2019; Iran Claims Full Control of Gulf; Canadian opposition party recognizes Jerusalem

From Ian:

It seems quite a few officials at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv are concerned by reports that the United States plans to cut funding to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees and revoke its mandate to operate in the West Bank.

It is high time these officials realize that UNRWA – the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East – is not the solution, but the problem. It is hard to believe that in Israel, of all places, these officials claim to be in favor of finding a solution to the seven-decade-long refugee problem, but when push comes to shove, it seems the timing is never right.

Established for the exclusive benefit of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA has, instead of resolving the problem, done everything in its power to perpetuate it. Instead of peace and coexistence, it teaches hatred and incitement. Instead of fighting terrorist organizations, it collaborates with them. As someone who has worked toward UNRWA'S closure for years, I am glad Washington finally gets it and I hope the people at IDF headquarters will soon come to their senses.

According to media reports, the White House is determined to solve this persistent problem and plans to take the necessary steps, including ending the Palestinians' unique ability to inherit refugee status, and recognizing 500,000 Palestinian refugees instead of the 5 million UNRWA purports to serve.

While it is in Israel's long-term interest that UNRWA be closed, in practice the defense establishment acts as the agency's representative. Following the media reports, it took less than 24 hours for the fear-mongering to begin, with officials arguing that ending UNRWA's operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would result in Israel being made to bear the burden of providing the education, health and welfare services for which the agency is currently responsible.

What could happen if US rejects Palestinian 'right of return'?

David Bedein, head of Center Near East Policy Research, says implications of perpetual 'refugee' status more serious than just wasted money.

Bolton: US to Cut Its Funding to UN Human Rights Council

US National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Thursday that the United States plans to cut its funding to the United Nations Human Rights Council, which the US withdrew from in June due to the body’s anti-Israel bias.

“We are going to de-fund the Human Rights Council,” Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, told the Associated Press.

As the UNHRC’s largest donor, the US contributes 22% of the council’s budget. However, it does not contribute directly; instead, the funds are taken from the overall US payment to the United Nations.

“We’ll calculate 22% of the Human Rights Council and the High Commissioner’s budget, and our remittances to the UN for this budget year will be less 22% of those costs, and we’ll say specifically that’s what we’re doing,” said Bolton. “We expect that impact to occur on the Human Rights Council.”

The UNHRC was founded in 2006 to advocate for human rights globally. However, its constant double standard and demonization of Israel has frustrated American leadership, among other moves like allowing countries, such as Venezuela, which violate human rights, to be members of the UN body. Last May, it passed five resolutions against Israel, which is not a member of the council.

Palestine Today reports that Jenin has been enjoying a huge economic boom in the past two years, as Israeli authorities allow Israeli Arabs to drive to the town to shop.

Visitors to the city have doubled since 2009, and their number accelerated since 2015 when Israel allowed Israeli Arabs to drive their personal vehicles into the city.

The Jenin Chamber of Commerce says that 860,000 vehicles crossed through the Green Line to the Jenin Governorate in 2016, and the number rose to 929,000 in 2017.

Most of the Israeli Arabs go to Jenin on Fridays and Saturdays.

The number of new malls, shops and restaurants, and coffee shops has doubled in recent years. In 2017 alone, the number of shops increased from 2300 to 3000.

Israeli Arabs are also flocking to the Arab American University in Jenin, where over half the students are Israeli citizens.

Jenin is in Area A and officially Israelis are not allowed to go there but the IDF allows Israeli Arabs to go there freely while stopping Israeli Jews.

It should be noted that before the first intifada, Israeli Jews could freely go to Arab cities in the territories to go shopping. One person I know who lives in the territories said that she used to buy challah for Shabbat in Ramallah, where the local merchants brought in the bread from Israeli bakeries.

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.@AFP makes part of the Holocaust debatable

From AFP:

Pre-war Lithuania was home to a thriving Jewish community of more than 200,000 people, with Vilnius a hub of learning known as the "Jerusalem of the North".

But historians contend that around 195,000 perished at the hands of the Nazis and local collaborators under the 1941-44 German occupation, nearly the entire Jewish population.

"Historians contend?" Usuallly, whenever that phrase is used in other news stories, it means that some historians have a theory about something - a theory that others may dispute. For example from recent news stories;

Historians contend that no single event caused the revolution on continental America inclusive of her 13 colonies. It was instead a series of event that led to the war.

Historians and economists, for example, have long disputed the cause of a mid-nineteenth-century spike in Southern productivity. Economists argue for agricultural innovations, such as new cotton seeds, while historians contend that greater levels of violence drove heightened production.

Some historians contend the 1848 song [Oh! Susanna] is actually an early, subtle anti-slavery song.

In each case the use of the phrase means that there is a novel, possibly controversial assertion made by historians.

The decimation of Vilnius is a well-documented fact. If the specific number 195,000 is in dispute, then the paragraph should have been rewritten as "Virtually all the Jews in Vilnius were murdered by the Nazis and local collaborators..."

This is nothing less than a subtle form of Holocaust revisionism, given the imprimatur of a major wire service that newspapers throughout the world use as authoritative.

Worse yet, this is an AFP boilerplate. The exact same sentence was published in 2016 in another AFP story about Vilnius.

(h/t Jewdah Maccabee)

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I don't know how reliable this report is, but Al Akhbar in Lebanon is reporting that PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas is drawing up plans to severely punish all Gazans if the current negotiations in Egypt with Hamas prove fruitless.

The newspaper quoted "informed political sources" that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has instructed his government to prepare a "full vision on stopping the financing of Gaza."

This would include stopping salaries of employees in ministries of social affairs, health and education.

According to the newspaper, the sanctions would also include stopping the work of the Monetary Authority in Gaza, which means the closure of all banks in the sector, which will paralyze all commercial activities and affect the ability to pay for any imports.

"There are other steps that the PA is preparing to implement, including stopping the transfer of social welfare services serving more than 80,000 families from Gaza, freezing medical transfers for patients, cutting off medicines and supplies for the health sector, cutting off electricity in Gaza" according to the report.

The head of the delegation of Fatah to Cairo, Azzam al-Ahmad, told Egyptian officials of the intention of Abbas to impose these new sanctions if the truce agreement fails.

Ahmad has told the media that Fatah will respond to the Egyptian reconciliation plan sometime today.

Previous sanctions on Gaza by Abbas have been met with a big yawn from the international community and from virtually all supposed pro-Palestinian "activists" - except for the ones aligned with Hamas to begin with.

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Disney's Big Bad Wolf was dressed as a Jewish peddler stereotype (video)

I don't remember this scene from when I was a kid....

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08/26 Links: Late Senator John McCain Remembered as ‘True Supporter of Israel’; Oren: $200 Million Cut in US Aid Might Bring Palestinians to Negotiating Table

From Ian:

Late Senator John McCain Remembered as ‘True Supporter of Israel’

The death of Senator John McCain is being mourned by US Jewish groups and Israeli political leaders from across the political spectrum.

The 81-year-old McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who was the Republican nominee for president in 2008, passed away on Saturday at his home in Arizona after a battle with brain cancer.

During his three decades in the Senate, McCain — the son and grandson of four-star admirals who graduated from the Naval Academy and served his country as a fighter pilot — was known as a staunch advocate for freedom around the world.

Part of this outlook was manifested by his backing of a strong US-Israel relationship.

“Throughout his congressional career Senator McCain stood with Israel because throughout his life he stood up for America’s allies and our shared democratic values,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said in a statement on Saturday. “As Chairman and longtime member of the Armed Services Committee, Senator McCain consistently worked to ensure that Israel had the critical resources to defend herself. In times of crisis, his eloquent voice could always be counted on to speak out in solidarity with the Jewish state.”

American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris remembered McCain as a “statesman and a national treasure — and an avid supporter of Israel, an ally he first visited nearly 40 years ago.”

“A passionate advocate for American global leadership, Senator McCain rightly bemoaned those who favored a US pullback from world affairs,” Harris added.

Jewish leaders mourn McCain for his bipartisanship, fierce commitment to Israel

Sen. John McCain, who made human rights and Israel centerpieces of his advocacy for a robust US influence across the planet, has died.

The Arizona Republican, who on Friday declined further treatment for brain cancer, died Saturday. He was 81.

He was with his family at the family ranch in Sedona, Arizona, when he passed. “With the Senator when he passed were his wife Cindy and their family,” a statement from his office said. “At his death, he had served the United States of America faithfully for sixty years.”

Never-Trump Republicans and not a few Democrats during the campaign and presidency of Donald Trump have held up McCain as an avatar of what the Republican party once was, and still could be: the national security flagship ready to overcome partisan differences to advance US interests. Indeed, the relationship that was perhaps most emblematic of his dedication to national security and to bipartisanship was his close friendship with Joseph Lieberman, the Orthodox Jewish senator from Connecticut.

McCain became in his final years the reluctant unTrump; he was the hero who spent 1967-1973 in a Vietnamese jail for American POWs, when Donald Trump was a swinging young businessman who won five deferments from service; McCain was the victim of torture who led advocacy against the practice, while Trump embraced it; McCain was the flag-bearer for robust American interventionism abroad, while Trump counsels conciliation and isolationism; McCain was candid about his flaws while Trump seldom apologizes; McCain took long meetings and delved into detail, while Trump eschews particulars for the big picture; McCain forgave his enemies while Trump nurtures his enmities.

Netanyahu salutes McCain as American patriot, true friend of Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli politicians on Sunday hailed US Sen. John McCain for his principled leadership and stalwart support of the Jewish state, following his death on Saturday.

McCain, a war hero and towering figure in American politics known for reaching across the aisle in an increasingly divided nation, passed away Saturday following a battle with brain cancer. He was 81.

“I am deeply saddened by the passing of John McCain, a great American patriot and a great supporter of Israel,” Netanyahu tweeted in English Sunday morning. “I will always treasure the constant friendship he showed to the people of Israel and to me personally.”

“His support for Israel never wavered,” he said. “It sprang from his belief in democracy and freedom. The State of Israel salutes John McCain.”

President Reuven Rivlin bid farewell to the “great leader,” whom he hailed as a “defender of his people, a man of strong values, and a true supporter of Israel.”

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman praised McCain as “an American war hero” and one of Israel’s “greatest friends.” Liberman recalled that in a recent meeting with McCain, the senator showed him a photo of his time in captivity and told him that “even despite my terrible suffering I never wavered in my commitment to the values of freedom and justice.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) meeting Senator John McCain during a visit to Israel in 2015. (GPO)

Former prime minister Ehud Barak said that McCain, a longtime personal friend, was among the few principled political leaders today.

“A man that was in touching distance of the White House, but never let it crush his spirit. Neither in Vietnam, nor at the peak of his political career in Washington.” Barak added that McCain was “a huge friend to Israel, especially regarding its security.”

The Democratic Party versus the Jewish People (Michael Lumish)

The Democratic Party versus the Jewish People

Michael Lumish

aKu - Turning Away

I understand that most American Jews do not want to hear this message, but there is no getting away from certain obvious political truths.

The progressive-left and the Democratic Party believe that the Jewish people of the Middle East, in the form of Israel, are not humane to the Palestinian-Arabs. What this means is that if the Democratic Party gains power in the forthcoming US midterm elections they will turn against Israel in a harsh manner, because they are already in the process of doing so. We can see this very clearly from the upcoming candidates that the Democrats are fielding.

In a recent piece for The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, PhD student at the School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs at Tel Aviv University, Doron Feldman, tells us:

Israeli decision-makers must recognize what is happening in American society and politics and prepare strategically for the worst possible outcome. If the Democrats manage to overtake the Republican majority in Congress as a result of the midterm elections, Washington could significantly reduce its military and diplomatic involvement in the Middle East, perhaps even to the point that it ceases to function as a superpower in the region and in the world – a situation that would benefit Russia and China. In the longer term, Israel’s decision-makers must consider and prepare for the possibility that the midterms are a harbinger of the presidential election of 2020.

Although I agree with the overall assessment, I do not agree that a US cut in military assistance to Israel is necessarily bad for Israel or for the Jewish people. US Diplomatic involvement must be emphasized, but Israel has the capacity to take care of its own military needs. In fact, it would presumably improve Israel's economy to transfer all Israeli weapons manufacturing from the United States to Israel, itself. The three billion per year that the United States spends on domestic weapons ear-marked for Israel is a tiny proportion of Israel's overall economy. It does not even equal what PepsiCo just spent in its purchase of SodaStream.

Of more significance, however, is Feldman's focus on what he calls the "leftist-socialist-progressive wing" of the Democratic Party. These are the people who, when they do not directly support antisemitic anti-Zionism, generally think that Arab violence against the Jewish minority in the Middle East is, at least, understandable. That is, they tend to view the tiny national homeland of the Jewish people as a European transplant onto "indigenous" Arab land while entirely forgetting that Arabs are from the Arabian peninsula and the Jewish people -- who are tiny by number in comparison -- hail from Judea, which is also known as Israel.

The Democratic Party, sadly, supports antisemitic anti-Zionism to the extent that it considers Israel a "colonial-settler" imposition onto a native people. Their problem is less anti-Jewish ill-will -- from what I can tell, at least -- than it is historical ignorance of thirteen centuries of Arab and Muslim imperial stomping on Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian faces.

But even in the unlikely event that the Democrats turn a cold shoulder to their anti-Zionists, it is increasingly evident that the Party is no friend to the Jewish people. Feldman writes:

Several individuals from the leftist-socialist-progressive wing of the Democratic Party are considering running for the presidency in 2020. They include Bernie Sanders, who won 43.1% of the vote in the 2016 Democratic primary, and Elizabeth Warren, who dubiously claims to be of Native American descent. Both these candidates have expressed anti-Israel positions. If they are elected, they can be expected to follow through on those positions, not only in terms of US policy but also at the UN.

On a less lofty level, we see Democratic Party friends of the racist Louis Farrakhan coming to prominence within the party. These include, but are not limited to, and in no particular order, Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, and NY candidate for Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, according to Ha'aretz:

In the midst of her primary campaign, Ocasio-Cortez spoke out strongly against the Israeli army’s actions on the Gaza border on May 14, tweeting, “This is a massacre. I hope my peers have the moral courage to call it such. No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can’t be silent about this anymore.”

The obvious political trend on the American-Left and the Democratic Party vis-à-vis the conflict is increasingly friendly toward the hostile Muslim majority in opposition to the well-being of the Jewish minority in the Middle East. As Feldman points out, even if the moderate Hillary / Biden wing of the Party comes to prominence, the emerging hard-left is forcing them into a crusty, pro-Oslo, intransigent stance on Israel along the line of Obama's Middle East policies.

Progressive-left Democrats think of Israel as a racist, colonialist, settler-state and have little sympathy for it if they even believe it should exist at all. The moderate Democrats merely believe that the Jewish people must be leashed. The "moderates" believe that it is the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, our indigenous homeland -- what they insist upon calling "West Bank" and, thereby, erasing Jewish heritage -- that is the fundamental problem.

What we need to do is stand up for ourselves and insist upon the fact of Jewish indigeneity to the Land of Israel.

At the end of the day, it is our first and final home and if the Jewish people will not stand up for ourselves, nobody else will.

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From TOI:

The Trump Administration will announce in the next few days that it rejects the long-standing Palestinian demand for a “right of return” for million of refugees and their descendants to Israel, an Israeli television report said Saturday night. The US will announce a policy that, “from its point of view, essentially cancels the ‘right of return,'” the report said.
...
The US — which on Friday announced that it had decided to cut more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians — and has also cut back its funding for UNRWA — will also ask Israel to “reconsider” the mandate that Israel gives to UNRWA to operate in the West Bank. The goal of such a change, the TV report said, would be to prevent Arab nations from legitimately channeling aid to UNRWA in the West Bank.

I was not aware of any mandate Israel gives to UNRWA in the West Bank, besides allowing officials to travel through Tel Aviv and similar services given to any NGO.

I also didn't think that it was possible for Arab nations to give money to UNRWA in the West Bank directly.

While I believe that UNRWA has no reason to exist in the West Bank, this story needs to be explained a bit better.

This story highlights a basic truth, though.

Any move to defund UNRWA in the West Bank would include lots more money for the Palestinian Authority to expand the services it already does for the "other" kind of Palestinian, and to do it more efficiently - more schools, more hospitals, more medical clinics. The PA would gain hundreds of millions of dollars to help its own citizens.

Yet is would prefer that this money go to UNRWA.

Have you ever heard of a government that had the opportunity to enrich its coffers and prefer the money go to an NGO instead?

This is all the proof you needs that the Palestinian leadership isn't interested in building a state, but in using the false "refugee issue" to eventually destroy Israel - no difference than how they acted when UNRWA was created in 1950.

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Professor Joseph Massad of Columbia University has written an article for Electronic Intifada where he again tries to make an argument that Zionism is in fact antisemitic, and anti-Zionism is a principled form of anti-colonialism.

We've demolished his arguments and proven that he lies before. Massad's words about Zionism are indistinguishable from those of neo-Nazis. It is most interesting that the leftists seem to embrace Massad because he also lumps another group as anti-colonialist - the gays.

The beginning of the article, however, includes an historical aside that shows again how deceptive this Columbia professor is with the facts.

To establish his bona fides about being against antisemitism, he writes:

No thinking person, for example, is expected to believe that descriptions of Jews as engaging in a “worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization,” as Winston Churchill accused “international Jews” of doing in the Sunday Herald in 1920, are not anti-Semitic.

Was Churchill an antisemite?

Here is the article that Massad is referring to, entitled "Zionism vs. Bolshevism."

The very beginning of the article shows that there is no way that Churchill can be characterized as a hater of Jews.

SOME people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.
Disraeli, the Jew Prime Minister of England, and Leader of the Conservative Party, who was always true to his race and proud of his origin, said on a well-known occasion: “The Lord deals with the nations as the nations deal with the Jews.” Certainly when we look at the miserable state of Russia, where of all countries in the world the Jews were the most cruelly treated, and contrast it with the fortunes of our own country, which seems to have been so providentially preserved amid the awful perils of these times, we must admit that nothing that has since happened in the history of the world has falsified the truth of Disraeli’s confident assertion.

Massad obviously read this - but he knows that most of his readers will not bother to read the poor facsimile of the article that he linked to instead of the actual text.

While Churchill's words from nearly a century ago do not conform to political correctness nowadays, he is careful to distinguish between the "international Jews" who supported what was proven to become a genocidal political movement and the majority of Jews.

Good and Bad Jews.
The conflict between good and evil which proceeds unceasingly in the breast of man nowhere reaches such an intensity as in the Jewish race. The dual nature of mankind is nowhere more strongly or more terribly exemplified. We owe to the Jews in the Christian revelation a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all other wisdom and learning put together. On that system and by that faith there has been built out of the wreck of the Roman Empire the whole of our existing civilisation.

And it may well be that this same astounding race may at the present time be in the actual process of producing another system of morals and philosophy, as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which, if not arrested, would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible. It would almost seem as if the gospel of Christ and the gospel of Antichrist were destined to originate among the same people; and that this mystic and mysterious race had been chosen for the supreme manifestations, both of the divine and the diabolical.

Here is the full context for Massad's quote, that proves that he took a single sentence out of context in order to paint Churchill, and all Zionists, as antisemites:

"National" Jews.

There can be no greater mistake than to attribute to each individual a recognisable share in the qualities which make up the national character. There are all sorts of men – good, bad and, for the most part, indifferent – in every country, and in every race. Nothing is more wrong than to deny to an individual, on account of race or origin, his right to be judged on his personal merits and conduct. In a people of peculiar genius like the Jews, contrasts are more vivid, the extremes are more widely separated, the resulting consequences are more decisive.

At the present fateful period there are three main lines of political conception among the Jews, two of which are helpful and hopeful in a very high degree to humanity, and the third absolutely destructive.

First there are the Jews who, dwelling in every country throughout the world, identify themselves with that country, enter into its national life, and, while adhering faithfully to their own religion, regard themselves as citizens in the fullest sense of the State which has received them. Such a Jew living in England would say, “I am an Englishman practising the Jewish faith.” This is a worthy conception, and useful in the highest degree. We in Great Britain well know that during the great struggle the influence of what may be called the “National Jews” in many lands was cast preponderatingly on the side of the Allies; and in our own Army Jewish soldiers have played a most distinguished part, some rising to the command of armies, others winning the Victoria Cross for valour.

The National Russian Jews, in spite of the disabilities under which they have suffered, have managed to play an honourable and useful part in the national life even of Russia. As bankers and industrialists they have strenuously promoted the development of Russia’s economic resources and they were foremost in the creation of those remarkable organisations, the Russian Co-operative Societies. In politics their support has been given, for the most part, to liberal and progressive movements, and they have been among the staunchest upholders of friendship with France and Great Britain.

International Jews.

In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing.

If characterizing one of three groups of Jews makes one an antisemite, then Joseph Massad just defined himself as an antisemite - because guess who Churchill's third group of Jews is? Zionist Jews!

Zionism offers the third sphere to the political conceptions of the Jewish race. In violent contrast to international communism, it presents to the Jew a national idea of a commanding character. It has fallen to the British Government, as the result of the conquest of Palestine, to have the opportunity and the responsibility of securing for the Jewish race all over the world a home and a centre of national life. The statesmanship and historic sense of Mr. Balfour were prompt to seize this opportunity. Declarations have been made which have irrevocably decided the policy of Great Britain. The fiery energies of Dr. Weissmann, the leader, for practical purposes, of the Zionist project, backed by many of the most prominent British Jews, and supported by the full authority of Lord Allenby, are all directed to achieving the success of this inspiring movement.

Massad's single-minded hate of Zionism is comparable to Churchill's hate of Communism. If Churchill's words against "international Jews" are antisemitic, them Massad's decades-long battle to demonize Zionist Jews is no less.

And indeed it is more, because by denying that Jews have a right to self determination and by labeling all who have that desire as racist and colonialist as opposed to liberal and freedom-seeking, Massad is being directly antisemitic.

Which is why he is so desperate to change the definition of antisemitic to include Zionists.

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08/25 Links: Caroline Glick: A conversation with John Bolton; NYTs Publishes a Rejection of Yossi Klein Halevi’s Plea for Reconciliation; Why Jeremy Corbyn's 'Zionist' comments were racist

From Ian:

US set to announce it rejects Palestinian ‘right of return’ — TV report

The Trump Administration will announce in the next few days that it rejects the long-standing Palestinian demand for a “right of return” for million of refugees and their descendants to Israel, an Israeli television report said Saturday night. The US will announce a policy that, “from its point of view, essentially cancels the ‘right of return,'” the report said.

The “right of return” is one of the key core issues of dispute in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians claim that five million people — tens of thousands of original refugees from what is today’s Israel, and their millions of descendants — have a “right of return.” Israel rejects the demand, saying that it represents a bid by the Palestinians to destroy Israel by weight of numbers. Israel’s population is almost nine million, some three-quarters of whom are Jewish. An influx of millions would mean Israel could no longer be a Jewish-majority state.

According to the Hadashot TV report Saturday, the US in early September will set out its policy on the issue. It will produce a report that says there are actually only some half-a-million Palestinians who should be legitimately considered refugees, and make plain that it rejects the UN designation under which the millions of descendants of the original refugees are also considered refugees. The definition is the basis for the activities of UNRWA, the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

The US — which on Friday announced that it had decided to cut more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians — and has also cut back its funding for UNRWA — will also ask Israel to “reconsider” the mandate that Israel gives to UNRWA to operate in the West Bank. The goal of such a change, the TV report said, would be to prevent Arab nations from legitimately channeling aid to UNRWA in the West Bank.

JPost Editorial: Bolton’s message

One theory about this week’s visit to Israel by US National Security Adviser John Bolton is that he was dispatched by President Donald Trump to suss out the chances of a resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The visit came after Trump pointedly said at a rally in Charleston, West Virginia, that since he had taken the issue of Jerusalem off the table, “Israel will have to pay a higher price because they won a very big thing” – referring to the US decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on May 14.

At a news conference at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel on Wednesday, Bolton explained that Trump, whom he called “a deal-maker,” expected the Palestinians to say after the embassy move, “So we didn’t get that one, we’ll get something else.” But, he added, the parties will have to “talk about it between themselves and see what, if anything, the price of that was.”

The responses from both Israel and the Palestinians were predictable. On the Israeli side, Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi – who is close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – assured Israelis that Trump has a warm spot for Israel and “will not turn on us.” Hanegbi stressed that he had constant contact with the White House and said that Trump was trying to find a way into the hearts of the Palestinians in order to regain their confidence in the US as an “honest broker.”

On the Israeli Left, Zionist Union MK Amir Peretz said it had been clear that the US would ask for a payback for the US Embassy move, adding, “No one can claim that this is a hostile president with demands that are not legitimate. Netanyahu cannot deny the need to make courageous decisions.”

Palestinian officials were more skeptical. Senior PLO official Ahmad al-Tamimi said Trump’s remarks reflected the “continued American policy that is biased in favor of Israel,” and he reaffirmed the PA’s “categoric rejection” of the peace plan expected to be announced soon by the US president.

Where does this leave us? Well, Bolton sounded upbeat as he voiced the hope that there are “a lot of prospects” to find ways to resolve the problems facing the Palestinian people, but added that it was “a sad outcome” for the Palestinian people that “all they got now is a choice between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.” On the last of his three days of talks in the region, Bolton concluded that the aim of the long-awaited US peace plan is overseeing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and he hoped this would become evident when Washington unveiled the plan.

Herein lies the problem and the challenge. As former Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky told The Jerusalem Post, “Whatever the US peace plan is, Israelis will probably accept it and the Palestinians will reject it.”

Caroline Glick: A conversation with John Bolton

President Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Ambassador John Bolton to serve as his National Security Advisor indicated clearly that Trump is advancing a national security strategy far different from those of his predecessors.

On and off for decades, Bolton has held some of the most senior foreign policy positions in the US government. And throughout his long career in foreign policy, Bolton has been the bane of the foreign policy elites. In part this owes to his extraordinary successes. After 15 years of fruitless and often half-hearted US efforts to repeal UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 from 1975 that branded Zionism as racism, as assistant secretary of state, Bolton got the job done in 1991.

As Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs in the George W. Bush administration, Bolton created and implemented the Proliferation Security Initiative. The PSI was the most successful counter-proliferation program the US has undertaken in recent years.

As UN Ambassador in 2005 and 2006, Bolton dismantled the corrupt UN Human Rights Commission. He opposed the formation of its successor, the equally corrupt Human Rights Committee, saying, “We want a butterfly. We don’t intend to put lipstick on a caterpillar and call it a success.”

Bolton’s record of success engendered jealousy among many members of the Washington establishment. But they were more irked by his refusal to go along to get along. Bolton’s stubborn insistence on basing US policies on reality, rather than ideology or fashion has made him the bête noire of the foreign policy establishment.

08/24 Links Pt2: Wave the national flag, for Zion; Labour’s New Anti-Semitism Has Disturbingly Old Roots; Who Is Julia Salazar?; US cuts aid to Palestinians by more than $200 million

From Ian:

Dr. Miriam Adelson: Wave the national flag, for Zion

This column proudly displays Israel's national flag. The same flag will appear in the same place on every edition of Israel Hayom from this day forward. That will be our way of saluting the nation-state law, which, among other things, confirms this flag's central and important role in the State of Israel.

Since you, our readers, naturally do not have a problem reading a newspaper that is openly patriotic, you should wonder about the controversy and antagonism that this law has generated within the Israeli public and among its politicians.

The State of Israel gave itself a very nice gift for its 70th birthday: the nation-state law – a law that defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Israel is proud of this important Zionist legislation, despite the many futile attempts to make it appear hurtful, racist or discriminatory. The law is a true source of pride for the state. I am still waiting for someone, anyone, to point to a single clause in this law that contradicts in any way the values of democracy and equality.

I would like to ask the opponents of this law: What about it upsets you? Is it the clause that talks about Israel being the historical homeland of the Jewish people, where the State of Israel was established? Or perhaps is it the clause that decisively concludes that unified Jerusalem is the capital of Israel? Could it be the one that burns into our psyche that Hebrew is the official language of this state, and the Hatikvah is its national anthem?

Who Is Julia Salazar?

Salazar’s campaign reflects the New York branch of the Democratic Socialists of America’s organizing strength. DSA activists served as Ocasio-Cortez’s ground force in her stunning primary upset over House Democratic Caucus chair Joe Crowley this past July. A win for Salazar, who has been active in the DSA since 2016, would prove that Ocasio-Cortez’s triumph wasn’t a one-off and establish the group as a very real threat to New York’s standing political elite. The citywide DSA has made Salazar’s election one of its top priorities: A July 23 open letter arguing against the New York City DSA’s prospective endorsement of Cynthia Nixon’s gubernatorial bid noted that the organization has “already endorsed three resource-intensive campaigns in New York City, including … our endorsement and field operation for DSA member Julia Salazar’s run for state Senate.” One of their own activists stands a better-than-decent chance of becoming one of 63 New York state senators, so it’s fair to say the NYC-DSA’s investment has paid off.

As with Ocasio-Cortez, who had worked as a bartender in Manhattan less than a year before her primary victory, the value proposition behind a state senator Julia Salazar is only tangentially related to her past accomplishments: Supporters hope she will be a radical departure from the existing political order and expand the public’s self-defeatingly narrow vision of who should represent them.

But Salazar differs from Ocasio-Cortez, Nixon, and the rest of her cohort in one interesting respect: the state Senate candidate is the only one to have emerged from a specifically Jewish corner of leftism. She “comes from a unique Jewish background,” as The Forward put it. “She was born in Colombia, and her father was Jewish, descended from the community expelled from medieval Spain. When her family immigrated to the United States, they had little contact with the American Jewish community, struggling to establish themselves financially.” From early 2016 through May of 2017 she was a Grace Paley Organizing Fellow with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ). Her fellowship biography identified her as senior editor of Unruly, the “intersectional blog” of the anti-Zionist and pro-BDS Jewish Voice for Peace’s Jews of Color and Sephardic/Mizrahi Caucus. Her last publicly listed job before running for office was as a staff organizer for JFREJ, which is a New York-based left-wing social and activist organization—Salazar was working with the group when it decided to honor the controversial activist Linda Sarsour with one of their annual Risk-Taker Awards.

Going in reverse chronological order, Salazar has also been a contributor to Mondoweiss, an IfNotNow demonstrator, a Bridging the Gap fellow through Brooklyn College Hillel, a World Zionist Organization campus fellow, a co-founder of the Columbia University chapter of J Street, an AIPAC Policy Conference student attendee, and founder of the university’s Christians United for Israel (CUFI) chapter. For much of the five years leading up to her campaign, Salazar dedicated herself to explicitly Jewish causes, often in a professional capacity. If she wins, her identity as a politically radical working-class Jewish immigrant will have helped take her to a position of formal power and authority. Based on interviews with former acquaintances and an examination of her writings, social media postings, and publicly available documents, it is an identity that is no less convincing for having been largely self-created.

IsraellyCool: Will the Real Julia Salazar Please Stand Up?

Note: I have sat on this draft for 5 weeks, awaiting confirmation everything was accurate. In the meantime, Tablet has just published their own expose, which not only confirms my information but also brings in more information. Nevertheless, I am posting this because the Tablet piece is very long. Having said that, read the Tablet piece if you can – it demonstrates excellent journalism.

Julia Salazar, a state Senate candidate in Brooklyn, is fast becoming a big deal. Cynthia Nixon has endorsed her, as has Linda Sarsour. And according to many like the New York Daily News and The Forward, she might just be the next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic primary winner in New York’s 14th congressional district who I posted about here.

And there are a number of similarities. One they don’t mention is the fact Salazar is also an Israel hater.

But she never used to be. In fact, she used to be very pro-Israel, information she seems to have tried to flush down the memory hole. Likewise, while she claims to be Jewish, there is evidence she may be lying about this. In fact, Salazar seems to have a real aversion to the truth.

Major rock act to play in a country that treats Palestinians like dirt. BDS silent.

From the webpage of The Scorpions:

Here is a major rock act that is going to Lebanon, a country that forbids Palestinians from owning land, from becoming citizens, from building new houses, and from many kinds of jobs. By law.

Palestinians are stuck in UNRWA camps where various terror groups fight each other, and sometimes the Lebanese army, in an atmosphere of lawlessness.

Lebanon is, by any definition, an apartheid state. Palestinians know this well and the ones who can escape to Europe, do - over 200,000 of them so far.

But I have never seen any "pro-Palestinian" group say that Lebanon should be boycotted, or punished in any way, because of how they treat Palestinians.

This is pretty good proof that when people say they are "pro-Palestinian" they really mean that they are anti-Israel.

Everyone knows this but no one likes to say it out loud.

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