Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

The questions that reporters should, but won't, ask Mahmoud Abbas in NYC today

A journalist asked me what questions I would ask Mahmoud Abbas if I could.

I doubt that any of these will actually be asked to him today, because for some reason journalists are more polite to someone who pays terrorist salaries than to politicians of the party that they dislike, but here's my list:

Most Palestinians can trace their family trees a few centuries back, often to prominent families in Arabia. Is your family descended from the Banu Abbas family from the dawn of Islam?

Do you regard Jews who quietly walk on the Temple Mount to be desecrating the area? You referred to them as having "filthy feet," do you still think so? Do other non-Muslims who visit the site also desecrate it, or just Jews?

Do you believe that there is a Jewish people, or that it is merely a religion?

At the UN today, you showed a map that implied that Palestinians accepted compromise on the land in 1937 (Peel) and 1947 (UN.) Of course, Arabs rejected those plans. Why are you showing the world maps of "Palestinian compromise" that are clearly historically false? pic.twitter.com/cd5LquMXzI

Chaim Weizmann once said that he would accept a state the "size of a tablecloth." The Palestinian attitude seems exactly the opposite - you will NOT accept a state unless your laundry list of demands (Jerusalem, "Return," prisoners, borders) are exactly what you demand and nothing less. How much do you really want a state when you claim on the one hand that your people are suffering terribly but on the other hand you have demands that Israel can never accept?

Why should Israel trust that you are interested in peace when you and your government routinely praises terrorists like Dalal Mughrabi?

Given a choice of a true peace with Israel and unification with Hamas and Islamic Jihad while they remain armed and sworn to destroy Israel, which would you choose?

It's been over 25 years since Oslo. In all that time, you could have prepared a generation of children to live in peace with Israel. Instead, you teach them in schools and on TV that all of British Mandate Palestine is theirs, that they have a "right to return" to a state you consider your enemy, that martyrdom is their sincerest wish. If you want peace as you keep saying to diplomats and the Western media, why has nothing been done to actually teach peace with Israel to children?

And a few years ago I made a poster of lots of other questions for Abbas.

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02/11 Links Pt1: Requiem to the Israeli Left's Apartheid Argument; Senior Fatah official: "Palestine" stretches from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea

From Ian:

Ha'aretz: Requiem to the Israeli Left's Apartheid Argument

In this day and age, with progressives tending to bestow automatic moral rightness on the weak and to assign automatic moral blame to the strong, the left is inclined to be furious at the very suggestion that the occupied are to blame for the continued occupation. Part of this fury is based on denying Palestinian recalcitrance and rejectionism.

But the other part is actually more poignant: Some on the left believe we must end the occupation regardless of the price we’ll have to pay, since it is an evil one cannot acquiesce to. From this perspective, the infringement on Palestinian human rights is so grave that it undermines Israel’s moral foundation – to the point of voiding its very right to exist. If Zionism rests on the universal right to self-determination, the argument goes, it cannot exist at the expense of another people’s ability to exercise that same right.

I don’t know if the historian with whom I dined subscribes to this extreme view, but I think this is what many who see the “apartheid” argument as closing the case believe.

Still, one is obliged to ask if what we are talking about here is an offense so abhorrent, so inhumanly odious, that one must die rather than commit it. Should we really end the occupation even if it means collective suicide for Zionism and probable death to most of its sons and daughters (or at least to those who cannot afford to emigrate)?

Undeniably, there are crimes one should die before committing. Genocide would probably be the obvious example. But it is hard to stretch this argument to include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It would seem there is not much moral weight to the idea that we should choose our own death only to save the Palestinians from the consequences of their rejectionism and their turn to murderous terrorism. There is also little point in committing suicide only to replace Israel’s military rule with a more brutal regime that will deprive the Palestinians of human rights to an even greater extent, as Hamas has done in Gaza.

The truth is that, short of attempting to justify collective suicide, the moral argument from “apartheid” has no use. As long as we refuse to die, it will not save us from having to limp along with no full solution in sight to the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire.

We will have to brace ourselves for a long stretch of political awkwardness and moral ambiguity. Which is still far better than jumping together, with our hands at each other’s throats, into the lava around us. The incantation “apartheid” will not make any of those harsh circumstances disappear.

Is ICC being equal with Israeli settlements, Turkish occupation? - analysis

Amid the all-important International Criminal Court debate about whether Israeli settlements are a war crime, almost completely ignored has been the question of Turkey’s occupation of Northern Cyprus.

The Palestinians officially asked for ICC intervention in January 2015, and ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda essentially declared Israeli settlements war crimes on December 20.

In contrast, the first complaint by a Cypriot official, represented by Shurat Hadin, against Turkey’s settlements in Northern Cyprus was filed in July 2014 – half a year earlier than the claims against Israel.

Seven weeks after Bensouda decided against Israel, all that has been said about the Turkish occupation of Cyprus is that a decision is anticipated at some undefined point later in 2020.

How did the Turkish case fall to the back burner as compared to the case against Israel?

Does this unequal situation prove anti-Israel bias by the ICC, as some claim?

Will anti-Israel case go unanswered at The Hague? Israeli lawyers already have a plan

The Israel Bar Association will try to represent Israel in the International Criminal Court at The Hague to push against the charges laid by the Palestinians, Israel Hayom has exclusively learned.

The IBA's move is designed to give Israel a voice in the court without having the country officially join.

Israel has refused to sign the Rome Statute and is hence not part of the ICC. The Jewish state also says the court has no jurisdiction on matters pertaining to Israeli territory because Israel is not a party to the convention, but the court has nevertheless begun proceedings that could culminate with a full-fledged investigation against Israel over its actions in the Gaza Strip and in various Palestinian cities.

Israeli leaders have slammed the court for taking that position.

The IBA's governing body approved Monday a motion that could pave the way for the organization to represent Israel in cases concerning the state. "In order to avoid having the Palestinian Authority's position go unchallenged, we have discussed the possibility of becoming an amicus curiae in the court and we have assembled a task force to facilitate that," the motion reads.

On Sunday, Iran failed for the fourth time to successfully place a satellite into orbit:

Iranian government officials admitted Sunday that an attempt to place a small Earth-imaging satellite into orbit was unsuccessful, the fourth consecutive launch failure for the country’s space program.

A Simorgh rocket launched at around 1545 GMT (10:45 a.m. EST) Sunday from the Imam Khomeini Spaceport, located in Semnan province in the north-central part of the country, according to Iranian government officials and state media sources.

But the Simorgh booster did not place its payload — an Earth observation satellite named Zafar 1 — into orbit as planned, according to Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran’s minister of communications and information technology.

The failure Sunday of the Simorgh rocket, the larger of Iran’s two tested satellite launchers, marked the fourth straight Iranian mission that has failed to place a satellite into orbit since 2017. That does not include an accident in August in which a Safir rocket — Iran’s other orbital-class booster — appeared to explode during preparations on a launch pad at the Iranian spaceport.

US and Israeli officials have always been concerned about Iran's attempts to place a satellite into orbit, because the same technology that allows space flight allows intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Did Israeli or US cyberweapons help ruin this mission?

The evidence is light but interesting.

First of all, the consistent failures of the Iranian space program point to more than coincidence and more than Iranian incompetence.

The second interesting thing about what happened last Sunday is that it came close after a massive hacking attack against Iran on Saturday:

Iran was sabotaged with an unprecedented cyber attack on the eve of its failed attempt to launch a satellite into orbit, the regime has claimed.

Last night, a rocket launch from Imam Khomeini Spaceport was scuppered due to low speeds which stopped it breaking into orbit.

It was a humiliating blow to Tehran, which the United States believes is developing rocket technology to advance nuclear capabilities.

But hours before the failure, Iran's deputy information minister Hamid Fatah had revealed the country's communications network had been hit with 'the most widespread attack in Iranian history'.

He tweeted: 'Hackers today launched the most widespread attack in Iranian history against the country's infrastructure.

'Millions of origin targeted millions of destinations and are seeking worldwide disruption to Iran's Internet network'.

The satellite launch was originally intended to be on Saturday, and it was delayed a day - possibly due to this cyberattack, which was even worse than Iran seems to be admitting.

Iran claims that the cyberattack was not done by state actors. However, a massive denial of service attack can help hide an actual targeted cyberattack happening at the same time.

There is another tantalizing piece of evidence that Israel might have been involved in the failure of the launch. At the Likud conference in Nahariya on Sunday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "We were told today that Iran failed to launch a satellite. They also failed to deliver weapons to Syria and Lebanon, because we are constantly operating there."

This could be psychological warfare, or it could be a tacit admission that Israel was involved. However, Iran is clearly getting closer to success in their space program, and there is no reason to assume that this program is not military.

(h/t Tomer Ilan)

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Right now, in conjunction with Mahmoud Abbas' speech to the UN today, there is a large rally in Ramallah against the Peace to Prosperity Plan.

What the organizers don't want you to know is that the Palestinian Authority is pulling out all the stops to increase the number of participants.

They closed down all government offices - and the Palestinian Authority employs some 200,000 workers.

They provided buses for people outside Ramallah to come to the rally.

It seems that the schools are closed, since the Teacher's Union urged all teachers to go to the rally.

In other words, this is not a popular rally - it is a Palestinian Authority and Fatah rally where they did everything they could to make it look impressive.

It would be interesting to know whether UNRWA schools are also shut down today.

The brainwashing of the people against the peace plan has been effective. A poll released yesterday showed that 66.5% of Palestinians "strongly opposed" the plan while another 22.7% "somewhat oppose it." Of course, one cannot find a single objective news report about the deal in the Palestinian media, essentially controlled by Fatah and Hamas. (Even ostensibly independent media understands that anyone who writes in support of the plan would be metaphorically or literally lynched.)

Meanwhile, a column in Felesteen (translated here) had perhaps the best description of why peace is impossible:

Their “deal” includes economic peace, prosperity, projects, facilities and other relatively petty tools that have no place in the ongoing battle to expel the Israeli occupier from the land of Palestine and liberate the Islamic religious sites.

The only "peace" plan acceptable to the Palestinians is one where Israel disappears, or one that gives them a path to destroy Israel.

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Palestinian media are reporting:

The Israeli army canceled the entry of hundreds of Jews to the Tomb of Joseph in the West Bank city of Nablus, last night, due to fears of clashes between its forces and the Palestinians, who are always protesting such provocative incursions.

And the Israeli public radio said it was that the Israeli army canceled the entry of 1500 Jews to Joseph's tomb, and that the army explained its decision that it "is trying to prevent frictions with the Palestinians, and could lead to other confrontations and the deterioration of the situation."

The Israeli army added that it was decided to reduce the incursions of Jewish groups into Palestinian cities, "as an operational necessity only."

Israeli radio quoted Palestinian sources as saying that a decrease in the IDF incursions into Palestinian cities has been observed since the confrontations in the city of Jenin last Thursday-Friday, during which a Palestinian policeman was killed.

The Israeli army claimed that there was no connection between the martyrdom of the Palestinian policeman and the decision to cancel the entry of Jews to Joseph's grave, but admitted that it was trying to calm the situation in the West Bank.

The fact that Palestinian media is reporting this indicates that they are teaching their readers that riots pay off.

It isn't like the Palestinians are going to show good will for the Jewish pilgrims being canceled by rioting less - the lesson is that violence prompts the mighty IDF to penalize Jews for Arab violence

This may have been a big mistake.

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Mysterious video of a person who claims to be a Jew in Saudi Arabia, inviting Jews to visit him

This video has been making the rounds of Arab, especially Saudi, media the past week.

It shows a man who claims to be a Jew from Najran, a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia near the Yemen border.

There were a number of Jews originally from Yemen who had conquered Najran in pre-Islamic times. In 1934, the town came under Saudi rule and the Jews were persecuted. In 1949 the Jews fled back to Yemen and from there they went to Israel.

This man, however, claims that he still lives in Najran as a Jew and he is inviting Jews from around the world to visit him, where he can show them ancient synagogues -one that is a thousand years old and one that is over 1500 years old.

It is not unreasonable to assume that there was at least a few synagogues in Najran over the 1500 years that Jews lived there, but no one seems to be aware of them.

Could there still be crypto-Jews in Najran? It is certainly possible. In the comments on this article in Slaati, one person claims to know this man, whose last name he says is Mizrahi, and confirms that there are still some hidden Jews in Najran.

I cannot find any mention on the web of synagogues in Najran.

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02/10 Links Pt2: Tu B’Shvat: The Festival that Proves the Jewish People’s Connection to the Land of Israel; Confirmation Bias and Antisemitism; Hakarot Hatov: ‘Week of Thanksgiving’ to the Druze

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Celebrating Tu Bishvat, New Year for the trees

Tu Bishvat, the 15th of Shvat in Judaism’s lunar calendar, which we celebrate today, is also known as Rosh Hashanah Le’ilanot - “New Year for Trees.” Judaism’s arbor day celebration is a good opportunity to take stock and consider some environmental New Year resolutions.

Tu Bishvat is one of the Jewish festivals that is uniquely tied to the Land of Israel and is widely celebrated here by Jews – religious and secular – while less well known or marked in the Diaspora.

Tied so inextricably with nature, the festival has taken on a more universal environmental theme. Tu Bishvat is a reminder that environmental laws and precepts are not a modern invention. From the earliest times of the Bible, we have been commanded to respect the land, animals, plants and trees. Today, we face a peculiar situation in which both the means of destruction are more widespread and massive but also the ways of protecting the environment are much more advanced.

Tu Bishvat expresses down-to-earth Zionism, highlighting the link of the Jewish religion and people to their homeland. While environmentalism is becoming something of a new world religion, Zionism is out of fashion. Sadly, as the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to launch balloons and kites attached to incendiary or explosive devices, fire is being used as a form of ecoterrorism. Fortunately, environmental issues can also create common ground to bring Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians together to solve problems which do not recognize man-made borders. Israeli R&D is famous worldwide for its contribution to water management, alternative energy and agriculture, to the benefit of all.

This is the festival when the sentence in Deuteronomy (20:19) that “A person is like the tree of a field” most comes to mind. People, like trees, need the correct balance of natural elements including water, sunlight, clean air and good nourishment.

Honest Reporting: Tu B’Shvat: The Festival that Proves the Jewish People’s Connection to the Land of Israel

In contemporary Israel, tree-planting is central to the Tu B’Shvat experience. The practice can be traced back to the time when the Jewish pioneers began to settle in the Land of Israel. For them, working the land became an ideal, and they began a process of afforestation in order to overcome the desolation of the land.

The planting of trees on Tu B’Shvat gradually became customary, and in 1908, the Jewish National Fund and the educational system officially adopted the custom. Since then, Tu B’Shvat has been known in Israel as a holiday for planting trees, on which schoolchildren and their teachers plant trees all over the country. The tree-planting ceremonies symbolize the renewed connection between the nation and its land.

By 1948, approximately 2% of Israel was covered by trees. Over the space of the seventy years thereafter, the percentage had grown to roughly 8.5%, making Israel the only country in the world with a net growth in trees over the course of the twentieth century.

So strong is the connection to Israel’s identity, that on February 14, 1949, Israel’s Constituent Assembly convened for the first time in the Jewish Agency building in central Jerusalem. The Hebrew calendar date that day was Tu Bishvat. Each year, the Knesset celebrates its establishment on the New Year of the Trees, and on that day, its members participate in tree-planting ceremonies around the country.

Outside of Israel, Tu B’Shvat generally remains a minor holiday, with no special prayers recited in synagogues and no connection to any particular historical event. Nevertheless, Jews around the world view the day as an opportunity to be grateful for the planet we live on, and specifically for the Land of Israel. Even if one is unable to relocate to Israel, we are all able to partake in this day, enjoy fruits and grains grown in Israeli soil, and celebrate the millennia-old connection the Jewish people have with the region.

While Jews have lived all over the globe, Jewish tradition has always centered around the Holy Land, and these rituals and their specifics serve to highlight the centrality of the Land of Israel to the Jewish people’s identity.

Palestinians need to feel relevant - which makes them love terrorism

As I was looking at Arab stamps for my last post, I noticed this one from Kuwait:

I didn't recognize Fatima Bernawi - because she was black, and the Kuwaiti stamp designer was apparently a racist.

Bernawi was one of the earliest Palestinian female terrorists. (Palestinian propaganda refers to her as the first female political prisoner, because to them all terrorists are political prisoners.)

In October 1967 she, along with two others, left a bomb in a handbag under a seat at the Zion Cinema. An alert policeman heard the ticking and managed to take the bomb outside to an empty area where it exploded before the bomb squad could arrive.

Bernawi was sentenced to life in prison, but was released in a prisoner swap in 1977.

In a fawning article about her on Face2Face Africa, Bernawi was quoted before her death as being proud of her acts, even though they didn't kill anyone. Her reasoning is rather sick:

Before her death in Amman in 2016, Bernawi spoke of how she had dreamt about the attempted cinema bomb attack all her life.

She said that though the attack was a failure, she believed it was successful.

“It generated fear throughout the world. Every woman who carries a bag needs to be checked before she enters the supermarket, any place, cinemas and pharmacies… I don’t define that as a failure,” she said in 2015.

Palestinians have such a low self esteem that, like children having a temper tantrum, they want to make sure that they have made a difference to the world - no matter that their contribution is to force the world to spend tens of billions of dollars in extra security.

The article also notes how much of a hero Bernawi was to today's Palestinian leadership:

This was after she had received the Star of Honour, the highest military decoration awarded by the Palestinian Authority.

Bernawi, according to media reports, was honoured for her outstanding sacrifice and courage against “the enemy” and for her “pioneering role in the struggle, her sacrifice for her homeland and her people, and its revolution, and her willingness to give from the beginning until now”.

Bernawi was also honored in honor of Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, on April 17, 2015.

She was described as “one of the first Palestinian women to adopt [the means of] armed self-sacrifice operations after the start of the modern Palestinian revolution, which was launched by Fatah on January 1, 1965.”

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Oman has just issued a stamp with the slogan, "Al Quds - Capital of Palestine."

There have been dozens of similar stamps over the years issued in Arab countries, often with pictures of the Dome of the Rock.

But when did they start?

The first Arab stamps to feature Jerusalem as a motif came from Jordan and then various other Arab states in 1969 as a tax to pay for the restoration of the Al Aqsa Mosque after it was burned by a mentally ill Christian.

But before 1967, not one Arab stamp ever featured Jerusalem as its theme. (Saudi Arabia featured the Kaaba in Mecca in a 1965 stamp.)

Stamps tell you a lot about the priorities of the nations. Before 1967 there were plenty of Arab stamps that were anti-Israel. But no Arab nation felt that Jerusalem was worth commemorating - until the Jews too control of it.

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02/10 Links Pt1: PA withdraws its request for UN vote on Trump peace plan; Israeli Arabs are Israeli, not Palestinian; US envoy explains deal’s asymmetry: We trust Israel, but PA can’t keep a bargain

From Ian:

Abbas’ Palestinian Authority Hurts Everybody

By perpetuating the conflict, the Palestinian Authority also forces international donor countries to indefinitely waste their taxpayers’ money on supporting terror and incitement against Israel, financing P.A. corruption, and eternalizing the Palestinian refugee problem. Moreover, it forces the international community to adopt its false narrative, such as ignoring the historical Jewish connection to Jerusalem in U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 and in several UNESCO resolutions, mutating basic historical facts that are central not only to Jewish history but to Western history as a whole into historically illiterate gibberish.

The United States has tried hard in recent years to put an end to this unacceptable situation. It has cut economic aid to the Palestinian Authority due to its payment of salaries to terrorists, stopped financial support to UNRWA, and closed the PLO office in Washington. The United States also defied the P.A. narrative by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and by clarifying that Israeli settlements are not illegal. It is hard to overstate the importance of these moves, all of which came in response to the P.A.’s abject failures.

The Trump administration’s new peace plan signals clearly that this Palestinian Authority has to be replaced with a P.A. that first and foremost cares about the well-being of its citizens and respects their rights, fights corruption, and has well-functioning institutions. It has to be replaced by a P.A. that disarms Hamas and thereafter is able to govern the Gaza Strip. It has to be replaced with a P.A. that has a narrative of peace and is ready to accept Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. It has to be replaced by a P.A. that fights terror, stops the “Pay-for-Slay” policy, and ends incitement and hate indoctrination at home and abroad. And ultimately, it has to be replaced by a P.A. that respects the outstanding readiness of the Arabs and the international community to support it and rises to their expectations. If this cultural change takes place, the new P.A. will turn into an independent state and will be provided with an abundance of new resources.

Unlike any previous peace plans, this new plan tells the Palestinian Authority that if it does not choose to change in the coming four years, the United States, Israel, and the pragmatic Arabs are not going to wait any longer and will not enable the P.A. to have veto power over their will to move forward for the good of Palestinians, Israelis, and the entire region. Time is ticking.

The P.A. has grown used to being spoiled by those it hurts. As Mahmoud Abbas revealed in his address to the Arab League foreign affairs ministers, previous American administrations spoiled the Palestinians so much that, in spite of the P.A.’a refusal to accept President Barack Obama’s peace plan after it was presented to Abbas in March 2014 (he replied that any Palestinian compromise is impossible), the Obama administration was still the driving force behind UNSCR 2334. This resolution defined all the territories as occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem with the Temple Mount and Wailing Wall, and declared Israeli settlements illegal. No more.

The U.S. peace plan marks a paradigm shift in the American approach to the Palestinian Authority. Will this P.A. change? Chances are slim, but only time will tell. One thing we know already—the paradigm that was adopted until now, which was largely based on willful blindness, did not yield the expected fruits. Let us hope that this new paradigm, which is based on the realities on the ground, will help heal the wounds that this P.A. has inflicted on its many victims—Palestinians, Israelis, moderate Arabs, and international donor countries whose money has been spent on murder and hate—and help us build a road to peace.

Israeli Arabs are Israeli, not Palestinian

The raising of Palestinian flags in protest against the "Deal of the Century deal" and the proposal to transfer sovereignty over the Triangle (a cluster of Arab towns and cities near the Green Line) to a future Palestinian state has caused a small yet familiar storm.

Many Jews, and indeed quite a few Arabs, have asked how it is possible to wave the flag of the Palestinian Authority while resisting falling under its sovereignty.

I am positive that there is not one Arab citizen of Israel who wants to live under the control of any Arab ruler in any Arab state, including the State of Palestine.

In Arab society, there is even a saying that "Israeli Jewish hell is better than the paradise of the Arab states."

Yes, the Arab states have civil equality among its residents, but you will not find liberty and or freedom of speech.

There is neither human dignity nor liberty nor a high court of justice.

An Israeli Arab who is used to demonstrating and yelling in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv against the policy of the government and those who lead it would not be able to do that - and survive – in Damascus or any of the Gulf states.

The reign of eternal tyrants in Arab nations is as far removed from the experiences of Israeli Arabs as we are from the Stone Age.

Raising the Palestinian flag during the protests against the Trump plan was an act of identification, not identity.

PMW: After PMW's exposure: TikTok removes video glorifying four actual terror attacks

Last Wednesday, Palestinian Media Watch exposed that a user of the social network TikTok had posted a video animation glorifying four lethal terror attacks that were committed against Israelis. PMW is pleased to report that TikTok responded immediately and removed the terror glorifying video.

The following is PMW’s original bulletin exposing the terror promotion:
Animated video of real murder of Israelis
- on social network popular among children

An animated video that encourages murdering Israelis by showing graphic recreated scenes of real terror attacks has appeared on TikTok – a social network popular among children, where users can create and share short videos.

The video shows four lethal terror attacks that were committed against Israelis – a terrorist who rammed his car into Israelis at a Jerusalem light rail station, another who shot at Israeli police, and two stabbers. An eagle – possibly symbolizing the eagle in the emblem used by the Palestinian Authority and the PLO – flies above the carnage throughout the video, at one point moving in unison with 19-year-old Palestinian terrorist Muhannad Halabi as he stabs a religious Jew in the Old City of Jerusalem. The video carries the text “Jerusalem is the dread of the Jews," followed by a red heart.

The following are screenshots from the animation paired with details of the Palestinian terrorists and the attacks they apparently portray:

Yesterday, Beatie Deutsch, a 30-year-old New Jersey native and ultra-Orthodox Jewish mother of five from Jerusalem, won the Miami half-marathon women’s division in 1:16:49 - wearing a skirt, headscarf and long sleeves.

While Deutsch was athletic as a youngster, she didn't keep it up. Four years ago, when she lost family races on a beach, she decided to get into shape. Only four months later she finished sixth in the 2016 Tel Aviv Marathon.

Deutsch has inspired other Orthodox Jews to run, and there were 600 Orthodox Jews in the Miami race, most of whom were running to raise money for charities. Deutsch herself was running to raise money for Beit Daniella, a charity for children with mental illness.

Because of the high religious Jewish participation, this is the first year the Miami Marathon offered kosher-certified meals for athletes at the finish line.

Deutsch first made headlines as a runner when she completed the 2017 Tel Aviv Marathon while seven months pregnant.

Last night she wrote on her Facebook page:

All day long I've been trying to find the time to post about my race today..

but I needed the perfect pictures and the perfect words before I could post.

Until suddenly I realized I didn't.

Because even though I'd love to share some professional quality pictures (which will come), if you've been following me long enough you know I'm not about perfection. And even if I don't have time to share a masterfully written caption, I can't go to sleep without expressing my gratitude. Hodu L'Hashem KiTov [Thanks to God for He is good] - I came in first place at the half marathon in Miami today in 1:16:49.
.
Thank you Hashem for giving me the opportunity to stand on the podium today at the @themiamimarathon and proudly represent Israel and the Jewish people.

She wanted to represent Israel at the Olympics in Tokyo and was disappointed when they scheduled the marathon for a Saturday. She's hoping they reschedule it again so she can participate.

Deutsch is truly remarkable, and her story strikes a chord - when I tweeted about her victory last night it was retweeted and liked hundreds of times by those touched by her life.

(h/t Irene)

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Former Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, posted a Twitter thread yesterday predicting that a non-aggression pact between Israel and many Arab states is coming.

In December, he predicted that the "Deal of the Century" would be released in January. He is offering this prediction as a follow-up.

His new prediction is for a non-aggression pact between Israel and the nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, plus Egypt, Jordan and possibly Morocco.

The Gulf Cooperation Council members are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Why Egypt or Jordan would sign such an agreement that would be superfluous to their existing peace treaties is unclear.

Al Thani is critical of this idea, which includes his own country, as being the result of pressure from the Trump administration. He says he is not against a "just peace" but that should precede any such agreement.

"Although there are Arab countries that promised the American side that they would take a positive position on the deal, they did not, and they justified this by saying that they could not because of their media. I was almost sure that these countries wanted to make those promises to come closer to America, even though they knew that the deal would be held up by the majority in the Arab League," he wrote.

Al Thani claims that the timing of the deal was to help Netanyahu and Trump win their elections, and he complains that Israel is pursuing a long term strategy for the region while Arab nations are held hostage to short-term interests and tactics.

One person who responded to the thread pointed out laughingly that while Al Thani is claiming to be skeptical now about any peace with Israel, he told CNN that he himself wanted to see Israelis in all Arab states.

السؤال الذي يدور في ذهني هو ألا يمكن انك اهبل ولا عبيط ولا احمق ولا تستغبي ؟؟ 🤔

الاجابة صعبه شوي 🤦🏻‍♂️😂😂 pic.twitter.com/j2rya3hgZ5
— ولد عزيّز (@R_ksa2030) February 9, 2020

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