Monday, August 17, 2020

08/17 Links Pt2: Eugene Kontrovich: UNIFIL: An opportunity for change; Woke anti-Semitism; 'We are all Hamas': Increasing Collaboration between Foes of India and Israel

From Ian:
Eugene Kontrovich: UNIFIL: An opportunity for change
There are other instances in which the UN temporary peacekeeping force – UNIFIL – has directly or indirectly hurt Israel's defense and security interests in the area and limited the IDF's ability to respond. The main claim voiced in the defense establishment at the time was that the forces had no real power and were too small to carry out their mandate of restoring peace and security and helping restore control to the South Lebanese Army.

But in 2006, after the Second Lebanon War was over, that idea crashed on the rocks of reality. The UN Security Council resolved to increase UNIFIL forces nearly fivefold, to 10,900 personnel, and expanded both its enforcement mandate and budget. Nevertheless, the increased forces failed in both motivation and efficacy when it came to taking action against violations on the Lebanese side of the "Blue Line." Since then, Hezbollah has dug attack tunnels under the border into Israel under the very noses of the UN troops, with the hope of carrying out a mega-terror attack against communities in northern Israel.

In biased reports to the UN Security Council and by its very presence in the region, UNIFIL "whitewashes" violations by Hezbollah and the Lebanese army, allowing them to act freely. If another war in the north takes place, UNIFIL's presence will likely hamper the IDF's ability to maneuver in south Lebanon, and serve as a de facto human shield for Hezbollah.

The next few weeks will bring a unique opportunity to improve security in the North and reduce the UN's biased intervention against Israel. This has to do with the nature of the UNIFIL mandate, which is extended on an annual basis in the Security Council. The next date for an extension is Aug. 31. Our leaders would do well to take advantage of the window of opportunity in which our friends in the Trump administration still have diplomatic influence and demand the cancellation of the mandate or that the forces be cut significantly. This request would fall in line with the Trump administration's aspiration of cutting back on bloated, ineffective international missions.

It would be a mistake for Israel to trust the illusion of stability created by the UNIFIL forces. The reality is fluid, Hezbollah is sedulously preparing for the next war, and the IDF needs to be ready for a rapid strike, without having its maneuvers restricted by UN soldiers. Cancelling or cutting back the mandate will be helpful to Israel's strategic interests in the region and will illustrate the defense ethos that Israel defends itself, by itself.
Woke anti-Semitism
Hirsch describes 2020 ‘as a year that shredded complacency’. Yet her own spotlighting of morally dubious ‘anti-racist’ activists demonstrates the woke congregation’s appalling complacency regarding anti-Semitism. Why is it that someone like Hirsch, who tirelessly campaigned for the removal of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square for its connotations of historical racism, is happy to laud living, breathing activists with ongoing links to Jew-haters?

Anti-Semitism is a real problem on the woke left. The so-called Forever Family Force, which marched in Brixton recently as part of a reparations demonstration, made headlines for its paramilitary-style gear. Since then it has been revealed that FFF leader Khari McKenzie has made a series of anti-Semitic posts. Like Farrakhan, he blames Jews for slavery and has described the Jewish community’s alleged role in the slave trade as ‘the original holocaust’. Unsurprisingly, McKenzie was also quick to jump to grime artist Wiley’s defence after his anti-Jewish Twitter tirade last month.

This troubling undercurrent in progressive activism is an inevitable product of an intersectional ideology that labels certain groups as innately ‘privileged’, and thus evil, and others as eternally ‘oppressed’, and therefore virtuous. Jews (and indeed, truth itself) are mere collateral when it comes to the woke mission to deconstruct an allegedly evil society. And regrettably, this woke anti-Semitism is very much in vogue.
David Collier: Wikipedia, Urban Dictionary and the chaos of anti-truth
Online anti-truth terrorism

A better use of the word ‘massacre’ would be as a description of what happens to history and truth on Wiki’s pages. Jews are a tiny minority up against enemies that vastly outnumber them. Jews, nor their allies are capable of policing history. The more time goes on, the more distorted reality becomes.

The example I want to present now, amongst many I found, is a subtle one. It refers to a quote 120 years old made by the former mayor of Jerusalem, Yousef al-Khalidi.

This is how the Wiki page describes it:
“In 1899 he wrote a letter to the Zadok Kahn, the chief rabbi of France in which he stated “Who can deny the rights of the Jews to Palestine? My God, historically it is also your country!”

The source for the quote is ‘Palestine: Une terre, deux peuples’ by Dominique Perrin. Better still, Wikipedia link to an online version of the book, with the quote highlighted for our benefit. And here we run into real trouble.

Because in the source Wiki uses, the Mayor says ‘my god, historically it is your country”. The word ‘also’ clearly missing.

So who added the word ‘also’? It is an addition that clearly carries major political implication.

On 24 Jan 2019, a one-time user entered the page, made the single edit and left. It is highly likely this is the act of a more regular user who sought to make this change anonymously.

An online anti-truth terrorist.

As we know for a fact there are organised online armies on social media platforms using their numerical superiority to manipulate popular thought, isn’t it obvious they would also swarm inside the internet’s primary reference resource?
Outnumbered and outgunned

I am positive that it will take a proper Wikipedia editor about 4 seconds to clean up that quote – but this isn’t the point. It is just another piece of evidence of this endless whack-a-mole game that Jews are left playing.

There are just 15 million of us – perhaps just 10,000s are in some way politically active online. We cannot mobilise an entire people. In the other corner are 100,000s, if not 1,000,000s – some part of online gangs explicitly set up to swarm and distort the truth. In a world of ‘up-votes’, we are both outnumbered and outgunned.

  • Monday, August 17, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Arab arguments against peace get nuttier and nuttier

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Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki said in a TV interview that the UAE is violating its own constitution by planning to normalize relations with Israel.

Zaki described the agreement as "an earthquake that deeply affected the Emiratis because their constitution does not permit what (Mohammed) bin Zayed (the Crown Prince of the Emirates) did."

He added, "UAE law prohibits and imposes penalties and imprisonment even for those who compliment the Israelis, let alone those who recognize them at the expense of the Palestinians."

Needless to say, there is nothing in the UAE Constitution that would be violated by normalization with Israel. Its penal code adheres to the Arab League boycott of Israel, which is still in force and widely ignored by nearly every Arab state.

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Meanwhile, Kuwaiti academic Abdullah Al-Nafisi revealed four Israeli goals for normalization with Arab Gulf states.

#1 is Gulf oil. He doesn’t seem to realize that Israel is now an energy exporter.

#2 is to expand into the Gulf consumer market.

#3 is to cause strife and wars between Arab states.

#4 is to settle 3 million Palestinians in the deserts of the Gulf.

Yes, this kind of thing gets taken seriously. But is it any crazier than the “pinkwashing” theory of the Left?

The Israel-UAE Agreement: 30 Years in the Making (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

The Israel-UAE agreement has been described as groundbreaking.
And rightfully so.

But just for context, how long has this agreement been in the making?

One of the key reasons for this agreement, and for potential Israeli alliances with Arab Gulf states in general, is the need for unity in the face of the common enemy of Iran.

But this is not the first time that Israel and Arab countries found a common enemy in their back yard.

In his book "Personal Witness: Israel Through My Eyes," Abba Eban wrote:

Saudi Arabia, as the pivot of the Desert Storm operation [August 2, 1990 – February 28, 1991], began to see Israel as a fellow victim of Saddam Hussein's Scuds and as a potential collaborator in postwar economic enterprises. A year later, it even proposed a transaction whereby Israel would freeze new settlements and Saudi Arabia would cancel the Arab boycott regulations. If Shamir had accepted this proposal, as any other Israeli prime minister would have done, Israel's economy would have taken a forward leap. (p. 638) [Emphasis added]
That was about 30 years ago.
Back then, the common enemy that inspired cooperation was Iraq, not Iran.

Later, the spark that led to the new peace agreement may be a program that was put into action in 2008 in an effort to "rebrand" Israel. The concept was presented that year at the First Nefesh B'Nefesh JBlogging Conference. In an article in The Canadian Jewish News, Ido Aharoni, founder of the ministry’s Brand Israel concept, described how the goal was to focus on the fact that
...aspects of Israel are worthy of promotion, including its culture and arts; its accomplishments on environmental matters such as water desalination, solar energy and clean technology; its high-tech successes and achievements in higher education; and its involvement in international aid, he added.

Getting Canadians – both Jewish and non-Jewish – to see Israel in that light is part of the branding effort. Not only would that change Israel’s image, it could lead to more tourism and investment, educational exchanges and other benefits, Aharoni said.
The idea that rebranding Israel's image could improve its international relations was not mentioned.

Today, we can see that the focus on Israeli accomplishments, especially on water desalination, high-tech successes and involvement in international aid paid off.

The payoff has been more than just good PR. It has led to improved relations with other countries. For example, Netanyahu has developed key alliances with countries in Eastern Europe such as Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia -- known as the Visegrad Group. One benefit these countries get is that good relations with Israel provide a fig leaf protecting them against accusations of antisemitism.

In return, Netanyahu has gained important leverage against the EU:
o  In 2017, Hungary abstained when the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to reject the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

o  Hungary joined the Czech Republic and Romania in blocking a European Union statement criticizing the US for moving its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem.

o  In November 2019, the EU failed to get all of its 28 member states behind a joint statement condemning the US decision to no longer consider Israeli settlements as illegal. Hungary blocked the move. As a result, instead of issuing a joint statement of the entire EU, they had to settle for a statement by then-EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

o  In January of this year, the EU again failed to get a consensus, when it tried to unanimously condemn Trump's peace plan.

o  Hungary and the Czech Republic are also among the countries that will file an amicus brief with the ICC in response to ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda's statement last December that there was enough evidence to investigate alleged war crimes by Israel.
Obviously, improving relations and building alliances with Arab countries can bring political dividends, as well as economic -- and of course defense against Iran.

But at the beginning of Trump's term, Arab states in the Gulf were not as open to the idea of Israel-Arab alliances against Iran as they are now.

A February 2017 article in The Wall Street Journal noted that plans for Israel to join an Arab coalition against Iran were limited:
The U.S. would offer military and intelligence support to the alliance, beyond the kind of limited backing it has been providing to a Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, the officials said. But neither the U.S. nor Israel would be part of the mutual-defense pact.

“They’ve been asking diplomatic missions in Washington if we’d be willing to join this force that has an Israeli component,” said one Arab diplomat. “Israel’s role would likely be intelligence sharing, not training or boots on the ground. They’d provide intelligence and targets. That’s what the Israelis are good at.” [Emphasis added]
The article goes on to describe various reasons Arab members of the coalition gave for opposing the idea of including Israel -- reasons that apparently no longer stand in the way:
Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. are putting forth their own demands in exchange for cooperating with Israel, officials said. Those two countries want the U.S. to overturn legislation that could see their governments sued in American courts by families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, they said.

Arab diplomats have told administration officials they would pursue more overt cooperation with Israel if it ceases settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem—something Israel refused to do under intense pressure from the Obama administration.

The diplomats also said their countries’ cooperation would be contingent upon the Trump administration refraining from moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, an effective recognition of Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as its capital. In recent weeks, the administration has walked back previous statements supporting settlement construction and moving the embassy. [Emphasis added]
And this was years before the idea of "annexation" was broached.

Seen this way, the agreement between Israel and the UAE is something that Netanyahu has been working towards for years.

Commentator Ehud Yaari also sees this agreement as part of a long term plan, referring to this as The Netanyahu Doctrine:
The "Netanyahu Doctrine," as I understood it from many years ago, says simply - instead of letting Israel drown in negotiations that will not lead to an agreement with the Palestinians, we had better make a bypass, a broad flanking movement, that leaves the Palestinian Authority at the end of the line.

According to Netanyahu's view, and not from today, Israel needs to build its international relationship and then leverage it to create a bridge to Arab countries. This is in order to deprive the Palestinians of the right to veto the attitude of the Arabs and others towards Israel.
In 2009, The Telegraph fretted that Israel's isolation -- from the US in particular -- could drive Israel to do something desperate. The problem was that the Obama administration was concentrating on the Arab world -- "Mr. Obama is attempting to rebuild relations with the Arab world in the wake of the invasion of Iraq."

In the end, Obama's success is questionable at best.

But not to worry.

Israel has lots of friends, with the prospect of making even more in the Arab world.


cartoon
Cartoon by Moshik Gulst, The Israeli Cartoon Project, 2017

08/17 Links Pt1: Netanyahu: UAE deal based on strength, will yield ‘true peace’ with Palestinians; President Rivlin invites UAE crown prince to Jerusalem

From Ian:
Netanyahu: UAE deal based on strength, will yield ‘true peace’ with Palestinians
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expects more Arab countries to normalize their ties with Israel after last week’s agreement with the United Arab Emirates, and that the process will eventually also drive peace with the Palestinians.

In a video statement posted to his Facebook page Sunday, Netanyahu heralded what he described as a new doctrine of a strong Israel that would seek peace with Arab nations rather than conditioning ties on first ending the conflict with the Palestinians by withdrawing from territory.

“This historic change will also advance peace with the Arab world and, in the end, peace, true peace, monitored, secure, with the Palestinians as well,” Netanyahu said.

The agreement reached with the UAE, the first peace deal with an Arab state for 26 years, is unlike those with Egypt and Jordan, the other two Arab states to have formal ties with Israel, he said.

“It is different from those that preceded it in that it is based on two principles ‘Peace for peace,’ and ‘peace through strength’,” Netanyahu said. “Under this doctrine, Israel is not required to withdraw from any territory and together the two countries openly reap the fruits of a full peace: Investments, trade, tourism, health, agriculture, environmental protection and in many other fields, including defense of course,” he said.

“This peace was not achieved because Israel weakened itself by withdrawing to the 1967 lines,” he said. “It was achieved because Israel strengthened itself by cultivating a free economy, and military and technological strength, and by combining these two strengths to achieve unprecedented international influence.”

The new doctrine, he said, is “in complete contradiction to the perception, until a few days ago, that no Arab country will agree to make formal and open peace with Israel before an end is achieved for the conflict with the Palestinians.”
President Rivlin invites UAE crown prince to Jerusalem
President Reuven Rivlin extended an official invitation to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohamed bin Zayed to Jerusalem in a letter sent on Monday.

Rivlin lauded the prince for a courageous, visionary, ground-breaking move, which the president anticipated will have far-reaching results that will affect the region as a whole.

"I am full of hope that the agreement being drawn up between our countries will help build and strengthen the trust between us and the nations of the region," Rivlin wrote. "Trust will promote understanding between all of us, will march our region forward and will bring economic welfare and provide prosperity and stability to residents of the Middle East."

Rivlin wrote that he had no doubt that future generations would value the manner in which two courageous leaders have renewed the dialogue for peace.


Ashkenazi and Oman FM agree to work towards normalization
Israel and Oman are holding a dialogue aiming to have official diplomatic ties, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and Oman's minister of state for foreign affairs Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah agreed to keep in contact, strengthen ties between their countries and to “promote the normalization process in the Middle East.”Bin Abdullah affirmed Oman's support "to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East and the need to resume the peace process negotiations and to fulfill the legitimate demands of the Palestinian people to establish their independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital," the ministry said.

Ashkenazi said that he appreciates Oman’s commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East.

Following the conversation, Ashkenazi wrote on twitter that he and bin Abdullah “discussed recent developments in the region, the normalization agreement with the UAE and the need to strengthen ties between the countries.”

Bin Abdullah also spoke to Jibril Rajoub, secretary general of the central committee of the Palestinian Fatah group.

  • Monday, August 17, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

“I’m not antisemitic, I’m just against everything Israel (and only Israel) does”

A person who calls himself a comedian, Matt Lieb, tweeted:

lieb1

 

Allow me to expand his tweet, because it applies to all self-righteous Israel-hating hypocrites:

“I’m merely against colonialism, except for Muslim colonialism that made the Middle East what it is today.

“I’m merely against apartheid, except I have no problem with Lebanon or Syria or Jordan or every Arab country discriminating against their own Palestinian residents.

“I’m merely against racism, except for the slavery that happens in Arab and Muslim countries today.

“I’m merely against Islamophobia, except when Muslims are oppressed in China or Myanmar.

“I’m merely against antisemitism, but damned if I will say a word against Roger Waters or Ilhan Omar or Professor Griff or Mahmoud Abbas.

“I’m merely against occupation, even though I have no clue about any real occupation by Turkey or Morocco or Russia.

“I’m merely against ethnic cleansing, which occurs daily all over the world in places I never tweet about.

“I’m merely against bulldozing of Palestinian homes, even though it is perfectly legal and exactly the same as enforcing zoning laws around the world. (Atlantic City bulldozed lots of homes to create room for casinos, but I want to perform there, so it is OK.)

“I’m merely against ethnoreligious states even though I have no problem with dozens of states that declare themselves to be Arab or Muslim or Hindu or Christian – just the Jewish one.

That’s the hypocrisy part. This is not to mention that Israel isn’t guilty of any of these  - it is not a colonialist state, it is not guilty of apartheid, it is not racist any more than any other state, it is more tolerant of Muslims than any non-Muslim state Lieb can name, it is not an occupier (this is the only one he can make a case about but it is not true,) it is not guilty of ethnic cleansing by any definition.

This is what passes for intellectual critique, when it is lazy ignorance. It shows that Lieb as well as many of his fellow Jewish antizionists going along with the crowd while pretending to be “edgy” and “brave.” And by singling out Israel and only Israel for critiques that they don’t give a damn about anywhere else, they are engaging in antisemitism – no matter how much they protest that they light Chanukah candles once in a while for a holiday about Jews fighting for the only land that they insist must be Judenrein.

  • Monday, August 17, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Much of Palestinian policy has been based on the myth of Arab and Muslim unity

The fallout from the UAE/Israel announcement of normalizing relations continues to come, and it has shaken up long standing assumptions about the Middle East and the Muslim world.

Palestinian foreign policy has been largely based on the myth of Arab and Muslim states’ unity in supporting whatever they demand about Israel. Yet that unity has been only on paper for well over a decade. Already back in 2010, the Arab League pledged a half billion dollars to the Palestinians to “defend Jerusalem,” whatever that means, and they didn’t pay a dime.

Smart leaders would have noticed that their Arab brethren’s support was paper thin and would plan accordingly for how to deal with the day that the Arab rhetorical support would follow their monetary support. But Mahmoud Abbas is not a smart man – great at seizing and consolidating power, not too bright at seeing the trends that have been staring at him in the face.

pakrally

Instead, Palestinian leaders and their media would pump up stories about support from Islamic extremist groups in Pakistan or trade unions in Jordan and pretend that this meant that there was universal consensus on Arab and Muslim support for their cause. They didn’t make the simple realization that if Arab and Muslim nations refused to invest money in the Palestinian cause it is because they no longer saw that cause as their own.

Arab media love to quote the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion, saying that the Jewish plan to dominate the world includes fracturing Arab unity.  What we saw over this past week will be looked upon as proof of this plan. But it is nothing so nefarious: it is simply Arab and Muslim nations acting in their own self-interest rather than subsume themselves under a unified position. The same thing has been happening in the EU: nationalism is ascendant.

Most Arab nations have not made a statement one way or another about the UAE deal. Egypt, Oman and Bahrain support it, Libya and Yemen oppose, Jordan and Qatar issued cautious statements and the rest of the Arab world has been silent. What we certainly have not seen is the chorus of automatic anti-Israel statements that the PLO could have orchestrated only a year ago.

The larger group of Muslim states have been similarly divergent in their opinions. Mauritania’s statement of support for the agreement is perhaps more explicit in explaining why: it said that “the United Arab Emirates possesses absolute sovereignty and complete independence in conducting its relations and assessing its positions in accordance with its national interests, the interests of Arabs and Muslims and their just causes.”

In other words, members of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation are unhappy at being told what positions to take by these organizations. They want to act in their own self-interest, not based on what Palestinians have been telling these organizations to parrot.

The Palestinian stranglehold on the pan-Arab and pan-Islamic organizations has been so seemingly strong that Saeb Erakat arrogantly called on the Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, to issue a statement condemning the Emirati-Israeli agreement or to resign from his post. His hubris is telling – it is one thing to demand the condemnation of Israel which costs members of the Arab league nothing, it is another to demand the condemnation of a major Arab member. The PLO is so ossified in its ways that it continues to treat the Arab League and the OIC as its own personal platform. His threats just marginalize the PLO even further.

As it is, the PLO demand for an emergency Arab League meeting has so far gone nowhere and the organization has not commented on the UAE-Israel agreement, which has not gone unnoticed in the Arab world.

The UAE has forced into the open what observers have recognized for years: there is no Arab or Muslim unity. The Arab and Muslim world  used the Palestine issue to give the impression of such unity because it was the only thing they could agree on. The PLO took full advantage of this and took virtual control of these groups to make it appear to be a leader of the Arab world. But behind the scenes, Arabs were sick of Palestinian rejectionism and refusal to accept a state offered by Israel, and it was only a matter of time before some Arab states realized that aligning with Israel is a better idea than being led by the nose by the Palestinian leadership.

The Palestinian reaction is one of horror at the realization that their position as the ones who set the agenda has been toppled. The support and silence of most of the Arab and Muslim world towards the UAE/Israel agreement has shattered their confidence and destroyed their strategy, yet they have no other because they were too overconfident to create one.

  • Monday, August 17, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Imagine if Gulf countries would accept Palestinians as citizens

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If the UAE, Bahrain, Oman and other potential Arab peace partners of Israel would allow Palestinians to become citizens, it would be an even bigger political earthquake than those countries normalizing relations with Israel.

Right now there are 150,000 Palestinian workers in the UAE and about 250,000 in Saudi Arabia, along with at least another 100,000 in other Gulf countries. These countries have huge outside worker populations.

Palestinians are desirable workers. They work harder than Gulf Arabs and are generally better educated. Many of them know Hebrew which will make them more important as Gulf countries slowly normalize with Israel.

If the UAE and Saudi Arabia would announce that they would accept Palestinians as citizens, motivated Palestinians from the territories would move there, as well as many more from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. It would help the Gulf countries’ economies and it would help Palestinians who want to live in s stable Arab land where they can raise their families.

Perhaps most importantly, it would puncture the myth that somehow purposefully keeping Palestinians in a stateless limbo for over seven decades is for their own good.

Once Palestinians are shown to be happy, productive members of the Gulf states, other countries that deny them citizenship like Egypt, Syria and Lebanon would be shown to be mistreating them not out of solidarity but out of bigotry.

The “Palestinian right of return” which has no basis in international law would be exposed as a means of using Palestinians as cannon fodder.

And the Middle East would be that much closer to real peace.

Let’s hope that this is part of the negotiations.

Sunday, August 16, 2020

  • Sunday, August 16, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Now the entire Arab world can import Israeli goods through the UAE

Globes points out:

Israel's normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will give Israeli business an official, stable bridge to the entire Arab world, particularly the other Gulf states, with Saudi Arabia, which was in on the secret all along the way, at their head. The opportunities that have been opened up in the Arab markets for Israeli firms are huge, and could dramatically boost Israel's exports, to the UAE, and via them to other Arab countries.

A prominent businessperson, formerly a senior officer in the security forces, told "Globes" that although there were substantial ties with the UAE beforehand, this agreement puts everything above board, and lends legitimacy to buying from Israel for companies and governments throughout the Arab world, through UAE intermediaries. In one way or another, this happened before, but now "the sky is the limit".

A source in Saudi Arabia told "Globes" that the Arab world had a great deal to gain from Israel. This is a breakthrough. The Palestinian issue has not gone away and will continue to be an obstacle to some degree, but the road is open.

Existing ties were mostly beneath the surface, and came to light here and there, such as the collaboration of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. and Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) (TASE: ARSP.B1) (IAI) with Group 42 in the UAE, medical technology companies working on solutions to the coronavirus pandemic. This agreement was reported two months ago.

The new normalization agreement will bring to light a wide range of economic and technological collaborations that has existed for years.

This is a huge blow for BDS - and they are reacting with hysteria..

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08/16 Links: Qanta Ahmed: Israel-UAE agreement will likely lead more Arab nations to recognize Jewish state; MSNBC, CNN mostly ignore Trump's major Israel-UAE peace deal during prime time

From Ian:
Jared Kushner: The historic deal between Israel and the UAE shows Trump’s strategy is paying off
When President Trump took office, the Middle East was in a state of extreme turmoil, even by the low standards of a region long plagued by danger and violence. Islamic State terrorists controlled an area in Iraq and Syria approximately the size of Ohio. The peace process between Israel and the Arab world had stalled. Iran was spreading instability through proxy fighters in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

It was to this region that President Trump took his first trip abroad as president. In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the president laid out his vision for a more peaceful, secure and prosperous Middle East. He described to the leaders of dozens of Arab and Muslim countries a region with vast potential, held hostage by extremism and the conflicts of the past.

President Trump recognized that, to tap this potential, the region required a strategic realignment. In the new Middle East, nations must chart their course based on shared interests and common values, not old hatreds and rivalries. The president also recognized that building this future would require altering a U.S. policy that for far too long had accepted these historic animosities and even nurtured them.

That’s why instead of rewarding America’s enemies, we pledged to draw our partners closer. Rather than lecturing America’s friends, we committed to taking forceful action against the evils of extremism and terror. Finally, we resolved to pursue these goals grounded in the realities of today, not the ghosts of the past.

Three-and-a-half years later, this strategic realignment continues to pay off. The Islamic State caliphate has been destroyed, its brutal leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killed. Iran remains a pariah state but is more constrained than ever before. And thanks to the courageous leaders of Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the Middle East this week took a great step toward a future in which people of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds can live together in the spirit of cooperation and peace.

Ultimately, it is up to the people of the Middle East to decide the future they want for their children. The United States cannot and should not choose for them. But the remarkable progress over the past several years is clear evidence that the people of the Middle East are finally on a path to a very bright future. And today, more than ever, they can count on the United States’ support every step of the way.

Anwar Gargash: UAE minister of state for foreign affairs: The UAE's landmark deal with Israel is a step towards achieving a two-state solution
Since Israel’s inception, Arab nations have taken the position of refusing to recognise it because its establishment took place at the expense of Arab inhabitants of that land. But as the world has witnessed, this stance has yet to achieve any concrete progress or benefits for the Palestinian people. Indeed, over the years, several Arab states have realised that making peace with Israel, and ensuring that our Israeli neighbours feel secure in the region, is the best way to guarantee the rights of the Palestinian people, while also bringing benefits for the region as a whole. The UAE is now joining their number.

But this is not an entirely new step. The UAE and Israel have worked together before, most recently in the fight against Covid-19. We are a country that constantly looks towards the future. We recently launched the Arab world’s first mission to Mars. We have demonstrated an exemplary response to the ongoing pandemic. In light of this philosophy, we see peace and dialogue as the means to achieve a safer and stronger Middle East.

But this new agreement will by no means preclude our support of the Palestinian cause in line with the Arab consensus. There will be no embassy in Jerusalem until Jerusalem is also the capital of the future Palestinian state. We will continue to steadfastly defend the Palestinian right to statehood and dignity. And indeed, any and all progress on the matter must derive from direct dialogue between Palestine and Israel themselves. But this new deal will allow us to push ever harder for such an outcome.

We in the UAE are proud of this progress and look forward to the achievement of a more secure future for the Palestinian people, to the growth of our new partnership with Israel, and to the betterment of the region as a whole.
Qanta Ahmed: Israel-UAE agreement will likely lead more Arab nations to recognize Jewish state
Much credit for the Israel-UAE agreement and the earlier Israeli-Palestinian peace plan goes to Jared Kushner, President Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law. He and other U.S. officials have worked hard to establish personal friendships with Muslim leaders across the Middle East, which leads me to conclude that the agreement announced Thursday will be followed by the establishment of relations between Israel and more of its neighbors.

It is no surprise that the seven-member federation of the United Arab Emirates — now under the leadership of the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and commander in chief of the UAE’s formidable armed forces, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed — has become the first Muslim nation to normalize relations with Israel since Egypt and Jordan did so. His courage and long-term vision means Israel and the UAE will now have embassies in each other’s capitals.

Muslims will be able to fly directly from the UAE to Israel to pray at the third-holiest site of Islam –- the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Israelis will be able to visit, work and trade with the UAE — one of the most intensely forward-thinking regions in the world. They will be able to admire the remarkable Shaykh Bin Zayed Mosque, peruse the astonishing art the region has amassed and see the world’s preeminent Falcon hospital — a personal favorite of mine, as a physician.

Israelis and residents of the UAE will also be able to get to meet and know each other on a personal basis, establishing both friendships and professional relationships. The UAE is home to some of the most educated and empowered Muslim women in the region, including Maj. Mariam Al Mansouri the UAE’s first female fighter pilot, who led the first airstrike her country launched against ISIS. I’m sure she would get along well with Israeli military women I know.

All of us who are friends of peace between Israel and the Arab and Muslim world should now hope that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia follows the path of his neighbor and ally the UAE in establishing normalized relations with Israel.

It is in the self-interest of all Muslim nations— including the 16 remaining Arab nations that continue the boycott of Israel — to at long last accept the fact that the modern state of Israel exists and is here to stay.

Crown Prince Mohammed of the UAE has long been a behind-the-scenes source of wisdom, guidance and strategic policymaking for Crown Prince Mohammed of Saudi Arabia, and both nations have worked together in an intensely difficult time.

The neighboring countries have together dealt with the rise of the ISIS terrorist group; the deepening hostilities and undeclared open conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran; the rise of the terrorist group and Iranian proxy Hezbollah; the Syrian civil war; and the dangerous threat they face from Iran itself.

Israel can be a natural ally to Arab nations against these threats. Let’s hope and pray that the announcement by President Trump establishing ties between Israel and the UAE is followed by more such agreements with Arab and Muslim nations. That would serve America’s best interests and the best interests of all the countries following the road to peace and cooperation.




  • Sunday, August 16, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Iran’s fear: Israel will act like expansionist Iran

This Tehran Times article shows the real fear that Iran has: that Israel will take over lands closer to Iran, just as Iran has taken over Syria and Lebanon and parts of Gaza to threaten Israel.

President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday condemned an agreement between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Zionist regime of Israel to normalize ties, warning Abu Dhabi that the agreement must never prepare the ground for the presence of the Zionist regime in the Persian Gulf region.

Noting that even until the present time the UAE has done a “great mistake and treasonous act”, Rouhani said, “We warn the Emirates that lest it (agreement) finds a place for the Zionist regime in the region… then it will be different and they will be treated differently,” Rouhani said while speaking at a meeting of the National Task Force for Fighting Coronavirus.

هل كانت السعودية مملكة يهودية ؟

 

Recent interest by Israel in the history of Jews of the Gulf, including the Himyar kingdom in what is now Yemen and parts of Saudi Arabia, has been fueling this – an article in Al Sharq this weekend makes it sound like Israel has only shown interest in this topic after the Israel/UAE agreement.

That same article refers to a recent conspiracy theory that a Saudi development initiative named NEOM is in fact a cover for Israel to recreate a fictional Hebrew Biblical kingdom of “Noam.”

This has been a theme in the Arab world – especially in Jordan where many are convinced that Israel is planning to make a Biblical claim on Petra.

But it is natural for Iran to be concerned with an Israeli presence on its doorstep – so much so that it has warned the UAE that an agreement with Israel would make it a legitimate military target.

  • Sunday, August 16, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Bombshell: Lebanese president leaves door open for peace with Israel

w460 (2)

 

From Naharnet:

President Michel Aoun seemed to leave the door open to eventual peace with Israel, in an interview with French news channel BFMTV.

Lebanon has technically been at war with neighboring Israel for decades, with tensions sporadically flaring in the border area in Lebanon's south, stronghold of Iran-backed Hizbullah.

Asked in an interview on BFMTV whether Lebanon would be prepared to make peace with Israel, Aoun responded: "That depends. We have problems with Israel, we have to resolve them first."

His statement came in the wake of an announcement Thursday that Israel would normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates, only the third Arab state to establish full diplomatic ties with Israel since its creation in 1948.

"It's an independent country," Aoun said of the UAE.

Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement has for years been politically allied with Hizbullah.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday of the Israel-UAE agreement that "it's a betrayal of Jerusalem and the Palestinian people. It's a knife in the back."

Lebanon and Syria have been the most anti-Israel Arab countries, and Lebanon has been among the most antisemitic countries in the world. Even allowing for a possibility of a peace agreement with Israel is a huge shift.

Aoun is not ideological – he will align with whomever will save his political career (as would many Lebanese politicians.) And of course Hezbollah will block any possible peace with Israel. The reason that Aoun’s statement is groundbreaking is because it indicates that he is seeing the Lebanese people angry at Hezbollah as a major culprit in the Beirut explosion and he is hedging his bets with any possible popular uprising against Hezbollah and Iran. 

More importantly, even this mild statement weakens Hezbollah. Hezbollah pretends that it needs its arms to defend Lebanon from an Israeli enemy – if Israel is not the enemy, Hezbollah loses its entire reason for existing.  The Lebanese have deep memories of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and the wounds will not heal soon, but they are living under Hezbollah’s and Iranian implicit threats today. They are seeing Hezbollah’s leader Nasrallah trying to blame Israel for the Beirut blast and they recognize it for what it is – an attempt to move attention away from Hezbollah’s responsibility for putting hundreds of thousands of dangerous weapons literally under Lebanese homes, mosques and churches.

If Hezbollah issues a blistering anti-Aoun statement, they risk losing a key ally and alienating many Lebanese even more. But it cannot ignore his words either. As of this writing, Hezbollah’s Al Manar news site has remained silent.

Practically speaking, what are the disputes between Israel and Lebanon today? Some very minor land  border disputes and some fairly important disputes over maritime borders where there are significant natural gas reserves. Israel would be very flexible on those issues in exchange for real peace.

And peace is the last thing that Hezbollah wants.

(Notably, a UAE businessman makes the case for peace between Lebanon and Israel in Haaretz.)

  • Sunday, August 16, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Iranian media OBSESSED with UAE/Israel deal

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