Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 20, 2020

08/20 Links Pt2: Jews Without Israel; The End of Jewish Yemen is Imminent; The Palestinian People Cannot Expect Their Arab Allies to Suspend Their Needs Forever

From Ian:

Einat Wilf and Oren Gross: Jews Without Israel

America is a country where anyone arriving on its shores could become fully and completely American. This idea of the universal America is as inspiring as it is exceptional. The U.S. is the only country that was purposefully built on universal ideals.

The rest of the world's countries are not universal nations, and almost none of them aspire or even pretend to be so. Ever since the 20th-century collapse of empires, the Earth is divided between nation-states - almost all based on a single dominant national, ethnic, linguistic, or religious group, often with some other national, ethnic, linguistic, or religious minorities.

Israel, as the nation-state of the Jewish people, with an Arab national, ethnic, linguistic minority, is well within the global norm.
When Israel is measured by the EU guidelines on how nation-states should treat their national, ethnic, and linguistic minorities - for example, in providing schooling, government services, and road signs in the minority's language and providing the ability to celebrate holidays - Israel emerges with strong marks.

This achievement is especially impressive since Israel operates in the rare situation that its minority belongs to the dominant national, ethnic, linguistic majority in the region - most of which is still officially at war with it, and continues to deny the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in any borders. In fact, the status of the Arab minority in Israel during wartime is better than that of minorities in many countries which are at peace.

Most Jews in America still believe that Zionism is deeply entwined both with their Jewish and American identities, and that Zionism incorporates both the particular and the universal. Jews in Israel will continue to celebrate the fact that they finally live in the sovereign nation-state of the Jewish people and can therefore walk this Earth knowing that someone has their back.

The End of Jewish Yemen is Imminent

A precarious existence for country’s last 100 Jews

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have ordered at least some of the country’s remaining Jews to leave, according to sources in the Amran Governorate, north of the capital Sanaa, who spoke recently with The Media Line.

According to Ali Qudair, a tribal chief in the governorate, soldiers surrounded a village in mid-July to question members of at least one Jewish family living there about its contacts with people abroad.

“A group of military vehicles arrived in the area, taking up positions at the entrances to the village and establishing checkpoints,” Qudair told The Media Line.

“The soldiers entered the house of a Jewish family in the village and questioned members about their correspondence with the State of Israel, their property in the village and other areas, and whether or not they were in contact with relatives residing in other countries.

Qudair added that some of those questioned were taken to an unknown location and held for 48 hours.

“During the past few years,” he said, “the Jews have been denied many of their rights. They no longer can travel except with prior permission from the Houthi-appointed area supervisor.”

Qudair’s version of events was corroborated by Saeed Ahmad (not his real name), a resident of the nearby town of Kharef who says he enjoys strong friendships with many Jews in the area.

“On July 12, the Houthis arrested seven individuals from the Jewish community after questioning them and searching some of their homes,” he told The Media Line.

Ahmad adds that the Shi’ite Houthis, who have taken over most of Yemen’s main population centers, ordered these Jews to leave the country, imposing certain conditions on them regarding their property, most notably that they could sell it only to residents of the area or to the state – meaning to the Houthis themselves.

Ahmad said Houthi authorities were now arranging for their exit from Yemen, giving them a specific mechanism for traveling, communicating and conducting business.

Yemen’s Jewish community is estimated to have reached about 200,000 before members began leaving early in the last century, the exodus reaching a pinnacle in 1949 and 1950 with Operation Magic Carpet, a mission of the Israeli government, which brought some 50,000 people from Yemen to the Jewish state. Scores more were flown to Israel, reportedly in 2013 and 2016, in two flights that were kept secret for fear of disrupting sensitive channels of movement. (h/t Zvi)

The mystery of the persecuted Yemenite Jews unravelled

Saeed al-Nati, his disabled mother and three daughters lived in Amram in northern Yemen. The Houthis, who had invaded the area in 2004, began to harass Saaed in order to make him leave.

He was jailed in May for one month, but was released after committing to sell his home. He and his family left for the capital Sana'a, where 33 Jews live in a compound, and then on to Aden, where he hoped to catch a flight out of the country.

Saaed was told that there were no flights out of the country because of the coronavirus crisis. In any case, he was told that the only country that would take him would be Israel, as Yemeni passport holders could not obtain a visa for any other Arab country.

Enter Abu Dhabi to the rescue. Photos clearly show the disabled mother in a wheelchair and Saeed's sons, wives and grandchildren from London embracing their sisters. Mindful of the impending announcing of the UAE peace deal with Israel, Abu Dhabi must have seen a golden photo-op to advertise the emirate's tolerance and pluralism.

According to the Sparabia report, the departure of the al-Nati family leaves just five Jews - aold woman, her crazed brother and three others - in Amram province, where the market was once dominated by Jews. Together with the 33 Jews still in San'a that makes a total of 38 Jews in Yemen altogether.

Violence in Amran made the remaining Jews leave in waves. In 2016, 17 members of one family arrived in Israel in a blaze of publicity carrying a Torah scroll which they claimed was a family heirloom.

The Houthis arrested two Jews and two Muslims for facilitating the smuggling of a 'national' treasure. One Jew was released after three months, but they kept the other, Levi Salem Musa Marhabi, in jail.

A court of first instance acquitted Levi Marhabi and the Muslims, but eighteen months later, Levi Marhabi is still in jail.

Marbahi suffered a stroke that caused paralysis in half his body. His deteriorating health prompted Elan Carr, US antisemitism tsar, to appeal for his release.

Nevertheless, the Houthi-run prosecution has refused to accept all the guarantees provided to them for his release until such time as the case is heard by the Court of Appeal.

Excusing antisemitism (poster)

I made this poster after seeing yet another socialist Jew on Twitter recommend the website “HowToFightAntisemitism.com” – a website that only talks about right-wing antisemitism, both real and alleged.

To them, five out of these six examples are not antisemitism, or they must be swept under the rug. They want to use antisemitism as a political tool – and have zero interest in actually fighting it. (Some people on the Right do the same.)

We Will Recognize Israel In Exchange For Destroying Israel by Javad Zarif (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

We Will Recognize Israel In Exchange For Destroying Israel

by Javad Zarif, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Islamic Republic of Iran

Javad Zarif Tehran, August 21 - Diplomacy and politics are all about compromise. Both arts require flexibility, creative thinking, and efforts to craft win-win situations in which all parties to the issue can walk away with a compelling argument that they gain from the outcome. Iran therefore proposes the following: the Islamic Republic will depart from its long-held position that Israel has no right to exist, and will grant full recognition of the Jewish State, and in return, that Jewish State will concede to our eliminating it by violent means.

The Zionist entity has persisted despite the best efforts of the Arab and Islamic worlds over the last century to thwart such imperialist ambitions, often dealing us setbacks once thought impossible for dhimmi people to achieve. They had help, of course, in the form of the Great Satan, as well as a knack for exploiting divisions among the Muslim states and parties, each of whom sometimes saw the conflict not as a jihad to liberate Dar al-Islam from infidel colonist usurpers, but as yet another arena in which to jockey for regional influence. Regardless of the mechanics of the phenomenon, the fait accompli of a Zionist state has worn down even some of its staunchest opponents, several of whom now maintain diplomatic and commercial ties with the entity. Iran recognizes certain historical inevitabilities.

At the same time, the Islamic Republic cannot abide the continued and deepening occupation of Islamic Waqf lands, an affront to the Islamic Umma and to Allah. Since the Umma - and of course Iran has always played a decisive leadership role in Islam; take that, House of Saud - will not countenance the ongoing violation of Palestine, but that Occupation stubbornly refuses to disappear, and in fact entrenches itself further as the years pass, even conducting successful pursuit of recognition from its erstwhile existential foes, only one way forward can break the dynamic of mutual exclusivity: Iran will grant the legitimacy and recognition that the Zionist entity craves, and we, in exchange, will eliminate that entity. Win-win.

Lest cynics argue that if Iran had the capacity to destroy the Zionist entity it would have done so already, it must be noted that the Islamic Republic has already demonstrated its ability to destroy other countries: Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, and to some extent, Iraq, which will never function independently from Tehran if we have anything to say about it.

The ball is now in the Zionists' court, but they will refuse, as they have always opposed resolution of the conflict.

08/20 Links Pt1: Ben Shapiro: The Remaking of the Middle East; Douglas Murray: The Foreign Office has lost the plot in the Middle East

From Ian:

Ben Shapiro: The Remaking of the Middle East

All are angry for the same reason: The central myth of American Middle Eastern policy, formulated over the course of decades, has been thoroughly exposed. That myth suggested that in order for any peace to bloom in the Middle East, the West would have to apply pressure on the Israeli government to make concessions to the Palestinians -- that Israel would have to abandon claims to East Jerusalem, to the Golan Heights, to areas of Judea and Samaria.

That myth had been repeatedly tarnished by events of the last several years. When America moved her embassy to Jerusalem, foreign policy "experts" assured the public that the so-called Arab street would be set aflame. Instead, nothing happened. When America recognized Israel's formal annexation of the Golan Heights, foreign policy "experts" said that the Middle East would become a tinderbox. Nothing happened.

Now Arab nations are openly forming alliances with the Jewish state, fully acknowledging that Israeli-Palestinian issues remain bilateral in nature. Relations between Jordan and Israel, between the UAE and Israel, between Sudan and Israel, between Egypt and Israel -- none now hide behind the fig leaf of Palestinian demands to avoid peace. They have realized that other interests, both economic and security-related, are a top priority. And they have tacitly recognized that Palestinian intransigence is not worthy of their support.

Hilariously, former Vice President Joe Biden tried to take credit for the Israel-UAE deal, suggesting that his own communications with the UAE had paved the way for the agreement. That's laughable on its face: In 2014, Biden had to issue a formal apology to the UAE government after suggesting that the UAE supported militants in Syria. Biden's chief contribution to the diplomatic breakthrough was actually the Obama administration's sycophantic embrace of the Iranian regime: By making clear that the United States could not be relied upon to protect Sunni nations from Iranian predations, the Obama administration convinced Arab nations that their interests lie in security alliance with Israel.

And so, the region has changed for the better. In more honest times, Trump administration officials who brokered this breakthrough would be up for the Nobel Peace Prize; instead, the news has been largely downplayed in favor of the scandal du jour from Trump's Twitter account. But we should be clear: The first important breakthrough in the Middle East in three decades just took place. And it took place because reality finally set in for Israel's heretofore enemies: Israel isn't going anywhere. Perhaps Palestinians will eventually learn the same lesson and peace will truly be possible.

Douglas Murray: The Foreign Office has lost the plot in the Middle East

Last Friday the UN Security Council rejected any extension of the arms embargo on Iran. That embargo — imposed in 2007 — began to get phased out after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. But a ‘snapback’ provision was put in place intended to allow the return of åall such sanctions should Iran violate the terms of the deal. Iran has been violating those terms for some time, but on Friday, when the United States hoped that its allies would join it in deploring this fact, only the Dominican Republic voted with it. The UK, like France and Germany, chose to abstain. On the question of whether Russia and China should once again start selling arms to Iran, this country apparently takes no view.

It would be nice to be able to say that this was peculiar. But it isn’t. In the same week that Britain abstained at the Security Council the US brokered an historic deal elsewhere in the Middle East. Under its supervision, the United Arab Emirates and Israel signed an agreement to normalise relations. The Israeli President, Reuven Rivlin, has now invited Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed to visit Jerusalem. As the economic and diplomatic benefits of normalisation become clear, other countries in the Middle East are expected to follow suit. Deals like the UAE-Israel agreement are part of a larger attempt to find unity among states wishing to avoid Iranian dominance. Hence President Rouhani’s threatening condemnation of the UAE for its ‘treacherous’ actions. There are rumours of Bahrain and even Saudi Arabia at some point joining the UAE’s acceptance of reality.

In the British Foreign Office, meanwhile, such reality appears to be a world away. Responding to the US-led initiative the Foreign Office (FCO) released a statement which made precisely two curt points. The first welcomed the normalisation. The second consisted of the FCO’s perennial claim: ‘Ultimately, there is no substitute for direct talks between the Palestinians and Israel, which is the only way to a [sic] reach a two-state solution and a lasting peace.’

Defenders of the FCO like to present it as a first-class vessel, cruising along on the deep wisdom accrued from decades of masterly global circumnavigation. Recent events suggest otherwise. Just take last week’s statement. The Foreign Office was insisting that the only way to peace in the Middle East is for ‘direct talks between the Palestinians and Israel’. Yet it was doing so in response to an agreement that demonstrated precisely how unnecessary any such ‘direct talks’ actually are.

The historic nature of the UAE--Israel deal is not just the normalisation itself, but that it demonstrates how states in the region can make peace with Israel without needing to go through the corrupt and rejectionist Palestinian Authority. For decades the wisdom of the FCO (trotted out whichever party is in government) has been that an Israeli-Palestinian ‘two-state solution’ will ‘unlock’ and otherwise solve all the wider problems of the Middle East. It is to this failed venture that British diplomacy remains principally wedded. But if the UAE can reconcile itself to making peace without needing to go through the Palestinian cartel, then why can’t the British Foreign Office?

Amb. Dore Gold: Israel Has Been Making Common Cause with the Victims of Regional Aggression for Decades

Israel has been making common cause with the victims of regional aggression since the early 1960s, when it found itself in a coalition of states, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, opposed to Egypt's military intervention in Yemen's civil war. When Jordan faced an armed invasion from Syrian tanks in 1970, Israel understood that it was in its interest to safeguard its neighbor's territorial integrity.

Until 1971, the UAE was still a British protectorate. The UK announced it would withdraw from all of its positions "east of Suez" by 1972. The UAE thus gained independence at a time when it was clear that Britain would no longer provide security; the new state had to protect itself. After the rise of revolutionary Iran in 1979, the Iranian regime aspired to recover the lands its predecessors once controlled during the era of the Safavid empire.

Israel is not the regional policeman, nor should it attempt to take on such a role. But it must make its contribution to upholding the regional order along with its Arab allies.

From The People's Advocate and New South Wales Vindicator (Sydney), 23 September 1854, a description of a speech given by Sir Charles Nicholson at a meeting to raise funds for impoverished Jews in the Holy Land.

[The Jews of Palestine’s] position was one which must excite the strongest interest in all civilized countries. For the last 2000 years it had been the constant and almost sole object of these people to revisit Palestine, and re-establish their nationality. It was the land of their fathers, the land of promise consecrated by so many historical reminiscences of a character to impress us with the purest and holiest sentiments, the land of many heroic achievements, the land oi science and of art.

To this land the Jews in all ages and under all circumstances have manifested a strong disposition to return.

Whether trampled down by the Roman, the Syrian, the Greek, or the Mahomedan, the same desire, the same firm resolution, to visit the land of their fathers, had always actuated this peculiar and interesting people. Although subjected to the greatest contumely, and the most intense afflictions and sufferings in all ages and countries, they had never lost sight of the grand object of their existence.

He is describing Jews. He is describing Zionism. Throughout history, they were one and the same.

This video, in Hebrew, was published today by the Al Etihad newspaper in the UAE, describing how excited they are for peace with Israel and how tolerant the UAE is.

The Palestinian leaders are trying to embarrass the UAE by calling the agreement “the shame deal.” This video indicates that if anything the UAE is proud of it.

It is crazy enough to see Arabs speaking Hebrew to give a message of peace to Israel. But the Hava Nagila background music really drives home how much things have changed in such a short time.

The FBI’s “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” file

Yesterday, the FBI tweeted – without context –a link to their file on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Protocols of Learned Elders of Zion: https://t.co/BpI5Tc8oKc
— FBI Records Vault (@FBIRecordsVault) August 19, 2020

There is no problem, of course, with the FBI having a file on the famous antisemitic Russian forgery, nor in their making those files public.

There is a serious problem with them tweeting out these copies without any context.

It included a number of different copies of the book, all of which had been sent to the FBI by either informants or US citizens who either wanted the FBI to know about the secret plot of Jews to control the world, or who were asking whether the book was true.

Here is part of a 1949 letter by a Clarence Fausett, typed up for the FBI from a handwritten original, where he wanted to make sure that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was aware of this Jewish/Communist conspiracy.

The FBI replied in Hoover’s name:

As with all of the copies of the letters that the FBI sent, at the bottom are notes about whether the FBI has any information on the correspondent.

The FBI continued to receive similar letters from the 1940s through the 1970s, not only about the Protocols only but also with copies of other antisemitic tracts, covered in this file.

The responses, by not mentioning that the book was a lie, can be construed as a tacit support for their contents.

Here’s a 1968 letter where the correspondent is pretty convinced that Jews are controlling the government already, and he hopes that J. Edgar Hoover can clean things up.

This portion of a 1964 letter to the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee was copied to the FBI. It was written by a woman who wanted to know if the Talmud says the horrible things that the antisemites claim it says.

On one occasion, a special agent sent a copy of the Protocols to FBI headquarters asking about it, and they responded with a reference to a book that discredits the work.

The file is an interesting slice of history of American antisemitism as seen through the letters of concerned, often anti-communist citizens. It is reasonable to ask whether the FBI should have answered the letters of those who honestly wanted to know whether the antisemitic works were legitimate – it would require the FBI to become a fact-checking organization for the entire country which is not its purpose, but its refusal to answer the questions may have contributed to antisemitism itself.

A Page a Day (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

Since January, I’ve been participating in a daf yomi program. That means that every day, 7 days a week, I study a page (actually, two facing pages), of Talmud.

The fact that someone like me, who grew up in a secular home and did not have a Jewish education, has the opportunity to do this is a new development. The Talmud itself, for those who don’t know, consists of passages from the Mishna, the Oral Law first written down around 200 CE in Hebrew, and the Gemara, a much larger body of commentary on the Mishna that was compiled over a period of several hundred years afterwards. The Gemara is written in Aramaic, a language close to Hebrew, but the writing is condensed and elliptical. It also includes notes by Rashi and others commenting on and explaining the text. Until recently there was simply no way a modern reader could approach this without a great deal of preliminary study with knowledgeable teachers.

But in the last three decades, scholars have produced translations of the Aramaic texts along with detailed commentary to fill in the gaps for ignoramuses like me. In particular, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, z”l, who died earlier this month, created a monumental translation of the entire Babylonian Talmud (there is also a Jerusalem Talmud, but the one compiled in Babylonia is considered more authoritative) into modern Hebrew, which in turn has been translated into English. More than just a translation, Rabbi Steinsaltz interpolated explanations and context into the text, so that it’s possible to read it almost like a novel. There are even diagrams, which my wife says remind her of computer games.

The Talmud is not an orderly exposition of Jewish law. Rather it is a record of the deliberations and conversations of generations of sages, in which arguments are given for multiple interpretations of the Mishnaic texts, which themselves are an attempt to elucidate the commandments of the Torah and apply them to everyday life. Sometimes the Gemara will say “the halacha is such-and-such” but most of the time, all you have are the arguments. There are also stories, ridiculous medical advice, superstitions, insults – including some passages that have been used by Jew haters throughout the years as evidence for our evil ways. During the Middle Ages, non-Jewish authorities sometimes ordered printed copies of the Talmud to be censored or even burned.

The seven years it takes read the whole thing are daunting. When I started the daf yomi program, I didn’t believe that I would last more than a few weeks. But I’ve become more and more interested and involved as time goes by. I have even learned a few useful expressions in Aramaic, for example in yesterday’s daf, pok t’nei l’vara! (“go, take that teaching outside”). I’m convinced that if I live long enough (b”h), I will finish the project. I will never be either a scholar or very observant, but this study brings me closer to Judaism and Jewish history.

I think that this would not have happened if I still lived in a non-Orthodox community in the USA. In Israel, Judaism and Jewish history are in the air. I am continuously made aware of who I am, by the language, the holidays, the symbols of the state, the biblical geography, and the fact that I am surrounded by Jews. There are neighborhoods in Brooklyn in which I would also be surrounded by Jews; but even there, the consciousness of living as a small minority in someone else’s country is inescapable (not to mention the reminders provided by the growing number of antisemitic incidents). And I would miss the diversity of Israeli Jews, Jews of every color and culture.

But don’t I know that one of five Israelis is an Arab? Of course. There is room for an Arab minority. Nevertheless, there are also dangers – not directly from the presence of the Arabs, but from those that want to use their presence as a reason to weaken the Jewish state. Meir Kahane believed that the Arab citizens of Israel posed a demographic threat. Their birthrate was higher than that of the Jews, and so he predicted that the Jewish majority would ultimately be eroded. Today the birthrates of Jewish and Arab citizens are not far apart (I think the high Haredi birthrate is a greater threat to a functional state).

The real problem is an ideological one, posed by those (Jews and Arabs) who want to replace the state of the Jewish people with a state of its citizens. 62 members of the Knesset understood this when they passed the Nation-State Law to guarantee the continued Jewish character of the state. Right now there are attempts to weaken the law by inserting language to guarantee “equal rights.” We should be aware that the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty is already interpreted to guarantee equal civil rights to individual Jews and Arabs; and it is not necessary or desirable to weaken the provision of national rights that is made by the Nation-State Law to the Jewish people alone.

I am also not at all diffident about calling for Jews everywhere to make aliyah, despite the difficulties. You can certainly study Talmud in the diaspora, whether by subscribing to the daf yomi or by studying at one of the numerous yeshivot or other institutions of Jewish learning there. But you cannot, even in deepest Brooklyn, breathe Jewishness with every breath, as you can in the Jewish state.

08/19 Links Pt2: Democratic convention brings back former Women's March leaders accused of anti-Semitism; The ADL is targeted for not being woke enough for extremists

From Ian:

Democratic convention brings back former Women's March leaders accused of anti-Semitism

The Democratic National Convention utilized two of the former leaders of the Women's March, both of who faced allegations of anti-Semitism during their time on the board.

Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour participated in separate convention events on Monday and Tuesday, respectively. Mallory spoke on Monday at a virtual meeting of the Democratic Black Caucus while Sarsour addressed the convention’s Muslims and Allies Assembly.

Joe Biden's presidential campaign, in response to an attack from President Trump's reelection campaign, reaffirmed the former vice president's stance on Israel and the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, which calls for a boycott of Israeli goods in order to pressure the country's government to improve the quality of life for Palestinians.

“Joe Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel and a vehement opponent of anti-Semitism his entire life, and he obviously condemns [Sarsour's] views and opposes BDS, as does the Democratic platform,” Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said, according to CNN’s Jake Tapper. “She has no role in the Biden campaign whatsoever.”

Bates also pointed to the official Democratic platform, which includes the declaration: “We oppose any effort to unfairly single out and delegitimize Israel, including at the United Nations or through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement.”

Biden Campaign Repudiates Linda Sarsour, Condemns BDS Movement

Prominent anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour appeared on Tuesday on the live stream of the Democratic National Convention’s Muslim Delegates Assembly.

Sarsour — who acted as a surrogate for Bernie Sanders during the primaries — remarked, “The Democratic Party is not perfect, but it is absolutely our party in this moment.”

Following Tuesday’s event, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden repudiated Sarsour, with a spokesman for his campaign stating, “Joe Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel and a vehement opponent of antisemitism his entire life, and he obviously condemns her views and opposes BDS, as does the Democratic platform.”

“She has no role in the Biden campaign whatsoever,” the spokesman added.

WATCH: “Hey man” @JoeBiden, I have a message for you and all @TheDemocrats:

YOU’RE A BUNCH OF HYPOCRITES & FRAUDS!

Featuring vile antisemite Linda Sarsour to mollify Bernie is appeasement worthy of SHAME #NotMyVote

First you mainstream haters, then their hatred #NotOnMyWatch https://t.co/qn7m8RrwOa pic.twitter.com/Vr4xXa3mSu
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) August 19, 2020

Dozens of State Legislators Slam Democratic Socialists of America for ‘Blatantly Antisemitic Litmus Test’ of New York City Council Candidates

Dozens of members of the New York State Assembly have condemned the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for issuing what they called a “blatantly antisemitic litmus test” to prospective City Council candidates.

The DSA’s questionnaire to candidates included the line, “Do you pledge not to travel to Israel if elected to City Council in solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation?”

“Even though foreign policy falls outside the purview of municipal government, gestures like travel to a country by elected officials from a city the size and prominence of New York still send a powerful message, as would the refusal to participate in them,” the questionnaire added.

The next question was an aggressive near-endorsement of the antisemitic BDS campaign, reading, “Do you support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement? If not, why?”

Sovereignty, or the application of civil law to Judea and Samaria, has been hereby suspended, in favor of a peace accord with the UAE. How long that suspension will last is anyone’s guess. Some think it’s a done deal—that the subject of sovereignty is permanently off the table—while others think Bibi will make good his electoral promise of sovereignty, doing the right thing at the right time, in good time. But was sovereignty ever really on the table in the first place?

“Peace for peace,” said Netanyahu in his remarks to the nation about the accord, emphasizing that this would not be a cold peace, but a peace in which Israel and the UAE would be equals and friends. But the prime minister’s words also suggested that Israel traded not sovereignty for peace, but peace for peace: that Israel got something so huge in the exchange that it was worth it—worth giving up Israel’s sovereignty. But are sovereignty and peace commodities that might be traded, one for the other, even Steven? Is peace somehow bigger and more important than sovereignty? More worthwhile?

A reasonable person might ask: is "peace for peace" only more Netanyahu oratorical sleight of hand? For how is peace made, if not by sovereign entities as equals? And if Israel is robbed of the right to self-determination in parts of its lawful, indigenous territory, one might argue that it has no power to make an accord. That the right to make accords belongs solely to sovereign countries.

Giving up sovereignty is unfortunate in many ways, not least for creating a gap between the UAE and Israel, removing any semblance of parity between the two. Suspending sovereignty at the behest of the U.S. turns Israel into a vassal state, tied to Uncle Sam’s apron strings. It means that America decides the fate of the Jews and the land God gave them. Or rather, in agreeing to suspend sovereignty, Israel has ceded its rights, making America sovereign over the Holy Land.

This is what Netanyahu did in agreeing to suspend sovereignty. But who knows, perhaps sovereignty was never really on the table at all. Perhaps the suggested parameters of sovereignty were only meant to suggest the borders of a “Palestinian” state.

I put the question to Nadia Matar, co-chairman of Women in Green with Yehudit Katsover. The two have lately gone on to create the Sovereignty Movement (Ribonut), which serves as a forum and a campaign for the application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. Matar’s response to my question regarding partial sovereignty was succinct: “Bibi is on his way to create a PA state. He has to go.”

The same question put to Professor Efraim Inbar, however, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, yielded a surprising response, one that is brimming with optimism for the future, “The Americans got cold feet and Bibi got an agreement with UAE. Not so bad. Sovereignty remains for better days. History does not end in 2020.”

Inbar sees Bibi and Israel as the big winners here. A different picture emerges, however, in a recent interview of Finance Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) on Kan Bet, where Katz said that sovereignty had been frozen before the agreement with the United Arab Emirates. The MK was frank in stating that there actually is no connection between the peace accord with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the decision to suspend sovereignty. That it was simply “more convenient” for the Arab nations to present the accords as if they had brought about the suspension of sovereignty.

In this light, freezing sovereignty is akin to Israel freezing construction in Judea and Samaria, or what hostile elements call “settlement expansion.” It was canny of the UAE to squeeze this concession from the Jews. In theory, if not in application, the suspension of sovereignty makes the UAE a hero to the Arab people for staying Israel's hands in applying its land rights in the Holy Land, land that is coveted by the Arab people.

President Trump announces the agreement on August 13, 2020

Jared Kushner, however, asserts that the entire question of sovereignty is moot, “That land is land that right now Israel quite frankly controls. Israelis that live there aren’t going anywhere. There shouldn’t be any urgency to applying Israeli law. We believe they will respect their agreement.”

With this statement, Kushner betrays his lack of understanding of a very basic issue: that the territories have been under martial law since 1967, and living under martial law, is no way to live. Sovereignty means bringing civility to Judea and Samaria. For the wild, wild “West Bank” is a lawless place, where anything might happen when tensions flare, and the only thing to stop it is soldiers.

This is not a proper or humane state of affairs for Jews or Arabs. Asked if the application of civil law to the territories stood to benefit the Palestinians, Khaled Abu Toameh, an Israeli Arab journalist and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, responded, “I believe they would prefer any law to the existing set of laws, which includes Israeli military law, Jordanian law and Palestinian law. These laws have complicated the lives of Palestinians and created much confusion for many.”

The Point of the Deal: A Palestinian State

The Trump peace plan doesn’t factor in that confusion. It’s not the point or the focus of the deal. The purpose of the Deal of the Century, is to create a Palestinian state on 70 percent of Judea and Samaria through the application of Israeli sovereignty to just 30 percent of that land, effectively giving up another huge chunk of Jewish land to the Arabs for good, land that now legally belongs to Israel under international law. The normalization agreement with the UAE, however, puts a stopper into that idea, stipulating that Israel suspend its plan to extend Israeli law to these areas.

Kushner was frank about all this in his public remarks on the accord, in which he stated that Prime Minister Netanyahu had agreed to a map dividing Judea and Samaria into a Palestinian state with a part that would belong to Israel, calling it “the first map ever agreed publicly to by one of the parties.”

This, it appears, was the intent of partial sovereignty from the beginning. In giving up sovereignty over most of Judea and Samaria, Israel gives up more land to the Arabs for a state. Hence Trump’s peace plan turns the application of civilian law into another Israeli land giveaway, yet more land for peace. The plan actually turns sovereignty into something that is anathema to the world: annexation, by making Israel the thief in asserting its rights to a mere 30 percent of Jewish land, when in fact it is Israel, giving away yet more of its God-given land, more lifeblood, to the Arabs.

The Deal of the Century gives the Arabs license to encroach on yet more Jewish land, in the very same sort of creeping annexation of which Israel stands accused. Make no mistake: this is an Arab land grab going all the way back to the British Mandate for Palestine, when responding to Arab entreaties, Britain reneged on its promise to the Jews, and created Transjordan on 78 percent of the Mandate. It is the same creeping Arab annexation of Jewish land that was Oslo, the same creeping Arab annexation of Jewish land that resulted from the expulsion of the Jews from Gaza. And yet it is Israel that is the enabler of this state of affairs, in which the Arabs get more Jewish land over time, as the Jews are squeezed into borders that shrink over time, inching ever closer to the sea.

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A most interesting tweet from PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We should respect the national symbols of the UAE. The UAE flag is a national symbol that must be respected and honoured , so should other Emirates national symbols . <a href="https://t.co/OITcIjTdQS">https://t.co/OITcIjTdQS</a></p>— Dr. Saeb Erakat الدكتور صائب عريقات (@ErakatSaeb) <a href="https://twitter.com/ErakatSaeb/status/1296071978328227841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 19, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

If national symbols must be respected, then Israel’s flag must not be burned by Palestinians – but that happens every day and Erekat remains silent.

So it must be that Erekat does not consider Israel to be a nation.

08/19 Links Pt1: UAE Agreement Demonstrates That Netanyahu Is the Master Peacemaker; The Palestinians weren’t betrayed by the UAE. They were simply left behind

From Ian:

David Singer: Saying no one time too many : The PLO sidelined

Trump’s Vision offered the PLO Gaza and possibly 70% of Judea and Samaria for a second Arab State in former Palestine - in addition to Jordan.

Abbas – who has been demanding 100% for the last 25 years – made his displeasure known in terms that must not have endeared him to Trump:

“I say to Trump and Netanyahu: Jerusalem is not for sale; all our rights are not for sale and are not for bargain. And your deal, the conspiracy, will not pass … We say a thousand no’s to the deal of the century,”

Trump’s offer – spurned so dismissively by Abbas - now seems destined for the dustbin of history.

The UN and European Union’s insistence that the “two-state solution” was the only solution that could end the Jewish-Arab conflict has been debunked as Israel and the UAE begin the path to peaceful co-existence.

Jordan and Egypt’s involvement after a 53 years absence becomes increasingly possible.

Israel’s planned application of sovereignty in the 30% of Judea and Samaria designated in Trump’s plan has been placed on hold – as Trump pointed out in his carefully worded White House statement:

“As a result of this diplomatic breakthrough, and at the request of President Trump with the support of the United Arab Emirates, Israel will suspend declaring sovereignty over areas outlined in the President’s Vision for Peace and focus its efforts now on expanding ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim world. The United States, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates are confident that additional diplomatic breakthroughs with other nations are possible, and will work together to achieve this goal”..

The operative word is “suspend” not “abandon”

Once again Israel has made a major concession in pursuing peace by suspending its extension of sovereignty into the Jewish People’s biblical heartland – specifically designated for reconstitution of the Jewish National Home by the Mandate and preserved until today by article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

A bigger picture beckons as other Arab states could shortly follow the UAE’s decision and establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

Trump’s incredible efforts over the past three years to achieve peace between Jews and Arabs should see his most trenchant critics eating humble pie.

Jonathan Tobin: UAE Agreement Demonstrates That Netanyahu Is the Master Peacemaker

As far as most Democrats are concerned, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is one of their least favorite world leaders. Though not all of them go so far as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who scorns him as a "reactionary racist." But even those who consider themselves pro-Israel stalwarts draw the line at expressing support for Netanyahu.

Their allies in the media and the foreign policy establishment agree. Most pundits and so-called Middle East "experts" believe the Likud Party leader and his policies to be the principal obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. Many American Jews also deprecate him as a foe of liberal values whose refusal to compromise and alleged corruption is a threat to Israeli democracy.

But in the wake of the historic agreement reached last week between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to begin negotiations to normalize relations between the two countries, it's time for Netanyahu's detractors to acknowledge a truth they'd rather deny or ignore. Far from being a hard-liner or an obstacle to peace, Netanyahu is the most skillful and successful diplomat in Israel's history.

Few would dispute that as the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, Netanyahu is a master politician whose ability to stay on top is nothing short of remarkable.

It's also true that despite his truculent reputation, Netanyahu has been the most cautious of Israeli prime ministers when it comes to the use of military force. Unlike virtually all of his predecessors, he has been reluctant to use the Israel Defense Forces in all-out campaigns to silence attacks in the south, from Hamas-run Gaza, or in the north, from Hezbollah. Indeed, domestic critics from the left and the right have often criticized him for being too soft on terror, rather than being the warmonger depicted in the international press.

But the greatest misnomer about Netanyahu is the claim that his bluster is isolating his country.

Where did all the “Israel is increasingly isolated” people go? Are they ok? pic.twitter.com/oWjKGb8EtR
— Daniel Paul Rubenstein (@paulrubens) August 18, 2020

Ruthie Blum: Netanyahu’s bold move

In answer to critics on both sides of the spectrum, Netanyahu penned an op-ed on Monday to “remind [readers] that in the current agreement, not only has Israel not withdrawn from so much as one square meter, rather the Trump plan includes, at my request, the application of Israeli sovereignty over extensive territories in Judea and Samaria. It was I who insisted on including sovereignty in the plan, and this plan has not changed. President Trump is committed to it and I am committed to conducting negotiations on this basis.”

He went on to say, “At the U.N. in 2013, I said that for years, many believed that Israeli-Palestinian peace would advance a broader reconciliation between Israel and the Arab world. I said that I was of the view that peace would be achieved in the opposite fashion: It was expanding reconciliation between Israel and the Arab world that would likely advance an Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

There is no question that Netanyahu was right all along that the root of Middle East strife was not a lack of Palestinian statehood. Only liberal Jews continued to believe that fallacy, to which even most Arabs have stopped paying lip service. Proof that they only used the Palestinian “cause” to bash Israel lays in the appalling treatment of Palestinians in their own countries.

This is something that members of the Israeli right never doubted. Many, however, have cast serious aspersions on Netanyahu’s convictions where preserving Jewish rights in the land of Israel is concerned. They see the UAE deal as a form of capitulation to foreign pressure.

They are wrong to perceive his actions in this light. He is not caving to Washington. Rather, he is buying time and creating optimal conditions for Israel’s road ahead. As Movement for Governability and Democracy managing director Daniel Seaman so aptly put it in these pages on Sunday: “While most politicians are busy playing checkers, Netanyahu has always been playing three-dimensional chess.”