Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

08/25 Links Pt1: Nikki Haley: Obama, Biden led UN to denounce our friend Israel; United Nations not thrilled about Middle Eastern nations uniting

From Ian:

Nikki Haley: Obama, Biden led UN to denounce our friend Israel

Former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley spoke of President Donald Trump's foreign policy accomplishments during his tenure thus far on the first night of the Republican National Convention on Monday, including mentioning the president's policies regarding the Middle East and Israel.

During the virtual convention, Haley first quoted the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, an ardent supporter of Israel in the administration of former US president Ronald Reagan, saying in an overt criticism of Democratic Party foreign policies that they "always blame America first."

Noting her role as the former US ambassador, Haley remarked on the nature of the UN and international human rights, saying "it was an honor of a lifetime to serve as the United States ambassador to the United Nations. Now, the UN is not for the faint of heart. It's a place where dictators, murderers & thieves denounce America... and then put their hands out and demand that we pay their bills."

Similarly, Haley harshly criticized former US president Barack Obama's foreign policy in relation to US-Israel ties and votes in the UN on apparently anti-Israel resolutions, in addition to talking about the decision to transfer the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

"Obama and Biden led the United Nations to denounce our friend and ally, Israel. President Trump moved our embassy to Jerusalem... and when the UN tried to condemn us, I was proud to cast the American veto."

New Israel-UAE Pact Shatters Peace Myths

For decades, international decision makers and opinion shapers have theorized that Israel will not be accepted in the region until it makes peace with the Palestinians, and that all wars and conflicts in the Middle East are somehow connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Former President Jimmy Carter once stated that “without doubt, the path to peace in the Middle East goes through Jerusalem.” Another enthusiast of what has become known as “linkage” is the late US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who said, “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the single most combustible and galvanizing issue in the Arab world.”

The Israel-United Arab Emirates (UAE) peace agreement, or “Abraham Accord” — in addition to credible talk of other Arab nations joining — has exploded the belief that the Jewish state is isolated in the region. It also sent a clear signal that the Palestinians, following their decades of rejectionism, can no longer place a veto on Arab nations making peace and establishing official relations with Israel.

But of course, the idea that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the focal point of the region’s unrest and the most challenging to solve has never been consistent with the facts or statistics.

Many conflicts have been far more deadly and are far more entrenched, based on grievances stretching back hundreds of years. The Sunni-Shiite conflict, for example, predates the modern era, and the internal wars that have devastated Middle East nations like Syria, Libya, Lebanon, and Iraq are a result of historical and even ancient disputes. If one looks at the number of Muslim fatalities from armed conflicts since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, well over 12 million have been killed in conflicts around the wider region in wars such as the Syrian and Lebanese civil wars and the Iran-Iraq conflict.

Fewer than 100,000 Arabs have died in the Israeli-Arab or Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the majority of those died in Israel’s defensive wars against its neighbors. That means fewer than one percent of all deaths in conflicts in the region were in the context of the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict. This statistic alone demonstrates that the conflict with Israel is one of the least bloody or central in the region.

The warm peace between Israel and the UAE is a victory for us all

Many prominent people in the UAE have praised and congratulated this agreement and greatly appreciate this strategic change. We must let the past be the past and look forward to the opportunities of tomorrow, full of sincere cooperation and synergy.

Peace is born in people’s hearts and minds. Real and lasting victories are the victories of peace, not the victories of war.

The atmosphere in support of peace and the interaction we are witnessing through social media platforms in the UAE and Israel, and increasingly in more Arab countries, give us a great sense of hope that such lasting peace is indeed possible.

Although we also have empathy for the Palestinian people, it is regrettable that instead of grasping this opportunity to advance their own situation, their leadership has yet again dismissed an outstretched hand for real and meaningful change.

The peace agreement between Israel and the UAE is intended to put an end to conflicts in the region and to spread the values of peace among the peoples.

This historic step will contribute to the strengthening of stability, justice and peace in the world, based on universal human values that everyone believes in, such dialogue, coexistence and tolerance between different religions and cultures.

After the historic peace agreement last week, we feel a real mutual sense of excitement and hope for a better future. It is our dream that others, especially in the Arab world, will see it also and join us!

The writer is a senior executive specializing in digital transformation at the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and an activist for peace and regional reconciliation.

More #Pallywood lies

A tweet I came across from Lana Adham who lives in Gaza:

The first picture came from an article about a kid without legs in New England.

The second seems to be either from Afghanistan or Kashmir, but it isn’t Gaza.

Adham seems to make a career of relabeling photos as being from Gaza:

The kid is a Syrian refugee.

Syria 2013.

Pallywood seems to be a full time job for some people. they have to lie because the truth isn’t on their side.

UAE official slams Palestinian refusal to attend Middle East peace summit

From Israel Hayom:

The United States is working to convene a Middle East peace summit in the next few weeks, a senior Emirati diplomat told Israel Hayom Monday.

The Emirati official said that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's five-day visit to the Middle East and Africa, which began in Jerusalem, is part of Washington's effort to lay the groundwork for the peace summit.

Sources familiar with the issue said that the summit is to take place in one of the Persian Gulf sheikdoms, adding that the US is trying to secure the participation of Bahrain, Oman, Morocco, Sudan, and Chad, alongside Israel and the UAE.

Other states, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan – the latter two already having peace treaties with Israel – have yet to confirm their participation in the summit.

[Hebrew edition: “According to the senior Emirate diplomat, lSaudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan have not yet responded if they will send delegations to the regional summit, if it does take place in light of the Palestinian refusal." However, the senior Arab diplomat noted that there was tacit agreement between Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to hold the conference and that they would be content to send representatives at the bureaucratic level and not representatives at senior ministerial levels. “]

The diplomat added that prior to and during Pompeo's visit to Israel, Palestinian officials were invited to the summit. The message was also conveyed to the PA that Pompeo is willing to visit PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah to personally invite him to the summit.

Abbas and other PA officials dismissed the offer, snubbing the top American diplomat "and even sent the message that Pompeo is not wanted in Ramallah," the UAE official said.

"The Palestinian position is very saddening. They were given an opportunity to deescalate the situation with a respectful invitation to take part in a regional peace conference, and they rejected it out of hand with no reasonable explanation," he noted.

"The Palestinians have to come to grips with the fact that the wheels of peace have started to turn, and peace and normalization will come with or without the Palestinians even if they continue to be defiant."

Every time the Palestinians say no, they alienate themselves more from moderate Arab states – and they push themselves more into a de facto alliance with Iran, Syria, and Yemen, which makes them even more toxic to most Arab states.

As with everything else in the region, the Palestinian leaders are being driven more by “honor” than by what is best for their own people. This is a self-destructive mindset that the Gulf nations are slowly climbing out of, as they realize that oil reserves are not a long term solution to their survival and that they need to become part of the West and invest in the future if they want to thrive.

At this point one may wonder if the entire point of inviting the Palestinians to a peace summit is to embarrass them when they refuse and to accelerate the split between them and the rest of the Sunni Arab world. Pompeo knows very well that they will always refuse.

Meanwhile, the new Middle East continues to change at dizzying pace:

PCHR tries to counter “Terrorists in Suits”–and can’t

Last year Israeli’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs released “Terrorists in Suits,” which showed how many top members of anti-Israel NGOs were linked to terror groups, most often the PFLP but also Hamas.

Now, PCHR – one of the organizations targeted – has written a rebuttal report.

However, it doesn’t point out any inaccuracies!

For example, PCHR writes:

On February 2019, the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs released a report titled “Terrorists in Suits”, accusing several Palestinian NGO’s, especially the human rights organizations, that attempting to eradicate the State of Israel. And they also posted about the directors of these institutions as they have relations with Palestinian organizations as “terrorists”, so they published Photoshopped pictures for some of them such as the Lawyer Raji al-Sourani, the director of PCHR, and Sha’wan Jabarin, general director of al-Haq.

The report alleges that it exhibits the connections between dozens of the human rights organizations and the so-called “terrorists” groups. It also attempted to create a connection between human rights organizations, BDS, Hamas Movement, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The report is based on fake information in a misrepresented context regarding the former and decades old activities of human rights activists with Palestinian political parties. The report also claims that BDS and human rights organizations are attempting to deceive the world and hide behind a humanitarian and human rights facade to destroy the State of Israel, as it alleges that those organizations do not recognize “Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state”, and they aim to eradicate the State of Israel. The report used the membership of the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces, a political coalition of 15 Palestinian factions, in the BDS National Committee (BNC), which includes the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) , to paint its allegations as truths.

Note that PCHR doesn’t say that the report isn’t true. Because they can’t. Here is the Terrorists in Suits page they are referring to:

The “Photoshopped pictures” are simply two different edits of the same picture – they are clearly of the correct person and don’t misrepresent them.

The Israeli report freely admits that Wisha’s prison sentence was many years ago, but when such a high percentage of PFLP terrorists become members of NGOs, it is clear that the NGOs exist to do the same job that the PFLP does. In fact, the leader of the cell that killed 17-year old Rina Shnerb last year was at the same time working for the European-funded Addameer NGO.

PCHR’s response is meant to give the impression that “Terrorists in Suits” is filled with inaccuracies, but in the end they cannot find anything specific that was incorrect! The entire purpose of the PCHR report is to make it look like they have a substantive response, knowing that most people will not actually read it and hoping that EU funders of these NGOs – who often look for any excuse to continue to fund these organizations to pretend they care about human rights - -will feel better about funding terrorist-infested organizations since they seemingly responded.

Much of the rest of the report attacks NGO Monitor, accusing it of falsehoods, again without rebutting a single example. It’s almost humorous.

Erdogan’s video shows he wants to control Jerusalem

This video from the President of Turkey’s Communications Directorate shows how Recep Tayyip Erdoğan views Turkey.

It is a very militaristic video, going from Turkish soldiers on horses onto showing them in fighter jets.

But the very last frames of the video feature the Temple Mount showing the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

Is it Erdogan’s goal? Is he wishing for a return to the Ottoman Empire and control of Jerusalem?

Whatever it is, it is a huge insult to Israel.

(One might think that it is an insult to Palestinians as well, but they never cared about Al Aqsa being under the control of others before 1967. As long as Jews don’t control it, they seem to be fine with it.)

(h/t Diana Muir Appelbaum)

08/24 Links Pt2: Black September Remembered: How The PLO Forged The Modern Middle East; NYTs Floats Plan To Hire 100 Orthodox Jewish Journalists

From Ian:

Black September Remembered: How The PLO Forged The Modern Middle East

It is a common, albeit false, assumption that the United States and Israel closely cooperated since the Jewish state’s recreation in 1948. Washington had supported the U.N. Partition Plan that would have created both an Arab and a Jewish state out of British-ruled Mandate Palestine, but then-President Harry Truman did so over the objections of top advisers. Indeed, the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon had argued that U.S. support for Israel would be a strategic liability.

America, in turn, often kept Israel at arm’s length, both forcing the Jewish state to give up territory won in the 1956 Suez War against Nasser and prohibiting weapon sales until 1962. While relations were cordial, and even friendly, the United States tended to view Israel less as a strategic partner and more as a burden.

With Syrian forces moving into Jordan, King Hussein asked for U.S. aerial reconnaissance. Washington turned to the Israelis.

On September 20, Kissinger told Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, the future Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, that King Hussein had asked to have Israel’s air force attack the Syrian invaders. A stunned Rabin asked, “Are you recommending that we respond to the Jordanian request?” Kissinger declined to give an answer, telling Rabin that he would get a response from Nixon within half an hour.

After speaking with Nixon, Kissinger told Israeli Premier Golda Meir, that the United States “would look favorably upon an Israeli air attack.”

Meir ordered the reconnaissance flights and Israel sent troops to its border with Syria. Israeli jets, meanwhile, flew low over Syrian tanks in Jordan—sending an unmistakable signal that Israel would intervene. “With that support,” Meir biographer Francine Klagsbrun wrote, “the king used his own air and ground forces to drive the Syrians back to their own country.” By July 1971 the PLO was crushed in Jordan, and Arafat fled to Lebanon.

Subsequently, Kissinger told Rabin that America was “fortunate in having an ally like Israel in the Middle East.”

Security cooperation would continue to improve between the two countries with Israel having demonstrated that it was more of an asset than a liability. Today, the nations enjoy unprecedented cooperation and Israel is considered a major non-NATO ally.

The event had other fateful consequences as well. The failed Syrian intervention led to the rise of Hafez al-Assad who, as defense minister, had opposed it. The PLO, meanwhile, would memorialize it as “Black September” and would go on to create another “state within a state” in Lebanon—igniting years more of warfare. Today another anti-Israel terror group, Hezbollah, has taken the PLO’s place in Lebanon. Elsewhere, Hezbollah has intervened in Syria to prop up Bashar Assad, Hafez’s genocidal son.

“History is not was,” the American novelist William Faulkner famously wrote, “it is.” (h/t Zvi)

This West Bank Land Is Not ‘Palestinian’

“Who can challenge the rights of the Jews in Palestine?” Yusuf al-Khalidi wrote to the chief rabbi of France on March 1, 1899. “Good Lord, historically it really is your country.” Yet, more than a century after Khalidi’s admission, the Jewish people’s connection to their ancestral homeland is often forgotten. Indeed, many news outlets and analysts not only ignore it — but often attempt to erase it.

Take, for example, The Washington Post. The newspaper’s August 13, 2020 report, “Trump announces historic peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates,” asserted that “Arab leaders had privately warned Trump that they could not agree to future economic or diplomatic ties with Israel if Israel took over land now considered Palestinian.” But the article, by reporter Anne Gearan and Jerusalem bureau chief Steve Hendrix, doesn’t say why the land is “now considered Palestinian.”

In fact, a sovereign Palestinian Arab state has never existed. Rather, the status of the territory is, at best, disputed. Its status is to be resolved by negotiations anticipated by UN Security Council Resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian interim accords, the 2003 international “road map,” and related diplomatic efforts. Indeed, the co-authors of Resolution 242, US Under Secretary of State Eugene Rostow, US Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur Goldberg, and British ambassador Lord Caradon made clear, both then and later, that Jews and Arabs both had claims in the territories, and that no national sovereignty over them had been recognized since the end of Ottoman rule.

The Washington Post itself, in a September 4, 2014 correction prompted by CAMERA, noted that “the Israeli-occupied territories are disputed lands that Palestinians want for a future state.” In another recent CAMERA-prompted correction, The Wall Street Journal acknowledged on May 16, 2020, that “under the Oslo accords, sovereignty over the West Bank is disputed, pending a final settlement.”

Further, there is a legal basis for Jewish claims to the land. As CAMERA has documented (see, for example, “The West Bank—Jewish Territory Under International Law”), Israel has a foundation for asserting sovereignty over the area. Additionally, the League of Nations Palestine Mandate, adopted later by the United Nations, calls for “close Jewish settlement on the land” west of the Jordan River in Article 6. The UN Charter, Chapter XII, Article 80, upholds the Mandate’s provisions. The 1920 San Remo Treaty and the 1924 Anglo-American Convention also enshrined Jewish territorial claims in international law.

FDD: Boykott

With overwhelming support, the German parliament, or Bundestag, passed a resolution last year declaring, “[T]he arguments and methods of the BDS [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] Movement are anti-Semitic.” The resolution explained that the tactics of the BDS campaign “inevitably arouse associations with the Nazi slogan ‘Kauft nicht bei Juden!’” (emphasis added)1 – “Don’t buy from Jews!”

The Bundestag resolution had few tangible effects, since it was not legally binding. Yet it challenged the BDS campaign’s portrayal of itself as an advocate for human rights and an opponent of prejudice. While the resolution made points similar to those offered by the campaign’s other critics, it endowed such arguments with the moral weight of Germany’s efforts to grapple with its own history of anti-Semitism.

The German parliament also brought a new sense of democratic legitimacy to the effort to counter BDS initiatives, since the parliament spoke on behalf of more than 80 million inhabitants of the most populous country in the European Union. There had been no comparable vote in any other country, not even the United States. Six months later, Paris would follow Berlin’s precedent.2 Then, in February 2020, the Austrian Parliament unanimously passed an anti-BDS resolution, declaring the campaign to be anti-Semitic.3

While the Holocaust informs much of the German debate about BDS, it does not explain why the Bundestag rejected a common defense of BDS – namely, that objecting to the actions of the Israeli government is in no way anti-Semitic. Indeed, the Bundestag condemned statements “that are formulated as alleged criticism of the policies of the State of Israel, but are actually expressions of hatred of the Jewish people.”4

To understand how and why German lawmakers arrived at this position in 2019, one must view BDS in the context of Germany’s evolving relationship with the State of Israel. The governments of both West Germany and the post-Cold War reunified German state interpreted their responsibility for the Holocaust as including an obligation to fight anti-Semitism and protect Jews. A sticking point has been whether Germany has an obligation to serve as protector of the Jewish state.

At the conclusion of the Cold War, it was no longer a question. Germany began to embrace the notion of a special relationship with Israel. This relationship still requires give and take, rather than a mandate for deference to Israeli wishes. For example, Germany and Israel have had sharp differences regarding how to address the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear program. Germany had also, until recently, refused to designate the entirety of Lebanese Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. That ended in April 2020, when Berlin outlawed all Hezbollah activity within its borders.5 But this step was taken in line with Germany’s own interest, even if it was prodded by the United States.

The BDS campaign is an issue that goes beyond traditional foreign policy. It is an ideological issue that touches a raw nerve connected to Germany’s troubled past. It should come as no surprise, then, that Germany took a leadership role in countering the campaign.

Ramallah News quotes the Emirati news agency WAM:

On Monday, the head of the UAE General Authority for Islamic Affairs and Endowments, Muhammad Al-Kaabi, described the agreement to normalize Emirati-Israeli relations under American auspices as a "courageous and historic" decision, despite strong Palestinian opposition to it.

According to the official Emirates News Agency, WAM, Al-Kaabi stressed that this agreement stems from the values of the Islamic religion, which calls for building bridges of cooperation and establishing relations with everyone regardless of their positions and religions.

Al-Kaabi claimed that his country is continuing its efforts to find a peaceful solution that protects people, achieves development for this region, and preserves its stability, indicating that this is an affirmation of the firm leadership approach.

He added, "This is evidence of the wise leadership's belief in the necessity of honoring the human being, the sanctity of protecting the sacred things, its sincere desire to instill the values of hope in the region's youth, and to reinforce their peace values."

It sounds like the UAE leadership is not affected in the least by the strenuous Palestinian objections to the agreement.

19th-century engraving depicting an Arab slave-trading caravan transporting black African slaves across the Sahara. (Wikipedia)

In June, Yasmine El Geressi wrote an article in Majalla that is the best I’ve seen in describing Arab racism against Black people, a topic that Western “anti-racists” studiously ignore.

Excerpts:

Anti-blackness is deeply embedded within Arab countries and takes on many forms – from the horrific human trafficking of African migrants in Libya, to the expansion of colourism through the promotion of white beauty standards, to the colloquial use of the Arabic word for "slave", to daily microaggression. All this plays out against a backdrop of misguided and distasteful media messaging echoed within the Arab world where blackface is commonly used to wring cheap laughs from demeaning stereotypes and prejudices. Much too often, the conversation on anti-black racism has been met with denial and defensiveness. This culture of silence is symptomatic of a lack of awareness of the charged and complicated history of slavery, racism and the consequences of racial bigotry.

Arab social media users voiced their support for Black Americans and weighed in on the brutal crackdown on protesters in the US. Among them was Palestinian actress and film director Maryam Abu Khaled with a social media following of more than 200,000 people who slammed racism in the Arab world in a recent video posted on Instagram. In the video which quickly went viral, Abu Khaled, a black woman from Jenin, shared stories of everyday casual racism among Arabs, including hearing parents tell their children not to play in the sun for too long, otherwise they will "get sunburnt and start looking like Maryam”.

While news stories emerge almost daily in the US about police being called over black Americans doing nothing more than being black, Afifa Latifi, a Tunisian doctoral student in Africana Studies at Cornell University and co-founder of the Voices for Tunisian Black Women collective, told Majalla that although black people do not face the same amount of gratuitous violence against them in the Arab world, that does not mean that their experiences are better. “Beyond the microaggressions and virtual hate speech, there are various instances of violence that prove that we're not in a better off position,” she said.

“When you think of the predicament of black refugees, black migrant workers and the Kafala system as an example, the various incidents of police brutality in countries like Morocco, the multiple crimes committed against West African students in Tunisia and slavery in Mauritania which was only criminalized in 2007, it is hard to see a difference in experiences.”

“I find this unchecked verbal and non-verbal violence, impoverishment and marginalization of black people in the region, reminiscent of the social death that black Americans experience,” Ltifi said.

There are strictly enforced beauty standards in Arab countries that still favour fairer skin and straighter hair at the expense of diversity. One quick flick through a few Arabic TV channels can confirm that. These aesthetic standards translate into dangerous practices such as skin bleaching. In 2018, women in Egypt even began pouring chlorine in a bath to try to jumpstart the lightening process in a temporarily popular trend.

Most importantly, these aesthetic practices lay the foundation for an internalised social hierarchy rooted in colourism - the prejudice based on skin tone, usually with a marked preference for lighter-skinned people - and anti-Blackness which accepts dark-skinned people as being held to a lower standard.

The trauma caused by colourism is evident when it comes to marriage. “If one partner wants to bring a dark-skinned partner, there will be questions raised by the family. This is not unusual and it’s not limited to particular religious groups or particular minorities. It seems to be across the board. It’s not unusual in Morocco for an Amazigh to refuse the marriage of a dark-skinned African,” Dr Ali explains.

The irony here is disturbing. In a world where Muslims and Arabs have long been subjected to racism, too many Arabs have failed to consider how they treat minorities. “I see brown-skinned Arabs discriminate against dark-skinned Africans and I’ve actually said to them, if you were in Europe, your brown skin would be discriminated against. The inability to feel empathy has a lot to do with not having to experience what dark-skinned Africans or local Egyptians go through,” Dr Ali said.

This is for two reasons. One is that they don’t want to appear to look anti-Arab. But the main reason is that they want to make the Western world look uniquely racist and use the race issue as a means to gain political power.

They don’t really care about Black people because if they did, they would look at the issue of race worldwide and within their own political circles, not just against their political opponents.

Global anti-racism protests have sparked calls for Arab governments to abolish a system of sponsorship for migrant workers. About 23 million migrants, mostly from poor African and Asian countries, work in the Arab world under a system known as kafala that generally binds them to one employer, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation.

Labour rights campaigners in the region said those expressing support for protesters calling for an end to racism in the United States and elsewhere should look closer to home, where foreign workers faced exploitation and abuse under kafala. “These issues are very much systemic and ingrained in racist rhetoric and perceptions toward other nationalities in our own countries,” Salma Houerbi, a researcher at the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre advocacy group, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The anti-Kafala initiatives are increasingly garnering attention in Lebanon where the suicide last month of a maid from the Philippines highlighted the struggles of migrant women in the country where migrant domestic workers are dying at a rate of two per week.

Joey Ayoub, an independent Lebanese activist campaigning to abolish kafala, told Reuters that the system amounted to legitimised racism. “If we want to speak of black lives matter, we have to talk about the actual black lives that do not matter in Lebanon,” he said, referring to the protests that have roiled the United States for the past two weeks. “Even if the kafala system is abolished tomorrow, racism would still exist, but it at least would allow people who are themselves victims of racism much more say and autonomy in what they can do about it.”

While black slavery can seem like a peculiarly American institution, it is also a painful fact of history in the Middle East where countless East Africans were sold as slaves. It was primarily women and girls who were abducted into the Arabian slave trade, to then be turned into concubines. Historically, the absence of laws enshrining racial segregation (like those that existed in the US until the 20th century) enhances this sense of superiority that propagates the extraordinary wall of silence around this history across the region.

This culture of silence has helped to avoid challenging questions regarding the enduring legacies of slavery and anti-black racism in Arab societies that continue to affect social forms of life, and according to Professor Powell, has led to a popular outright denial that racist attitudes against black people exist within Arab societies. “My experience in the Arab world is that most people do not know the historical meanings behind the word “abeed” (slave), or they relegate the idea of racism to the United States, without seeing how it can exist amongst themselves, in their own countries,” she said.

There are a few reasons that Western “anti-racists” don’t ant to discuss Arab racism.

One is that they do not want to be accused of being anti-Arab.

They want to childishly divide the world into oppressors and oppressed, and therefore the “oppressed” Arabs get a pass on their own racism but the “oppressor” Jews are considered the worst racists of all.

But the main reason is that they don’t really care about racism at all, but in being able to hurl the epithet “racist” against their political enemies. Too many are addicted to the high of being self-righteous arbiters of morality against those they hate, and the hate that comes with the “woke” calling their opponents racists is the same as that of racists using racial slurs themselves. (An extreme example from yesterday had Jemele Hill saying that US racism was comparable to Nazi Germany – a manifestly stupid statement that fits well in the culture where the biggest insults get the most adulation.)

The people who suffer most from this Leftist self-righteousness are the actual victims of racism in the non-Western world, where in some places slavery still exists. Some 100 domestic workers die in Lebanon alone each year, many of them black, from suicide or from attempting to escape their abusive employers.

08/24 Links Pt1: President Trump is doing good in the Middle East. Why won't the Foreign Office support him?; A Second JCPOA Would Accelerate Nuclear Proliferation

From Ian:

Donald Trump is doing good in the Middle East. Why won't the Foreign Office support him?

President Trump has got it right on Israel – and the Foreign Office has got it badly wrong

The US has triggered a process at the UN to reinstate sanctions on Iran. France, Germany and the UK have opposed it. The UK also lobbied against America leaving the nuclear deal, and its response to the UAE peace deal was remarkable for its leaden orthodoxy, almost damning with faint praise. Dominic Raab welcomed the normalisation of relations along with Israel’s pledge not to annex land in the West Bank, adding, “there is no substitute for direct talks between the Palestinians and Israel, which is the only way to reach a two state solution and a lasting peace.” To repeat: “There is no substitute.”

Well, there is, and this is it. The UAE’s move has shown that Arab states can be persuaded to deal with Israel if they face a greater threat, namely Iran. So why, even when the Iran nuclear deal is dead, won’t Europe accept the new dynamic and follow Trump’s lead? The other curiosity, of course, is why Brexit Britain is falling in line with the Europeans at all, and why it sticks to outdated formulas on Israel like a parrot reciting the Nicean creed.

Lack of bandwidth is one answer: in the middle of Covid, the Government just can’t process events. Another is the Foreign Office’s prejudice against Israel, fuelled by guilt for the way we carved up the Middle East. As the foreign policy thinker Ed Husain points out, this is likely to get worse because the Department for International Development is about to be rolled into the Foreign Office, stuffing an already biased department with “Left-leaning” bureaucrats whose raison d’etre is to hand out cash as penance for British imperial history.

There is a third calculation: Trump is going to lose the election, putting the Democrats – and the State Department – back in charge. But even if this is correct, why not recognise that the Trump doctrine has brought real movement to Middle East politics, that the anti-Iranian coalition could be the basis for an Arab detente with Israel and that the Palestinian question could be settled on a new, more realistic basis?

Never mind what the Foreign Office feels comfortable with, let’s start by examining what Britain wants and needs in 2020. Several Arab states like and trust us and Israel is always ready to talk, so why not make ourselves indispensable to this process as the champions of engagement? The long-term destination remains peace and it would be an act of utter madness not to walk through that door just because Donald Trump was the one who opened it.

Richard Kemp: Appeasement: The European Sickness

Now, Britain and France seek to appease the three powers that most threaten the world today: Iran, China and Russia.

Both countries [Britain and France], as well as Germany and the EU itself, knew only too well that, rather than its stated purpose of denying Iran a route to nuclear weapons, the JCPOA in fact paved Iran's pathway — not just to acquiring nuclear capabilities, but doing so legitimately.

The re-imposed sanctions will then leave China, Russia and the European countries with tough choices about whether they observe them or take the damaging consequences to their own trade with the US.

And for what? Perhaps for the benefit of Russia and China, whose weapons sales to Iran will both bring financial benefit and extend their influence in the region at the expense of America and Europe.

If US snapback sanctions succeed, that can only hasten the end of the terrorist regime in Tehran. It will also boost confidence and security among the Arab countries, increasingly fearful of a nuclear-armed Iran

.
Terminate the UN Interim Force in Lebanon

UNIFIL is now effectively another UN aid agency. The mission highlights its work with the local population and its delivery of assistance, as recently as the COVID-19 crisis, to municipalities often run by Hezbollah.

For the last three years, the U.S. has endeavored to address these failures by attempting to beef up UNIFIL's mandate. Predictably, this approach has failed. In the end, it's not only that the Russians and the Chinese—each of whom contributes troops to the force—have opposed changes to the mandate. It's also that the French, who contribute one of the larger contingents, are routinely threatened by pro-Hezbollah media. Moreover, the French are invested in the status quo for other reasons that have to do with their perceived diplomatic role and financial investment in Lebanon, as well as their broader regional agenda.

The Trump administration is now pushing for UNIFIL to operate without any restrictions, and to be able to inspect all sites, including so-called "private property." But U.S. officials reportedly are also looking to reduce the size of the force, and to shorten the mandate's extension period from one year to six months.

This is all very reasonable, given UNIFIL's track record. But if the Security Council members reject these modest requests, the administration is prepared to veto the renewal of the mandate altogether, leading to the dissolution of the force.

The main obstacle to the U.S. effort is France. Not only are the French opposed to a reduction in size, but they appear not to take seriously the U.S. threat to veto, believing it to be a mere bluff and a negotiating tactic. They are poised to oppose the U.S. changes, or to agree only to a watered-down compromise.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has floated recommendations for a "more agile and mobile" force, which would replace heavy infantry functions with "high-mobility light tactical vehicles and reconnaissance vehicles with improved monitoring capacity." However, Guterres' recommendations assume the continuity of deployment and, in fact, more investment in the force.

UN Peacekeeping Force in Lebanon “Slightly Concerned” that Violence Reflects Poorly on Them (satire)

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, also known as UNIFIL, is set to have its mandate renewed at the end of August. They are concerned, however, that the collapse of Lebanon over the last decade and the violence that Hezbollah has inflicted on the country, could reflect poorly on their ability to carry out their mission.

In a normal year their mandate would almost certainly be renewed given that “not being able to carry out their mission” is the unofficial slogan of UN peacekeeping forces. However, the devastating August 4 blast at Beirut’s port has brought further scrutiny to the country. Some UN officials have expressed concerned that a complete failure to keep the peace, disarm Hezbollah, or stop the group from attacking Israel might reflect poorly on their ability to carry out their mission to keep the peace, disarm Hezbollah, or stop the group from attacking Israel.

One officer with UNIFIL said that punishing peacekeepers, or any UN officials for that matter, for not fulfilling their role would be unprecedented. Further, “the UN has a long and proud tradition of failing at the most basic peacekeeping tasks like preventing violence, not spreading disease, and not raping people.”

This is the anniversary of the horrific 1929 attacks on Jews in Hebron.

As Wikipedia writes:

At about 8.30 am Saturday morning, the first attacks began to be launched against houses where Jews resided,^[17] after a crowd of Arabs armed with staves, axes and knives appeared in the streets. The first location to be attacked was a large Jewish house on the main road. Two young boys were immediately killed, and the mob entered the house and beat or stabbed the other occupants to death.

[Police superintendent Raymond] Cafferata appeared on the scene, gave orders to his constables to fire on the crowd and personally shot dead two of the attacking Arabs.^[17] While some dispersed, the rest managed to break through the pickets, shouting "on to the ghetto!" The requested reinforcements had not arrived in time. That later became the source of considerable acrimony.^[19]

According to a survivor, Aharon Reuven Bernzweig, "right after eight o'clock in the morning we heard screams. Arabs had begun breaking into Jewish homes. The screams pierced the heart of the heavens. We didn't know what to do…. They were going from door to door, slaughtering everyone who was inside. The screams and the moans were terrible. People were crying Help! Help! But what could we do?"

Soon after news of the first victim had spread, forty people assembled in the house of Eliezer Dan Slonim. Slonim, the son of the Rabbi of Hebron, was a member on the city council and a director of the Anglo-Palestine Bank. He had excellent relations with the British and the Arabs and those seeking refuge with him were confident they would come to no harm. When the mob approached his door, they offered to spare the Sephardi community if he would hand over all the Ashkenazi yeshiva students. He refused, saying "we are all one people," and he was shot dead along with his wife and 4-year-old son.^[36] From the contemporary Hebrew press it appears that the rioters targeted the Zionist community for their massacre. Four-fifths of the victims were Ashkenazi Jews, but some had deep roots in the town, yet a dozen Jews of eastern origin, Sephardim and Maghrebi, were also killed.^[35] Gershon Ben-Zion, for example, the Beit Hadassah Clinic pharmacist, a cripple who had served both Jews and Arabs for 4 decades, was killed together with his family: his daughter was raped and then murdered.^[19]

This wasn't about Zionism. People who lived in Hebron for generations - Ashkenaz and Sephardic - were slaughtered. It was pure Jew-hate. Anyone who pretends that Arabs are merely anti-Zionist are whitewashing and justifying antisemitism. And that means that they are condoning antisemitism when it is relabeled as anti-Zionism.

From Naharnet:

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday called for the removal of “all arms and explosives depots” from Lebanon’s residential areas, in the wake of the Beirut port blast that killed dozens, wounded thousands and devastated swathes of the capital.

“Let Lebanese authorities consider the Beirut port disaster an alarm bell and let them raid all arms and explosives depots and warehouses that exist illegally in the residential neighborhoods of cities, towns and villages,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon.

“Some Lebanese regions have turned into fields of explosives which we do not know when they will blow up or who will detonate them,” the patriarch warned.

“The presence of these depots represents a serious and dangerous threat to the lives of citizens, which do not belong to any person, group, party or organization,” al-Rahi went on to say.

He accordingly called on authorities to “removes these arms and explosives so that citizens can feel safe, at least inside their homes.”

This is clearly a swipe at Hezbollah, but without mentioning its name.

Al-Rahi has tentatively started obliquely criticizing Hezbollah over the past two months, even before the Beirut port explosion, after years of tacit albeit silent support.

He is still explicitly anti-Israel, though.

The Lebanese have been getting braver in their anti-Hezbollah stance, with effigies of Hassan Nasrallah openly being hung during protests – something Hezbollah would never have allowed in the past but it is too frightened to stop now.

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Kuwaiti site: “Israel doesn’t want peace; it wants to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates”

This week’s “expert” is Fakhri Hashem Al-Sayed Ragab of Kuwait’s Al Qabas.

He writes:

Peace for the State of Israel basically contradicts its biggest goal, which is that its borders should be from the Euphrates to the Nile ..And if those that were forcibly planted in Palestine are working today vigorously and mainly to conclude peace agreements and normalize relations, then this is not for the purpose of the peoples of the region to live in peace, but rather to separate the east of the Arab world from its west in principle, and this has already happened and created a state of permanent tension, based on Western sympathy and support for them as an entity that protects their interests first.

It will also fulfill the hope of the West and other countries that the Jews of the world gather in a place far from Europe and elsewhere (specifically Palestine) in order to get rid of the arrogance and aggression that were associated with them as Jews, specifically the Zionists among them.

A major geo-political change has taken place and is rapidly developing in the interest of this entity [Israel.] As for the majority of the Arab people, we reap nothing but failures, humiliation and destructive wars. …While the Zionist state of Israel is controlling the computers of the world today, and they produce medicines for terminal diseases, researchers for them are infiltrating the borders of the countries of the world, they are serious in their quest to destroy us. As for us: it seems that we have nothing left but to raise our hands to applaud them.

This covered a lot of the Arab world’s opinion about Israel since the 1950s. But it takes a special kind of stupid to think Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan are compatible with a desire to expand from to the Nile to the Euphrates.