Monday, September 07, 2020

  • Monday, September 07, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Existing Eilat-Ashkelon-Haifa oil pipeline could be used by the UAE to bypass Suez Canal, make Israel major oil hub



Around 1959,  Israel and Iran built gas and oil pipelines from the Red Sea at Eilat to the Mediterranean Sea at Ashkelon, Ashdod and Haifa ports. Known at the time as the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Company, it was mostly used as an alternative for shipping oil from Shah-era Iran to Europe, bypassing the Suez Canal which Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser could arbitrarily restrict.

When Iran severed ties with Israel during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, it stopped this arrangement of sending oil through Israel on to Europe. 

The pipeline is still in use, fully owned by Israel and under a new company name - the Europe Asia Pipeline Co. Parts of it are bidirectional and oil from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan is being sent to tankers in Eilat for transport to China, South Korea and other Asian countries.

For Gulf countries like the UAE, peace with Israel could save them huge amounts of money now spent for shipping through the Suez Canal. Supertankers that can dock in Israeli ports have a capacity of double the size of oil tankers that can fit through the Canal, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars per shipment to Europe and North America. Right now this is very difficult because of the Arab boycott - any company that publicly used Israel for oil transport would be banned from business in the Gulf so existing users keep a very low profile and the EAPC's financial records are considered a military secret by Israel. 

The current pipeline is 42 inches for crude oil, with a parallel 16 inch pipeline for gasoline or diesel. 

The UAE ending its Israel boycott opens up billions of dollars of business to send oil through Israel to the Mediterranean and to make Israel a major energy transportation hub.

There is an interesting wrinkle to the story of the EAPC. At the time of the Iranian resolution, there were hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil that were already in Israel that hadn't been paid for, and Iran and Israel have been suing each other for the past 25 years in international courts for the lost business. In 2015, Iranian media reported that a Swiss court had ruled that Israel owed $1.1 billion to Iran, but Israel has shown no interest in actually paying especially in light of its countersuits. Perhaps in response to the UAE deal, Iran is again requesting payment of the alleged $1.1 billion from Israel. Iran has little recourse to force Israel to pay to its sworn enemy, however. 

(h/t Yoel)

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  • Monday, September 07, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Saeb Erakat's tweets are relying more and more on lies

PLO Secretary General is losing whatever tenuous grasp on reality he ever had. 

His latest tweets are big on hyperbolic lies and short on any facts.

Has the PLO severed all relations with the US?

Does Erakat actually think that his threat would sway anyone? 

The PLO is so used to threatening other countries with terror if things don't go their way. But the Arab world no longer follows the PLO lead. These threats aren't scaring anyone, and meanwhile Israel keeps adding diplomatic victories. 

 Really? The "highest form of terrorism?" This coming from the people who made international terrorism what it is today?

Of course, nowhere in international law does it say that occupation is terrorism. In fact, it is not even illegal - which is why there are so many laws concerning the conduct of belligerent occupiers. 

And exactly whose territory was Judea and Samaria in 1947? 1949? 1967? 1988? What was the exact date that it supposedly became Palestinian territory according to the international law that Erakat pretends to be so interested in?

The earliest people to live in Jericho who still exist today are Jews, over a thousand years before the Arab invasion and colonization of the Holy Land and over two thousand years before Erakat's family came from Transjordan and Arabia to Palestine.  

In fact, Erakat himself admitted that he was a Jordanian and Bedouin, and the only thing that makes him "Palestinian" was where he happened to be born, not where his family was from. 

It's funny that any Zionist points are dismissed as "hasbara" but no one points out the obvious lies from the Secretary General of the PLO. 

 

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Sunday, September 06, 2020

Crisis Group podcast lies about Israel, settlements

This is based on a thread by Inquisitive Native:
It is sad but not surprising that @CrisisGroup chose to launch its new podcast with this unabashed BDS propaganda, falsehoods and very weak analysis by an "expert" who's main paradigm just collapsed colossally. Here are some nuggets so you don't need to listen to this stuff.

Let's start with the lies. 
@NathanThrall unabashedly recycles one of the vilest and most extensively-refuted lie that Israel builds separate roads for Palestinians in the West Bank "so they're removed from the main roads for Israeli settlers" (14:30). 
Israel indeed builds new roads in the 60% of the WB it fully controls according to Oslo (PA does it in the rest), which serve both populations. Should't Palestinians also enjoy new, safer highways? Should those be closed for Jews? There's no coherent moral stance to be found.
He later (29:10) claims that days after the UAE deal "they discussed" (who?) plans to increase settler population by 100,000s, including one to add 100,000 settlers in the Ramallah area alone. It proves the "rabid acceleration of de-facto annexation". Only none of it is true. 
Where'd he get it? Maybe from a 27 Aug article on one road which mentions those numbers as either aspirations of settlers or speculations of anti-settlement activists. For him that's enough to claim they're government plans that are being discussed. 
Maybe he meant the meeting on 12 Aug of the Civil Admin where 2 plans for roads were approved which, like the rest of them, will serve Jews and Arabs alike. Even if you consider Israel an "occupying power" in Area C, it has every right, and actually a duty to build roads there.
An honest analyst would tell his listeners that in fact there's been a de facto freeze in promoting housing units in settlements for over 6 months now, which is why settler leaders are angry. But that'd spoil the narrative which he lays out clearly: 
Israel is "expanding eastwards and totally eliminating any possibility for a normal life for the indigenous people, restricting them into smaller and smaller enclaves" (20:55), so the only moral option is to boycott it. This was too much even for @Rob_Malley who cut him off. 
If Thrall's description of current Israeli policies is true he should be able to prove that, say in the past decade:
1. land used by settlers expanded more than land used by Palestinians in Area C.
2. settler population in Area C or E. Jerusalem grew faster than Palestinian 
He can't. If anything, available data points the other way. But Thrall won't let anything stop him from describing Israel as a colonial power (31:05) bent on placing Palestinian in reserves like native Americans. Yes, in those very words. Loved to see Malley's face there. 
I can understand Thrall's frustration. He's been one of the main voices lobbying for massive external pressures on Israel, and must be hard to realise how wrong he was. Or as his former boss tells him fatherly, it's ok as a personal moral view but not a political strategy. 

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09/06 Links: Israel-UAE normalization to be given peace treaty status; Richard Grenell: Serbia-Kosovo agreement results from Trump's different brand of diplomacy; Malawi to open embassy in Jerusalem

From Ian:
Richard Grenell: Serbia-Kosovo agreement results from Trump's different brand of diplomacy
Friday’s agreement reflects President Trump’s long-held vision for Kosovo and Serbia to focus on economic development, job creation and industrial development as prerequisites to the permanent resolution of political disputes. His belief from the start has been that trust is built first in the process of creating opportunities and futures for young people, rather than in the settlement of scores, symbolism or the righting of historical wrongs. The U.S. will spend the next year implementing these new agreements, and the people and governments of Kosovo and Serbia have the full trust of the U.S. government to carry them forward.

As a demonstration of good faith from the two parties toward the U.S., Serbia and Kosovo also committed Friday to cooperate with certain key U.S. policy priorities in the region. Both parties pledged to protect and promote freedom of religion, including renewed interfaith communication, protection of religious sites, and continued restitution of Holocaust-era heirless and unclaimed Jewish property. Both agreed to designate Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization and fully implement measures to restrict Hezbollah’s operations and financial activities in their jurisdictions. Both agreed to work with the U.S. government to decriminalize homosexuality in the 69 countries where it is currently illegal. And, perhaps most importantly of all, Serbia has pledged to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, while Kosovo has agreed to mutual recognition with Israel.

Following on the heels of the Aug. 13 peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Friday’s agreement between Kosovo and Serbia to take steps toward economic normalization and an eventual peaceful coexistence demonstrates the achievements of President Trump and his administration’s sound engagement throughout the world. When the U.S. government prioritizes diplomacy over force, and understanding over threats, the world stands to benefit.



David Collier: The Jew-hating shame of Scotland and their lazy media
Lazy reporting

There is a right to protest and a high level of freedom must be granted. The people who are really letting everyone down on this issue are the media. It takes just a few hours of research into any of the demonstrating groups to realise they are extremists, racists, antisemites, Holocaust deniers and terrorist supporters. Much of this research has already been done and the information is publicly available. Yet media such as the ‘Daily Record’ report it simply as a ‘pro-Palestinian’ protest, even quoting the rancid Mick Napier and having time to introduce an Apartheid comparison.

Heather Carrick in the Glasgow Times put together a montage of pictures for the ‘pro-Palestine protest‘, mentioning criticism of Israel’s record, but failing to point out the relevance of both the Iranian and Pakistani flag captured in her photos. She did make sure however, that ‘black lives matter’ was given a prominent place.

Caitlin Hutchison of the Scottish Herald was probably the worst offender. Her report laid out the extremist case word for word, including the Apartheid smear and a full description of the content of leaflets being handed out. Hutchinson even praised the ‘social distancing’ demands of the organisers. Her readers would not have a clue that she was describing the activity of antisemites, terrorist sympathisers and rancid extremists. She is a hack.

The BBC had the protest as a backdrop to an interview, giving them plenty of unnecessary publicity. It is unlikely the BBC bothered to tell anyone this was a band of extremists.

Only the Scottish Sun, correctly identified the protest as being ‘anti-Israel’ and was responsible enough to balance out their reporting with allegations of antisemitism and criticism of the protestors.

A group of extremists and antisemites gathered outside to protest the arrival of a football team from the Jewish state. That is the news story here. If it should be shared it should be done to show people just what type of people are supporting the boycott Israel movement. That failure to report the truth – the news – is the central reason why anti-Israel hate has been spreading for decades. Instead of being researched and identified, the media is giving these racists and extremists sympathetic publicity. They are openly spreading hate.
Qanta Ahmed: As a Muslim American Trump admirer, I say to Joy Reid and Ilhan Omar: Shame on you!
Omar — like all Islamist sympathizers — seeks to silence any who dare criticize, examine or analyze Islam, Muslims, our institutions, our leaders, or any aspect of our societies.

Was Reid’s utter stupidity offensive? Perhaps. But more than offensive, Reid’s remarks were revelatory of her own rank ignorance. But were Reid’s remarks an assault on Islam? Hardly.

Stretching Reid’s remarks to anything close to anti-Muslim xenophobia (which is despicable in a liberal secular democracy where all minorities are protected and celebrated), Reid could be accused of xenophobia against Muslims, but this is not Islamophobia.

Islamists and their allies (including the left) recall that Omar met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2017 when she was a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Erdogan is the modern godfather of the Muslim Brotherhood — the mothership of Islamism.

Islamists and their sympathizers wield Islamophobia as a political and judicial shield against criticism and scrutiny of ideological Islamism. Omar seeks to silence not only the stupidity of Reid’s remarks, but any rights Reid might have to examine Muslims.

This does not excuse the dumb and dumber exchange we were all subjected to. But it does reveal in the left’s alliance with Islamism — whether Muslim Islamist sympathizers or a recognized far-left political commentator — how it demeans and devalues Muslims everywhere.

To Reid and Omar I say: shame on you both!

  • Sunday, September 06, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

LA Times says Trump hasn't followed through on Middle East peace promise he never made


The Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday: 


When he announced a potentially historic deal last month in which Persian Gulf nation United Arab Emirates said it was preparing to recognize Israel, President Trump predicted other Arab states would quickly follow suit. 
But after two trips through the region by senior Trump advisors to build on what they hoped would be momentum from the Emirates deal, no other Arab nation has said it is willing to take the long-shunned leap to accept and recognize Israel as a legitimate Mideast neighbor, at least not until Israel resolves its conflict with Palestinians.
Did Trump say that other Arab countries would "quickly" follow the UAE?

Not that I can find. In the official transcript of his statements on August Trump merely says, "Now that the ice has been broken, I expect more Arab and Muslim countries will follow the United Arab Emirates’ lead. And I want to just thank them for being — it’s not surprising, knowing Mohammed so well. It’s not surprising. They are in that lead position. And normalize relations with Israel. We are already discussing this with other nations — with very powerful, very good nations and people that want to see peace in the Middle East. So you will probably see others of these, but this is the first one in more than 25 years."

Nowhere did Trump predict other Arab nations following the UAE within weeks. But the LA Times pretended he did - just so they can gleefully say that he could not follow through on a promise he never made. 

It takes time for a nation to completely change its policy towards a former enemy. This should be obvious. But the LA Times is so tied to its narrative that it needs to do everything it can to downplay the historic accord.

One can only imagine how different, and celebratory, the LA TImes' coverage would have been if this was announced by Obama or  Biden.

Beyond that, the LA Times article makes things up:
Kushner used his four-day trip to the Middle East to try to entice additional Arab countries to join the Emirates in moving to normalize relations with Israel. That follows a similar sojourn last month by Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, who traveled to five countries in the region. Both officials came up empty-handed.

How does the LAT know this? Normalization isn't a switch that is turned on or off - it involves lots of moving parts. It took over a decade of secret ties between Israel and the UAE before this announcement with lots of intermediate steps, like allowing Israeli athletes to compete under the Israeli flag in the UAE. 

And we know that a lot has happened in the three weeks since the Israel/UAE agreement was announced.

For example, both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain announced that El Al flights would be able to fly over their territories en route to the UAE - that isn't exactly nothing. Saudi media and officials - as well as clerics - have changed the tenor of their official statements away from being anti-Israel to being more conciliatory. 

Most importantly, the PLO demanded an Arab League session denouncing the UAE, and nothing happened. Gulf countries outside the UAE are no longer willing to publicly oppose peace with Israel.

This is a sea change in the attitudes between powerful Arab states and Israel - all happening since mid-August. 

And this all remains unreported in the pages of the Los Angeles Times.


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  • Sunday, September 06, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Pure antisemitic cartoon from Hamas

Palestinian Media Watch recorded this Hamas TV cartoon showing Jews - religious and non-religious - "defiling" the Temple Mount. They are then literally cleansed.




The video is also inaccurate - Jews do not visit the Dome of the Rock, Jews cannot wear tefillin on the Mount, Jews cannot loiter when they do visit and they must keep moving around the periphery of the Mount, and the video implies that Israeli soldiers drink alcohol while there which is certainly absurd.

This is pure incitement to terror and it is pure antisemitism.

But don't hold your breath waiting for the left-wing self appointed arbiters of what antisemitism is to denounce or condemn this video. 

(h/t Yoel)


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  • Sunday, September 06, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

New York Times finally calls Hamas a terrorist group - when it can associate it with the Right




The New York Times usually refers to Hamas as an "Islamic militant group" that Israel "regards as a terrorist organisation."

It had rarely referred to Hamas as a terrorist organization without caveats as far as I can tell. 


The Justice Department on Friday charged two American citizens with ties to a far-right extremist group with trying to support the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas — a case that shows that extremists have sought to turn protests against racism into opportunities to commit violence, but that also runs counter to President Trump’s assertions that those extremists are predominantly on the far left.

Michael R. Solomon, 30, and Benjamin R. Teeter, 22, who were taken into custody on Thursday evening in Minneapolis, say they are members of a group called the Boogaloo Bois and of a subgroup called the Boojahideen. The groups are part of a loosely connected movement that seeks to bring about a second civil war to overthrow the United States government.

John C. Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said in a statement that Mr. Solomon and Mr. Teeter met with people they believed to be members of Hamas in order to “join forces and provide support, including in the form of weapons accessories,” to the terrorist organization.
When the NYT wants to associate Hamas with a right wing American group, Hamas magically transforms into a terrorist organization!

This is a remarkable example of media bias. The mainstream media goes through lots of apologetics when writing about Hamas or Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah, careful not to describe those groups as terror organizations because "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." ISIS is described as terrorist on multiple occasions in the NYT but not groups that only target Israeli civilians. 

However, a tenuous connection between a fringe right-wing group and people they thought were Hamas is enough for the New York Times to change their style book from a progressive-friendly Hamas militant group that shares the same goals as BDS to a right-wing linked terror group.

The real story, ignored by the NYT, is that antisemitism is the glue that holds extremist groups together, whether Right, Left, Black, Arab or otherwise. White supremacist groups will happily quote left-wing anti-Zionists. In this case, the Boogaloo Bois were attracted to Hamas' antisemitism in wanting to partner with them. 

In fact, the Boogaloo groups started off sounding as much like today's progressive extremists as they sound like white supremacists. According to the ADL, the groups associated with that name are anti-government and even anti-police. "Boogaloo" refers to a coming civil war, which is not far off what we are seeing in far-Left protests. A song lyric from the group quotes by the ADL says "Plug a pig, and then a Yid" - which makes them sound as much like Black Lives Matter as they sound like the KKK. Hate does not fit in neatly in Right/Left categories, and journalists who insist on categorizing them that way are doing a disservice to their readers. 



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Saturday, September 05, 2020

09/05 Links: Munich on my mind; The UAE-Israel accord is a win for every Muslim; Sermon suggests Saudi Arabia on its way to normalizing ties with Israel

From Ian:
CAMERA Op-Ed: Black September Remembered
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.”
Munich on my mind
The Aftermath
Following a September 6 memorial that was criticized for sparse reference to the Israeli victims, the remaining Israeli athletes left Germany. Jewish athletes from other counties also left, or were provided extra security.

For decades, families of some victims appealed to the IOC to establish a permanent memorial. For decades, the IOC declined, worried that a memorial to the victims could “alienate other members of the Olympic community,” according to the BBC.

The IOC rejected an international campaign in support of a minute of silence at the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics in memory of the Israeli victims on the massacre’s 40th anniversary. Finally, the IOC conceded, honoring the Israeli victims before the 2016 Rio games.

Israel was well accustomed to war and terror. Its response was particularly resolute. Citing justice, and that Israelis would not be safe anywhere, Golda Meir authorized Operation Grapes of Wrath, and the Mossad began to track down and kill those responsible for the Munich massacre.

Munich Today
Years later, one of the masterminds who escaped justice, Abu Daoud, wrote that funding for the Munich attack was provided by Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president since 2005. Had Israel known about that then, it’s possible that Abbas would also have been eliminated along with the other masterminds. Now, he’s President of an entity next to Israel that still supports terror.

The ghosts of Munich have also haunt US politics. Today, a candidate for Congress, Ammar Campa-Najjar, is the grandson of Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar, a mastermind of the Munich terrorist attack. While repudiating his grandfather’s actions, other Campa-Najjar statements have raised questions over how true that is.

Remembering the Victims

It’s inappropriate to write of the victims and not mention their names. Each led a full life, and left behind families and legacies that should not be forgotten, even five decades later: David Berger, Zeev Friedman, Yosef Gutfreund, Eliezer Halfin, Yosef Romano, Amitzur Shapira, Kehat Shorr, Mark Slavin, Andre Spitzer, Yakov Springer, and Moshe Weinberger.

In their memory, the Genesis 123 Foundation will be holding a webinar on September 9 with two current Israeli Olympians and the widow of Andre Spitzer.


Black September - The story of the other 9/11
The date 9/11 is seared into our collective memory. That sunny Tuesday morning in 2001, Arab terrorists hijacked four airplanes and wreaked massive death and destruction on the United States.

A full 31 years before, Arab terrorists hijacked four airplanes in Europe and took hundreds of hostages. And although the incident faded in the world’s collective memory, the date 9/11 was seared into David Raab’s memory.

At 2:30 a.m. on September 11, 1970, David, his mother and four younger siblings were sleeping fitfully on a TWA plane. It was the beginning of their fifth day on board, with hijackers from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) demanding freedom for terrorists jailed in Israel and Europe.

The plane was no longer full. On September 7, non-Jewish women and children had been released and six male passengers were taken to an unknown location. About 80 passengers and 10 crew members – including the Raabs – remained trapped in the jet on Dawson’s Field, a dirt strip in Jordan.

The copilot came down the aisle and gently woke the 17-year-old rabbi’s son from Trenton, New Jersey. The hijackers, he said, wanted David at the front of the plane for questioning.

The terrorists often searched the Jewish passengers’ luggage for Israeli goods and badgered them to “admit” to Israeli citizenship or loyalty. But this summons seemed more ominous.


Friday, September 04, 2020

09/04 Links Pt2: Netanyahu: Kosovo to be first Muslim-majority nation to open Jerusalem embassy; 100-year old hoax: Why the ‘Protocols’ is still a hit with anti-Semites

From Ian:
Netanyahu: Kosovo to be first Muslim-majority nation to open Jerusalem embassy
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that not only would Kosovo recognize Israel but it would open an embassy in Jerusalem, becoming the first Muslim-majority nation to do so.

Earlier Friday, Serbia announced that it would move its embassy to Jerusalem. The moves come as part of US-brokered discussions to normalize economic ties between Belgrade and Pristina.

After two days of meetings with Trump administration officials, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti agreed to cooperate on a range of economic fronts to attract investment and create jobs. The White House announcement provided US President Donald Trump with a diplomatic win ahead of the November presidential election and furthers his administration’s push to improve Israel’s international standing.

Netanyahu hailed the moves and said Israel would establish diplomatic relations with Kosovo.

A statement from Netanyahu’s office said that during a meeting between Trump and Hoti, the president called Netanyahu and congratulated the two leaders on the decision to establish full diplomatic relations.

According to the statement, Hoti also announced that he would open an embassy in Jerusalem.

“Kosovo will be the first Muslim-majority nation to open an embassy in Jerusalem. As I said in recent days the circle of peace is expanding and more nations are expected to join,” Netanyahu said.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci confirmed Prisitna’s intention, saying he welcomed Netanyahu’s announcement “about the genuine intention to recognize Kosovo and establish diplomatic relations.”

” Kosovo will keep its promise to place its diplomatic mission in Jerusalem,” he tweeted.

Palestinians slam Trump for pushing Serbia, Kosovo to set up Jerusalem embassies
The Palestinian Authority on Friday slammed US President Donald Trump, accusing him of orchestrating the decision by Serbia and Kosovo to establish embassies in Jerusalem to satisfy his “electoral ambitions.”

During a summit at the White House between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti to normalize economic ties between the Balkan nations, Trump announced that Serbia would move its embassy to Jerusalem and Muslim-majority Kosovo would recognize Israel and establish full diplomatic relations.

The White House announcement provided Trump with a diplomatic win ahead of the November presidential election and furthers his administration’s push to improve Israel’s international standing.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later revealed that Kosovo would also establish its embassy in Jerusalem, while Israel would recognize Kosovo.

Top PLO official and Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat reacted angrily to the news.

“The Trump Administration once again shows their full commitment with the violation of international law, UN resolutions and denial of Palestinian rights by encouraging nations to illegally recognize annexed Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,” Erakat tweeted.

“Palestine has become a victim of the electoral ambitions of President Trump, whose team would take any action, no matter how destructive for peace and a rules-based world order, to achieve his re-election,” Erakat charged.

Erakat appeared to call on the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to sanction Kosovo and Serbia, calling for “concrete measures against those who encourage crimes and violations against the land and people of Palestine.”

  • Friday, September 04, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Today's Pallywood (fake caption edition)


This tweet received thousands retweets and "Likes."






Of course, it is a lie.

I found the original photo and it is of Manar Shweiki, a 16 year old girl who hid a knife in her schoolbag to stab Israelis. She was sentenced to six years in prison under a plea agreement and was released last December.

People automatically believe captions made up by anti-Israel propagandists. Students should really be taught critical thinking starting in first grade, because very few people seem to have that skillset.

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09/04 Links Pt1: Taylor Force’s Father Urges Joe Biden Not to Resume Funding for Palestinian Terrorists; Iran breaches nuclear deal, stockpile 10 times larger than set limit

From Ian:
Melanie Phillips: The West's blind eye to Palestinian incitement
Why do so many well-meaning people committed to ending abuses of power ignore the evidence of who is actually committing these abuses and blame their victims instead?

An official investigation funded by Britain and the European Union into textbooks used in Palestinian schools has descended into farce.

In April 2018, finally responding to concerns about anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian-Arab schools, the United Kingdom pushed the EU to commission a report on Palestinian textbooks from the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in Germany.

In April last year, the Institute published as a preliminary what it called its "Inception Report." This, it said, developed a framework for "an academically rigorous review" of "how peace, tolerance and an understanding of the other are incorporated into Palestinian textbooks."

This report, however, was itself riddled with so many mistakes that the European Union ditched it. Bafflingly, however, the EU has continued to use the Georg Eckert Institute to finish the project.

Its final report is due out next month. But it has now produced an interim report, which the EU is choosing to keep secret.

Marcus Sheff, chief executive of the Jerusalem-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, managed to obtain a presentation of this interim report. This has shown the project lurching from bad to worse.

Calling the review "a comedy of errors from start to finish," Sheff says the researchers have looked at the wrong textbooks. They have actually used as examples textbooks that are used in Israel's Arab schools in Jerusalem, praising them and presenting them falsely as part of the Palestinian Authority's curriculum.

On the basis of this egregious mistake, the researchers have claimed that the Palestinians' educational materials have been "transformed" for the better.

They make no mention of the vile language and images used in many of the Palestinian textbooks, such as describing the burning of Jewish bus passengers with Molotov cocktails as a "barbecue party," or teaching Arabic through a story promoting suicide bombings and illustrated by a Palestinian gunman shooting Israeli soldiers in a tank.

GOP Congressman Calls Biden’s Pledge to Restore US Funding to Palestinians ‘Mental Incoherence’
A Republican member of Congress has slammed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for pledging to restore US funding to the Palestinians in accordance with the Taylor Force Act, calling Biden’s pledge a display of “mental incoherence.”

“You can’t restore funding to the Palestinians and comply with the Taylor Force Act except for some very, very limited humanitarian types of funding,” Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) told JNS in a recent interview. “Basically, if you agree with the sentiment behind the Taylor Force Act, you don’t restore funding to the Palestinians.”

“I think Joe Biden is showing some mental incoherence when he says something like that,” he said.

Lamborn introduced a version of the Taylor Force Act in 2017 and a version of it passed Congress and became law in March 2018, cutting off virtually all US funding to the Palestinian Authority due to it financially rewarding terrorists and their families. It requires the secretary of state to verify that the PA has taken certain steps to stop such activity in addition to other requirements.

Lamborn warned that a Biden administration could try to certify that the PA is taking those concrete steps against rewarding terrorism, even if Ramallah isn’t actually doing so.

“There might be people out there in a Biden administration who would try to do that,” he said. “We would have to be diligent to watch over them and get oversight in trying to permit them from doing something that would be dishonest like that.”
Taylor Force’s Father Urges Joe Biden Not to Resume Funding for Palestinian Terrorists
Stuart Force, whose son Taylor was killed by Palestinian terrorists during a visit to Israel, is urging former Vice President Joe Biden not to resume assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA) if elected in November.

In a campaign launched by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) on Monday, Force defended the Taylor Force Act, named after his son. The law, passed by Republicans in 2018, prevents the PA from receiving economic assistance from the United States until it dismantles the Palestinian Authority Martyr’s Fund. Known as the “Pay to Slay” policy, the fund gives monthly-payments to the family of individuals killed committing terrorist acts against Israeli or American citizens.

“Our son, Taylor, was stabbed to death, while visiting Israel by a Palestinian terrorist. The terrorist’s family became eligible immediately for a monthly payment, for life, for killing an Israeli or American,” Force says in a new ad. “U.S. taxpayers sent hundreds of millions of dollars to the PA, which they use to fund those payments.”

“There is talk that some politicians want to resume sending U.S. tax dollars to the PA, even though they have refused to end their ‘Pay to Slay’ policy,” Force says, as a photo flashes across the screen of Biden shaking hand with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority.


  • Friday, September 04, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Hamas media tries to spin Israel-UAE agreement as proof of Israel's weakness

Here is a very interesting spin on the upcoming Israel/UAE accords from Hamas' English mouthpiece Quds News:



If it is such a failure, then why aren't Hamas and their pals in Iran celebrating?

The logic in the article is even funnier.
On a grassroots level, the Palestinian cause is being received and adopted by a global, diverse, and growing citizen movement, where the Occupying Power can no longer hide its true face. By resorting to autocratic states, far-right populist leaders, and desperate self-negotiated deals, and peace treaties with no enemies, Israel’s colonial project reveals how much, underneath all its military might, it is weaker than thought.

This even after admitting that the Arab world has all but abandoned the Palestinian issue:

 Perhaps the only awkward fact in this story is the Arab silence, and the lack of an Arab response to the UAE’s normalization, unlike the Arab reaction to Egypt’s Camp David Accords, forty-four years ago. At that time, Egypt was expelled from the Arab League, and its headquarters were moved to Tunis. However, the Israeli-UAE agreement was met with no response on the official level by Arab states, apart from declarations by Kuwait and Tunisia that they will not follow the UAE’s steps. This Arab silence would never have been possible without the division of the Arab world and its drowning in endless destructive conflicts. 

But even that must be spun, and Palestinian honor restored: 

This speaks to the dystopian reality in which Israel can only achieve any normalization or acceptance of its colonial apartheid regime in the region, especially when all over the world, it is becoming increasingly discredited.

Hamas apparently chooses to believe BDS claims of victory, which may be the funniest part of all.


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