Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, September 08, 2020

09/08 Links Pt2: Israel, UAE to sign deal at White House ceremony next Tuesday; Where do you draw the line with anti-Semites?; Unpleasant news for Thomas Friedman

From Ian:

Israel, UAE to sign deal at White House ceremony next Tuesday

Israel and the United Arab Emirates will sign their historic deal normalizing relations at a White House ceremony on September 15, a senior White House official confirmed to The Times of Israel on Tuesday.

US officials said senior delegations from both countries would likely be led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayad, the brother of the Abu Dhabi crown prince.

The officials, who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the ceremony would either be held on the South Lawn, the Rose Garden or inside, depending on weather.

Netanyahu’s office issued a statement in the premier’s name on Tuesday evening confirming his attendance. “I am proud to travel to Washington next week, at the invitation of President Trump, and to attend the historic White House ceremony establishing the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates,” the prime minister said.

Numerous Arab diplomats, including from countries that don’t have formal ties with Israel, are expected to attend the ceremony, in a bid to show that the agreement enjoys widespread support, the Walla news site reported.

The ceremony will come just a month after the agreement to establish full diplomatic relations was announced on August 13. The deal delivered a key foreign policy victory to US President Donald Trump as he seeks reelection, and reflected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely overtaken traditional Arab support for the Palestinians.

According to Walla, Israel and the US are still working toward a diplomatic breakthrough with another Arab state before the signing ceremony, though it is unclear if this will be possible.

Jonathan S. Tobin: Where do you draw the line with anti-Semites?

What do you think would happen if President Donald Trump decided to meet with the family of a shooting victim, and it turned out his father was a neo-Nazi? It would be front-page news in the country’s leading newspapers and be discussed pretty much continuously on CNN and MSNBC. Whatever the other circumstances surrounding the incident, such a meeting would be rightly seen as showing Trump’s indifference to hate.

What do you think would happen if his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, did something just like that? The mainstream media would ignore it. Those who brought up the issue or even asked questions about it would be branded as “right-wing” provocateurs or denounced as trying to divide the country on race.

That was what happened when Biden met last week with the family of Jacob Blake, an African-American man who was left paralyzed when he was shot by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis., after resisting arrest.

Since the death of George Floyd, all incidents involving police shooting African-Americans have become the focus of intense scrutiny as the nation debates the questions of racism and alleged police brutality. Outrage about these shootings has propelled the Black Lives Matter movement to the center of public attention, as well as leading to protests, riots and violence.

In the days since the shooting of their son, both of Blake’s parents had made many public appearances. His father, Jacob Blake Sr., spoke at the March on Washington on Aug. 28 at which Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 event was commemorated. In his remarks, he pronounced America “guilty” of racism and other crimes in a speech that was widely broadcast and published in leading newspapers. Indeed, as The Washington Post put it, the Blake family represented the feelings of all African-Americans.

But a few days later, when the elder Blake’s views became known to the public, the same news media that was transfixed by his angry speech in Washington lost interest in him.

Unpleasant news for Thomas Friedman

Does the level of the Kinneret have anything to do with the prospects for peace in the Middle East? Thomas Friedman would like you to think that it does.

Friedman has been the foreign affairs op-ed columnist for The New York Times since 1995. That means that for the past 25 years, he has enjoyed one of the most prominent and influential platforms in public discourse. Not only are his columns read by movers and shakers around the world, but he is also frequently interviewed on national television and radio shows, and invited to speak at major public forums and events hosted by Jewish organizations that should know better.

I say “that should know better” because in his writings about Israel, Friedman sometimes crosses the line in ways that would earn other pundits pariah status in the Jewish world. In 2004, he wrote that Israel “had George Bush under house arrest in the Oval Office.” In 2011, Friedman claimed that the standing ovations Israel’s prime minister received in Congress were “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” In 2013, he asserted that “many American lawmakers [will] do whatever the Israel lobby asks them to do in order to garner Jewish votes and campaign donations.”

Despite those Pat Buchanan-like sentiments, Friedman has managed to maintain his status as a prominent opinion-shaper. Partly that’s because as long as he has the imprimatur of The New York Times, he is considered legitimate. Partly it’s because every once in a while, Friedman writes something mildly critical of the Palestinian Arab leadership; that gives him a fig leaf to pretend that he is “even-handed” and not an Israel-basher.

So, Friedman is taken seriously in many quarters when he periodically proffers some new Arab-Israeli “peace plan.” Since all of his plans involve Israel retreating to its nine-miles-wide pre-1967 borders—what diplomat Abba Eban called the “Auschwitz borders”—the only way Friedman can pitch his latest version as “new” is to come up with some new reason why the plan is (supposedly) so urgent.

Earlier this year, Friedman wrote that climate change should be the urgent new factor in Mideast diplomacy. Mother Nature will overwhelm the various political and military conflicts, he declared. His proof? “In the summer of 2018, the Sea of Galilee was so low from droughts and water withdrawals for rising populations that it was threatening to become another saline lake, like the Dead Sea.”

The solution, according to Friedman, is to pressure Israel to permit the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state—and then Israel, Jordan and “Palestine” can form “a confederation of their sovereign entities based on sea and sun.”

Ironically, less than a year before Friedman unveiled his sea-and-sun plan, a headline in Ha’aretz (no doubt Friedman’s favorite Israeli newspaper, given its slant) announced: “Lake Kinneret Is the Fullest It’s Been in Five Years, and There’s More to Come.”

In a story about how the Palestinian Authority has watered down its criticism of the Israel/UAE agreement for a draft Arab League resolution, Reuters writes:

Announced on Aug. 13, the accord was the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years, and was forged largely through shared fears of Iran.

This is one of those statements that seem so obvious to supposedly professional observers of the Middle East - and a little bit of thought shows it to be just as obviously false.

Yes, Israel and the Sunni Arab states in the Gulf have a shared interest in countering Iran. But that does not explain - at all! - the UAE's normalization with Israel. After all, Israel and most Gulf states have been quietly cooperating on security and intelligence for quite a long time now, and that can go on indefinitely. It isn't like Israel is going to tell the Arabs, "sorry, we won't help you defend yourself against Iran any more until you recognize us."

And the UAE could have gone the Egypt/Jordan route of a minimal recognition and a cold peace. So far, not only has the UAE made it clear that it wants a warm peace, but it has pushed back hard against Arab critics of the agreement.

Clearly, Iran is only one of many factors behind the UAE's actions.

The UAE wants to partner with Israel on business and banking initiatives. It wants to become a gateway for Israel to trade with the larger Arab world. It wants to take advantage of Israeli technology, especially water tech. It wants to share expertise on medical technologies. It wants Israeli tourists. It wants to attract branches of Israeli businesses as well as businesses that have been reluctant to go to the UAE because of the weakened but still official Arab League boycott. The UAE views itself as a progressive, tolerant Arab state and Israel is a natural partner. It wants to position itself for a time when oil is no longer enough, and Israel is a leader in energy tech. The UAE wants F-35s from the US. It is even possible that the UAE admires Israel's mix of religious and secular culture as a possible model for its own people.

There are probably a dozen more reasons real experts could come up with, as well as secret deals no one knows about that would be mutually beneficial for the two nations.

But one thing is certain: Iran is not even close to the main reason for the two countries to want to become full allies.

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When Iran arrests converts to Christianity, the charge is "Zionism"

From the the Christian Barnabas Fund:

[D]ozens of Christians [were] arrested in a co-ordinated series of raids by Revolutionary Guards targeting homes and house churches across three cities on June 30 and July 1.

At least 35 Christians were either interrogated or arrested on charges of “acting against national security by promoting Zionist Christianity” as part of the operation carried out in Tehran, Karaj and Malayer.

Promoting Zionist Christianity?

It turns out that Iran uses that charge routinely against converts from Islam to Christianity in Iran, along with some other charges. For example, in 2017 three Azerbaijani Christians and an Iranian Christian convert were sentenced by the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal of Iran to ten years in prison each. The charges were " action against national security and the soft overthrow of the system through the promotion of Christianity" and "the propagation of Zionist Christianity."

This way, Iran can claim to be tolerant of all religions and still arrest Christians under the excuse that they are really Zionists.

Mohabat, the Iranian Christian News Agency, has been routinely reporting on these arrests. Lately, Iranian judges have been imposing astronomical bail terms on arrested Christians, up to $137,000.

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09/08 Links Pt1: Daniel Pipes: Convincing Islamists, fascists and all anti-Zionists that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is over; France protests Israel’s deportation of terrorist who planned to kill chief rabbi

From Ian:

Daniel Pipes: Convincing Islamists, fascists and all anti-Zionists that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is over

The naive view, which prevails internationally, holds that Arafat and the other Palestinian leaders, including the current one, Mahmoud Abbas, are completely serious about accepting “the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.” Therefore, moving forward requires the Israelis to be more generous. Outside powers try to make themselves useful by pressuring Jerusalem to be more forthcoming, which they are only too pleased to do.

The realistic view — now dominant in Israel — holds that Palestinians never reconciled themselves to Israel’s existence. To be sure, Palestinians acknowledged their weakness in 1993 by making empty promises. But, as Mrs. Ashrawi reiterates, they never abandoned the goal of eliminating Israel.

Rather, they bided their time, probing for signs of weakness. They seemed to find these in the Oslo accords, Israel’s 2000 retreat from Lebanon and 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. Exhilarated, Palestinians ramped up the violence, believing they had a fatigued Israel on the run, that pure revolutionary fervor made up for economic and military weakness, that Muslims would annihilate Jews.

But they were wrong: The powerful Israeli state had made painful concessions in the hope that its enlightened self-interest would turn Arafat, Abbas and Co. into “partners for peace” and settle an antediluvian conflict obstructing its creative culture and hi-tech prowess. And so, the would-be revolution failed.

With time, Israelis — and youths far more so than their elders — realized that the hopeful discarding of deterrence in favor of appeasement and then unilateral withdrawal inspired not Palestinian goodwill but dreams of conquest. Israelis finally understood they had failed to perceive the continued Palestinian determination to eliminate the Jewish state; that they had ignored the persistent Palestinian drive for victory.

This hard-earned insight now needs to be translated into a new strategy. But which? Not “price tag” attacks on West Bank Palestinians, foul provocations that discredit Zionism. Not annexing parts of the West Bank, which undermines the integrity of Israel and spurs widespread opposition.

Rather, it is achieved by crushing the Palestinians’ persistent anti-Zionist dream, by an Israel victory based on an indominable Israeli will. Palestinian insistence on victory, in other words, compels a parallel Israeli retort. Fortunately for Israel, the Palestinians lack muscle but rely on fumes: religious doctrine, international support and Israeli timidity.

While naifs seek yet more useless agreements premised on counterproductive Israeli concessions, we realists scoff and call for Israel to win. We understand that only defeat will convince Palestinians like Mrs. Ashrawi, and through them Iranian, Turkish, Islamist, leftist, fascist and other anti-Zionists, that the century-plus conflict is over, that Israel has prevailed, and that the time has come to give up on futile, painful and genocidal ambitions.

MEMRI: Senior UAE Official Dr. Ali Al-Noaimi: The UAE-Israel Deal Is Not a Mere Diplomatic Accord

Dr. Ali Al-Noaimi, the Chairman of the UAE Federal National Council’s Defense, Interior, and Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an August 31, 2020 show on Sky News Arabia (UAE) and in an August 16, 2020 show on i24 TV (Israel) that the recent UAE-Israel peace deal is a comprehensive peace that is meant to open new horizons for Arabs and Israelis alike. He emphasized that this agreement is should not be compared previous agreements between Israel and Arab countries, in that it is intended to bring “hope for a decent life” to the younger generation of all Arab countries and the Palestinians, in particular. Dr. Al-Noaimi said that the UAE hopes the peace deal will bring stability, security, love, peace, and cooperation in the fields of global relations, politics, medicine, and technology. He said that people are tired of being held prisoner by conflicts, and that the UAE’s vision is to build bridges and send a message of peace to Israelis, Arabs, and Iranians.

#EU efforts to educate #Serbia & #Kosovo are shocking. The European Union has removed the mask and unfortunately, despite many fruitful collaborations, it has repeatedly slammed the State of Israel and challenged our historic right to the State of Israel. 1/3 https://t.co/whbRNmO73C
— Sharren Haskel השכל שרן (@SharrenHaskel) September 7, 2020

The Turkish Daily Sabah site has an article surveying various rumors and reports that Israel and the UAE are establishing intelligence bases and listening posts on the strategic island of Socotra which is at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden. The bases would allow Israel to monitor electronic intelligence from Sudan, Yemen, ISIS, Ethiopia and even naval movements of Iran and Pakistan and all shipping that goes through the Suez Canal.

Socotra has been under Yemen's control, but the UAE took it over in 2018.

How true is this story? It certainly makes sense that Israel would be interested in that island, and Israel and the UAE have shared intelligence for years before going public.

Seth Frantzman in the Jerusalem Post writes about the story indirectly, using it as an example of how one cannot be sure what information is accurate when it comes from sources like Turkey that have an agenda and how rumors get "laundered" into seemingly legitimate stories. This of course happens all the time including in Israeli media, where (for example) Kuwaiti newspapers that literally make things up will have their stories reported as if they had any legitimacy.

Frantzman traces the Socotra story to an article in the French Jewish news site JForum but says that the trail goes cold from there:

Reading the JForum post of August 30 leaves it unclear where the information in its report came from. It says: “According to the same Yemeni sources, who provided the information to Syrian sources, Israel and the Emirates are making all logistical preparations to set up intelligence bases to collect information throughout the Gulf of Aden Bay from Bab al-Mandab on the island of Socotra, in southern Yemen, which is under the control of the Emirates.”

However, JForum was not the original source - the information came from the Israeli open-intelligence site Nziv, which has been following the story of clandestine Israeli/UAE coordination on Socotra since 2016, before the UAE's official takeover, quoting Eritrean sources. In 2016, Israel was very concerned over Sudan smuggling arms to Hamas. The Nziv story notes the topography of the island and how its mountains are an ideal location for electronic intelligence gathering.

The Daily Sabah story takes some leaps from the original reports, saying confidently that any intelligence installations would be a "through -and-through Israeli project" where the UAE wouldn't even be involved, which seems fanciful. It then contradicts itself and claims that the US is a major player since Socatra might be able to monitor shipping to Pakistan's Gwandar port that is critical for shipping goods overland to China:

Israel, or in this case the U.S., cannot bear having Gwadar Port develop into a strategic business hub. It is trying its best to create obstacles to hinder the entire project, and what can be concluded from all this is that Socotra will from now on neither be for the Houthi rebels, nor for the UAE or Yemen, but under the complete control of Tel Aviv and Washington. This rapidly changing scenario is altering the world's balance of power as never before and Israeli – and U.S. – radars will soon be in the most strategic places in the region.

Frantzman is clearly correct that one cannot trust the reporting of dodgy sources like Daily Sabah when nation-states use the media for their own agendas. However, the main story that Israel and the UAE are cooperating on intelligence in Socatra has a little more fire behind the smoke - it makes strategic sense, it makes political sense, it fits well in with both the UAE's and Israel's interests in countering the Houthis at the very least, and the UAE would want advanced Israeli equipment rather than rely on its own intelligence capabilities. Plus the Israeli Nziv site is more reliable than either Daily Sabah or JForum.

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I had missed this article in Haaretz last year on "conflict tourism" where Palestinians rent out rooms or apartments in refugee camps via Airbbn.

This one part was particularly absurd:

Another sign that you’re not in Kansas anymore? At night, stray dogs can be heard barking loudly and fighting in the streets. Local Palestinians claim that settlers collect the canines and dump them in Palestinian areas during clandestine visits.

And then, in the morning, do the "settlers" gather up the stray dogs ahead of that night's repeat?

Syrian camps have the same problem, but no one yet blames Israeli settlers for sneaking into Syria to drop off the dogs. Give them time.

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From Al Arabiya:

The Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has called on Palestinian leaders, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, to apologize for the "provocative and erroneous" statements issued by some Palestinian factions against the GCC states.

The chief of the GCC, Dr. Nayef al-Hajraf, expressed his condemnation of some of the participants in the meeting of the General Secretaries of the Palestinian factions held last Thursday during which he said “irresponsible language of incitement and threats” were made toward the GCC countries.

The heads of several Palestinian factions, including Fatah, Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), held a virtual conference last Thursday to discuss recent regional events, including the recent historic peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

This is also remarkable. This is a public condemnation of Palestinian leaders by their fellow Arabs. I can't recall this ever happening before.

The "experts" who tried to downplay the Israel/UAE agreement are proven, once again, to have been wrong. The repercussions are only beginning to be felt, but the Gulf Arab countries are already tilting away from their traditional, reflexive pro-Palestinian positions into being critics of their intransigence and constant threats.

Western European nations need to wake up. They are still reluctant to say anything negative about Palestinian demands that have been the main obstacle to peace.

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09/07 Links Pt2: How to Dismantle the Distorted Western Discourse on Israel; Ideology Binds And Blinds; Jewish Voice for Peace and BADIL Team up to Downplay Terrorism and Promote BDS

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: How to Dismantle the Distorted Western Discourse on Israel

Israel's critics often follow misconceptions and flawed assumptions that indicate an inherent lack of seriousness and lack of intellectual honesty.

Claims that "Zionism is a settler-colonial, ethno-nationalist project" ignore the long-term historical evidence of Jewish presence in the land and Israel's valid historical, legal, and political claims to its sovereign territory and land. To single out and condemn Zionism in such a manner is tantamount to singling out the Jewish People and denying them a fundamental right that is possessed by all other national peoples.

Israeli settlements that were established since 1967 were in full compliance with customary international norms, on land that was not privately owned by any local Palestinian. Residents of Israel's settlements were neither forcibly nor illegally transferred into the area in violation of international conventions.

Israel is faced with ongoing aggression and terror, including periodic, massive rocket fire against its cities and villages, and offensive tunnels into its sovereign territory in order to enable infiltration by terrorists intent on committing attacks against its population. Israel's actions in responding to aggression and acts of terror are fully compatible with its international rights to defend itself against such acts.

There exists no such thing as "internationally recognized Palestinian land" or "Palestinian territory," either politically or legally. There exists no binding, authoritative international determination that recognizes Palestinian statehood or Palestinian land. There are only a plethora of non-binding, politically-generated resolutions initiated by the Arab states in the UN, expressing nothing more than the "wishful thinking" of those states.

The State of Israel was not established as a colonizing entity in place of an Arab state. Rather, it was established as a fruit of decolonization of the former Turkish Ottoman Empire together with other independence movements in the region in the 20th century. Israel always intended to exist together in peace with an Arab state in the area of Mandatory Palestine. This constitutes a founding principle of Israel's Declaration of Independence.

And we're live… "How a Zionist views Islam" with @JassemTamim https://t.co/iz6yO4YTDj
— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) September 6, 2020

Dore Gold: Legal Rights Scholar Justus Reid Weiner Dies at Age 70

On Sep. 5, Justus Weiner, an international lawyer at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, passed away at the age of 70 after a long illness. Weiner was a human-rights lawyer who exposed the persecution of Christians in the territories under Palestinian jurisdiction.

He was most noted for an extremely courageous article he published in the September 1999 issue of Commentary, in which he exposed the Palestinian polemicist Edward Said, who had grown into being one of Israel's most formidable intellectual adversaries. A Columbia professor, Said served as the main author of Yasser Arafat's 1974 address to the UN General Assembly.

The article was entitled "'My Beautiful Old House' and Other Fabrications by Edward Said." Weiner proved that in pursuit of the truth, he was prepared to defy conventional wisdom. That was a secret source of his strength.

A key part of Weiner's story related to Said's house in Jerusalem, including the legal title the Said family supposedly had to the house. By initiating a title search in Jerusalem, Weiner disclosed that the house that had been so pivotal in Said's writings and speeches never had the name of the Said family on it, punching a huge hole in Said's argument claiming rights to the land. Said sued Weiner in court after the article appeared - and lost.

Iranian media is particularly amusing in wake of the Israel/UAE lovefest.

This article is typical - and hilarious:

The United Arab Emirates’ decision to normalize ties with the Zionist regime has increased the vulnerability of Abu Dhabi in the region and would allow Israel to carry out its plot to split up the UAE, a senior adviser to the Iranian parliament speaker said.

In an interview with Al-Alam, Iranian parliament speaker’s adviser for international affairs Hossein Amir Abdollahian said the UAE’s wrong decision and strategic mistake to normalize ties with Israel reveals that Abu Dhabi is under the influence of the US and cannot make independent decisions.

“The American and Zionist pressures caused the UAE to suffer such humiliation and commit this treason against the Palestinian nation and cause,” he added.

The Iranian official also warned that Israel’s main objective behind normalization of ties with Arab states is to have access to Arab and Islamic countries to carry out a major plot for disintegration of the region.

The American-Zionist plots entail disintegration of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Amir Abdollahian said, adding that Israel plans to partition even a small country like the UAE and create seven separate states or emirates.

The Iranian adviser warned the Emirati officials that playing in the field of the US and Israel would increase their vulnerability in the region. “It means that insecurity in the region will escalate, and escalation of insecurity could have inappropriate impacts on all regional countries, including the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

He went on to say that the Emirati rulers have been thrown into great political confusion and have adopted wrong policies on the basis of trial and error, adding, “If the UAE does not rethink its ties with the Zionist regime and its policies on neighbors and the region, the Zionists who have come under the guise of peace today will push them back for tens of years.”

Iran sure knows a thing or two about disintegrating the region when getting involved in the affairs of other countries. Look at what happened to Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon when Iran is allowed to meddle in their affairs! Israel couldn't do more damage if it tried.

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Sotal Iraq (Voice of Iraq) has been one of the most consistently antisemitic news sites in the Arab world.

It is absolutely shocking to see an article that is not only conciliatory towards Jews, but also to potential normalization between Iraq and Israel, published there.

Hamed Shehab writes first about the history of when Jews left Iraq:

Many Jewish men and their merchants had remarkable roles in the history of Iraq, with all Iraqi sects feeling their national belonging, and viewing the Jewish citizen is part of the fabric of Iraq...

These days, some Jewish personalities say they would like to preserve their Jewish heritage and property in Iraq, and that they would like to have contact, but without returning, and they are directing appeals through the international community and the United Nations...they wish to maintain a state of connection with their national heritage in Iraq, their synagogues, religious relics, manuscripts and documents of Jewish history, so that they can communicate with Iraqis through them, and they have a political legacy in Iraq.

Things get interesting as writes a tribute to Kol Yisrael radio in Arabic that morphs into a sense of desperation about the Arab world altogether:

We were in the seventies listening carefully to “Voice of Israel Radio” in Arabic, which devoted many of its programs to broadcasting the wonderful Iraqi songs and monologues, prepared by the Iraqis in the era of civilized Iraqi openness and its original creativity...There are cynical programs from the tendencies of some Iraqi politicians and their frequent repetition of the saying that the Jews should be thrown into the sea, fanning the flames of wars. Many Iraqis listened to the [Kol Yisrael] programs in the sixties and seventies; they allocated a full hour per day at noon to Umm Kulthum’s famous songs, and other hours to Arab singers, many of them Egyptians, Syrians and from Gulf states, and these songs were presented in a way that makes you feel the value of the original Iraqi Arab heritage, at a time when Arab radio stations were busy with the clamor of battles and their military manifestos and their incitement to fight the Israeli enemy and how those wars witnessed victories and were then followed by defeats, in which the Arabs lost a lot, especially after the 1967 war, and that year produced a setback, rather a setback, until 1973, when Egypt managed to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egyptian sovereignty in the October War, which the Arabs used to sing about that it restored some hope to them that they could recover the rest of the lands, but this hope has subsided and diminished, and this dream is no longer possible, after years of war preoccupation with their internal and external wars their countries have broken up into entities divided on themselves, and instead of preserving the unity of Iraq and the unity of Arab countries, our countries were divided into states and sub-states, and the dream of regaining what remains of occupied lands is gone, never to return !!

And then comes the part that would have been inconceivable to be published in any Iraqi media a month ago:

These days, the discussion of the possibilities of "normalization" between Iraq and Israel began as if it were a conversation that establishes a "preparatory" stage. The state of popular rejection has begun to diminish, especially after the neighboring countries started tampering with the capabilities of Iraq and dominating its people, and want to turn it into a village or province affiliated with them. And everyone wants to devour the Iraqi body, according to its national and religious components, so that they will be able to dominate its capabilities, and the situation of the Iraqi components continues to suffer from paralysis, tensions and political strife, as if the Iraqi sects have turned into pawns in the hands of politicians, everyone wants to drag his audience to the camp closest to him religiously or nationally. The talk about “normalization” as if it was a normal matter might find its echo in the next few years, because “normalization” is no longer a “taboo”. ...How many Iraqis wished to establish relations with various countries of the world, including Israel, if that relationship gives them back some of their prestige? They may prefer to seek the help of the foreigner, even if it is counted from the enemies, against those who try to break the will of the Iraqi citizen and violate his dignity, and they find in establishing a relationship with Israel and America, which can reduce the weight of the interference of neighboring countries, and they find Western support of Israel what can provide safe havens for the Iraqis, away from the hustle and bustle of wars, their sick language and their broken records, where these voices find nothing but the alienation, sickness, and even disgust of many Iraqis, and they are on the side of those who help them against those who target their dignity and those who want to shed the blood of the people of the country, to employ it in his dirty wars, on his behalf, so that the Iraqis would be fuel for those wars in which they have no interest.

Perhaps the Kurdistan region was the forerunner in establishing communication relations with Israel, and those relations have existed since the fifties, and the Kurds found in Israel that it is the one who facilitates the task of separating from Iraq and establishing a Kurdish state....The matter of thinking about “normalization” with Israel is no longer regarded as impossible, or falling within “taboos”. Rather, “normalization” and even establishing semi-normal relations may be closer than many imagine!!

This is absolutely mind-blowing.

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09/07 Links Pt1: The end of the Arab-Israeli conflict; Top Dubai police official: Abbas not arbiter of who can have ties with Israel

From Ian:

The end of the Arab-Israeli conflict

The only Arab Islamists presently engaged in the fight against Israel are those that derive patronage from actors outside the Arab world (primarily Iran) and operate in failed-state environments where that patronage can be readily converted into political and economic power. Hamas and Hezbollah are the most notable cases, but even they have carefully modulated their “resistance” to Israel to achieve other goals (e.g., overturning the decades-long political dominance of the Palestine Liberation Organization and controlling the Lebanese government, respectively). Outside of Iran’s patronage networks, even the most radical and violent Arab Islamist groups—notably Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS)—have largely ignored Israel in favor of other fish to fry.

Nevertheless, popular hostility to Israel in the Arab world is still strong enough that, all else being equal, few of its despotic rulers would be inclined to normalize relations with Israel were there not increasingly much to gain. For many Arab states, the strategic benefits of cooperation with Israel have vastly increased amid the rising threats posed by Iran and Turkey and American disengagement from the Middle East. The Obama administration’s accommodation of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and refusal to act forcefully against Iranian aggression in Syria led to widespread recognition that Arab regimes are on their own in confronting Iran’s bid for regional hegemony. For all of the Trump administration’s anti-Iranian bluster, its disengagement from Syria and weak response to Iranian provocations in the Persian Gulf last year left staunchly pro-American Arab governments in the lurch.

Under these circumstances, Israel’s growing military, economic and diplomatic strength, hands-on experience fighting Iranian proxies and zero possibility of disengaging from the region have made it an increasingly indispensable ally in combating Iran’s regional ambitions.

Far-reaching, multifaceted sub-rosa security cooperation between Arab leaders and Israel has been underway for years and was bound to eventually result in diplomatic normalization. As Gwynne Dyer explains, these hitherto furtive alignments with Israel become a “much more convincing deterrent” against Iran if Arab and Israeli leaders are “actually seen together in public occasionally.”

Now that the UAE has broken the Arab taboo against normalization with Israel, other Arab states will be inclined to do so in ways consistent with their interests. Some, like the UAE (which just reinforced its alignment against Turkey by deploying four F-16s to Crete), will become full-bore allies of Israel. A few, like Syria and Houthi-ruled Yemen, will remain openly hostile. Most will run the gamut between these extremes. As the remaining 19 Arab League member states reach various degrees of accommodation with Israel, at least some of world’s 12 non-Arab states that don’t recognize Israel (nine of them majority Muslim) will reassess their boycott of the Jewish state.

How the collapse of Arab solidarity against Israel will affect the pursuit of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians is hotly debated. Insofar as fear of global isolation has fueled Israel’s willingness to compromise with the Palestinians, it’s not going to sweeten the pot. However, while Michael Oren’s claim that Israel will be more likely to make concessions if it is “secure in its newfound relations with the Arab world” is far-fetched, it’s not inconceivable that Israel’s “newfound” relations will increase the willingness of Palestinian leaders to accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state and drop their demand for the so-called “right of return”—the biggest stumbling block in past negotiations.

The most likely scenario, however, is that Palestinian leaders continue on the rejectionist path with support from the likes of Iran, Turkey and the militantly anti-Zionist global left. Anti-Semitism, Islamic supremacism and authoritarianism will continue to make the world a dangerous place for its lone Jewish state long after the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict ends with a whimper, but the danger will be more manageable.

Bahraini social media activist talks UAE deal, says Jews part of Middle East

Loay Alshareef, a social media activist and linguist from Bahrain, was interviewed by i24NEWS on Sunday, in which he discussed the recent Israel-UAE normalization deal, Israel and the Jewish people's role in the Middle East and the future of Arab-Israel ties.

Beyond praising the recent deal, Alshareef highlighted an important shift in perception among Middle East Arabs, particularly in the Gulf states, regarding perceptions toward Israel specifically and Jews in general. The activist noted that views among the populace of the UAE in regard to the agreement are rooted in stabilizing the Middle East, while adding that "now the awareness is becoming more clear to many people that the Jewish people are not foreign colonialists in the Land of Israel: They are part of this land, and they are part of our region.

He added that "the Jewish people belong here, they have nowhere else to go... so it's really becoming very obvious that the existence of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel is not only historical, but it's a fact – and we can do many things together for prosperity, security and peace for the region."

When asked about the Bahraini position and the UAE, Alshareef said that the latter has taken a principled position of encouraging a stable Middle East, in addition to noting that those who don't want a stable region are the ones opposed to an Arab-Israeli rapprochement.

In a clear reference to Iran, Alshareef said that "Israel is not a threat to its neighbors, but what is a threat to its neighbor is a country that writes in its constitution to export revolution, to exports its sect and to believe in what they believe in." He also noted that Judaism itself is not a proselytizing religion, something that not so many people know in the Arab world.

Saudi Gazette: Palestinian Politicians Have Sabotaged Negotiations to Keep the Aid Funds Flowing

It is regrettable to see the plight of Palestinian brothers whose politicians have traded their cause for more than 60 years. These politicians saw to that the issue remained alive and did not reach any settlement. They sabotaged negotiations and rejected all peace initiatives, whether those presented by the Israeli side or those by other international parties.

The Palestinian politicians did this at the expense of their cause and their people so as to gain from the situation, which has remained as is till date. The intransigent attitude that they pursued for decades was the only guarantee for their survival with donations pouring in and aid funds boosting their treasuries and accounts in the European banks from all sides, especially from the countries of the Arab and Islamic worlds.

Today, things have changed, and the peoples who used to sympathize with the Palestinian cause are fully aware of this game by people with vested interests. The Palestinian issue means the death of the issue in the minds of millions of people, because it is the inevitable result of six decades of lying, trickery and collection of money in the name of a crisis whose owners do not want it to be resolved.

A few days ago, the courageous Emirati step to normalize relations with Israel came and that delivered an explicit message to the Palestinian political leaders: “The time has come to confront between yourselves and those who are deceived by you... the time for playing and jumping the ropes as well as trafficking with the concerns of the Palestinian people is over.”

As for serving the interest of the Arab people in Gaza and the West Bank, it requires the intervention of rational Arabs to negotiate with the Israeli side and work to establish comprehensive peace in the region away from gangs who eye only political gain.

Roger Waters claims he has never spoken an antisemitic word in is life. Yet he quotes Nazi antisemitic literature.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Former Pink Floyd singer and bassist, Roger Waters, claimed in an interview on August 29, with Hoda Abdel-Hamid, Al Jazeera English’s senior international correspondent, that he has never spoken an antisemitic word in his entire life, putting the blame of his bad image on Israel’s government for investing millions of dollars into demonizing whoever is trying to defend Palestinians.

The Post goes on to list some counterexamples:

During a concert he held in 2013, an inflatable pig marked with a Star of David was featured.
In a 2013 interview with the left wing website Counterpunch, he suggested that some artists don’t take controversial positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict partly because “the Jewish lobby is extraordinary [sic] powerful” in the US music industry. He also claimed that the “right wing rabbinate” is responsible for promoting bigotry against non-Jews among Israelis.
In 2017, Waters compared the Israeli government to Nazi Germany, said there were no harsher regimes in the world – and then contradicted both himself and facts several times in an hour-long live video chat on Facebook.
Earlier this year, he called Jewish philanthropist Sheldon Adelson “the puppet master who is pulling the strings of Donald Trump, [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo, and what’s his name…the ambassador, Greenberg, I think his name is,” Waters said, and went on to describe Adelson as a “right-wing fascist racist bigot.”

All of these examples are valid, even though Waters would argue that they are merely anti-Zionist.

But the real proof of Waters' antisemitism comes from that last Hamas TV interview where he discussed Sheldon Adelson and described him as the "puppet master" behind Trump:

Waters apologized over part of what he said:

After speaking with Palestinian and Jewish colleagues and friends, I’ve come to understand that some remarks I made during a recent TV interview, about Palestinians suffering under decades of Israeli military occupation and apartheid, have caused some deep offense. Naturally, this is the last thing I would ever want to do, particularly within a justice movement which I care about so passionately.
During the Interview, in expressing my total solidarity with and support for the Palestinian people, when referring to Sheldon Adelson’s support for the racist policies of both Trump and Netanyahu, I used words that evoked metaphorical imagery which, my friends said, were “harmful to Jewish people and to the movement for Palestinian rights” – and for this, I’m very sorry.
At the time, I had no idea that I was evoking an antisemitic trope. I regret any harm or hurt my use of words caused Jewish people, and also any ways it may have reinforced damaging lies about Jews. Nothing could have been further from my intentions. I have only respect and compassion for my Jewish brothers and sisters in our collective struggle for a more just and peaceful world.

But he didn't apologize over the most offensive part - the part that proves his antisemitism beyond any doubt.

In that interview, Waters said, "Sheldon Adelson believes that only Jews – only Jewish people – are completely human. That they are attached in some way…and that everybody else on Earth is there to serve them."

There is no source that Adelson believes anything remotely resembling this. Waters didn't read anywhere that Adelson believes this. He is quoting neo-Nazi websites that falsely say that the Talmud teaches this and he is applying that Nazi antisemitic thinking to a rich, believing Jew.

Let me be clear: the only place that Waters could have been exposed to the lie that Jews believe that non-Jews are subhuman is from far right, neo-Nazi (and some right-wing Christian) sources. There are thousands of sites and videos that say these lies. Typically:

Even Arab antisemitic sites don't generally say this.

Roger Waters reads, believes and happily parrots the most disgusting Nazi antisemitic lies. And he didn't apologize for it.

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