Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, September 09, 2020

Palestinian anger at the Arab League explodes in public

The Arab League was founded in a large part in response to Zionism. Its first major actions were to gain consensus among Arab states for boycotting Jews in Israel and even though Arab states have always disagreed strongly about virtually everything, they could always pretend to agree how much they hate Israel, so the Arab League was able to maintain a pretense of unity through its many anti-Israel resolutions.

Zionism may be what destroys the Arab League.

This morning, the PLO "foreign minister" Dr. Riyad Malki gave a speech to the Arab League where he expressed the Palestinian frustration at the lack of response by the Arab League to the UAE's decision to make Israel an ally.

But he went further than that.

Malki said that usually any joint Arab actions at the Arab League supporting the Palestinians were "only for show, not implementation...But there was neither commitment nor respect for these decisions."

He called this "duplicity" and said that it put "Palestine" in many embarrassing situations, particularly when non-Arab countries would note that what they hear behind closed doors from Arab governments contradict their Arab League commitments (speaking of payments to the PLO and "supporting Jerusalem.")

"We would boast about the Arab resolutions," Malki said in his speech, "only to be told that those were nothing more than just ink on paper."

He explained that even asking for an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League to condemn the UAE proved strenuous. One country refused and asked for an ordinary meeting, and later refused to even add the Israel/UAE deal to the agenda, while another threatened to table an alternative communiqué from the one that the PLO would have written, expecting a rubber stamp as they always have gotten.

A frustrated Malki said, "How do we explain these acts? Are they determining what became acceptable or not for the Arab League meetings? Who defines this? Those with influence and money or who? Did Palestine go too far by asking for an extraordinary meeting or by adding an item to the agenda? Did Palestine cross pre-determined, but not declared, red lines?"

Malki then went on to ask whether the Arab League is even committed to its own Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. "Is this initiative for show? If so, we need to know that. Is it for implementation? If so, what do we do about those who violate it?"

He went on to say that unless the Arab League publicly opposes the UAE/Israel deal, the meeting would be considered to be blessing this deal, colluding with it or providing it with a cover. "This will not be accepted by the State of Palestine."

If the Arab League can no longer be relied on to consistently oppose and condemn Israel, the last fig leaf for its existence as a unified voice of the Arab world goes away.

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The New York Times has an interesting article about Israelis managing to harvest dates from the famous Judean date palm, planted with seeds that are over 2000 years old:

The plump, golden-brown dates hanging in a bunch just above the sandy soil were finally ready to pick.

They had been slowly ripening in the desert heat for months. But the young tree on which they grew had a much more ancient history — sprouting from a 2,000-year-old seed retrieved from an archaeological site in the Judean wilderness.

“They are beautiful!” exclaimed Dr. Sarah Sallon with the elation of a new mother, as each date, its skin slightly wrinkled, was plucked gently off its stem at a sunbaked kibbutz in southern Israel.

They were tasty, too, with a fresh flavor that gave no hint of their two-millenium incubation period. The honey-blonde, semi-dry flesh had a fibrous, chewy texture and a subtle sweetness.

These were the much-extolled but long-lost Judean dates, and the harvest this month was hailed as a modern miracle of science.

Where was the seed found again?

Hannah’s seed, which came from an ancient burial cave in Wadi el-Makkukh near Jericho, now in the West Bank, was carbon dated to between the first and fourth centuries B.C.E., becoming one of the oldest known seeds to have ever been germinated.

The phrase "now in the West Bank" is awkward - did the cave somehow move from Judea to the "West Bank"? But for the Times to more accurately say "now called the West Bank" would be problematic for a paper that chose to embrace that term only in the 1970s.

No one had ever heard of the "West Bank" before the 1950s, yet that Jordanian name is now considered the most accurate for media like the New York Times while "Judea" is considered a right-wing Israeli term created to supplant it. Articles like this are awkward precisely because they highlight that the land has always been associated with Jews, not "Palestinian" Arabs.

Luckily, the scientists who managed this remarkable feat aren't bound by the political correctness of using a brand new term for a Jewish historic area:

Ancient Judea was ideally placed between North Africa and Asia, along major trade routes, and the Romans, who traded all over the Mediterranean, could have brought western varieties with them to pollinate the older varieties from the east.

“Putting it simply, what do we find?” Dr. Sallon said. “The story of ancient Israel and the Jewish people, of diasporas, trade routes and commerce throughout the Middle East.”

(h/t Charlie)

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I recently reported that Harvard University named serial liar and PLO propagandist Saeb Erakat to be a Fellow, teaching diplomacy this year.

The Clarion Project looked at what foreign nations give donations to American universities and colleges. It is no secret that many countries give lots of money to influence US curricula. Most give to several universities.

The Palestinian Authority itself only gave money to one university in the US.

Guess which one.

Even though the Palestinian Authority gets virtually all of its money from the West and it is always begging for more, somehow it found in its budget $2.6 million to give to Harvard. And by some sort of crazy coincidence, now Saeb Erakat is free to push his lies on today's Harvard students.

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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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