Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, October 24, 2020

10/24 Links: Ballots come and go, Abraham Accords are here to stay; Trump solved world’s most intractable foreign policy problems; Israel expects Oman to normalize next, Mossad chief says Saudi deal soon

From Ian:

Ballots come and go, Abraham Accords are here to stay

I've read multiple pieces accusing President Trump of using the Abraham Accords as an election success story. Any candidate trying to get elected or re-elected as president of the United States of America will use whatever gains they possess to gain votes. If you have something better than the first peace deal in 25 years by all means use that to your advantage- any politician would.

Similar claims are made against Netanyahu who is standing trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Neither Trump nor Netanyahu have been given a grace period following the Abraham Accords. In Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's case, it is not because Israelis don't have foreign policy high on their list, but because there are more pressing domestic issues to deal with.

Israelis refer to Netanyahu as "the magician" – a term used both positively and negatively. Recent polls however indicate the opposition right-wing Yamina party is closing the gap with Netanyahu's Likud, calling the entire magic theory into question yet again.

The peace agreement between the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Bahrain is widely favored among Israelis, but it contrasts with serious dissatisfaction at home. While Israelis are eager to travel to the Gulf, let's not forget that they have been stuck at home for several weeks until recently due to a second nationwide lockdown. Ask any one of the tens of thousands of Israelis protesting across Israel and they will blame Netanyahu for miserable handling of the Pandemic. At this point Israelis are feeling so helpless, a trip to the local grocery store will suffice.

All this is to say that the Abraham Accords, amazing as they truly are, cannot erase – or even ease – domestic strife.

The biggest mockers of the new Israeli-Gulf relationship are unquestionably the Palestinians. They rejected the deal immediately and left no room to recognize their longtime Emirati ally's achievement in blocking Israel's plan to extend sovereignty to large parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley.

Palestinians see the deal as a betrayal as it calls for normalization with Israel through the good ol' formula they grew up on "if we don't get a piece of peace, no one does." The Abraham accords aren't killig the prospects of an independent state of Palestine, the Palestinian reaction to it is.

Those who believe that Jerusalem's holy sites are in danger due to the agreement can rest assured the Hashemite custodianship of Muslim and Christian holy sites hasn't changed. The only ones threatening the city right now are extremists targeting and harassing Emirati worshippers who have come to visit the Temple Mount, Islam's third holiest site.

The US: An Inspirational Leader in the Middle East

By taking a robust approach to some of the region's more intractable issues... such as relocating the American embassy to Jerusalem, the US has produced a number of profound changes to the regional landscape, the consequences of which are likely to be felt for many years to come.

The breakthrough in the peace process, moreover, has resulted in the region being clearly divided between moderate, peace-loving countries that are prepared to engage in the peace process, and rejectionist regimes, such as Turkey and Iran, that are only interested in causing further bloodshed.

It is these countries, as well as China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela that have most to fear in next month's presidential election if a strong and successful America returns again.

Yisrael Medad: A Letter to the NY Review of Books Not Published

Commenting on Israel's presumed 'vulnerability' regarding the legality or illegality of civilian Jewish residency communities ("settlements") in the "West Bank", a new geopolitical term created in 1950, territory the United Nations termed Judea and Samaria in its 1947 Partition Plan, David Luban, Georgetown Professor in Law, writes in "America the Unaccountable" that "[t]ransferring your own people into occupied territory violates the Geneva Conventions". He pursues this by adding that "Israel has devised an arcane legal theory that it never occupied the West Bank, but it is fair to say that nobody outside Israel and the US takes that position seriously" [NYR Aug 20].

The international legal experts who do not agree with that thinking, among them Stephen M. Schwebel, Eugene Rostow, Abraham Bell and Eugene Kontorovich and many others, point out that the actual language in the 1949 Geneva Convention is "forcible transfers", that "Palestine" never existed, nor does it at present exist, as a "state", that indeed Israel is a "belligerent occupier", quite a proper legal status and that the non-arcane legal doctrine of Uti Possidetis Juris applies - in which the territorial sovereignty of emerging states covers their pre-independence administrative boundaries - as does United Nations Article 80 as well. Moreover, the IJC's 2004 advisory opinion does not hold "that the [Israel–Palestine] boundary is 'subject to such rectification as might be agreed upon by the parties'" as Luban writes. Quite to the contrary, a "Demarcation Line" was to be subject to rectification (see para. 71), a line that the 1949 Armistice Agreement specifically stated in Article IV, 9 that "Lines...of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto".

As someone who lives in such a community, I think that Luban could have noted that the Arabs of Mandate Palestine refused the offer of a state in 1947, consistently rejected diplomacy (the Khartoum 3 Noes), that they had been engaged in an anti-Jewish terror campaign since 1920 which has never stopped until this day and that they ethnically cleansed all Jews from this area intended to be reconstituted as the Jewish "national home" due to the Jews' "historic connection" to it, as the League of Nations decided in 1922. Some of those families had been living in that territory for centuries. Luban could, even in passing, had referred to the 1967 war when Israel, threatened with aggression, came into administrative possession of Judea and Samaria (and until 2005, Gaza as well) as a defensive war. Had he done so he would have provided a better, indeed, a more philosophical framework to judge the matter.

10/23 Links Pt2: Caroline Glick: Fighting the new commissars; Melanie Phillips: What sanitising Louis Farrakhan tells us about the west

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Fighting the new commissars

When word got out this week that Facebook had squelched Shibbolet – again – Likud MKs Amit Halevy and Ariel Kelner published posts on Twitter threatening to take legislative action against Facebook. The threats worked. Shibbolet's account was reinstated. In fact, the account Facebook "permanently" froze in April quickly thawed.

While this is a positive development, it isn't a business model. Conservative businesses – and business owners – cannot build their commercial model around faith that lawmakers will defend them on Twitter or that the trillion-dollar conglomerates will long care what lawmakers say or do.

Recognizing the dimension of the threat, Wednesday Halevy initiated Knesset action on the issue. He submitted a bill titled, "Social Media Responsibility for Content Published on its Platforms."

If passed into law, Halevy's bill will divide social media companies into two categories: those that interfere in content posted on their platforms and those that do not. Currently, both types of companies enjoy immunity from lawsuits related to content posted or blocked on their platforms.

Halevy's bill would maintain the exemption for social media companies that do not interfere with content on their platforms without a court order or a clear legal obligation to do so. On the other hand, social media companies that interfere with the content on their platforms would no longer enjoy immunity from legal actions by users harmed by the content on their platforms.

Halevy's bill also requires companies that interfere with the content of its platforms to operate in a transparent way. They would be required to explain precisely what sort of content they censor. And they would be required to publish annual reports delineating precisely which posts they censored and why. Users would be notified before the companies take action against their content and be given an opportunity to defend themselves.

President Donald Trump and prominent Republican lawmakers have pledged to take similar action against Facebook, Twitter and other social media giants after the election. The Department of Justice filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Google earlier this week.

These initiatives are critical. And they shouldn't stand on their own. They should rather be the first shots of concerted campaign to limit the power of these gargantuan companies that control nearly all global information.

Freedom of expression and the free flow of information are the foundations of free societies. Rather than use their unprecedented power to secure both, social media giants are manipulating information and censoring speech with a power that no one could have fathomed just 20 years ago. Optimism and hope for their positive potential blinded many of us to their actual dangers. The time has come to take on this new and pernicious threat to the future of free nations and free people.

BBC apologizes for broadcasting appeal of convicted Hamas terrorist

The BBC apologized on Thursday for broadcasting an appeal by convicted Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, mastermind of the Sbarro Pizza parlor bombing in Jerusalem in 2001, to be reunited with her husband, after the families of Tamimi's victims and the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) spoke out against the broadcast.

On October 1, 2020, Tamimi's husband Nizar, who is also a convicted terrorist, was deported by the Jordanian authorities to Qatar.

Seven days later the BBC's Arabic TV service broadcast a report in its program Trending on how Tamimi had called into a popular Amman-based radio station in a bid to appeal directly to King Abdullah II to intervene and have her husband returned to Jordan.

The BBC's report glossed over key elements of Jordanian-born Tamimi's story, reporting that she had been "accused" of the Sbarro terror attack but not that she had boastfully pled guilty to the charges in an Israeli court – or that she had said she would be happy to carry out such an attack again.

Tamimi was sentenced to 16 life sentences following the attack, but only served ten years as she was released in the deal that secured the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas's hold.

The BBC's Arabic service, which is funded by Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, further failed to mention any of her victims by name.

Melanie Phillips: What sanitising Louis Farrakhan tells us about the west

Moreover, such self-styled progressives believe this constitutes their whole moral and political identity. It bestows virtue upon them because it is based on the ideal of the perfect society where war is no more, lions lie down with lambs and prejudice is obliterated from the human heart.

Anyone who challenges it, therefore, isn’t just wrong, but right-wing and evil. So anything they say — however truthful or evidence-based — is right-wing and evil. And so truth has become a right-wing concept and is to be exiled, along with the truth-tellers, from acceptable society.

But Farrakhan is immune from criticism as a result of the core doctrine of identity politics that says members of an “oppressed” minority are victims and can therefore do no wrong.

Liberal Jews in America go one stage further. They have convinced themselves that “social justice,” which is in fact anti-social and unjust and stands utterly against the particularism which is the essence of Judaism, actually embodies Jewish ethical precepts.

So when they look at the Democratic Party, they make excuses and continue to vote for it. When presented with the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bigotry of The New York Times, they make excuses and continue to buy it. When confronted by the violence of Black Lives Matter, they make excuses and continue to call anyone who opposes it “racist.” And when they cannot make excuses, as over Farrakhan, they look away.

Because they have made a religious faith out of this illiberal liberalism, which classifies all who challenge it as evil by definition, most of their minds have become hermetically sealed thought systems. They will never be prised open.

In her essay, Weiss is rightly aghast at what this signifies for the Jews who have adopted this mindset. “That leaders and philanthropists charged to protect and nurture our community are entertaining, and at times embracing, such nihilistic and anti-American ideas is a scandal.”

More than that, it’s a tragedy in the making—not just for American Jews, but the west.

President Trump announced peace between Israel and Sudan. Get ready for the hypocritical "peace" activists to object to...peace.

The objections by Palestinians and their friends to Israel's peace accords with the UAE and Bahrain announced in August were bizarre. But perhaps the most insane objections were floated by people who pretend to be peace activists. I looked at their specious arguments by the cofounder of the Hamushim NGO and by the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace.

One of their nonsensical arguments doesn't apply to Sudan:

Israel’s normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which its Parliament is scheduled to approve on Thursday, was termed “peacemaking” by the Trump administration that mediated it, and all involved seek credit for being peacemakers. In reality, these deals could lead to increased arms sales, more violence in the Middle East, and the perpetuation of the ongoing military occupation of the Palestinian people.

Neither the UAE nor Bahrain, which only gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1971, have ever been at war with Israel.

Sudan was at war with Israel, declaring war in 1967.

Of course, the argument that normalization deals aren't peace deals is silly. Normalization is several steps better than peace, unless you are a fanatic hater of Israel. Israel has peace with Egypt and Jordan but there was never normalization, and (either as a cause or effect) both of those states are among the most antisemitic nations on Earth.

It is too soon to say whether the peace deal with Sudan will include full normalization of relations, but early indications from Sudanese media are promising, saying that there is interest in cooperation with Israel on agriculture, technology, aviation and immigration.

Of course, "Jewish Voice for Peace" already condemned the deal, saying that it has nothing to do with peace with Palestinians. They still think the world considers peace with Palestinians to be a prerequisite for peace with anyone else, an assumption that has already been proven false - but the religion of "linkage" is strong.

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10/23 Links Pt1: Israel, Sudan announce deal normalizing ties; Palestinian NGOs sue UK over 1917 Balfour Declaration; Despite VIP treatment Saeb Erakat will continue to slander Israel

From Ian:

In call with Netanyahu, Sudan leaders, Trump announces Israel-Sudan peace deal

US President Donald Trump announced Friday that Sudan will start to normalize ties with Israel, making it the third Arab state to do so as part of US-brokered deals in recent months.

During a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sudan Sovereign Council president General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, Trump brought reporters into the Oval Office and announced: “The State of Israel and the Republic of Sudan have agreed to make peace.”

A senior Trump aide, Judd Deere, said that Sudan and Israel “have agreed to the normalization of relations.”

Trump said Sudan had demonstrated a commitment to battling terrorism. “This is one of the great days in the history of Sudan,” Trump said, adding that Israel and Sudan have been in a state of war for decades.

“It is a new world,” Netanyahu said over the phone. “We are cooperating with everyone. Building a better future for all of us.”

“We are expanding the circle of peace so rapidly with your leadership,” Netanyahu could be heard telling Trump, who responded by saying. “There are many, many more coming.”

Trump also was heard taking a dig at Joe Biden, his opponent in the November election saying: “do you think Sleepy Joe could have made this deal, Bibi?”

‘Yes, yes, yes’: Why peace with Khartoum is true paradigm shift for Israel

Yes to removal of Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terror. Yes to a billion-dollar aid package. And yes to normalization with Israel?

The remarkable tale of Sudan turning from a symbol of the Arab world’s rejection of the Jewish state, into its latest potential peace partner, could be summed up by referring to three no’s that, in the span of 53 years, look set to become three yes’s.

Many Israelis still associate Khartoum with the “Three No’s” — “No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel” — formulated by an Arab League summit held in the Sudanese capital shortly after the end of the Six-Day War in 1967.

Now, after months of pressure from the US administration, the culmination of efforts to get the Northeast-African Arab country to normalize relations with Israel appears closer than ever, perhaps just days away.

Earlier this week, the transitional government in Khartoum agreed to pay $335 million in compensation to the victims of the 1998 bombings of two US Embassies in Africa (Sudan didn’t perpetrate the attacks, which killed more than 4,000 people, but granted asylum to the terrorists). In exchange, US President Donald Trump vowed to remove the country from its lists of state sponsors of terrorism, where it has been since 1993.

Together with a massive financial aid package for the struggling country — the US has reportedly offered $800 million in aid and investments, but Sudan demands some $3-4 billion — the removal of the terrorism designation is largely seen as a precursor to a normalization deal with Israel.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday spoke with Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, applauded his “efforts-to-date to improve Sudan’s relationship with Israel, and expressed hope that they would continue.”

Caroline Glick on Sudan normalizing relations with Israel & social media giants

Josh Hammer: Donald Trump may be the most pro-Jewish president ever

This election, there is no subgroup for whom the stakes are higher than my Jewish co-religionists.

That’s because, for starters, Donald Trump is quite possibly the most pro-Jewish president ever — or at least since George Washington famously assured the Jews of Newport, RI, that each child of the “stock of Abraham” would forever “sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree.”

Through word and deed, President Trump — a father of an observant Jew and grandfather of Jewish children — has repeatedly established himself as a true friend and guardian of the people of the covenant. And in the post-1948 era of Zionism, Trump has been by far the most loyal and transformative friend of the world’s sole Jewish state.

Trump ended decades of presidential timidity and promise-breaking by finally moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. He withdrew the United States from the harrowing capitulation to evil that was the Obama-Biden nuclear accord with Iran and has slapped crippling sanctions on the mullocracy.

He decimated the Islamic State “caliphate” and decapitated Iranian arch-terrorist Qassem Soleimani, both threats to Israel and Jews everywhere. He closed the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization’s mission in Washington and defunded the Palestinian Authority itself due to its barbaric “pay-to-slay” subsidies.

Trump also cut funding or outright withdrew from three anti-Israel UN bodies: the (grossly misnamed) UN Human Rights Council, UNWRA and UNESCO.

And we’re just getting started. Team Trump has boldly stood up for Israeli “settlements” in Judea and Samaria. The president formally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and rolled out the most pro-Israel plan for peace with the Palestinian Arabs that a US president has ever endorsed.

Yesterday, Gaza terror groups shot two rockets towards Israeli towns.

Here is how Arabic-language media wrote their headlines:

Ma'an (Palestinian, independent): Two rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards the settlements

Wattan.Net (Palestinian): The occupation claims that two rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards the settlements

Shasha (Palestinian:) Israeli allegations: Two rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at the cover settlements

FatehGaza (Fatah): Sirens ring out in the settlements on the Gaza Strip, after a burst of rockets was fired

El Wehda (Pan Arab): Two rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards the settlements

Al Masry Al Youm (Egypt): Two rockets were launched from Gaza towards Israel (headline), An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that two rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip, today, Thursday, at the settlements of the Gaza envelope.

Al Ghad TV (Egypt): The Occupation Army: Two Rockets Were Fired From The Gaza Strip Towards Israeli Territory

RT Arabic (Russia): Two rockets were launched from Gaza at the settlements, with the Iron Dome blocking one of them

To much of the Arabic-speaking world, all Israeli towns are "settlements" - illegal communities that will eventually be taken over by Arabs..

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Yesterday, the controversial academic Norman Finkelstein tweeted a purposefully provocative statement:

FB & Twitter have announced that they will ban Holocaust denial from their platforms. In a forthcoming book, Cancel Culture, Academic Freedom, and Me, I argue that Holocaust denial should be taught in university and preferably by a Holocaust denier.

That chapter is online at his website.

In a nutshell, Finkelstein's argument is that, based on John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty," distasteful opinions should never be suppressed. Holocaust deniers perform a valuable service of holding Holocaust historians' feet to the fire to prove their version of events - and indeed it has happened on occasion that Holocaust scholars modified their teachings based on valid points of the deniers.

If one is committed to the purity of truth, not just in its wholeness but also in its parts, then a Holocaust denier performs the useful function of ferreting out “local” errors, precisely because he is a devil’s advocate—that is, fanatically committed to “unmasking” the “hoax of the 20th century.” He consequently invests the whole of his being in scrutinizing every piece of evidence, not taking the tiniest detail for granted, passing a fine-tooth comb through each one, and, in his monomaniacal zeal to expose an error, inevitably unearthing one.

By not allowing Holocaust denial, Finkelstein goes on, it allows false Holocaust narratives to be spread by "every Tom, Dick and Moishe pawning himself off as a 'Holocaust survivor.'"

Finally, Finkelstein says, the university is the best place for Holocaust denial to be taught, so students can see all sides of the issue and determine the truth.

Finkelstein pretends to list and counter every possible objection to this idea, which he knows quite well is incendiary. But he ignores the major objection to Holocaust denial.

The motive of Holocaust deniers isn't to uncover the truth of the Holocaust. It is to create a world where the genocide of Jews can be repeated.

There is a world of difference between legitimate researchers and bigots who hide behind hundreds of footnotes to push their hate. Finkelstein, for whatever reason, cannot distinguish between overt racist propaganda and historic research. He cannot tell the difference between an antisemitic conspiracy theory and the truth.

If someone would write that there was never slavery in America, it would be obvious what the motive was. Holocaust deniers' motives are no less obvious - and one wonders whether Finkelstein shares at least some of them.

There is a curious footnote in this essay where Finkelstein all but admits that he cannot distinguish between propaganda and scholarship.

I vividly recall my own deflated sense of intellectual self upon perusing Holocaust-denier Arthur Butz’s The Hoax of the 20th Century. He correctly observed, for example, that it was originally alleged that three million Jews were killed at Auschwitz, and six million Jews altogether were killed. The figure for the number killed at Auschwitz was subsequently scaled down to one million, yet the total figure was still put at six million. How can this be?, Butz rhetorically asked. I had no answer.

He had no answer?

Between five and six million Jews disappeared from Europe from 1939-1945. There were 9.5 million Jews in 1933 and 3.5 million in 1950, although many emigrated after the war. That's where the number six million came from - not from adding the victims from various camps. Obviously as time went on the scholarship improved, as researchers learned more about the victims of Einsatzgruppen and those killed by starvation or typhus. (Some legitimate Holocaust scholars say that the number of Jewish victims is closer to 5 million than 6.) But the total number of lost Jews wasn't calculated by adding up all the victims, it was by calculating who was left. (So far, Yad Vashem has managed to list the names of 4.7 million, with plenty of gaps that researchers are trying to fill.)

How can Finkelstein not know this? This footnote by itself proves that he is no scholar.

Not only that, as this episode proves, Holocaust scholars are quite able to modify their own understanding of the specifics over time without the "help" of Holocaust deniers that Finkelstein pretends is so critical to reach the "truth" that he pretends he cares so much about.

Finkelstein cannot distinguish between pseudo-scholarship and real scholarship. Pseudo-scholars just "raise questions" (how could burning airplane fuel bring down huge buildings?) with the intent to cast doubt on facts for the purpose of pushing conspiracy theories that are usually meant to promote hate ("The Jews did 9/11!") That doesn't mean that pseudo-scholars have an equal right to push their lies together with the real scholars' work.

As far as putting Holocaust denial in college classrooms, that is also an absurd demand. There are an infinite number of lies but only a limited number of classrooms. Why would Holocaust denial be a valid topic for discussion, but not flat-Earth theories, or David Icke's theory that world leaders are really blood-drinking, shape-shifting reptilian humanoids from Alpha Draconis, or 9/11 "trutherism," or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Finkelstein seems to choose a conspiracy theory that he feels some affinity to as being a topic for legitimate debate.

Finkelstein's assertion that Holocaust denial needs to be treated more seriously than any other crackpot theory betrays his own deep issues with Jews. It is no coincidence that his two most well-known positions are criticisms of the "Holocaust industry" and of Israel, or that he has expressed admiration for Hezbollah.

By cherry picking his arguments, Finkelstein shows he has a lot in common with the Holocaust deniers he is seeming to defend. Both of them pretend to care only about the "truth" but in fact they have another agenda.

This essay tells us a lot more about Finkelstein than about the pursuit of truth or John Stuart Mill.

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Three Palestinian groups are "suing" the British Empire in the courts of the Palestinian Authority.

The National Gathering of Independents, the International Foundation for the Follow-up of the Rights of the Palestinian People, and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate have filed a "lawsuit" in Palestinian court against the British government "regarding its responsibilities for the suffering of the Palestinian people during the period of the mandate," specifically the "sinister Balfour Declaration."

The head of the National Assembly of Independents, Munib al-Masri, said that his group was created as a result of the "National Strategy Conference" held earlier this year to confront the Trump peace plan.

The head of the Follow-up Committee, Muhammad Barakeh, claimed that the Palestinian judiciary has the jurisdiction to legally rule on these issues.

For his part, the head of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, Nasser Abu Bakr, said, "We have friends, institutions and parties that support us in Britain," who can influence British public opinion. He announced that an international media campaign would be launched parallel to this lawsuit, stressing that "all the Syndicate's capabilities would be available for the success of this approach."

Which shows how objective Palestinian journalists are.

Lawyer Nael El-Houh claimed that experts in international law concluded that there is no objection to suing Britain for British Mandate and the Balfour Declaration, especially after Palestine obtained the status of an observer state in the United Nations.

In the event that the Palestinian judiciary decides to hold Britain responsible, every Palestinian who was affected by the British Empire can sue individually.

The lawsuit was filed n Thursday at the Nablus Court of First Instance.

The actual legal importance of this action is roughly equivalent to the results of a high school moot court competition.

One thing you have to say about Palestinian Arabs - they are really great at creating stunts.

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10/22 Links Pt2: Critical Race Theory’s Jewish Problem; David Collier: The decapitation of Europe's freedom; ‘BBC lost its moral compass’ by giving mass murderer a platform

From Ian:

Critical Race Theory’s Jewish Problem

Postcolonial Theory, Israel, and Zionism It shouldn’t be far from anyone’s mind that the Woke, as a rule, are hostile to the existence of Israel. The relevant ideology is, in fact, deeply invested in uncritical support for Palestine and is openly anti-Zionist, often to the point of openly calling for the destruction of Israel. Weiss captures the public results of this attitude well, including the confusion among Jews who still think these ideologies are liberal, writing,

The most recent major outrage in the Jewish community, now several news cycles behind us, came on the Shabbat before Yom Kippur—the holiest day in the Jewish calendar—when many American Jews seemed dumbfounded by what was to me predictable news: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, progressive superstar, had pulled out of an event honoring Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister assassinated because of his efforts to make peace with the Palestinians. Rabin was, as Bill Clinton said at his funeral, “a martyr for his nation’s peace.”

Many Jews were shocked. If Rabin, the symbol of progressive Zionism, is out of bounds, are any Israelis acceptable? What about the 95% of Jews who support the Jewish state? Why would the congresswoman from the Bronx—representing the political party to which upward of 70% of American Jews have been consistently loyal—possibly do such a thing?

The answer to whether any Israelis are acceptable under Theory is no. For those who understand that Postcolonial Theory generally believes all actions made by the West anywhere else in the world, and especially where brown or black people live, as intolerable acts of Western colonialism and imperialism, this isn’t shocking, however. It’s perfectly consistent with what its activists continually say and its Theorists continually write. Israel would be considered in Theory as the result of white, Western imperialism and colonialism—largely in cahoots with conservative Christianity—robbing poor, brown Muslim Palestinians of their land, not least so that there is the ability to assert further Western hegemony and militarism in the Middle East (for the purpose of murdering more brown Muslims). The whole point is to establish, yet again, white supremacy in the Middle East. Its terms really are that stark. In the politically polished words of Linda Sarsour, which invoke precisely the crude racial frame of Critical Race Theory to make their effect,

Ask them this, how can you be against white supremacy in America and the idea of being in a state based on race and class, but then you support a state like Israel that is based on supremacy, that is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else.

While Critical Race Theory sees Israel—no matter its racial makeup—as structural whiteness occupying the (brown) Palestinian Middle East, Postcolonial Theory regards the existence of the contemporary Israeli state in a way that is wholly critical (as Marx would be) of both it and the West that supports it. This is what Postcolonial Theory does; it claims that the West constructs the “East” (here: Palestine) in a way that is meant to make its own values look superior by virtue of being better than the “Other’s” values—a process now unfortunately called “Orientalism.” The point of Orientalism is to enable a means of domination that might then justify Western occupations of non-Western lands and people, which will then hold to its own ideologies, methods, and values. Within the Theoretical wing of the contemporary left, Israel is regarded as one such ongoing project even in a (Western) world that has rejected the idea of colonialism more or less entirely.

Again, as with the issue where Critical Race Theory collides with Jewry, this wretched analysis is exactly what we should expect from Postcolonial Theory’s collision with Israel. It simply lacks the tools for a more nuanced or reasonable analysis of the admittedly complex affair. Take the Palestinian-American Edward Said’s analysis in his landmark Orientalism, which is in some sense recognizable as the birthplace of Postcolonial Theory, wherein precisely this simplistic, cynical, zero-sum thinking can be found:

Thus if the Arab occupies space enough for attention, it is as a negative value. He is seen as the disrupter of Israel’s and the West’s existence, or in another view of the same thing, as a surmountable obstacle to Israel’s creation in 1948. Insofar as this Arab has any history, it is part of the history given him (or taken from him: the difference is slight) by the Orientalist tradition, and later, the Zionist tradition. Palestine was seen—by Lamartine and the early Zionists—as an empty desert waiting to burst into bloom; such inhabitants as it had were supposed to be inconsequential nomads possessing no real claim on the land and therefore no cultural or national reality. Thus the Arab is conceived of now as a shadow that dogs the Jew. In that shadow—because Arabs and Jews are Oriental Semites—can be placed whatever traditional, latent mistrust a Westerner feels towards the Oriental. For the Jew of pre-Nazi Europe has bifurcated: what we have now is a Jewish hero, constructed out of a reconstructed cult of the adventurer-pioneer Orientalist (Burlon, Lane, Renan), and his creeping, mysteriously fearsome shadow, the Arab Oriental. Isolated from everything except the past created for him by Orientalist polemic, the Arab is chained to a destiny that fixes him and dooms him to a series of reactions periodically chastised by what Barbara Tuchman gives the theological name “Israel’s terrible swift sword.” (p. 286)

David Collier: The decapitation of Europe's freedom

Last Friday 47-year-old schoolteacher Samuel Paty was butchered and decapitated near the school at which he worked. His ‘crime’ was to teach his students about free speech. There is a horrific difference in this terror attack that is not being fully digested. This was a community effort. Some Muslims at the school were offended and a protest was launched. A parent brought in an ‘expert’ to help fight the blasphemous teacher. A fatwa was issued and a punishment for blasphemy was handed out. Worse still – despite statements of solidarity with the victim that inevitably filled the political chambers – the message was clear – and teachers all over France received it. Blasphemy in France is a crime punishable by death.

Many writers won’t touch this subject – they are too nervous in case they make a slight mistake that will be used against them. They fear they’ll be shouted down as an ‘Islamophobe’. This in itself is indicative of the problem and shows how our rights to free speech and to defend ourselves are being removed from us. A teacher was brutally murdered for doing his job. Earlier this year a 16-year-old girl in France needed police protection for criticising Islam. We have to talk about this. The Paris attack is different

Why is this terrorist incident different? In attacks such as the Manchester bombing, 7/7, Nice or even with the murder of Lee Rigby, the specific victims were random. There was nothing random about this attack. This was the application of Islamic law on the streets of Paris. Which is where we arrive at our first hurdle- the western PC reflex to terrorist attacks by radical Islamic Muslims is to publicly state that it is nothing to do with Islam.

But what may hold some weight (I am not saying it does) when a nutcase with ISIS ideology filling his head detonates himself in a crowded venue – does not hold at all when a particular target is butchered because of blasphemy.

Simple fact : It is an argument within Islam. Those Muslims who say a blasphemer must be killed are arguing Islamic law just as much as those who say it doesn’t.

Those who say this is nothing to do with Islam should consider this – if the teacher had done this in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Somalia or Saudi Arabia the same punishment (death) may well have been handed out – in a state sanctioned killing. In places such as Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Libya or the PA areas, he might just have spent a lengthy time in Jail. But the fact is this – one way or another all Muslim majority countries have criminalised blasphemy. All of them.

Ask yourself this question – how many devout Muslims have you spoken to who think Charlie Hebdo did nothing wrong at all?

The global proportion of Jews living in Europe is as low as it was 1,000 years ago. And the future there doesn’t look bright

Jews’ share of the population of Europe is as low now as it was 1,000 years ago and is declining even further, according to a landmark new demographic study.

The study published Wednesday by the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research found 1.3 million people who describe themselves as Jewish in continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Russia.

That figure has declined by nearly 60% since 1970, when there were 3.2 million Jews in the same area, wrote the report’s authors, Daniel Staetsky and Sergio DellaPergola.

That decline, which follows the death of about 6 million European Jews in the Holocaust, owes mostly to the emigration of more than 1.5 million people following the collapse of the Iron Curtain, their data shows.

But Western Europe, too, has lost 8.5% of its Jewish population since 1970. It is home to just over a million Jews today compared to 1,112,000 in 1970.

In particular, the Jewish community of Germany is in a “terminal” state because more than 40% of its 118,000 Jews are above the age of 65, whereas less than 10% are under 15, the study says. This reality, which exists also in Russia and Ukraine, “foreshadows high death rates and unavoidable future population decline,” according to the study.

The project is arguably the most comprehensive survey of Jewish demographics ever completed in Europe, more far-reaching than a 2018 European Union survey — although the new survey uses some information from the 2018 EU project. It is also based on official census data and figures provided by individual Jewish communities, which are often organized into organizations with official membership tallies.

From AFP:

From pickled vine leaves to coffee and cheese, Saudi supermarkets are taking Turkish products off the shelves after calls for a boycott, as rivalry between Riyadh and Ankara heats up.

This week, after an earlier call from the head of the Saudi chamber of commerce to "boycott everything Turkish", multiple supermarket chains announced they were stopping the import and sale of Turkish products.

"This decision has come in solidarity with the popular boycott campaign," one of them, Abdullah Al Othaim Markets, said on Twitter.

The two countries are at loggerheads over a range of regional issues, from Libya and Syria to Qatar, a key Turkish ally that faces a three-year Saudi-led economic blockade.

Wary of rattling foreign investors and amid suspicion that Turkey could lodge a complaint with the World Trade Organization, the Saudi government has sought to distance itself from the boycott.

Authorities have denied placing restrictions on Turkish products and maintain that citizens have led the campaign.

But a joint statement from eight leading Turkish business groups this month claimed that many Saudi companies had been "forced to sign a letter of commitment not to import goods from Turkey".

The Ankara-based Turkish Contractors Association meanwhile cited "various obstacles" at ongoing Saudi projects, such as not being invited to tenders, difficulty in obtaining visas for Turkish personnel and payment delays.

"It is estimated that the negative perception of Turkey resulted in business (losses) worth $3 billion in the Middle East for our contractors last year," the association said.

So while BDS - which counts Turkey as a major supporter - grabs the headlines, in reality Saudi Arabia is doing far more damage to the Turkish economy than BDS has done in 15 years to Israel!

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Socially-Distanced Riots Hamper Terrorists Trying To Hide Among Civilians (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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: Credit: IDF

Nebi Saleh, October 22 - Palestinian stone- and firebomb-throwers confronting Israeli troops in and near this village north of Jerusalem face a stark choice in recent months: continue to blend in among children and other non-combatants, thus risking the spread of COVID, or adhere to precautions that minimize such proximity, thus rendering themselves separate from the noncombatants and easier for IDF personnel to neutralize them without harm to the non-combatants.

Nebi Saleh has long served as a flashpoint for clashes between protesters and the IDF, but distancing guidelines issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in nearby Ramallah mandate at least two meters of space between members of different households. Such restrictions on conduct in the public space makes it difficult, if not impossible, for significant numbers of violent demonstrators to use women and children as human shields, several veteran demonstrators reported Thursday.

"I've been confronting the occupation soldiers for years," observed Faisal Tamimi, 22. "But it's different now. Fewer demonstrators are willing to engage in that confrontation unless closely accompanied by young children, a pregnant woman, or an old lady. The soldiers are reluctant to shoot at us like that, but we're also reluctant to hurl things at them without that protection. We haven't had anyone shot this year at all, and that's put a serious damper on our propaganda. With no wounded children to show, there's less outrage-generating material for our advocates to share around the world, and our cause attracts less and less support."

Demonstrators' concerns go beyond the simple realm of activism and publicity. "If the troops arrest someone, the government in Ramallah pays the family," explained Fares Tamimi, a cousin. "But social distancing means fewer people participating in the Molotov-cocktail-throwing, which means fewer people getting shot at, which means fewer people getting injured, and with lower participation overall, that means fewer arrests and thus less revenue. We're talking about livelihoods here. Just like almost everywhere else in the world, social distancing and lockdown policies are destroying the economy."

Even before the official restrictions went into effect, Tamimi clan members felt a difference in atmosphere. "It used to be automatic that some of us would get in the solders' faces," recalled Ahed Tamimi, whose blonde hair and blue eyes have featured in numerous Palestinian photos and clips aimed at generating sympathy from Western activists. "Can't do that now. We have to assume the occupiers are deploying coronavirus-positive soldiers to infect us. We might declare day and night that our highest goal is martyrdom for Palestine, but when we say that we're thinking of going out in a single moment, a blaze of glory. Suffering for weeks in isolation as our respiratory systems fail isn't the kind of shaheed I want to become. There's a limit to my ambitions in that respect."

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10/22 Links Pt1: Arab Leaders Want the U.S. to Support Israel; Officials: Sudan set to normalize ties with Israel; Albania Becomes Second Muslim-Majority Nation to Adopt IHRA

From Ian:

Walter Russel Mead (WSJ $): Arab Leaders Want the U.S. to Support Israel

As the U.S. has reduced its regional footprint and ambitions, the Middle East has begun to change on its own. Saudi Arabia has opened its airspace to commercial flights from Tel Aviv to Dubai, while the UAE has shifted from not recognizing the Jewish state to building a warm peace and economic partnerships with Israel.

In the new Middle East, the younger generation is turning its back on religious radicalism, and Arab public opinion is moving to accept the presence of a Jewish state. The Palestinians have lost their position at the center of Middle East politics, and it is Turkey and Iran, not Israel, that Arab rulers are most concerned to oppose.

President Trump's peace plan, which many longtime Middle East experts dismissed as a ghastly blunder that would destroy the American role in Middle East peace negotiations, has turned out to be relatively popular on the Arab street. A Zogby survey found majorities in favor of the "Deal of the Century" in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. 56% considered America "an ally" of their country, up from a low of 35% in 2018.

U.S. national security adviser Robert O'Brien told me that key Arab leaders have embraced the idea that better relations with Israel are critical to their states' security and even survival.

It is Turkey even more than Iran that keeps some Arab leaders awake at night. President Erdogan has aligned himself closely with the Muslim Brotherhood, a regional Islamist movement. Iran can only call on the minority Shiites for religious support, but Turkey can attract supporters from the Brotherhood's networks within the Sunni majority.

Ironically, the current Arab nightmare is that the next U.S. administration won't support Israel enough.

David Singer: Trump and Biden should debate foreign policy: China, Iran, et al

Trump and Biden need to debate their very different policies on China, Iran and the Middle East.

Long before the recent emergence of Hunter Biden’s alleged email files - whose authenticity still remains undisputed - Biden’s relaxed attitude to China strongly differed from Trump’s no-nonsense confrontational approach to handling China during the last four years.

On 23 October 2019 Biden – vying for the Democratic Party Presidential nomination – said:

“We talk about China as our competitor. We should be helping and benefiting ourselves by doing that. But the idea that China is going to eat our lunch — I remember the debates in the late ’90s, remember, Japan was going to own us? Give me a break.”

The CPD decision will deny intending voters their right to know Biden’s China policy stance and the implications this has for America.

Trump’s 2020 peace plan - providing for an independent Palestinian State in Gaza and up to 70% of Judea and Samaria (aka 'West Bank') to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation - offers a pathway to ending the 100 years unresolved conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Biden’s response: “A peace plan requires two sides to come together. This is a political stunt that could spark unilateral moves to annex territory and set back peace even more. I’ve spent a lifetime working to advance the security & survival of a Jewish and democratic Israel. This is not the way”

CPD’s political stunt ensures Biden will escape explaining how his “way” will be better than Trump’s.

America’s voters are being taken for a ride by a highly-partisan Presidential Debates Commission.

And this is without eveb mentioning Ukraine and Russia.

Dennis Ross: Saudi Prince Bandar Tells Palestinians: We Won't Cover for You Any Longer

Shortly before we presented the Clinton parameters on peace to the Israelis and Palestinians in December 2000, I briefed Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to America. Once presented, I wanted Saudi Arabia to urge then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to accept our bridging proposal to end the conflict. Bandar’s response is etched in my memory: “If Arafat rejects this, it won’t be a mistake, it will be a crime.”

Bandar said this privately to me.

After Arafat rejected the Clinton parameters, other Arab officials echoed similar, if less dramatic, views to me. But none were prepared to say anything publicly. None were prepared openly to criticize the Arafat decision or counter the Palestinian story misrepresenting what had been offered.

That was then — when the Palestinians could portray the diplomacy one way, and leading Arab figures would not challenge their story, even when they knew it was wrong.

But this is now, and the Middle Eastern landscape is changing when it comes to the Palestinian cause.

What was unthinkable before is no longer; the fear that Palestinians could arouse opposition to Arab leaders by claiming they were betraying Palestinian national aspirations is gone.

Last week Bandar bin Sultan — in a three-part interview on al Arabiya network, speaking to a Saudi and regional audience — engaged in truth-telling about the historic failures of the Palestinian leadership. From declaring that Palestinian leaders “always pick the wrong side” to bemoaning that “there were always opportunities, but they were always lost,” he debunked the Palestinian narrative. He spoke of the constant divisions among Palestinians and how the Saudi kingdom “had justified to the whole world the actions of Palestinians” even when “we knew, indeed, [they] were not justified.” But Saudi Arabia did so because, in Bandar’s words, they did not “wish to stand with anyone against them, nor did we wish to see the consequences of their actions reflected on the Palestinian peoples.” In other words, Saudi Arabia stood by Palestinian leaders even when they were wrong, producing in Bandar’s words, Palestinian “indifference” and a belief that “there is no price to pay for any mistakes they commit.”

All over Arabic media on Tuesday was the story that UAE journalist Hamas al-Mazrouei, who is close to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, had done things that would upset any Muslim.

It all started when Mazrouei tweeted this out on Monday (autotranslated):

Very quickly a ridiculous rumor started, claiming that Mazrouei was interviewed by Maariv where he said that the Saudi government should reimburse the descendants of Jews of Khaybar for Mohammed's expulsion of their ancestors from the town, and it should offer citizenship and compensation to those same Jews.

Furthermore, the reports claimed that Mazrouei said that Mohammed treated the Jews badly. For good measure, a photo claimed to be of Mazrouei sitting near a (seemingly unopened) bottle of whiskey was circulated.

Needless to say, there was no such interview in Maariv.

BBC Arabic tracked down the rumor to two news sites, one Syria and the other from Yemen. It didn't do a very good job though, since the Yemen article linked back to an article from Turkey from late September, which seems to be the original source.

I would guess that Iran sat on this story and then fed it to Iran-friendly Arabic media at a time when it would have a good chance of spreading. If foreign nations are seeding Western media with fake stories, it is a hundred times easier for them to feed fake stories to Arab media where rumors are even less likely to be fact-checked.

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