Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, December 05, 2020

12/05 Links: The Time Is Now for Saudi Arabia To Normalize Relations With Israel; ‘Israel has tape of slain Iran nuke chief talking about building five warheads’

From Ian:

Richard Goldberg: The Time Is Now for Saudi Arabia To Normalize Relations With Israel

Here's a news flash for Saudi Arabia: Presumptive President-elect Joe Biden is looking to fundamentally restructure the U.S.-Saudi relationship. The only way for Riyadh to stop what's coming might be to normalize relations with Israel right now.

Biden's nominee for secretary of state, Tony Blinken, reportedly held regular calls with far-left foreign policy activists during the presidential campaign and expressed an openness to cutting off arms sales to Saudi Arabia. In an interview shortly before the election, Blinken announced that a Biden administration would "undertake a strategic review of our bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia to make sure that it is truly advancing our interests and is consistent with our values." Translation for Riyadh: Buckle up for a rough ride.

Absent a seismic shift—like a normalization agreement with Israel—the Saudis should prepare for the worst. Congress has the votes to send a bill to the president's desk to halt U.S. arms sales to the kingdom. Such a bill passed the Senate just last year, when Republicans held a wider margin than they will in 2021—and before the kingdom angered a number of oil state Republicans by crashing the price of oil and pummeling the U.S. energy industry. This time around, when that same bill reaches the Oval Office, there will be nobody to veto it.

The incoming State Department brass will also likely reopen an investigation into the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to determine whether U.S. human rights sanctions should be imposed on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or "MbS," as he is known. To preserve the bilateral relationship, the Trump administration shielded MbS from direct sanctions retribution in 2019—a decision likely to be reversed in a Biden administration.

Against the backdrop of a complete reset in U.S.-Saudi relations, President-elect Joe Biden is also making it clear that he will press for a full re-entry into the Iran nuclear deal without any preconditions. He could very well turn back the clock four years and flood the Islamic Republic with billions of dollars in sanctions relief, which would enable Tehran to recapitalize both its Revolutionary Guard and its sprawling terror operations throughout the Middle East. Biden could renew American support for the enrichment of uranium on Iranian soil and acquiesce to the expiration of international restrictions on transferring advanced arms to the mullahs.

Seth Frantzman: Saudi Arabia at Bahrain conference: Normalization with Israel possibility

Saudi Arabia said it remains open to fully normalize ties with Israel and join the Abraham Accords. According Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan it was critically important to get Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiating table that delivers a Palestinian state within the “lines that are globally understood to eventually constitute a Palestinian state.” The remarks were made at the International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue Conference which is taking place from December 4 to 6.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister says that Palestinian statehood would deliver peace and noted the King Fahad peace initiative at Fez in 1982 and 2002 Saudi plans have suggested full normalization in the past with Israel. “Israel will take its place in the region but in order for that too happen and for that to be sustainable we need for the Palestinians to get their state and settle that situation.”

The remarks were made at the annual and important conference that is held in Bahrain. The conference took place this year at the Ritz Carlton in Manama. Israel participated openly for the first time with several participants and press releases from the conference said Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi was scheduled to address the event virtually.

According to Al-Arabiya the remarks by the foreign minister are part of the speculation that Saudi Arabia could follow the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to join the Abraham Accords. In November reports indicated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Saudi Arabia, although Riyadh denied he met the Crown Prince. Saudi Arabia is seeking to repair its image in Washington with the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden. It has also hinted that it may be open to some mending of fences with Turkey and Qatar. Turkey and Qatar are allies and Saudi Arabia led other Gulf states to break relations with Doha in 2017. Turkey sent troops to Qatar. Turkey has been openly opposed to Saudi Arabia and Qatar has used its media to try to undermine global support for Riyadh.

#Saudi Arabia remains open to fully normalize ties with #Israel on the condition of Palestinian statehood, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince @FaisalbinFarhan says, speaking at #IISSMD20.https://t.co/fPwerJ7B8q pic.twitter.com/if2OHqJW4Y
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) December 5, 2020

Jonathan S. Tobin: Biden makes the Netanyahu-Gantz divorce necessary

This isn’t what Israelis want to hear right now, but it’s nonetheless true. They need to hold another election. The prospect of a new administration in Washington is cause for concern, even if it may not prove to be the end of the world. But the challenge that this will pose requires Jerusalem to speak with one voice.

An Israeli government with the prime minister’s office at odds with both the defense and foreign ministries is a luxury the Jewish state might have been able to afford as long as President Donald Trump was in the White House, and the U.S.-Israel relationship was one rooted in close cooperation and a common vision about strategic issues. But with President-elect Joe Biden about to take office with a foreign-policy team committed to the failed Middle East policies of the Obama administration, Israel’s margin for error is about to be reduced. Even if that means that Israelis must suffer through the agony of a fourth election inside of two years, a divorce between unity government partners Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz has become a necessity.

After having held three inconclusive elections inside of a year, yet another trip to the ballot box would seem to be the last thing the Jewish state needs. In April and September of 2019, and then again in March of this year, Israelis headed to the polls to elect a Knesset. Each time resulted in a stalemate with neither Netanyahu nor his chief rival—Blue and White Party leader Gantz—able to muster a majority.

The standoff finally ended in April of this year, when Gantz split his party by joining a unity government with Netanyahu. Doing so made no political sense for him since the only point of Blue and White was to topple the prime minister rather than to enact different policies. Indeed, on all of the important war and peace issues, Gantz tried to run to the right of Netanyahu. But realizing the futility of the continued stalemate and responding patriotically to the crisis that the coronavirus pandemic presented to the nation, he decided that throwing in with his nemesis was the right thing to do.

From the virulently anti-Israel Middle East Monitor:

Israel's Hadassah Medical Centre is currently in talks with the UAE over the sale of 1.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for Palestine, Quds Press reported yesterday.

According to the news site, the Israeli public radio Kan, reported that the negotiations between the two sides related to the Russian vaccine.

Kan noted that the Israeli Ministry of Health has not yet approved the Russian vaccine and it is not expected to approve it in the near future.

If I am reading this correctly, even though Israel does not trust the Russian vaccine for its own citizens, it allows Hadassah and the UAE to work to get the vaccine to Palestinians, which presumably do approve it.

This story blows up all the narratives: that Israel doesn't want to provide Palestinians with medicines, that the UAE hates Palestinians, that "normalization" is a catastrophe for Palestinians.

So far Russia has agreements to sell its vaccine to a number of countries including India, Venezuela, Mexico, China, Egypt and Brazil.

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12/04 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The agenda that undermines America’s bond with the Jews; Frimet Roth: Forever 15; Giving Rabbi Sacks the Genesis Prize is the honorable, responsible move

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The agenda that undermines America’s bond with the Jews

Among those who understood the depth of former US President Barack Obama’s hostility to Israel, there’s understandable anxiety about the Obama retreads and acolytes among the foreign policy and security nominees being chosen by the prospective president-elect, Joe Biden.

Obama’s hostility is assumed to derive from his left-wing mindset which regards Israel, falsely and ahistorically, as a colonialist occupying power. He demonstrates this in his new memoir, A Promised Land, in his profoundly distorted account of the origins of the modern State of Israel.

There is, however, a deeper reason why both Obama and the left find Israel so intensely problematic, and why a Biden presidency will once again have Israel in its cross-hairs. This isn’t about foreign policy. It’s about the programme for America itself.

The core of the left’s agenda is to remake the western world; and the agenda of Obama and the American left is to remake America.

Their target is the western nation-state and its culture. The core precepts of that culture are articulated and enshrined within the different histories, laws, religions, institutions and traditions of individual western nations.

The left, however, deems the western nation-state to be evil because it declares itself superior to cultures that don’t share its values while excluding those who don’t belong to it.

Hence the left’s constant undermining of immigration laws in their attempt to erase national borders; their refusal to grasp that citizenship is a bargain between the citizen and the state to which he or she belongs; and their savage denunciations of those who uphold such notions as racists or xenophobes, in order to erase their voices altogether from the cultural conversation.

The nation, its specific attributes and the borders that define its territory must instead give way to a Kumbaya vision of the brotherhood of man expressed through trans-national institutions and laws.

Much of this erosion of western values has already been achieved, in schools and universities, through the culture wars. Obama’s strategy in his eight years in the White House was to weaponise this agenda through the presidency.

20 years on and still no justice

Out of the hundreds of terrorist attacks etched on Israel's collective memory, the slaughter at the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem stands out as one of the worst. On Aug. 9, 2001, when summer vacation was in full swing, Hamas terrorist Muhammad al-Masri entered the restaurant in the city center carrying a bomb hidden inside a guitar. When it detonated, it killed 15 people, including half of the Schijveschuurder family (both parents and three children, and two other children were seriously hurt), wounded a total of 140, and left an indelible trauma.

The victims included six American citizens, four of whom were wounded – including Chana Nachenberg, who remains in a vegetative state – and two of whom were killed – Shoshana Greenbaum, a 31-year-old teacher from New Jersey who was six months pregnant, and 15-year-old Malki Roth, who died alongside her friend Michal Raziel.

In a response that was considered harsh at the time, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered that the Palestinian Authority offices in Jerusalem, primarily the Orient House, be shut down. And as the horrific days of the Second Intifada continued, the public's attention shifted to the even more deadly attacks that soon followed.

Twenty years after the Sbarro catastrophe, one matter remains unresolved. The 22-year-old suicide bomber had been driven into the heart of Jerusalem by a pair of terrorists, Mohammad Daghlas, who was behind the wheel, and Ahlam Tamimi, a Palestinian TV anchor who used her press pass to get through the security checkpoints on the way to the capital. Tamimi directed the suicide bomber to his target destination, and immediately fled the scene. She got on a bus at Damascus Gate and heard radio reports that the number of Jews who had been killed was mounting.

"There was great joy on the bus. People congratulated each other, even though they didn't know each other. They didn't know about my part," Tamimi said later in several interviews. Later that evening, she reported on the attack without revealing the part she had played. A few weeks later, the IDF arrested her. She was sentenced to 16 life sentences and another 15 years in prison. While in prison, she announced that he had married her cousin Nizar Tamimi, who had murdered Beit El resident Haim Mizrahi in 1993.

A decade after Tamimi was imprisoned, Israel made a deal for the release of captive IDF soldier Gilad Schalit. Tamimi and the driver were both released, and subsequently, Tamimi arrived in Jordan. She was the only Jordanian citizen among the 1.027 prisoners who were released in the deal.

Nizar Tamimi was also freed. He was supposed to remain in the West Bank, but someone in the Israeli establishment helped him move to Jordan, duping Malki Roth's father, attorney Arnold Roth, who had been trying to keep the couple from being reunited.

Frimet Roth: Forever 15

This week, we mark yet another agonizing birthday.

My sweet daughter, Malki, would now be 35 years old if Hamas operative Ahlam Tamimi had made some misstep on Aug. 9, 2001.

But Tamimi was and still is a seasoned, determined, efficient and bloodthirsty terrorist.

In the Sbarro bombing, which she confesses she masterminded and which she calls “my operation,” seven babies and children perished with nine adults—some parents alongside their offspring. It was an unmitigated massacre.

Never could we have imagined that her murderer would now be free as a bird—and protected by a ruler who is coddled by both the United States and Israel—King Abdullah II of Jordan.

Tamimi’s stated determination to kill Jews is matched only by the determination of world leaders to ignore our pleas to correct the travesty of justice that Tamimi’s freedom embodies.

Our letters, phone calls, op-eds, tweets and front-page advertisements have fallen on deaf ears. They have only elicited excuses, evasive double-talk, or total silence from most of the people who could easily assist us if they cared to.

There are no obstacles in their path: - Legislation has existed for years empowering the United States to arrest, try and convict terrorists in U.S. courts under U.S. law if they kill a U.S. national, which Malki was. - In 1995, an extradition treaty was signed and ratified between the U.S. and Jordan, and accepted as valid by both countries. The State Department still takes that view. - Tamimi was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list in 2017. A $5 million State Department reward for her capture and conviction was announced in 2018. - Legislation enacted in 2019 empowers the U.S. to impose a foreign-aid sanction on any country failing to abide by its treaty obligation to the U.S.

None of the steps that could be taken to right this moral wrong has been taken.

A handy guide to distinguish "stormers" from regular humans

Al Resalah News has photos of "settlers storming Al Aqsa courtyards" yesterday.

But not everyone in the photos are "storming."

Here's a guide.

Stormers all have something in common, but it is a little hard to define.

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12/04 Links Pt1: Trump will not let his peace plan be buried; Caroline Glick: Biden and Israel's unsteady Right; Gulf States, Saudis, Crave Israel’s Iron Dome, Arab Media Reveal

From Ian:

David Singer: Trump will not let his peace plan be buried

The Trump-haters are circling Trump’s liferaft promising a comprehensive Middle East peace – but Trump can repel their determined efforts to sink it if he is not nominated as President when the Electoral College votes on 14 December.

United Nations Secretary-General Guterres is not remotely interested in pursuing Trump’s Peace to Prosperity Vision - which calls for Israeli sovereignty to be extended to about 30% of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) - with an independent demilitarized Palestinian Arab State being established in the remaining 70% and Gaza (Peace Plan).

Guterres remains committed to supporting Palestinian Arabs and Israelis resolving the conflict:

"in line with relevant UN resolutions, international law and bilateral agreements in pursuit of the vision of two states."

Guterres will be exhorting international support for UNSC Resolution 2334 – which Obama and Biden shamefully failed to veto on 23 December 2016 – abstaining instead - as they were departing the White House.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) seemingly does not have any interest in Trump’s Peace Plan - a PLO official recently declaring:

“We have received many positive messages from the Biden team in the past few days. We are looking forward to opening a new page with the Biden administration after the damage caused by the Trump administration.”

The PLO refused to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s Peace Plan even before its details were published last January.

Biden also seems certain to trash Trump’s Peace Plan if elected America’s next President.

Caroline Glick: Biden and Israel's unsteady Right

In an interview with the New York Times Tuesday, presumptive President-elect Joe Biden reaffirmed his plan to return the US to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. The US will rescind its economic sanctions on Iran if it complies with the nuclear deal's limitations on its nuclear activities. Once this happens, Biden said he will seek to negotiate a new, longer-term nuclear deal with Iran's ayatollahs. The current deal expires in five years.

Biden insisted the goal of his policy is to prevent Iran from getting the bomb. But practically speaking, Biden's policy guarantees Iran will develop a nuclear arsenal and the missiles to deliver them. This is true both because the nuclear deal will expire, and Iran will be free to build nuclear bombs as it likes in 2025, and because the 2015 nuclear deal has no effective enforcement mechanism.

The UN inspectors tasked with ensuring Iranian compliance are only permitted to enter civilian nuclear sites. Since Iran has sole authority to determine if a site is civilian or military, it can and has rendered the deal's inspection regime a pathetic joke.

It goes without saying that Israel cannot accept this state of affairs. Just as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was compelled to oppose Barack Obama's nuclear deal, so Israel has no choice but to strongly oppose Biden's plans.

Unfortunately, Israel is currently incapable of clearly opposing Biden's plan that will give the mullahs the means to carry out their plan to destroy the Jewish state. That is because currently, Israel doesn't have one government. It has two governments pretending to be a unity government. But in practice, they disagree on everything, including how to handle Biden's Iran policy and pursue contrary policies on all issues.

Netanyahu's Likud government recognizes the danger posed by Biden's Iran policy. Last week, Netanyahu loyalist Ambassador Ron Dermer said flat out that it would be "a mistake" for a Biden administration to return to the nuclear deal.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz's Blue and White government doesn't understand the danger.

Hudson Institute: A Conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat down with Hudson Senior Fellow Michael Doran to discuss the dramatic improvement in Israel’s relationship with the Arab world, the sources of Israel’s rising power, and the major factors shaping the prime minister’s strategic vision.

Jewish Voice for Peace says the Talmud says the Chanukah story is a myth

Yesterday, I mentioned that the anti-Israel crowd must have a big problem with Chanukah since it is the quintessential Zionist holiday.

It seems that Jewish Voice for Peace agrees that Chanukah is problematic for them:

The Story of Hanukkah
The history behind the story of Hanukkah is painful and complex. In the days before the Maccabean Revolt, Judea was firmly under the control of the Seleucid Empire. The Jewish elite of Judea had become largely Hellenized - the dominating culture of the day. In reality, the Jewish zealots led by the Maccabees fought as fiercely against assimilated Jewish Hellenists as they did against the Selucid Empire. The ancient rabbis, writing about 300 years after the Maccabees, were all too aware that the military victory of the Macabees was short lived and they did not want to glorify it. They chose a reading in the Haftarah to go alongside the painful history - “Not by might and not by power but by My spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.” (Zechariah 4:6). They wanted to underscore the dangers of putting our ultimate faith in military power over spirit.

The choice of Haftarah for Chanukah is because it talks about rededicating the Temple as well as Zechariah's vision of a seven-branched Menorah.

While it is true that the rabbis initially didn't want to emphasize the military aspect, they certainly didn't eliminate it. As the Maharal of Prague wrote, "The main reason that the days of Chanukah were instituted was to celebrate the victory over the Greeks. However, so that it would not seem that the victory was due only to might and heroism, rather than to Divine Providence, the miracle was denoted by the lighting of the Menorah, to show that it was all by a miracle, the war as well."

This is obvious by looking at the Al HaNissim passage addition to the prayers. It emphasizes the miraculous aspect of the military victory and doesn't mention the miracle of the oil at all.

JVP then says something strange:

Another story we tell during Hanukkah is that once the Maccabees made it to their desecrated temple, they found a Menorah that ritually needed to be kept lit at all times with only enough olive oil for one day. This small amount of oil kept the lamp lit for EIGHT days - lasting the time it took for a replenishment of oil to arrive. This is a mysterious divine creation of abundance from scarcity that we lift up. And this story is made up. (Check out the Talmud - Shabbat 21b.) Our Rabbis took the opportunity to teach the stories they wanted to lead us with. They reimagined history, in order to teach us something about who we could become–– a people with faith, not in militarism, but in a different kind of future. We are following in their footsteps.

The Talmud says the story is made up?

Shabbat 21b is the origin of the miracle of the oil story! It isn't mentioned in the Books of the Maccabees; it was first described in the Talmud:

מַאי חֲנוּכָּה? דְּתָנוּ רַבָּנַן: בְּכ״ה בְּכִסְלֵיו יוֹמֵי דַחֲנוּכָּה תְּמָנְיָא אִינּוּן דְּלָא לְמִסְפַּד בְּהוֹן וּדְלָא לְהִתְעַנּוֹת בְּהוֹן. שֶׁכְּשֶׁנִּכְנְסוּ יְווֹנִים לַהֵיכָל טִמְּאוּ כׇּל הַשְּׁמָנִים שֶׁבַּהֵיכָל. וּכְשֶׁגָּבְרָה מַלְכוּת בֵּית חַשְׁמוֹנַאי וְנִצְּחוּם, בָּדְקוּ וְלֹא מָצְאוּ אֶלָּא פַּךְ אֶחָד שֶׁל שֶׁמֶן שֶׁהָיָה מוּנָּח בְּחוֹתָמוֹ שֶׁל כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל, וְלֹא הָיָה בּוֹ אֶלָּא לְהַדְלִיק יוֹם אֶחָד. נַעֲשָׂה בּוֹ נֵס וְהִדְלִיקוּ מִמֶּנּוּ שְׁמוֹנָה יָמִים. לְשָׁנָה אַחֶרֶת קְבָעוּם וַעֲשָׂאוּם יָמִים טוֹבִים בְּהַלֵּל וְהוֹדָאָה.

The Gemara asks: What is Hanukkah, and why are lights kindled on Hanukkah? The Gemara answers: The Sages taught in Megillat Ta’anit: On the twenty-fifth of Kislev, the days of Hanukkah are eight. One may not eulogize on them and one may not fast on them. What is the reason? When the Greeks entered the Sanctuary they defiled all the oils that were in the Sanctuary by touching them. And when the Hasmonean monarchy overcame them and emerged victorious over them, they searched and found only one cruse of oil that was placed with the seal of the High Priest, undisturbed by the Greeks. And there was sufficient oil there to light the candelabrum for only one day. A miracle occurred and they lit the candelabrum from it eight days. The next year the Sages instituted those days and made them holidays with recitation of Hallel and special thanksgiving in prayer and blessings.

Where here does it say that it was made up?

The entire anti-Zionist view of Chanukah is necessarily bizarre because the plain story of the re-establishment of a Jewish government in Eretz Yisrael, and especially Jerusalem, contradicts everything that they believe.

You can be sure that when they refer to the Haftarah for that Shabbat, they don't want you to look at the very first verse: "רָנִּ֥י וְשִׂמְחִ֖י בַּת־צִיּ֑וֹן - Shout for joy, Fair Zion!"

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The Rafat and Zoreen Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, at the University of Notre Dame, says it is "dedicated to studying, learning from, and collaborating with religious communities worldwide for the common good. "

This week, it sponsored - along with the University of Notre Dame’s Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, Program in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies, and Department of Classics as co-sponsors - a discussion purported to be about "Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Voices on Arab-Israeli Normalization."

Every single panelist, as well as the moderator, is extremely anti-Israel.

The moderator, Charles W. Powell, started off with a non-sequitur of quoting a few anti-Israel articles from what he called an "independent news" website IMEMC. That site will write, in its "news" stories, about "fanatic illegal Israeli colonists," which gives you an idea as to its objectivity.

The speakers were:

Laila El Haddad, a BDS supporter who says that Israel is a terrorist state.

Rev. Mitri Raheb, who says that Ashkenazic Jews are Khazars and Jews have no historic connection to Israel.

Rabbi Brant Rosen, the go-to anti-Zionist Jew who compares Israel to Nazis and to Pharaoh.

Hatem Bazian, co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine who has spread classically antisemitic memes on social media.

These people all got together to discuss if Israel having agreements with Arab states is a good thing or not.

What do you think they would say?

How on Earth can you have a panel session on a topic like normalization between Israel and the Arab world without having a single Jew, Christian or Muslim who supports it? How can a university even promote something like this, pretending that it will shed light on a topic when every single panelist wants to see the Jewish state destroyed and replaced with yet another illiberal Arab dictatorship?

This makes Notre Dame look like a propaganda outlet, not a university that actually examines ideas and facts. Choosing such a one-sided panel on an issue that actually obviously promotes peace in the Middle East is especially egregious.

The entire webcast is here:

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If you want to know how much the Palestinian media values truth and objectivity, all you need to do is look at the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate (PJS).

Their "Vision" statement does not mention either of those words.

Instead, it stresses "professionalism" in - propaganda: "Palestinian media professionals contribute significantly to popularizing Palestinian national values, principles, meanings, and priorities, especially the struggle against the occupation."

And it does not want to have anything to do with Israeli journalists:"The Syndicate will not ...take any positions that promote normalization with the occupation state, and it will develop measures to counter any participation by members aimed at normalization..."

This week it showed that it takes its anti-Israel and propaganda stances very seriously.

At Kan News, two reporters visited Ramallah and included in the report are interviews with restaurant owners who are doing very well during the COVID-19 crisis - their establishments are full and Palestinians are enjoying themselves without any social distancing.

The PJS is livid.

First of all, this report made Palestinians look like they are not all poor refugees begging for aid, and that Ramallah's nightlife is not too different from Tel Aviv's.

Secondly, it made the residents of Ramallah look like they don't care about COVID.

Thirdly, it counters the Palestinian narrative of Israel's economic strangulation of the West Bank because some of these businesses are thriving, and that it not something the media should be showing.

The PJS released a statement against the restaurant owners for allowing themselves to be interviewed by Israeli reporters, saying that this is a form of "normalization" that is unacceptable.

They also called on the PA government to do what it can to ban Israeli reporters from visiting the territories and reporting on what they see.

Because the truth is not a Palestinian media principle.

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12/03 Links Pt2: UNRWA's Moment of Truth; David Collier: The Guardian – lost between antisemites and oblivion; Omar and Tlaib Headline Anti-Israel Hatefest

From Ian:

UNRWA's Moment of Truth

First Step to Reform

Perhaps the most important step UNRWA can take is to adopt the same standards as the UNHCR. Specifically, UNRWA must take real measures toward the ultimate resettlement of refugees in the host states as envisaged by its original mandate, so as to transform them from passive welfare recipients into productive and enterprising citizens of their respective societies. This is not something that can occur overnight, or even in a few years, but unless a realistic 10-year resettlement plan is crafted, the ever-increasing numbers of perpetual "refugees" kept in squalid camps will never decrease.

UNRWA must take real measures toward the ultimate resettlement of refugees in host states.

While there have been numerous studies, audits, and assessments of UNRWA's operational deficiencies—from resistance to reform, to cover-up of gender issues and sexual abuse by UNRWA workers, to overall human resource and commercial transaction mismanagement—no independent, external financial audit has ever been demanded by the donor states to account for the use, or possible abuse, of their decades-long massive donations to UNRWA: How much of this money is spent on anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement through funding of PLO-dictated textbooks and teachers' guides? How much money is spent on wages for Hamas-affiliated employees who are not legally permitted to be on UNRWA's payroll, and how much on providing facilities for summer training of schoolchildren in terrorism? And above all, how much donor money is spent on perpetuating the Palestinians' "refugeedom" rather than to "start [the refugees] on the road to rehabilitation and bring an end to their enforced idleness and the demoralizing effect of a dole," to use the words of the 1949 Economic Survey Mission, whose recommendations informed UNRWA's original mandate.[29]

Donor states are not only entitled to know how their taxpayers' monies are being spent but have an obligation and responsibility to assure that they are spent on the purposes for which they were donated, and not on those that violate U.N. directives or international law. To date, this has not been done. Only an audit by the donor states will empower reform.

Conclusion The time has come for the geopolitical realities of the 2020s to be confronted head-on. The PLO, while clinging to its eternal rejectionism as evidenced among other things by its "destroy the Zionist entity" school curriculum, is nevertheless not the PLO of Yasser Arafat. Hamas, though still committed to its ultimate goal of destroying Israel, is amenable to suspension of hostilities in return for humanitarian aid, either directly (e.g., regular flow of Qatari money to Gaza) or indirectly (e.g., training Gaza medical students in Israeli hospitals, hospitalizing serious COVID-19 patients in Israeli hospitals).[30] And the Arab states seem less inclined than ever to make their national interests captive to the whims of the Palestinian leadership as evidenced by the recent normalization accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan and the strengthening relations between the Jewish state and the other Arab states.

In addition, UNRWA faces its greatest challenge in decades as Washington, its largest donor, slashed its financial support while the U.N.'s own oversight watchdogs investigated the agency's financial irregularities as it pleads impoverishment over a deficit figure variously ranging between $332 million and over $1 billion.[31] But UNRWA's plea seems to strike a weaker chord even in the European Union where the narrative of the perpetually impoverished Palestinian refugees seems to have worn thin and where the unquestioned propping up of UNRWA's failed mission is coming under growing scrutiny by those who used to be its most vocal champions.

As the Arab and Western states face their long-overdue obligations to help proactively to resolve the Palestinian "refugee problem," the agency's 70-year-long "works" must either profoundly reform or become irrelevant.

Forbes’ Fundraising Appeal on Behalf of UNRWA

Given that well over 90 percent of the Palestinian population lives within Area A, which is fully under Palestinian civilian and security control, the assertion that every time a Palestinian steps outside s/he is “confront with occupation” is absurd. Indeed, a map published by the United Nations’ own Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs plainly shows that, checkpoints — where Israeli soldiers are found in the West Bank — are scattered, and Palestinians can travel freely within their communities and also to other locations without encountering soldiers or settlers.

Abramiam’s article was full of praise for UNRWA schools and their teachers, ignoring that the same institutions have come under heavy criticism for their indoctrination of youth with anti-Israel and antisemitic incitement. UNRWA staff have called for the murder of Jews, revered Hitler and celebrated the deaths of Israelis.

In an article about UNRWA’s funding shortfall, ForbesWomens’ Abramiam neglected to mention that Switzerland and the Netherlands suspended their donations to UNRWA for several months in 2019 due to an internal ethics report alleging mismanagement, including sexual misconduct. Deutsche Welle reported in July 2019:

The Swiss foreign ministry announced on Tuesday that it would suspend funding of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), after the agency’s own ethics department reported allegations of sexual misconduct, nepotism and discrimination.

Such revelations, however, would belie Lewis’ parting message that “UNRWA is extraordinary–with an amazing cadre of educators and staff that need support. The potential and the possibilities have been stolen and need to be restored.”

David Collier: The Guardian – lost between antisemites and oblivion

The Guardian newspaper is on a mission. Over the last few days, it has published several ‘Jew-hostile’ news and opinion pieces. For example, two that attempted to discredit the EHRC (the statutory body that conducted the investigation into Labour’s antisemitism), and two more that set out to undermine the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

The David Feldman piece The criticism of the IHRA definition of antisemitism came first in the form of a letter signed by over 100 Arab ‘intellectual’ voices. Most are names that are instantly recognisable as political anti-Israel activists. The other attack on the IHRA was an article written by David Feldman. Feldman is director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London.

David Feldman was rolled out because he is Jewish. Just as the Guardian loves to print anti-Israel letters from the Jewish modern Yevsektsiya groups. The haters learned long ago, that if you want to effectively attack Jews, make sure you pick up a Jew to do it with.

Feldman’s main positions are that the IHRA definition curtails free speech and that he believes in an ‘all lives matter’ approach to racism. As David Hirsh expertly points out, ‘the All Lives Matter‘ approach is far from helpful. Hirsh’s article is well worth a read and therefore I have no intention of covering all that ground here.

Another major problem with the ‘all racism matters’ approach is that whole strands of anti-Jewish racism today are coming from parts of the Muslim community and Black Lives matter activists. Jews are explicitly ‘othered’ by members of these groups and often cannot enter their spaces to discuss racism with them.

The right to free speech Much of the Jewish community, along with the Government have been campaigning to pressure universities to adopt the IHRA definition.

The argument over the right to free speech is an important one. Frivolous accusations of antisemitism should be shouted down loudly. Calling someone an antisemite because they do not like the Likud or Israeli building in parts of Jerusalem is not antisemitism. But then the IHRA doesn’t say that it is. People who raise these sorts of arguments are deflecting.

Jewish people need defending – especially on campus. The main thrust of the opponents of the IHRA definition is coming from antisemites who want to continue to be antisemitic. They must be pushed back.

Anti-Semitism and Israel's Right to Exist

The 122 Palestinian and Arab intellectuals (Letters, 29 November) have taken it upon themselves to define antisemitism and the struggle for Jewish rights. This is a mistaken approach which also fails to understand the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Antisemitism manifests itself, in part, by denying to Jews their collective right to self-determination under international law. That is why the view of Israel as a “racist endeavour” is an example within the IHRA definition. A Jewish majority state is no more racist than a Muslim or Christian one.

The current plight of Palestinians, far from being an intrinsic feature of Zionism, is the outcome of a tragic conflict between two peoples. In recent decades, Israel has made at least four offers to partition the land and create a Palestinian state, with every offer rebuffed, often violently. Palestinian rejectionism is thus the main cause of their statelessness.

The IHRA definition does insist that legitimate criticism of Israel, similar to that levelled against other countries, cannot be antisemitic. Denying Israel its right to exist as a sovereign state is a different matter.

Two men are offered $100,000.00 -- All they have to do to earn it is to come to an agreement on how they will split the money among themselves.

No problem.

Except that one of the men refuses to split the money evenly. Instead, he demands 90% of the cash or he will leave and neither of them will get anything -- and he insists on receiving that 90% regardless of the other man's arguments. Sure enough, realizing that the 'blackmailer' is not going to budge, the other man realizes he has no choices other than to agree to accept 10% of the money, or leave empty-handed.

So he takes the $10,000.

And the blackmailer pockets the other $90,000.

Welcome to the pre-Trump Middle East.

Nobel Prize winner Robert Aumann described this in 2010 as "The Blackmailer's Paradox," and explains how Israel's desire for peace with the Arabs suffers from the same problems.

Namely:

1. There is an underlying assumption that agreements must be reached with the Arabs at any price -- and the failure to reach an agreement is unacceptable.

2. Just like the man who accepts the $10,000 -- who sees the situation as a one-time game -- Israel focuses on the short, immediate term instead of seeing the immediate situation as part of the long term, and as an opportunity to establish precedents and initiatives for another, different opportunity at some point down the road. In the paradox above, instead of accepting the $10,000 -- the man could have stood his ground and refused to give in, thereby setting the groundwork for a potential opportunity that might come up later.

Lee Smith fleshes out this point in an interview with Aumann:

Aumann believes that the problem isn’t that the Israelis and Arabs don’t want peace, but rather that the Israelis and their U.S. patron believe they are playing a one-time game whereas the Arabs see themselves as playing a repeated game. Jerusalem and Washington are in a hurry to conclude negotiations immediately, whereas the Arabs are willing to wait it out and keep playing the same game. The result is that Israel’s concessions, or the desire to have peace now, have brought no peace.

...“For repetition to engender co-operation, the players must not be too eager for immediate results,” Aumann said in his lecture. “The present, the now, must not be important. If you want peace now, you may well never get peace. But if you have time—if you can wait—that changes the whole picture; then you may get peace now.”

3. Like the blackmailer, the Arabs have complete and total faith in their position, which empowers them to demand preconditions and even concessions up front. This confidence also convinces the other side, and the West in general, of the rightness of the Arab cause.

In his blog First One Through, Paul Gherkin has a post, Nikki Haley Channels Robert Aumann at the UN Security Council, where he runs down how Israel failed on all 3 of the above points during the Obama administration:

Meanwhile, Israel collapsed under Obama on all three points. It was compelled to publicly state its support for a two state solution which may-or-may-not be the best outcome for an enduring peace. It was repeatedly pushed for “good will gestures” that showed that Israel would take immediate action and would not walk away from the table. And far-left wing organizations such as J Street and the New Israel Fund actively undermined the faith and conviction that Jews have a basic human right to live in homes that they legally purchase. [emphasis added]

The peace process was left in shambles.

And what would the alternative look like?

Jonathan Mark, the associate editor of The New York Jewish Week, describes the alternative to the "good will gesture" approach, à la Aumann's approach, this way:

The idea isn’t convincing the other guys to like you, or to even be civil to you. The idea is to convince them that you’re prepared to walk; that you’re thinking long-term, not just Obama’s term; that you convince yourself that you’re playing for keeps, that you have the winning hand, that you’re the meanest dog in the junk yard — showing your teeth, even as you smile — and in the process you convince your opponent, too.

And that is what the Trump administration did, by taking the step which the Obama administration never contemplated: recognizing and supporting some of Israel's claims, while at the same time holding back on support of the Palestinian Arabs.

In response, the Arabs did what they consistently do. They played the long game as opposed to the one-time game -- and waited out the Trump administration.

What Trump did was change the way the game was played.

Kind of like the Kobayashi Maru.

In the second Star Trek movie, the Kobayashi Maru is a training exercise designed to test the character of Starfleet cadets in a no-win scenario. The cadet is assigned in a simulation to rescue the disabled civilian vessel Kobayashi Maru, located in the Klingon Neutral Zone, knowing that any Starfleet ship entering the zone will cause an interstellar border incident. The cadet crew must choose whether to attempt a rescue of the Kobayashi Maru crew – endangering their own ship and lives – or abandon the Kobayashi Maru to certain destruction. If the cadet chooses to attempt a rescue, the simulation is deliberately designed to guarantee that the cadet's ship is destroyed with the loss of all crew members.

In the movie, Captain Kirk is the only one to ever successfully complete the mission, rescue the Kobayashi Maru, and escape the Klingons unscathed.

How?

Kirk secretly reprogrammed the computer to allow for the possibility of rescue -- because he does not believe in "no-win" scenarios.

In going contrary to accepted wisdom, both in pursuing Middle East peace with other Arab countries while bypassing the Palestinian Arabs and in applying pressure on the Palestinian Arabs instead of on Israel, Trump rewrote the accepted, calcified way of pursuing peace -- Trump basically pursued a strategy worthy of Captain Kirk.

Source: YouTube screencap

Well, maybe not exactly.

But the degree to which Trump exploded the accepted myths by reprogramming how Middle East peace can be accomplished can be seen in the reactions that followed.

According to Wikipedia, while the movie itself does not discuss the consequences of rejecting the rescue mission, it is discussed in Star Trek novels and video games that followed -- with consequences that include the mutiny of the crew.

So while Trump has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize (similar to Kirk receiving a commendation for "original thinking"), there has also been a backlash.

Øyvind Tønnesson, a former adviser and editor for the Nobel Institute's Peace Prize section, told Newsweek:

In principle, then, I would not rule out either Netanyahu nor Trump as theoretically possible NPP [Nobel Peace Prize] candidates. My personal opinion, however, is that their policies and personal records stand, for the most part, in stark contrast to the main trajectories in international peace politics that the NPP has followed since 1901.

To which Aumann offered the counterargument:

The Peace Prize is for peace, not for being a nice guy. It's true that it was given to Mother Teresa and later to Obama, but neither one brought peace. Netanyahu brought peace, and is bringing more of the same.

And it is interesting to imagine if Trump might have brought more of the same as well.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Tlaib:"Stop Misinterpreting The 'From The River To The Sea' Call For Genocide As A Call For Genocide" (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Stop Misinterpreting The 'From The River To The Sea' Call For Genocide As A Call For Genocide

by House Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)

Rashida Tlaib Washington, December 3 - A few days ago I felt compelled to remove a message I reposted from elsewhere on Twitter, a message that contained the oft-repeated slogan of Palestinian national liberation, "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free." I decided to undo the retweet because, I belatedly understood, too many people would choose to distort the meaning of that aspiration for rendering the Jews and their welfare once again at the mercy of outside powers as an aspiration to render the Jews and their welfare once again at the mercy of outside powers.

Of course, once tweeted, even if untweeted, content on the internet can never truly be removed, all the more so when that content comes from or through a public figure; screen captures and other techniques ensured that my deletion of the post did an incomplete job of undoing it, and my political opponents proved all too ready to exploit my error for their own propaganda purposes. They now argue that a call to place Jewish survival in the hands of a culture that allied itself, under Mufti Husseini, with Hitler's genocidal regime, betrays a desire to pursue a genocidal agenda. How many attacks against Jews and Jewish interests will it take to convince the public otherwise? I shudder to consider the answer.

This hardly represents the first time the noble goals of Palestinian liberation, of freeing historic Palestine from the villainous Zionist usurper rapist descendants of apes and swine, has been miscast as driven by animus for Jews or their sovereignty. Palestinians have no objections to Jewish sovereignty; only to Jewish sovereignty that in any way attenuates the contingent, vulnerable status Jews have always held in Muslim society. Stop trying to twist that principle into something antisemitic.

My opponents will never truly be satisfied with these explanations, a fact that merely demonstrates the lack of good faith behind their position. When a pro-Palestine activist finds himself or herself restricted from intimidating Jewish students into silence over the actions of a group of Jews on a different continent, that carries disturbing implications for freedom of speech. When Islamic charities face criminal charges for raising funds for Hamas and other Palestinian liberation groups, that carries disturbing implications for freedom of religion - all because propagandists insist on misinterpreting the Palestinian call to facilitate genocide as a Palestinian call to facilitate genocide. And that must stop.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

12/03 Links Pt1: Joe Biden’s Dream of a Worse Iran Nuclear Deal; WB goods to be labeled Israeli in Bahrain; U.N. Targets Israel in 5 Resolutions, Rest of the World 0

From Ian:

Noah Rothman: Joe Biden’s Dream of a Worse Iran Nuclear Deal

In the final days of the Obama administration, it was fashionable for the deal’s defenders to dismiss its critics by contending that Iran was in full compliance with the terms of the accords. But those critics did not disagree. Their problem was always that “full compliance” was not difficult to achieve.

Iran provided inspectors access to declared nuclear sites but not military sites where illicit activities were likeliest to occur. A subsequent agreement allowed inspectors the opportunity to access suspect sites but only with at least 24-days-notice—enough to dispose of the evidence of small-scale work on components related to a bomb. But functionally, that 24-day timeline could be reset by Iran, which could stretch the delays out for weeks—ample time to deceive inspectors.

The IAEA routinely insisted that they had ample access to sites like Natanz and Fordow, though the uranium-enriching centrifuges at those sites were only mothballed and could be quickly restored (as they were last year). But inspectors were blocked from accessing sites like the Parchin military complex, where Iran allegedly conducted nuclear explosives and hydrodynamic testing before bulldozing the area and layering it with asphalt. To satisfy observers unnerved by Iran’s intrigues, Tehran was allowed to use its own inspectors to take environmental samples from around Parchin. Shocking though it may be, neither the Iranians nor the IAEA inspectors who checked their work found anything untoward.

The IAEA also insisted that it regularly conducted snap inspections of various civilian and military sites, but Western diplomats noted that nearly all of those inspections were of places like university laboratories or manufacturing plants with little sensitive intelligence value. When pressed by the former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley in 2017 to reinspect some suspicious military sites to satisfy the Trump administration’s concerns, the IAEA declined—insisting, correctly, that the terms of the deal required a specific and credible basis to request such intrusive inspections.

The deference afforded to Iran didn’t end there. In 2018, a spectacularly successful Israeli intelligence operation recovered a cache of documents related to the Iranian weapons program that clearly illustrates the extensive work the Islamic Republic had done in pursuit of a fissionable device. Those documents were hidden away, presumably to be pulled out of storage after the deal had expired and Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon had been fully legitimized. But Iran was under no obligation to disclose those documents, even though it had repeatedly claimed (and former secretary of State John Kerry affirmed) that all of Iran’s past nuclear-weapons work was on the table.

The JCPOA was never designed to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear-nation status. It was only aimed at dragging that process out while reshuffling the region’s geopolitical deck in Iran’s favor and ultimately providing a patina of legitimacy to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Any talk about exhuming and reanimating this agreement that glosses over its weak verification regime suggests that the Biden administration, like the Obama administration, will settle for any deal—even a bad one. When Iran is on the ropes, it’s Joe Biden who is committed to negotiating from a position of weakness.

Iran's Mullahs Want the "Nuclear Deal", So Does Biden

Iran's mullahs love the nuclear deal because of its fundamental flaws, especially the sunset clauses that remove restrictions on Iran's nuclear program after the deal expires soon. The nuclear deal, rather than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, as it was falsely touted to do, in fact paves the way for Tehran to become a legitimized nuclear state.

With the nuclear deal, the regime would gain global legitimacy, making it even more difficult to hold Iran's leaders accountable for any malign behavior or terror activity across the world.

Finally, Iran's ruling clerics want immediately to rejoin the nuclear deal because it would again alienate other governments in the Middle East and inevitably lead to a worsening of relations between the US and its traditional allies, especially Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

This flawed deal, in favor of Iran, failed to recognize the rightful concerns of other countries in the region about Iran's potential nuclear capability, missile proliferation or funding of violent proxies -- both within and next door to their territories.

Iran’s Guardian Council Approves Law on Hardening Nuclear Stance, Halting UN Inspections

Iran‘s Guardian Council watchdog body approved a law on Wednesday that obliges the government to halt UN inspections of its nuclear sites and step up uranium enrichment beyond the limit set under Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal if sanctions are not eased in two months.

In retaliation for the killing last week of Iran‘s top nuclear scientist, which Tehran has blamed on Israel, Iran‘s hardline-dominated parliament on Tuesday approved the bill with a strong majority that will harden Iran‘s nuclear stance.

The Guardian Council is charged with ensuring draft laws do not contradict Shi’ite Islamic laws or Iran’s constitution. However, the stance of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on all matters of state, is not known.

“Today in a letter, the parliament speaker officially asked the president to implement the new law,” Iran‘s semi-official Fars news agency reported.

Under the new law, Tehran would give two months to the deal’s European parties to ease sanctions on Iran‘s oil and financial sectors, imposed after Washington quit the pact between Tehran and six powers in 2018.

In reaction to US President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy on Tehran, Iran has gradually reduced its compliance with the deal.

The law pushed by hardline lawmakers would make it harder for US President-elect Joe Biden, who will take office on Jan. 20, to rejoin the agreement.

This makes no sense. Once you give Iran JCPOA 1.0, you have given it everything, including a bomb. It has no incentive to agree to JCPOA 2.0. Anybody who has read the text will understand this. https://t.co/gW0Z9HDvzZ
— Mike (@Doranimated) December 2, 2020