Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Are Israeli Jews “Betraying” Americans by Liking Trump? (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

Here we go again. Another yawning gulf between Israelis and American Jews, “a rupture that threatens Jews everywhere, the trust between Jews in Israel and the Diaspora, and in the long run, Israel,” say Evan Morris and Dennis Jett.
It’s not bad enough that the Israeli religious establishment does not show respect for Reform “Judaism,” or that we can’t appreciate how much Barack Obama really “[had] our back,” or that we keep electing “right-wing” governments with Bibi Netanyahu as PM, or that we keep failing to understand how an enemy state in mortar range of our center of population and our single international airport would actually be good for us.
It’s much worse than any of that. In fact, we are “going off the rails” and have “betrayed our American cousins.”
We did this by preferring Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
Oh sure, Trump did what no American president cared to do, carried out the will of the Congress and moved the embassy to the capital of the Jewish state. Clinton, Bush, and Obama loved to talk about our “unbreakable relationship,” but when it came down to the legitimacy of our presence in Jerusalem, they religiously signed that waiver every six months. Trump even instructed the oft-antisemitic State Department to allow those born in Jerusalem to have “Jerusalem, Israel” on their passports. Compare that to the Obama Administration’s refusal to say what country Jerusalem was in – they even scrubbed “Jerusalem, Israel” from official websites.
No big deal, Morris and Jett said. “Trump is not a reliable ally and could never be … Given the right circumstance or perceived slight, Trump would turn on Israel.” So then Trump went and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and sponsored the development of a peace plan that was for the first time based on reality, rather than Henry Kissinger’s 1974 promise to the Arabs to reverse the result of the 1967 war.
Trump did even more. He spurned the view that the Palestinians should be given unlimited aid regardless of their behavior, and enforced the Taylor Force act that demanded aid be reduced when it was used to pay terrorists. He ended the perpetual support for the descendants of the Arab refugees of 1948, and disproved the idea – expressed by John Kerry (ironic video) in 2016 – that appeasement of the Palestinians was a precondition for normalization with the larger Arab world.
And now, although already a lame duck, Trump continues to promote normalization between Israel and multiple Arab and Muslim countries. We’re still waiting for him to “turn on us.” Are you surprised that Israelis overwhelmingly prefer Trump to Biden, who promises to re-enter the Iran deal and go back to giving the Palestinians a free pass in an interminable “peace process?” How could it be otherwise?
Nevertheless Morris and Jett insist that Trump is Bad For The Jews. They say he represents “emerging Fascism.” And how do we know this? Because Trump “alternately excused and encouraged” “the white supremacists that marched in Charlottesville.” In fact, he did no such thing. The accusation is a perfect example of the Big Lie technique: it has been repeated countless times, and has now entered the realm of conventional wisdom. But it still isn’t true.
Morris and Jett say Trump supporters “promulgate conspiracy theories based on antisemitic lies.” Maybe some do, just like some of the remarkably vicious members of the American Left who are on the other side. Israelis are not in touch with the details of American politics, nor do we follow the swirling winds of accusations thrown at each other by the two sides. But I have yet to hear anything antisemitic from Trump himself.
Antisemitism is clearly burgeoning in America, and that is rightly a serious concern for American Jews. But the attempt to blame Trump for it – while ignoring the anti-Trump extremists like the Pittsburgh shooter, the Farrakhanists, the Black Hebrews, and the misozionist Left – is dangerously mistaken, despite its wholesale adoption by the Trump-hostile media.
Apparently Morris and Jett think as little of Netanyahu as they do of Trump, calling our PM “boorish” for waiting about 12 hours after other foreign leaders to congratulate Biden on the election. This is the cheapest shot imaginable, considering that the official announcement came on Shabbat, 7 November, and Netanyahu tweeted his congratulations on Sunday.
The piece concludes with an accusation that Israelis are “willing to ignore the very real threat to our democracy, to our way of life and safety, just to help advance [their] own parochial needs.” I admit to being struck almost dumb by this. The Iran deal and the conflict with the Palestinians could have existential consequences for Israel. America has enormous power and influence, which its presidents often wield in our region, sometimes to our great disadvantage, as in the case of President Obama. Israel, on the other hand, has little power to influence America; PM Netanyahu pulled out all the stops to derail the pernicious Iran deal, without success. Perhaps our concerns are “parochial,” but they are quite serious. And I remind them that Donald Trump received more votes than any previous American presidential candidate, even if he did not win the election.* So the vileness of Trump is not a forgone conclusion.
The entire article has an unfriendly, even threatening tone, as if to suggest that if we don’t fall in line with the 77% of American Jews who voted for Biden, we’ll be sorry.
The two authors are not just a pair of idiots, as the content of the article suggests. Morris is a specialist in biomedical engineering and radiology and a psychiatrist who teaches at Yale. Jett is a former ambassador who had a long career with the US State Department, and now teaches International Affairs at Penn State. Both were Fulbright scholars who worked in Israel.
But they share the arrogance of Americans who don’t understand the interests and apprehensions of Israelis, and who would prefer that we play our role as a banana republic that is an American satellite, quietly.
_________________________
* No, I’m not going to comment on whether the election was fair.

12/16 Links Pt2: Why Does the World Ignore Israel’s Need to Prevent Terror Attacks?; The Bundestag, BDS and ex-pat Israelis in Berlin; Jay Leno shares his support and love for Israel

From Ian:

David Collier: Channel 4 – meet the extremists in the ‘Palestinian voices’ news clip

Channel 4 – The PREVENT inversion

One of the most ‘in-your-face’ errors in the piece came when the news item showed a screenshot of part of the PREVENT guidelines. We were shown just a fraction of an image and told these are possible indicators of extremism.
The film omitted or obscured the text below these statements which reads:
"It is not extremist to hold any of these views – provided they are not expressed in a way that harasses others or incites violence – and this is the fundamental point." (2/7) pic.twitter.com/NVwYirrSOp
— William Baldét MBE (@WillBaldet) December 15, 2020

Except in the news item they completely inverted the meaning of the words that were written in the document. As William Baldet MBE, CVE PREVENT Coordinator thoroughly explained on Twitter- to provide the screenshot without any of the text that follows is to completely change the context of the document. Baldet states quite clearly that the slide content has been misrepresented to imply the *opposite* of its intent. The text literally goes on to say that *it is not extremist* to hold these views if they are not expressed in a way that harasses others or incites violence.

Channel 4 goes full racist After talking with the Palestinians in the room, we meet Avi Shlaim, who is introduced as an ‘Israeli historian’. Shlaim lived for about 8 years in Israel and he has lived here for the last 54 years. Whether he also has Israeli citizenship is not relevant – he is British. Is this acceptable now, do we ‘other’ people who were not born here and negate the fact that Shlaim has spent almost all his life here? Shlaim got married in Islington in the 1970s. How British does he have to be before Channel 4 identify him as British? Can you imagine them doing this to someone who has lived in the UK for 50 years, but who also carry a second citizenship such as Indian, Pakistani or Nigerian? It is absolutely outrageous that they chose to play this kind of racist ‘othering’ trick, simply to strengthen their own propaganda.

Why no voices?

Why are there no voices on mainstream TV? I would argue that Palestinian voices are over-represented. ‘Palestine’ certainly gets a disproportionate amount of attention in the press. If only the Uighurs or Rohingya or Syrians – people who are actually persecuted – were given so much time. But if we are to address why these specific people and those like them are not given airtime, it is chiefly because the media outlets know what they are going to say *AND* know much of it is factually incorrect, offensive and often antisemitic.

You cannot blame the BBC, the Telegraph or any of the mainstream outlets for the fact these people were brought up on myths and are actively spreading propaganda and lies. That they take every opportunity that they can to politicise an event. Why on earth should anyone help them spread their lies?

But I suppose that is the question we now must ask Channel 4.

There is only one course of action that must be taken here. Watch the clip then please complain to OFCOM. Make *YOUR* voices heard.

CAA submits complaint to Ofcom over Channel 4’s segment claiming International Definition of Antisemitism “silences” criticism of Israel, with no input from any mainstream Jewish representative

Campaign Against Antisemitism is submitting a complaint to Ofcom regarding a segment on Channel 4 News that aired last night that was devoted to criticism of the International Definition of Antisemitism.

Speakers during the segment repeatedly stated that the Definition “silenced” debate about Israel, which is precisely the “Livingstone Formulation” that the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) confirmed was used to victimise Jews in the Labour Party to such an extent that it broke equalities law (Campaign Against Antisemitism was the complainant in the EHRC’s investigation of the Labour Party). In using this antisemitic formulation, the segment breached Ofcom’s guidance on harm and offence.

The failure to include a single representative from the mainstream Jewish community – in which there is a consensus in favour of widespread adoption of the Definition – represented a failure by Channel 4 News to show due impartiality in its programme, which is also a breach of Ofcom’s guidance.

The segment lasted almost ten minutes.

Covid-19 Was One of the Biomed Industry’s Finest Hours, Says Israeli Silicon Valley Veteran

“It’s been only 11 months since the coronavirus pandemic broke out and we already have vaccines being distributed around the world. There is no doubt, this has been one of the biomed sector’s finest hours,” said Aya Jakobovits, a serial entrepreneur and investor in the life science sector in an interview to CTech. “It really showcased the depth of new technology and its ability to integrate into solutions quickly and effectively. All of a sudden there is a new interest in infectious diseases that arises from the understanding that there will be more pandemics in the future.”

Jakobovits spoke to CTech from Los Angeles, but is a Silicon Valley veteran, having arrived on the West Coast of the US in 1982 for her postdoctoral studies, after completing her first degrees in Israel at the Hebrew University and a PhD at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Since then, she founded and held senior management positions at a series of life science companies, including Adicet Bio, Kite Pharma, Agensys, Abgenix, and Cell Genesys and currently sits on the boards of Adicet Bio, UCLA Technology Development Corporation, and Yeda Research and Development Co. Her accumulated work in bringing novel technologies and therapeutic products to market brought over $14 billion to shareholders.

Jakobovits is one of the main speakers at the J-Ventures annual investor’s conference, which is taking place this week, an organization she joined a year ago and has found to be a fertile hub for the sector.

92% of Israel’s COVID-19 fatalities had existing chronic diseases — report

Over 90 percent of those who have died of coronavirus infection in Israel were suffering from chronic ailments such as heart disease, high blood pressure or diabetes, Haaretz reported Tuesday, citing figures it had obtained from the Health Ministry.

The data also showed that the virus had taken its largest toll on those over 70 years old, who make up 80% of the fatalities.

At the time the figures were produced for the newspaper, there had been 3,004 deaths in Israel from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The total stood at 3,030 on Wednesday evening.

Health officials are warning that the country is plunging into a third wave of infections that by next week will require the government to again clamp down on some aspects of public life, in an effort to stave off what would be a third national lockdown since the virus outbreak began earlier this year.

Of the 3,004 who had died by Tuesday, 2,778 had chronic diseases, or 92% of the total, Haaretz reported.

A breakdown showed 1,019 had high blood pressure (34%), 750 had diabetes (25%), 633 had heart issues (21%), 246 had chronic lung disorders (8%), 99 had suppressed immune systems (3%) and 31 had chronic liver problems (1%).

Age also played a key role, with data showing that the average age of virus victims has been 79, and the median age 81.

With COVID hitting hard, Brazil's Jews look toward Israel

With Brazil being one of the worst-hit nations in the coronavirus pandemic, the Jewish community has had to find ways to cope with the new reality.

Leaders have said that even as they have followed closely close what has been unfolding in Israel, they have also had to reinvent themselves.

"This was also our way of coping with the new fundraising reality," President of the Jewish Confederation of Brazil and WJC Vice President Fernando Lottenberg told Israel Hayom, recalling that more than many Jews have died from the disease in the country.

Lottenberg, who has a PhD in international public law, has described the impact of the virus on the community as "super dramatic." According to Lottenberg, "During normal times it's hard to maintain contact, but now people keep approaching me and asking whether they can lend a helping hand to the community. Perhaps next year, we will be able to congregate in our synagogues once again and hold the normal meetings, but I hope that we won't forget the positive impact that has been imposed on us due to the pandemic."

He also noted that the Jewish-built hospital in São Paulo has played an important role in highlighting the community's contribution to public health. Rabbi Ezra Dayan, who oversees kashrut supervision in Brazil, says he has been doing his work through Zoom for the past five months. "The biggest challenge is to make sure the kashrut system does not collapse and thank G-d it hasn't. "We supervise hundreds of establishments, and now online supervision is just a fact of life. It's amazing how we can do all this from São Paulo, considering that Brazil is the size of a continent.

Chanukah Music Video night 7: "Am Ne'emanay" (Galeet Dardashti and Divahn) plus a bonus older video from them

The band wrote on Facebook:

Happy almost Hanukah, friends! I'm sharing a clip of "Am Ne'mamay," a Hanukah song from Divahn's new album, Shalhevet (which literally means "flame" in Hebrew). We hoped that our album could offer some light amidst dark times...even before the pandemic! This performance is from our March 7, 2020 album release at Joe's Pub (and the last time we performed together). The song is one of the most popular Chanukah songs among North African Jews. The text was written by the most renowned Morrocan paytan (composer of sacred songs) of his generation, David Buzaglo, and the melody comes from Ya um alabaya (“The girl who wore an abaya”), made famous by Iraqi singer Badria Anwer. Special thanks to Yossi Ohana and Kehillot Sharot for sharing this piyyut with me years ago and to Zafer Tawil for helping me track down the song in Arabic. You can hear/see lyrics/purchase the full song here: https://divahn.bandcamp.com/track/am-neemanay. Enjoy! We hope you'll sing it this year and that it brings you some needed light! "

They had made a different Chanukah-themed music video in 2017, Banu Choshech (We've Come to Chase Away the Darkness):

(h/t Yerushalimey)

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“Settlements” is the chosen subject of many a question posted by the anti-Israel crowd on Quora. The word has been, for ages, a dirty word in the lexicon of the Arab War Against the Jews. And in fact, even among right-wing Israeli Jews, the word “settlements” has fallen into disfavor. We don’t need this word, because it’s enough to say we’re building homes. And every human being has the right to shelter, especially in indigenous territory where previously, no homes existed, land that was returned to Israel when the Jews were attacked and fought back.

We didn’t ask for the wars. We have a right to the land we regained. We have a right to shelter and to build homes on Jewish land. Full stop.

The world, however, believes that Jews have no right to shelter. They call the settlements “illegal.” Because they prefer to think of it this way. And after Europe went ahead and murdered close to 7 million Jews in the Holocaust, they now want us to have no place to go. They want to install the Arabs on our land, strip the Jewish State of its ancient name “Israel,” and revert instead to the insulting Roman designation of “Palestine.” They want to take away Jewish land from the Jews and call it an Arab state.

Just as this antisemitic, anti-Israel crowd has managed to turn reality on its head, robbing Jews of their rights to Jewish land and to shelter, we have a responsibility to restore the narrative of truth, by constantly driving these facts home to the public. Quora is a good place for this. On Quora you have the anti-Israel crowd pushing lies, but you also have people pushing back with the truth.

By way of example, not long ago, I was asked to answer the following question on Quora:

Why are Israeli settlements in the West Bank all over the place? Isn't this dangerous for Israel? Won't this culminate in a binational state as it makes it difficult to partition the land?

There were some pretty detailed responses among the answers, but I kept my own response short and to the point, believing this to be better absorbed by readers, and therefore more efficient than a long and wordy answer:

It’s not the West Bank. No water in sight. It is and has been for thousands of years, Judea and Samaria. It is part of Jewish indigenous territory, and like any other human beings, Jews have a right to shelter. No reason they shouldn’t build homes for themselves or establish towns and cities in their ancient homeland.

It takes very little time to craft a quick response like this and to do so is as important as any other work we can do on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people. Every time someone answers a lie with the truth, the narrative of truth is strengthened and spreads further into the ether that is public opinion. How do we know this work is bearing fruit? The UAE will be importing olive oil and wine from Samaria, and Bahrain was going to label items from Judea and Samaria as “made in Israel” before they retracted that decision, presumably due to pressure from the PA.

At Chanuka time, we remember that the Greeks tried to Hellenize the Jews of Israel, forbidding circumcision, Sabbath observance, and the study of Torah. The Greek occupiers of Jewish land went so far as to sacrifice a pig on the altar of the Holy Temple, profaning everything that is holy to Jews. This is not much different than the way the UN and the EU collude with the PA, Hamas, and other Islamic extremists to drive Jews out of their land, their holy places, and into the sea. The ultimate goal is to separate Jews from their land and from Jewish observance, too. They may see Jewish practice as an affront to their beliefs, seeing as how Christianity and Islam were meant to supplant and obviate the need for Judaism.

Chanuka, however, is a time of miracles. We see our former enemies coming to accept a Jewish presence in the Middle East. We watch as peace accords spring up, new ones almost every week, miracles in our own time. There are good and practical reasons for making peace with Israel. But the accords and newly formed diplomatic ties are also an acknowledgement of reality: the Arabs lost. The Jews won and turned a barren, forsaken land into a busy and bustling, successful modern state.

The peace accords come from the knowledge that the Jews have more than earned the right to seek shelter: to live in and build homes on Jewish land. That comes from simple people, like you and me, just putting the truth out there, over time. Slowly, slowly, the truth is making inroads, like water dripping on a rock, gnawing away at the hard substance, and cracking it open over time.

Chag Urim Sameach!

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40 EU MPs write letter to ban settlement products. (It sounds more impressive than it is.)

40 members of the European Parliament signed a letter on Tuesday demanding that settlement products be banned from entering the European Union market.

Here it is:

How big a deal is this?

The European Parliament has 705 members. This letter was signed by 40.

It has 27 member states. The people here belong to 14 of them.

Every single party represented here is Left or far-Left.

Instead of looking like a grassroots effort to sway the EU Trade Commissioner, this looks like it is fringe.

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.

12/16 Links Pt1: Sohrab Ahmari: Trump’s peace deals mean the anti-Israel boycott movement is dead; Gulf normalization isn’t about fearing Iran, it’s about embracing Israel

From Ian:

Sohrab Ahmari: Trump’s peace deals mean the anti-Israel boycott movement is dead

The BDSers achieved a measure of success, in Europe especially. Performing artists would often cancel concerts in Israel under BDS pressure — and sometimes lead the charge, as in the case of the likes of Tilda Swinton, Roger Waters and Coldplay’s Chris Martin. European theaters would refuse to host Jewish (not even Israeli) film festivals, even as BDSers preposterously insisted that their movement isn’t anti-Semitic. Western universities or individual departments would mount academic boycotts of Israel. Then, last year, in perhaps the most alarming move, the European Court of Justice ruled that EU states must label West Bank products as “made in settlements.”

Was Israel’s economy ever in serious peril? Probably not. Europe remains the Jewish state’s biggest trade partner, though boycotts and labeling could bite if widened to include firms that operate in Israel or Palestinian territories. The real danger, however, was moral-cum-political. If BDS succeeded, it would make permanent Israel’s status as an abnormal country, rather than a normal fixture of the Mideast map. That would demoralize the Israeli people and compound the hostility they already face in global forums like the United Nations.

Well, so much for all that. Today, a little more than a year since the EU labeling decision, you can find Israeli products — prominently displayed, sometimes with Israeli flags to promote them — on the shelves of grocery stores in the United Arab Emirates.

How far can BDS go in a world where once-sworn enemies of the Jewish state enjoy Israeli citrus products and myriad cultural exchanges? Who exactly do Western champions of the Arabs represent, when the Arabs themselves want to live peacefully alongside Israel and accept the Jewish state’s fundamental legitimacy? Isn’t it more than a bit condescending for, say, Roger Waters — place of birth: Great Bookham, Surrey, England — to tell Arabs whom they can do business with?

To be clear, I’m not suggesting BDS will disappear tomorrow. The wider Arab world is making peace with Israel, but Palestinian leaders aren’t about to give up what is admittedly a very nice grift: billions of dollars in international aid in exchange for refusing to accept reality. BDS helps lend a veneer of global credibility to their rejectionism. And fanatic college professors and students can always use “anti-Zionism” to mask old-fashioned hatred, singling out one state and one state only — the one that happens to be Jewish — for opprobrium.

But the fact remains that the Abraham Accords have revealed a silly side to the BDS movement: For God’s sake, when Sudan, once one of the world’s most virulently anti-Israel states, has made its peace with Jerusalem, BDS looks like a boutique cause for gentry leftists, the kind who put their pronouns in their Twitter bios. The real world — and the Middle East — have just moved on.

Sudan revokes citizenship of Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, dealing blow to terror groups

In a blow to the Islamic movement in Gaza and other terror organizations, Sudan is revoking the citizenship of former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal along with 3,000 other citizenships that were granted to foreigners, according to several reports in Arab media.

The Sudanese government made this change as part of its being removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, in a clear indication that it will fight terrorism rather than support it. The news was widely reported in Sudan and other Arabic media.

Earlier, Meshaal had expressed his dissatisfaction with the normalization of relations between Sudan and Israel.

After the demise of the previous Sudanese regime, which was supportive of Islamist and terrorist movements including Hamas, the new government has been attempting to change Sudan’s image as a shelter and conduit for terrorists. The revoking of citizenship from foreigners with links to Islamic and terrorist movements is a step in that direction.

Sudan is also now requiring a visa for Syrians before entering the country in order to prevent the flow of terrorists into Sudan.

In recent decades, Sudan was designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the United States for hosting Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other wanted terrorists. Hamas used the country as a funnel for smuggling Iranian weapons to Palestinians in Gaza between 2009-2012.

Sudan was removed from the list of state sponsors of terror after the new regime has made efforts in combating terrorism in cooperation with the American administration under the supervision of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Gulf normalization isn’t about fearing Iran, it’s about embracing Israel

“You think you have chutzpah? We have chutzpah.”

It was an unexpected line from a senior Emirati official, delivered recently in an off-the-record video conference call between current and former Israeli and Emirati officials.

The conversation had turned to business ties, innovation and the cultural differences between the two countries. The official wanted to explain something important about the new Israeli-Arab normalization agreements that Abu Dhabi had helped start: not only why they are happening, but why they seem so inexplicably warm and genuine.

The United Arab Emirates is most visible in this regard, but it isn’t the only one. Bahrain, too, is investing in a warm peace. And Sudan, while agonizing over the step itself — a breach of decades of ideological commitments vis-à-vis the Palestinians — has shown signs of wanting the normalization to reap more benefits than mere diplomatic contact or its removal from the US terror sponsors list.

There is no shortage of benefits that have accrued to the countries that normalized relations with Israel in the waning days of the Trump administration. The Emiratis asked for F-35s, the Moroccans recognition of their claim over Western Sahara, the Sudanese an end to their 27-year stay on the terror list and protection from lawsuits linked to the previous regime.

Why Didn't The Abraham Accords Happen 25 Years Ago? (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

The announcement earlier this month that Israel and Morocco have agreed to establish full diplomatic relations and normalize ties was not a complete surprise. After all, it is no secret that the two countries have had friendly relations with each other for decades.

If anything, the question is what took so long.

But it is not just that Israel and Morocco have been friendly for so long. More than that, the ingredients that made normalization possible under the Abraham Accords were there 25 years ago too, if not longer.

The circumstances that made the Abraham Accords possible now and enabled Trump to do something that previous administrations could not do, and in fact claimed was just not possible -- those circumstances are not really new.

In 1996, historian Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, Senior Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, wrote a paper for The Maghreb Review entitled Israel and Morocco: A Special Relationship. In it, he not only gives the background that led to the establishment of low-level liaison offices in Rabat and Tel Aviv. He also underscores elements that years later would make normalization possible in 2020.

For example, today a major impetus for the Arab normalization of ties with Israel is the threat of Iran, both because of its status as a state sponsor of terrorism and its efforts towards nuclear weapons.

But back in 1996, Iran was not the threat it is today. So what common interests drew Israel and Morocco together?

Maddy-Weitzman writes:

From the outset of Moroccan independence in 1956 and through subsequent decades, Israel and Morocco identified a number of vital interests common to both sides: their perception of a common threat posed by radical pan-Arabism, epitomized by Gamal 'Abd al-Nasir [Nasser] in Egypt, the Ba'th in Syria and Iraq, and the FLN in Algeria. (p. 36-7)

These radical elements were a threat to the stability of Morocco's monarchy and were antagonistic towards Israel as well.

From Morocco's perspective, it made sense to turn to the West for the economic and military help it needed in order to deal with the challenges to its stability, both in the region and at home. It was in Morocco's interest to turn to the US and "like so many other countries, Morocco concluded that one important road to Washington passed via Jerusalem."

And of course back then too it was in Morocco's interest to get US support on the issue of the Western Sahara.

The goal was more than the cold peace we associate with Egypt and Jordan. According to Weitzman, Morocco's King Hassan II had "a particular vision of renewed Semitic brotherhood, based on an idyllic Jewish-Arab past in Morocco and Muslim Spain, which could contribute to an economic and human renaissance in the contemporary Middle East."

And on the less idyllic and more practical side, then -- like now -- there was the financial boon that could potentially accrue to Morocco as a result of a peace agreement:

The Israeli Export Institute estimated in October 1994 that Israel's export potential to Morocco during the coming three years amounted to $220 million dollars annually, in areas such as agricultural products, irrigation equipment, the building trades, hi-tech electronics, processed foods, and professional services for infrastructure development. In addition, the potential for Morocco serving as a centre for the re-export of Israeli goods to other North African countries was estimated in the tens of millions of dollars. Estimates of the value of Israeli goods reaching to Morocco via third parties and subsidiary companies ranged from $30-100 million annually. (p.45)

Not bad.

Also, in another foreshadowing of what UAE has to gain from a peace agreement, Yedi'ot Aharonot quoted US sources in 1996 that Morocco was looking into Israeli help in upgrading 20 of its F-5 combat jets.

Before Israel signed peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), Morocco made clear what kind of relations it wanted with Israel. Weitzman lists the kinds of statements made by Morocco during the years 1976 to 1977:

a. the historical affinity between Arabs and Jews as 'sons of Abraham' and 'grandsons of Ishmael and Isaac,' an affinity which could form the basis for the tapping of both sides' capabilities in order to modernize and develop the Middle East;

b. Israel's capabiility for contributing to the modernization and development of the Arab world;

c. the dangers to the Arab world inherent in prolonged conflict;

d. the need for coexistence and integration, which required Israel's withdrawal to the June 1967 boundaries, creation of a Palestinian state, and full peace, recognition and integration between Israel and the Arab states; and

e. the need for dialogue to solve all problems, including dialogue between the PLO and Israel. (p. 41)

One could easily imagine the UAE making these statements -- including its continued commitment to the Palestinian Arabs, but these statements about peace that seem novel even now were being made over 40 years ago.

But no groundbreaking peace treaty between Morocco and Israel happened.

Official trade between the 2 countries amounted to just $2 million.

Why?

One reason might be that Nasser and the other potential threats to Morocco's stability posed a different kind of danger than what Iran does today. Iran is a Muslim state, but not an Arab one. Its brand of Islam fanaticism is very different from the pan-Arabism Nasser advocated as the leader of Egypt. And Iran takes the spread of its influence very seriously.

But more than that, King Hassan II of Morocco saw himself as a facilitator, hosting summits, conferences and Israeli prime ministers -- while at the same time maintaining his image as a leading Arab statesman. In 1967, Morocco sent armed forces to Egypt, although they only got as far as Libya. In 1973, Moroccan forces in Syria participated in the Yom Kippur War. The following year, he hosted the conference that conferred recognition of the PLO.

King Hassan II in 1983. Public domain

He was in no hurry to sign a peace treaty with Israel, preferring a gradual approach.

His son, King Muhammad VI, may be a different story.

The question now is no longer when peace will start, but rather how far will it go.

Dr. Ghazi Hussein wrote an article titled "Genocide and Racism in Zionist Thought and Practice" yesterday.

It includes such gems as this:

The historical roots of terrorism, genocide, extortion, greed, lies and Zionist crimes go back to the teachings established by the writers of the Talmudic Torah and to the founders of the Zionists who added European racism to Judaism, in particular German racism, so they replaced the Aryan in the theory of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche with the Jew, "The Chosen People of God," for whom the world was created and for whom the world was created.

The Zionist entity proceeds from the teachings of Judaism, Zionism and Jewish settler colonialism to justify the practice of genocide, terrorism, racism and Jewish purity as a political doctrine and an official policy in dealing with the Arabs of Muslims and Christians and with Muslims and the rest of the non-Jews (goyim) in the world Thus, they raised the genocide to the level of religious sanctity.

Who is Ghazi Hussein?

He is an antisemite, even quoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and denying the Holocaust.

Yet that doesn't cause him to lose his position as the 82 year old legal advisor and head of administration in the political department of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Damascus.

If Palestinians are as against antisemitism as they claim, why is there not a single negative word about their own officials who regularly peddle Jew-hate?

Back in 1981, he was expelled as the PLO representative in Vienna when he was discovered to have arranged smuggling of a large number of weapons to Austria for the Abu Nidal terror group. It appears that he was at odds with Yasir Arafat for a while, giving Arafat the biggest insult possible: saying he was a Jew from Morocco.

For Palestinians, being a Jew-hater is not considered a negative for one's career. Leftist apologists for Palestinian terror claim that Palestinian Arabs are only anti-Zionist and respect Jews. Yet not only are expressions of Jew hate discouraged in that world, they are rewarded.

And these apologists who claim to be against antisemitism never seem to say a word when their Palestinian friends spout the worst kinds of hate.

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I was struck by this report from JNS:

Television icon and comedian Jay Leno talked about his avid support for Israel and the Jewish people during the StandWithUs “Festival of Lights” virtual gala on Sunday night.

“My dad said you always want to be proud of who you are, and that’s why I like Jews. They’re proud of who they are,” the former host of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” told Jewish comedian Elon Gold in a pre-recorded message that aired during the live Hanukkah event.

“Here they are, this little country surrounded by people who literally hate them, and the fact that [these] people are proud of who they are and they stick together—that’s what I like. I like seeing people who are proud of who they are because if you don’t have pride in yourself, you’re not gonna get anywhere,” he added. “So, for me, I like that sort of Jewish pride.”

That is the key difference between Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Leno doesn't even distinguish between Israel and the Jewish people because he knows that they are interchangeable. Of course Jews are proud of Israel, of course Israelis are proud to be part of the Jewish people and the center of Jewish life. It goes without saying. Every accomplishment done by Israel - whether in medicine, literature, science, high-tech, diplomacy or business - causes Jews to kvell.

All Jews, that is, except for the noisy fringe who hate Israel so much that they do not feel that pride - instead, they feel shame. That shame is not based on anything Israel does, but on how much they hate their own people. Waze or Intel microprocessors or Sodastream causes them to recoil rather than smile. And then they feel they must justify their hate by finding imagined crimes that literally every Israeli Jewish-owned company supposedly does.

It is this minority that doesn't have any real Jewish pride. But their Jewishness is still central to them because their Jewishness is what makes their hate newsworthy. So they have to create a parallel faux Judaism to create a tiny, anti-Israel community they can pretend is Jewish.

So they create new holidays with the same names as the old ones but that have nothing to do with Judaism and everything to do with showing their hate for most Jews and Israel. They make up a mitzvah they call "tikkun olam" that happens to coincide with whatever cause they support. They try to create an entire brand new ecosystem to replace the one that their grandparents belonged to, the one that most Jews still belong to, consciously or not.

These fakers don't feel pride for Israel or real Judaism. They only feel scorn and shame and embarrassment when they think about the successful, liberal, diverse, modern Jewish state that literally rose from the ashes.

Normal Jews are as proud of Israel as they are proud of Einstein or Sandy Koufax or Jonas Salk. This is obvious even to a non-Jew like Jay Leno.

The Jews who feel they must exert so much effort into not only hating Israel but in trying to convince everyone else to hate Israel don't have pride in being part of the Jewish people. They deliberately separate themselves from the community.

Which means that they, like the wicked son, are not part of the community at all.

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12/15 Links Pt2: EU-Funded Review of Palestinian Textbooks Reeks of ‘Incompetence, Concealment’; Giant Boomerang Menorah lights up Cairns Esplanade

From Ian:

Observers Say EU-Funded Review of Palestinian Textbooks Reeks of ‘Incompetence, Concealment’

Benjamin Strasser, a German politician of the Free Democratic Party, also expressed his concern and told JNS, “false school materials can cement hatred and prejudice for decades. Neither German tax revenues nor our contributions to the Palestinian Authority may be used to promote antisemitism and hatred against Israel.”

Steve McCabe MP, chair of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), blamed the British government for spending taxpayers’ money “on a review which appears deeply flawed and which we may never have the chance to see.”

He accused the government of “hiding behind the EU to escape accountability for its own inaction,” and demanded that the United Kingdom “immediately suspend all PA aid related to the delivery of the PA curriculum until wholesale and urgent revisions are guaranteed.”

LFI vice chair and Member of Parliament John Spellar sent a letter to the government on this same issue, asking for an explanation.

In an emailed statement to JNS, a spokesperson for the Delegation of the European Union to Israel defended the flawed GEI study as “being carried out according to best international standards with native Arab speaking experts being part of the research team.”

The statement said that the EU’s Final Report “will be finalized by the end of the year. … Given that the final report has not even been published yet, any criticisms at the stage are clearly premature in our view, in particular as they have been based on alleged leaks regarding a preliminary report which had no other value than to inform the scoping of the study. … We should clarify that the EU does not fund and will not fund Palestinian textbooks.”

Howard Jacobson: A Jew Is a Jew Is a Jew

Reflecting on the proximity between the deaths of two towering figures in, respectively, literature and the arts, Howard Jacobson sees a certain symmetry between the philo-Semitic Gentile and the uncomfortable Jew:

Quite what Miller supposed he achieved by refusing his Jewishness in “the face of other Jews,” or in what spirit he affirmed it only to those who hated it, is hard to fathom. But in both instances he stripped Jewishness of its amity, making it a thing of hostility and even confrontation. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to say he was a nonpracticing Jew?

Well, not if you were Alec Berman, the hero of Betty Miller’s novel Farewell Leicester Square, whose Jewishness lay like a curse on him and those who loved him. A thing “he never forgets for one moment ... it’s always there, at the back of his mind, whatever he does and wherever he is. It haunts him …” Betty Miller was Jonathan Miller’s mother. Farewell Leicester Square was written, remarkably, when she was only 22 and described the agitations of a young Jewish filmmaker in 1930s London. The London Jonathan Miller had to make his way in, 20 years later, was less hostile to Jews and so less likely to induce such paranoia as Betty Miller described. But it’s a reasonable assumption that her son read his mother’s novel at an impressionable age. He grew up in an upper-tier intellectual milieu, bristling with discomfort in the matter of being alien. Not for him, one might imagine him deciding, the enervating Jewish self-consciousness of Alec Berman.

Nothing unusual or reprehensible in that. You have to get yourself up off the canvas. But Miller continued uncomfortable and sneering. Israel displeased him in the usual, unthinking ways. To the question where else Jews could look to for refuge come the next catastrophe, he posited a sort of Darwinism of destruction: The time might have come, he said, for Judaism to die out.

Clive James sometimes gave the impression that he’d have liked to be a Jew. That’s a luxury, of course, that only a non-Jew can afford. And, unlike Miller, he was a schmoozer. I knew him well enough to benefit from his schmoozing but not so well as to get beyond it. His curiosity, though, was always genuine, as was his disappointment when he learnt I hadn’t made myself a Talmudic scholar, hadn’t learnt Yiddish, and couldn’t read more than a few words of Hebrew. He learnt Russian in order the better to read Tolstoy and would certainly not have written a novel about Jews without mastering both their ancient and their modern languages. I don’t think it was his intention to make me feel I’d failed his expectations, but I did. He was a staunch supporter of Israel and saw through the fashionable denunciations of Zionism made by people “dedicated to knowing as little as possible about the history of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.” If there was one thing that tried his magnanimity it was partisanship built on ignorance. His own knowledge was formidable and principled, as witness Cultural Amnesia, his extraordinary 800-page tribute to 20th-century art and thought—not a feat anyone could have pulled off had they not liked keeping company with the imaginations of Jews. Maybe Jonathan Miller possessed as wide a store of knowledge but, if he did, he didn’t employ it to such generous purpose.

Chanukah Music Videos night 6: Light One More (Rav Mo - feat. Yoni Shine) plus bonus Hanukkah Lights (Office Romance) and Zusha

Plus this music video by Office Romance:

And from Zusha:

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Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Jarad said, "There is a danger threatening Algeria today of Zionism reaching our borders."

During a celebration at the National Archives on Saturday, Jarad said that "Algeria is a target and we must intensify and solve our internal problems among us."

"We must work in solidarity to find the best way out of the crisis," he said, claiming that Algeria is being targeted through operations outside its borders.

He called on the Algerian people to "gather together and solve internal problems, and work with solidarity, love and brotherhood to find the best way out of the crisis."

The Algerian prime minister said that "the citizens, the political class and the elite must be on the lookout and work to preserve stability."

I'm still not quite sure what the danger is. Will the newly "Zionist" Morocco invade Algeria for Israel? Will Algerians start eating sabich?

Whatever it is, it sounds awful!

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