Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 31, 2020

12/31 Links Pt2: A Jewish prisoner's longing for Zion; 5 reasons why mainstream Jews should drop the Palestinian cause in 2021; How Wikipedia is breeding armies of antisemites

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: A Jewish prisoner's longing for Zion

Pollard paid for that fateful decision with 30 years in prison and another five years of conditional release during which he was barred from moving to Israel.

I asked him back then to describe his life in prison.

"I don't want to go into detail," he responded with a brief, sad sigh. "I will give you an impressionistic description of my life. Life here involves constant noise, endless noise that is impossible to imagine, all the time; constant violence; profanity every conceivable type of profanity. There is no place to be quiet or to find quiet to read. You really have to be disciplined not to be provoked. You need to be disciplined to see when a situation is getting out of hand and to get away as quickly as possible. I have to be ready if my door opens at 2 in the morning."

I asked Pollard what he thought about when he was sitting in his room.

"My dream is to be with my wife, at home in Israel. I am worried about my wife. She is a cancer survivor. But she refused to have chemotherapy because it would have destroyed any chance of having children. Do you have any idea of what it feels like for a husband to have to hear over the phone that his wife has cancer?" he asked in an expression of unending distress and barely disguised desperation.

"I want to come home so that I can be with my wife, my people and my land. That is all I want. I love my nation."

Thirty-five years after his initial arrest, 15 years after I met with him, early on Wednesday morning, Jonathan Pollard finally realized his dream, the dream of a Jewish prisoner longing for Zion.

5 reasons why mainstream Jews should drop the Palestinian cause in 2021

As we close the chapter of an unprecedented year filled with enormous loss and begin a new year with unparalleled opportunity, I believe now is the time to ask bold questions with answers that may be uncomfortable for the mainstream Jewish community in North America. As we made, and now pursue, resolutions for our personal and professional selves, our families and our communities, let us also have the courage to ask the more uncomfortable, more durable – and frankly, more honest questions that we only have the courage to ask in the light of this most challenging year.

How do we engage with Israel? What core policy objectives do we as a community and our organizations seek to achieve? Which organizational policy objectives, written long ago in boardrooms far far away, are still relevant? Which objectives are not relevant? What is achievable? What is not? What is the “needle” – and in what direction do we push it? Which causes embrace all of our identities? And which causes force us as Jews, as Americans, and as Zionists to leave our identities at the door?

I have a resolution.

In 2021, and in the years and decades beyond, the organized Jewish community should abandon its paralyzing, archaic, immoral and dangerous objective of establishing a Palestinian state.

Our world has changed. The Middle East has changed. Israel has changed. The American Jewish community, and its objectives, must too. Suppress your anger, lay down your talking points and hear me out.

1. The Abraham Accords

2. John Kerry’s Middle East is gone – if it ever existed after all

3. No Jewish Organization was actively involved in the Abraham Accords – and likely won’t even be involved in any other breakthrough

4. The Palestinians, and any future potential Palestinian state, would be an organized society and nation whose values and lack of rule of law would be completely antithetical to the Western world

5. The PLO, our alleged partners in peace, incentivize and pay terrorists to kill Jews

Cartoon of the Day: BDS Silver Lining

Continuing my series of re-captioning cartoons....

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There was a kerfuffle recently when the International Committee of the Red Cross decided to make a Twitter thread about the violations of international law depicted in the fictional, excellent Israeli TV series Fauda.

Of course, people made fun of the ICRC for pretending that a fictional story is real.

But even more idiotic was Mondoweiss' take. The site outdid itself in its article about the incident in its sheer ignorance about, really, everything.

The writer, Jonathan Ofir, freely admits that he never saw the show. He then goes on to create a conspiracy theory that the people who responded to the ICRC tweet are a group of professional Israeli hasbarists who are part of a shadowy group:

The Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry under Gilad Erdan (who is now Israel’s UN Ambassador)– which has been the headquarters for the anti-BDS campaign, which included secret ‘black ops’ operations– has established an army of social media propagandists.

He's talking about Digitell, which is a very loose group of already-existing bloggers and pro-Israel activists who have met in person twice. I should know - I'm in the group. And while the ministry would love for us to have a unified strategy and messaging, we all still do whatever we want to, while sometimes consulting with others. (Ofir even proves that there was an inconsistency in messaging between the Zionist responses to the ICRC tweet, which undermines his entire argument.)

But Ofir really shows how little he knows when he adds his own non-expertise in international law to the discussion of why Fauda is so evil:

The central theme of Fauda is what is know in international law as Perfidy. ICRC provides the definition of Perfidy from standard International Humanitarian Law:

Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with the intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy.

In other words, it is about conducting a military operation under the guise of being a civilian, or impersonating an individual who is supposed to be offered special humanitarian protection. This act is dangerous also because it puts civilians and humanitarian workers at risk, as it creates a suspicion that they may be involved in the hostilities.

Such perfidy is standard operating procedure for Israel.

For some reason, the ICRC didn't mention perfidy in its list of Fauda's violations of international law, but Ofir thinks he knows better.

Ofir has no clue.

When characters in Fauda go undercover, they are not acting as soldiers. They are acting as spies. And espionage is not against international law.

As the ICRC quotes US practice in its documentation on perfidy:

Customary international law does not … prohibit belligerents from using saboteurs, secret agents or other irregular forces feigning civilian status to attack legitimate military targets. Wear of civilian clothing during an attack, or during a spying or sabotage mission behind enemy lines, may subject combatants to punishment if captured by the enemy.

Spies do not have the protection of international law given to soldiers. Their risk is much greater, and if they are caught they can be executed if that is the law of the capturers.

How much ignorance can Mondoweiss fit in one article?

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Progressives Torn As Bus Under Which To Throw Jews Fails Emissions Test (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

hippie van Sacramento, December 31 - Stalwarts of forward-leaning politics voiced consternation today at a new dilemma that may force them to choose as never before between the values of ecological sensitivity and steamrolling Jewish concerns in pursuit of those values.

Progressive figures across California expressed dismay Thursday after the 48-seater vehicle, under which they had intended to throw Jews while pursuing the progressive agenda, could not meet the state's air pollution limitations, the toughest such thresholds in the nation. As never before activists observed, they must decide whether to proceed in their endeavors to implement a progressive agenda if in that pursuit they do not end up harming Jewish interests.

"It's not a problem we gave much thought to," admitted Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (D-NY). "All of us just kind of assumed that throwing Jews under the bus was an automatic consequence of pursuing our vision for the twenty-first century in ecology, economics, race relations, everything. But it turns out sometimes you have to go out of your way to make harming Jewish interests, or at the very least disregarding the expressed concerns of the vast majority of the American Jewish community, an outcome. We need to have some serious conversations about how far out of our way to go to ensure that outcome, and what the other costs might be to such a direction."

Previous conflicts between Jewish concerns and the progressive agenda have tended to make Jewish concerns secondary or irrelevant to the desired outcome, as when prominent progressives have declared support for Jewish sovereignty and security in the ancestral Jewish homeland to be at odds with progressive values. "It's not Israel-Palestine per se that's the issue," explained activist and Women's March founder Linda Sarsour. "My buddies in the Nation of Islam probably couldn't care less whether Israel exists, or who rules the Palestinians, just as the Arabs in Palestine couldn't care less when they were under foreign rule for many centuries. It's the Jews of America that bother Brother Farrakhan, not the Jews of Tel Aviv, although licking the latter in the teeth might also be good. No, it's about maintaining the Jew as an enemy, and as time passes, our sensibilities have increasingly painted the Jew as the source of our community's problems, because it's more convenient to blame someone else than to fix your own problems, and hey, look, the Jews are right here, always available as scapegoats."

"But this time it's a little different," she acknowledged, "because now we have to determine whether harming Jews is simply a positive side-effect of our efforts, or a goal in itself, and if the latter, then does it outweigh other progressive goals? I think we all know what the decision will be in the end, but it looks good to have a 'conversation' about it that really only involves people who want Jews to just go away with their irritating insistence that people treat them with the same humanity and respect we demand for everyone else."

12/31 Links Pt1:Does UNRWA Violate International Law?; Israel’s 2 top int’l law officials take on ICC: Is Gaza ‘occupied’?; Senate Investigation Finds Obama Admin Knowingly Funded al-Qaeda Affiliate

From Ian:

Honest Reporting: Does UNRWA Violate International Law?

UNRWA’s definition of refugee technically violates international law, as it contradicts the 1951 UN Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.

Article 1 of the Convention defines a refugee as: …a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.

Under Article I(c)(3), a person is no longer a refugee if, for example, he or she has “acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality.”

UNRWA’s definition of a Palestinian refugee, which is not anchored in any treaty and thus does not carry the weight of international law, includes no such provision. In fact, UNRWA defines “Palestinian refugees” to include all offspring of male Palestinian refugees from 1948, including legally adopted children, regardless of whether they have been granted citizenship elsewhere.

The United Nations claims on its website that UNRWA’s unusual practice does not violate international law and norms, by pointing out that there are other conflicts in the world where refugee status has continued for successive generations (eg. Afghanistan and Somalia).

However, the United Nations’ claim is not only misleading but objectively wrong. Under the 1951 Convention (1967 Protocol, Article IV Section B), successive generations have refugee status only if it is necessary to maintain what is called “family unity.” For example, imagine that a couple escaped Afghanistan, became refugees in Pakistan, and then had a child. Even though that child never lived in Afghanistan, he or she would nevertheless be granted refugee status in order to keep the family unit from being broken apart by potential developments.

However, under UNRWA’s rules, there is no “family unity” limitation. To the contrary, unlimited future generations may inherit refugee status even when there is no living family connection to pre-1948 British-ruled Palestine and, consequently, there is no danger of tearing apart any family unit. This is no subtle distinction: UNRWA has, knowingly or not, created a financial incentive for host countries to deny Palestinians citizenship, so that the nations in question can benefit from the international aid that comes with hosting people who maintain refugee status in perpetuity.

According to a 2012 report by the United States Senate, under the terms of the 1951 Convention, which applies to all other people in the world, the number of real Palestinian refugees living today is only about 30,000. Yet, according to UNRWA, the number of “refugees” is over 5 million, making Palestinians the only group in the world whose refugee population has increased — and dramatically — over time.

Israel’s 2 top int’l law officials take on ICC: Is Gaza ‘occupied’?

Two of Israel’s top international law officials have published a rare public article to challenge the International Criminal Court prosecution and others who say that Israel still illegally occupies Gaza.

The article, published in the journal Iyunei Mishpat (Legal Studies) recently but being reported now for the first time in English, is important both regarding addressing cases of alleged Israeli war crimes in ongoing fighting with Hamas, as well as regarding what humanitarian obligations Jerusalem has to Gaza, during coronavirus and other periods.

These issues ultimately have major long-term implications at the national security and diplomatic levels, including whether Israel’s naval blockade and other periodic closures of Gaza are legal.

Just as important are the authors: Deputy Attorney-General (International Law) Roy Schondorf and IDF International Law Division chief Col. Eran Shamir-Borer, two officials who have led much of Israel’s handling of ICC issues and humanitarian dilemmas with Gaza.

Schondorf rarely writes publicly or appears in public with the exception of specific conferences or at the Knesset, and Shamir-Borer appears even less often.

It seems that the impetus for their article was to address prior statements by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda as well as a current article by prominent Israeli prof. Eyal Gross in the same journal, declaring that Israel still legally occupies Gaza, despite having withdrawn in 2005.

Senate Investigation Finds Obama Admin Knowingly Funded al-Qaeda Affiliate

Non-profit humanitarian agency World Vision United States improperly transacted with the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) in 2014 with approval from the Obama administration, sending government funds to an organization that had been sanctioned over its ties to terrorism, according to a new report.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) recently released a report detailing the findings of an investigation his staff began in February 2019 into the relationship between World Vision and ISRA.

The probe found that World Vision was not aware that ISRA had been sanctioned by the U.S. since 2004 after funneling roughly $5 million to Maktab al-Khidamat, the predecessor to Al-Qaeda controlled by Osama Bid Laden.

However, that ignorance was born from insufficient vetting practices, the report said.

“World Vision works to help people in need across the world, and that work is admirable,” Grassley said in a statement. “Though it may not have known that ISRA was on the sanctions list or that it was listed because of its affiliation with terrorism, it should have. Ignorance can’t suffice as an excuse. World Vision’s changes in vetting practices are a good first step, and I look forward to its continued progress.”

The investigation was sparked by a July 2018 National Review article in which Sam Westrop, the director of the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch, detailed MEF’s findings that the Obama administration had approved a “$200,000 grant of taxpayer money to ISRA.”

Government officials specifically authorized the release of “at least $115,000” of this grant even after learning that it was a designated terror organization, Westrop wrote. (h/t MtTB)

From 2009 Tom Getman of World Vision talking to Stephen Sizer (antisemetic priest) about the incoming Obama administration.

A few days ago, Hamas started plastering billboards all over Gaza with pictures of the Iranian Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, ahead of the first anniversary of his being assassinated by the US.

The billboards quoted Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh who called him a "Martyr of Jerusalem" at his eulogy.

The Sunni Arab world reacted harshly.

Saudi journalist Muhammad Al Sheikh tweeted, "Pictures of the criminal Iranian serial killer Qassem Soleimani greet you from every direction in Gaza. The reason is because the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood Hamas is just the arm of a Persian conspirator ... and you want to liberate Palestine, traitors? "

Even within Gaza people were upset. One man ripped down one of the posters to the cheers of a crowd and the video went viral.

Hamas is still more popular in Gaza than Fatah by far, but Gazans seem to have little interest in becoming an Iranian proxy like Hezbollah or the Houthis.

Update: Hamas arrested the person who tore down the poster. (h/t Tomer)

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Hamas has its own foreign ministry

When Hamas and Fatah split in 2007, both of them claimed to be the legitimate government of the Palestinian Authority.

Most of the world recognized Fatah's claims that they formed a new government for the PA, even though its creation violated the Palestinian constitution.

But Hamas maintained its own claim to be the legitimate government, and it has never relinquished that claim, even though it too is not the government under the Palestinian constitution. Which means that Hamas duplicated all of the governmental ministries of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, at least on paper.

Including a Foreign Ministry.

The Hamas Foreign Ministry page doesn't mention Hamas - it claims to be the Palestinian Foreign Ministry.

It is a strange site. It occasionally issues statements, such as the most recent one from October 27 condemning cartoons that hurt Muslim feelings. It held a Zoom session on mediation techniques in early October.

But nowhere does it say who the actual Hamas foreign minister is, or the names of anyone who works at the ministry, or even its address. Press releases are simply signed "Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gaza, Palestine."

Even Iran doesn't recognizes this ministry as having any legitimacy, as the Palestinian "embassy" in Tehran is run by the PLO (at least as of 2016.)

Between the PA and Hamas, the Palestinians have two illegitimate governments.

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From Naharnet:

Confusion arose among circles affiliated with Hizbullah after the party’s Al-Qard Al-Hasan financial institution was hacked, despite the institution's assurance the hackers had no access to any of the internal data or account numbers of depositors, the Saudi Asharq el-Awsat reported on Wednesday.

A hacker group called “Spiderz” hacked into the cameras and servers of Hizbullah’s financial institution Al-Qard Al-Hasan, which the party says is a charity association.

The group collected and exposed a name list of borrowers, and published the links to the information on a special page on Twitter, attaching all details related to its customers.

Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association was established by Hizbullah in the 1980s. It was licensed by the Interior Ministry in 1987. It has 32 branches across Lebanon.

The operation came a few months after the association launched an automated teller service in its branches in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the party's center of influence. This encouraged some to place financial deposits in the institution that is not subject to the Lebanese banking system.

Oh, that's good to know - Hezbollah has its own banks with ATMs that they call "charity associations" and which bypass Lebanon's banking laws.

Nothing sketchy about that.

Al Arabiya fills in some blanks about it:

What is Al-Qard al-Hasan?
The NGO, whose name in Arabic translates to “benevolent loan,” is not a bank, nor a financial institution, and is not subject to the Lebanese monetary and credit law. It has no legal or financial relationship with the Central Bank of Lebanon.
Yet, Al-Qard al-Hasan is considered one of the most prominent economic pillars of Hezbollah. It is managed outside the Lebanese economic banking system and is not subject to the Lebanese “cash and credit” law.
To more than 200 thousand borrowers, the institution gives financial loans in dollars in exchange for mortgaging gold or placing similar amounts in value.
Earlier this year, Al-Qard al-Hassan installed multiple ATMs in areas controlled by Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut, in a clear violation of Lebanon’s fiscal law.
The ATMs allow those who receive direct payments from Hezbollah, and those who benefit from the institution’s loans, to withdraw cash in either Lebanese lira or US dollars without any restrictions.

If these hackers got in, I hope that Israel has infiltrated the bank much more thoroughly.

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Jonathan Pollard is a Litmus Test. But for What? (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

The arrival of Jonathan Pollard in Israel 35 years after his arrest for espionage on Israel’s behalf has made me think about the position of the Jew in the diaspora, particularly in America.
There are facts about Pollard’s case that are shrouded in mystery (for example, the still-secret Caspar Weinberger memo that in part convinced the judge in his case, Aubrey Robinson, to abrogate his plea bargain and sentence him to life imprisonment).

There is very little impartial material written about his case. Did he do what he did out of Zionist motives or did he do it for the money (or both)? Was Judge Robinson influenced by accusations that Pollard had aided the apartheid South African regime? These questions are discussed here (from a pro-Pollard perspective). Was the sentence outrageously unfair or, as some say, was it too light? Was his sentence, like the one given to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, intended as a warning to disloyal ‘cosmopolitan’ Jews? It is possible to find documentation of various degrees of trustworthiness to support disparate narratives.

It is certain that Pollard provided a great deal of useful information to Israel about her regional enemies that had been withheld by the US. It is also certain that Pollard was abandoned by Israel, expelled from the embassy in Washington where he sought asylum, into the arms of the FBI. And it is certain that he received the harshest sentence by far ever handed down to someone for spying for an American ally, harsher yet than what some who spied for the Soviets received.
Early Wednesday morning, Pollard was met at the airport by PM Netanyahu, who said the shehecheyanu with him and personally handed him his Israeli identity document. This of course immediately made him a political football in Israel, to the extent that he wasn’t already. But that’s not what I want to discuss.

What interests me today is the attitudes of American Jews toward Pollard, and what that tells us about how they see themselves and their position as diaspora Jews.

The diaspora has generally not been a friendly place for Jews since their expulsion from Judea after the defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt by the Romans on Tisha b’Av, 135 CE. Always outsiders, they were often exploited, expelled, oppressed, and even exterminated by their hosts. But – especially between the end of WWII and the beginning of the 21^st century – the USA has been different. Although there are examples of anti-Jewish riots and lynchings, and discrimination in employment, education, and residence, the position of Jews in America for a long period has probably been as good as or better than anywhere else in the diaspora.

Like Homer Simpson, an American Jew has two tiny creatures that sit on his or her shoulders and whisper. One says, “you are an American like other Americans, even if you are Jewish. This is your home. You have rights here.” And the other says, “never forget that you are a Jew. Your existence is precarious. Keep your suitcase packed.” I think that American Jewish attitudes toward Pollard are derived from the interaction of these voices.

On one occasion, a friend told me that “Pollard should have been executed, like the Rosenbergs.” This from a liberal American Jew who, I’m certain, opposes capital punishment in general. “America was good to him and he spit in its face,” he continued. “He was a traitor both to his country and to other Jews, who will always be suspected of having dual loyalties.”

This particular Jew is more knowledgeable than most Americans about Israel, a strong Zionist and supporter of causes related to Israel. But at the same time he was one of the approximately 69% of American Jews who voted for Barack Obama’s second term, when it should have been obvious to anyone that he was far from a friend of Israel (unlike his opponent, Mitt Romney). Needless to say, President Trump’s remarkably strong pro-Israel stance doesn’t sway my friend from his strong antagonism to the president.

When I listen to him, I hear both voices. My friend is proud of being American and takes what he sees as patriotic American positions. His center of gravity is in the US. But at the same time, there is that other small voice, the one that reminds him that as a Jew, he is less than entirely secure in America. He worries that Pollard’s actions might cause an increase in antisemitism among non-Jewish Americans. And maybe sometimes at 3 AM, he wonders if he shouldn’t have a packed suitcase under his bed.

So it is very important for him to let everyone know that American Jews in general, and he in particular, are good Americans. Maybe better Americans than some non-Jews.
This is a position fraught with cognitive dissonance.

There are American Jews that strongly support Pollard. Some (unlike my friend) are Orthodox Jews, like Rabbi Pesach Lerner, the former head of the National Council of Young Israel, an organization of Orthodox synagogues. Lerner visited Pollard in prison countless times, and helped obtain financial support for him after his release when he was unable to work. Pollard “got religion” in prison, and that may be part of it. But I have also heard some Orthodox Jews strongly denounce Pollard in words like my friend’s. And, on the other side, the Reform Movement passed a resolution to ask President Clinton to commute Pollard’s sentence in 1993; its president, Rabbi Rick Jacobs (whom I usually love to criticize), visited him in prison along with representatives of the Conservative movement.

Pollard is a litmus test of some sort, but it is not either one for Right vs. Left or Orthodox vs. (religiously) liberal. It’s something else. I know that my grandmother, who lost siblings in the Holocaust and from whom I inherited much of my sensibility, would have instinctively stuck up for Pollard, despite the fact that she was very proud of the paper that said she was an American citizen.

I think it’s related to what I called “center of gravity” above. If your center of gravity is in the diaspora you have to worry that someday you will be uprooted. If it’s located with the Jewish people, you may be less comfortable in the diaspora, but you have fewer illusions.
Where is your center of gravity?

12/30 Links Pt2: Ruthie Blum: 2020 hindsight – Israel’s year in review; Cooperation in innovation can reshape the Middle East; ICRC's Twitter Campaign Shows its Obsession With Israel

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: 2020 hindsight – Israel’s year in review

US President Donald Trump unveiled his “Peace to Prosperity” plan at the White House, with Netanyahu at his side, in the presence of administration officials and other prominent pro-Israel guests. The details of the “Deal of the Century,” as it had been dubbed, were finally revealed.

Like Trump’s other policies – such as moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal; recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; halting funding to UNRWA, demanding that the Palestinian Authority cease its pay-for-slay policy; and declaring that Israeli settlements are not illegal – his blueprint for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was groundbreaking.

Rather than treating the PA’s corruption and violence as a result of Israeli “occupation,” Trump’s team offered Ramallah a carrot but threatened it with a stick. It was exhilarating for most Israelis to witness Washington smash the mold of the failed “land for peace” paradigm. Unfortunately, US President-elect Joe Biden and his appointees are going to revert to the old model of appeasing enemies. In this respect, Israelis may come to look back on 2020 with a twinge of nostalgia.

The burgeoning friendship with neighboring Muslim-Arab countries is a blessing that cannot be overstated. The trouble is that relations with Washington are about to take a turn for the worse.

It is understandable for Israelis to be worried about the future and bemoan the past year. But it is a complete distortion of reality to look upon 2020 as a period of pure chaos on the one hand and paralysis on the other.

Indeed, it’s worth pausing from the hysteria for a moment to acknowledge the miraculous achievements made by the Netanyahu-led government, in spite of months of bitter infighting, during the pandemic. If anything, then, this crazy year was characterized by an insane degree of uncanny multitasking.

Point of No Return: Review of the Year 2020

It's that time of the year again - time to review the highlights and lowlights of 2020.

In the 15 years since Point of No Return has been collecting information on Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, there have been 5,940 posts. This year achieved 426,000 views.

This year will be remembered as the year of COVID-19. It was certainly not the first time that plagues have swept through the Middle East. This year's plague took a heavy toll of Jewish communities.

This year gave Iraqi Jews an excuse to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their airlift to Israel.

But the highpoint of 2020 must be surely the historic peace accords achieved with four Arab countries: the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. This is a teachable moment - to educate about Jewish refugees from the Arab world and Iran. (Some Arabs have already absorbed the lesson. )

For the first time, the rights of Jewish refugees were explicitly mentioned in the Trump Middle East peace plan announced in January. Unfortunately, the media still refuse to give the issue the coverage it deserves.

Numbers of Jews continued to dwindle in Arab countries, except in Dubai, which holds out the promise of an expanding Jewish community, serviced by three rabbis. It was a good year for one particular Jewish family from Yemen, who were given refuge in the UAE.

Netanyahu has held onto the reins of power far longer than any other Israeli prime minister. But love him or hate him, at some point Bibi must go, because barring other reasons for being deposed from the prime ministerial throne, no one lives forever. The problem is, there is no one to step into Netanyahu’s shoes, because he hasn’t groomed a successor. From Jonathan Tobin:

The defection of Likudniks under Sa’ar’s leadership to join the other former Netanyahu aides that oppose him at the head of other parties, like Bennett and Lieberman, reminds us that the prime minister has never tried to groom a successor. Indeed, he doesn’t seem to believe in the concept. That “après moi, le deluge” attitude is not only a good argument for term limits. It’s a bad look for any leader in a democracy even if, as is true of Netanyahu, his expertise in diplomacy, security and economic issues may be unrivaled.

With another election looming, the fourth since April 2019, Israelis must again ponder their electoral choices. There is no question that the right is stronger than the left in Israel right now, and has been for years, but the right has reason to be dissatisfied with Netanyahu. The right doesn’t like how Bibi has handled the situation in Southern Israel where Gaza uses Israeli citizens for target practice. They aren’t crazy about the fact that Bibi promised sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and it never happened. Aside from these issues, Likud, the party of Netanyahu, is seen as failing in its mission. Likud is supposed to be the party of Greater Israel, the party that builds in all parts of the Land, but it seems like illegal Arab building in the territories gets a pass, while Jewish homes are deemed illegal and are demolished in the blink of an eye to make a show for the EU, the UN, and fake human rights organizations, whenever they give a schrie, a shout.

Because of this situation, where Likud is deemed to be not really on the right, many voters took a chance, the last several times around, on the smaller right wing parties, which sucked away votes from Netanyahu’s party, the Likud. This necessitated the Likud wooing several smaller parties to join together as a coalition, in order to gain enough seats to form a government. As these smaller parties vie for a place in the government, Netanyahu has to be careful about divvying out political favors to rising stars on the right, lest they rise above to supplant him and usurp his place of power.

And that is how someone like Gantz, someone unseasoned and unsuited to rule, rises to power. It’s all about balancing out that coalition and those favors. Bibi dare not cede too much power to anyone else on the right, lest he lose his place and fall off the throne.

But whenever elections are announced, there are always some who will jump ship to form new parties, diluting the vote even further, and demanding more favors for the sake of joining the right wing coalition. This time, Gideon Sa’ar a longtime member of Likud, tendered his resignation from the Knesset and left the Likud to form the New Hope party. That same day, Yoaz Hendel and Zvi Hauser of the Center Right Derech Eretz party signed on with Sa’ar's party. Likud members Yifat Shasha-Biton, Michal Shir, Sharren Haskel, and Ze'ev Elkin, subsequently left the party of Netanyahu to throw in their lot with Sa’ar.

This many people coming onboard with Sa’ar tells us that the former Likudnik is attempting to form a new Likud, a party that will truly represent the right, and not fake it to make it, as the Likud, under Netanyahu, has done. This is not a new phenomenon. Many parties have sprung from the loins of the Likud. Some of the parties make it, some of them don’t. But none of these parties, and none of their leaders have succeeded in amassing the power of a Benjamin Netanyahu. And this is, in part, because Netanyahu has not groomed a successor.

It is the responsibility of a leader to groom a successor. No one lives forever. No politician can stay in power forever. If Netanyahu cares about securing the future of the Jewish State, he must prepare someone to take over from him when the time comes.

That could have been Sa’ar. But Sa’ar saw no future in the Likud, because Netanyahu gave him no hope that the former more junior member of Likud might someday succeed him. Nor did Netanyahu give hope to any other rising star in the Likud that he or she might someday rise to power.

Maybe that is because Netanyahu doesn’t see anyone in the talent pool of rising stars in the Likud who comes close to meeting the Netanyahu standard of statesmanship. And maybe there really is no one who is capable of the magic of statecraft Netanyahu-style—no one to pull rabbits out of hats, the way Netanyahu always seems to do, like when he stares down the UN . . .

. . . or speaks to Congress against the wishes of Obama.

But I’ll tell you this: I’ve seen Netanyahu speak, and it’s like he’s the entire room. You feel as though he’s speaking only to you. Maybe he was born that way, with a gift. Or perhaps Netanyahu was born with the potential to be a leader and someone took a chance--took him under his wing, and helped to nurture that gift.

All I know is that love or hate him, Netanyahu makes every other potential Israeli leader look small. I see no one with the gravitas to take his place. And that’s a scary thought for the future of Israel. Which is why Netanyahu must groom a successor, now. Netanyahu needs to create a leader in his own powerful image, a Bibi 2.0--except more rightwing--to take his place on that day when it will finally be time for him to step off the dais and let someone else lead the Jewish State to prosperity, peace, and success.

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.

Best EoZ cartoons and posters of the year

Tough to choose - I made over 30 cartoons and many more posters.

But here are some of the best single panel cartoons:

A romance comic cartoon:

Posters:

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.