Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, February 06, 2021

02/06 Links: ICC investigation into Israeli 'war crimes' an immoral decision; Melanie Phillips: Why can those on the left never see their own antisemitism?

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: ICC investigation into Israeli 'war crimes' an immoral decision - editorial

The International Criminal Court at The Hague made a terrible decision on Friday in announcing that it had legal justification to open a war crimes investigation against Israel.

In a majority ruling published on Friday, following a six-year review by the chief prosecutor, the ICC judges said that, “The Court’s territorial jurisdiction in the Situation in Palestine... extends to the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

Granting itself jurisdiction over the territories paves the way for the court – set up under the Rome Statute of 2002, which Israel and the US did not ratify – to investigate Israel and, if it wants, the Palestinians, for alleged war crimes. These could include past Israeli military operations like Protective Edge in 2014 against terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip as well as settlement construction in the West Bank.

As expected, Israel and the United States responded harshly to the court decision.

“Today, the International Criminal Court has proven once more that it is a political body and not a judicial institution,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday.

“This is refined antisemitism,” Netanyahu said. “This court was created to prevent horrors like the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish nation, and now it is attacking the only country of the Jewish nation.”

He added that the court “casts these delusional accusations against the only democracy in the Middle East” while refusing to “investigate the real war crimes committed by brutal dictatorships like Iran and Syria on a daily basis.”

In the US, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said the Biden administration is committed to Israel’s security, and objects to the court’s decision.

“As we made clear when the Palestinians purported to join the Rome Statute in 2015, we do not believe the Palestinians qualify as a sovereign state, and therefore are not qualified to obtain membership as a state, or participate as a state in international organizations, entities, or conferences, including the ICC,” Price said.

“The United States has always taken the position that the court’s jurisdiction should be reserved for countries that consent to it, or that are referred by the UN Security Council,” he added.

Melanie Phillips: Why can those on the left never see their own antisemitism?

In his new book Jews Don’t Count, David Baddiel observes that people on the left don’t treat the problem of antisemitism on the same level as prejudices over race, sexuality or gender.

I personally started to detect a double standard over antisemitism in the 1980s, when I wrote that antisemitism had become “the prejudice that dare not speak its name”.

This was when the left was calling Israelis “Nazis” for trying to root out from Lebanon the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s terrorist infrastructure. It was when people started saying openly: “Jews make so much money / they’re so clannish / they always stick together against everyone else”.

Merely to mention the word “antisemitism” among left-wingers, though, caused an instant glacial chill, provoked eye-rolls or produced the charge: “You’re using antisemitism to sanitise Israel’s atrocities”.

It wasn’t until the issue so spectacularly blew up in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party that this last accusation was itself finally acknowledged as a form of Jew-hatred. And it was only then, because Corbyn was so left-wing he was deemed beyond the pale, that Jews began to feel it was safe to use the a-word.

So why does the left deny or marginalise the antisemitism amongst it? And why are many Jews still so nervous about provoking a bad reaction if they talk about this on the left other than in the context of the Corbynised Labour Party?

One obvious factor is that, in progressive circles, Marxist assumptions have been absorbed often without their provenance being recognised. Like Marx himself, many left-wingers believe capitalism is evil and white, that capitalism is run by Jews, that money is power and that Jews have so much money and power they run the capitalist world.

Michael Doran [WSJ]: In the Mideast, Biden Returns to Abnormal

Joe Biden implicitly campaigned on Warren G. Harding’s 1920 promise of “a return to normalcy.” But his administration is returning to Barack Obama’s abnormal Middle East strategy. A normal policy would respect the fundamental commandment of sound statecraft: Strengthen friends and punish enemies. It would distinguish between them by asking two simple questions: Which states have tended to shelter comfortably under the American power umbrella? And which have instead sought to destroy the American order? Israel, Turkey and the Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, have functioned as pillars of the postwar American order. By contrast, for the past 40 years Iran has tirelessly opposed the American security system.

Three details of Iran’s strategic position could make it more dangerous in the near future. First, the Persian Gulf contains five of the world’s 10 largest proven oil reserves, and Iran threatens to dominate the region. Second, Tehran is increasingly allied with both Russia and China. Third, outreach to Iran by the U.S. has deeply angered most of America’s Middle Eastern allies.

A normal policy would seek to contain Iran. Every president since Jimmy Carter regarded Iran as a threat—except Mr. Obama. His flagship policy was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, to which Mr. Biden is dedicated to return. The JCPOA won’t contain Iran. Its sunset clauses create a clear path for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. By lifting sanctions, it supplies the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with cash.

Mr. Obama also dispensed with traditional military deterrence. Tehran saw a green light to expand and arm its militia networks. By the time Mr. Obama left office, Tehran held substantial sway over four Arab capitals: Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus and Sana’a. Donald Trump returned to containment. While revitalizing deterrence and imposing sanctions, he also supported military and intelligence operations by allies, especially Israel, against Iran and its proxies. A new coalition of regional states developed and was formalized in the Abraham Accords.

JINSA PodCast: Vaccinating in Israel: A Genuine Success Story

Professor Eugene Kontorovich of George Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School joins host Erielle Davidson to discuss Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination program and what has made it so successful. Professor Kontorovich discusses the international treaties that govern Israel’s current vaccine distribution regime and corrects misinformation surrounding its vaccine program, including what international law says about Israel’s responsibilities and abilities to vaccinate Palestinians.

A week ago:

Irek Ziganshin, Chairman of the Halal Standard Committee of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of Tatarstan, said some 25 million Muslims live in Russia, including many in Tatarstan, and they want to make sure that the vaccines comply with Halal standards.

Ziganshin noted that if a vaccine contains elements like gelatin coming from porcine materials, it will be Haram (not allowed for Muslims to use).

Good news: It has been confirmed that the vaccine does not include pork products.

The Russian Muslims Management Center announced, on Thursday, that it had received all information about the formulation of the Sputnik V vaccine from its manufacturers, indicating that the vaccine does not include pork gelatin.

Jewish law does not have a problem with medicines with non-kosher ingredients that are not given orally. And many Muslim authorities agree that if the non-halal substance undergoes a transformation that changes it to a completely different kind of substance, as it would be for vaccines, it would be considered halal.

02/05 Links Pt2: The Flames of Anti-Semitism Are Growing Higher, Fueled by Both the Left and Right; Why Jews don’t count to the ‘anti-racists’

From Ian:

The Flames of Anti-Semitism Are Growing Higher, Fueled by Both the Left and Right

The idea of “white privilege”—unfair, all-encompassing advantages inherent to white people at the expense of others—has been gaining currency for years in universities, media, and as part of the official curricula in government bureaucracies and corporate HR departments. But the notion of “white privilege” became even more prominent and widespread during the 2020 summer of protest—including among many liberal Jews, whose worldview is influenced by publications like The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and other elite institutions that have endorsed progressive dogmas of racial guilt. Branching off from the white privilege discourse, the hashtag #JewishPrivilege trended on social media in mid-June, attempting to cast Jews as the most powerful and oppressive of all peoples. The hashtag may have originated with far-right groups but it quickly insinuated itself into the far left, pointing to a cross-ideological obsession with Jews as all powerful agents of injustice and shadowy manipulators of global affairs.

Back Lives Matter-inspired protests also served as backdrop for the destruction of Jewish property and violent anti-Semitism. On May 30, rioters spray painted “fuck Israel” on Congregation Beth Israel in Los Angeles, where “protesters” targeted Jewish businesses with anti-Semitic graffiti and looting. It was too easy for groups with an anti-Jewish agenda—the hard left, Nation of Islam, and others—to make common cause with protesters, who accepted Israel and the Jews as another embodiment of the systemic subjugation they were trying to destroy.

Vivid examples were provided by the July anti-Israel “Day of Rage” protests across 35 cities, which rode on the powerful momentum of BLM. Ostensibly aimed at Israeli territorial policies, Day of Rage rally leaders, like the Harvard student who led one in Washington D.C., proclaimed the Palestinian movement to be “intrinsically tied to Black Lives Matter.” Hordes alternated chanting support for BLM and condemnation of Israel for child murder. At rallies in Brooklyn, chants of “Black lives matter” intertwined with “Death to Israel!” Building on the trendy anti-police sentiment, a protester with a microphone received wild cheers for: “When I saw that precinct burn, I felt closer to a free Palestine!”

The ideological fervor that mixed hostility to American law enforcement with vitriol toward Israel—as if they were two parts of a single system—was especially acute on American campuses. At the University of Southern California in June, students motivated by George Floyd’s death led a campaign of anti-Semitic abuse against the student council vice president, Rose Ritch, for her basic support of Israel. It started when the council was chided for insufficient diversity among its leadership. Its president immediately posted on Instagram that he recognized he was a “person of privilege,” inviting fellow students to educate him about race, and announcing greater outreach to diverse student groups. When Ritch did not individually respond, she was charged with being “outspoken on issues that alienate Palestinian Trojans.” This unexplained accusation was enough to incite a push for her impeachment and a barrage of abuse. Ritch feared for her own safety and ultimately resigned from the student council.

According to Yael Lerman, legal director for the pro-Israel group StandWithUs: “Since the protests started in the spring and summer, we’ve seen a one-third increase in reported instances of campus anti-Semitism.” The already alarming rise in online anti-Semitic attacks on high schoolers also appeared to increase this summer, said Lerman. The spike was largely driven by threats and hate comments on TikTok and Instagram, which Lerman tracks through reports sent to her organization by targeted students.

Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader and aging icon of American anti-Semitism, delivered a highly anticipated Independence Day speech—his “message to America”—in which he described Jews as “Satan” and the “enemy of God” and threatened Jews with their potential destruction.

Nick Cohen: Why Jews don’t count to the ‘anti-racists’

David Baddiel’s Jews Don’t Count is out this week; a piercing 28,000-word essay that throws you back to the age of pamphlet wars. His central and unanswerable contention is that, in a time of identity politics, when every persecuted minority is listened to, there is one ethnic minority large numbers of progressives do not want to hear from: Jews, one of the most persecuted minorities in history. Baddiel builds his argument by weaving in examples so skilfully all but the most bigoted reader has to accept he has a case. A few are familiar. The people on the UK left who stuck with Jeremy Corbyn after he defended a mural showing hook-nosed capitalists, that might have come straight out of Nazi Germany. But many are drawn from a world that is unfamiliar, to me at any rate. I never knew, for instance, that Alice Walker, author of the idolised novel, The Colour Purple, took the time and trouble in 2017 to sit down and write a poem bubbling with hate entitled ‘To Study The Talmud’.

“Are Goyim (us) meant to be slaves of Jews, and not only
That, but to enjoy it?
Are three year old (and a day) girls eligible for marriage and intercourse?
Are young boys fair game for rape?
It was grotesque. But the idea that an African-American author could ever be cancelled for racism against Jews remains unthinkable to right-thinking people, even though Walker went on to endorse the works of David Icke, whose anti-vax lies could incidentally lead to the deaths of, among others, a disproportionately high number of black people suffering from Covid-19. In 2019, a musical version of the Colour Purple came to the UK. There was a hell of a fuss because Seyi Omooba, one of the cast, had once written an anti-gay post. The producers fired her, of course. Omooba’s prejudice was unforgivable, while Walker’s was, if not quite forgivable, then a matter of no consequence.

They tolerate the revival of medieval hatreds because they think all Jews are rich – itself a throwback to the Nazi and Communist stereotype of the Jew as banker and the medieval stereotype of the Jew as usurer. ‘Anti-Semitism, at this point in history, is primarily experienced as prejudice and hostility towards Jews as Jews, largely without aspects of material dispossession (such as structural unemployment) that manifest in other forms of racism,’ explained the communist writer Ash Sarkar, who had the grace to go on to criticise the 'left’s lack of literacy' on anti-Semitism.

Too many on the left think that Jews are rich and white therefore we should not worry overmuch about them. Except that not all Jews are rich or white. And even if they were, their richness and whiteness does not spare them from violence and murder.

The Tamimi scandal on-air apology delivered to BBC Arabic's Trending viewers by the show's presenter

For background, see yesterday's post: "04-Feb-21: The BBC is sorry they showcased a terrorist. But do they actually grasp the problem?"

The translation of the Arabic that follows (unedited, unchanged) was provided to us by BBC management. The speaker is BBC Arabic’s Rania ‘Attar; one of Trending’s regular presenters.

On 8 October, BBC Arabic’s Trending programme item on social media reactions to a phone call made by Ahlam Tamimi to a Jordanian radio station. Trending then broadcast a short clip recorded with Tamimi.

This item was in breach of the BBC’s editorial guidelines. Tamimi was convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to multiple life sentences in Israel for an attack that killed 15 civilians including eight children, she is on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list and is a member of an organisation proscribed by the UK and several international governments.

Therefore, any contact with her should have been approved in advance by senior editors in the BBC, as per our editorial guidelines. That approval was not sought and would certainly not have been given.

This item should not have been shown. It was a clear breach of our editorial guidelines and we apologise for it.

The BBC video clip is published here with the express permission of BBC management.

Our additional comments will be posted here in the coming hours.

02/05 Links Pt1: Yisrael Medad: Palestinians are back on the State Department docket; UAE massively cut aid to Palestinians after normalization with Israel

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Obama's third term

The Biden administration has resumed funding UNRWA, reopened the Palestinian mission to Washington and recommitted itself to the “two-state solution.” It has thus re-empowered the Palestinians’ agenda of demonising and blackmailing Israel in order to destroy it, and afforded the Palestinians status while they do so.

It has also said it wants to return to the disastrous 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, brokered by former President Barack Obama, whose terms allowed the regime to obtain nuclear weapons with only a short delay while enabling money to pour in to fund its war against Israel and the west.

Although the administration is currently saying that Iran must first return to “full compliance,” the regime’s continuing breach of that deal by increasing its number of advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium suggests it believes that America will soon cave in.

This is doubtless due to Biden’s instant moves against Iran’s foes in the Gulf. These moves include America’s “temporary” pause on the sale of F-35s to the United Arab Emirates and its “re-examination” of the Trump administration’s designation of the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, against whom Saudi Arabia is fighting, as a terrorist organisation.

Even more telling are some of Biden’s appointments. The new American envoy to Iran, Robert Malley, whitewashed Yasser Arafat’s duplicity at Camp David and, as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has observed, “has a long track record of sympathy for the Iranian regime and animus towards Israel”.

More sinister yet is the appointment of Maher Bitar as senior director of intelligence at the National Security Council. A long-standing anti-Israel activist, he spent years promoting the BDS movement and its campaigns. As a student in 2006, he was on the executive board of the poisonous Muslim Brotherhood-linked Students for Justice in Palestine, which hounds Jewish students on campus and disseminates antisemitic propaganda.

As Daniel Greenfield pointed out on FrontPage.org, while studying in Britain at Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre Bitar wrote in a paper that Israel’s “political existence as a state is the cause for Palestinian  dispossession and statelessness”.

In other words, far from advocating a two-state solution, Bitar thinks that Israel —America’s key ally in the Middle East — should not exist at all.

Yet this individual will now handle some of the most heavily classified intelligence available to the United States. He will decide what information America’s intelligence community shares with foreign intelligence services.

Yisrael Medad: Palestinians are back on the State Department docket

At the U.S. State Department press conference on Feb. 2, a question was posed by Said Arikat of the Al-Quds daily newspaper. Incidentally, if you do not know, among other things this particular journal carries some very anti-Semitic caricatures, as well as other images not favorable to the United States.

His question:
… last Tuesday, U.S. envoy to the United Nations told the Security Council that the United States is going to restore aid to UNRWA, the work and relief agency, and will probably open the consulate in East Jerusalem as well as reopening the office here in Washington for the Palestinians. My question to you: Is there a timetable, one? And on UNRWA aid, considering that the United States was the largest contributor, so will that be retroactive? I mean, that’s close to like $900 million since 2018.

Retroactive? Those funds were withheld because of bad management, anti-Semitic promotion and terror-support that was confirmed in reports. Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicate by email and never miss our top stories

State Department spokesman Ned Price’s answer was:
The United States does intend to restore humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people. We’re not doing that as a favor, but because it’s in the interest of the United States to do so … the suspension of aid to the Palestinian people has neither produced political progress nor secured concessions from the Palestinian leadership. Of course, it has only harmed innocent Palestinians.

He added:
The United States will reinvigorate our humanitarian leadership and work to galvanize the international community to meet its humanitarian obligations, including to the Palestinian people.

Interestingly, Erikat’s own report on that exchange (here in Arabic) is headlined “US State Department Spokesman: Resuming support for the Palestinians is in our strategic interest.” Erikat added “strategic” for good measure, highlighting it in his tweet. A proper academic study of his reporting, perhaps, would be an interesting project for the future.

As for Price’s “innocent,” let’s leave that to the Hamas recruitment agencies, and those of the Islamic Jihad and additional terror groups in Gaza, which fire rockets at Israeli civilian targets, dig tunnels to facilitate the invasion of Israel, and send incendiary kites and balloon bombs aloft. But indeed, what interest is it to for the United States to continue a fiction (millions of refugees) so as to enable a non-productive economy (relying on aid handouts instead) and to ignore the Palestinian Authority’s continued policies of anti-normalization, diplomatic rejectionism, denouncing the Abraham Accords (see next question) and continuing terror incitement?

Caroline Glick: Biden's drive to war in the Middle East

This policy is irrational even when assessed from within the closed cognitive circle of the Biden/Obama team. They intend to make an irrevocable concession to Iran – billions of dollars of revenue which will flow into its coffers once the sanctions are removed. And in exchange they are asking Iran to make a revocable gesture. Iran reinstated its nuclear enrichment at Fordo and raised its enrichment level to 20% at the drop of a hat. If it turns the switches off to get the sanctions relief, it can turn them right back on after the money starts to flow.

This will almost certainly happen in June at the latest. On June 18, Iran will hold presidential elections. President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif will both leave office. All of the current viable candidates hail from the Revolutionary Guards Corps and they can all be guaranteed to abandon the JCPOA. So at best, the JCPOA's remaining shelf life is four months.

Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, Malley and their colleagues all must be aware that this is the case. The fact that they are moving ahead with their failed strategy all the same indicates that they are ideologically committed to their plan and will stay with it even as it drives the region to war.

This brings us to Israel. During the Trump years, Israel and the US were fully coordinated in their joint and separate actions to undermine Iran's nuclear program and its operations in Syria and Iraq. As a senior official in Trump's National Security Council explained recently, "Working together the intelligence agencies of both countries were able to accomplish more than they could on their own."

Obviously, those days are over now. And as Biden's team makes its presence felt fully, Israel's options for blocking Iran from becoming a nuclear power are diminishing.

When IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi announced last month that he had ordered the relevant IDF commanders to prepare operational plans to strike Iran's nuclear installations, most commentators assumed his target audience was the Iranian regime. Others argued he was issuing a warning to the Biden administration. The former claimed he sought to force Iran back from the nuclear brink. The latter argued he was demanding the Biden administration take Israel's positions seriously before it moves ahead with abrogating the sanctions.

But in the face of the Biden team's strategic fanaticism and Iran's race to the nuclear finishing line, it's at least equally likely that Kochavi's intended audiences were neither the Iranians nor the Americans. Instead, he may well have been telling the Israeli public to be prepared for what is coming. And he may also have been telling Israel's regional partners that the time for joint action is now.

Last month, Jonathan Tobin sounded the alarm on Biden's foreign policy in the Middle East, which is guided by the foreign policy establishment now back in charge. Tobin is looking at the return of Robert Malley, who will advise on Iran; the resumption of aid to UNRWA and to the Palestinian Authority itself; and at Biden's decision to halt, at least temporarily, the arms sales to the UAE and Saudi Arabia -- the former considered a part of the Abraham Accords.

As Tobin sees it:

Biden’s choices show that he has learned nothing from the mistakes made during the Clinton and Obama administrations.

But what exactly are the mistakes of the Clinton and Obama administrations?

Enter Yoram Ettinger, Israeli researcher, who this week looked beyond the Clinton and Obama administrations, and traced the history of various US administrations in the Middle East, going back to 1948:

President Biden’s foreign policy and national security team reflects a resurgence of the State Department’s worldview. An examination of this worldview and its track record is required, in order to avoid past mistakes.

Remember how Abba Eban said the Palestinian Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity?

Notice the pattern of misjudgements that Ettinger finds in US Middle East policy:

1. In 1948, the State Department opposed the recognition of Israel for a variety of reasons:

o Israel would be helpless against the Arab armies arrayed against it

o Israel would be pro-Soviet

o Israel's existence would undermine US-Arab relations

o Israel's existence would destabilize the Middle East

o Israel's existence would threaten the US supply of oil

o Israel's existence would damage US interests

2. During the 1950s, the US courted Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser as a potential Middle East ally, going so far as to extend non-military aid to Egypt. But In return:

o Nasser turned into a key ally of the then-USSR

o Nasser supported anti-Western elements in Africa

o Nasser intensified anti-US sentiments in the Arab world

o Nasser attempted to topple pro-US Arab regimes

3. In 1978-1979, the Carter administration betrayed the pro-US Shah of Iran and instead embraced Ayatollah Khomeini and even shared intelligence with the Khomeini regime during its first few months. Carter assumed Khomeini was controllable and looking for freedom, democracy and positive ties with the US.

4. In 1980-1990, during the Reagan and first 2 years of the George H. W. Bush administrations, the US collaborated with Saddam Hussein and supplied him with:

o intelligence-sharing
o supply of dual use systems
o $5 billion loan guarantees

This time, the guiding principle was “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” For his part, Saddam saw this as a green light for Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait -- especially when the US Ambassador to Iraq, April Gillespie, 8 days before the invasion, told the leader, in accordance with the position of the State Department that an invasion of Kuwait was an inter-Arab issue.

Interestingly, Ettinger does not list the overthrow of Hussein and the subsequent weakening of Iraq -- removing Iraq as a check on Iran which in turn became a major destabilizing influence and global sponsor of terrorism -- as an error by the Bush administration.

5. From 1993-2000, during the Clinton administration, the US praised Arafat as a messenger of peace, worthy of the Nobel Prize for Peace and of annual US foreign aid. In doing so, Clinton ignored:

o Arafat's goal of destroying Israel, as reflected the 1959 Fatah and 1964 PLO charters,

o Arafat's hate-education system, demonizing Jews and glorifying terrorism

o Arafat's intensified terrorism.

6. In 2009, the Obama administration embraced the anti-US Muslim Brotherhood, ignoring its terroristic nature, and looking at it instead as a political, secular entity and turned a cold shoulder toward the pro-US Mubarak. This paved the way for the Muslim Brotherhood to gain power in 2012/13, which was a blow to pro-US Arab countries, which have been afflicted by Muslim Brotherhood terrorism.

7. Up until the 2011 civil war in Syria, the State Department considered Bashar Assad to be a reformer and possibly a potential moderate, based in part on Assad being

o an ophthalmologist in London

o married to a British woman

o president of the Syrian Internet Association

-- just as his father, Hafiz Assad -- known as “the butcher from Damascus” -- was regarded as a man of his word, and a credible negotiator, justifying Israel’s giving away the strategically important Golan Heights.

8. In 2011, the Obama State Department was a key supporter of the US-led NATO military offensive, which toppled Libya’s Qaddafi, despite the fact that Qaddafi

o dismantled Libya’s nuclear infrastructure

o conducted a war on Islamic terrorism

o provided the US counter-terror intelligence

The overthrow of Qaddafi transformed Libya into a platform for civil wars and global Islamic terrorism.

9. In 2011, the Washington, DC foreign policy and national security establishment welcomed the eruption of violence on the Arab Street in various Arab countries, and interpreted it as a march toward democracy and progress toward peaceful-coexistence -- calling it an Arab Spring.

In fact, this released intra-Arab and intra-Muslim terrorism and violent power struggles across the region.

10. In 2015, the Obama administration ignored Iran’s core fanatical and repressive ideology and its systematic perpetration of war and terrorism. Instead, the architects of the Iran nuclear accord (JCPOA) provided Iran with $150 billion, which allowed it to bolster their terrorism and expansionism across the region.

Obama and his 'experts' operated under the assumption that the Ayatollahs were open to negotiation and willing to live in peaceful-coexistence with their Arab Sunni neighbors. In doing so, the US disappointed most Iranian citizens, by renouncing a military regime-change option against the ruthless Iranian regime.

---

In his rush to reinstate the Iran deal, Biden is not merely pushing back the clock on the mistaken policy in which he participated during his time as vice president in the Obama administration.

YouTube screencap

Now Biden is adding his name to the list of US administrations whose foreign policy errors have inflamed the instability of a region that is more than capable of generating tensions and instability all on its own.

This week, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh gave an "Order of the Star of Jerusalem" award to "Denmark's Representative to Palestine, Nathalia Feinberg."

English language Palestinian government announcements also refer to Feinberg as the "Representative of Denmark to Palestine" as her title, as does the PLO.

That isn't her title, though.

Feinberg's official title is "Head of Mission at the Danish Representative Office in Ramallah."

No mention of "Palestine" in her title. The PA literally lies about her title to make it appear as if Denmark recognizes "Palestine" as a nation.

And this is a consistent pattern. Official Palestinian media refers to Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff as the "European Union Representative to Palestine" when his actual title is "Head of Delegation, Delegation to West Bank and Gaza Strip, UNRWA."

Palestinian media refers to the "German representative to Palestine, Ambassador Christian Klaghas," as if he is an ambassador at a German embassy. But Christian Clages is actually Head of Mission, Representative Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, Ramallah. There is no embassy and he is no ambassador.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry issued a press release mentioning the "Czech Ambassador to Palestine, Petr Stary." His title is actually the Representative of the Czech Representative Office in Ramallah.

The Head of Mission Representative Office of Hungary in Ramallah is called the "Hungarian ambassador" by the PA's foreign affairs ministry.

This is consistent. Palestinians refer to envoys as "ambassadors" and their titles including the word "Palestine" for countries that do not recognize a Palestinian state.

Diplomats are highly attuned to the specific meaning of words. There is no way that they are unaware of how the Palestinian Authority is lying about their titles and the titles of their missions, which in normal circumstances would be considered an insult.

But as with so many other things, there is a Palestinian exception where the normal rules of statecraft, diplomacy and etiquette simply do not apply.

Last year, a rumor started that Israel and the UAE were establishing intelligence listening posts on Socotra, a strategically located island at the base of the Gulf of Aden. There might be something to that rumor, since it makes sense - the UAE seized the island in 2018 and both they and Israel would gain a lot from being able to listen to signal intelligence of countries and ships in the region.

The latest rumor about Socotra is a little less credible.

From Middle East Monitor:

The Minister of Transport in Yemen's Houthi-led government, Zakaria Al-Shami, has claimed that Israel is looting natural resources belonging to the strategic island of Socotra, and has been enabled by the UAE.

"The Zionist regime, under the cover of the UAE, is operating in Socotra, looting and plundering its natural resources, and taking advantage of its geographical location, crude oil as well as medical and tourism capacities besides its other riches," he said during a meeting in the capital Sanaa on Saturday.

Israel must be excellent at logistics, able to clandestinely steal oil without anyone noticing. And hospitals!

Iranian media also spread this rumor. Big surprise.

02/04 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The vaccine blood libel; Piers Corbyn arrested by police over anti-vax Auschwitz leaflets; Spotify's neo-Nazi problem

From Ian:

Gil Troy, Natan Sharansky Explain Jewish Unity at StandWithUs Conference

Former Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky and McGill University Professor Gil Troy explained the meaning of Jewish unity on January 31 at the virtual StandWithUs 2021 International Conference.

Sharansky, who recently co-authored a book with Troy titled “Never Alone: Prison, Politics and My People,” said that when he was imprisoned in a Soviet Union gulag for nine years, he never felt alone because he knew that the Jewish people were with him. During his time serving in the Israeli government from 1996-2005, Sharansky knew that despite all of the various disagreements that went on, they all had the same goal of fighting for the principles of Judaism.

“You are never alone once you’re part of a Jewish family,” Sharansky said.

Troy said that in a recent conversation with Journal Editor-In-Chief David Suissa, he realized that the Jewish people now have a positive message: It’s no longer about simply being on the defensive against anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism; “We do what I call the Jew-jitsu… from never again to never alone, and that’s our message,” Troy said, adding that “we’re all together in this fight.”

Sharansky proceeded to explain how he came up with the 3Ds — demonization, delegitimization and double standards — to determine when criticism of Israel veers into anti-Semitism. He said he had heard accusations of Israel committing war crimes at U.S. universities during the Second Intifada; he even heard European politicians say that accusations of anti-Semitism are being used to censor criticism of Israel. Sharansky argued that he wants there to be plenty of room to criticize the Israeli government since “we are a democratic society which is full of self-criticism” and that he just wants to ensure that the “red line” isn’t crossed into anti-Semitism.

Where things stand with California’s ethnic-studies curriculum

For more than a-year-and-a-half, StandWithUs has worked tirelessly together with concerned citizens and partners to remove anti-Semitism, anti-Israel bias and other destructive ideas from California’s draft Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC). At the same time, we have pushed for the inclusion of positive education about anti-Semitism and the Jewish people. The stakes are extremely high because California public schools serve 6 million students, and the ESMC is likely to be used as a model in many other states as well.

As the ESMC receives increased national attention, we are providing an update about this critical challenge for California and the nation as a whole.

It is important to put this issue in context.

We face a massive statewide and nationwide threat: Extremists are shamelessly exploiting ethnic studies to promote hate and one-sided political agendas. We cannot allow hatred and ignorance about Jews and Israel to be institutionalized in American public education.

At the same time, we have a huge opportunity: The subject of ethnic studies is meant to give marginalized communities better representation in the classroom. The bill that led to the creation of the ESMC envisioned a “culturally meaningful and relevant curriculum,” educational standards guided by “equity, inclusiveness and universally high expectations,” and an “objective of preparing pupils to be global citizens with an appreciation for the contributions of multiple cultures.” These are goals we fully support for other communities and for our own. We can counter anti-Semitism and ignorance by teaching millions of high school students about the struggles and successes of the Jewish people.

The threat is amplified by the fact that a significant faction in the field of ethnic studies, represented by the Critical Ethnic Studies Association, institutionally promotes anti-Zionism and discriminatory boycotts against Israel. Too often, this faction engages in outright anti-Semitism by framing Jews as “white, privileged, colonial oppressors.” This is why, in September 2020, a program within San Francisco State University’s College of Ethnic Studies hosted an anti-Semitic event shamelessly glorifying convicted terrorist Leila Khaled. It is also why the first draft of the ESMC was so deeply problematic.

Melanie Phillips: The vaccine blood libel

That horror originated in medieval England with the accusation that Jews murdered Christian children to drink their blood, a demented fabrication which directly incited the murder of countless thousands of Jews. And there have been many other instances over the centuries of baseless accusations levelled against the Jews for spreading disease, notably when Jews were blamed for outbreaks of plague as a result of which thousands of Jews were slaughtered.

Today’s vaccine libel sits squarely within that horrific trajectory. For it promotes the grotesque lie that the Jews of Israel are deliberately helping cause the spread of disease and death among the Palestinians by refusing to make available to them a life-saving vaccine.

This not only weaponises yet another lie to demonise and delegitimise Israel. More fundamentally and devastatingly, it presents Israeli Jews as evil. It denies the fact that Israel is the most humane and moral country in the world, not least in the consideration it repeatedly extends to its Palestinian neighbours who never stop trying to murder its citizens and colonise its land. Instead, the vaccine blood libel suggests that Israeli Jews are devoid of compassion, empathy or moral sense and would callously cause the Palestinians to die from Covid-19.

And that is is one of the reasons why antisemitism isn’t just “another kind of racism,” as it is so ignorantly and often described, but is uniquely malevolent and murderous. For it presents the Jews as evil, a blight on humanity, a mortal threat to the rest of the world. In doing so, antisemitism incites the obvious impulse to eradicate such an evil, which has resulted over the centuries in countless massacres, pogroms and eventually the Nazi attempt to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth. And presenting Israeli Jews as similarly evil fuels exactly the same impulse to destroy them.

The claim is often made that the venomous falsehoods about Israel are not antisemitic but merely legitimate criticism of its policies. Well, the vaccine blood libel graphically demonstrates that this is not so. It is instead the latest, foul iteration of the attempt to demonise and destroy the Jews.

As the eternal people, the Jews will survive this. The society which gives rise to it will not.

Cartoon of the Day: Bad investment advice

Continuing my series of recaptioning cartoons....

Fringe Parties Warn Israeli Democracy In Peril If Fringe Parties Kept Out Of Power (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Knesset Tel Aviv, February 4 - Political groups at the extremes of Israeli society with a small following cautioned today that the representative, accountable nature of the country's political system risks collapse unless those groups exert some control over the government.

In advance of another round of parliamentary elections this coming March, parties at both far ends of Israel's political spectrum issued dire warnings that the democratic future of the country hangs in the balance: representatives of each party insisted that unless his or her tiny minority calls the shots, Israel can kiss its democratic status goodbye.

"We are the defenders of democracy," stated Meretz legislator Michal Rozin. "If we remain at our current number of seats - just a handful out of the 120 in the Knesset, corresponding to perhaps 100,000 votes - then democracy will die an even swifter death than we have warned is happening for the two decades since we last held real power. Failing to include Meretz in whichever coalition emerges in the next few months will sound the death knell for Israel as a democratic state, for at least the fortieth time in the last ten years. Israel can't call itself a democracy if it doesn't let a hundred thousand voters set policy for the other 4.5 million."

At the other end of the political spectrum, far-right activist Itamar Ben-Gvir asserted that only adopting his fringe group's agenda can the country stave off the collapse of its political system. "The challenge of our time is that, perversely, to save democracy, we must destroy it," he explained. "Some of my colleagues would like to see Arab citizens of Israel disenfranchised outright, but it might not be strictly necessary to save our democracy by limiting participation in it to people who agree with us. We also have the option of inducing non-Jews to leave and thereby forgo their right to vote. It's also a more feasible practical step, given the dominance the fringe Left has in such institutions as academia, media, and the court system. Just don't call us Kahanist! We've rebranded since the 1980's and now we identify as an oppressed minority."

Observers see parallels between the phenomenon and reactions among conservatives in the US following the failed reelection attempt by President Donald Trump. "We're seeing some of the same arguments," noted commentator Hanan Crystal. "Apparently, earning a number of votes insufficient to obtain genuine clout means that those who did vote for you are now 'disenfranchised' or 'marginalized' in some way. You're nobody today if you're not marginalized. It's what's fashionable."

02/04 Links Pt1: The Return of the Peace Processors; The U.N. Refugee Agency With Few Actual Refugees; The Palestinian Arabs demand Big Ben back

From Ian:

The Return of the Peace Processors

The establishment conversation on Israel and its neighbors has been dominated for more than 30 years by members of a guild referred to as the peace processors. The foundational premises that animate the guild's work in the Middle East have been shown, repeatedly and consistently, to be simply wrong. The reaction of the peace processors to the repeated failures of the real world to live up to their expectations speaks to an intellectual community that is blind to the realities of Middle East politics.

Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, we were told, was going to lead to an explosion of violence across the Muslim world, but nothing of the sort happened. A fence separating Israel from the West Bank was said to be doomed to fail because it didn't address the real motivations of suicide bombers, yet after the fence was built, suicide bombing dwindled. By achieving autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the Oslo Accords were supposed to lead to a reduction in violence. Instead they led almost instantly to a massive increase in violence.

Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank is said to be killing the peace process and that "time is running out" for a two-state solution. Yet the number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank remained largely unchanged and the amount of West Bank land built up remained between 1.5 and 2%. Moreover, the demographic balance between Israelis and Palestinians didn't change. Just as the number of Jews in the West Bank grew, so too did the number of Arabs.

Richard Goldberg: The U.N. Refugee Agency With Few Actual Refugees

In 2012, then- Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois tried to answer this question. His amendment to an annual spending bill demanded an estimate of people receiving Unrwa services who were actually displaced by the 1948 war. The Obama administration delivered a classified answer in 2015. The State Department guarded the secret, even during the Trump years—until Mr. Pompeo’s tweets.

“Unrwa is not a refugee agency; it’s estimated <200,000 Arabs displaced in 1948 are still alive and most others are not refugees by any rational criteria,” Mr. Pompeo tweeted. “Taxpayers deserve basic truths: most Palestinians under UNRWA’s jurisdiction aren’t refugees, and UNRWA is a hurdle to peace. America supports peace and Palestinian human rights; UNRWA supports neither. It’s time to end UNRWA’s mandate.”

President Biden reportedly intends to restore funding to the agency. Some questions he needs to answer: Should America support more than five million people through a refugee agency if fewer than 200,000 of them are refugees? Why should the State Department’s refugee bureau oversee Unrwa if the majority of its registry are not refugees?

Since most people registered with Unrwa are citizens or permanent residents of another country—such as Jordan—or currently reside within the borders of a future Palestinian state, Congress should work with the administration to find bilateral solutions. America can still assist the remaining 200,000 refugees while supporting others outside the Unrwa framework.

Remarkably, there are no technical teams from the U.S. Agency for International Development or other federal agencies designing programs, projects, or budgets to help Palestinians registered with Unrwa achieve economic independence. In other words, there are no plans to improve their lives. That needs to change.

American oversight of the U.N. must also change. When the U.S. contributes to U.N. agencies, it often takes a seat on the board to exercise basic oversight. Unrwa, however, has no board of governors and no oversight.

It took more than eight years, but we finally got the truth: Less than 5% of those on Unrwa’s registry are refugees. This means Unrwa is not a refugee agency, but something else entirely. That demands a bipartisan policy to halt the abuse of taxpayer funding.

Gerald M. Steinberg: A Pragmatic Peace for Israelis and Palestinians

For more than 70 years, peace between Palestinians and Israelis has eluded the most dedicated and experienced negotiators. Grand plans that focus exclusively on Palestinian perspectives, and downplay deeply embedded Israeli insecurity, including the growing Iranian threat, have no chance of success. And there is no value in presenting proposals that fail to consider the deep conflict between Hamas and Fatah, or the lack of a Palestinian leadership capable of reaching a historic compromise. The Palestinians and their supporters claim that the establishment of a sovereign state in which the Jewish people are the majority, with Jewish symbols, violates their rights. For Israelis, the injustices began with the Arab rejection of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, followed by an invasion aimed at "throwing the Jews into the sea," denying 4,000 years of Jewish history in this land, including Jerusalem. Palestinians have the potential for realizing the benefits of peace and cooperation, but this will require a willingness to let go of the goal of reversing the establishment of Israel. New leadership focused on improving the lives of Palestinians is necessary. To avoid doing harm, and to make lasting contributions, peacemakers should focus on steps that promote cooperation, rather than adding to the conflict.