Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

03/16 Links Pt1: The UN and the Illiberal International Order; Israel Pursuing Four More Peace Deals, Bibi Says; Iran’s ‘Nuclear Fatwa’ is Nuclear Nonsense

From Ian:

FDD Podcast: The UN and the Illiberal International Order

With the defeat of the Axis Powers in 1945, the United States emerged as the strongest nation on earth. But rather than emulate hegemons of the past, American leaders envisioned a new and different world order.

Their goal was to organize an “international community,” establish “universal human rights,” and a growing body of “international law.”

This project required new institutions, in particular the United Nations.

Three quarters of a century later, it requires willful blindness not to see that the UN and many other international organizations have become bloated and corrupt bureaucracies, increasingly serving the interests of despots.

To discuss what’s gone wrong and what might be done to prevent the UN and other international organizations from drifting further into the clutches of authoritarians host Clifford D. May is joined by Richard Goldberg, Orde Kittrie, and Emma Reilly.

Emily Schrader: Biden must abandon negotiating with Iran, UNHRC, UNRWA - opinion

Since President Biden came into office, he’s made it a goal for the United States to restore relations for diplomatic purposes with a host of entities, from the United Nations to the Palestinian Authority to UNRWA to the Iranian regime. Sadly, these well-intended initiatives are all misguided. The UN will not be any better for the United States being involved, the PA will not suddenly have a desire to make peace with Israel, and Iran is most certainly not going to stop its hostile actions in five – yes five – different countries, nor will they halt their booming nuclear program.

In 2018, the US officially withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council, a body plagued with corruption and anti-Israel obsession, whose members today include Russia, Cuba and even China. Ironically, China is simultaneously committing genocide against Chinese Muslims and violating the human rights of countless other Chinese, Tibetan and Hong Kong residents in the area. It is precisely because of sickening hypocrisy like this that the US withdrew its participation under former president Trump, and why even president Bush was hesitant about joining the council when it was established in 2006. While the intent of the Biden administration may be noble – to “work from within” to change the corruption of the UNHRC – US participation prior to president Trump did nothing to stamp out the corruption, so it is naïve to think that would be different today.

Similarly, the US cut funding to the UNRWA, the UN body responsible for Palestinian refugees (exclusively), due to the fact the mere existence of UNRWA is an obstacle to resolving the Palestinian refugee issue. UNRWA has faced criticism for perpetuating refugee status for generations and preventing Palestinians from resettling. Incidentally, the agency also has had numerous scandals with UNRWA textbooks teaching violence and terrorism in Palestinian schools. The agency itself is also the single largest employer of Palestinians in the Palestinian territories, meaning if they solved the refugee issue, these Palestinians would be out of jobs.

The US was the world’s single largest funder of UNRWA, amounting to over $360 million annually, until president Trump cut funding in 2018, calling the agency “irredeemably flawed.” Since then, throughout the pandemic, UNRWA was found once again to have incitement to violence in their textbooks teaching children in Gaza blood libels and glorifying “martyrs.” These textbooks were condemned by the European Parliament, among others. In a report issued at the beginning of 2021, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE) found that UNRWA materials are even more extreme than some of the textbooks issued by the PA itself. Yet at the same time this report confirms the problem of UNRWA, the Biden administration is talking about restoring $360 million in funding to it.

Josh Hammer: Israel’s New Election: No One Else but Bibi

For American friends of Israel buoyed by both the intrinsic moral dignity of an enhanced Israeli alliance and that alliance’s concrete national security benefits in repelling both Iranian hegemony and Sunni jihad, the thought experiment as to who ought to next lead Israel amounts to the following: “Which candidate for prime minister would be best in sustaining Israel’s marked geopolitical and diplomatic progress, centered around but hardly limited to the Trump-Netanyahu doctrine of Middle East peace, amidst the headwinds of what promises to be an anti-Israel administration redolent of the Barack Obama presidency?”

The question practically answers itself. Of course, Netanyahu is best-suited to continue leading Israel at the present moment.

Netanyahu’s now-decade-plus second stint as prime minister largely overlapped with the most anti-Israel U.S. administration in the Jewish state’s history, that of former President Barrack Obama. Netanyahu proved himself admirably adroit and courageous during those tumultuous years, developing a knack for when to strategically appease Obama (for example, the ten-month “settlement” freeze of 2010), mustering the fortitude to loudly confront him when need be (for example, Netanyahu’s spellbinding March 2015 speech before Congress, in opposition to the Iran nuclear deal), and prudently hedging his nation’s decades-long wager on the U.S.-Israel alliance by advancing the Jewish state’s diplomatic interests across Asia, Africa, and Central and South America to hitherto unforeseen heights. Netanyahu, in short, has already weathered the storm of an anti-Israel Democratic presidency without suffering serious blows to Israel’s geopolitical clout, and there is no reason to think he cannot ably do so again.

But the greatest diplomatic breakthrough for Israel over the last four decades, and quite possibly over the course of its national history, was undoubtedly the signing of the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. Those peace agreements would not have been possible without the vision and leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose skill in selling Israel’s value as a diplomatic, geopolitical, and military ally on the world stage helped land the Jewish state not merely closer defense ties with New Delhi or a new Guatemalan embassy in Jerusalem, but affirmative normalization agreements (and all the beautiful accouterments such agreements necessarily entail) with the very heart of the Arab world itself.

Netanyahu has established himself as a transformative leader. He has overseen both unprecedented diplomatic success overseas and tremendous economic growth and technological innovation at home. In the annals of Israeli political history, he is surpassed by no one other than perhaps preeminent founding father David Ben-Gurion himself. That is not to say Netanyahu is flawless; on the contrary, despite his resoluteness on the Iranian threat, he has too often lacked the courage of his convictions as it pertains to Palestinian-related issues, such as sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and the perennial thorn in the side of the modern Jewish state that is the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. There have been missed opportunities, from a conservative Zionist perspective.

But there is simply no feasible alternative at the present moment. Some conservative Zionists and longtime supporters of Netanyahu’s, frustrated with the inherent political instability that comes with four national elections in just two years and the reality of Netanyahu’s legal travails at the behest of an opportunistic legal fraternity, have urged Netanyahu that now is the right time to finally step aside. But even ignoring the largely frivolous nature of Netanyahu’s specific legal troubles, to say nothing of the fact that it is puerile to necessarily expect awe-inspiring personal virtue from our political leaders, such speculation falls flat when one considers a blunt but crucial reality: There is simply no one else who can take Netanyahu’s place.

Israel Pursuing Four More Peace Deals, Bibi Says

Israel is pursuing four more peace deals with countries in the region and elsewhere, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.

"I brought four peace agreements, and there are another four on the way," Netanyahu said. "I talked about one of them yesterday." He added that one such regional leader spoke with him by phone Monday night. The prime minister did not dispel rumors of other peace agreements in the works with nations such as Niger, Mauritania, and Indonesia.

The longtime Israeli leader also touted the four other agreements he forged last year with Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and Africa—Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan—which thawed decades of cold relations.

Israel is inching toward normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, a key partner in the coalition against Iran due to its size, wealth, and military force. Netanyahu met with Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in November. Under the Trump administration, senior officials hinted at prospects of budding relations between Riyadh and Jerusalem in the wake of the historic Abraham Accords signed in August 2020.

Normalization with gulf countries has already borne significant fruit for Israel. Tourism and trade continues to grow apace between Israel and the UAE, with some even remarking that they feel safer wearing traditional Jewish clothing in Dubai than in France now.

The Trump administration furthered such agreements between Israel and regional partners as a senior broker by strongly backing Israel and pressuring Iran. The realignment in the Middle East was appraised by former secretary of state Henry Kissinger as "brilliant." He emphasized that the Biden administration must build on the progress made in peaceful regional ties by continuing Trump-era policies in the region.

Now look at the way Kosovo has been described elsewhere by the Guardian: as a state and a country.

Is the @Guardian deliberately downgrading Kosovo's status in order to downplay the significance of the move for Israel? pic.twitter.com/JObEmepTBQ
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 16, 2021

The Washington Post reports:

U.S. Capitol Police suspended an officer Monday after a copy of an infamous antisemitic tract was found near a Capitol Hill security post Sunday, alarming a congressional aide who viewed the document in plain sight at the checkpoint.

Photographs provided to The Washington Post show a printed copy of the Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion on a table inside an entrance to the Longworth House Office Building.

The Post provided the photographs to the Capitol Police on Monday morning and requested comment. The department said Monday evening that acting chief Yogananda D. Pittman had suspended an officer pending an investigation “after anti-Semitic reading material was discovered near his work area on Sunday.”

It is unclear from the photographs who was in possession of the document, which was held together by a binder clip with its pages tattered and stained. A date stamp indicated it was printed in January 2019.

It looks like the printout was well worn and referenced often. Was it passed around from person to person?

A person whose job is to protect US lawmakers spent his or her spare time reading about how Jews are trying to take over the world.

This is truly disturbing. Unfortunately, it is not very surprising. Antisemitism has become fashionable again across the political spectrum.

Here is the abstract of a virulently antisemitic "research paper" - published by a now defunct academic journal and indexed today at ResearchGate - that ties the Protocols to today's Zionism, with copious footnotes.

(h/t YMedad)

Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party is literally falling apart, and Hamas will likely win upcoming planned elections as a result - if Abbas lets them occur.

As I reported last week, Yasser Arafat's nephew and Fatah Central Committee member Nasser al-Kidwa decided to run in the planned elections. Fatah expelled him from the party as a result, and now Kidwa is attempting to gain more people willing to leave Fatah. He is trying to woo popular terrorist/prisoner Marwan Barghouti and his supporters to run in his party.

Mahmoud Abbas retaliated by instructing the Palestinian National Fund to cut off funding to the Yasser Arafat Foundation, headed by Kidwa. They are claiming that Kidwa might be taking funds meant for the Foundation and using them for his campaign. This might be true but it shows how endemic corruption is across the board in Fatah.

Voters are not likely to reward such a move.

Abbas also took away Kidwa's official car and his guards that protected him.

Marwan Barghouti, the terrorist who is serving five life sentences in Israeli prison, is said to be ready to run for president of the Palestinian Authority against Mahmoud Abbas. Polls show that the murderer is the most popular Palestinian politician today.

Also, Mohammed Dahlan - the other Fatah rival to Abbas who was expelled from the party and exiled, has been instrumental in getting the UAE to donate tens of thousands of COVID-19 vaccines to Gaza, where he is most popular. The fact that he managed to get vaccines to the territories when the entire Palestinian Authority has failed to bring in any is also not lost on Palestinians.

Khaled Abu Toameh tweeted this morning that a Fatah official said Fatah is crumbling and Hamas will win the election. I tend to think that if things continue to go badly for Mahmoud Abbas, he will cancel the elections altogether under some pretext (probably that Israel is not allowing polling places to be set up in Jerusalem) and remain in power.

What is clear is that the Palestinian Authority and its dominant Fatah party is in disarray and Hamas is giving the appearance of being competent and respectable by contrast.

If anything, this mess will further embitter Arab nations who have supported the Palestinian cause, and to them, the idea of normalization with Israel becomes more attractive than blind support for a corrupt, petty and/or terrorist Palestinian leadership.

Haaretz interviewed Cornel West, who blamed his not receiving tenure at Harvard on Zionists who didn't like his anti-Israel politics:

Never one to shy from controversy, Dr. Cornel West once again finds himself at the center of a firestorm after Harvard University refused to consider him for tenure – a decision he links to his support for Palestinian rights.

West, 67, previously left the Massachusetts school in 2002 following a public spat with then-President Lawrence Summers, before returning in 2016. He says Harvard’s administration told him there was no possibility for a tenure review but offered him more money or a prestigious chair. He believes there were three possible reasons for Harvard’s decision: his academic work, his age or his politics.

The academic, who will participate in the prestigious Gifford Lectures in 2024, quickly rules out the first two possibilities, citing his previous tenure 36 years ago at Yale and professorships at Harvard and Princeton with the highest possible honors for a faculty member, as well as over 20 books published under his name.

He does not believe his public support for Sen. Bernie Sanders or Black Lives Matter was a deal breaker, noting that his stance on those topics is mainstream enough to not be viewed as alienating. “Then I thought of the Palestinian issue and the Israeli occupation – now that is a taboo,” West says.

West is not telling the truth.

He was not denied tenure - his position was not a tenure track position!

As this article notes, most academic jobs - even senior ones - are not tenure track anymore. West's position wasn't ever eligible for tenure to begin with, and he knew this when he re-joined Harvard in 2016.

During his normal 5-year review, the faculty committee offered him a raise and a 10 year contract, which for a 67-year old man is as good as tenure. But he refused, insisting that they change his position itself into a tenured position - something that this review board couldn't do. As the Boston Globe reported, "The faculty committee was only in charge of reviewing his reappointment and does not have authority to conduct a review for tenure, [Harvard's] spokesman said."

Now, it is obvious why he wasn't granted tenure - he did not have a tenure-eligible job and one cannot make that change at the drop of a hat. West asked for the job to be changed, which is quite a different matter than being denied tenure!

Yet West is insisting in multiple interviews that he was forced out by Zionists at Harvard rather than his own hubris. Yet if the Zionists at Harvard were out to silence him, why did they offer him a raise and a ten year contract?

And is it really that difficult to find professors in Ivy League schools who are anti-Israel?

Now, what does it look like when a professor lies about being denied tenure - and claims that the Jews (sorry, "Zionists") are secretly behind it?

It sounds far more like West planned to leave Harvard anyway, and decided to make a stink accusing "Zionists" of mistreating him.

UPDATE: Mondoweiss has the quote from West where he literally blames Jews for his not getting tenure - because what other possible reason is there?

03/15 Links Pt2: Antisemitism is a Conspiracy Theory Against Meritocracy; The Ramallah Quakers; The Jews' Secret Fleet to Israel After the Holocaust

From Ian:

Daniel Greenfield: Antisemitism is a Conspiracy Theory Against Meritocracy

Last week, the Gross Family Center for the Study of Antisemitism and the Holocaust kindly invited me to address their audience. I spoke to them about Socialist antisemitism and the war on meritocracy, why the enemies of meritocracy are also the enemies of the Jews and why when Jews oppose meritocracy, we're enabling antisemitism.

Here's the video of the speech along with a few key points.

To understand where the new antisemitism came from, it’s important to look at how the origins of modern antisemitism redefined the Jews from the oppressed to the oppressors.

And that didn’t happen in 1948. It didn’t happen in the Six Day War.

The new antisemitism redefines Jews as the oppressors. But redefining Jews as the oppressors dates back to a time before the rebirth of the State of Israel, a time when Jews hardly had any rights, and the few rights they had were coming under attack.

"Every government having regard to good morals ought to repress the Jews," Pierre Leroux, credited with coining the term 'Socialism' wrote. "When we speak of Jews, we mean the Jewish spirit, the spirit of profit, of lucre, of gain, the spirit of commerce."

American socialism traces its ideological ancestry to Charles Fourier, a French socialist bigot who fumed that Jews were the embodiment of capitalism, “parasites, merchants, usurers”, and the "incarnation of commerce: parasitical, deceitful, traitorous and unproductive".

“What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in the face of which no other god may exist,” Karl Marx ranted. “The god of the Jews has become secularized and has become the god of the world.”

The emancipation of the Jews meant that they were free to pursue careers, go into business, and do their best to succeed. (h/t Chairman LMAO™)

The Ramallah Quakers

It is hardly a surprise that Sa'ed Atshan would be given tenure at Swarthmore College. What is noteworthy is how this came about. It points to the special place Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) supporters have in academia.

To start, Atshan is a well-known BDS activist, and the college itself has endorsed BDS. In many ways, Atshan is a poster child for Quaker education—he's an alum of the Quaker school in Ramallah who now teaches for the same Quaker school he attended as an undergraduate. He represents the Quaker echo chamber regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that ensures that only the Palestinian narrative will be voiced.

Atshan has also been active with Students for Justice in Palestine, whose parent organization, American Muslims for Palestine, was recently shown to be connected to the same American Muslim Brotherhood supporters who funded Hamas through the Holy Land Foundation, and which has trained its activists in "Countering Normalization of Israeli Oppression on Campus."

The Ramallah Friends School, where Atshan was educated, is one of the oldest Quaker institutions in the Middle East. The school acts as a feeder to the Quaker colleges in Pennsylvania. Another proud alum of the school is Joyce Ajlouny, the Secretary General of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Ajlouny is a native of Ramallah and formerly the head of the Quaker school.

The Ramallah school has also been exporting its pedagogy through programs like "Go Palestine," which is focused on Palestinian culture. Yet, in addition, "Go Palestine" participants receive a steady dose of anti-Israel rhetoric through films and lectures. These include"Occupation 101" and "Jerusalem: The East Side Story," films which depict Israel as a racist, savage oppressor. A panel on "Youth Activism and Engagement in Palestine" featured representatives of "the Love Under Apartheid Campaign [and] the BDS movement."

The blindspot of NYAG Letitia James

Ms. James’ tepid response to the wave of Jew hatred that proliferated throughout New York City in the summer of 2019 and has continued in various incarnations until this day, will not go unanswered.

It doesn't take much to know that the rudimentary function of the Attorney General is to launch meticulous probes in order to root out the pernicious source or sources from which criminal behavior is emanating, to find out who the suspects are and what their motive is.

While Ms. James is on the fast track to take on Asian-American discrimination with a palpable gusto, her willingness to be a pro-active prosecutor when it pertains to anti-Semitism is sputtering like a faulty engine.

Let’s remember that during the wave of heightened anti-Semitism that plagued New York City and beyond, Ms.James and her cohorts remained completely silent about the insidious surge until she was coerced to hold a press conference in the aftermath of the brutal stabbings of hassidic Jews at the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg of Monsey in December of 2019. .

In a statement released to the media at the time, James said, “There is zero tolerance for acts of hate of any kind and we will continue to monitor this horrific situation. I stand with the Jewish community tonight and every night.”

Really, Ms. James? Your actions certainly do not justify these statements.

She followed that up with a press conference after meeting with Orthodox leaders. She then claimed that she would work with local district attorneys in providing them support for their prosecutions of Anti-Demitic attackers. She also promised that she would monitor social media sites that routinely provide a platform for haters to spew forth vitriolic anti-Semitic diatribes.

Suffice it to say, Ms.James, despite her words, has done absolutely nothing to prevent the burgeoning anti-Semitism that has gripped our city and state. She still has not promulgated a viable plan to quash anti-Semitism as the slow motion roll to yet another European style deadly pogrom takes place before our very eyes.

Ms. James, we ask you and your colleagues why you maintain a double standard as it pertains to battling discrimination and prejudice? Why don’t you fight the scourge of Jew hatred with as much fervor as you do when other minority groups are the target of violence?

Mondoweiss published a word salad of intersectional nonsense that is also a petition that won't be sent to anyone.

The preamble actually says it all:

In the interest of advancing a truly intersectional and decolonial feminist vision for the U.S., Palestine and our world, the Palestinian Feminist Collective is urging others to join them in declaring Palestine is a feminist issue.

In English: "We hate Israel and we want to pretend to use feminism as a weapon against it, even though there is nothing remotely connected to feminism at issue."

The text is unintentionally hilarious:

For decades, Palestinian feminists have resisted Israel’s masculinist and militarized siege of Palestinian land and life. Since its inception, the Zionist settler colonial project has hinged on the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and land, creating generations of landless Palestinian refugees. Zionist violence continues to dominate Palestinian lives in intimate ways. Throughout the homeland, Israel demolishes Palestinian homes, subjects Palestinian prisoners of conscience to systematic sexual and physical abuse and torture, and polices Palestinian bodies, sexualities, reproductive rights, and family life. Palestinians continue to affirm life in the face of the enduring Nakba (catastrophe), which takes place through deadly closure in the Gaza Strip, military occupation in the West Bank, legal designations of second-class citizenship in the settler state, exile in refugee camps and across the shatat (global diaspora), and denial of the right to return home.

We uphold the legacies of solidarity between Palestinian, Black, Indigenous, Third World feminist, working class, and queer communities who have struggled side-by-side within larger anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, and anti-racist movements in the US and globally. This stands in contrast to liberal feminist traditions in the U.S. that continue to weaponize feminist discourses against Palestinians and other marginalized communities by failing to confront the structural forms of gendered and sexual violence inherent to settler/colonialism, imperialist wars, racial capitalism, and global white supremacy. Liberal and Zionist feminisms rely on Orientalist discourses to silence and undermine the collective aspirations of Palestinian women and their co-strugglers, contributing to intensified political repression that criminalizes free speech on Palestine and Palestinian liberation.

Did you see anything here about how Israel is discriminating against women? Neither did I, or anyone else. It is a wall of buzzwords meant to make idiots think that there is a "there" there. ''

The ironic part, of course, is that Palestinians literally have laws against its women. Lots of them.

I wrote about it at length last week.

Obviously, the "Palestinian Feminist Collective" is a sham, utterly uninterested in women's rights.

Last year, a suspiciously similarly named "Palestinian Feminist Working Group" with a suspiciously thin Internet footprint wrote a suspiciously similar manifesto also on Mondoweiss.

Hate of Israel is clearly stronger than actual feminism for these hypocrites.

03/15 Links Pt1: Jared Kushner: On Iran, the U.S. Should Continue to Play the Strong Hand It Was Dealt; Israel to push for UN adoption of IRHA definition of anti-Semitism

From Ian:

Jared Kushner: On Iran, the U.S. Should Continue to Play the Strong Hand It Was Dealt

The roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict stretch back to when Arab leaders refused to accept the creation of the State of Israel after World War II and spent 70 years vilifying it and using it to divert attention from domestic shortcomings. But today, Muslims are posting pictures of peaceful visits to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, blowing a hole in the propaganda that the holy site is under attack.

The Abraham Accords exposed the conflict as nothing more than a real-estate dispute between Israelis and Palestinians that need not hold up Israel's relations with the broader Arab world. It will ultimately be resolved when both sides agree on an arbitrary boundary line.

While many were troubled by the Biden team's opening offer to work with Europe and rejoin the Iran deal, I saw it as a smart diplomatic move. The Biden administration called Iran's bluff. It revealed to the Europeans that the JCPOA is dead and only a new framework can bring stability for the future. When Iran asked for a reward merely for initiating negotiations, President Biden did the right thing and refused.

America holds a strong hand. Iran is feigning strength, but its economic situation is dire and it has no ability to sustain conflict or survive indefinitely under current sanctions. America should be patient and insist that any deal include real nuclear inspections and an end to Iran's funding of foreign militias.

Mohammed Khalid Alyahya: The Price of Empowering Iran

Since the Biden administration's decision to reverse the designation of Yemen's Houthi militia as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) on Feb. 12, drones and ballistic missiles have targeted Saudi Arabia 48 times. It is a fallacy to understand the region's politics as a contest between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Seen from Tehran, the central contest in the region is between the American alliance system and Iran's self-styled "resistance alliance."

Biden's misconception leads to a number of erroneous ideas: that the U.S. can play a neutral, mediating role between Riyadh and Tehran; that by distancing itself from Saudi Arabia, it creates opportunities for regional stability and understanding; and that it is the Saudi role in Yemen - and not the Iranian role - that has perpetuated the conflict in that country.

Iran has waged a forty-year war to spread its control across the region - not to compete with Saudi Arabia, but to undermine the American alliance system. Iran's network of terrorist groups in the region chant, "death to America," not "death to Saudi Arabia."

Iran's attacks on Saudi Arabian civilian infrastructure, via its proxies in Yemen and Iraq, are reactions to U.S. policy - not Saudi Arabian policy. Appeasing Iran, and punishing U.S. allies, will come at the expense of the entire region.

Abraham Accords: Getting a win-win for Israelis and Palestinians

AT THE END of 2020, as part of the omnibus spending package, Congress enacted the Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act (MEPPA) with bipartisan support. MEPPA authorized a five-year, $250 million people-to-people peace-building fund and an investment initiative to give the bandwidth and budget to answer the question, “What are we doing to ensure the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians don’t hate one another?” Often an afterthought, MEPPA gives the administration a coordinated way to think about peace-building, not as a series of programs, but as an integrated policy tool.

Congress, wanting to leverage the groundbreaking American investment as well as maximize its efficacy, baked into MEPPA a multilateral element encouraging international donors. In doing so, Congress intended to harness the added legitimacy gained from multilateral endorsement of MEPPA in the eyes of Israelis and Palestinians and ensure equitable burden-sharing.

The Biden administration can use MEPPA to gather additional commitments from both the region and European allies to address incitement, dehumanization and economic disparity between Israelis and Palestinians. In doing so, the administration can utilize MEPPA to further the Abraham Accords, institutionalize new regional dynamics while providing needed economic stimulus to the Palestinian private sector, and deal head-on with adult and youth attitudes that must change if progress will be possible.

The advantages that the Abraham Accords have created should not be quarantined to just the fight against a nuclear Iran. MEPPA offers the ideal way to capture the new regional spirit to elevate aspirations for a just, sustainable and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

MEPPA sets in motion long-term grassroots peace-building combined with joint Israeli-Palestinian economic development projects to support future diplomacy. It also enables an early opportunity for the US to repair relations with the Palestinians, cultivate a foundation of trust between Israelis and Palestinians, rebuild trust with European partners, and capitalize on the regional normalization dynamic in a way that prioritizes Israeli-Palestinian peace. MEPPA can show once again how US taxpayers can amplify and solidify their investment and impact through engaging allies, and how US leadership and innovation is still the indispensable ingredient for meaningful international cooperation.

Palestinian cabinet blames Israel for everything - but not for lack of COVID-19 vaccines

Every Monday, during the Palestinian Authority cabinet meeting chaired by prime minister Muhammad Shtayyeh, he presents a summary of problems being worked on.

He is not shy about saying anti-Israel rhetoric. In today's meeting, for example, he thanked the members of Congress for writing an anti-Israel letter to Secretary of State Blinken and he condemned Kosovo for opening up an embassy in Jerusalem.

Obviously, he has to address the coronavirus crisis. The Palestinians have been promised vaccines from Russia, from Astra-Zeneca and from COVAX, but none have actually been shipped.

Yet when it comes to this topic, he never says a word against Israel.

Last week he said:

Global supply chains for vaccines are delayed due to competition from other countries and their attempt to acquire vaccines. About 75% of the vaccines are concentrated in ten rich countries, while 130 countries have not received a dose of the vaccine according to UN reports. The only available weapon in our hands today are the masks and the physical distancing, so by adhering to this, we protect ourselves and our society from the risks of infection with the new strains of the virus .

I call on friendly countries, vaccine-producing companies, and the global COVAX mechanism to fulfill their obligations and work to supply the vaccines that we were promised as donations or those that we paid for and whose supply dates were delayed so that we can provide a safe environment for the legislative elections scheduled to take place on the twenty-second of next May.

This week:

Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh said that great progress has been made in communications to obtain anti-Coronavirus vaccines, whether those that we will receive in the form of donations from the international COVAX mechanism, or those that we have paid for with the companies producing vaccines.

Shtayyeh explained at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting, today, Monday, in Ramallah, that the problem is not in providing funds, but in fulfilling companies' obligations, as there is piracy of the vaccine and politicization of its provision, and there is a tremendous demand and limited supply, and despite that we have activated all our diplomatic, political, medical and international channels.

He expressed his hope that these efforts will bear fruit with the arrival of the first batch of vaccines.

Even many weeks after the Palestinian leaders announced that vaccines were on their way, both that they purchased and that were donated, the vaccines never showed up. And yet even though the entire world is blaming Israel and falsely claiming that Israel must provide vaccines, there is not a word against Israel in any of Shtayyeh's addresses.

Clearly the Palestinian Authority has always intended to act like an independent state that can procure its own vaccines for its own people. And even in the face of more procurement delays, in its own internal meetings the Palestinian Authority is not calling on Israel to give or sell any surplus vaccines to them, nor is it blaming Israel for not providing vaccines for free as so many anti-Israel activists claim the Geneva Conventions mandate.

They don't want help from Israel. And when they ask for limited amounts of help, Israel has given it.

It is also notable that Israel's drive to vaccinate some 120,000 Palestinian workers is unreported in official Palestinian news agency media.

Tel Aviv University vaccinates hundreds of Palestinian and international students, @972mag silent

Earlier this month, +972 Magazine published an article about a Palestinian student at Tel Aviv University who attempted to get a COVID-19 vaccine during a university drive - after she was promised that she was eligible - but was denied the shot,

The article was slanted to show how awful Israel is for denying the shot to this woman who spent hours traveling to receive her shot. However, a close reading of the article shows that there was not an ounce of malice there - it was a snafu, a miscommunication, and TAU was not authorized to provide a shot to anyone who was not under an Israeli insurance plan, including Palestinian and international students.

Despite the Health Ministry’s insistence on refusing to vaccinate the Palestinian student, she said that Tel Aviv University went to great lengths to try and get her a vaccine. One university coordinator spoke to the medical staff on site and called the Health Ministry, she said, while senior university officials arrived at one point to try to help, to no avail. According to the student, the university staff also spoke to the administration at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, the city’s major hospital, yet nothing helped. She was later told that the university president had sent a letter to the Health Ministry on the matter.

In a comment to +972, the Health Ministry claimed it was not contacted by Tel Aviv University on the matter, and that had the university reached out, the student would have been vaccinated as “an exception.”

The headline of the article was enough, however, for countless posts in social media condemning TAU and Israel for what was just a screw-up.

Now, it seems, Tel Aviv University has solved the paperwork problem and has successfully vaccinated hundreds of students who couldn't get the vaccine a couple of weeks ago - including Palestinians:

Clearly, the evil anti-Palestinian Israeli government approved this. Clearly, no one in Israel has any objection to vaccinating Palestinian students in Israeli universities.

That idea is only in the fevered hallucinations of the anti-Israel crowd.

Of course, +972 didn't issue an update or report this story - which is still on their front page. The truth is not as important as the narrative when it comes to attacking Israel.

It is also clear from the TAU tweet that this one Palestinian woman was not singled out for not getting the vaccine last month, but that hundreds of non-Israeli students including internationals were not eligible at the time because of insurance and paperwork requirements then.

There was not an ounce of anti-Palestinian sentiment anywhere - except from the slanderers at +972.

Save the Children: Another lying, anti-Israel NGO

Last October, the UK-based Save the Children organization issued a report about Palestinian children detained by Israel.

Its press release and headline says:

It goes on to say:

81% [of children] endured physical beatings and 89% suffered verbal abuse.
52% were threatened with harm to their families.
86% were subjected to strip searches, leaving them humiliated and ashamed.
88% did not receive adequate and timely healthcare, even when explicitly requested.

These are very specific statistics, with no caveat, in the press release. A respected NGO is telling the world that 81% of detained kids get beaten by Israeli soldiers and more than half were threatened with hurting their families.

Sounds pretty bad.

But the actual report has this curious paragraph:

It is important to note that this research provides insight based on a specific sample of the population in the West Bank. Save the Children recognises that it is not a statistically significant or representative sample. As the report intentionally presents children’s experience from their own perspective, it is also important to note that incidents they mention have not been independently verified by Save the Children; however, available data from other sources is provided to support the information that children reported. The intention is that this survey will provide a springboard for further in-depth consultation with children and young people across the West Bank about the resounding impact of detention on their lives, in order to inform policy, donor funding decisions, and the support that Save the Children and others provide for Palestinian children and their communities.

In short, you know those statistics that were in the press release? They are lies. They are statistics based on a sample of "children" (many interviewed years later) who were primed by the NGO to say what the adults wanted them to say. "Did they beat you? Did they threaten you? Did they blindfold you? Did they torture you?"

Nowhere does the report even hint that the interviewers had any expertise in asking non-leading questions, or that there was even a goal of eliciting truthful and accurate answers.

These statistics were of a highly selective sample of interviewees, naturally weighted towards those who would have juicy stories to tell or vivid imaginations. It was not a random sample of detainees. Kids who were detained for a couple of hours and released without incident are far less likely to have been sought out and questioned.

By presenting the statistics as being specific and accurate, Save the Children has shown that it is more a propaganda outfit than an objective organization. The entire study was created to come to a foregone conclusion, and it succeeded. The only victim is the State of Israel, and who cares if they are treated fairly or not? They are already assumed to be evil child beaters, so there is no reason to spend any effort to find out anything otherwise.

More evidence of bias comes from the fact that many of the accusations given in the report should not have happened after June 2018, when the IDF issued a new set of standards for minors in custody, including their being informed of their rights to a lawyer in their language during questioning and treating everyone under 18 as a minor (it used to be 16.) . The dates of the incidents from the interviews are not given so it seems likely that many of the stories came from before that date - and Save the Children does not even mention these new standards once.

NGO Monitor came out with many more issues with the report.

This report has no relationship with the truth, and it shows that Save the Children lies.

(h/t Adin)