Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 31, 2017

Secret negotiations in London?

From the Hamas-linked Palestine Information Center site:

Secret talks are being held in London between prominent Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders and Israelis, London Evening Standard military correspondent Robert Fox reported Thursday.

The background and contents of this first round of talks were revealed to the Standard on Thursday by British Israeli think tank BICOM.

The delegates, senior and recently retired academics and politicians from Israel and the PA, do not wish to be named as the talks are ongoing. They have established secret back channels which are still active.

Here's what really happened:

BICOM and Chatham House hosted private talks between Israelis and Palestinians in London last year to explore new ideas to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The meeting involved former and current officials, academics and security figures from Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The delegates expressed overwhelming support for a two-state solution but reached a strong consensus that a single model for peace will not succeed. Instead they agreed to adopt a mixed model based on the best of different ideas that have been proposed, blending them together for maximum flexibility.

During the talks the teams critiqued four different proposed solutions to the conflict: bilateral negotiations,a regional framework, unilateralism and an Israeli-Palestinian confederation.

BICOM has published a new report, based on the talks, that proposes a new ‘hybrid’ model for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The report includes a number of insights and common positions that arose from the discussions.

I haven't had a chance to look at the report yet, but you can.

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If you look at the video of the swearing-in ceremony of US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, you will notice that he slightly changed the words he was repeating from Vice President Mike Pence.

As Pence asked him, “Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. 'I, David Friedman, do solemnly swear..” Friedman said, "I, David Friedman, do solemnly affirm..."

This is because traditional Jews try not to swear, due to the seriousness of the prohibition of taking God's name in vain.

Traditionally, the swearing in ceremony used by Western governments was meant specifically to exclude non-Christians from being part of the government. The BBC notes:

Jews were excluded by the oath less deliberately, as it included the words ''on the true faith of a Christian", as well as being sworn on the Christian Bible. The Jewish Liberal David Salomons was elected to Parliament in 1851 and took the oath, taking it upon himself to omit the problematic phrase. He was ejected from his seat a few days later, with a £500 fine for voting illegally in Parliament. Jewish MPs were allowed to swear without the phrase by Jews Relief Act 1858.
Affirming, as an alternative to swearing, was introduced by the Parliamentary Oaths Act of 1866, but did not at first apply to atheists or agnostics. The law applied to "the people called Quakers" and anyone else who was already allowed to affirm in a court of law, but atheists were not supposed to affirm in court because the affirmation was made "in the Presence of Almighty God".
The right to affirm in Parliament was finally extended to atheists in 1888, after Charles Bradlaugh, founder of the National Secular Society, was thrown out of the Commons four times for atheism, and re-elected each time.
He had first of all tried to make the affirmation which was intended for Quakers, and then later tried to take the standard oath (perhaps, like the republican Tony Banks in 1997, with his fingers crossed) but MPs who knew about his beliefs refused to let him.
Bradlaugh administered the oath to himself and was expelled anyway. Only on his fifth election to Parliament in 1886 was he allowed to swear and take his seat, and it was his Oaths Act which in 1888 extended the right to affirm to atheists and anyone else who objects to swearing.

The Jewish objection to swearing for office today is not based on the problems of swearing to a Christian deity but rather to an extreme reluctance towards taking any kinds of oaths.

So even in the Israeli army, religious Jews have the option of saying that they "declare" instead of "swear" to perform their duties.

Of course, the refusal to say "I swear" is not a dispensation for lying under Jewish law. Antisemites like to pretend that the Kol Nidrei prayer on Yom Kippur which is meant to annul oaths is somehow a loophole to allow Jews to lie to non-Jews. It isn't.

Friedman placed a kippah on his head for the ceremony, and he placed his hand on a Hebrew Bible - Tanach, as can be seen in this detail from a photo tweeted by Shmuley Boteach. Clearly he took this ceremony seriously.

His presumed grandkids running around didn't seem to take it quite as seriously, though!

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Antisemitic cartoonist named "cultural ambassador" for Belgian town

Luc Descheemaeker (aka O-Sekoer) has been named the "cultural ambassador par excellence" for the city of Torhout, Belgium.

Belgian news site Nieuwsblad says he deserves the award because his cartoons have been shown worldwide.

This is true. He was a winner of Iran's Holocaust Cartoon contest with this entry.

The town of Torhout is quite aware of this because there was worldwide publicity for the school he taught at honoring him despite this clearly antisemitic cartoon.

And he has drawn other antisemitic cartoons as well, like this one that blames Jews for being blown up by terrorists:

This one with a similar motif doesn't bother with the seeming even handedness of the previous cartoon, squarely blaming Jews for terrorism:

There is no way for any honest person to interpret these cartoons as anything but antisemitism.

A JTA reporter in Belgium who covered the previous honor for Descheemaeker was shaken by the tacit support for antisemitic expression in Belgium:

I wanted to see whether the school can get away with defending the maker of blatant anti-Semitic imagery by claiming to be neutral on its celebrated teacher’s extracurricular activities. So I repeatedly queried the board of education, the royal house, the Queen Paola Foundation, the municipality where the school is located and Belgium’s federal center against discrimination. I received one written response, from the foundation, saying it had no comment for me.

This see-no-evil approach from government offices in a country whose leaders often declare a zero-tolerance attitude to anti-Semitism surprised me. But the real shock was the response from the Belgian media to JTA’s coverage of the affair.

De Morgen, one of Belgium’s largest and best-respected dailies, ran an article that omitted reference to Descheemaeker’s caricatures of Jews. It described the Iranian competition as a “controversial” affair “themed on the Holocaust,” which the paper said was instituted as a statement about freedom of expression following the publication of insulting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark.

(UNESCO, the cultural arm of the United Nations, had called the contest “a mockery of the genocide of the Jewish people.”)

Descheemaeker, who is described in the paper as an internationally acclaimed caricaturist, is quoted as saying in reaction to the uproar created by his work: “There is still such a thing as freedom of expression.”

Knack, a popular news site, took the same editorial line.

Confused, I reached out to Joel Rubinfeld, founder of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism and former president of the CCOJB umbrella group of French-speaking Belgian Jewish communities. I wanted to know whether Belgian education officials were more tolerant of expressions of anti-Semitism than their counterparts from other Western European countries.

“It’s a problem,” he said. “We’ve encountered a number of cases where schools did not take the necessary measures when Jewish pupils were targeted in anti-Semitic bullying, for example.”

A teacher who last year told a Jewish high school student, “We should put you all on freight wagons,” was allowed to keep his job following an internal inquiry. It ended with him apologizing while denying any anti-Semitic intent in the first place.

Cases involving anti-Semitic abuse among students are regularly ignored at Belgian schools, “which don’t apply the measures necessary to make these cases stop,” Rubinfeld said.

One student was forced to leave his public school and was enrolled in a private Jewish one last year following harassment, which included a threat to “break his skull” if he showed support for Israel. Also last year, the Belgian media reported on the online shaming by classmates of a pro-Israel high school student. He also left the public education system for a Jewish school.

This honor happened in January. No one in Belgium thought it was controversial enough to even raise an eyebrow based on media reports.

When naked Jew-hate is excused under "freedom of expression" that means that antisemitism is officially condoned in Belgium.

(h/t Rudi)

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NYT again shows that "truth" is a slogan, not a reality, in its reporting on Nikki Haley

The New York Times has an article on Ambassador Nikki Haley's speech to the Council on Foreign Affairs that is a textbook example of media bias.

Every quote that the article by Somini Sengupta uses is followed by a claim by the reporter that Haley is lying. It is written like a fact check more than a news article.

As a result it fails at both.

The American envoy to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, described the United States on Wednesday as the “moral conscience” of the world, and she dismissed the United Nations Human Rights Council as “so corrupt” without offering evidence.

Evidence is needed in court, not a public conversation. Haley may not have offered evidence but she did explain exactly why she calls the Human rights Council "corrupt." From her speech:

[T]he Human Rights Council is so corrupt. I mean, if you look what countries do is they get on it to protect themselves, to make sure that the fingers never pointed at them instead of actually looking at what we need to be doing for human rights for people around the world, and that’s part of it. When you’ve got bad actors that actually sit on the Human Rights Council, it makes you call into question what it is we’re trying to do.

"Corrupt" is not an inaccurate summation of what Haley's points are. But the NYT ignores that.

Later in the article, Sengupta comes back to this topic, and throws in another dubious fact check:

She used her address to deliver a pointed attack on the United Nations Human Rights Council, the main international body meant to promote and defend human rights.

“I mean, the Human Rights Council is so corrupt,” she said, adding that it includes “bad actors” who use it to protect themselves.

Several countries with poor human rights records, including China and Saudi Arabia, have indeed won seats on the council. But the United States has itself used its seat to forcefully defend its allies, including Saudi Arabia, which has been accused of abuses in the war in Yemen.

I am not aware when the US "forcefully" defended the Saudi campaign in Yemen at the UNHRC. There was hesitant support for a Saudi role at the UNHRC in 2015, with the caveat that the US hoped that Saudi Arabia would practice what it preaches in the group. by If it happened, it is surprising that Sengupta didn't note it in her article last year about criticism of the Saudi role in the Council.

At any rate, the moral equivalence that Sengupta is trying to draw between the US and the Saudis is obscene, and her assertion - to use her words, "without evidence" - does not belong in this article unless she can back it up.

She cited what she called a “ridiculously biased report attacking Israel,” and criticized the Security Council for holding monthly meetings about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (The council also discusses Yemen every month and Syria three times a month.)

Let's set aside how disgusting it is for Sengupta to compare a permanent item on the Security Council agenda on Israel - because of the extreme crime of Jews building houses - with ones on two countries where hundreds and thousands are being brutally killed every month.

Let's just see if Syria is indeed discussed three times a month at the Security Council.

According to its website, in 2016 there were 13 meetings about Israel, 25 about Syria and 11 on Yemen. (There were two others involving Israel - to extend the UNDOF and UNIFIL mandates - but I'm not counting them.)

In 2017 there were 3 meetings about Israel, 3 about Syria and 3 about Yemen.

However, most of the meetings on Syria and Yemen last less than 30 minutes. For Israel, however, there were full-day sessions in April, October and January, and other half-day sessions. I didn't see any full day meetings on Syria or Yemen.

By any measure, Sengupta is not accurate in her description of how often the UN discusses Syria. Most of the 2016 Syria discussions were in the context of discussions (and vetoes by Russia and China) of Security Council resolutions.

For someone who styles herself as a fact checker, Sengupta is not very good with facts.

Haley did discuss Israel, which Sengupta barely mentioned. Here is what Haley said:

Really, all I’ve done with Israel is tell the truth. So when I saw something wrong, I called it out. It was amazing to me that we had a briefing on the Middle East and literally all it was an Israel-bashing session. And so I was confused because there were so many other issues that needed to be talked about that were in the Middle East and that was just all they talked about. And they do it every single month. And so it was really just saying, with all the issues in the world this is what we’re going to talk about? So that was the logic with that.
I will tell you, there is such a huge want of so many people to see Israel and the Palestinian Authority come together. And I think that’s why you have seen President Trump, who’s just adamant that this is going to happen, do that. I met with the representative from the Palestinian Authority, and we talked about the situation here at the United Nations. And what I said to him was: Look, we just want balance. We just want it to be fair. And in doing that, what I, you know, had asked of him was, don’t put any more resolutions on the table bashing Israel. But at the same time, we’re not going to be able to really support you going forward in moving up if you don’t come to the table and negotiate.
So we’ve actually been pretty tough on both in terms of Israel having to come to the table and the Palestinian Authority coming to the table. I think that they will. The two need to decide what that solution looks like, and the two need to come together. They both claim they are. We’ll see what happens.

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03/30 Links Pt2: Col Kemp: 'The Palestinians want to destroy Israel'; Disgraceful Richard Falk Event

From Ian:

Col Kemp: 'The Palestinians want to destroy Israel'

Retired British Army Colonel Richard Kemp: 'PA leadership talks about peace at the UN, but it educates its children to hate Israel.'
Colonel Richard Camp, who commanded the British forces in Afghanistan from 2003 until 2006, spoke with Channel 20 about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
"Israel, for many years now, has been subject to the greatest slur campaign in the history of the human race," Col. Kemp said.
"Many countries are saying, that if Israel, for example, ceased to 'occupy,' so-called, the 'West Bank', or ceased to have 'settlements' there then that will bring peace, it won't bring peace. All that the Palestinians want is the annihilation of Israel. The Palestinian leadership does not want a two state solution."

IsraellyCool: EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE: Disgraceful Richard Falk Event

I was at the LSE for a book launch in honour of Richard Falk’s new book. The event, was the only university event on the tour not to cancel. It swiftly descended into a festival of Jew hatred. Gilad Atzmon, a notorious Jew baiter, turned up with his equally as disturbed mother, and Pam Arnold (aka Pam Hardyment), another person often caught spitting venom on camera. With the event hosted by ‘as a Jew’ Mary Kaldor, the Jewish members of the audience were caught between Falk and Atzmon. The Jews were blamed for the result. Jews were told to read Holocaust denier David Irving, they were told the Jews were expelled from Nazi Germany for misbehaving, and through all the provocation were ridiculed and shamed for the way they responded. Disturbing and exclusive footage.

UN Secretary General praises Quran's treatment of refugees, ignoring the preceding verse to kill non-believers

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres' speech at the Arab Summit was not nearly as bad as the one by Federica Mogherini that was the subject of the previous post.

Unlike Mogherini, Guterres put the Palestinian issue in context of the much larger problems in the region. To be sure he did spend a bit of time on it and toed the official UN line that settlements are the major obstacle to peace and that Palestinian Arab "humiliation" is a major crime. But he also mentioned Arab incitement and terrorism against Israel to an Arab audience, something that Ban Ki Moon wouldn't have done.

It is far from perfect but it is much better than we've seen from the UN in a long time.

One section of his speech was a little jarring.

My experience as High Commissioner for Refugees showed me the true nature of Islam, as Arab countries extended remarkable hospitality to wave upon wave of people fleeing violence and persecution.

Refugee protection is deeply rooted in the traditions of the Arabian peninsula -- refugee protection defined not only for Muslims but for all.

As the Holy Koran tells us in the Surah Al-Tawbah: “And if anyone of the disbelievers seeks your protection then grant him protection so that he may hear the word of God, and then escort him to where he will be secure”.

What a remarkable example of tolerance, compassion and modernity.

There is nothing in present-day international refugee law that was not reflected in the Holy Koran or the Hadith of the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him.

The verse he cites comes right after this one:

When the Sacred Months have passed, kill the polytheists wherever you find them. And capture them, and besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every ambush. But if they repent, and perform the prayers, and pay the alms, then let them go their way. God is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Is this the "tolerance, compassion and modernity" that Guterres is referring to? Does international law now allow for the beheadings of unbelievers?

Although some disagree, I read this chapter as saying that the Muslims must treat those seeking asylum with respect only as long as they either become Muslim or bow to Muslim supremacy as dhimmis. I do not believe that they would be escorted peacefully to security if they reject Islam.

This doesn't sound very tolerant. But I'm not a human rights expert like so many who fall over themselves to say how wonderful Islam is.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

So we are sitting around the Seder table with our American Uncle Max and he says,

[I] remain convinced that a two-state solution is the only outcome that would quell ongoing incidents of violence, maintain Israel as a secure, Jewish and democratic state, and provide a just and stable future for the Palestinians.

Having had the traditional four cups of wine, my first, immediate reaction would be to say something about 1993 calling and wanting its policy back. But actually this and other surprisingly stupid things appeared in a letter signed by 191 members of the US Congress, read at AIPAC by Nancy Pelosi, and sent to Donald Trump.

Many things have happened in the past 24 years, both in the US and especially in the Middle East, but for these (mostly Democratic) lawmakers, nothing has changed. One wonders exactly what could happen that would change their minds, which seem to have accepted the necessity of an additional partition of the land of Israel as an article of faith.

My second thought is an almost overwhelming feeling of fatigue over the fact that this irrational and dangerous idea will not go away, and that I am yet again forced to argue about it.

So, pay attention, Uncle Max. I am not going to repeat this like the verses of had gadya.

First, there won’t be a “2-state solution.” The Palestinian leadership and man-in-the-street will not agree to anything acceptable to Israel. They have already rejected deals that were better than what Israel would offer today. Their conditions, including the right of return for millions of descendents of Arab refugees and the expulsion of Jewish residents of Judea/Samaria, will always be unacceptable.

But even if some kind of agreement were reached with the PA/PLO, why would we expect them to adhere to it? They have broken countless promises made in the framework of the Oslo agreements, including essential ones like ending official incitement and changing the PLO charter; and they have an ideological/religious mandate to break promises on the smallest of pretexts.

But even if the signers of the agreement did not break it, what guarantee is there that their successors – who could represent Hamas or even more militant radical Islamists – would honor it? If they didn’t, the only option for Israel would be war.

In this connection, it’s interesting that 2-staters often say that “Mahmoud Abbas is the most ‘moderate’ PLO leader,” and that therefore we should get an agreement with him before he is replaced and it is too late. But this is exactly why an agreement with him will be worthless.

But even if Abbas’ successors did not break the agreement, an additional partition of the land of Israel more or less along the Green Line would restore Israel’s pre-1967 indefensible eastern boundary. In addition to the absurdity of reversing the outcome and punishing the winner of a defensive war, it would leave the most populated parts of Israel vulnerable both to terrorism from the high ground in Judea and Samaria, and invasion from the east.

At this point I get my relief map of Israel off the wall and wave it under Uncle Max’s nose. How is it possible to defend Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion Airport from short-range rocket and mortar attacks when terrorists can sit on commanding hills only a few miles away? How can Israel prevent the introduction of weapons and terrorists into these areas if it doesn’t control the Jordan Valley to the east? There are five mountain passes across the Judean and Samarian hills. With Iran controlling more and more territory in Iraq and the unstable country of Jordan tottering, what will prevent Iranian forces from reaching them?

John Kerry in 2014 suggested implementing American-assisted security arrangements that would theoretically protect Israel while allowing Palestinian sovereignty in most of the territories. But former Defense Minister and Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon considered the plan ludicrous, and “not worth the paper it was printed on.” Others have since come up with more sophisticated plans, but Israel is loathe to depend on high-tech sensors, Palestinian cooperation, or (especially) foreign troops. We also need to keep in mind that future American administrations might be even less friendly than the previous one. Only Israel can defend Israel.

***

“But it’s Palestinian land. There’s an international consensus. The settlers are motivated by extremist religious ideas, says Uncle Max.”

Wrong. According to the Palestine Mandate, whose guarantee to the Jewish people is still in force, it’s Jewish land. And the border of Israel legitimately extends to the Jordan River. The “international consensus” is a consensus between the Islamic bloc and the Europeans, both of whom are offended by the idea of a sovereign Jewish state. Both the Muslims and the Europeans, although in different ways, are no less “religious” in their convictions than the observant residents of the territories. The “consensus” is no more than a correspondence of racist anti-Jewish attitudes.

“But wait. Most Israeli Jews support the 2-state solution.”

No they don’t! A new poll shows that there has been a large decrease in support for a withdrawal from Judea and Samaria – from 60% in 2005, when Israel withdrew from Gaza, to 36% in 2017. Apparently Israeli Jews learned something from the Gaza experience.

“But,” Max continues, “the alternative to two states is one state, and Israel can’t absorb all those Arabs and still be Jewish and democratic.”

Wrong. There is no exhaustive dichotomy. Who said Israel has to absorb them? Who said there has to be a sovereign Palestinian state in almost all of Judea and Samaria? How about creating an autonomous territory in a contiguous part of the area – like Puerto Rico is to the US – where the population votes in local but not national elections, and in which external security is provided by the sovereign? That’s just one of many possibilities. Sure, working out the details would be complicated, but no more complicated than the “security arrangements” John Kerry tried to foist on us. And although some Arabs and some Jews might have to move, it would be far less traumatic than the massive expulsion of Jews that is envisaged under a 2-state plan.

“I don’t know,” he says. “There must be a way to make 2-states work.”

No, there isn’t, and that is exactly the problem. You are searching for an answer to the wrong question, one that does not have an answer. The real issue isn’t how to partition the land of Israel yet again. It’s how to guarantee the security of the state and its citizens within its rational, legitimate and defensible borders.

It’s time to say “dayenu” to the 2-state solution. The starting point must be defensible borders, not a Palestinian state.

Of course the Palestinians would find this approach unacceptable, but they also find any 2-state deal that doesn’t provide for the ultimate replacement of the Jewish state with an Arab one equally unacceptable. So why does it matter?

Why do you think we followed Moshe out of comfortable Egypt and into the desert, Uncle Max? It wasn’t in order to create ‘Palestine’!

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03/30 Links Pt1: Nikki Haley Slams BDS Movement at UN; UN body behind ‘apartheid’ report to compare Israel to US slavery;

From Ian:

Nikki Haley Slams BDS Movement at UN: It Is Rooted in ‘Ancient Hatred,’ Has No Connection to ‘Justice’

Haley, who was the first governor to sign legislation to combat the BDS movement, has been an outspoken supporter of Israel in her brief time as ambassador to the U.N. and was a crowd favorite Monday when she spoke at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual policy conference.
"The days of Israel bashing [at the U.N.] are over," Haley said at AIPAC to huge applause.
During her remarks Wednesday, Haley took on the BDS movement, which has gained traction on many Western college campuses, including in the United States.
"The effort to delegitimize the state of Israel being waged on college campuses and the anti-Israel obsession at the UN are one in the same," she said. "They both seek to deny Israel's right to exist."
"They are both efforts to intimidate her friends and embolden her enemies," Haley continued. "They are both extensions of an ancient hatred."
Haley called it "tragic" that the U.N. and many human rights activists devote much of their energy to targeting Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, when authoritarian states around the world are committing human rights abuses.
"And how tragic is it that of all countries in the world to condemn for human rights violations, these voices choose to single out Israel, " Haley said. "We should boycott North Korea. We should sanction Iran. We should divest from Syria. Not Israel."
"It makes absolutely no sense. And it has no connection to any reasonable definition of justice," she added.

Why Israelis believe BDS is antisemitic, explained in 60 seconds.

Eylon Levy is an anchor and correspondent for Israeli i24 News and someone with unique insight into the malevolence of the BDS movement. As we noted on these pages at the time, in 2013 at Oxford University, then MP George Galloway was about to participate in a debate with Eylon Aslan-Levy, who was then a student, on the motion: ‘Israel should withdraw immediately from the West Bank’. However, once Galloway discovered that Aslan-Levy was an Israeli citizen, he stormed off the stage and said: “I don’t recognize Israel and I don’t debate with Israelis”.
Galloway was, in effect, indicating that his support for BDS rendered six million Jews beyond the moral pale.
Here’s the Israeli journalist today with a short but extremely effective response to those who ask why Israelis believe BDS is antisemitic.

Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon at Anti-BDS Conference: Threat Lies in Movement’s Ability to Cower Us Into Silence

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon told participants at a conference against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement Wednesday that, despite the victories of the pro-Israel movement, “The real danger of BDS is not in [its] numbers…but in its ability to cower us into silence.”Thus, he said — during the second annual “Ambassadors Against BDS” conference at the UN’s General Assembly Hall in New York City — “The fight goes on…We cannot rest even for a moment.”
“We need you,” he appealed to the audience. “My friends, you must remember that silence is weakness. Silence is defeat.”
Danon described a “disturbing and troubling trend of increased antisemitic incidents throughout the world,” and sympathized with students who face BDS on campus, saying that as Israel’s UN envoy, “I know what it feels like to be alone.”
“But, when you stand for the truth you are never alone,” he added, noting that there have been victories for the anti-BDS movement as well, including university administrations rejecting calls from student groups to boycott the Jewish state.

Read what EU High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini said during her speech to the Arab League summit, and see where Israel fits in her vision:

No regional or global power, alone, holds the key to stabilising the Middle East or North Africa. Peace in our region - and I stress our region - requires everyone’s constructive contribution. It requires cooperation between Europe and the Arab world, within the Arab world and within the broader region.

Anyone missing?

But later she does address the specifics of peace between Israel and what she calls "Palestine":

I would like to start from a just and lasting peace between Israel and Palestine. This is and will continue to be a top priority for the European Union. A peaceful solution of this conflict, or even progress in that direction, could set a whole new paradigm for cooperation in the region, including on security. We firmly believe that the two-State solution remains the only realistic way to end the conflict and all claims. We would recognise changes to the '67 lines* only when agreed by the parties, including with regard to Jerusalem.

So the EU is saying that unless somehow the Palestinians voluntarily decide to compromise with Israel, the EU will stand behind them 100% that they deserve every inch of the territories they claim.

Israel's security? Israel's interests? The thousands of years of Jewish history in these areas? All meaningless.

I discussed this with [the Palestinian] President, [Mahmoud] Abbas just days ago in Brussels. We will continue to work for the unity of the entire international community to this aim, including with our American friends, as we have started to do in these days.

You don't have to read very far between the lines to see that the maximal Palestinian demands are regarded as the baseline for peace, and any Israeli conditions for peace and security are regarded as obstacles to peace.

Mogherini could have said that there is an opportunity for Israel to work with its Arab neighbors towards real regional peace and against Islamic extremism. She could have painted a picture of Israeli scientists helping solve medical, agricultural and water issues throughout the region. She could have acted like a leader.

Instead, she meekly said exactly what the Arabs wanted her to say, not showing the slightest daylight between the mindset of conservative, antisemitic Sunni Arabs and European liberals.

That cowardice in speaking the plain truth to the Arab world, and expecting them to act like responsible human beings, is a good part of the reason the region is unstable.

(If you want to laugh, see what Mogherini said after speaking with Abbas a few days ago: "I would also like to thank his leadership and his commitment when it comes to non-violence, when it comes to the difficult work he is doing against incitement and also of maintaining the Palestinian people, and especially the Palestinian youth, committed to peace and to cooperation in the region.")

(h't Irene)

* The written transcript of the speech says "1967 borders." Her actual words in her speech were "'67 lines."

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Here's the best way for BDSers to alienate their biggest supporters.

British comedian Eddie Izzard tweets:

Arrived for my gig tonight in Tel Aviv https://t.co/C6oSpxWCgM and then run the Palestine Marathon on Friday … https://t.co/6GMDntcrOQ
— Eddie Izzard (@eddieizzard) March 30, 2017

But according to BDS leaders, he will not be running in the marathon tomorrow:

Artists for Palestine UK (APUK), whose Artists’ Pledge for Palestine has over 1200 signatories, has been campaigning for British comedian Eddie Izzard to withdraw from his projected March 30 gig in Tel Aviv.

Izzard, known for his progressive views and loved for his outspokenness on a whole range of issues, has – surprisingly – so far declined to comment; but on March 28 he posted a Tweet saying he was looking forward to playing Tel Aviv, and running in the Palestine Marathon the day after:

Now Palestine Marathon organisers have sent back his registration.

APUK commented: ‘It’s hard to believe that someone as politically aware as Eddie Izzard should imagine he could get away with this. He should know as well as anyone that you can’t hunt with the hounds and run with the hare – particularly when the hare in this case is the squeezed and besieged Palestinian population, under illegal military occupation by Israel. Quite rightly, they’ve declined to indulge his patronising desire to run with them the day after he entertains their oppressors. We wish he’d listened to us sooner and avoided this humiliation.’

I don't think Izzard is the one who is going to be humiliated by this.

If this is true (BDSers don't have a reputation for being truthful), this will backfire on Israel-haters big time. Izzard will have a blast in Tel Aviv and then what do you think he will be tweeting? That he is sorry?

Izzard is as liberal as they come. A person who could have been a great advertisement for "Palestine" is instead being insulted for not hating Israel as much as these boycotters demand.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays in British media - and how Izzard will react himself. I cannot find a way that this will make the BDS crowd look good.

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Himmler's telegram to the Mufti on the common war of Nazis and Arabs against Jews

Israel's National Library has unearthed a telegram from Hitler's deputy Heinrich Himmler to the Mufti of Jerusalem.

Believed to have been sent in 1943, it contains a promise by Hitler’s deputy to Haj Amin al-Husseini that the German Reich will stand behind the Arabs of Palestine and support their struggle against “Jewish intruders.”

Published on the library website on Wednesday, the telegraph notes that the struggle against world Jewry has been a principle of the German National Socialists from the start, and that the regime has always followed “with particular sympathy,” the struggle of “freedom-loving Arabs,” especially those in Palestine battling the Jews.

“The National-Socialist movement of the great Germany has made its fight against world Jewry a guiding principle since its very beginning,” Himmler wrote. “For that reason it [the movement] has been closely following the battle of freedom-seeking Arabs- and especially in Palestine- against the Jewish invaders,”

“The joint recognition of the enemy and the struggle together against it are what build the solid basis between the National Socialists of Greater Germany and freedom-loving Muslims of the world,” Himmler wrote.

The telegram concludes with the SS chief sending the mufti his warm greetings on the “unhappy” anniversary of the Balfour Declaration and best wishes for the continuation of the struggle.

You can be sure that no Arab in the 1940s would ever protest against Nazi Germany by claiming that they were only against "Zionists," not Jews.

The language of this letter is identical to the language used in Arab media to this day about Jewish "usurpers" in the land of Israel.

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Mahmoud Abbas is now 82 years old

Mahmoud Abbas' 82nd birthday was March 26.

We hear often that Israel has to make peace with Abbas because he is the most moderate leader the Palestinians ever had.

Even if that is true, what do these people anticipate will happen when Abbas is dead? That the Islamists who replace him would keep whatever agreement he supposedly would make?

Peace cannot be made with a person (and Abbas is the least charismatic person around.) Peace must be made between peoples, and Abu Mazen has ensured that his people will never want true peace with Israel.

It's been 24 years since Oslo. For 24 years, the Palestinian leadership had the opportunity to teach peace and to build the institutions of a state, to gain respect as a people.

Instead, they have chosen terror. They chose to teach an entire generation to hate. They have acted like whiny children who are entitled to the benefits of statehood without taking any responsibilities. they have consistently chosen symbolism over substance, complaints over hard work, glorifying terror over teaching coexistence.

No responsible Israeli leader could have made any real peace with Mahmoud Abbas. Everyone who is honest with themselves know this. And Abbas has ensured that the next few generations of Palestinian leaders will be just as bad.

That will be his legacy.

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(This post will be pinned to the top of the webpage for the day.)

As my readers know, I (and my writers) try to cut through the bull and get to the facts, wherever they may lead. The truth is paramount and interpreting the facts accurately is a skill set that most people don't have.

That is doubly true for most of the people who get paid to interpret the facts. (Including most writers for the New York Times despite its Orwellian "Truth" campaign.")

And as difficult as it has been to ferret out the truth in the past, today it is a much more daunting task. Between a US administration that has only a glancing familiarity with the truth and the media that flat-out lies when covering the same administration, and the reverberations of both trends throughout the world, figuring out what is really going on is harder than ever.

This obligation to ferret out the truth among the half-truths, lies, propaganda and unconscious bias has never been more important.

I think that EoZ's track record is admirable in this regard, better than most media outlets - even though we have almost no resources.

Eventually, pointing out the truth makes a difference in the media that is awash with lies. Small differences to be sure, but Elder of Ziyon has an outsized influence for a niche website.

We've been branching out. EoZ now has eight columnists with other occasional contributors.

I was happy with the seminar I put together in Jerusalem a few weeks ago and I am thinking about doing that more regularly. (Mostly in the US, though.) There are other possible initiatives as well that could bring the message of the truth about Israel and the Middle East to a wider audience.

All of this and more can only be done with your help.

Donate to EoZ so we can continue to cut through the lies and the spin. We want to continue to provide fact-based analysis and news that is simply not available anywhere else.and the ensure that the message gets spread.

You can give a donation via PayPal here (or clicking here.)

Better yet, you can become a patron of EoZ via Patreon.

EoZ is not a tax-deductible charity, but if you want to give a more sizable donation you can pay for an advertisement to be displayed here and that would be a tax deduction. Contact me if interested.

As always, thanks so much for your support, and for those who celebrate, have a wonderful Pesach.

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03/29 Links Pt2: Teen terror victim to European Parliament: Stop funding war; How Blind College Liberals Help Foster Antisemitism

From Ian:

Teen terror victim to European Parliament: Stop funding war

The Friends of Judea and Samaria, a European Parliament caucus that aims to halt European Union funding of Palestinian terrorism and abolish EU trade barriers placed on Jewish goods from Judea and Samaria hosted its first ever conference in Brussels on Tuesday.
One of the speakers at the conference, named "Israel and the West Bank -- Facts and Myths," was Ayala Shapira, whose emotional speech earned her a standing ovation. Shapira was critically wounded in a terrorist attack in December 2014, when terrorists hurled a firebomb into a car she was riding with her father as they made their way home in Samaria.
With her face fully bandaged as a result of the third-degree burns she suffered in the attack, Shapira told conference attendees, "I am Ayala, almost 14 years old. I live in El Matan in Samaria. I like to read, write stories and draw. I want to describe the feeling of having a terrorist attack directed at you.
"One of the terrorists that threw the Molotov cocktail at our car was a 16-year-old boy, only a few years older than me. He did it, among other reasons, to help his family financially. He knew that if he went to prison, the Palestinian Authority would take care of them. I want you to remember that sometimes when you think you are donating money to peace, you are in fact funding the war," she said.

“Raus!”: How Jews were ejected from an anti-Israel meeting in Parliament

I had hoped to report on a meeting in Parliament (Conference Room 1) on 28 March. It was the ‘Balfour Apology Campaign’, chaired by Jenny Tonge. Unfortunately the Chair, Lord Warner (not Tonge – yes I’ll get to that later), threw out the only two Jews in the room, probably in order that the hatefest could not be witnessed.
So who knows what lies, demonisation and anti-semitism were voiced?
But of course, throwing out the only two Jews in the room – on an unfounded accusation in one case and with no reason whatsoever in the other (mine) – itself stinks of anti-semitism.
Down to speak was David Cronin. He writes for Spinwatch, that strange organisation which seems obsessed with ‘Jewish power ‘. Cronin writes from Brussels and is a specialist in demonising Israel and its supporters.
Here for example he writes ‘the Israel lobby is a force not only on Capitol Hill, but in Brussels, too, and … it is attempting to stifle debate about Israel’s sadistic treatment of the Palestinian people.’ He is famous (more accurately, infamous) for attempting (and failing) to make a citizen’s arrest of Avigdor Lieberman in Brussels. And look what he said about Jonathan Freedland in March 2015, when Freedland was thought to be a candidate to become Editor-In-Chief of the Guardian: ‘In a perverse way, it might be a good thing if he gets the job.
With Freedland at the helm, it would be easier to show how a supposedly progressive newspaper is in thrall to the toxic ideology of Zionism’.

How Blind College Liberals Help Foster Antisemitism

“Ending White Privilege Starts With Ending Jewish Privilege,” screams a flyer being distributed on the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois.
The flyer falsely alleges that 44 percent of Jewish Americans are in the top 1% of earners. The threshold for being in the top 1% is $465,626, and as much as 44% of Jewish Americans would like to have achieved that distinction, they haven’t. What the flyer’s authors meant is that 44% of Jewish Americans earn more than $100,000 a year.
Although foreign-born Muslims have not yet achieved the success of Jews, they are far more likely to earn more than $50,00-a-year, compared to native-born Americans. But don’t expect their success to be on a leaflet distributed on college campuses.
Southeast Asian Muslim immigrants — many of them from Pakistanis — are known to value education and go into the professions. They abound in medicine, comprising between 2.7% and 5% of all US physicians, and in high-paying technical fields. They also bring with them an entrepreneurial spirit. Sound familiar?
Rather than commend Jewish success as something to aspire to, the authors of the flyer view it with contempt because in their demented Marxist view of the world, all gain is ill-gotten and a function of privilege. They don’t recognize that a combination of gray matter, hard work and a willingness to take risks also contribute to success.

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is flavor of the month with the Jews, and to a large degree, the warmth with which she has been received is warranted. One could argue that her support of the two-state solution proves her less than a friend to Israel. Haley may be carrying water for the White House with that stance. Otherwise, we’d need to conclude that she is unable to see the illogic of that concept, incapable of coming up with an original idea, or not quite courageous enough to express the idea that there is no real solution in sight to the Arab war against the Jews.

We do love Haley for standing up to the anti-Israel UN and as a result, we make her videos viral on Facebook. There’s this one where she let the UN Security Council have it for having a condemnation agenda that is stuck on one channel that is all Israel, all the time.

And there’s the new AIPAC interview in which she said, “There’s a new sheriff in town.”

That proclamation made for a great sound bite. Most of the Jewish media used the quote as the lede for their articles on Haley’s interview at AIPAC 2017. The sense of that phrase, of course, is that things are finally going to change at the UN. No longer will the US simply abstain from condemning Israel. No longer will the US turn a blind eye to the continuous bashing of its “friend” Israel by the UN Assembly.

It’s almost too delicious to contemplate.

Therein lies the rub. Why do we Jews, as a collective, feel orgasmic delight when things go as they should? Why should we sit by and just let the sucky stuff happen? Why do we yawn when they bash us and simply accept the status quo as SNAFU*? Why hasn’t America stood by us at the UN since approximately 1975, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously denounced the Zionism is Racism resolution?

All of it is disgusting. It was disgusting the way we Jews clapped and clapped for Nikki Haley, as if it is Haley that matters, and not the truth. The truth being that Israel is a beacon of light unto the nations and that the UN should be celebrating the existence of the Jewish State and lambasting the Arabs for their ingratitude, terror incitement, and terror.

It is very nice to applaud when good guys make headway, but it’s not nice when we forget that good is how things should be, rather than so unusual as to be remarkable.

It is not Nikki Haley that’s remarkable and I mean that as no insult to Haley. It’s remarkable that all this time, America allowed Israel to be roasted on the spit of public and world opinion and failed to have Israel’s back.

Furthermore, it’s disgusting that Israel has stayed in the UN all this time, hoping against hope that someone would finally be our friend. It’s an abusive relationship. It’s not the way a sovereign nation should act.

That is why, to my mind, the part about Nikki Haley being the new sheriff in town in her AIPAC interview was much less important than the part right at the end where she said, “I appreciate all the support and kindness and everything that you've given to me, but all I did was tell the truth.”

Look at her face. She looks a bit puzzled. She’s thinking: Why do they make such a big deal over me for telling the truth? Isn’t honesty a basic standard of human behavior? I’m just being normal.

And she’s right: since when should humans of any stripe expend all that energy in response to normal or act like normal is amazing and somehow deserving of accolades?

It’s sick, is what it is. You can see that Nikki Haley, alone in that hall, perhaps, is the only one who sees just how sick that is: that normal now deserves our applause.

And that’s the real reason I like her. And conversely, the reason I worry that my people don’t have what it takes to make it in the long run. They shouldn’t be looking at Nikki Haley to raise them up.

They should be rising up on their own. They should be speaking the truth out loud and proud to anyone and everyone.

They/we need to stop being sheeple. We need to stop pretending that Arabs have any rights to our land. We need to stop listening to the media’s lies—stop accepting them without question. We need to stop listening to the lies of intersectionality and study the truth, the facts of our indigenous rights.

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We need to know there’s a Higher Power and that it is neither Nikki Haley nor Donald Trump.

Israel needs to stop acting like it is a vassal state for the U.S. Israel needs to stop looking to people like Nikki Haley to save its butt. Israel needs to save its own butt and stop worrying about what the world will say.

I like Nikki Haley. I love her for telling the truth. But we need to stop the fawning and get real. We need to be dignified and stop getting excited whenever someone speaks up for us the least little bit.

It’s enough to acknowledge that we’re on the same side. It’s enough to acknowledge that Haley is speaking the truth. Putting her on a pedestal makes us look weak and sycophantic, in need of rescue, a damsel in distress.

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We’re better than that. Stronger than that. Prouder than that.

Where is that acclaimed stiff neck?

Now is the time to show it to the world. Beginning now. That’s the beginning of the end to all these lie—all these lies about Israel, all the time.

*Clean version: situation normal, all fouled up.

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