Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, December 17, 2017

12/17 Links: Matti Friedman: The ties that bind Jerusalem; Fatah calls for violence: "Strap on your weapon"; OIC in Legal Fantasyland over Trump, Jerusalem and Israel

From Ian:

Matti Friedman: The ties that bind Jerusalem

Different religions have their own holy sites in Jerusalem, the city where I've spent my entire adult life. The place I believe to be among the most important, however, is a grubby swath of garages, welding shops and furniture stores known as the Talpiot industrial zone. The zone is sacred to no one and unknown to tourists or foreign correspondents. It's a short walk from my street, so I spend a lot of time there – the industrial zone is where you can find the best hardware store, the cheapest supermarkets, my barber and stores selling balloons for birthday parties, model airplanes or anything else you could ever need.

When President Donald Trump announced on Dec. 6 that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move its embassy here, Arab leaders called for "days of rage" and a chorus of Western observers predicted an explosion. The predictions were predictable; Jerusalem is always said to be on the brink of catastrophe, and headlines are always reporting "tensions."

The city is certainly volatile, considering: the proximity of sites holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews, all under Israeli control; the fact that more than one-third of the city's residents are Palestinians, mostly Muslims, who aren't Israeli citizens and tend to see Israeli rule as illegitimate; and the city's existence in a region engulfed in a religious war. But what is truly interesting about Jerusalem is not the proximity of the brink, but the way the city's residents often refuse to play their part in the script by stepping off.

After Mr. Trump's announcement, amid warnings of "explosive" repercussions, I got e-mails from friends abroad, wondering whether I was worried, or whether I was safe. That Friday, a crowd of reporters gathered at the Old City's Damascus Gate to document the violence that was supposed to erupt. But little happened; the protesters were outnumbered by journalists, and everyone went home. There weren't spontaneous mass celebrations on the Jewish side or mass disturbances on the Arab side. The past week has been fairly normal.

PMW: Fatah calls for violence: "Strap on your weapon"

Posts on Fatah's Facebook page call for violence following US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. (Dec. 17, 2017)

The picture above of a hand holding an automatic weapon is part of Abbas' Fatah Movement's answer to US President Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. The poster calls for Palestinians to use violence:

Posted text: "Strap on your weapon over your wound, and tomorrow you will awaken to a morning of freedom #Rage_for_Jerusalem #Rage_for_Al-Aqsa_Mosque #Jerusalem_our_capital #Jerusalem_the_capital_of_Palestine
#HandsOffAlQuds"
Text on the image repeats the call to "strap on your weapon" [Official Fatah Facebook page, Dec. 14, 2017]

Other Fatah posts that appeared on Facebook called for riots and rock throwing, one example is this:
Posted text: "#Rage_for_Jerusalem #Rage_for_Al-Aqsa_Mosque #HandsOffAlQuds"
Text on image: "#Rage_for_Al-Aqsa_Mosque" [Official Fatah Facebook page, Dec. 14, 2017]

Palestinian Media Watch reported that Abbas' advisor in a televised sermon incited religious war following Trump's declaration:

Fatah called for rage in many similar posts.
US recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel - On Dec. 6, 2017, US President Donald Trump gave a speech formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and stating that he had instructed the State Department to begin preparations to transfer the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump concluded by stating that the US is still fully committed to the peace process in the Middle East. Following his speech, Trump signed the waiver to delay the transfer of the embassy, and apparently will continue to do so until preparations for the transfer have been completed.

Seth Frantzman: Could death of disabled activist mean new Palestinian icon?

Video of the disabled activist before his death show him with dozens of Palestinian protesters who set off on Friday toward the Israeli security fence that borders Gaza. He told an interviewer before the clashes that “this land is our land. We are not going to give up. America has to withdraw the declaration it has made.”

The IDF said that hundreds of Palestinians approached the border fence on Friday and threw stones. They were dispersed.

Photos showed Abu Thuraya being pushed on a wheelchair while advancing toward the border with the protesters, some of whom had slingshots and were throwing stones. Tear gas canisters landed around the rioters, and at some point he left his wheelchair behind, crawling through the grass. The footage, after he was shot, shows him being pushed while slumped in his wheelchair and then carried away.

Palestinians said he was shot in the head, and a Health Ministry spokesman in Gaza, Ashraf al-Kidra, claimed he was pronounced dead at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital as a result of his wounds.

On Saturday, photos showed his body carried on a stretcher through the streets after his death.

Comments on social media expressed outrage at his death.

He was “murdered” by the IDF, said social media users. He was unarmed, they pointed out, and did not pose a threat.

This op-ed in Haaretz by Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, former head of the Union for Reform Judaism, should be required reading for every liberal who's knee jerk reaction to Trump's Jerusalem speech was to automatically disparage it.

Yoffie admits that he initially had the same reaction as all other liberal American Jews:

As a peace advocate and a strong supporter of a two-state solution, I responded to Trump’s pronouncement on Israel’s capital the same way that I respond to virtually everything that the President says: negatively and dismissively.

And the reason for this is that the President’s foreign policy statements have been inconsistent and muddled at best and isolationist and xenophobic at worst. Not surprisingly, my default position is to resist every word on foreign affairs that comes out of his mouth.

And this position was strengthened by the arguments of Tom Friedman and a host of other journalists, commentators, academics, and Middle East experts whose opinions I respect and who asserted that Trump had given away the store.

Yoffie initially believed the "if Trump does it it must be wrong" crowd. He, like most American liberal Jews, didn't think for himself, he didn't examine the facts for himself, he outsourced the research to "Middle East experts whose opinions" he respects.

And then he realized that the entire groupthink that animates so much of what passes for intelligent analysis was completely wrong.

For three reasons:

In the first place, I responded viscerally. I am a Jerusalem Jew. In my 75 or so visits to Israel, about 60% of my time has been spent in Jerusalem. I enjoy the hustle and bustle of Tel Aviv, and I love the stark majesty of the Negev. But still, warts and all, Jerusalem remains for me a city of unsurpassed beauty and palpable holiness. And I believe that Judaism and Jewish life will not be sustained without Jerusalem at its core.
Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel, whether the President of the United States says so or not. Nonetheless, it is comforting and gratifying when President Trump finally states what I know to be eternal and true.
And not only that. When Palestinians express their outrage and demand justice for Jerusalem, I can’t help wondering: Where was justice when Yasser Arafat and Mahmud Abbas were claiming at the UN that Jews have no historical connection to the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, and indeed to all of Jerusalem?
Last Thursday in Istanbul, Abbas repeated this ugly and absurd claim at a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Having insisted that Jerusalem’s holy sites belong only to Muslims and Christians, how much sympathy do they have a right to expect now?

Yoffie noticed the double standards of outrage between Jewish and Arab claims to Jerusalem. He knows that while even the most right wing of Israel's governments gives more respect to non-Jewish history in Jerusalem than even the most liberal of Arabs do towards Jewish history.

In the second place, I saw that not only Netanyahu and the right supported President Trump’s statement. So did the leaders of the Israeli center and center-left. Knesset opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog, Yesh Atid chair Yair Lapid, Zionist Union chair Avi Gabbay, and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni all applauded the President’s words.
When I am looking for guidance from Israel’s political leaders, these are the people to whom I turn. They are all critics of Benjamin Netanyahu and the rightwing government now in power. They are all advocates of a Jewish and democratic Israel and a two-state solution. They all call for immediate negotiations with the Palestinians.
And the unanimity of their sentiments demonstrates that proclaiming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is not a surrender to Netanyahu and the right. It is a reflection of a broad consensus in Israel that certain historical realities need to be recognized and that Palestinian rejectionists are not entitled to wish these realities away.

Indeed, too many American Jewish liberals who pretend to be Zionist are utterly ignorant of the reality in Israel and Israel's liberal camp. They think Haaretz' Israeli columnists represents Israeli liberals, not realizing that they are fringe, and that Israel's liberal parties hold positions that are far more attuned to the reality on the ground in Israel than all of the "pro-Israel" European and American liberals combined.

In the third place, I read President Trump’s speech a second time and then a third time. And while it is difficult for me to say this, say it I must: It was a pretty good speech. Not wholly adequate to be sure, but nonetheless moderate, reasonable, and generally fair. And far better than I had feared and expected.
Those who saw it as a give-away to settlers and rightwing fanatics should look again. Netanyahu and the Israeli right call for a united Jerusalem; for the city to be the capital of the Jewish state, and the Jewish state alone; and for sovereignty of the city to be solely in Jewish hands. Yet Trump clearly rejected all of these positions, asserting instead that these matters are to be determined by negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis.
To be sure, the U.S. president made clear that any peace deal would result in Israel maintaining its capital in at least part of Jerusalem. But he said nothing to preclude negotiations that would result in a Palestinian state that would also have its capital in some part of the city.

It is a Chanukah miracle. One of the leading American Jewish liberals actually read Trump's speech. He had to do it several times to actually allow himself to believe that it was a good speech, but as much as every fiber of his being wanted to hate it because of the person saying the words - he had to admit that the speech did not hurt peace. It simply accepted reality.

It is Yoffie's liberal friends who pretend to be outraged who are the ones hurting peace by attacking the speaker and not bothering themselves to look at what he said.

He has taken a generally responsible approach to Jerusalem, and for this I give him the credit that he is due.

While I disagree with Yoffie about pretty much everything, I also want to give credit where credit is due. For once, he has looked beyond his own echo chamber and thought for himself.

I would love to see Thomas Friedman and the other reflexive critics of Trump's declaration try to answer this column. They won't, because they don't want to admit that they, too, make their opinions first and only look for facts that support their opinions afterwards..

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New York Times justifies 70 years of lies about Jerusalem

The NYT editorial on Friday said:

[O]ut of the blue, President Donald Trump announced on Dec. 6 that he was formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, tossing aside 70 years of careful American neutrality and infuriating Palestinians, who also want their capital to be in Jerusalem.

"Out of the blue"? Trump announced his position over a year ago.

"Careful American neutrality?" Is that what ignoring the reality of Israel's capital is being called nowadays?

And note that avoiding infuriating Palestinians is considered a valid diplomatic objective while worrying about infuriating Israelis is not even a consideration. The reason is that Arabs tend to get violent when they don't get their way and Jews don't. So the obvious solution is to lean towards the position of the irrational crazies who might kill you for saying words that upset them.

That's diplomatic wisdom, in the opinion of the New York Times, and much of the world. Facts be damned.

Israel’s government has been in West Jerusalem since the state’s founding in 1948. In the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, Israel drove Jordan back from East Jerusalem and occupied the whole city. But the United States, like most of the world, had withheld formal recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital pending a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians that would fairly resolve all major disputes. One might refer to such bargaining, to maximize leverage in pursuit of the best outcome, as the art of the deal.

Yes, those 70 years of denying reality has really helped bring peace. Let's try it for 70 more years.

But that’s just not how this White House operates. In fact, it conceded another piece of leverage on Friday and again angered Palestinians for no apparent purpose. White House officials made clear their expectation that Jerusalem’s Western Wall, which lies outside Israel’s pre-1967 borders and abuts some of Islam’s most sacred sites, will eventually be declared part of Israel. This time, they were careful to say that the final borders of Israel and any Palestinian state must be settled in negotiations. But it seemed another case of America taking Israel’s side on an explosive issue.

Because, you know, it is always possible that Israel would give up on its desire to hold onto Jewish holy places because of world pressure.

The idea of keeping Jerusalem united is obviously a non-starter to the New York Times. The idea that Israel, which has been a state for nearly 70 years, has a better claim on how to define its capital than the fictional state of Palestine, is considered crazy. The idea that pressuring "Palestine" to compromise on Jerusalem is crazy - only the Jews must give away their heart and soul for peace, but Arabs are assumed to be the rightful owners of all the holy sites because 19 years of illegal Jordanian occupation is considered more legally important than 50 years of Jerusalem being open to all religions under Israeli rule.

Trump did nothing other than speak the truth and note that peace is impossible without recognizing reality. 70 years of make-believe has not brought peace, and in fact it has impeded it.

But the idea that carefully constructed lies is more important than obvious facts is not at all foreign to those who have been reading the New York Times over the decades.

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Fatah gives lessons for children to attack Israel

The official Fatah Facebook page shows a photo of a child with a sling, with a fire burning behind him, giving instructions for children like him on how best to attack Israelis. This screenshot shows the automatically translated part.

First field lesson:
To hit the target there are three conditions:
1. Stand firmly, and balance well between your feet and your hands and your body ..
2. Keep your eyes on the center of your target, do not turn away,
3. Keep the balance between your body and your weapon, you are the one who controls the weapon, not the other way round.
If you do not understand the lesson, read it again

This is the "non-violence" that the Palestinian Authority teaches its youngsters.

It is child abuse - but you will not find a single children's advocacy group saying a word against it. Not UNICEF, not Defense for Children International, nobody.

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12/16 Links: WH ‘cannot envision situation’ where Western Wall is not part of Israel; Mahmoud Abbas’s Karine-A Moment?

From Ian:

White House ‘cannot envision situation’ where Western Wall is not part of Israel

A senior administration official told reporters on Friday that the White House “envisions” the Western Wall will remain part of Israel under any accord with the Palestinians.

The comments follow US President Donald Trump’s December 6 declaration that recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. They are certain to delight Israeli leaders — the Western Wall is the holiest place where Jews are allowed to pray — and infuriate the Palestinians, who claim East Jerusalem, including the Old City, as the capital of their intended independent state.

“We cannot envision any situation under which the Western Wall would not be part of Israel,” the official said, speaking ahead of US Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Israel next week.

“But as the president said [in his speech last week on Jerusalem], the specific boundaries of sovereignty of Israel are going to be part of the final status agreement,” the official said.

Furthermore, the official added, “We note that we cannot imagine Israel would sign a peace agreement that didn’t include the Western Wall.”

Furious Palestinians reject White House talk of Western Wall as Israel’s forever

The Palestinian Authority bitterly rejected comments by a senior official in the Trump Administration on Friday that the White House “envisions” the Western Wall will remain part of Israel under any accord with the Palestinians.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a senior adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, declared Saturday that the PA would not accept any changes to what he called the borders of East Jerusalem. Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City with the Temple Mount and Western Wall, from Jordan in the 1967 war.

“We will not accept any changes on the borders of East Jerusalem, which was occupied in 1967,” Abu Rudeineh said. “This statement proves once again that this American administration is outside the peace process,” he added.

“The continuation of this American policy, whether the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, or moving the American embassy, or such statements, by which the United States decides unilaterally on the issues of the final status negotiations, are a violation of international law and strengthen the Israeli occupation,” he said.

“For us, this is unacceptable. We totally reject it. And we totally denounce it.”

Mahmoud Abbas’s Karine-A Moment?

Nearly 16 years ago, in early January 2002, the Israeli navy intercepted the Karine-A, a weapons laden ship, in the Red Sea on its way to the Palestinian Authority from Iran. The capture of the ship and the intelligence gleaned from it by Israel forced the United States to go “from viewing Arafat as an eccentric but necessary peace proponent, to viewing him as the heart of the terror problem.”

At the time, the so-called “Aqsa intifada” – a deadly campaign that claimed hundreds of lives that was planned by the Palestinian leadership after Arafat turned down a peace offer from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in July 2000 – had been going on for about 15 months. There was an international clamor to reduce the violence as Israel attempted to destroy the terror infrastructure that Arafat had overseen in the West Bank.

Yet, when Israel presented the U.S. evidence of Arafat’s involvement in terror, President George W. Bush responded by demanding the Palestinians find a new leader “not compromised by terror.”

After Arafat died in 2004, he was succeeded by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who still serves in that position even though he was elected in 2005 for a four-year term.

Abbas, who objected to the violence of the “Aqsa intifada,” has proven no more ready to make peace with Israel than Arafat, in addition to being corrupt. He rejected a 2008 peace proposal from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and derailed two efforts by the Obama administration to achieve peace with Israel.

This week, in a shocking display of denial, Abbas accused Jews of “faking and counterfeiting history and religion” with their claims to Israel.

Mordehai kedar petite remise en question chez al jazeera (h/t Yenta Press)

Chanukah video night 5: Gershon Veroba- הנרות הללו

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12/15 Links Pt2: It is time to cut off financial support to Abbas; The Uncomfortable Truth About Swedish Anti-Semitism; What if America Won a War and No One Cared?

From Ian:

Kevin Williamson: It is time to cut off financial support to Abbas

Abbas boasts that the Palestinian state and the Palestinian National Authority no longer receive U.S. aid, but that isn’t quite true. The United States is a very large contributor to UNRWA, the relief agency for Palestinian “refugees.” (There aren’t any Palestinian refugees, really, but, unlike the rest of the world’s peoples, Palestinians inherit refugee status.) The United States is also a large contributor to other U.N. programs and international organizations that provide aid to the Palestinians, who, thanks to their incompetent and malevolent leadership, have no real economy to speak of. In 2016, the United States gave more in aid to the Palestinians than any other country did.

It is time to rethink that.

UNRWA is a troubled and troubling organization on its best day, an encourager and enabler of Palestinian radicalism. The prospects for peace probably would improve if it were dissolved. But, short of that, the United States should consider accommodating President Abbas’s demand and stepping away from the situation for a while, taking our aid money with us. If President Abbas must have his obstinacy and his cheap theatrics, then let him pay the full price for them. Let’s see how much loose change Erdogan can scramble up from the cushions of his ottoman. The haul is likely to be disappointing.

The United States has global interests, and one of those is seeing to the interests of our allies, including Israel. President Abbas thinks the United States has no role in future peace negotiations in the Middle East. One could not blame Americans for thinking much the same thing about him. What’s certain is that American power and American interests will be here when President Abbas has joined the footnotes, and the powers that be in the Islamic world would do well to meditate on that fact.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Swedish Anti-Semitism

This past Saturday, a Hanukkah party at a synagogue in Goteborg, Sweden, was abruptly interrupted by Molotov cocktails. They were hurled by a gang of men in masks at the Jews, mostly teenagers, who had gathered to celebrate the holiday.

Two days later, two fire bombs were discovered outside the Jewish burial chapel in the southern Swedish city of Malmo.

Who knows what tomorrow may bring?

For Sweden’s 18,000 Jews, sadly, none of this comes as a surprise. They are by now used to anti-Semitic threats and attacks — especially during periods of unrest in the Middle East, which provide cover to those whose actual goal has little to do with Israel and much to do with harming Jews.

Both of these recent attacks followed days of incitement against Jews. Last Friday, 200 people protested in Malmo against President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The protesters called for an intifada and promised “we will shoot the Jews.” A day later, during a demonstration in Stockholm, a speaker called Jews “apes and pigs.” There were promises of martyrdom.

Malmo’s sole Hasidic rabbi has reported being the victim of more than 100 incidents of hostility ranging from hate speech to physical assault. In response to such attacks, the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a travel warning in 2010 advising “extreme caution when visiting southern Sweden” because of officials’ failure to act against the “serial harassment” of Jews in Malmo.

Today, entering a synagogue anywhere in Sweden usually requires going through security checks, including airport-like questioning. At times of high alert, police officers with machine guns guard Jewish schools. Children at the Jewish kindergarten in Malmo play behind bulletproof glass. Not even funerals are safe from harassment.

Exodus: Jews Flee Paris Suburbs Over Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism

Klein later points out the irony that Paris today is a city “where keffiyeh-wearing men and veiled women speak Arabic on every street corner” but where “soldiers are walking every street that houses a Jewish institution.”

Sammy Ghozlan, the president of the Jewish communal security organization BNCVA, told 20 Minutes that it was vital “not to underestimate the antisemitism we experience on a daily basis.”

“For a long time, Jews were targeted through their symbols — today, people themselves are targeted directly,” Ghozlan said.

As Breitbart Jerusalem has reported, the experience of Jews in Paris is much the same across the rest of the country. More and more are feeling so unsafe that they now feel they have no other choice but to move to Israel for safety.

They are continuing a trend that has seen tens of thousands of Jews quit the country in the past decade.

More than 5,000 departures were recorded in 2016 on top of the record 7,900 who left in 2015 and 7,231 in 2014. In total, 40,000 French Jews have emigrated since 2006, according to figures cited by AFP.

On the evidence, that number will not be falling anytime soon.

David French: What if America Won a War and No One Cared?

The momentous news of ISIS’s defeat was greeted, in large part, with silence. Why?

The announcement came on Saturday. Just three days before the Alabama special election that transfixed the nation, and on the same day that President Trump fact-checked the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel, Iraq’s prime minister declared victory in the war against ISIS. Iraq — with indispensable American help — has regained control of its cities and its border with Syria. ISIS has been reduced to a shadow of its former self.

The victory isn’t confined to Iraq. American-allied forces control ISIS’s former capital in Syria, and the world’s largest jihadist army is gone. Bands of insurgents still prowl the countryside, and ISIS cells exist across the world, but the war against the “caliphate” is over. It’s been won.

So why does no one seem to care?

It was exactly three years ago that the Middle East was in crisis. The ISIS blitzkrieg had brought Iraq to its knees. Jihadists controlled immense sections of Iraq and Syria. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi spoke from Mosul’s Great Mosque, declared himself “Caliph Ibrahim,” and called on Muslims across the world to join him in his jihad.

They answered his call by the thousands. They flocked to Syria and Iraq from North Africa, Europe, and Asia. Britain was rocked by reports that more of its Muslim residents had joined ISIS than joined the British military. ISIS initiated genocide. It threatened the Kurds. It threatened Baghdad. Americans old enough to remember the fall of Saigon began to wonder: Was history repeating itself?

For veterans of the Iraq War like me, these were extraordinarily painful months. Friends died over there. Others lost limbs or suffered terrible wounds. Every man and woman who served in Iraq sacrificed something, even if it was “only” a year of their life. And now our nation looked like a bystander to a calamity. Through withdrawal, we’d squandered the military victory of the Surge. Through withdrawal, we’d empowered our enemies.

Chanukah Video night 4: The Maccabeats - Candles on the Sill

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12/15 Links Pt1: Abbas Defies Oslo Agreements, Demands Full UN membership; Jerusalem, Israel's Capital: Watch the Masks Fall

From Ian:

The Anti-Semitic Invective of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

Palestinian President Accuses Jews of ‘Counterfeiting History and Religion,’ Claims Qur’an Says They ‘Fabricate Truth’

Abbas, whose doctorate denied the Holocaust and who accused rabbis of poisoning Palestinian water, is no stranger to anti-Semitic remarks

On Wednesday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the Organization of Islamic Cooperation at a summit in Turkey. Understandably, Abbas condemned the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and reiterated Palestinian claims to the city. But then the Palestinian leader ventured into far more disturbing territory: instead of simply assailing the political policies of the United States and Israel, he began to assail Jews. Almost as an aside, Abbas declared:

I don’t want to discuss religion or history because they are really excellent in faking and counterfeiting history and religion. But if we read the Torah it says that the Canaanites were there before the time of our prophet Abraham and their existence continued since that time—this is in the Torah itself. But if they would like to fake this history, they are really masters in this and it is mentioned in the holy Qur’an they fabricate truth and they try to do that and they believe in that but we have been there in this location for thousands of years.

Typically, Abbas presents his critiques of Israel as anti-Zionist rather than anti-Jewish. But of course, the Qur’an does not mention Zionists or Zionism—a modern political movement. It mentions Jews. Thus, according to Abbas, it is Jews who are “really excellent in faking and counterfeiting history and religion,” who “fabricate truth,” and who “are really masters in this.” Ironically, in this passage, Abbas was attempting to argue that the modern Palestinian people is actually descended from the biblical Canaanites, a dubious claim with little evidence to support it. Thus, he accused Jews of being fabricators of history while engaging in the same.

This is far from the first time the Palestinian president has dabbled in anti-Semitic invective.

Abbas Defies Oslo Agreements, Demands Full UN membership

Abbas stressed there can be no peace without Jerusalem being the capital of the Palestinian state, and described President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as a violation of international law and signed agreements. With that, Abbas said, the US disqualified itself from playing the role of mediator in the peace process, and his side will now take its case to the international community.

Abbas then called on the OIC member states to support his nation on 13 distinct points:

1. Limit the foreign relations of OIC members with world countries based on their position on the issue of Jerusalem, specifically with regard to the US declaration.

2. In light of the Jerusalem declaration, it is necessary to take political and economic measures to compel Israel to end its “occupation of the land of the State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital and to implement international humanitarian law.” In other words, commit suicide, ASAP.

3. Demand that the countries of the world review their recognition of the State of Israel.

Jerusalem, Israel's Capital: Watch the Masks Fall

Many analysts say that US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital is a campaign promise to evangelical Christian and right-wing Jewish voters, but there is another way of looking at it. Trump's recognition might be a golden opportunity for two-faced opportunists to be unmasked -- a shot of reality that might eventually help the peace process and solve this long-lasting conflict.

Since the declaration of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, many Arab observers, intellectuals and academics have started to question the veracity of those jihadists who claim they are sacrificing themselves to defend Jerusalem, because when the actual announcement came -- nothing happened. Those who were exploiting sensitivities related to Jerusalem -- especially political Islamists, such as Hamas and Hezbollah -- come mainly from the axis of resistance, led by Iran.

Other opportunists are the two-faced countries in the region, such as Qatar and Turkey. While publicly hostile towards Israel, behind closed doors they support it. Further opportunists are the Western and Arab media, who for decades have been promoting the idea that the problem is the Israeli occupation, but never mention the Palestinian Authority corruption.

Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital has also revealed the shortcomings of the US Department of State. It has not played any role in clarifying the above-mentioned points and, by this negativity and bureaucracy, only generated further hatred towards the US.

Trump's recognition has exposed the hypocrisy of the armed militia Hezbollah which always claims it will never disarm because of its fight against Israel. Now after the recognition of Jerusalem, many Arabs are questioning Hezbollah's motivations regarding Israel. Lebanese and other Arabs are questioning why Hezbollah has not sent its armed militia to fight in Israel as it did in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Dr. Hadi El Amine, a Lebanese researcher in political science and governmental studies, tweeted, "The axis of resistance's words are aimed against Israel, but their missiles are pointed at the Arabs."

Palestinians get really upset when Arab leaders don't fall into line

When you live your entire life knowing that you have hundreds of millions of Arabs publicly supporting your every word, you tend to get a bit skittish when things start to fall apart.

Arab News (and many other services) reported yesterday:

The US administration is serious about getting a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, but its proposed plan is still being put together, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said.

“We believe the Trump administration is serious about bringing peace between Israelis and Arabs,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir, a former ambassador to the US, told France 24 television late on Wednesday.

“They were working on ideas and were consulting with all parties, including Saudi Arabia, and they are incorporating the views represented to them by everybody. They have said they would need a little bit of time to put it together to present it.”

This is not the narrative that the Palestinians want the world to think about the US and Trump.

Secretary-General of the Palestinian People's Party Bassam Salhi described the statements made by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubair on the work of the American administration on a "peace plan" as ridiculous.

Bassam al-Salhi expressed his strong rejection of the statements made by al-Jubayr, in which he claimed that there was "a serious American peace plan to be proposed by the Trump administration."

Salhi said in a press statement Friday that this position is absurd and contradicts the Palestinian, Arab, Islamic and even international positions, which clearly expressed their rejection of US policy and considered it to undermine the entire "peace process".

He stressed that the Palestinian position to end American care for the political process is serious, and the Arab countries are required to respect this position and that there is an effort to hold America accountable.

You see? All Arabs are required to parrot Palestinian talking points! Just like BDS claims that anyone who does anything with Israel is "violating" their own edicts.

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NGO tweets picture of Jews at Kotel as "Palestinian Christians and Muslims unite against Trump"

The "Institute of Middle East Understanding," which claims to be an independent organization meant to provide accurate information about the Middle East to journalists, published this tweet:

Of course, this is a photo of Jews flocking to the Kotel this past Sukkot.

The Reuters article referenced indeed had that photo as a slideshow of different aspects of Jerusalem, but only the IMEU implied that this photo shows actual protests.

The IMEU's Twitter feed is filled with anti-Israel vitriol and lies. One can only wonder at how many lazy journalists rely on this organization to poison their minds in order to avoid doing any research of their own.

(h/t Arnold R)

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10 unmentioned yet obvious facts about Jerusalem for clueless journalists and pundits

To all you editorial writers, self-professed Middle East exports, diplomats and others:

1. Trump's declaration did not destroy the peace process. Pretending it destroys the peace process destroys the peace process.

2. Trump's declaration did not recognize all of Jerusalem as Israeli.

3. Trump's declaration did not preclude Jerusalem also being a Palestinian capital one day. (I think it's a very bad idea, but he never even implied it.)

4. Trump's declaration didn't cause terror or violence. People who purposefully misinterpreted Trump's words incited violence and organized violent demonstrations.

5. The initial violence in the territories after the declaration was directly orchestrated by the Palestinian Authority. (It closed its schools to increase the number of demonstrators.) The riots weren't spontaneous.

6. Everyone agrees that Jerusalem within the Green Line is Israeli under international law. Israel can do there what any country can do. There was never a shred of legal support for Jerusalem to be considered an international city - because the Arabs rejected the 1947 UNGA resolution that proposed it.

7. No matter whether the world accepts it, Jerusalem is Israel's capital, because that's where its government is. A state can declare its capital; no outsider can change that. Trump merely stated the obvious.

8. The idea that Jerusalem must be accepted as the capital of a Palestinian state before it can be accepted as the capital of Israel is wholly arbitrary and purely anti-Israel. It pre-judges the outcome of negotiations, the exact charge falsely given to recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

9. Jerusalem has been universally accepted as the capital of the Jewish nation way before Israel was reborn and even before modern Zionism.

10. Earlier this year, Russia recognized pre-1967 Jerusalem as Israel's capital, today. There is no contradiction between that position and what Trump said. Yet there was no uproar over that recognition.

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Chanukah bonus video night 3: Hanukkah Nightly Stroll in Jerusalem's Old City

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12/14 Links Pt2: PM: Human rights defenders, or offenders; Palestinians should accept reality, act for peace

From Ian:

Human rights defenders, or offenders

Unfortunately, those prestigiously honored as human rights defenders by the international community have made a mockery of these universal values of human rights.

For example, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN’s health body, in October appointed Zimbabwe’s outgoing dictator Robert Mugabe as a “Goodwill Ambassador.” Mugabe’s apparent defense of human rights, including the universal right to health, comprises of leading an extremely violent regime, completely destroying Zimbabwe’s economy, and manipulating elections to maintain his dictatorial role. The ICC has even been urged to investigate Mugabe for crimes against humanity.

Another instance is Aung San Suu Kyi—the leader of Myanmar. Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and being affirmed by Hilary Clinton as having a role in giving the world “new hope” in the ability for countries to transition from dictatorship to democracy, Suu Kyi is currently the leader of a country committing human rights violations against the Rohingya population. She has also lied to the world about her regimes culpability in a humanitarian disaster that many are calling genocide.

Likewise, the UN’s “expert” on Israel Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk, who is also a Western University professor, proclaimed that Manal Tamimi, an individual who uses virulently antisemitic and violent rhetoric on her Twitter, is a “human rights defender.” It is difficult to understand how someone who posts tweets that call for violent uprisings and include cartoons that depict Jews as rats promote the UN’s universal values.

Finally, is Glamour Magazine’s inclusion of the “Women’s March Organizers” in its 2017 list of “Women of the Year.” However, one of the organizers, Linda Sarsour, overtly promotes particularistic human rights—for instance, arguing that feminism and Zionism are mutually exclusive. Sarsour, in direct opposition to broad international support of a two-state framework for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, supports a “one-state solution”—which would effectively lead to the demise of Israel and a denial of Jewish rights to sovereign equality. She is also an advocate for discriminatory BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns against Israel. The organizers of the Women’s March further damaged their credibility by publically supporting Rasmea Odeh—a convicted terrorist, responsible for the 1969 bombing of a supermarket in Israel that killed two students.

PM: Palestinians should accept reality, act for peace

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on the Palestinians to "accept the reality and act for peace and not for extremism," following U.S. President Donald Trump's official recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Responding to calls from Muslim leaders calling for east Jerusalem to be recognized as the capital of Palestine and condemning Trump's declaration, Netanyahu said Palestinians should "recognize another fact when it comes to Jerusalem: not just that it is the capital of Israel, we also preserve freedom of worship in Jerusalem for all religions, and we are the ones who preserve this safeguard in the Middle East, in a manner that no one else preserves it, and on which others have also failed, sometimes miserably.

"Therefore all of these declarations do not impress us. The truth will come out, and many countries will yet recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move their embassies."

Netanyahu made the statement at a Mossad intelligence agency event in Jerusalem.

Zionism and the changing global structure

There is nothing weirder than the gap between the American Jewish conversation about Israel, on the one hand, and the real day-to-day lives of Israelis on the other.

American Jews are re-litigating the twentieth century, while Israelis are living the twenty-first.

American Jews ask: will Israel make peace or live forever by the sword? Why does the occupation never end? Will antisemitism destroy us all? Do Jews have a right to every inch of the biblical lands? Will Netanyahu cause a break with American Jews? Will Israel’s democracy be ruined by demography? How will the tiny Jewish state survive against an ocean of enemies? These are questions Israelis have mostly stopped asking, and American Jews cannot understand why.

The answer is that everything has changed. The strategic, economic and cultural opportunities facing Israel have drowned out the existential threats. The old anxieties have been overrun by both Israel’s successes and failures.

Successes: it is now a vibrant and powerful country, and its power has changed the thinking of national governments not just in Europe but also across the Arab world. Today Israel has only one real strategic enemy – Iran, which has been the force behind all of Israel’s wars in the past decade-and-a-half.

Economically, the Jewish state has become a global leader in technology, from agriculture to autonomous vehicles. It has solved its two biggest problems of nature: water and energy. Culturally, it has become an exporter in everything from film to art to wine to architecture to electronic music.

Israelis now count their Nobel prizes the way Jews used to. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Muslim mayor of Nazareth stops Christian holiday celebrations because of "Trump." - Wait, what?

From Reuters:

Nazareth, the Israeli Arab city where Jesus is thought to have been raised, has canceled some Christmas celebrations in protest at U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, an official said.

Nazareth, the largest Arab town in Israel with a Muslim and Christian population of 76,000, is one of the Holy Land’s focal points of Christmas festivities.

“We have decided to cancel the traditional Christmas singing and dancing because we are in a time of dispute, because of what Trump has said about Jerusalem,” city spokesman Salem Sharara said.

Ali Salam, mayor of Bethlehem, is Muslim. He is deciding to curtail Christian celebrations to protest what the US did.

Who loses? The Christians, of course.

And they are not happy:

Interestingly, this anti-Trump mayor was a big fan of Trump's a year ago, claiming that Trump learned all his campaigning methods from him.

(h/t Yoel)

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