Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, January 05, 2018

Now's not the right time (poster)

When the intelligentsia of the world tried to argue against the US recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, their arguments fell into three categories:

One, by supposedly Zionist left wing Jews, was that while ultimately part of Jerusalem would be Israel's capital, now was not the right time to make such a declaration.

Two, often made by diplomats and Middle East "experts," was that the move would make Arabs very, very, very angry and would ignite the region into a huge terror war.

Three, made by the Palestinians and their Arab allies to the West, was that such a move would destroy any chance for peace.

It's funny, because those same arguments are used all the time to stop anything happening that Palestinian Arabs (or Arabs altogether) don't want.

(retweet the poster)

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01/04 Links Pt2: From Berkeley To Europe: The Normalization Of Anti-Semitism; Sir Ringo Starr Outclasses Lorde And BDS Movement

From Ian:

IsraellyCool: The Palestinian Search for Peace

Fresh from his lung transplant in the US and follow-up treatment in Israel, Saeb “Massacre” Erekat had the chutzpah to once again rant on about supposed Israeli occupation, apartheid and heinous crimes.

Erekat slammed the American president for being unreasonable with the Palestinians and accused Trump, by his actions, of encouraging “the Israeli occupation to consolidate its occupation and apartheid regime.”

“Now, he is threatening to starve Palestinian children in refugee camps and deny their natural rights to health and education if we don’t endorse his terms and dictations,” Erekat said, referring to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“Instead of treating the Palestinians with fairness, President Trump has chosen a game of blame rather being an honest broker,” Erekat said. “His statements against the Palestinian people have encouraged Israel to continue its heinous crimes and violations of International Law.”

But I think fellow palestinian propagandist Hanan Ashrawi takes the cake with her response.

“President Trump has sabotaged our search for peace, freedom and justice. Now he dares to blame the Palestinians for the consequences of his own irresponsible actions!”

Yup, she really did claim that the palestinians – despite decades of rejecting peace offers and engaging in terrorism) have been searching for peace all this time.

Melanie Phillips: Our Crazy World - the Iran uprising

Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the Iran uprising, the excommunication from liberal Eden of Professor Alan Dershowitz and the inversion by the left of truth and lies.

Christian fundamentalists found a silver lining in the Holocaust

Continuing my reading of The Fervent Embrace: Liberal Protestants, Evangelicals, and Israel by Caitlin Carenen:

During World War II, the mainstream American Protestants came around to the idea of helping the Jews being massacred in Europe, but the fundamentalists looked at the extermination of the Jews as part of God's plan.

During the years of Hitler's campaign against the European Jews, the fundamentalist periodicals, such as Our Hope, the Weekly Evangel, the Sunday School Times, the Moody Monthly, and others, approached the persecution quite differently from their mainline counterparts. The periodicals consistently and accurately reported the statistics and details of the persecution.But unlike pro-Zionist mainline Protestants, fundamentalists saw the persecution of the Jews in a prophetic light and, for the most part, eschewed human efforts to intervene. They condemned Hitler’s campaign against the Jews, even while acknowledging that the persecutions helped to fulfill biblical prophecy-namely, pushing more Jews toward Palestine. One fundamentalist noted ironically in a Moody Monthly article that “by driving the preserved people back into the Promised Land. Hitler, who does not believe the Bible and who sneers at the Word of God, is helping to fulfill its most outstanding prophecy.”" Furthermore, most dispensationalists, though quick to point out that those who persecuted the Jews would be punished by God, nonetheless insisted that such persecutions were a necessary part of God's plan for the Jews.

In Our Hope, Gaebelein noted that of the estimated ten million Jews living in Europe, more than half were the subject of increasing antisemitism, and noted particularly the plight of Jews in Germany and Poland. It was proof, he insisted, that “their own God-inspired Scriptures are being fulfilled.” This persecution could not be solved with human endeavors, and, perhaps in a reference to the efforts of the [Christian Zionist] ACPC, he argued, “nor can a united front with Gentile nominal Christians bring about change. The change will come when “they shall look upon Him whom they pierced’ and acknowledge Christ as their Saviour-King."

Many fundamentalists viewed the persecution of the Jews in Europe as an opportunity to witness. As the Moody Monthly pointed out in April 1943, “The terrific persecutions in Europe, the troubles in Palestine, and the ever increasing antisemitism throughout the world have softened their hearts and make them long for security and rest of soul.” Even though the conservative press offered far more details of Jewish destruction than their liberal counterparts, they nonetheless interpreted these statistics through a uniquely prophetic perspective which emphasized that the divine purpose of Nazi persecution lay in Jewish conversion to Christianity." For example, the Moody Monthly argued that the persecution of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto had resulted in mass conversions of Jewish children. “Perhaps that is the reason the Devil saw to it that Warsaw was wrecked and the Jews scattered,” one contributor suggested." Nonetheless, nations who wreaked such destruction on God's chosen people would surely face divine judgment, “the wrath of
God Almighty.“

Sure hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed and deported from the Warsaw Ghetto - but so many of their orphaned children were becoming Christian!

All it takes is a little perspective to see that the Nazi persecutions weren't all bad.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Recently Donald Trump and Nikki Haley made news by threatening to cut off (or at least sharply reduce) funds given to the Palestinians. Trump wasn’t clear about which funds, but Haley referred to US support for UNRWA, the welfare agency which maintains the ever-growing class of “Palestinian refugees.”

It’s important to understand what a Palestinian refugee is, because it is very different from any other kind of refugee.

A refugee is normally someone who fled or was driven from his own country by war, political unrest or natural disaster. Often they do not have a permanent home and are temporarily living in a refugee camp. They have no independent means of sustenance, and are dependent on charity.

The UN has an agency, the UNHCR, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, whose job it is to help such people survive until they can either return home or make a new life in a new place. For example, today there are millions of refugees from places like Syria, Afghanistan, Myanmar, South Sudan, Libya, Yemen, and more. UNHCR feeds refugees and provides temporary housing and medical assistance in the short term, and tries to provide longer range solutions such as resettlement so that people can stop being refugees. In 2016, UNHCR says it has resettled over 189,000 people. This is a drop in the bucket when there are 17.2 million refugees in the world, by UNHCR figures, but it is something.

UNHCR has a budget of $7.7 billion and about 11,000 employees worldwide; it is funded by voluntary contributions, 87 percent of which come from the EU (yes, I was surprised to read this too).

Europe today is in the process of being overrun by people claiming to be refugees. It’s important to distinguish refugees, who have been forced to leave their homes, from migrants, who have chosen to emigrate in order to improve their lives. But that’s not what I am writing about today.

From the point of view of UNHCR, a refugee is a person in a particular condition. Its goal is to reduce the number of people in that condition, by finding permanent jobs and places to live, by helping stateless refugees get asylum in places where they will not be victimized further. Refugee status for UNHCR is a situation, not a defining characteristic of a person. It is something undesirable that one wants to end as soon as possible.

A “Palestinian refugee,” on the other hand, is something else entirely. Palestinian refugee status was granted to anyone who could prove that he had resided in Mandate Palestine for at least two years in 1948 (since June 1, 1946) and was then displaced (voluntarily or not) from his home. And it inheres in the person, not his situation; so even if, for example, a Palestinian refugee gets rich and builds a mansion in Samaria or Jordan, he still keeps his refugee status. Not only that, but it is hereditary – a father passes his refugee status down to his children and his grandchildren. Apparently there is only one way to lose Palestinian refugee status, and that is for a refugee to “return” to “his home” in what is today Israel.

UNHCR does not deal with Palestinian refugees. A special UN agency, UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) was created in 1949 just for the refugees of 1948. Estimates vary, but there were probably about 600,000 Arabs displaced by the war. Some Arabs who were not actually displaced received refugee status, and a figure of 750,000 Palestinian refugees is quoted by UNRWA. Thanks to the unique hereditary nature of Palestinian refugeehood, there are today about 5 million “Palestinian refugees.” UNRWA spends about US $1.5 billion each year housing, feeding and educating the refugee population, meeting their medical needs, and so on. Palestinian families also receive welfare payments depending on the size of the family. The lion’s share of this comes from the US and the EU, with small amounts from the rest of the world (including the Arab world).

“Palestinian refugees” live in camps in the Gaza Strip (1,300,000), Judea/Samaria (800,000), Lebanon (450,000), Syria (526,000), and Jordan (2,175,000). These “camps” are more like large neighborhoods or small cities than the temporary refugee camp that comes to mind. They are administered by the host governments (including the Palestinian Authority) and provisioned by UNRWA. In Lebanon, restrictions on education and employment reminiscent of apartheid have been placed on residents; in Syria, refugee camps have been attacked by regime forces and residents massacred.

Think about it. There are now four generations of refugees. A migrant who arrived in Mandate Palestine in 1946 to work for the British authorities and then left in 1948 was guaranteed support in perpetuity for himself and all his descendents. But UNRWA’s mandate does not include resettlement, and none of the host countries – not even the Palestinian Authority! – will grant citizenship to “Palestinian refugees.” Once a Palestinian refugee, always a refugee.

UNRWA has about 30,000 employees, some 99% of whom are Palestinians. Its educational system is designed to teach the Palestinian narrative of victimization and revenge. In the Gaza strip, it teaches the Hamas ideology of hatred for Jews as well.

This is not a formula for solving a refugee problem, the way the problem of the millions of refugees of WWII was solved. It is a way to create a continually growing dependent class of stateless, disaffected and furious people. The welfare system encourages large families, while at the same time the refugee camp system makes it impossible for most of the young males to find work. No wonder the camps have proved to be a fertile breeding ground for terrorism!

How did this happen? How is it that the international community tried to solve every refugee problem except this one, which it chose to exacerbate? The simple answer is that the Arab nations wanted it as a weapon against Israel, and the West gave them what they wanted so as not to imperil its supply of oil.

But the times have changed, Arab oil is not what it used to be, the conservative Sunni Arab nations are more worried about Iran than Israel, and simple mathematics have made the maintenance of the refugee population too expensive. At the same time, Mr. Trump has voiced the feeling of many, which is that the Palestinians, with their unique sense of entitlement, know only how to take, and are not willing to make the slightest gesture toward compromise.

If the goal is a peace agreement between Israel and the PLO (in my opinion a terrible idea) then Trump is quite right that continuing to pay them while they refuse to negotiate is stupid. But leaving this aside, maybe there is a bigger opportunity. Is it not time to move to end the “Palestinian refugee problem” for once and for all? Here is how to do it:

First, stop creating new refugees. Children of refugees will no longer inherit their status. At the same time, the host countries will be expected to grant full residency to those who request it (interestingly, this is already the case for the one refugee camp, Shu’afat, that is located in an area under Israeli civil control – its residents have been treated as Arab residents of Jerusalem). The hosts will be required to remove apartheid-like restrictions on the refugees. Welfare and other aid will be phased out, and the funds intended to pay for education and medical care will be transferred to the host countries – under careful control – to begin bringing those services directly to the residents.

Ultimately UNRWA itself will disappear. Those who have inherited refugee status will lose it. The few real refugees – those who actually left in 1948 (a babe in arms then will be 70 this year) – will come under the UNHCR framework.

In order for there to ever be peace between Israel and her neighbors, the Arabs must face reality: that Israel is a legitimate country belonging to a legitimate people, and that the Palestinians are not going to “return” to it, not ever. The charade of the “Palestinian refugee” must end.

Today Trump has an opportunity to tear away another veil of pretense, just as he did for Jerusalem, the capital of Israel,

He should go for it.

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01/04 Links Pt1: Sharansky: The West Should Stop Dithering and Show Its Support for the Protesters in Iran; Iran’s Endgame In Gaza

From Ian:

Natan Sharansky: The West Should Stop Dithering and Show Its Support for the Protesters in Iran

An opinion piece in the New York Times recently argued that the best way for the U.S. government to help the Iranian protesters is to "Keep quiet and do nothing." It is vital to understand why failing to support the protesters at this critical juncture would constitute a moral and strategic mistake.

In 2009, when Iranians came out in large numbers to denounce their country's rigged presidential election, the response they received from the American government was decidedly tepid. This policy of non-interference discouraged protesters and reinforced the regime.

My experiences as a political prisoner and my decades of involvement with democratic dissidents around the world have shown me that all democratic revolutions have some elements in common. It is the drive of ordinary citizens to free themselves from government control over their thought, speech and livelihoods that has propelled dissidents and revolutionary movements around the world.

Any regime that refuses to respect its citizens' most basic rights, and especially the right to think and speak freely, can maintain its power only by intimidation and force. Revolutions take place when enough people simultaneously cross that fateful line between silent questioning and open dissent. Once they do so, the regime can no longer contain the upsurge of opposition and must either begin to liberalize or collapse.

World powers should warn Tehran - and thereby reassure protesters - that it must respect its citizens' rights if it wishes to continue receiving benefits from their countries. Articulating a clear policy of linkage would put pressure on the regime to make genuine changes and give hope to protesters that their sacrifices will not be in vain.

It is time for all those who value freedom to state clearly that the Iranian people - like all people - deserve to be free, and that when they fight for this right, those of us who already enjoy it will stand unequivocally by their side.

Iran’s Endgame In Gaza

One week of popular protests in Iran has brought into stark focus the country’s deep internal divisions, along with widespread resentment towards the mullahs, which have remained relatively dormant since regime forces brutally quashed the Green Revolution in 2009. What started last Thursday in the city of Mashhad as a small economic rally—with participants primarily venting frustration over the lack of trickle-down effect from some $100 billion in sanctions relief granted to Tehran in the 2015 nuclear deal—has morphed into nationwide, deadly demonstrations against the rulership of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Across Iran chants of “death to the dictator” have become common refrain as pictures of the ayatollah are set on fire. Among the many grievances being aired is anger over the Islamic Republic’s deep military, and thus financial, involvement in conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, in addition to support for Lebanese-based Hizbullah. Somewhat less pronounced is the regime’s bankrolling of the Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, although protesters have reportedly recited slogans such as ‘Let go of Palestine’ and ‘Forget Palestine’ while invoking the Gaza Strip in particular.

In this respect, relations between Shiite Iran and Sunni Hamas have thawed since the former froze ties with Gaza’s rulers after they refused to support the Assad government at the onset of the Syrian war. Now, Tehran’s renewed funding of Hamas is part and parcel of the Islamic Republic’s attempt to increase its regional influence and, on the micro level, its presence along Israel’s borders. The latter entails accelerating Hizbullah’s militarization in Lebanon and establishing a permanent presence in Syria, including the entrenchment of Shiite proxies in the Golan Heights.

According to Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser (ret.), former director general of the Israeli Ministry of International Affairs and Strategy, Iran’s growing involvement in Gaza is based on a convergence of interests. “On the one hand, Hamas has become weaker as it lost the ability to rely on its usual supporters, while its effort to forge unity with the Palestinian Authority appears to have failed. “On the other hand,” he explained to The Media Line, “the Iranians want to increase the strength of the ‘resistance’ axis that opposes Israel and promotes radical Islamic ideology and Hamas can be a useful ally in this cause.”

Sohrab Ahmari: More Iran Nonsense From the New York Times

Thomas Erdbrink is at it again. The New York Times Tehran bureau chief told readers in November that Donald Trump’s tough rhetoric had pushed the Iranian people into the arms of a regime they detest. Iranians begged to differ: A few weeks after Erdbrink’s story appeared, hundreds of thousands of them poured into the streets in opposition to clerical rule.

Confronted with this apparent discrepancy between reality and his thesis, Erdbrink filed a December 29 dispatch–from Niseko, Japan–that described the protests as “scattered” and concerned mainly with the “government’s handling of the economy.” Meanwhile, in actually existing Iran, the protests had spread from Mashhad, in the northeast, to some two-dozen cities. And the protesters were chanting “Death to the Islamic Republic,” “Death to [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei,” and “Death to the Principle of the Guardianship” of the mullahs–not “Death to Inflation.” Erdbrink could have gotten wind of these slogans via Twitter and other social media outlets. Instead, he mostly relied on quotes from regime figures and pro-regime think-tankers keen to frame the uprising as apolitical.

Nearly a week since the protests erupted, Erdbrink remains committed to his earlier conclusions. Witness his January 2 dispatch, this time from the Iranian capital. “Hard-Liners and Reformers Tapped Iranians’ Ire. Now Both Are Protest Targets,” reads the headline, and the body of the article suggests that the current revolt was instigated by these two competing factions inside the regime.

The Tehran regime is invested in the hard-liners-versus-moderates-and-reformers narrative. It is a classic good-cop-bad-cop routine with many useful applications in foreign diplomacy. Numerous Western statesmen and intellectuals have fallen for it since the regime’s founding in 1979. Back then, another writer for the Times, Princeton’s Richard Falk, wrote of how the Ayatollah Khomeini’s “entourage of supporters is uniformly composed of moderate, progressive individuals”–shortly before the Khomeinists staged a decade-long orgy of torture and summary execution. Ever since, finding and supporting regime moderates has been a cornerstone of U.S. and European policy toward Iran.

It is notable that the people that claim that UN Security Council resolutions are massively important when they apply to Israel are silent when Israel's enemies violate them - and brag about it.

UNSC 1701, passed to end the 2006 Lebanon war, called for:

full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of 27 July 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State;

and

no sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its Government;

and

Calls upon the Government of Lebanon to secure its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel and requests UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11 to assist the Government of Lebanon at its request;

Hezbollah has been flouting this resolution for 11 years, and the government of Lebanon as well as UNIFIL and the UN have ignored it as well.

Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah literally brags about how he is violating UNSC 1701:

Meanwhile, Sayyed Nasrallah urged "The axis of the Resistance to be prepared for this war and turn this threat into an opportunity."
"We must prepare surprises and sophisticated weapons for any future war," he confirmed, reiterating that the Resistance is working day and night to get all kinds of arms that will allow it to rise victorious in any future war."
Moreover, Hezbollah Secretary General underscored that "the Lebanese Resistance has surprises and modern arms for any future war."
"If a great war takes place, all options are on table including to go beyond the Galilee," he unveiled, assuring that "The Resistance in Lebanon is stronger than ever."

This explicit and open violation of a Security Council resolution doesn't even merit a single newspaper article.

And Hezbollah isn't only arming itself, but it is arming other terrorist groups, as Nasrallah continues to brag:

Expressing Hezbollah's readiness to seize every chance to offer support and arms to the Resistance in Palestine, Sayyed Nasrallah declared the Lebanese Resistance openness to all Palestinian factions because there is an agreement at least on Al-Quds.

Beyond that, Nasrallah calls to expand terror operations outside Israel to the entire world:

Sayyed Nasrallah also emphasized that Hezbollah had repeatedly stressed the principle of coordination between the different Palestinian factions. "We discussed with the Palestinian factions activating the Intifada at home and abroad and providing support for it."

"Activating an intifada abroad" means Hezbollah is admitting to organizing terror attacks worldwide. We knew this, of course, but they don't normally admit it so explicitly.

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Qalandia "refugee" camp in the West Bank

From Times of Israel on Tuesday:

Responding to a reporter’s question on whether the US will continue to provide funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to millions of Palestinian refugees, in light of a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution last month condemning the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, [Nikki] Haley said Trump was prepared to cut aid to UNRWA if the Palestinians refuse to return to peace talks.

“I think the president has basically said that he doesn’t want to give any additional funding until the Palestinians are agreeing to come back to the negotiation table,” Haley said. “We’re trying to move for a peace process but if that doesn’t happen the president is not going to continue to fund that situation.”

“The Palestinians now have to show their will — they want to come to the table. As of now they are not coming to the table but they ask for aid. We’re not giving the aid,” added Haley. “We’re going to make sure they come to the table and we want to move forward with the peace process.”

An article in Palestine Today says in Arabic what the Palestinians try not to say in English.

If UNRWA cannot get funded, then the "refugee" issue would fall to the UNHCR.

The UNHCR would not consider the vast majority of the people under UNRWA's mandate to be refugees.

As the article says, the entire point of UNRWA, from the Palestinian perspective, is to artificially keep the "refugee" issue alive - until the descendants of the refugees from 1948 are allowed to "return" to Israel.

Why would any self-respecting state, as the Palestinians consider themselves, want their own people to move to an enemy state? A state that they claim has an apartheid system against them, no less?

Absurdly, the demand for Arabs of Palestinian descent to move to Israel doesn't only apply to those who languish in "refugee" camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, but also to every single resident of the camps in the West Bank and Gaza - under Palestinian control!

Nothing makes the goals of Palestinian nationalism as clear as their demands to perpetuate and fund the fake "refugee" status of their people until they can "return."

UNHCR tries to resettle refugees in other countries so they can rebuild their lives in peace and security. UNRWA wants to keep their "Palestine refugees" to be stateless until they "return" to Israel.

The goal is not to build a state for Palestinians but to destroy Israel. And it always has been.

Everyone knows that "return" is a demand to destroy Israel from the inside. But the international community won't say this out loud. The claim that Israel is somehow obligated to adhere to a tortured reading of a part of a single paragraph of a non-binding General Assembly resolution is still considered a cogent argument from the world that is still frightened of Arab terror. They pretend that the unique UNRWA definition of "refugee" has the same legal weight that the real definition of refugee has. (Not one European or even Arab country will accept asylum applications from UNRWA's "Palestine refugees" unless they are real refugees from Syria, for example.)

The entire UNRWA ecosystem has been subverted and repurposed since the 1950s with the single goal of destroying Israel - by keeping Palestinian Arabs in stateless misery - under the pretense of human rights.

The goals of Mahmoud Abbas' PA, of Fatah and Hamas, of the "pro-Palestinian" agitators, are all the same. And the "refugee" issue is all the proof you need.

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Saeb Erekat said yet another absurd statement that the Western media accepts as if it makes sense.

For years the “Palestinian leadership has engaged in good faith in numerous meetings and encounters with the US administration,” said Saeb Erekat, the longtime senior Palestinian negotiator, after a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s political committee in Ramallah.

“Now, he is threatening to starve Palestinian children in refugee camps and deny their natural rights to health and education if we don’t endorse his terms and dictations,” Erekat said, referring to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Only the fake Palestinian "refugees" get free healthcare and education from a UN agency. All real refugees get far, far less from the UNHCR.

But Erekat is claiming that the US threatening to attach strings to the billions it has given the Palestinians is a violation of human rights!

It gets worse. The Fatah Facebook page is directly threatening the US, saying that it will be isolated internationally:

Mr. Trump!
The Palestinians are a people under occupation and do not have the slightest strength, neither economic nor military, but they reduced your international presence, isolated you and dwarfed your role! The next is the internationalization of the conflict and the escalation of the popular resistance of the civilian and Palestinian national unity.
Who is imposing sanctions on who, Mr. President?Mounir El Jagoub
Head of the Information Office
Office of the mobilization and organization of Fatah

In English they claim that the money is needed for food and try to appeal to receive it for moral reasons. In Arabic they are more clear - they want to extort it.

So here is how Erekat and the Palestinian leadership has viewed the "peace process" since Oslo:

(You can retweet the graphic here.)

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01/03 Links Pt2: Regime Change Is the West’s Best Hope for Iran; Heroic Women Fighting for Freedom; Germany's dangerous foreign minister

From Ian:

Noah Rothman: Regime Change Is the West’s Best Hope for Iran

If the regime in Iran collapsed, there’s every reason to believe that Tehran would reassess its options. If the demonstrators have their way and compel a provisional Iranian government to abandon its support for terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and rogue states like Syria, the threat posed by Israel’s nuclear arsenal (which it has possessed since at least 1968) diminishes significantly. Likewise, Iran’s regional non-nuclear competitors in the Arab World—chiefly Saudi Arabia and its allies—can be checked as effectively by conventional forces as they would be with a nuclear arsenal. Incentives provided to Tehran in the form of aid to induce verifiable nuclear disarmament and to transition toward a republican government would also facilitate this process.

To the self-described foreign-policy rationalists who engineered the Iran nuclear deal and now brood in exile, this all sounds like so much fancy. “Realistically, the best-case scenario is not that Iran becomes a Western-style liberal democracy, but rather that it follows the China model,” wrote current New York Times foreign affairs columnist Max Fisher, “of gradual economic and diplomatic opening, along with loosening some social freedoms.” Indeed, we have seen some social freedoms restored in the Islamic Republic—the abolition of the penalty of arrest for women who decline to wear the hijab, for example—but only as a result of protesters setting fire to government offices. Fisher’s isn’t just a failure of imagination disguised as sober calculation; it’s bet-hedging. No one will fault you if the government in Tehran collapses and you didn’t see it coming. Who could have? But if you were to advocate, much less hasten, the regime’s collapse and it survives anyway, your reputation as a policymaker or analyst might not.

Cracks are beginning to show as enraged demonstrators beat at the Islamic Republic’s foundations. Like the Soviet Union, Iran’s is a repressive regime that sacrificed its legitimacy long before its citizens took to the streets in revolt.The Iran deal has provided Iran with lucrative new trade arrangements and access to assets lost to it in 1979, but it has not induced a change in its confrontational posture toward the West. Nothing will. There will need to be new management in Tehran.

Eli Lake: The West Can Help Iranians Take Back Their Country

There is currently a Change.org petition urging Obama to speak out in favor of the demonstrations. That is a good start. But the former president should do more. He should devote his good offices to publicizing the cause of Iranian freedom. No American can lead Iran’s opposition, but Obama’s unique understanding of grassroots activism puts him in an ideal position to lead the Western cause of solidarity. He could organize lawyers, newspaper editors, teachers, librarians and human rights groups to partner Iranians under siege, following the Jewish-American movement to allow Soviet refuseniks to emigrate.

With all of this in mind, it’s also important to avoid past mistakes. Let’s start with hubris. Iranians will be the authors of their liberation. No State Department or CIA program will bring freedom to Iran. The expert class that has gotten so much of Iran wrong in recent years should step aside and listen to those Iranians driven out of their home country who live today in the West.

So far, the movement in Iran appears to have the advantage of being leaderless. Unlike the Greens of 2009, there are no Iranian leaders who have emerged as the personality or face of this new opposition. Let’s leave it that way. People’s Mujahedin leader Maryam Rajavi, or supporters of the Pahlavi dynasty that fell in 1979, should not be treated as leaders or spokesmen for this organic uprising. They seek to impose an agenda on a movement they did not create. Don’t let them do it.

The same goes for those who have emerged as a de facto lobby for President Rouhani and his faction within the Iranian regime. This network, based primarily in Washington, includes the National Iranian American Council, the Ploughshares Network and the many journalists and experts titillated by U.S.-Iranian diplomacy. For years they told us Rouhani was a reformer. Today they whisper that these demonstrators are really a ploy of Rouhani’s “hardline” opposition. They celebrate “elections” that have the legitimacy as those for student government. They want Trump to be silent today.

Finally, it’s important to not be discouraged. I hope the unrest in Iran spreads and the fanatics, thieves and terrorists who have infantilized Iranians for 38 years are toppled. But it’s likely the unrest today is the beginning of a longer process. This regime has survived mass demonstrations and riots before and restored the fear necessary to continue its misrule. It’s the West’s job in these coming weeks to support our real allies, the Iranian people demanding freedom.

Obama Betrayed Iranian People; Trump Stands with Them

As a long-time Iranian, I can tell you that the support of the US and President Trump is invaluable to the ordinary Iranians: they feel helpless and alone in the face of the monsters who have been oppressing them for so long.

On Persian social media outlets and apps such as Telegram, which is extremely popular among Iranians, people are cheering the US support. People are asking the US to support them in other ways as well, in addition to helping them bypass the internet-blocks and shut-downs that the Iranian regime recently implemented.

If the Iranians succeed in changing this Islamist regime, it will bring down the highest state sponsor of terrorism, the leading regime in human rights violations, the top state sponsor of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitic propaganda. Iran, with its current regime, is a danger not just to its long-suffering people, but to everyone. These protesters, who are flooding the streets and demanding that their voices be heard, are committing acts of heroism that will be felt throughout the world and throughout history.

Christian periodical in the 1930s warned that acting Jewish causes antisemitism

Continuing on my reading of The Fervent Embrace: Liberal Protestants, Evangelicals, and Israel by Caitlin Carenen, we see that the influential Christian Century magazine was against persecuted Jews immigrating to Palestine.

But they were also against Jews coming to America, too.

"There is no ethical principle that requires either an individual person or nation to expose itself to a condition sure to involve a moral overstrain....Our immigration laws should be maintained and even further strengthened. Christian and other high-minded citizens have no need to feel apologetic for the limitations upon immigration into the country," it said.

Part of the reason is that the immigrants were so...Jewy. The magazine gave a not so friendly warning to American Jews:

As the decade progressed and persecution against Jews in Germany increased, the Christian Century continued its assault against Judaism. In editorials and articles, the journal warned Jews against maintaining a separate ethnic identity in the midst of Protestant America. In an editorial written in 1937, for example, the editors encouraged Jews to abandon Judaism's particularistic aspects in favor of its universalistic elements in the hope of "achieving a higher integration of social relationships in the United States." Reflecting the inherent tensions between democracy and religion, another editorial insisted that maintaining religious particularity at the expense of a °higher synthesis" with Protestant America would only result in '"the spirit of American tolerance shriveling up."

Those devout and progressive Christians were okay with tolerance, as long as the people they had to tolerate were just like them.

And that if the Jews decide to keep acting like Jews, then, well, who can blame the people who will discriminate against them?

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Report: Cultural Genocide Absolutely Delicious

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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: Credit: Avi Deror via Wikimedia Commons

Tel Aviv, January 3 - A survey of foodstuffs available in Israel has determined that dishes adopted or adapted from foods Palestinians claim as theirs, and whose use by Israelis represents an attempt to erase indigenous culture, taste damned good.

The study, which examined the restaurant, cafe, and street food scene in cities around Israel, found that the Israeli versions of dishes that Palestinians and their supporters have weaponized as rhetorical weapons against Jewish sovereignty in the Levant, are by and large a culinary tour de force.

In an article to be published in the February issue of Gourmet magazine, the researchers detail the painstaking legwork and analysis that led to their conclusion. "We've spent the last three months eating falafel, kaddeh, knaffeh, baklava, and an endless variety of pickled or seasoned vegetables," revealed Anin Taam, the lead author of the study. "We specifically focused on foods on which Israeli culture prides itself and that Palestinians claim were 'appropriated' by Zionists in an attempt to destroy 'native' traditions, and found that boy, are those Israeli dishes good. I have gained so much damn weight during this research."

Ms. Taam also addressed the specific accusations of what some Palestinian advocates have termed cultural genocide. "Cultural genocide foods are the best foods," she explained. "Pizza, chocolate, potatoes, and basically anything Chinese, Japanese, or from the Indian subcontinent - man, I'm drooling just thinking about it. Can you imagine how poor the culinary world would be if foods were only allowed to be prepared where they originated?"

"Here's to cultural genocide," she toasted, raising a glass of fine Israeli wine from the Judean Hills. "Holy crap, this Psagot Winery makes good Chardonnay. I realize that's not strictly an appropriation of food, given the restrictions Palestinian Islamic culture places on wine, but you get the idea."

"You know, it's a little funny to make those accusations," contended Sue Fganya, a food consultant who was not involved in the study. "I always thought genocide against the Jews was a European thing, but there went the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin Husseini, spiritual father of Palestinian nationalism, trying to replicate the Nazis' Final Solution over in Palestine. I guess there are some kinds of cultural appropriation or cultural genocide that are acceptable, and some that are not? I do wish someone would explain it to me, so I can enjoy my pineapple-topped pizza without worrying that I'm committing an atrocity against Italians and Pacific Islanders. I mean, a worse one than pineapple on pizza. If you could imagine."

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01/03 Links Pt1: Trump threatens to cut off US aid to Palestinians; Palestinians: Always on the Wrong Side

From Ian:

Trump threatens to cut off US aid to Palestinians over Jerusalem dispute

Acknowledging his push to broker peace in the Middle East has stalled, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority, asking why Washington should make “any of these massive future payments” when the Palestinians were “no longer willing to talk peace.”

In a tweet, the president dismissed Palestinian fury over his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, saying he had planned for Israel “to pay” in future negotiations for his declaration. But Palestinian intransigence was now preventing any progress on peace talks, he said

Washington was paying the Palestinian Authority hundreds of millions of dollars a year “for nothing,” he wrote, complaining that the US received “no appreciation or respect” in return.

“They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel,” he said. “We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more.”

“But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace,” he went on, “why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

...peace treaty with Israel. We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018

US warns it won’t fund UN refugee agency if Palestinians reject talks

Speaking with reporters Tuesday at UN headquarters, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley stressed the US remains committed to reaching a peace deal, and indicated it would cut off aid if the Palestinians refused to engage in peace negotiations.

Responding to a reporter’s question on whether the US will continue to provide funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to millions of Palestinian refugees, in light of a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution last month condemning the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Haley said Trump was prepared to cut aid to UNRWA if the Palestinians refuse to return to peace talks.

“I think the president has basically said that he doesn’t want to give any additional funding until the Palestinians are agreeing to come back to the negotiation table,” Haley said. “We’re trying to move for a peace process but if that doesn’t happen the president is not going to continue to fund that situation.”

“The Palestinians now have to show their will — they want to come to the table. As of now they are not coming to the table but they ask for aid. We’re not giving the aid,” added Haley. “We’re going to make sure they come to the table and we want to move forward with the peace process.”

The US was the biggest donor to UNRWA in 2016, giving $368,429,712. It is also the largest overall supplier of financial support for the Palestinians.

EXCLUSIVE - U.N. Palestinian 'Refugee' Agency Defends Budget After Census Finds Nearly A Third Less ‘Refugees’

I24 News added the census was “conducted by 1,000 Lebanese and Palestinian employees and was taken over the course of a year.”

In his statement, UNRWA’s Gunness said that “UNRWA looks forward to analyzing the survey results in detail and to discuss their policy implications with the Lebanese authorities, the Palestinian community, donor countries and the broader UN family.”

He stressed that the census “does not cover all Palestinian refugees in Lebanon – it covers those in the camps and gatherings.” However, the census was reported as a thorough accounting of most Palestinian “refugees” living in Lebanon.

Gunness added: “UNRWA continues to operate facing a large shortfall in its budget. UNRWA urges all donor countries to provide the funding needed in order to maintain and actually strengthen its capacity to assist and protect Palestine refugees in Lebanon.”

The U.S. is UNRWA’s single largest donor, providing about $300 million annually.

The definition of a Palestinian “refugee” and the actual numbers have long been the subject of debate.

Trump’s Mideast policy: Diplomatic Darwinism in the quest for the ultimate deal

US President Donald Trump’s bombshell tweets late on Tuesday demonstrated once again just how unpredictable the leader of the free world is.

In under 100 words, he questioned America’s longstanding financial support for the Palestinian Authority, contradicted his own position on Jerusalem, and indicated that Israel would have to “pay” in future peace negotiations.

With a president as impulsive as Trump, nothing is impossible. Tomorrow he really could, as he threatened on Twitter, announce that the US will cease funding the PA or demand painful concessions from Israel, or declare he is abandoning his pet peace project altogether.

At this point it appears more likely, however, that US officials will somehow try to downplay the president’s surprising tweets, indicating support for the status quo and vowing that the White House will continue unabated in its efforts to bring about a lasting peace.

Still, Trump’s tweets do provide fascinating insights into how he views international relations and the application of his “America First” foreign policy in the Middle East. It’s all quid pro quo, a system of bilateral transactions in which the strongest player dominates weaker ones. Call it diplomatic Darwinism.

A political party in Morocco is proposing to remove citizenship from any Jews who live in "Israeli settlements."

The proposal was created by Elias Ammari, secretary-general of the PAM party, after meeting with former Hamas head Khaled Meshal.

The PAM party (Parti de l'Authenticité et de la Modernité) is considered to be close to the monarchy, so this may be more troubling than if it was just some Islamist party - it looks like just another excuse to bash Israel.

No one seems to know how many Israelis still have Moroccan citizenship, and certainly no one knows how many live beyond the Green Line. About 250,000 Moroccan Jews have emigrated to Israel since 1948.

Simon Sacra, Secretary General of the Federation of Moroccan Jews in France, defended the right of Moroccan Jews to preserve their Moroccan nationality wherever they may be, whether inside Israeli settlements or in other areas.

"Despite the passage of about 70 years, Moroccans in Israel still love Morocco and the King, defend his interests and visit him annually to celebrate their holidays and theit common historical coexistence."

As for the Moroccans living in the settlements, Sacra explained that these Jews did not go there for political reasons, but purely economic. "To buy a house in Tel Aviv, you must be a millionaire," he said.

He also said that Moroccan Jews in the settlements have good relations with the Palestinians, although I'm not sure what evidence he has for that. Sacra is obviously concerned about a slippery slope of disenfranchising some Moroccan Jews now and opening up the rest for possible loss of citizenship later.

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Remember how the Arab world was going to explode after the US said it would move its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem?

From Ammon News:

Jordan has allocated 1.5 million dinars (around $2.1 million) in the 2018 national budget for a gas pipeline linking the Hashemite Kingdom with Israel. According to Al-Ghad newspaper on Sunday, the cost of the joint Jordanian-Israeli project is expected to rise to 3 million dinars ($4.2 million) in 2019, and to 6 million dinars ($8.5 million) by 2020. The pipeline will pass over the Sheikh Hussein border crossing, 90 km from Amman.

There has been serious opposition to Israeli gas imports to Jordan, but the kingdom is ignoring them all. Because it needs natural gas. Badly.

And that is how Israel can best defend itself - by providing to the Arab world things that they cannot easily get otherwise, and put them in a position where if Israel is hurt, they would be hurt worse.

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Palestinians stealing Israeli falafel culture!

The debate over who invented falafel balls is never going to be resolved.

But everyone agrees that the idea of a falafel sandwich in pita is completely Israeli.

As Haaretz reported in 2012, "Falafel was made popular in Israel by Yemeni Jews in the 1950s. They brought with them the chickpea version of the dish from Yemen and introduced the concept of serving falafel balls in pita bread."

Clearly, falafel in pita is an Israeli innovation and an example of Israeli cuisine.

And look who stole it:

The GoPalestine page includes this photo of "Palestinian" falafel in pita:

The popular Afteem restaurant in Bethlehem makes and sells falafel sandwiches in pita as well:

The "Palestinian Cuisine" blog also includes Israeli falafel sandwiches:

It sounds like cultural genocide, doesn't it?

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