Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 05, 2018

02/05 Links Pt1: US envoy: Hamas squandering Iran's 'blood money' on terror; Fatah celebrates murder of “126 Zionists”; Israeli Father of Four Killed in West Bank Stabbing Attack

From Ian:

US envoy: Hamas squandering Iran's 'blood money' on terror

American envoy Jason Greenblatt lashed out at Iran and at Hamas on Sunday over their efforts to destabilize the Middle East.

"Hamas should be improving the lives of those it purports to govern, but instead chooses to increase violence and cause misery for the people of Gaza," U.S. President Donald Trump's Special Representative for International Negotiations tweeted Sunday.

The tweet included a link to a Jerusalem Post article about a recently foiled effort by Hamas to smuggle large amounts of explosives disguised as medical supplies into the Gaza Strip.

"Imagine what the people of Gaza could do with the $100 million Iran gives Hamas annually that Hamas uses for weapons and tunnels to attack Israel!" Greenblatt tweeted.

He also demanded that Hamas return the remains of two Israeli soldiers – Lt. Hadar Goldin and Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul – that the organization has been holding in Gaza since Operation Protective Edge in mid-2014. As well as the bodies of the two soldiers, Hamas is believed to be holding three Israeli civilians who crossed into Gaza voluntarily.

"Hamas must also permit the release of Israeli civilians Avraham Abera Mengistu, Hisham al-Sayed and Juma Ibrahim Abu Ghanima," Greenblatt tweeted.

PMW: Fatah celebrates murder of “126 Zionists”

Fatah's Bethlehem branch honored terrorist Raed Al-Karmi who was responsible for the murders of 9 Israelis during the PA's terror campaign, 2000-2005 (the second Intifada). In several posts on Facebook, Fatah posted photos of the terrorist wearing a military uniform and brandishing assault rifles. The photo above was posted with text in which Fatah highlights "the killing of more than 126 Zionists," and refers to the many murders of Israelis during the terror campaign:

Posted text: "Raed Al-Karmi, a commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (i.e., Fatah's military wing) who prevented the settlers from moving around.

When Raed Al-Karmi died as a Martyr (Shahid), the response to his assassination was the killing of more than 126 Zionists and the wounding of many of them by bullets of the Raed Al-Karmi squads of the Fatah Movement Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
Praise to the Martyrs who are more precious than all of us together"
[Facebook page of the Fatah Movement - Bethlehem Branch, Jan. 14, 2018]

Posted text: "Tomorrow, Jan. 14 [2018], is the anniversary of the death as a Martyr of the eagle of the [Al-Aqsa Martyrs'] Brigades, Raed Sa'id Al-Karmi May Allah wrap his soul in thousands of mercies Master of the quick response"
[Facebook page of the Fatah Movement - Bethlehem Branch, Jan. 13, 2018]

In another post glorifying Al-Karmi, Fatah also honored two of the planners of the Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972:

The image shows terrorists Salah Khalaf and Fakhri Al-Omari of the Black September terror organization that murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, and Raed Al-Karmi, and Hayel Abd Al-Hamid (clockwise from the top). Al-Karmi is carrying an assault rifle.

JPost Editorial: New Egyptian era

It is no secret that new and surprising alliances have been formed between Israel and a number of Arab states in the region.

Iran has been killing Arab Sunnis and taking control of their land in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. Islamic State and other proponents of political Islam have posed a threat to regimes in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, to name a few.

Israel, with its military capabilities, extensive intelligence and advanced technologies, is viewed by many Arab regimes in the region as an important and perhaps even an essential ally in the fight against Islamists, whether they be Sunnis or Shi’ites.

The New York Times revealed yet another example of how Israel has proven to be critical to continued regional stability. According a report published over the weekend, for more than two years, unmarked Israeli drones, helicopters and jets have been carrying out clandestine attacks – over 100 of them – against Islamists operating in Sinai, in full coordination with Egypt’s military regime headed by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

The cooperation serves both Egyptian and Israeli interests, according to the Times report. For Egypt, the Israeli military involvement is critical for the successful fight against Ansar Beit al-Maqdis and other Islamist terrorist groups operating in the Sinai.

Before Israel’s reported involvement, it seemed that Egypt was losing the battle. On July 1, 2015, Islamists briefly captured control of the northern Sinai town Sheikh Zuweid. In October of the same year, the terrorists shot down a Russian charter jet, killing all 224 people aboard. The air strikes – which according to the report, Israel launched at the end of 2015 – tipped the tide in favor of the Egyptians, say American sources quoted by the Times.

Israel, meanwhile, has a vested interest in ensuring that Islamists are prevented from taking control of Sinai, which is located on Israel’s southern border.

An intriguing spat opened up a few years ago after Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon posted this video on YouTube which articulated the position that the legal status of territories in the West Bank and Gaza are “disputed,” and not “occupied,” (thus implying that a working out their final status would require a political (i.e., negotiated) rather than a legal solution).

Ayalon’s presentation was simply a YouTube-y animated version of what has been the position of the Israeli government (and many respected legal scholars) for decades. But for those who cannot stomach anything but their own opinion that these areas represent “illegally occupied territories,” Ayalon’s case was too much to bear.

Unsurprisingly, the Palestinian Authority bristled at the notion that another side’s legal and political opinion should be given any legitimacy. And Israel’s detractor’s abroad rushed to defend an enforced “consensus” that Israel is an occupier, and an illegal one at that.

One can understand the importance of this Palestinian interpretation and why they feel that it must be not only defended at all costs, but that all other possible interpretations should be banished from public discourse. After all, if the territories are “disputed” rather than “occupied,” then a resolution to their status (and ultimately peace) requires talk, debate and (possibly) compromise. In short, it requires the same amount of diplomacy and reasonableness that was required to resolve other territorial matters, such as the status of Northern Ireland (which was only solved when everyone put down their guns and began talking).

But if the territories are “illegally occupied,” then there is no need for dialog, for negotiation, for reasonableness (much less compromise), but simply the requirement that the party acting illegally stop doing so. Staking out such a position provides additional propaganda benefits since explaining actual legal statuses requires a fairly detailed analysis of not-always-clear-cut legal issues and history. This allows BDSers and their ilk to simply declare Israel an “illegal occupier” over and over and over, and then watch their audiences eyes glaze over when that interpretation is corrected with proper citation of relevant issues in international law (an analysis the boycotters will, of course, ignore as they continue to use the word “illegal” at every opportunity, facts be damned).

The use of this tactic (declaring everything you disagree with as a violation of the law) has long since spilled over to other political contexts (with everything from the War on Terror to European immigration restrictions being declared “illegal,” based on nothing but the accuser’s desire to put their opponents on the defensive). But it seems to have reached a somewhat hysterical degree in the case of the Arab-Israeli context lately, especially among those who write press releases such as this which would consist of little more than blank pages if shorn of the words “illegal” and “Apartheid.”

I suspect that part of this has to do with the PA’s all-but-official abandonment of the Oslo process and its choice of Hamas vs. Israel as negotiating partners. After all, if you have no intention of every negotiating in good faith or making any acceptable compromises, what better smokescreen than to declare yourself simply trying to force enforcement of (undefined) international law.

But I suspect there is another reason why accusations of illegality have become so ubiquitous and so shrill of late.

As I’ve noted before, the boycotters have a raft of excuses as to why their political rage is applied solely to Israel and not to the many nations (including many BDS allies) whose human rights record make Israel seem angelic in comparison. But now that the “Arab Spring” has generated more Arab corpses than every Israeli action of the last two decades combined (never mind the difference between military actions designed to stop having missiles shot into your territory vs. military action designed to crush political dissent), it’s getting that much harder for the BDS cru to claim “Yes, what’s happening in Syria and Iran and Libya is terrible, BUT our devotion to human rights requires we continue to focus all of our efforts on getting you to stop buying hummus made in New York and Massachusetts” and still be taken seriously as moral voices.

And thus the fog machine must be revved up to 11,000 in hopes that declaring Israel an “illegal occupier” and an “Apartheid state” enough times will make it so (at least in the eyes of a public that BDSers consider to be nothing more than a mob of easily manipulated dunces).

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From the UN yesterday:

Statement by acting Humanitarian Coordinator for the oPt, Roberto Valent, on the Israeli authorities’ destruction of donor-funded classrooms in the Palestinian community of Abu Nuwar I am deeply concerned by the Israeli authorities’ demolition this morning of two donor-funded classrooms (3rd and 4th grade), serving 26 Palestinian school children in the Bedouin and refugee community of Abu Nuwar, located in Area C on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The demolition was carried out on grounds of lack of Israeli-issued permits, which are nearly impossible to obtain.

Abu Nuwar is one of the most vulnerable communities in need of humanitarian assistance in the occupied West Bank. The conditions it faces also represent those of many Palestinian communities, where a combination of Israeli policies and practices –including demolitions and restricted access to basic services, such as education – have created a coercive environment that violates the human rights of residents and generates a risk of forcible transfer. This is the sixth demolition or confiscation incident in Abu Nuwar school by the Israeli authorities since February 2016.

This means that for the past two years, every four months, the EU builds an illegal school building and Israel tears it down.

Does it sound like the EU really cares about educating the kids? They could arrange transportation to another school if they wanted, for example.

These games are clearly meant not to help Palestinians but to embarrass Israel, with photos of demolished buildings that they claim were schools that probably never had any classes.

Abu Nawar is located in the E1 section that connects Ma'ale Adumim with the rest of Jerusalem. That is really what this is all about - the international community is hell bent on stopping Israel from connecting the two.

There is some irony in the UN article backgrounder:

Abu Nuwar is a Palestinian Bedouin community in Area C, with approximately 670 Palestinian residents (88% refugees), part of whom reside in the community on a seasonal basis. The community is one of the 46 Bedouin communities in the central West Bank at-risk of forcible transfer because of the coercive environment exerted on them, including a “relocation” plan advanced by the Israeli authorities. It is also one of the 18 Palestinian Bedouin communities in the eastern Jerusalem governorate that are located in, or next to an area slated for the E1 settlement plan, aimed at creating a continuous built-up area between Ma’ale Adumim settlement and East Jerusalem.

International humanitarian law prohibits the individual or mass forcible transfer of the population of an occupied territory regardless of the motive. Such transfer is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention thus involving individual criminal responsibility. The destruction of property in an occupied territory is also prohibited, unless absolutely required for military operations.

Abu Nawar is not an ancient community. It was set up in the mid-1960s, and as this explains, it was a nomadic community where people moved there seasonally.

There is nothing in the Geneva Conventions that says that buildings built illegally cannot be destroyed. On the contrary, the occupying authorities are expected to enforce existing laws, and certainly Jordanian and Ottoman law would not tolerate the willy-nilly building of shacks on hills without any permission.

The irony is that the UN is saying what a terrible crime it is to relocate a few dozen families who are nomadic anyway, but it insists that over a half million Jews who have lived in the same area for decades (and many of whose ancestors lived there much longer) must be ethnically cleansed from the area they call "Palestine."

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Jordanian newspaper: "Oh Netanyahu, you Jewish dog, oh Trump, you Roman dog"

An op-ed in the JordanZad news site reacts to the news that the US Treasury Department has put Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its list of Specially Designated Nationals on its list of terrorists.

The entire Islamic nation looks upon this stupid American step with fury , because Ismail Haniyeh is a legitimate religious and ideological leader whose standing is equal to that of the heroic martyr Saddam Hussein in the eyes of the Arabs and Muslims. He conducted many wars against the Zionist enemy and he is a great leader...and he is the one who will determine the timing of the next battle. Tel-Aviv should expect a good dose of rockets, such that compared to it, the rockets of Saddam - with all their importance - are a game, nothing more. Haniyeh's slogan is "Khaybar, Khaybar oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return", and tomorrow is close for those who wait for it, oh Netanyahu, you Jewish dog, and Trump, you Roman dog.

The phrase "you Roman dog" comes from a story about a Muslim woman who started a war by claiming that a Jew pulled her hijab:

ONCE a Muslim woman was teased by Jews in the Jewish quarter of what was then Byzantine bordering the Muslim empire. The Jews pulled at her 'hijab' and mocked her in a most ignoble manner.

She cried and wrote to the Caliph addressing him in her letter, "Ya Mu'tasimah!" (Al-Mu'tasim Billah of the Abbasid Dynasty, 794-842 AD) and told him of what had happened. When the Caliph heard of this news, he was so outraged he dropped the cup of water he was drinking.

Immediately, Caliph Mu'tasim wrote back to the Roman Emperor of Byzantine, saying: "Ya kalb ar-Rum! (Oh you Roman dog!) I have an army of men that stretch from where I stand (Baghdad) to where you stand (Constantinople), who love to fight and die as much as your men love to live."

He then commanded to deploy a massive army to retaliate against the Romans.

Notice how the writer still thinks of Saddam Hussein as a hero.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Fatah Al Aqsa Brigades makes a new video threatening Israel

The over the top music is meant to make a fairly mundane mortar manufacturing documentary sound exciting.

Once again... this is Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas' political party.

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Friday's "Day of Rage" fizzled badly. Fatah is completely impotent. News media misses story

Last Sunday, I noted that Fatah called for a "Day of Rage" for this past Friday.

Here are the pictures of this "rage" from the Fatah Facebook page. I am choosing the photos with the most rioters in the shot.

Qalqiya:

Ramallah:

Al Bireh:

Hizma:

Hebron:

South of Nablus (I can't see anything either:)

Jericho:

That's it.

It doesn't look like more than a few dozen youths bothered to show up, total, between seven West Bank locations.

Here's Fatah's poster calling for the riots:

If riots that are called by Fatah are newsworthy when a couple of hundred people show up, as they did in December, then aren't riots called by Fatah that are miserable failures also newsworthy in showing that Palestinians really don't care any more about either Fatah or Jerusalem?

Similarly, Fatah called on Israeli Arabs to protest last Tuesday. I couldn't find a single story or photo about any such rally.

Fatah's impotence even within its supposed West Bank strongholds is a major story that not a single major news media source is covering.

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02/04 Links: South African stupidity; Obama’s anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism reigned at the IRS from 2010- 2017; The Dems’ Farrakhan Problem

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: South African stupidity

In February 2016, BDS South Africa praised a decision to cancel a water crisis conference that was scheduled to take place in Johannesburg.

BDS South Africa said at the time it was pleased “the rug has been pulled from the Israeli ambassador, who will not be able to exploit our very serious water crises for his own cheap publicity and whitewashing of his regime. Israel water technology is not unique or special; such technology is widely available through other more friendly countries.”

Two years later, South Africa is experiencing a major water crisis. Unless a last-minute solution is found, Cape Town will soon have the dubious honor of becoming one of the few – if not the first – developed cities in the world to run out of water.

On April 12, known as “Day Zero,” water reservoirs across the city are expected to hit 13.5% of capacity – at which point, according to Mayor Patricia de Lille, taps will be turned off and severe rationing will begin.

Once “Day Zero” hits, Cape Town’s 3.7 million residents will have to travel to one of 200 water collection points to collect their daily water rations: 25 liters per person.

If, two years ago, or even earlier, South Africa had put aside its self-defeating boycott of Israel, could it have avoided “Day Zero”? Perhaps. What is undeniable is that South Africa is in no position to refuse help from Israel, a world leader in desalination, water recycling, water preservation and irrigation.

Phyllis Chesler: Obama’s anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism reigned at the IRS from 2010- 2017.

The Z Street application was at first delayed, then frozen, because the IRS claimed as a defense, that Israel was viewed as a “terrorist entity,” and a country “with terrorism.”

Many of us suspected that Obama’s administration had politicized Homeland Security, the DOJ, the FBI, and the American relationship to the United Nations in ways that favored Islamism, Islamic terrorism, Palestine, Iran, and that demonized Zionism and Israel’s attempts at self-defense.

Z STREET”s successful lawsuit exposes how the Obama administration, through its power to grant or withhold tax-exempt status to groups, politicized and corrupted a policy of even-handedness, transparency, and accountability at the IRS.

Like the Western media, professoriate, international organizations, and very much like an Islamic world view, the American IRS viewed Israel, especially Israelis who lived “across the Green Line—the nonborder that delineates pre-1967 Israel from the territories it acquired in the Six Day War” as related to “terrorism” or as “terrorists.”

According to Marcus, "Our own investigation disclosed that between 2009 and 2016, while Z STREET’s application was stalled, the IRS needed no special scrutiny to grant numerous applications for tax-exempt status that explicitly proclaimed donations would be spent in Gaza—a territory formally under the jurisdiction of Hamas, which the U.S. State Department designates as a terror organization."

According to Marcus, in a personal interview, the following is merely a sampling of not-for-profits, which she obtained via Guidestar; the IRS had okayed these “charities” during the period that Z STREET’s application remained pending.

The Dems’ Farrakhan Problem

If Republican lawmakers held strategy sessions with David Duke, the party would be held to account.

Hillary Clinton tried to make Louis Farrakhan an issue when she ran against Barack Obama in 2008. The Nation of Islam leader—infamous for calling Judaism a “gutter religion”—had praised the future president as “the hope of the entire world.” In a February debate, Mrs. Clinton demanded that Mr. Obama reject Mr. Farrakhan’s support, insisting: “There’s a difference between denouncing and rejecting.” Mr. Obama obliged and added: “There’s no formal offer of help from Minister Farrakhan that would involve me rejecting it.”

Three years earlier, Mr. Obama posed for a photo with Mr. Farrakhan at a Congressional Black Caucus gathering. The photographer, journalist Askia Muhammad, told the liberal site Talking Points Memo that a CBC staffer contacted him “sort of in a panic” about the photo. “I promised and made arrangements to give the picture to Leonard Farrakhan, ” Louis Farrakhan’s son-in-law and chief of staff. But he kept a copy, which he released last week.

Mrs. Clinton might have become president had the photo come out a decade earlier. It isn’t clear from the photo to what degree Mr. Obama was associated with Mr. Farrakhan. But the Congressional Black Caucus’s association is scandalous. Its members have met with Mr. Farrakhan on at least one other occasion.

Matthew Finkelstein, in hat, and Susan George (right) from Vallejo,
and other members of Oakland United Against Hate,
protest outside of Reem's California bakery in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday, January 28, 2018.
They are protesting a mural of Rasmea Odeh located inside of the bakery.
(Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

Last Sunday, on the afternoon of January 28, about fifty people arrived at the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland, California, for the purpose of staring at one another across a notoriously ugly, racially-grounded, political divide.

The problem revolves around Reem's Cafe...or, as I like to think of it, Reem Assil's Racist Flatbread and Terror Joint.

For emotional reasons of her own, political activist Reem Assil has taken it upon herself to introduce Jew hatred into the Oakland culinary scene by featuring a floor-to-ceiling image of anti-Jewish murderer, Rasmea Odeh in her little bakery/cafe near a major Bay Area transportation hub.

Odeh, along with her partner, Aisha Odeh and their friends within the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), killed 21-year-old Leon Kanner of Netanya, Israel, and 22-year-old Eddie Joffe on February 21, 1969, in a Jerusalem grocery.

Both were college students.

I find it profoundly disconcerting that within living memory of the Shoah - the genocide of the Jews - the very city that I live in, a city that proudly claims itself against race hate is perfectly comfortable... with race hate.

What the City of Oakland is showing the rest of the United States is that urinating on Jews is just fine and that honoring the murderers of innocent Jews in a public manner is a righteous matter of "social justice."

So on that perfectly beautiful Sunday afternoon those who despise Israel sat with Reem Assil in the cafe - in a closed, RSVP-Only event - and discussed with professor Sunaina Maira (UC Davis), author of Boycott!: The Academy and Justice for Palestine, how best to eliminate Jewish self-determination and self-defense from the world stage.

Jewish people and friends of Jewish people - maybe twenty of us total - stood outside in the courtyard beside the leadership of Faith Meltzer, Susan George, and Matthew Finkelstein.

Faith Meltzer and Lara Kiswani

In a video for the East Bay Times under an article entitled, Palestinian mural protesters, bakery backers face off in Oakland, reporter George Kelly gives his readership clips of statements by pro-Jewish / pro-Israel advocate Faith Meltzer, for Oakland Unified Against Hate, and anti-Zionist activist Lara Kiswani who writes for the anti-Zionist online journal, Electronic Intifada.

George Kelly: Did the group begin in response to Reem's opening?

Faith Meltzer: Only in response to the mural. Reem's has had a presence in the farmers' market. My family has actually eaten there. And it is only since this mural of Rasmea Odeh that we realized that this was something that we needed to mobilize against because this is the glorification of terror and violence in our community. (My emphasis.)

Lara Kiswani: Today there is an event here that is put on by Sunaina Maira who published a book through the University of California about the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement... And so, because of the event and the subject matter is about BDS, boycott, divestment, and sanctions, Israel, and that is we are being critical of apartheid and the colonialist state of Israel at this time, the demonstrators have called for another protest today.

Kiswani also refers to the Jewish people and friends of Jewish people who object to the mural of a Jew murderer as "racist."

The fundamental difference between Meltzer and Kiswani - aside from the fact that Meltzer cares about the well-being of the tiny Jewish minority around the world and Kiswani obviously does not - is that Meltzer wants to organize against the murder and hatred of Jewish people while Kiswani, despite her best intentions, promotes it.

Kiswani favors opposing Israel (i.e., the Jewish people) by any means necessary.

She calls us apartheid-enthusiasts and colonialists on the very land of our own heritage, the very land where Jewish identity was forged.

This would be like calling indigenous Métis activist Ryan Bellerose a colonist in Alberta.

George and Finkelstein Demonstrate the Failure of Liberalism
within Progressive-Left anti-Zionism

While Meltzer stood before the press directly prior to the vigil/protest at Reem's, Susan George and Matthew Finkelstein endeavored to talk to Reem's anti-liberal supporters.

The most important moment in this entire event came when Finkelstein and George requested that those who faced us actually speak with us.

They wanted to know just why it is that as progressives and Democrats and alleged liberals they were standing up for a retail establishment that venerates the murdering of Jewish people?

We can unpack that question... we can put it into the nicest possible terms... but we can only do so through dialogue and dialogue is the very foundation of Enlightenment liberalism.

But make no mistake, as recent polling definitively shows, the progressive-left and the Democratic Party honestly believes that the Jews in the Middle East deserve a good ass-kicking.

Look at these numbers:

According to 2018 Pew polling, 79 percent of Republicans sympathize more with Israel - by which they essentially mean the Jews - than they do with the Palestinian-Arabs.

Only 27 percent of Democrats do so.

That is a tough fact, but it is a fact that must be acknowledged.

Another fact that must be acknowledged is that the progressive-left, in the United States, is straying well beyond liberalism.

You cannot be a liberal if you refuse to engage in discourse and what Susan George and Matthew Finkelstein showed us is that the other side refuses to engage in honest dialogue.

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A very strange story in Medium from Daoud Kuttab:

A decision by the Jordanian government to open administrative offices in Jerusalem that will allow residents of the holy city to renew their documents including their passports has been well received by Jerusalem’s Palestinians who hold Jordanian travel documents.

Palestinians living in Jerusalem are considered residents of the city yet they are not citizens of any state. They are neither citizens of Palestine, Israel nor Jordan, but are allowed to carry Jordanian travel documents. In the past, Palestinians in Jerusalem needing to renew a travel document or file a birth or marriage certificate had to travel across the King Hussein Bridge to Jordanian Interior Ministry offices in Amman. Israeli-issued permits to exit across the bridge (costing NIS 230) and an exit tax (around NIS 180) amount to around $120 per person. The fee for a passport is JD200 ($282). Some of these costly fees can be removed or reduced simply by bureaucratic decisions of the various parties responsible for the bridge crossings.

Fawaz Shahwan, head of the Civil Affairs Department at the Interior Ministry, said on Jordanian state television on January 22 that Jerusalemites will soon be able to process personal documents without having to travel to Jordan to do so.

Shahwan described the change in Jordanian policy “as part of King Abdullah’s interest in Jerusalem’s holy places and the people of Jerusalem, these services are being made to help strengthen the steadfastness of the people of Jerusalem in their city”.

Kuttab adds in Al-Monitor that "Jordanian officials plan to open offices in Jerusalem as part of the Jordanian Waqf."

Israel doesn't allow any Palestinian government offices in Jerusalem, it seems odd that they might allow this administrative part of Jordan's government to operate there as well, especially as part of the Waqf, which is a religious institution. There is a Jordanian liaison office in Ramallah, I'm not sure why that cannot be the place to renew passports.

It would be interesting to see an official Israeli reaction to this story.

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The PLO's rose-colored glasses gamble

From Times of Israel:

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s top leadership opened the way to suspending its recognition of Israel on Saturday, but stopped short of ordering the drastic measure immediately.

Withdrawing the PLO’s 1988 recognition would threaten decades of Israeli relations with the moderate Palestinian leadership and raise doubts over security coordination between the two.

It would also be seen as a fatal blow to the two-state solution.

The PLO’s Executive Committee released a statement after a three-hour meeting Saturday saying it would set up a committee to study the derecognition move.

The body also called for the Palestinian Authority to cut off all ties with Israel, including security coordination in the West Bank.

The executive committee urged Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to “immediately start preparing plans and projects for disengagement steps with the Israeli occupation government at the political, administrative, economic, and security levels.”

The disengagement plans will be presented to the PLO Executive Committee for approval, the statement said, without setting a deadline.

From everything I can see, the PLO's leaders (which means the PA's leaders) honestly believe that the world will impose their will on Israel. They are willing to bet their existence, and their people's autonomy, on it.

Boy, have they misjudged things. Again.

The Arab world no longer cares about them. Egypt and Jordan, the two nations that they think are the most on their side, rely on Israel for their defense. The Saudis and the rest of the Gulf have been so hostile that Palestinian pundits have already written them off.

The think that UN votes indicate real support for them - it doesn't. There are lots of real refugees and real problems in the world, and a whiny wanna-be nation that refuses to talk to Israel is not in the world'd top 500 problems. Their ability to gain an automatic majority in the General Assembly or UNHRC is meaningless in the real world.

They think Europe is on their side. To an extent, that's true, but the EU is not nearly as relevant as it pretends to be in the Middle East.

They think that BDS is making serious inroads to hurting Israel. It isn't. There has always been a tiny but noisy minority of antisemites that have complained about Israel and its alleged human rights abuses since 1948. Most people think they are crackpots.

The PLO, seeing the world through their own media that won't report the truth, is vastly overestimating how much the world cares about them. And all the while, Israel is making friends around the world - not so much in the halls of the UN but in real terms, with business dealings and exports and shared interests.

This decision to undo Oslo will be a historic mistake, just as deciding to take over Jordan in 1970 or supporting Saddam Hussein was.

This is not going to end well for the PLO.

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02/03 Links: EU Report Calls Jewish Development of Jerusalem Historical Sites ‘Touristic Settlement’; The truth about Israeli couscous

From Ian:

The IRS Campaign Against Israel—and Us

While claiming to be investigating Z Street’s funding of terror, the IRS never asked how or where Z Street spent its money. The IRS ultimately granted Z Street’s application, in October 2016, without asking anything about terror, or money, or anything else it hadn’t known in 2010.

As the IRS knew within six weeks of our case being filed, Z Street was sent for special scrutiny by an IRS employee using an outdated list of countries affected by terror. The new list didn’t include Israel. The IRS didn’t resume processing our application after it discovered this error, and it didn’t disclose the error for six years. Because we sued, the IRS froze Z Street’s application. It stayed on ice until August 2016, when a court held the IRS couldn’t get our case thrown out until it processed our application. Two months later we got our exemption.

The “terror” error turns out to have been a pretext. Within weeks of President Obama’s inauguration, IRS and State Department officials began considering whether they could deny or revoke tax-exempt status for organizations that provided material support to Jews living across the Green Line—the nonborder that delineates pre-1967 Israel from the territories Israel acquired in the Six Day War. The theory was that a Jewish presence in those areas is inconsistent with U.S. policy. The IRS drew up lists of such organizations based on information from anti-Israel websites such as Electronic Intifada and MondoWeiss.

The New York Times and the Washington Post ran articles that advanced the policy espoused by the Obama administration and its nonprofit ally, J Street. Unnamed “senior State Department officials” were quoted as saying that Jewish activity over the Green Line isn’t “helpful” to peace efforts. (h/t Esther)

EU Report Calls Jewish Development of Jerusalem Historical Sites ‘Touristic Settlement’

A European Union report leaked to The Guardian newspaper expressed ire over Israeli tourism in and around Jerusalem’s Old City, calling the ongoing development of Jewish infrastructure a form of “touristic settlement.”

The EU Heads of Mission in Jerusalem issued a report warning that the development of Jewish tourism in the ancient City of David, currently located within a heavily populated Palestinian neighborhood, and a planned cable car that would transport tourists from the Western sections of the city to the Western Wall plaza within the Old City, were “a political tool to modify the historical narrative and to support, legitimize, and expand settlements.” The report asserts that the projects promote the “historic continuity of the Jewish presence in the area at the expense of other religions and cultures.”

The cable car, which EU diplomats have dubbed “highly controversial,” is anticipated to be operational by 2020, and is being erected to ease traffic on the narrow streets surrounding Jerusalem’s Old City, and drastically reducing travel time. An estimated 25,000 people are expected to utilize the system per day.

Additionally, the report states that, “critics have described the project as turning the World Heritage site of Jerusalem into a commercial theme park while local Palestinian residents are absent from the narrative being promoted to the visitors.” The further suggested that the cable car project would pose a security threat, as one of the cable car stations would be a little over 420 feet from the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif site administered by the Jordanian Wakf.

Over 30 registered World Heritage sites around the world are accessible via cable car systems.

Why They Didn’t Stand for Jerusalem

Nor can liberals claim that opposition to the recognition of Jerusalem merely puts them on the same page as opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Backing for Trump on this point was a consensus issue in Israel for every party with the exception of the very far left and the anti-Zionist Arab factions. With both Labor and the centrist Yesh Atid backing the president’s gesture, it’s hard for Democrats to say they’re simply being liberal Zionists by refusing to acknowledge that Trump did the right thing on Jerusalem.

In that context, it ought to be possible for Democrats to cheer a move that they would have supported had it come from a president from their own party. But in the bifurcated America of 2018, there is no such thing as a bipartisan issue anymore. Though Trump’s relentless trolling of his opponents on Twitter has exacerbated this trend, Democratic opposition to the president is so deep and bitter that they feel that endorsing anything he does legitimizes his presidency. Since their base is hoping a Democratic win in the November midterms will lead to impeachment, Jerusalem is just one more issue on which they will never give Trump credit, even if many of them don’t disagree with him.

There are reasons why Democrats are drifting away from Israel that have nothing to do with Trump. But the more their leaders send signals that treat pro-Israel gestures as being unacceptable if they mean applauding Trump, the worse it will get.

It was a disconcerting sight when Democrats all sat while Republicans stood to applaud the mention of Jerusalem as well as Trump’s vow to cut off aid to those — like the Palestinians — who oppose US policy. But friends of Israel shouldn’t draw too many conclusions from it. So long as Trump is president, their opposition to his reversal of Obama’s daylight policy is rooted in partisanship and not necessarily animus toward Israel. It will be up to Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — who was one of the few who did stand for Jerusalem — to help their party separate its emotions about Trump from Israel. But so long as Trump is sticking close to Israel, this won’t be the last time that Democrats send the country a message that this is not an issue on which they are prepared to set aside partisan feuds.

Caption contest winners (update)

Last week I asked my readers to come up with captions for this photo:

A protester sits in a chair in front of a barricade during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, near the West Bank city of Ramallah December 17, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

The best ones:

One of the many Palestinians that are stuck in wheel-chairs as a consequence of the occupation regime's violence. (DHL)

"No, guys, you go ahead without me. I have to finish this expense report for the Raïs." (Thag)

"Honey, the Mossad stole my desk ... again." (dabney)

UPDATE: A great entry from Twitter:

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02/02 Links Pt2: The UN Makes the Case for an Anti-BDS Law; Melanie Phillips: What that Farrakhan picture tells us about antisemitism; IRS Apologizes to Pro-Israel Group for Biased Treatment

From Ian:

The UN Makes the Case for an Anti-BDS Law

If there were any doubt about the need for Congress to pass the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, it was erased yesterday when the United Nations’ Office for the High Commissioner on Human Rights issued a report about companies doing business in the West Bank. The Geneva-based UN agency said it was examining the activities of 206 companies that are connected to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Though it didn’t name the companies, the intent was clear. The goal of the effort is to establish a list endorsed by the international community that would make it possible to boycott the 143 Israeli and 22 U.S companies cited as well as others.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein. Credit: U.N. Photo/Pierre Albouy.

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley was right to denounce the step as a waste of time and evidence of the UN’s anti-Israel obsession. But with this step, Congress’s obligation is also made clear. If it doesn’t pass the bill updating and expanding existing legislation banning discriminatory commercial boycotts of Israel, some Americans will be effectively boxed out of international commerce.

But while this ought to add urgency to the effort to pass a law that will stop the BDS — boycott, divest, sanction — movement from discriminating against Israelis and Jews in this fashion, the campaign on its behalf is bogged down by two deceptive arguments.

The first is the claim that boycotts of the settlements are both legally and morally distinct from boycotts of Israel as a whole.

The second is the assertion that the Anti-Boycott Act is an attempt to prohibit constitutionally protected free speech.

Both are fallacies.

Melanie Phillips: What that Farrakhan picture tells us about antisemitism

The fury was because many don’t accept that antisemitism is utterly deranged. Unspeakably, they believe the bad stuff said about the Jews is actually true and that the Holocaust has unjustly shielded them from rational complaint.

That’s why, when Jews call the anti-Israel madness “the new antisemitism,” they are accused of trying to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel. Their accusers actually think that claims such as the Jews have too much power/manipulate American foreign policy/further their own interests at the expense of others’ lives and so on are merely criticisms of true Jewish characteristics.

It was not enough, however, for other groups just to claim victim status. They had to knock the Jews off their victim perch altogether.

That’s because the Jews really are the world’s ultimate victims. So false “victims” had to deny Jewish victimization order to continue their dishonest leverage of guilt. Those who have made most murderous use of this strategy are of course the “Palestinians.”

So antisemitism, the most lethal bigotry in the world, became the prejudice that dare not speak its name. Those who continued to draw attention to it found themselves either ignored or deplored. Those who connived at or gave cover to it came to dominate the universities and media and culture – and one became president of the United States for eight years.

And now some of those who supported him are shocked – shocked! – to discover that their hero had feet of poisoned clay.

IRS Apologizes to Pro-Israel Group for Biased Treatment

A pro-Israel organization that found its nonprofit status subjected to undue scrutiny by the Obama administration's IRS as a result of its advocacy on the Jewish state's behalf reached a settlement Thursday with the Department of Justice that included a formal apology from the U.S. government for subjecting the group to unfair treatment, according to an announcement.

The Trump administration's DOJ announced Tuesday that it had reached a settlement with Z Street, a conservative pro-Israel advocacy group that sued the government over allegations the Obama administration subjected the organization to unfair scrutiny as a result of its pro-Israel views. Z Street was just one of several conservative organizations to sue the U.S. government.

The case had been locked in court since 2015, when judges rejected the Obama administration's claims that it did not act improperly.

"Z Street alleged that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) applied heightened scrutiny to applications for tax-exempt status received from organizations connected in any way to Israel, and applied this policy to Z Street's application, resulting in delay," the Justice Department announced in a press release. "The settlement agreement includes an apology from the IRS to Z Street for the delayed processing of the group's application for tax-exempt status."

DOJ lawyers issued a formal apology to the group over its unfair treatment and vowed equal treatment for groups of all political stripes.

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, an "anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian lefty Jew" as described by Mondoweiss, is interviewed by that site and proves the exact opposite of what she intends:

What is your impression of the reaction to Ahed Tamimi’s slapping of an Israeli soldier?

Gottlieb: The response to Ahed Tamimi’s slap by many Jewish people reveals the sexist and racist attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that impact a large portion of the Jewish community. The vile accusations against this child are stunning. Their purpose is to flip the script on Palestinian suffering and blame the victim instead of assuming responsibility.

I wonder: who would not slap a soldier after years of trauma as a result of recurring night invasions, administrative detentions with no possibility for justice or a fair hearing, daily destruction of village houses, and direct assaults, one of which targets your cousin in the head?

If the IDF was indeed an army that had no moral compass, then slapping a soldier should result in an instant fatal gunshot. Hell, no soldier on the planet outside of Israel would stand there and let a young woman physically assault him without reaction. They would defend themselves by hurting or killing the attacker.

The question isn't who wouldn't slap a soldier - but who would slap a soldier? Nobody on Earth except for Palestinians, who can act with such impunity because they know, first hand, that Israeli soldiers do not target civilians even when provoked.

And to say that for the girl to be arrested for assault - captured on tape - is sexist and racist? That is beyond stupid. It is just throwing keywords at the wall and seeing what her leftist buddies will think sticks.

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02/02 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: Time for Greenblatt to walk away; U.S. Shows Beginning of a Response to Muslim Brotherhood; The Burgas Obama nexus

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Time for Greenblatt to walk away

On Tuesday in Bethlehem, the Palestinians demonstrated the choice the Americans now face in their dealings with Fatah – the supposedly moderate PLO faction that controls the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. President Donald Trump and his advisers can play by Fatah’s rules or they can walk away.

On Tuesday a delegation of diplomats from the US Consulate in Jerusalem came to Bethlehem to participate in a meeting of the local chamber of commerce. When they arrived in the city, Fatah members attacked them. Their vehicles with diplomatic license plates were pelted with tomatoes and eggs by a mob of protesters calling out anti-American slogans.

After the Americans entered the hall where the meeting was scheduled to take place, some of the rioters barged in. They held placards condemning America and they shouted, “Americans Out!”

Some of the demonstrators cursed the Palestinians present, accusing them of treason for participating in a meeting with Americans. According to the news reports, the scene became tense and violent. The American officials beat a speedy retreat. As they departed the city, the Fatah rioters continued attacking their cars, kicking them and throwing eggs at them, until they were gone.

The attack on Tuesday was a natural progression.

On Saturday, Fatah members in Bethlehem-area UN camps convened to carry out a very public “people’s tribunal.” Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were tried for “racism” and “bias” against the Palestinians.

The “tribunal” found them guilty and sentenced the president and vice president to death by hanging. Their bodies, the “judges” decided, were to be burned.

In the event, the crowd burned effigies of Trump and Pence.
The implication of the “trial” was clear. Americans like Israelis should be killed.

Bennett-Erekat debate with Christian Amanpour on CNN

Eli Lake: U.S. Shows Beginning of a Response to Muslim Brotherhood

A year ago it looked like Donald Trump was going to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Some of his closest advisers pushed for it. U.S. allies like Egypt quietly made the case too. Many Republicans in Congress also believed the movement that created political Islam should be treated like al Qaeda.

It didn't happen. Trump administration officials tell me the initial proposal last year to designate the entire Muslim Brotherhood, which includes chapters and offshoots in countries all over the world, stalled out. By the time the White House approved its national security strategy in December, it didn't even mention the Muslim Brotherhood by name.

Instead the Trump administration has settled on a more refined approach, seeking to designate violent chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists, but not going after the entire organization. As the national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, told reporters in December: "We will be evaluating each organization on its own terms. The organization is not monolithic or homogenous."

In some ways this approach is not new. The Obama administration managed to reach out to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt after the Arab Spring in 2011, and nonetheless treat its Palestinian wing, Hamas, as terrorists. There are no plans for the Trump administration to attempt to find common ground with the Muslim Brotherhood, U.S. officials tell me. But the administration is getting more aggressive against the Brotherhood's violent affiliates.

The Burgas Obama nexus

The evidence linking Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah to the 2012 bomb attack in Burgas, Bulgaria, is undeniable.

Yet, astoundingly, the Bulgarian state prosecution does not even mention the word “Hezbollah” in its indictment of the two living men allegedly involved in the attack. Nor does the indictment mention that the bombing, which left five Israelis and their Bulgarian bus driver dead and 32 Israelis wounded, was an act of terrorism.

Why would Bulgaria’s prosecutor leave out the terrorist dimension of the attack and omit the involvement of Hezbollah?

Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Bulgaria’s interior minister at the time of the attack, announced in 2012, “We have established that the two [accused] were members of the militant wing of the Hezbollah.” He added, “There is data showing the financing and connection between Hezbollah and the two suspects.” Tsvetanov’s successor made similar comments.

In 2013, then-foreign minister of Bulgaria Nikolay Mladenov said the government would not have issued a statement linking Hezbollah to the Burgas bombing if it did not have evidence.

Europol, which coordinates policing across the 27 European Union states, has linked Hezbollah to the attack. So has the US.
Three Hezbollah terrorists were involved: the bomber, Lebanese-French national Muhammad Hassan El-Husseini, who died in the explosion, and two additional suspects: Lebanese-Australian Meliad Farah and Lebanese-Canadian Hassan El Hajj Hassan, who fled to Lebanon where the country’s political leaders have ignored Bulgaria’s extradition requests.

The Bulgarian prosecutor’s strange unwillingness to implicate Hezbollah in the bombing is reminiscent of a recent Politico report on the Obama administration’s purported intentional obstruction of investigations by the US’s Drug Enforcement Administration into drug trafficking and money laundering by Hezbollah.

According to the Politico report, in its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran and out of a realization that going after Hezbollah at a time when the US was negotiating with its patron might kill the deal, the Obama administration purposely stymied the investigations, which were code-named Project Cassandra.