Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Jews Have Also Been Holding Onto Their Keys (Daled Amos)

One of the issues of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is the refugee problem resulting from those Arabs who left the land during the 1948 War - how many left due to the encouragement of promises from the Arab world, how many out of fear of the chaos of war and how many from other reasons is a question for another time.

Today there is a symbol used to represent this refugee problem: a key.

Art by a teenage Bethlehem artist, entitled Resolution 194,
a UN resolution. The keys symbolize those kept as mementos
by Palestinians who left their homes in 1948

It is a poignant symbol - but apparently, Arabs have been known to hold onto their keys before.

In 2005, Spain passed a law granting the right of citizenship to Sephardic Jews who were descendants of the Jews who in 1492 were given a choice of either converting or going into exile. Two years later, descendants of Muslims who had been expelled from Spain in the seventeenth century asked for the same treatment. Mansur Escudero, the head of Spain's Islamic Board, representing Spanish Muslims explained at the time:

"It would be more of an emotional, moral gesture, a recognition of an historic injustice," he told Reuters, adding that some "Andalusian" families still preserved keys to houses they left behind four centuries ago. [emphasis added, p. 143]

But as it turns out, Arabs are not the only ones to hold onto their keys to remember home.

Nor are they the first - not by a long shot.

While reading Simon Sebag Montefiore's Jerusalem - A Biography, I came across this last week about the Bar Kochba rebellion:

The Jews retreated to the caves of Judaea, which is why Simon [Bar Kochba]'s letters and their poignant belongings have been found there. These refugees and warriors carried keys to their abandoned houses, the consolation of those doomed never to return. [emphasis added]

In fact, it appears Jews who were forced out of Spain did the same thing.

According to The Routledge Book of Contemporary Jewish Cultures:

The exhibit on display at a small Jewish museum in Bejar [Spain], near Hervas, concludes with a wooden trunk full of keys. According to legend, when the Jews were expelled from their homes, they retained their keys in exile and across generations, occasionally returning to try them in their doors. A placard by the trunk explains that the keys "symbolize the memory of the homes which the Jews had to abandon...It may be that some of these keys had traveled with them to their new place of refuge. Even if this is not actually the case, this chest gives us a reason to imagine this."

While writing this post, I found that I am not the first to notice that holding onto keys goes back as far as the Bar Kochba rebellion. In an anonymous guest post on Israellycool, The Curious Case Of The Key, someone writes

I remembered reading a book by Yigal Yadin by the name of �Bar-Kokhba: The Rediscovery of the Legendary Hero of the Last Jewish Revolt Against Imperial Rome,� an interesting book about the discovery of the Cave of Letters and how the artifacts inside shed light on the revolt. One of the items found in the cave was this:

Source: Israel Museum.

Sebag Montefiore gives this book by Yigal Yadin as his source.

For Jews, keys have been no less a symbol of the desire to return home - in our case our indigenous, ancestral home where we have been living for over 3,000 years.

We have returned home.
And we are home to stay.

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Before 1948, anyone wanting to visit the Western Wall had to go through a slum-area neighborhood. It was a narrow area where the authorities didn't allow anyone to bring in chairs or tables or temporary partitions. Muslims were known to use the area as a shortcut and to lead animals through the narrow passageway.

Today, the Kotel haKatan - the "small wall" - looks a great deal like the more famous, bigger Kotel looked in the 1920s.

HaKotel HaKatan is north of the other Kotel, and it is positioned closer to the site of the Holy of Holies. It should be where people pray when they visit Jerusalem

Just like then, Jews aren't allowed to bring in tables or chairs. Just like then, if you blow a shofar at the smaller Kotel you can get arrested.

And when I visited on Friday, I saw that just like then, Muslims will use it as a shortcut to get where they were going. They looked curiously at me, since I was the only Jew at this site that is holier than the Kotel.

As I recall, the far wall of the area was not open the last time I was there. But now there is an opening to a set of narrow stairs that is apparently a path to another alley.

So Muslims are now routinely walking through this site, making it difficult to concentrate. Not exactly like herding cattle through the area but still disruptive.

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When Arabs say they care about Palestinians, they don't put their money where their mouths are

For decades, the narrative has dominated how Arabs talked to the West, especially Western diplomats, was that the Palestinians are the top priority in the Arab world. Every meeting between US diplomats and Arab leaders, as documented in Wikileaks, seem to have prioritized the importance of the Palestinian issue.

An article in Arab American News this week lists ten "core Arab values" and of course support for Palestinians is considered one of them.

Ever since the declaration of Israel in 1948, the Palestinian cause has been the core consideration of all Arabs. Different Arab states, groups, and people advocate for the basic rights of Palestinian people. After the turmoil of Arab Spring, Arab states, and people became overwhelmed with their own issues that the Palestinian case became marginalized. However, Trump’s announcement to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem to become the capital of Israel revived the issue and ignited anger across the Arab world for Palestinian people and Jerusalem, as an Arab holy city.

But as we have seen for many years, Arab countries - even rich Gulf states - have had a habit of pledging lots of money to Palestinians paying only a tiny percentage.

Their actions have never followed their words. And lately, as even this article shows, their words have become less supportive of Palestinians in recent years as well, and Jerusalem has not changed that at all (there were no major protests in the Arab world over the Trump Jerusalem decision, even though reporters looked hard.)

Yoram Ettinger in The Ettinger Report uncovers some additional interesting statistics. The percentage of Saudi foreign aid that goes to Palestinians is about one tenth of one percent, far behind many other states that receive Saudi aid.

Every Arab regime - and especially Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Jordan and Egypt– are not preoccupied with the Palestinian issue, but with the immediate and lethal threats of the Ayatollahs and Islamic terrorism, which could topple them and transform their countries into Iraqi, Syrian, Libyan, Yemeni look-alike traumatic arenas.

For example, from 1979-1989, during the civil war in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia demonstrated its order of national security priorities, investing $1BN annually in the struggle of the Afghan rebels against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul. This was ten times as much as the annual Saudi foreign aid to the PLO – $100MN.

Moreover, the Palestinian Authority was not among the top ten recipients of the $33BN foreign aid from Riyadh from 2007-2017: Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Niger, Mauritania, Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Jordan and Tunisia.

While the total Saudi foreign aid from 1985-2015 was $130BN - according to the Dubai-based daily, Gulf News - Saudi annual foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority was $100MN-$200MN, reflecting the inferior weight of the Palestinian issue in the Saudi order of national priorities.

According to Reuters News Agency, Saudi Arabia assigned to Egypt a $23BN aid package, reflecting the joint Cairo-Riyadh front against a common enemy: Muslim Brotherhood terrorists. The Toronto-based Geopolitical Monitor reported that a $12BN package was extended to Egypt by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait, in addition to the $8BN Saudi investment in the Egyptian economy.

While the Palestinian Authority claims that Saudi Arabia has failed to fulfill its commitment to the its limited foreign aid package, Dubai-based Al Arabiya TV reported that Yemen supersedes the Palestinians in the eyes of Riyadh, which has provided the Aden-based regime of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi with $8.2BN aid in the battle against the Sanaa’-based Iran-supported Houthis.

The Palestinians have also taken a backseat to Jordan, when it comes to Saudi national priorities, as documented by the Saudi-Jordanian Coordination Council, which is unlocking billions of dollars to the Hashemite regime.

The relative marginalization of the Palestinians – who benefit from a $100MN-$200MN annual Saudi foreign aid package (whenever it is not suspended by Riyadh) – is gleaned through the CNBC December 18, 2017 report on the House of Saud purchasing a rare Leonardo da Vinci painting for $450MN, an exquisite palace in France for $300MN and a royal yacht for $500MN.

The Gulf states would insist on how important Palestinians were - but then let the West pay for most of the aid they receive.

One day, Europe will catch up with the Arab world and the current US administration and realize that they've been lied too for many years and many billions of euros.

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03/14 Links Pt2: The American Black-Jewish alliance---a fiction laid to rest; Culture Corbyn leads fosters the anti-Semitism he claims to condemn; Israel is 11th happiest nation in the world, for fifth year in a row

From Ian:

The American Black-Jewish alliance---a fiction laid to rest

Today there remains a tiny minority in the American Jewish community who continue the charade of promoting the “historic coalition” between Jews and blacks. These Jewish advocates for blacks call themselves Jewish and are funded by Jews, but their organizations are rarely Jewish or support Jewish interests.

And, perhaps, the death knell of black-Jewish relations has been the result of too many Jewish families whose members have been victims of black violence, including murder. If you do not believe this, just ask.

In America, Jews successfully live side-by-side with so many minority communities, where they share the same values of hard work, family and education. But this was never the reality with blacks and Jews.

Regrettably, the half century of Jews promoting American blacks will prove to have been just one more failing, in the long line of failures among American Jewish leaders.

Yet it is also a measure of what eternal optimists Jews are, to have maintained this fiction of a Jewish-black coalition for over 50 years.

Seeking utopia in our times, Jews have embraced delusions such as communism and socialism. And we learned that the only way to justify the indefensible failures of these utopias was to constantly lie and scream down opponents.

In the same way, it has been only delusions that have held together the “historic coalition” among American Jews and blacks.

Culture Corbyn leads fosters the anti-Semitism he claims to condemn

Indeed, of the three ‘admins’ who run the group, one – the group’s founder – is a conspiracy theorist who shares material from Holocaust Denial websites; a second identified himself as a ‘9/11 Truther’ and posted a Holocaust Denial article that dismissed the “fictional account” of six million Jews dying in the Holocaust, claiming instead that “somewhere between 100-150 thousand people perished in Auschwitz mainly as a result of disease and starvation”; while a third admin posted an article in the group titled “Israel Control of USA Government” that quoted approvingly from Mein Kampf.

This doesn’t mean that most of the members of this group are anti-Semitic, any more than most people who sympathise with the Palestinians are anti-Semitic. But what it does confirm is the long-held suspicion that some anti-Semites use anti-Israel activism as a socially-acceptable outlet for their anti-Jewish prejudice; and that this includes some of this country’s leading anti-Israel activists.

It also supports the findings of Britain’s largest-ever survey of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel attitudes, published last year by CST and the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, which found that the more anti-Israel a person is, the more likely they are to also hold anti-Jewish attitudes.

And because the most active members of this Facebook group also tend to be the more anti-Semitic ones, their views set the tone for the group as a whole. Meanwhile, the other members of the group, including several Jewish anti-Zionists, rarely object to the anti-Semitism posted there. Instead, they just get on with using the group to organise their activities and encourage their comrades. This is how a political culture becomes anti-Semitic, even if most people in that world are not, themselves, anti-Semites.

Needless to say, many of the group’s members support Jeremy Corbyn and have joined the Labour Party since he became leader.

Corbyn has responded, as he always does, by saying he condemns anti-Semitism.

But until he understands that the political culture of which he is a leader fosters the very anti-Semitism he claims to condemn, this problem will only get worse.

Daily Freier: As a Lefty Jew, How Do I Feel About Farrakhan? Hey Look! A Squirrel! (satire)

As a Progressive Jew, Am I Okay with Farrakhan’s speeches where he says that Jews are “Satanic”? Can we change the subject? Because to be honest, I would rather talk about something that doesn’t challenge my worldview. How about right-wing antisemitism? Wouldn’t you rather talk about right-wing antisemitism? That’s much more interesting than Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory defending Farrakhan. Or Congressman Keith Ellison’s long relationship with him. Or President Obama’s meeting with him and having the photo suppressed for a dozen years.

What is that? you want to talk about the Left’s moral blindness to antisemitism in its midst and the Left’s failure to expel antisemites from their ranks? Because I really felt that Caddyshack 2 was a huge disappointment, didn’t you? Just really fell flat.

Wait, you still want to talk about how Linda Sarsour’s anti-Zionism meshes with her support of a man who called Judaism a “gutter religion”? Hey, did you see the season finale of The Bachelor? Wasn’t that a dramatic ending??? OMG!

OK, you still want to know why the Left gives itself a pass on Farrakhan, while it complains about people on the Right using the word “Globalist”? Because quite frankly I would rather get a tooth extracted than talk about this. Let’s talk about something else. How about the weather? Crazy, huh?

In a bombshell interview with Megyn Kelly, Putin, set to handily win reelection as Russia’s president on March 18, declared that no Russians meddled in the American presidential election. And even if Russians did meddle in the American presidential election, those Russians don’t represent the state.

"So what if they're Russians?" said Putin. “There are 146 million Russians. So what? I don't care. I couldn't care less. They do not represent the interests of the Russian state."

And here’s where it gets really interesting, because this is where Putin said the “J” word. "Maybe they're not even Russians," he said. "Maybe they're Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, just with Russian citizenship. Even that needs to be checked. Maybe they have dual citizenship. Or maybe a green card. Maybe it was the Americans who paid them for this work. How do you know? I don't know."

Leaders of Jewish organizations went nuts over this statement with both the AJC and the ADL referencing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

President Putin suggesting that Russian Federation minorities, be they Ukrainian, Tatar, or Jewish, were behind U.S. election meddling is eerily reminiscent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He should clarify his comments at the earliest opportunity. https://t.co/NsG1qFSlWq
— AJC (@AJCGlobal) March 10, 2018

Our CEO & National Director @JGreenblattADL’s full statement on comments made by the Russian president that gives new life to classic anti-Semitic stereotypes: https://t.co/YTvmnCLmWR pic.twitter.com/00Egv5XfmZ
— ADL (@ADL_National) March 11, 2018

Zionist Union MK Ksenia Svetlova drew a connection to recent remarks by Poland’s president accusing Jews of perpetrating the Polish Holocaust.

We r quite familiar with the oldies “Maybe Jews run the world, maybe Jews use blood for their rituals, maybe Jews had slaughtered Jews in Poland” . Now comes the latest hit “maybe Jews meddled in US elections”. Our government has to condemn strongly this statement #putin #jews https://t.co/pz2JFc4hYi
— Ksenia Svetlova (@KseniaSvetlova) March 10, 2018

The National Coalition Supporting Eurasion Jewry (NCSEJ) said Putin’s remarks were troubling, and requested a clarification. “Russia’s history of anti-Semitism goes back centuries,” said the NCSEJ statement. “It is unfortunate that President Putin, who has gone out of his way to support the Russian Jewish community, resorted in this interview to promoting old and offensive stereotypes.”

But it isn’t the stereotyping that bothered me about Putin’s statement. It was the fact that, to him, Russian Jews aren’t Russians—they’re just Jews with Russian citizenship. The fact that Jews with Russian citizenship don’t, to him, count as actual Russians, suggests that he thinks that either A) Jews aren’t like other humans and therefore, just having Russian citizenship can’t make them Russians, or B) Jews aren’t human—they’re some kind of alien breed, neither animal nor human, so of course, if Jews aren’t human, they can’t be Russian.

There is, of course, another possibility: perhaps Putin believes that Jews, as the Chosen People, have only one nationality as inheritors of the Promised Land, in other words, they can be nationals only of Israel. In which case, we’re all totally off-base slamming him like this for his supposed antisemitism. Tsk. Turns out, Putin’s a Zionist, all along! He believes that Israel belongs to the Jews, that all Jews originate from and belong in Israel, and that Jews can have no true nationality other than Israeli!

Well, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I’m going to go with that third possibility. And now that we’ve stipulated that Putin is a Zionist, I know he'll be over the moon to know that those of us Jews who are finally where we’re supposed to be, i.e. Israel, and NOT RUSSIA, are gleefully breeding our merry little hearts out.

Here’s my latest contribution to the gene pool: the first son of my son, my 12th grandchild.

Varda with Baby Epstein (Not Russian)

My message to Putin: Despite my Russian Jewish ancestry, you’ll be glad to hear that my new grandson is most definitely NOT RUSSIAN.

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What Is This 'Elections' Of Which You Israelis Speak? by Mahmoud Abbas (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

: Credit: Kremlin.ru via Wikimedia Commons

Ramallah, March 14 - Much of the recent discussion of current affairs in Israeli media over the last week has centered on various squabbles among the parties in the prime minister's governing coalition, and the consensus has alternated between predictions of the government completing its 4.5-year term and early elections. To which I have but one response: What are these "elections" of which they speak?

The workings and politics of Israeli administrative concerns and the dynamics of the factions in power are of course an internal Israeli matter, and it would be inappropriate for me to weigh in on it. Nevertheless, the developing news story has raised a number of important issues with ramifications for the Palestinian people, and therefore deserves at least some of my attention. The first step involves clarifying this unknown term, which appears to play a role in Israeli politics and society,but with which my advisers and I are unfamiliar.

Once we understand what "elections" is or are, we can then proceed to determine why holding "early" elections is the subject of so much talk.

Not that the term has no translation in Arabic; we Palestinians have used it to mean the process by which a dictator imposes his will on the public while claiming a popular mandate. It is a phenomenon with a venerable history in Arab and Muslim lands, and as I understand, quite a few others. But I fail to see how that institution, which should ideally be invoked perhaps once in a leader's lifetime, has continuing relevance after it is first exploited.

Leave it to the Jews to deceive the world with their subversive use of language. No one else here in the region has ever used the term to mean anything other than a rubber stamp for authoritarianism, and here go the Zionists, usurping the very language of our traditional, repressive tyranny here in the Levant to mean something else, something that detached it from its traditional meaning and recasting it as something alien - all the while invoking "elections" as if they are practicing anything authentic. How typically Zionist.

We Palestinians often pay close attention to the Israeli political system, even if only to exploit its institutions via our proxies in the Knesset and the Third Sector. However, those folks have been of little help, as they have been unable to explain why a leader would allow any procedure that would remove him from power.

Once we get to the bottom of this, we can move on to an examination of this strange thing Israelis call "free expression."

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03/14 Links Pt1: Special report says IDF followed int’l law in Gaza war; How ‘The Washington Post’ Distorts the Arab-Israeli Conflict; Washington Post Defends PA Martyrs Fund

From Ian:

Ben Shapiro: White House Hosts Historic Meeting Between Israelis And Arab Countries, Signaling First Moves Toward Regional Cooperation

In little-noticed news outside the Middle East, the Trump administration, led by son-in-law Jared Kushner, brokered a historic meeting regarding the situation in the Gaza Strip. According to The Jerusalem Post, the attendees included officials from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, as well Israel, Canada, and European countries. That means that virtually every major regional power acting in counterbalance to Iran attended the meeting — and that the Palestinians boycotted it, once again demonstrating that they care less about the humanitarian crisis striking their citizens under the rule of terrorist group Hamas, and more about posturing regarding supposed Israeli intransigence.

Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s special representative for Middle East negotiations, stated, “We regret that the Palestinian Authority is not here with us today. This is not about politics. This is about the health, safety and happiness of the people of Gaza, and of all Palestinians, Israelis and Egyptians.”

This is the first White House event of this sort, ever. But the reason for the Palestinian boycott is obvious: the White House laid the blame for the humanitarian situation in Gaza on the ruling power in Gaza. “Everything we do must be done in a way that ensures we do not put the security of Israelis and Egyptians at risk,” Greenblatt stated, “and that we do not inadvertently empower Hamas, which bears responsibility for Gaza’s suffering.” Those are strong words, particularly considering that Qatar signs checks to Hamas on a regular basis.

But what this meeting truly says is that the most important priority in the Middle East is no longer using the plight of the Palestinians as a club to wield against the Israelis in order to distract from domestic issues in Muslim countries. Instead, the top priority is countering the rising power in Iran, which has extended its reach through Iraq and Syria and to Lebanon, and is moving in Yemen as well. Regional solutions to the Palestinian issue are likely to be far more successful than the false binary of Israelis vs. Palestinians that has predominated for decades.

Special report says IDF followed int’l law in Gaza war, but had major gaps

In the most important legal report to date on the war crimes allegations from the 2014 Gaza war, the State Comptroller has ruled that the IDF’s targeting and its probes of its attacks followed international law.

In the same breath, Joseph Shapira’s Wednesday report let loose with criticism on a variety of aspects of the IDF’s targeting and its investigations of war crimes claims.

Supporters of Israel will look to the report’s main headline of compliance with international law, while the UN Human Rights Council and various detractors will likely focus on the many shortcomings the report points out.

The International Criminal Court has taken a range of decisions in examining war crimes allegations viewed by Israel both as fair and unfair to Israel, but if its decision to criminally investigate the US for torture in Afghanistan is any sign, the comptroller’s criticisms will be Exhibit A for critiquing Israel’s legal system.

During the 2014 Gaza war around 2,125 Palestinians died, around 11,000 were injured, while they launched 4,564 rockets, mortars and projectiles at Israel. 73 Israelis died, thousands were injured and Israel carried out thousands of airstrikes on Gaza.

Underlying much of the comptroller's determinations that international law's minimal requirements had been followed was the idea that fighting in Gaza against Hamas, who regularly used its civilian population as human shields, created an incredible challenge.

New York Times Falsely Claims Israel Hasn’t Tried ‘Land For Peace’

A New York Times book review inaccurately claims that Israel hasn’t tried trading land for peace.

The review is by Kenneth M. Pollack, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is writing about the book Rise And Kill First: The Secret History Of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations, by Ronen Bergman.

Pollack writes, “The deepest truth is that Israel so far has not tried the one thing that could address the underlying grievances that give life to its terrorist enemies, trading land for peace.”

Actually, as the Times itself has reported over the years in its news columns, Israel has repeatedly traded land for peace, or at least for promises of peace.

In 1982, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula under the terms of a peace treaty with Egypt. The Times reported then: “Today’s withdrawal completes a phased pullout that really began in 1974, five years before the peace treaty, when the United States helped negotiate a separation of Egyptian and Israeli forces and Israel pulled back from the east bank of the canal. A further step of withdrawal was negotiated in 1975, when Israel gave up the Abu Rodeis oilfields, which were providing most of the country’s fuel. Under the subsequent treaty, Israel has pulled out in six steps since May 25, 1979.”

In 1994, Israel withdrew from Jericho and most of Gaza under the terms of the Oslo Accord it reached with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

In 1995, Israel withdrew from Nablus, “handing over the West Bank’s largest city to an advance team of Palestinian police officers,” as The New York Times reported then.

In 2000, Israel withdrew from its security zone in southern Lebanon.

In 2005, Israel withdrew entirely from the Gaza Strip.

EoZ Trump Symposium, part 3: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

Here's part 3 of the video of my symposium held on Sunday, "Donald Trump: Good for the Jews?"

Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the founder of Z-Street.

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Back in 2009, the Palestinian Arabs were jubilant that they managed to get Jerusalem declared to be the "capital of Arab culture" for the year, in between Damascus and Doha.

It looks like this UNESCO/Arab League initiative has ended, as the last capital of Arab culture was Sfax, Tunisia in 2016.

So the Palestinians got the Arab League to declare Jerusalem to be the permanent capital of Arab culture!

At a meeting in Cairo, the Palestinians made it clear yet again that their interest in Jerusalem has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with Israel. Their representative said, "The identity of Jerusalem is well established and the attempts of the occupation will collapse in the face of the steadfastness of Palestinians and Jerusalemites in particular." He "reviewed the Israeli attempts to obliterate the Arab identity of the city."

The Palestinian delegation also presented two films, the first about the destruction of the Mughrabi Gate and the second about the theft of the Palestinian heritage by Israel.

Nothing about how important Jerusalem is to them. Only about how awful it is that Jews claim it to be theirs.

Richard Landes, in his talk during my symposium in Jerusalem on Sunday, described the Palestinian desire for the city as "mimetic envy" - a desire that is wholly driven by someone else possessing something you don't have, even though you showed no interest when you did have it.

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If Obama got Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain in a room, he'd be hailed as a genius

From JPost:

Israeli national security officials sat around the same table on Tuesday morning with their counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, discussing a dire humanitarian situation unfolding in the Gaza Strip.

The summit on Gaza, called by Jared Kushner, the US president’s son-in-law and senior adviser on Middle East peace, as well as Jason Greenblatt, his special representative for international negotiations, marks an unprecedented moment for Israeli diplomacy, as their dialogue with officials from Arab states is publicly recognized for the first time.

The Trump administration planned the meeting over several weeks and released a list of attendees the morning of the summit, which also included officials from Egypt, Jordan, Canada and various governments of Europe.

Palestinian Authority officials did not attend the meeting.

“We regret that the Palestinian Authority is not here with us today,” Greenblatt said in opening remarks to the conference. “This is not about politics. This is about the health, safety and happiness of the people of Gaza, and of all Palestinians, Israelis and Egyptians.”

The mainstream media that covered the conference - meaning, as far as I can tell, only Reuters - didn't make this seem historic at all. An almost unprecedented meeting between Israel and so many Arab states was downplayed, and the absence of the Palestinians was highlighted:

Imagine the fawning coverage if Obama would have put together such a conference. Imagine how this would be a top story that shows Obama's diplomatic genius at getting all sides in a room to talk.

But this story is downplayed, and the absence of Palestinians is being highlighted as a subtle insult to the Trump administration for alienating them.

A related point is that the Obama administration wouldn't even dream of having such a summit without the Palestinians - the same Palestinian leadership that is directly responsible for much of the misery in Gaza.

Trump managed to get Israel into a room with five nations it is at war with, along with Egypt and Jordan, to help Arabs. He accomplished more yesterday towards true Middle East peace than Barack Obama did in eight years.

And that is exactly why the media will studiously ignore it.

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How should Israel take advantage of its Arabic World Cup coverage?

From The Verdict (UK):

In a blow to rival Qatar, Israel has announced it will broadcast free coverage of the 2018 Fifa World Cup throughout the region.

Israel will give soccer fans from Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and the Palestinian West Bank territories, a free-pass to watch the Fifa World Cup tournament on Israeli Arabic channel Makan, meaning Qatar’s subscription broadcast monopoly is likely to suffer.

Football fans can now choose between paying for a subscription to watch the games on Qatari channel beIN Sports, or catching it for free on Israel’s dime.

Israel said they will offer a free Arabic broadcast and commentary of the games, after the Israeli Broadcasting Authority paid £5.6 million for the rights to broadcast the tournament.

Doha had previously said it had exclusive rights to broadcast this year’s Fifa World Cup on its beIN Sport channel, available to subscribers in the Middle East for a $45 fee.

Moran Zagar, an expert on Israel-Gulf relations, told Verdict that Israel is hoping to curry favour with football fans in Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and with Palestinians:

It put Israel in an optimal position. Millions of people across the Arab World will be watching the games through Israel’s broadcasting in live stream. That’s a lot of power to deliver a hidden and direct message, and it might sway positive public opinion towards [Israel] within those communities.

She added that charging a Jordanian peasant the equivalent of their monthly salary to watch the games was “an own goal for Qatar”.

Israel would take that opportunity with both hands. Sports is always intertwined with politics and this event is no different.

I assume that companies can buy commercial time on the broadcast. It would be fun to see a Sodastream commercial in Arabic, showing Arab workers making the product, towards an audience that cannot buy it (except for Palestinians.)

But what I would like to see is a simple, two second clips of Israelis of all colors and backgrounds just saying "Shalom."

And, during the broadcasts of games where Egypt is playing, having average Israelis saying "Good luck Egypt!" in Arabic.

I want to see the backlash from Arab media about how terrible it is to be forced to watch Israelis acting friendly and how it is brainwashing the minds of young Arabs who should properly be hating these people.

(Also, Israelis should might want to illegally broadcast the stream over the Internet, the way all sports broadcasts are, so that Arabs in other countries besides Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon can see this awful propaganda for themselves for free instead of paying the $45 to Qatar.)

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03/13 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The Sewer of Left-Wing Antisemitism; NGO Activists – Including Amnesty International – Members of Facebook Group Rife with Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Sewer of Left-Wing Antisemitism

There was only one thing worse than the remarkable revelation of institutionalised antisemitism on the left revealed by David Collier on his website last week. It was the reaction.

Collier is an indefatigable blogger who spends much of his life immersed in the cesspools of anti-Jewish and Israel-bashing bigotry in British institutions. His aim is to bring the epidemic of open antisemitism to the attention of the wider public. He is positively heroic in subjecting himself to the traumatic effects of wading through all this filth. But last week he took his investigations onto a different level altogether.

His 280-page two-part report, here and here, exposed a secret, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel Facebook group called Palestine Live, which was created in 2013. Its members included politicians and other members of the Labour party and the left.

Secret forum
Secrecy was paramount: when one member asked “how safe is this group?” its creator, Elleanne Green, replied: “Very…no one is allowed in who is not trusted…I am very very careful…and it is a Secret Group…so it really is as safe as you will be able to find anywhere…”

The reason for such secrecy immediately becomes apparent from Collier’s expose. One of the first posts – and it was typical – referred to the “barbarian part of that [Jewish] tribe that is lording it over every single government in the word and using their untold wealth to control the agenda for all of us in order to further their nefarious aims for the Jewish state and to wipe out the Palestinians in the process”. Another referred to Jews as a “cancer” who “murder Palestinians” so they can “harvest their organs”. Others claimed that the Jew were behind 9/11 and the 2015 Paris terror attacks.

Group members referenced rabid white supremacists, Holocaust deniers and other far-right sites. They claimed that the blood libel and Protocols of the Elders of Zion were true, that the Rothschilds were a world conspiracy stealing people’s money, that the Jews were behind the two world wars and so on. As Collier asks: “At what point did the British Labour party suddenly develop a fetish for white supremacy?

Pro-Palestinian Group Founder Corroborates Israel’s Version of 2010 Gaza Flotilla Raids

A high-ranking leader of the Free Gaza Movement, a coalition of human rights activists and pro-Palestinian groups formed to challenge the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip, appears to have corroborated Israel's previously challenged version of the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid that resulted in the death of 10 Turkish activists.

Greta Berlin, a co-founder and spokesperson for the Free Gaza Movement, made comments in a secret British Facebook group that seem to corroborate accounts that members of the Israeli armed services did not open fire until one of the activists attempted to disarm one of the troops, according to the Times of Israel.

The Gaza Freedom Flotilla was a group of three passenger and three cargo ships organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief in an attempt to breach the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Tensions arose when Israel offered to inspect the six civilians ships that had been chartered to carry what the Free Gaza Movement claimed to be humanitarian supplies and construction material to the Gaza Strip. Israel also offered to transport the supplies via land crossings, but the activists turned down the offer. Israeli armed services than conducted a raid on the six ships in an effort to force the flotilla to the port of Ashdod, where it could be inspected.

While attempting to seize control of the flotilla, Israeli defense forces faced resistance on one of the ships, the Mavi Marmara. What exactly occurred on the ship has long been disputed. The Israeli government has alleged that IDF commandos were attacked with clubs, knives, and metal rods while attempting to board the ship. The government has stated it was forced to open fire after a passenger grabbed a weapon from one of the commandos.

A few years later, Berlin seems to have corroborated the Israeli government's report during a heated debate in a private Facebook group comprised of pro-Palestinian activists who had all been approved or invited to join. In her comments, which were written in 2014, Berlin specifically rebuked other social media users in the group who were attempting to absolve one of the activists onboard the ship, Kenneth O'Keefe, from any blame.

Melanie Phillips: Left wingers can't see their cesspool of antisemitism

For the left, bashing Israel and supporting the Palestinians is a noble cause. So there’s no reason to suspect that anyone associated with it will be anything other than decent. This is to ignore the symbiotic connection between Israel-bashing and antisemitism. No, that does not mean criticism of Israel is antisemitic. It is as legitimate as criticism of any other country. The way in which Israel is treated, however, is totally unlike the treatment of any other country.

We’re talking here about demonisation: a unique campaign based entirely on malicious falsehoods, accusing Israel of crimes of which it is not only innocent but is in fact the victim, employing libellous and incendiary tropes such as deliberate child-killing and presenting it as a global conspiracy and menace to the world. These are all the markers of classic antisemitism through the centuries. So the links to the far right and white supremacists aren’t surprising.

The left, though, believes with perfect faith that it stands only for good things such as conscience and human rights. Accordingly, only the “right” can be antisemitic. The “anti-racist” left believes that it is itself utterly incapable of antisemitism. So it is blind to both its own behaviour and the noxious company it keeps.

EoZ Trump symposium, part 2: Dr. Richard Landes

Here is part 2 of my symposium on "Donald Trump: Good for the Jews?" 2018 held in Jerusalem on Sunday, with Dr. Richard Landes:

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Americans - Democrat and Republican, young and old - still love Israel

A new Gallup poll shows that, despite what we've sometimes been reading, Americans of all political stripes and ages still overwhelmingly support Israel over the Palestinians.

They don't say the percentages of Democrats that view Palestinians more favorably, but when the question was rephrased a little differently:

83% of Republicans, 72% of independents and 64% of Democrats view Israel favorably.

27% of Democrats, 21% of independents and 12% of Republicans view the Palestinian government favorably.

Notice also that the Democrat sympathy for Israel, although a but rocky, is still higher than it was in the early 2000s.

Also:

Beyond party and consistent with Gallup previous findings by age, Israel also receives higher favorable ratings from adults 55 and older (80% favorable) than from those 35 to 54 (72%) or 18 to 34 (65%). Conversely, the Palestinian Authority receives somewhat better ratings from adults 18 to 34 (31% favorable) than from those 35 to 54 (15%) or 55 and older (18%).

Looking at the trends, this is higher across the board for all three age groups. Gallup's chart from their 2015 report on support for Israel by age shows this:

Each age group' sympathies with Israel has jumped at least 10% in the last three years.

All of the doom and gloom articles about how young people are so anti-Israel are simply not true. Right now, support for Israel among 18-31 year olds is at nearly an all-time high, since 1991 when there was a lot of sympathy for Israel during the Gulf War. Since 1997, sympathy for Israel as opposed to Palestinians for the younger crowd has soared from 32% to 65% - more than double!

The trend of people's sympathies to Israel has been pretty consistently going up since the BDS movement started in 2004.

I'm not saying that BDS isn't a threat - but looking at the numbers, their accomplishments aren't just zero - they are far less than zero.

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03/13 Links Pt1: How the Embassy Move Signals Big Changes to the Iran Deal; PA PM survives assassination attemptin Gaza; Trump fires Tillerson as Sec. of state, points to Iran deal disagreement

From Ian:

PMW: "Women can die in a more spectacular way than men die" - Fatah celebrates terrorist murderer Dalal Mughrabi

Marking the 40th anniversary of the most lethal terror attack in Israel's history in which 12 children and 25 Israeli adult civilians were murdered by Palestinian terrorists, Fatah posted a video celebrating the attack and glorifying the murderers, in particular the leader of the attack, female terrorist Dalal Mughrabi. Palestinians have referred to the hijacked bus in which most of the Israelis were murdered, as "the first Palestinian Republic," because the bus remained under the terrorists' control for a few hours, as they drove from Haifa in the north to the center of the country, while shooting at civilian cars they passed on the way.

Texts in Fatah's video praising Mughrabi focus on the fact that the leader of the attack was a woman, and credit her with being "the president of the first republic":
"The name of the president of the first republic was Dalal Mughrabi.
Heroism has no gender.
Arab men must understand that they don't have a monopoly on the glory of life or the glory of death,
and women can love much more nobly than the way they love, and die in a much more spectacular way than they die"
[Official Fatah Facebook page, March 11, 2018]

Other texts in Fatah's video described the terror attack as "the bravest victory" and portrayed the hijacking of a bus full of Israeli civilians as the establishment of "the Palestinian republic" and of "the temporary capital of the State of Palestine":

Evelyn Grodon: How the Embassy Move Signals Big Changes to the Iran Deal

The Iran waivers have so far followed a similar pattern. The first time the deal came up for review, Trump issued the requisite certification that Iran was in compliance and that the deal served America’s national interests, but vowed he wouldn’t keep doing so forever. The second time, he formally decertified the deal, but once again signed the waiver that prevents sanctions on Iran from being reinstated. The third time, he signed the waiver once again, but explicitly threatened that this would be the last time.

If it weren’t for the embassy move, this threat would be treated in capitals around the world as so much bluster. Instead, world leaders are forced to take it seriously. True, there’s a chance that Trump is just bluffing. But there’s also a real chance that he’s serious, just as he proved to be on the embassy issue.

This means that European leaders, who initially refused even to discuss any changes to a deal they like just the way it is, are now feeling pressured to offer at least some sop to Trump if only to keep him from blowing the deal up entirely. Last month, for instance, French President Emanuel Macron threw his support behind a plan to impose surveillance and sanctions on Iran’s unfettered ballistic missile program, which is one of several key loopholes the administration wants closed.

The Iran deal didn’t motivate Trump to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. The primary reason to relocate the embassy to Jerusalem was because it was the right thing to do. It’s something Congress decided should be done over 20 years ago, and it’s something presidential candidates from both parties have repeatedly promised but never fulfilled. Above all, it’s because the reality is that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, and it is ludicrous to keep pretending otherwise.

But it just goes to show that the right thing is also sometimes the smart thing. Granted, there’s no guarantee that Trump’s effort to fix the Iran deal will bear fruit; the Europeans are trying hard to fob him off with mere cosmetic tweaks. Yet there would be no chance at all if it weren’t for the credible threat created by the embassy move. And if anything meaningful does come of this effort–even if only a modest improvement, like cracking down on Iran’s ballistic missiles–it will be largely because Trump did the right thing on Jerusalem.

From the Embassy to an Undivided Jerusalem

Instead of waiting to build a new embassy, America did the smart thing, and is now simply going to hang a new sign on the facility that currently serves as its consulate in Jerusalem. But it turns out that the building is partially located in what was, from 1949 to 1967, an area designated as No Man’s Land between Israeli West Jerusalem and the part of the city that was illegally occupied by Jordan. Though the embassy sits on only a tiny portion of this territory and has actually been under continuous Israeli use since 1949, as far as the Palestinians and much of the world is concerned, it’s located on “occupied territory.”

But rather than being an unfortunate mistake, the location makes it clear how crazy it would be to try, as many advocates of the peace process insist must happen, to redivide the city. Instead of restructuring a partitioned city, the world should recognize that such a dangerous scheme would only hurt Jerusalem and do nothing to advance the cause of peace.

The reason for the creation of a No Man’s Land was that it was the result of the military stalemate in the city during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. While the Arab attempt to besiege Jewish Jerusalem failed, the Jordanian army’s invasion caused the fall of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, and the eviction of its Jewish inhabitants and destruction of all of their synagogues. Ultimately, a stable front line that stretched like an ugly scar throughout the city was established.

For 19 years, the holiest of Jewish religious shrines — the Temple Mount and the Western Wall — were effectively rendered Judenrein; Jews only dreamed of ever being able to pray there again.

Thanks to a catastrophic error by Jordan’s King Hussein, the city was unified in 1967. Despite warnings from Israel to stay out of the conflict, Jordan started shelling Jewish Jerusalem in support of Egypt and Syria on the first of the dramatic six days in June that year. When Israeli forces broke through, not only were the Jews reunited with their holy places, but the walls that had rendered Jerusalem a stunted, divided city were also torn down.

In the 50 years since then, new Jewish neighborhoods were built in those parts of the city that were formerly occupied by Jordan. Arab neighborhoods suffered partly from the neglect of the municipality and partly because Palestinians refused to share in the life of the united city, preferring instead to nurture dreams of Israel’s destruction.