Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, April 12, 2019

How much do Jewish leftists really want peace between Israel and the Arab world?

The New York Times featured a letter from a (Rabbi) Mordecai Schreiber, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida:

As an Israeli and an American, I am appalled by the re-election of an Israeli prime minister who blocks the road to peace with the Arab world, and by the current political culture in the United States, which has turned this country into George Orwell’s “Big Brother” nightmare in which lies are truth and war is peace.
I used to be very proud of both countries. I no longer am.

Schreiber was born in Haifa and became a Reform rabbi at Hebrew Union College in 1965. He's written numerous books and articles.

And yet he seems somehow unaware of the amazing things Benjamin Netanyahu has done to bring Israel and the Arab world closer than they have ever been.

Before Netanyahu, the idea of multiple government ministers visiting the UAE or hearing Hatikva play in that country was fantasy.

The idea of a state visit by the Israeli prime minister to Oman was equally unthinkable.

Bahrain's foreign minister openly talks about establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.

Israel and Morocco trade keeps increasing, to $37 million in 2017 alone, while Israeli company Netafim opened up a subsidiary in Morocco.

Either Rabbi Schreiber is unaware of all of this happening under Netanyahu's tenure as prime minister - or his idea of what peace between Israel and the Arab world should look like is twisted.

Too many American Jews are brainwashed by the idea that the only road to peace between Israel and its neighbors is a Palestinian state. In fact, the facts prove the opposite - when Israel gives more and more concessions to Palestinians, the more they demand and inflame the Arab world to be on their side.

Similarly, when Israel acts like a strong, sovereign nation, the Arab world respects it and wants to partner with it. The much derided nationalism that causes such fear in certain quarters is regarded as a positive in the region Israel finds itself in.

It is hardly a coincidence that the worst terror spree in Israeli history happened immediately following Palestinian rejection of a peace plan - a peace plan that was pushed not by Donald Trump but by a popular Democratic, president to be as fair and realistic as possible. Clinton knows the reason the Palestinians don't have a state, and it isn't because of Israel.

People like Schreiber seem to believe that the intifada is proof not of Palestinian rejectionism but of Israel not giving them enough. This is a very sick mentality. And it is one that J-Street and US media continue to push today.

Does the J-Street type crowd really want peace? Their silence over Israel's and Netanyahu's incredible accomplishments with the Arab and Muslim world indicates that they are not the ones who seek peace at all. They are so wedded to the discredited idea that the only path to peace is through a dysfunctional and terror-worshiping Palestinian leadership that they willfully blind to Israel's repeated attempts at achieving peace.

Including being blind to a peace framework that Netanyahu himself supported and that Palestinians rejected.

Perhaps Rabbi Schreiber will realize one day that Israel isn't the obstacle to peace - its "peace partner" is.

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Turkey loves the Palestinian "cause" - but it hates Palestinians

In February, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan assured a delegation of Arab Knesset members that Turkey will not “turn its back” on the Palestinian cause or people, adding that Ankara will share "all means available" for ending the occupation and establishing peace.

In March, Turkey's foreign minister said that defending the Palestinian cause is a top priority for Ankara.

Hamas has praised Turkey, saying, "Along with a few other countries, Turkey has stood by the Palestinian people, despite the rush by a number of Arab states to normalize their relations with Israel."

Turkey might love "Palestine," but it seems to have a big problem with Palestinians.

And a young man is now dead as a result.

Mohammed Abu Shamla, originally from Gaza, fell from a balcony while trying to escape as police raided the hotel he was staying in with many other Palestinians in Didem last weekend. He died this morning.

According to witnesses, Turkish police raid the hotel practically daily, looking for Palestinians to arrest for being in the country illegally. Usually they look for Syrian refugees of Palestinian descent but they also arrest Gazans or anyone else Palestinian. On Saturday, the police fired tear gas into the hotel rooms, including rooms with women and children. (Tear gas can be fatal when used indoors.)

Haaretz reported something similar last year:

In Turkey, many Gazans have no option but to stay illegally beyond their tourist visa. They live a life of paranoia, trying to avoid security checkpoints in the streets, at which Arab-looking pedestrians are usually stopped and asked a single fateful question, to which the wrong answer might mean harassment, incarceration or deportation: "Are you Syrian?" Gazans are mostly let off the hook.

A Gazan friend was stopped and checked three times in one day, and the last time he was asked if he was Syrian, he sarcastically answered, "I wish if I had that honor." He was held for an hour in detention for his impertinence.

According to EuroMed Monitor, some 8000 Syrian Palestinians live illegally in Turkey, but many thousands more seem to have gone there from Gaza last year when Egypt opened the Rafah crossing.

The Turkish government, like much of the rest of the Muslim world, loves the Palestinian cause - but only as long as no one asks it to do anything for actual Palestinians. It claims to have the greatest sympathy for people in Gaza, but that is only as long as they remain in Gaza.

The Arab and Muslim world only love Palestinians when they can be used as cannon fodder against Israel. But treating them as human beings is not a priority - because Palestinians living happily outside Palestine are useless to advance the "cause."

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04/11 Links Pt2: On verge of space history, Beresheet fails to land safely on Moon; BDS founder Omar Barghouti denied entry to US; The Well-Financed War on Birthright Israel

From Ian:

On verge of space history, Beresheet fails to land safely on Moon

Israel almost rewrote the lunar history books on Thursday evening as spacecraft Beresheet (Hebrew for Genesis) failed to land safely on the Moon.

Millions around the world tuned in live to watch the SpaceIL vessel, carrying an Israeli flag and a nano-Bible, descend to the Moon’s Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity), but the State of Israel fell just short of becoming only the fourth member of a prestigious club of nations to complete the formidable task of landing a spacecraft on the lunar surface.

SpaceIL lost contact with the spacecraft only minutes before it was due to complete the historic landing – a feat previously achieved only by the United States, Russia (then the USSR) and China – after an epic seven-week, 6.5 million km. journey since Beresheet, an ambitious project developed by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries, blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida on board a SpaceX rocket on February 22.

For 48 days, Beresheet’s ground crew watched, monitored and executed every maneuver of the spacecraft from a control center at IAI’s Yehud headquarters. Once in position to descend, the landing maneuver – split into two phases of decreasing horizontal velocity and then vertical velocity – commenced but failed to land safely after contact was lost.

“If it at first you don’t succeed, you try and try again – and we’ll try again,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the control center.

“We reached the moon, but we wanted to land more safely. The attempt alone is a huge achievement. An Israeli satellite will one day land on the moon.”

Beresheet takes a selfie minutes before touching down on the moon .

XPRIZE to award $1 Million Moonshot Award to SpaceIL team for them to continue their work and pursue Beresheet 2.0. Space is hard!!! ⁦@xprize⁩ ⁦@TeamSpaceIL⁩ pic.twitter.com/J4Zo5eaYMT
— Peter Diamandis (@PeterDiamandis) April 11, 2019

Time magazine had a cover story on American Jews and Israel - in March, 1975.

Thus a number of questions hover in the air: Is American support for Israel weakening? What happens if U.S. interests and Israeli interests, which have always seemed to coincide in the past, should diverge? Has Jewish influence in the U.S. become an obstacle to U.S. foreign policy?

The issues that seem so pressing today seemed just as pressing 44 years ago, and somehow Israel is still around, its interests still coincide with those of the US, Jews are still supporting it - and people are still talking about how the Jews control US policy.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen Judea and Samaria referred to as “occupied Palestinian territories,” and Jewish settlements there called “illegal under international law.” But the territories are not “Palestinian,” they are not “occupied,” Jewish communities there are not illegal, and Israel is not oppressing millions of Palestinians who also live there.

PM Netanyahu’s promise to extend Israeli sovereignty to the settlements – and not, by the way, “to annex the West Bank” as so many headlines have it – has re-ignited debate about these issues. But nothing’s changed. Here are some popular but false statements about Judea/Samaria and the Jewish communities that have been established there:

1. The “West Bank” is “Palestinian land” which Israel is occupying

Judea and Samaria, like the rest of Israel and Jordan, were part of the Ottoman Empire from the 16^th Century until the end of WWI. After the war, the League of Nations agreed to set aside this portion of the former Ottoman territory to be held in trust by Britain to become a national home for the Jewish people. Britain gave the eastern portion to Abdullah bin Hussein as a reward for his help and that of his father, Sharif Hussein of Hejaz, in the war; this would ultimately become Jordan. The land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, including what would become the State of Israel and Judea/Samaria and Gaza became the Mandate for Palestine.

The Arabs living in the Mandate were strongly opposed to Jewish sovereignty, and the British, from a combination of the desire to appease the Arabs to reduce their violence (which expressed itself against both Jews and the British rulers), the desire to keep “Palestine” under their control for strategic purposes, and sheer antisemitism, abandoned their responsibility to the Jewish people and tried to throttle Jewish immigration, while allowing Arabs from surrounding areas to enter.

In November 1947, the UN – which had assumed the obligations of the League of Nations – passed a resolution (UNGA 181) recommending the partition of the Mandate into a Jewish and Arab state. The Palestinian Jews were prepared to accept a truncated state (it would be the second truncation of the land originally set aside for the Jews), but the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab nations wanted all the territory to be under Arab sovereignty, and rejected the resolution.

It is important to note two things: first, the resolution, because it was passed by the General Assembly and not by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, was advisory, not mandatory. And second, because the recommendations were never implemented, they became moot.

The British, exhausted after WWII and tired of the attacks against their occupation forces by both Jews and Arabs, ended the Mandate in May, 1948, and went home. The Jews, who had used the Mandate period to build all the institutions required for a state – an army, an educational system, a labor federation, various state enterprises, and more – declared the State of Israel in the area assigned to them by the partition resolution. The Arabs, who could have done the same, did not do so. They redoubled their violent attacks on Jews. At the same time, the armies of five Arab nations invaded the area, intending to destroy the new state of Israel and take the land for themselves (and not to establish a state for the Palestinian Arabs!)

The war that followed ended with a cease-fire in 1949. The Arab nations would not agree to make a permanent peace or recognize the Jewish state, but they signed cease-fire agreements that demarcated the positions of their troops. These agreements explicitly stipulated that the cease-fire lines were not national borders. The areas of Judea/Samaria and Gaza were occupied by Jordan and Egypt respectively, and in 1950 Jordan formally annexed the territory it had occupied and named it the “West Bank.” This is the first time that name was used to refer to what had previously been called “Judea and Samaria.”

The Arab invasion clearly violated the UN Charter, being a “use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence” of the State of Israel, and therefore the annexation of Judea and Samaria was also illegal. Only Britain (and possibly Pakistan) recognized it. During the war and afterwards, Jordan regularly committed war crimes, violating the Geneva Conventions by ethnically cleansing the Jewish population from the territories they occupied, destroying Jewish synagogues and cemeteries, and not allowing access to Jewish and Christian holy sites during the entire 19-year occupation.

In 1967 the Arabs again planned to destroy Israel, and some Arab leaders even made genocidal statements. Although it is true that Israel fired the first shots, it is generally accepted that this was a case of legitimate military preemption of an imminent attack, and that Israel’s actions were justified self-defense. The war ended with Israel in possession of Judea and Samaria, as well as Gaza.

The argument is made that the UN charter forbids acquisition of territory by force. That is not correct. It says that

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. (Art. 2, Sec. 4)

But it also says that

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. … (Art. 51)

If Israel’s actions in 1967 were legal, what is the status of Judea and Samaria? Many people say that it is a “belligerent occupation.” If so, it would still be entirely legal, just as the allied occupation of Germany after WWII was legal. But if it is an occupation, whose territory is being occupied? Not Jordan’s, whose possession of it was illegal from the start!

The last entity in legitimate possession of Judea/Samaria was the British Mandate, which no longer exists. But the only national entity that could reasonably have been considered the inheritor of the Mandate’s boundaries is the State of Israel. Given also that the Mandate was intended for the purpose of establishing a national home for the Jewish people, and considering the well-documented claim of the Jewish people to be the aboriginal inhabitants of the land, it is reasonable to see the events of 1967 as the liberation of territory that was illegally occupied, and its return to the legitimate owner, Israel.

In 1988, King Hussein of Jordan relinquished his claim to Judea and Samaria, in favor of the PLO. But since Jordan had no legitimate rights to the territory to begin with, the gesture was meaningless.

It is true that the Palestinian Arabs wish to possess Judea and Samaria (not to mention Haifa and Tel Aviv), and there are numerous members of the UN that agree with them for religious, cultural, economic, and yes – antisemitic – reasons. But wishing will not make the 1949 armistice lines a border, and wishing will not make Palestinian Arabs the legitimate heirs of the British Mandate, nor – despite their creative approach to history – the aboriginal inhabitants of the Land of Israel.

2. Settlements are illegal under international law

This is a favorite of many news media and European governments, who feel a compulsion to add “which are illegal under international law” after any mention of Israeli settlements. But even if you accept (as I do not) that Israel’s possession of Judea and Samaria constitutes belligerent occupation, the usual argument that settlements constitute a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention provision against population transfer into an occupied territory is very weak. This protocol was established after WWII with the intent of criminalizing actions such as Germany’s deportation of its Jewish residents to occupied Poland, and not to prohibit voluntary settlement on public lands (a more complete treatment of this subject is here). It should be noted that there have been additions made (e.g., the 1977 “Additional Protocol I”) to the Geneva convention specifically aimed at Israeli policy, but Israel and other nations, including the US, have not ratified them.

3. Israel is oppressing millions of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria

When Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accords in 1993-5, they agreed to divide Judea and Samaria into Areas A, B and C. Area A was under Palestinian security control and civil control, Area B (much smaller) under Palestinian civil control and Israeli security control, and Area C under full Israeli control. Area C contains all Jewish settlements. More than 95% of the Palestinian population lives in areas A and B, where they are governed by the Palestinian Authority (PA). While it is true that Israel’s security forces reserve the right to enter area A to arrest wanted terrorists, Palestinians have civil and political rights granted by the Palestinian Authority to vote and hold political office. There are Palestinian courts and Palestinian police, Palestinian ministries of health, finance, labor, etc. It’s hardly fair to blame Israel for the fact that the PA is corrupt and dictatorial, and hasn’t held an election for years.

Conclusion

PM Netanyahu’s decision to extend Israeli law to the settlements in Area C would not have any effect whatever on Palestinians living under the control of the Palestinian authority, and it does not change the status of the territories in which they are located. Israel will never abandon Judea and Samaria entirely, although it is possible that some part of them could become an autonomous Palestinian entity. But – for security, if for no other reason – Israel could never agree to a sovereign Arab state west of the Jordan, nor could it agree to the kind of massive withdrawal and dismantling of settlements that was envisioned in the Obama period. So the idea that “Netanyahu has killed the two-state solution” is silly. The two-state solution was never alive because of simple geostrategic facts.

Isn’t it nice that international law doesn't disagree?

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04/11 Links Pt1: Israel's Beresheet set to make history, land on moon today; Benjamin Netanyahu Wins Elections because—to Most Israelis—He’s Right about What Matters

From Ian:

Israel's Beresheet set to make history, land on moon today

Seven weeks after Israeli spacecraft Beresheet (Hebrew for Genesis) soared into the night sky at Cape Canaveral, Florida, commencing an epic 6.5 million km. journey, it is poised to make history on Thursday evening when it reaches the Moon.

Only three countries have completed the formidable task of landing a spacecraft on the lunar surface – the United States, Russia (then the USSR) and China. The tiny State of Israel is set to join that prestigious club of cosmic superpowers.

Beresheet, the ambitious project developed by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries, has been making history even before the unmanned vessel was launched on February 22, becoming the world’s first spacecraft built by a non-governmental organization.
Last week the spacecraft left the Earth’s orbit and began its descent to the lunar surface. Only seven countries have been able to successfully place a spacecraft in the Moon’s orbit.

While such an achievement alone is already a source of pride for Beresheet’s engineers, the eyes of nine million Israelis and people across the Earth will be fixed on the Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity) on Thursday evening at approximately 10:30 p.m. local time, with high hopes for a successful lunar landing.

“The most significant thing is not just becoming the fourth country to land on the Moon, but our desire for young people in Israel to go and learn science,” Yigal Harel, head of SpaceIL’s spacecraft program, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

How to watch the Beresheet spacecraft land on the moon

With elections in the rearview mirror, Israelis are now focusing on the moon.

The Israeli spacecraft Beresheet, or Genesis, is scheduled to touch down on the moon’s surface on Thursday night in Israel. And the country has Beresheet mania.

Watch parties and celebrations are planned throughout Israel. The main event — in Hod Hasharon, about 13 miles from Tel Aviv in the central part of the country — will include exhibitions, a dance party, a space-themed selfie wall and videos.

Tens of thousands of Israelis had stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to watch the lunar lander’s launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Feb. 21 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

This time the hour will be more civilized, with Beresheet expected to touch down in the northeastern part of the Sea of Serenity, a flat area on the moon’s surface, sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. in Israel. A successful landing will make Israel the fourth country — after the Soviet Union, the U.S. and China — to land a spacecraft on the moon.

Here is the Youtube Live broadcast for the Moon landing. #Beresheet will start the landing process at approximately 22:05 Israeli time (UTC+03:00), which will take around 25 minutes. https://t.co/vnCsVpauAs #IsraelToTheMoon #SpaceIL
— Israel To The Moon (@TeamSpaceIL) April 11, 2019

#Beresheet will start its landing process at around 22:05 Israeli time (UTC+03:00), which is:
04:05 in Tokyo 🇯🇵
05:05 in Sydney 🇦🇺
12:05 in Los Angeles 🇺🇸
14:05 in Mexico City 🇲🇽
15:05 in New York 🇺🇸
16:05 in Rio 🇧🇷
20:05 in London 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
21:05 in Paris 🇫🇷#IsraelToTheMoon #SpaceIL
— Israel To The Moon (@TeamSpaceIL) April 11, 2019

Israel Airports Authority lists moon landing on its timetable

Alongside incoming flights from Istanbul and Madrid, the Israel Airports Authority listed the Beresheet moon landing on its arrival timetable.

The flight carrier is identified as Israel Aerospace Industries and the landing scheduled for 10 p.m., although the landing is actually expected to take place at 10:25 p.m.

Marked as “not final,” Beresheet’s touchdown is expected at Ben Gurion’s Terminal 3, according to the site.

The four-legged spacecraft is expected to land in the Sea of Serenity after 47 days and 6.5 million kilometers of flight, making Israel the fourth country to land a spaceship on the moon.

UC Santa Barbara students defeat BDS - but antisemitism is a real issue there

Early this morning, after an all-night session, the Associated Students of UC Santa Barbara (ASUCSB) defeated a BDS resolution 14-10.

Before the meeting this tweet went out from a BDS supporter:

When people complained she clarified that, no, of course, she didn't mean to physically fight - unlike "Zionists" who love to. She then complained that she felt unsafe.

More troubling was this flyer found near UCSB before the meeting:

There is a clear correlation between anti-Israel activity and antisemitic activity on campuses, and some of the Jewish students at the meeting mentioned the fear they feel.

UC Santa Barbara is the only University of California school whose students did not pass a BDS resolution.

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Amnesty International's press release about AirBnB's decision to not discriminate against Jews in Judea and Samaria is unintentionally hilarious:

Airbnb’s decision to continue to allow accommodation listings in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is a reprehensible and cowardly move that will be another devastating blow for the human rights of Palestinians.

This decision is a deeply shameful abdication of Airbnb’s responsibility as a company to respect international humanitarian and human rights law wherever they operate in the world. This includes Israel’s illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It also exposes the hollowness of their claims to be a company that values human rights.

Airbnb had a clear opportunity to make the right decision to uphold human rights and use their influence to set a precedent in the tourism industry. Instead, they have chosen to bury their heads in the sand - ignoring blatant evidence that they are helping to fuel violations that cause immense suffering to Palestinians.

I want to see an interview of a shopkeeper in Nablus or an artisan in Bethlehem saying how "devastated" they are that a website advertises homes to rent to Jews a few kilometers away.

Looking through Arabic media, this is a non-story, with a couple of sites publishing a Reuters article about it. No one cares. it doesn't affect Palestinians at all.

The only Palestinian I can find complaining about this is perennial kvetcher Saeb Erakat, whose denunciation is reported in Haaretz, not in Arabic, as of this writing.

One would think that if this decision is "devastating," the purported victims would be a little more interested in it.

Palestinians don't care. But Amnesty does.

Amnesty spent considerable time and money creating logos and videos, case studies and maps in its campaign to pressure Airbnb along with Tripadvisor and others companies to stop advertising Jewish-owned tourism destinations in the historic Jewish homeland.

It issued a 96 page report on the issue in January. Most of its campaigns include reports of only two pages.

Palestinians aren't devastated. Amnesty is. (As are the Israel haters who started the campaign in 2016 that Amnesty copied.)

Amnesty spent a great deal of its political capital and its prestige to pressure US companies to discriminate against Jews, and its loss is not only a loss for its campaign but also for its influence as a human rights NGO. It isn't fighting for human rights - it is upset that it wasted so much money and time for nothing.

Needless to say, Amnesty's decision to spend hundreds of man hours attacking Airbnb and Tripadvisor came at the expense of its ability to actually do critical human rights work that can save lives and free political prisoners. Its hate for Israel has perverted its very reason for existence from helping people who are unjustly persecuted into attacking not only Israel but even businesses that work in Israel. It may do great work elsewhere, but its Middle East section is pretty much parroting BDS talking points.

Amnesty's obsession with Israel has nothing to do with human rights - and this episode proves it.

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From YNet:

IDF Col. Ala Abu Rukon has been named as the new military secretary to President Reuven Rivlin, his office said Thursday.

Abu Rukon will be promoted to the rank of brigadier-general with the appointment, Rivlin's office said. The decision was made by Rivlin, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is defense minister as well as prime minister, and IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi.

The 47-year-old officer, from the Druze town of Isfiya, currently serves as the IDF military attache to China. He has been a member of the armed forces for 25 years, and has held positions in the Paratroops Brigade and the Intelligence Branch.

Rivlin congratulated Abu Rukon on his appointment, calling him "an impressive and professional addition to (my) team of advisers."

I couldn't find a photo of Ala Abu Rukon, but he isn't the first Druze - or even the first Abu Rukon! - to reach heights in the IDF.

Last year Major General Kamil Abu Rukon was appointed as the new head of the IDF's COGAT.

It is ironic that this happens the day after Netanyahu is elected to a new term as prime minister - to lots of stories about how he is a racist.

And doubly ironic that this happens during "Israeli Apartheid Week" month.

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04/10 Links Pt2: There is no left left in Israel; Saudi Journalist: 'Allah Commanded Us To Love And Respect' The Jews; 'Antisemitism In The Arab World Is The Product Of Loathsome Racist Education'

From Ian:

There is no left left in Israel

That leaves Netanyahu very well placed to form a government quite similar to the solidly right-wing one that has been ruling the country since 2015, albeit with one significant change: Likud's share of the vote looks to have increased from 23.4 percent to a little under 30 percent (with seats in the Knesset expanding from 30 to something around 35 out of 120). And he did it while running for re-election under threat of indictment — by warning ominously that if Likud lost, the left would take over Israel.

The left will be doing no such thing in Israel anytime soon. But the fear that it could, and the conviction that this would be disastrous for the country, is a very powerful force in Israeli politics these days, just as the American right hopes it will become in the United States.

Which is another way of saying that what American political scientists call negative partisanship has been extraordinarily effective for the Israeli right. It has done nothing for the Israeli left because, in an electoral sense, there is no Israeli left. It exists now primarily in the minds of the right — as an existential threat, a sort of suicidal impulse toward surrender to Israel's many blood-thirsty enemies that must be resisted at all costs.

Gantz may have campaigned as the anti-Netanyahu, but his disagreements mostly focused on the corruption investigation and domestic issues. On the Palestinian question and Israel's relations with its neighbors, the former commander of the formidable Israeli military came down quite close to Bibi's positions, and he maintains close ties to sharply hawkish members of the Knesset. This would not change if his alliance ends up forming a government, because any governing coalition would need to include at least some of the same right-wing parties that have been Likud's partners for the past four years. And that's assuming Blue and White doesn't join together with Likud itself to form a national unity government.

No matter what happens in the coming days and weeks, the right in Israel holds most of the cards, the center is its only opposition and viable alternative, and the left is well and truly dead. (h/t jzaik)

MEMRI: Saudi Journalist: 'Allah Commanded Us To Love And Respect' The Jews; 'Antisemitism In The Arab World Is The Product Of Loathsome Racist Education'

In his March 3, 2019 column in the leading London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Saudi journalist and businessman Hussein Shobakshi condemned the deeply rooted hatred of Jews in Islamic culture, in which the term "Jew" is strongly derogatory. Shobakshi mused on why the Muslims do not differentiate between the Israeli Zionists and the Jews in general, even though Allah had instructed the Muslims to love and respect Jews and Christians, and even though the Prophet Muhammad himself had married a Jewess, made pacts with Jews, and maintained relations with them. He called on the Muslims to first achieve peace amongst themselves and with those around them, and to recognize that they have profound antisemitic hatred and racism, and that they are capable nevertheless of carrying out Allah's commandment and respect the Jews.

The following are translated excerpts of Shobakshi's column:
"When the extremists in the political Islam organizations want to carry out character assassination against a leader in the Arab world, they are accustomed to reiterating over and over that 'his mother was a Jewess' or that 'he has Jewish roots.' Often, the supporters of this or that leader respond to this by saying of the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood that 'his mother was a Jewess.'[1] This has made me wonder about the scope of the hatred for Jews in our culture, and about our inability to distinguish between the Jews as People of the Book – whom Allah commanded us to love and respect and permitted us to trade with them, eat their foods, and marry them – and the Israeli Zionist political project that has instilled [in us] schizophrenia [in our attitude towards the Jews] from which we have not yet awakened.

"The intensity of the Jew-hatred disseminated by the media and by art, literature, and political cartoons [in the Arab world] has reached a degree that cannot be ignored. No one, of course, is arguing that the Jewish and Israeli arena itself is free of a culture of hatred within it. In the extremist religious Jewish schools, there is [also] the same takfir [i.e. accusing others of heresy, as there is among Muslims] and differentiation between the [Jewish] people and the 'gentiles,' who are worthless and may be robbed and killed. From these schools emerged the well-known extremist terrorists Meir Kahana and Baruch Goldstein.

"However, antisemitism in the Arab world is the product of loathsome, racist education that is rooted in the Arab mentality that is used to labeling people according to tribal, family, and racial affiliation, and according to the religious school to which they belong. It is this education that prompted thousands of Jews who were citizens of Arab countries to emigrate after the establishment of the State of Israel… (this is the same mentality faced by Christians of the Arab Orient and by all other religious [non-Muslim] streams in the region).

“Annexation” is a word I’ve fought against for years. Especially as applied to Judea and Samaria. You annex land that doesn’t belong to you. If it belongs to you, on the other hand, you exercise your sovereignty and say, “This is ours.”

Getting this message across has been difficult. People find it easier to speak of annexation. Fewer syllables or something. They don’t realize the import of what they’re suggesting when they use the “a” word. If I call them on it, they tell me I’m quibbling, that it’s just semantics.

That is why I was beyond ecstatic when Netanyahu, in an interview with Army Radio on Saturday night, clarified that he was not speaking of annexation. “I did not say I would annex the West Bank,” said Netanyahu, “I said I would apply Israeli law to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.”

In a later television interview (Hebrew only), the Prime Minister did one better, using the word "sovereignty."

It is true he was saying these things on the eve of an election, so such declarations could be seen in that light, as so much campaign smoke. On the other hand, this is the first time a sitting prime minister, or anyone in a position of authority in an Israeli government referred to exercising sovereignty in the territories. It was the first time a sitting prime minister declared that there is no need to annex Judea and Samaria, because they are already ours. The same prime minister who commissioned the Edmond Levy Report was at last utilizing that report, a report which found that Israel has a legal right to the territories that are Judea and Samaria.

Just as the Bar Ilan speech has come back to haunt Bibi, so too, this declaration, sets a precedent. But unlike Bibi’s declared backing of the two-state solution, which could lead only to concessions and bloodshed, the thought of exercising our sovereignty over our native territory fills us with joy. Sovereignty brings a new note into the conversation about Judea and Samaria, a topic that has grown in importance, as Jews have begun to tiptoe into new waters, experimenting with the word “indigenous.”

Indeed, we are the indigenous people of the territory. Jews are named for Judea.

From a legal standpoint, the territory returned to us during a defensive war, after Jordan illegally occupied the territory from 1948-1967. It breaches no article of the Geneva Convention for Jews to voluntarily come and build homes in their ancient indigenous territory. It is not Israel who occupied this territory. It was all the foreign aggressors who did so for centuries: they occupied Jewish territory—territory that was Jewish before Mohammed was a gleam in his mama’s eye.

I am not Bibi’s biggest fan. But I am encouraged that he said these things, even now, on the eve of an election. I am pleased that he emphasized application of Jewish law over Judea and Samaria, and clarified that he did not speak of annexing some made up place called the West Bank (that doesn’t seem to lie on the banks of a river, in any case). We know of Bibi’s excellent relationship with Donald Trump, who is getting ready to unveil his deal of the century. Trump just recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Presumably, Trump will also recognize Israel’s sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, once we end the state of martial law. Otherwise Netanyahu would not have made this bold public declaration now, at this time.

All these many months, pundits have worried about Trump’s plan, putting forward this rumor and that regarding the unknown contents of that plan. There has been so much scaremongering on that score. Now it seems that the plan includes recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.

That would be an amazing thing. Even more amazing than moving the embassy. More amazing than recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, in my opinion, which only made sense for the U.S., what with Iran in control in Syria. In recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, Trump would be recognizing Israel as the sovereign power she is, sovereign over her people’s indigenous territory. This would be addressing the longest-running historic wrong of all: giving the Jewish people back their territory once and for all, after all the centuries of thievery and oppression and leaving the Jews to run things as they wish—in peace—for all its citizens.

I write this column as Israelis are going to the polls to vote. I am confident that Benyamin Netanyahu will be the one forming the next coalition and will remain in power as Israel’s prime minister. I look forward to the coming months with great anticipation, to see how it all unfolds.

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Area Wife Can't Decide At Which Gentile-Blood Restaurant She Wants To Eat (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Jerusalem, April 10 - The expanding selection of top-flight culinary establishments in Israel's capital city poses a quandary for a local homemaker, who is experiencing trouble choosing from among the numerous such places that specialize in the use of the blood from murdered non-Jews.

Faygie Tannenbaum, 35, looks forward each year to week or two leading up to Passover, a time when the in-between status of the kitchen and dining room means fewer home-cooked meals and more eating out. Over the last several years the number of high-quality of Jerusalem gentile-blood eateries has skyrocketed, a fact that should make Ms. Tannenbaum excited, but leaves her with a sense of confusion.

"This isn't your grandmother's pre-Pesach routine," she remarked, perusing several pages of advertisements in her community's kosher restaurant guide. "Twenty years ago if you wanted to sample this year's harvest of goy-blood foods you were essentially limited to falafel, shawarma, grill places, and lousy pizza. But somehow in the last couple of decades the fare has improved, and now we have our pick of goy-blood steakhouses, goy-blood trattorias, goy-blood cafes with extensive food menus, even goy-blood sushi and Indian cuisine. I can never decide what I'm in the mood to eat. Goy-blood entrecôte? Goy-blood calzones? Or maybe just a simple burger in goy-blood sauce? It drives my husband crazy."

"She gets like this every year when we have to eat out," lamented her husband Dov. "It's not just that it's hard to eat so many meals in the house during Pesach preparations and cleaning; it's also that this time of year is when the surplus goy blood is released onto the market for general culinary use, now that the bulk of matza production is more or less complete. The rest of the year we don't go out much - not because we don't like non-goy-blood food, but because it's a drain on the wallet. I make a living, but we can't always splurge like this. The sudden large-scale availability of the blood drives prices down and the food becomes more affordable. With six kids and a seventh on the way, we have to spend judiciously, even when circumstances all but force us to eat out."

Tradition dictates the use of blood from a murdered Christian child, but in recent decades Palestinian children of all varieties have all but taken their place, owing to plentiful supply.

Dov favors a new wings joint in the hipster-oriented Mahane Yehuda market at night, and if it were up to him, he'd go there all the time. "I'm not like that, though," conceded Faygie. "Don't get me wrong, their young-goyish-child-blood sauce is to die for, but I need some variety. My mood changes. And Baruch Hashem, Dov is so accommodating."

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04/10 Links Pt1: Airbnb rescinds ban on Jewish settlement home listings in “West Bank”; Trump: Netanyahu win a 'good sign for peace'; poll finds Palestinians deeply distrust their leaders

From Ian:

Airbnb rescinds ban on Jewish settlement home listings in “West Bank”

We previously covered the policy implemented by Airbnb last November to ban listings from Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”).

That amounted to a de facto Jewish boycott because Jews are forbidden under Palestinian Authority law and practice from buying homes outside the settlements, and Palestinians could be killed for selling or renting to a Jew.

That policy arguably violated U.S. law as applied to Americans who wanted to list their West Bank properties as well as Israeli law.

One of the federal lawsuits, pending in the District of Delaware, has been settled, and Airbnb agreed to rescind the policy. Shurat HaDin Law Center released this statement:

Dear Friends,

We just scored a tremendous victory in the lawsuit we launched against Airbnb! The online hosting platform has agreed to completely retract its policy of delisting Jewish homes in Judea & Samaria. This is an important and precedential decision in the battle against the racist BDS movement.

Over the past few weeks we have been negotiating a settlement agreement with the hospitality giant Airbnb to rescind its discriminatory policy redlining Jewish-owned properties in the Judea and Samaria region. That policy, announced in November 2018, had banned Jewish property owners in Judea and Samaria from listing properties on Airbnb, while allowing Muslim and Christian property owners to list properties in the same area. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Airbnb has agreed to repeal the discriminatory policy, thereby resolving the discrimination lawsuit.

The plaintiffs, a group of twelve Jewish American families had filed a civil rights lawsuit against Airbnb in the United States Federal District Court for the District of Delaware. The lawsuit was captionedSliber, et al. v. Airbnb, 1:18-cv-01884-RGA. The lawsuit was brought in Delaware because Airbnb is incorporated in Delaware. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that the policy of the San Francisco-based internet hospitality company discriminated against them based upon their religion.

ADL, Simon Wiesenthal Center applaud Airbnb decision not to delist W. Bank

Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, have applauded Airbnb's decision not to delist properties within the West Bank.

“The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which denounced Airbnb’s initial decision to drop Jewish homeowners living on the West Bank as antisemitic, is pleased that the company has rescinded its ill-conceived political move,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the SWC associate dean and director of Global Social Action. “Airbnb can now return to its mandate of bringing people of all backgrounds together around the world, whatever their nationality, race, or religion.”

"We appreciate that Airbnb and Brian Chesky listened to us and the wider community, and course-corrected on how they implement their listing policy," said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League. "We also welcome their clear rejection of BDS and embrace of the Israeli market."

Airbnb announced on Tuesday that it would rescind its decision to remove ads of Jewish homeowners in Judea and Samaria following a settlement of a Shurat Hadin lawsuit.

The rental giant had said in November 2018 that it would ban Jewish property owners living in the West Bank from advertising on its site following objections from groups seeking to boycott Israel.

Melanie Phillips: Our crazy world Golan, Brexit, Labour antisemitism

We talk about my recent article for the Jewish News Syndicate on the common factor between President Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and the Brexit issue. What’s the connection between these obviously divergent issues? Simply this: that the uproar over the recognition of the Golan annexation is rooted in the false belief that the Arab war against Israel is an argument over land boundaries and that Israel has no right to overstep these.

But it isn’t; it’s a war of extermination against Israel. Wars of extermination are not negotiable; any compromise is an act of surrender. Moreover, as the victim of Syrian aggression Israel is well within its legal rights under international law to retain the Golan heights for the forseeable future in order to defend itself.

We also talk about the latest in Britain’s agonising Brexit trauma, as well as the Sunday Times splash on the shocking extent of Labour antisemitism and evidence that the party leadership is actively interfering to stop the disciplining of Jew-hating members.

What, exactly, is the downside of designating Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization?

Lots of people are criticizing President Trump's declaration of Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group, but the initial reasons given for such criticism are all over the place.

Which means that the reflexive reactions are more based on being anti-Trump than any sort of sober analysis.

Here are the reasons being given so far, besides Tulsi Gabbard's nonsensical claim that it will lead to World War III.

CNN has an op-ed that says:

Inside Iran, it is difficult to avoid doing business with the IRGC, IRGC-controlled or IRGC-linked entities. The White House's Monday statement says that, "If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism." Does this apply to a produce vendor who rents his stall from an IRGC-linked bonyad (a cross between a charitable foundation and a private equity fund)? What about the vendors' customers, who might be Iranian locals or foreign tourists? Are all visitors to Iran now responsible for determining the precise ownership of every hotel, restaurant and store that they patronize?

Difficulty to enforce all aspects of the designation is not really a reason not to do it. And if it is only enforced selectively, I don't think anyone will complain that the US is breaking its own laws.

The author also tries to use a gotcha argument:

And if the Trump administration thinks that it is easy to avoid dealing with the IRGC, I'd suggest it ask the Trump Organization, which, according to the New Yorker, worked with an IRGC-linked family on a building in Azerbaijan. The building suffered major damage in an April 2018 fire, and the story was quickly overtaken by the myriad other Trump administration controversies.
Maybe now the House of Representatives can, in the spirit of Monday's designation, investigate American firms that may knowingly have done business with the IRGC -- starting with the Trump Organization.

OK, go ahead! If anything this should make Trump's critics more supportive of the designation!

Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post adds some more comments from critics of the designation. From Michael Rubin:

The problem for Washington and those who value freedom and liberty in Iran is that if Iran is ever going to change, it is going to be essential to fracture the IRGC. That requires identifying its weak points and internal disputes and exacerbating them. There can be no informal reform so long as the IRGC remains intact as a Praetorian Guard for the supreme leader, nor will the regime collapse so long as the IRGC remains in power. ...

Designating the IRGC may satiate a segment of the American audience for whom hatred of the Islamic Republic of Iran runs paramount, but it will be counterproductive if it, first, allows the IRGC to consolidate itself and, second, substitutes for the far more difficult problem of fracturing the organization and encouraging defections from within its ranks.

Since Rubin admits that the US has failed at fracturing the IRGC up until now, what evidence does he have that this designation will make it more difficult, rather than easier, to accomplish that?

Singh argues in a similar vein, “The real questions to which the FTO designation gives rise are twofold: first, how will it be applied to what is essentially a state military with hundreds of thousands of members and millions of veterans?” He observes that the second issue is akin to the Obama administration’s unfulfilled declaration that “Assad must go” regarding Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. The administration “having framed the designation as an unprecedented step, the U.S. must show that it will appreciably add to the pressure on Iran, or the political impact may be the opposite of what was intended.”

Psychologically, it already has added pressure to Iran. It will allow the US to increase financial pressure, and the existing pressure is already hurting the Iranian economy and slowing down their support for terror groups. What is the downside?

Veteran Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross says: “It is a symbolic move. Practically, it does not add to the designations by Treasury of the IRGC and its front companies.” He explains, “Given how embedded the IRGC is in the Iranian economy, the risk of being subjected to US sanctions because of the Treasury designations was already very high. And, as we have seen, this already had chilling effect on international companies that might have sought to do business in Iran.”

And that is a bad thing because....?

The main arguments seem to be "we don't know what this means."

But even the critics agree that the designation is accurate; The WaPo article spells it out:

There is little doubt about the accuracy of the designation. Michael Singh of the Washington Institute tweeted: “I’ve sat through many interagency debates on whether to designate the IRGC as a [Foreign Terrorist Organization]. What was never on dispute: the IRGC is a prolific and ruthless supporter and perpetrator of terrorism.”

Michael Rubin (no relation) of the American Enterprise Institute agrees that “there’s the simple fact that the IRGC is responsible for the deaths of more than 600 Americans in Iraq, and the maiming of many times more. If the IRGC were a formal and declared combatant in Iraq, that might be one thing, but Iranian leaders with American diplomats and agreed to keep the IRGC out of Iraq. They violated that agreement by waging combat while not in uniform and while shielded by civilians.”

If everyone agrees that the IRGC indeed supports terrorism, what is wrong with saying so out loud?

If Obama would have done this, all of these supposed criticisms would evaporate (to be replaced no doubt with similar ones from the other side of the aisle.) Which shows that the real reason there is opposition to this is because of Trump, and nothing else.

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Ilhan Omar has made it on the cover of Newsweek, in an article that effectively praises her for opening up the conversation in the Democratic Party to include anti-Israel and antisemitic comments.

The article says, "The diminutive Omar has emerged as the most voluble—and visible—of Israel’s critics. She appears to embrace the role of a political provocateur, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. Omar articulates a view that is rarely heard from a sitting member of Congress, one that has been forged from her first-hand experiences of war and exile."

Notice that her being a Muslim is not mentioned as a possible influence on her attitudes towards the Jewish state. Centuries of Islamic antisemitism is, of course, not allowed to be spoken of. Her hate of Israel and her antisemitic dog whistles are depicted as being honest and somehow a result of her experience in - Somalia.

The article goes on to feature Omar's criticism of AIPAC and then it quotes prominent AIPAC critic MJ Rosenberg for proof that she is right. It doesn't mention how small the pro-Israel lobby is in comparison with much larger domestic lobbies or even compared to the amount spent by foreign governments on lobbying the US. It only briefly mentions that Americans have other reasons to be pro-Israel outside of Washington politics.

Finally, Newsweek chooses pictures of Omar looking like a friendly fashion model, but a photo of Netanyahu is chosen when he is practically scowling.

Israel has indeed emerged as a partisan issue, and this is not good. Republicans are just as guilty as Democrats in causing this situation. But the Democratic criticisms of Israel are often based on myths about Israeli "brutality" and the party is pandering to the most extreme socialist wing of the party whose lies about Israel come from a long line of Soviet talking points since the 1960s.

However, this article is only peripherally about partisanship on Israel. Ilhan Omar made comments that antisemites and white supremacists recognize as part of their own thinking, and she is being honored specifically for those comments with her smiling face on what may still be a major news magazine - raising her national profile in a huge way. Any other politician who would have done anything close to that speaking about any other minority would be roundly vilified without any caveats; Omar is being rewarded specifically because of her offensive comments.

That is immoral journalism.

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