Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

06/26 Links Pt1: Dershowitz: How Does Turning Down a $50 Billion Economic Plan Help the Palestinians?; Bahrain FM: Israel is here to stay, and we want peace with it

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: How Does Turning Down a $50 Billion Economic Plan Help the Palestinians?

Neither the Palestinian Authority nor the Hamas tyranny over the Gaza Strip are functioning democracies with structures that assure that the opinions of their citizens will be taken into account. But neither could those leaders totally ignore “the street” — Palestinian public opinion. The problem is that the street will not even know what their leaders are denying them unless they become aware of the contents of the U.S. economic plan.

There is no free, independent media on the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Residents can tune into Israeli or international media but they have been taught not to trust either. So it is uncertain whether the Palestinian street will know what their leaders are depriving them of by not engaging with the U.S. and its beneficial economic proposals. It is certainly possible that Palestinian leaders will once again miss an opportunity to help their people and that their people will be misinformed about that missed opportunity.

This may be the Palestinians’ last chance for a peaceful resolution of the long conflict with Israel that has caused so much misery and so many deaths on both sides. When then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat turned down the offer of a two-state solution from President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. called Arafat’s decision a “crime” against the Palestinian people. Will Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas commit yet another crime against his people by refusing even to listen or negotiate?

If he were to agree to negotiate in earnest about the proposed peace plan — the geopolitical elements of which will be rolled out toward the end of this year — there is a significant likelihood that the end result of mutual, painful compromises may be a Palestinian state. If he persists in his refusal to negotiate, he and his people will have no one but themselves to blame for the persistence of an untenable status quo.

The U.S. has presented the first phase of its plan. It’s an excellent, fair start. The ball is now in the Palestinian court. They should reconsider their knee-jerk rejection and begin negotiations that may be the only road to statehood.

Bahrain FM to Times of Israel: Israel is here to stay, and we want peace with it

Bahrain sees the US-led economic workshop taking place in Manama this week as a possible “gamechanger” tantamount in its scope to the 1978 Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, the Gulf state’s foreign minister said Wednesday, also firmly backing Israel’s right to exist.

“We see it as very, very important,” Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa told The Times of Israel on the sidelines of the “Peace to Prosperity” workshop.

Khalifa also stressed that his country recognizes Israel’s right to exist, knows that it is “there to stay,” and wants peace with it.

He said the US-organized conference here, which is focused on the economic aspects of the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, could be like Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977, which helped pave the way to the Camp David Accords and the normalizing of relations between Egypt and Israel.

“As much as Camp David 1 was a major gamechanger, after the visit of President Sadat — if this succeeds, and we build on it, and it attracts attention and momentum, this would be the second gamechanger,” Khalifa said.

In an interview in his suite at Manama’s posh Four Seasons hotel, Khalifa did not commit to normalizing diplomatic ties with Israel in the near future, but unequivocally affirmed Israel’s right to exist as a state with secure borders.

“Israel is a country in the region… and it’s there to stay, of course,” he said.

“Who did we offer peace to [with] the [Arab] Peace Initiative? We offered it to a state named the State of Israel, in the region. We did not offer it to some faraway island or some faraway country,” Khalifa continued, referring to a Saudi-backed peace framework.

“We offered it to Israel. So we do believe that Israel is a country to stay, and we want better relations with it, and we want peace with it.”

Palestinians: Never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity

Leaders from several Arab nations will gather in Bahrain this week to discuss a 50 billion dollar relief plan and a possible path to peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The economic incentive program for building a future Palestinian state will be discussed at the “Peace to Prosperity” conference, co-hosted by the U.S. government and Bahrain. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco are participating. The Palestinians are boycotting the conference- Israeli government officials were not invited, but a business delegation from Israel will attend.

Under the plan, donor nations and investors would contribute about $50 billion over 10 years, with $28 billion going to the Palestinian territories. States that have absorbed Palestinian refugees int he past will also receive a significant amount of funding. $7.5 billion will be earmarked to Jordan, with $9 billion going to Egypt and $6 billion going to Lebanon.

Among 179 proposed infrastructure and business projects is a $5 billion transport corridor to connect the West Bank and Gaza. The proposed plan will facilitate billions of dollars of investment in Palestinian electricity, water, and telecommunications in an effort to create efficient transmission and distribution networks. Tourism, health care and cultural institutions will also be funded.

The Palestinian Authority is boycotting the conference, although 15 private Palestinian business leaders were expected to attend. President Mahmoud Abbas said focusing on economic issues “is unacceptable before the political situation is discussed.”

Comprehensive peace proposals have been presented to Palestinian leadership many times times in the past, and have all been rejected.

Once again, we have more evidence that "peace" to Palestinians does not mean what the West thinks it means.

It sounds cynical, but an impartial look at how Palestinians have responded to every peace plan or economic opportunity shows a single consistent pattern:

If it brings Israel closer to being destroyed, they are all for it. If it doesn't, they are opposed.

This is why there are "refugee" camps under Palestinian control. Tweeter Imshin links to an important article by Eldad Beck, who wrote in 2017:

There was another area in which I tried to promote initiatives: improving the living conditions of the residents of the refugee camps. The Palestinian Authority opposed such projects completely. Senior PA officials made it clear to us: "The refugee camps are a political issue, and they will remain in their present situation until a solution is found to the refugee question, that is, their return to their homes."

This is why Palestinian leaders have resisted every peace plan that would end the conflict.

This is why Palestinian leaders consciously choose to keep their own people in misery, because to them their people are only pawns to have their outrage directed at Israel.

Arafat formulated the "phased plan" for Israel's destruction in the 1970s and Abbas is slavishly following it, too frightened or too indoctrinated to change it to actually help his people.

The Bahrain workshop, which places no demands on Palestinians, is an object lesson in how the "phased plan" is still being implemented.

A telling detail from Haaretz' coverage:

In the end, the Palestinians were there too. About 15 Palestinians attended, including Ashraf Jabari from Hebron, the only Palestinian scheduled to speak at the conference. They told Haaretz that they came from all parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem, and Jabari may be representing them as a speaker, but they support the conference, too. At one point, the former IDF Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, reserve general Yoav Mordechai, sat with them on the sofas in the hotel lobby. Mordechai attended the conference as a private businessman. Haaretz also saw other Palestinians at the event who were not part of Jabari’s group – but they asked to remain anonymous.

The Palestinian Authority, if they cared about their own people, would have said "we are against the conference but you can attend if you want." Instead, they pressured Palestinian businesspeople not to attend - with implicit threats - so the ones who showed up must remain nameless.

Is this how national leaders who want to build a state act?

Israelis want good relations with the Arab world, including the Palestinians. The PA, though, forbids any ties and even threatens people who want to shop in Jewish-owned supermarkets in the territories.

The Arab world has woken up to the reality of the trash fire that is the Palestinian leadership. They understand the honor/shame dynamic that leads the Palestinians down the path of self-destruction, and they have failed in trying to convince them that they are only hurting their own people. That's why they have largely given up.

On the other hand, the Europeans and liberal Americans still cannot accept the breathtaking cynicism that the Palestinian leaders have shown again and again. The thought process is so utterly foreign to them that they can't accept it as even being possible. Of course Palestinian leaders want what is best for their people! Of course they want a state! How can anyone even conceive otherwise?

This is why the only real support for Palestinian political leaders nowadays comes from the liberal West - not from the Arab world. The liberal worldview is that everyone thinks the same as they do, and counter-evidence is glossed over and ignored.

Look at Bahrain with clear eyes and you can see that the Palestinian leadership is not interested in peace, nor in a state, nor in helping their own people. They only have one overarching political goal in mind - to destroy Israel, one step at a time.

An economically prosperous Palestinian entity is good for Israel and therefore it must be fought.

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UNRWA held a fundraising conference in New York on Tuesday, raising $113 million to keep the utterly worthless agency going for another few months before the next fundraiser.

23 nations pledged to help bail out UNRWA this time:

The following delegations confirmed 2019 pledges in the following amounts: European Union (€21 million); Turkey ($10 million); Philippines ($10,000); India ($5 million); Sweden ($5 million); France (€20 million); Germany (€29 million); New Zealand ($1 million); Belgium (€11.6 million total for 2019); Estonia (€280,000); Ireland ($22 million); Norway ($2 million in addition to $26.4 million already paid); Indonesia ($200,000 in addition to the $1 million already paid); United Kingdom ($24 million for a total of $83 million for 2019‑2020); Switzerland ($1 million to the $21 million already paid in 2019); Kazakhstan ($50,000); Pakistan ($250,000); Cyprus (€100,000) and the Holy See ($40,000).

The following delegations indicated pledges pending approval: Austria (€1.95 million to a UNRWA health programme), Mexico, Malaysia and Italy.

Not a single Arab state contributed a dime (although Qatar pledged $16 million for 2019-20 the last time this was done.)

Instead, the Arab nations paid lip service to helping Palestinians via UNRWA:

Further support for UNRWA was expressed by representatives of Jordan, Lebanon, Republic of Korea, Egypt, Algeria, China, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Tunisia and Iraq with no specific pledges announced.

Once again, the rich Arab nations are far less interested in wasting their money on their fellow Arab Palestinians than the West is.

Trump's decision to cut UNRWA aid was not regressive - it was ahead of its time. UNRWA is a poor investment if one is interested in actually solving the Palestinian issue. Their fellow Arabs know this very well. The EU is too blind to see.

UNRWA's budget is $1.2 billion a year, so while this $113 million makes a dent, asking for that amount of money ten times a year will turn old quick. One day, not too distant, citizens of Ireland and Switzerland and Norway will ask their government why paying for medical and educational and housing services for nearly 2 million Jordanian citizens, and even more residents of "Palestine" who cannot be considered refugees under any definition, makes sense.

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Palestinian prime minister gaslights the world on PBS

Let's examine what Mohammed Shtayyeh, the new prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, says to Christiane Amanpour on PBS:

Amanpour: Why would you boycott an event that is designed simply to explore, remember it's called a workshop, the opportunity to give billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars, $50 billion to your people and the Palestinian Authority?

Shtayyeh: The figures are so exaggerated to the extent that we don't believe it, first.

Is that a reason to boycott?

Secondly, this economic workshop is totally diverse from any dimension. Economic problem in Palestine has nothing to do with the economic policy of anybody. The economic problem here, the crisis is the Israeli measures that are forced on us and the financial war that has been declared by the American administration on the Palestinian people, on the United Nations association for the Palestinian refugees. so the issue is not an economic issue.

The Palestinians are hoping for sovereign state. The issue is not economic.
We have seen this before.
Secretary Shultz was here in 1983. He came to say solving the problem has to do with improving the living conditions of the Palestinians.
This didn't materialize.

I can't find a record of that statement by Shultz, but Israel tried hard to improve the living conditions of Palestinians in 1983, by offering them essentially free housing in exchange for leaving the UNRWA camps.

After a number of Palestinians took Israel up on that offer, the Palestinian leaders hut down the program and even got a series of UN resolutions to stop Israel from moving Palestinians from decrepit camps into permanent housing. (UN A/38/PV.98 15 Dec. 1983)

If there was no progress towards improving living conditions for Palestinians in 1983, it is because the Palestinian leadership actively fought against it! Some reports say they threatened anyone who took Israel up on the offer.

Later, in 1988. Shultz tried again to jump start a Middle East peace process - and the Palestinians boycotted speaking to him.

Shultz`s efforts suffered a setback Friday when a group of prominent Palestinians stayed away from a scheduled meeting with him.
Shultz, in a gesture to the Palestinians, traveled to the American Colony Hotel in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem in the hope that they would ignore orders by the Palestine Liberation Organization not to attend the meeting.
When the Palestinians failed to appear, Shultz read a four-page ''statement to Palestinians'' in front of television cameras.

Now they are pretending that any lack of progress was the US' fault!

Shtayyeh goes on:

Then John Kerry promised the Palestinians $4 billion. This has never materialized.

Kerry proposed a "Bahrain lite" plan in 2013.The person whose task was to implement this economic plan was Tony Blair, representing the Quartet.

Palestinians refused to cooperate with Blair, claiming he was too pro-Israel. He tried hard to improve their economic situation and they didn't want anything to do with him.

Now they are blaming the world for their own intransigence!

Speaking of Kerry, Shtayyeh wrote an op-ed in the New York Times blaming Israel for the failure of Kerry's attempt to find peace. This is a complete lie - the Israelis accepted the US framework for peace and Shtayyeh's team rejected it wholesale. (Of course, the NYT didn't fact check Shtayyeh's op-ed, claiming that Israel didn't do its promised partial freeze on settlement building and releasing prisoners.)

Amanpour: You're basically saying that if I get you right, there's no point having the cart before the horse, that promises and ideas of money and investment will not work outside a political framework?

Shtayyeh: Exactly. You are right. The whole exercise that has been there, what has been presented, it's simply a cut and paste issue [of previous plans.] We have seen it in several documents but the issue is not about fixed issues. This is like a desktop work. This is somebody who is totally divorced from reality.

The only reason any previous economic plan hasn't worked is because people like Shtayyeh have actively sabotaged them. It isn't that the world couldn't have helped improve the Palestinian economy - it is that leaders like Shtayyeh didn't want any economic improvement before they achieved their political ambitions, and to hell with the Palestinian people.

Now they are gaslighting the world by saying that the plans failed because of broken promises by the West.

The new Palestinian Arab prime minister is more of a liar than the last two. It is not surprising; he only has the job because his boss, Mahmoud Abbas, wanted his Fatah party to dominate the cabinet so the dictator dissolved the previous puppet government to forestall any chance of independent thought in the Palestinian Authority.

I'm not a fan of Christiane Amanpour, but she started off the interview with an excellent question - and failed to follow through and catch Shtayyeh on his lies.

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06/25 Links Pt2: Anti-Zionism is antisemitism; AOC Is Dividing Americans And Inciting Anti-Semitism; U.N. commemorates 25th anniversary of the AMIA bombing

From Ian:

Anti-Zionism is antisemitism

Al Jazeera journalist Mehdi Hasan has boasted in a recent Twitter post about having “won” a debate in London hosted by Intelligence Squared.

The debate was about whether or not “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

Journalist Melanie Phillips and politician Einat Wilf spoke for the proposition, while Hasan and historian Ilan Pappé spoke against it.

Since the birth of Israel in 1948, critics have claimed they don’t have a problem with Jews or Judaism, but with Zionism.

By isolating Zionism, they think they’re not being antisemitic and expect that this should automatically legitimize their opposition to the State of Israel.

Worse yet, a substantial minority of actual Jews and Israelis encourage this approach.

Hasan’s debate partner is a case in point. Ilan Pappé is a renowned anti-Zionist Jewish Israeli historian.

There are others. Avi Shlaim, Norman Finkelstein and Shlomo Sand would all share the same views.

Likewise, the unrepresentative minority Jewish movement the Neturei Karta is on a mission to convince the world that Zionism and Judaism are polar opposites, and that Israel doesn’t represent authentic Jewry.

The symbolism of Jews against Zionism leaves some confused, and others convinced that Zionism must be a perversion of Judaism.

This is a false distinction.

Hasan of all people would know that those who bear prejudice toward Muslims often point out their problem isn’t really with Muslims, but, rather, with Islam. By separating the people from the religion, they think they can say whatever they want. The likes of Hasan would declare those to be “Islamophobes” within a heartbeat.

Yet when it comes to Jews, all sorts of imaginary distinctions are put forward to justify antisemitic prejudices. This hypocrisy must end.

NY Governor Cuomo to visit Israel and send a message against antisemitism

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will visit Israel on a solidarity trip on June 26-28, Cuomo announced on Monday.

During an interview on WAMC Northeast Public Radio, the governor highlighted the importance of Israel as a trade partner and anticipated that the agenda of the trip would be packed with economic-oriented meetings in different sectors including drone technology and navigation systems.

Besides, Cuomo stressed how the upcoming trip also represented a response to the rise of antisemitism in the US.

"I'm very close and New Yorkers are very close to Israel. There has been a rash of antisemitism all across this country - the synagogue shootings, etc. We've had it in this state, all across this state, and it's repugnant to what New Yorkers believe and feel," Cuomo said.

"I hope there is a message of solidarity and partnership in my trip to Israel and I hope the Jewish community here is confident in this state's position vis-a-vis Israel," he added.

Cuomo will be accompanied in his trip by Consul General of Israel in New York, Dani Dayan.

"I am very much looking forward to joining Governor Cuomo on this visit to Israel and applaud him for taking this important step in solidarity with the Jewish community," Dayan said in a statement.

"Governor Cuomo sets an example to leaders all over the world who are battling increasing antisemitism in their communities. We cannot ignore the spread of this dangerous disease: We must face it head-on, making it clear once and for all that it will not be tolerated," he added.

Commenting on the upcoming trip, Cuomo said that criticism towards the State of Israel never justifies antisemitism.

U.N. commemorates 25th anniversary of the AMIA bombing

The United Nations held a special session in New York on Monday to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the AMIA Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires.

On July 18, 1994, 85 people were killed and more than 300 injured when a suicide bomber drove a car laden with explosive materials into the AMIA building. It is widely believed that Iran was behind the attack, while the suicide bomber was a member of its proxy, Hezbollah.

AMIA President Ariel Eichbaum said that the 1994 terrorist attack – which is still the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust – left a “toll of destruction and death” and a “wound that has not been able to heal.”

Eichbaum also mentioned the “judicial inquiry” that found the “masterminds of the attack came from the Islamic Republic of Iran,” who to date have “refused to hand over the suspects who have Interpol notices on them to appear before a judge in Argentina.”

Eichbaum made clear that “respect for diversity is threatened by bearers of supremacist and totalitarian ideas,” and that those funding terrorism and such ideals must be held accountable. “Unfortunately, the images of that day have happened again and again, more frequently in different cities and countries around the world,” he said. “The victims of fundamentalist terrorists amount to hundreds, regardless of race, religion or nationality.”

AMIA, Eichbaum concluded, “is an emblem of solidarity,” which translates the “universal values of Judaism into action,” and that while “terrorism tried to destroy it,” we are “still standing strong.”

Anti-Bahrain cartoons

Here are a couple of anti-Bahrain workshop cartoons I saw.

(Proverb:) ~~My Brother and I against My Cousin; My Cousin and I against the Stranger.~~

Me and the stranger against my brother.

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Happy Israelis in Bahrain are "provocative" according to Arab media

Here is an entire story from Hezbollah's Al Manar, mirrored in Arabic media, of how upset Arabs are that Israelis are tweeting photos of themselves in Bahrain, calling happy tourist shots "provocative."

Shortly as they traveled to or arrived in Manama to cover the US-led economic workshop in Bahrain, Israeli journalists started boasting about their presence for the first time in Gulf state.

In provocative tweets, Israeli journalists posted photos of them in Manama as they appeared “Happy” and “excited” for covering the summit which is slated for June 25-26.

As he was heading to Manama, Israeli Channel 13’s senior correspondent Barak Ravid voiced his “excitement” to cover the economic plan of US President Donald Trump’s so-called ‘deal of the century’.

“On my way to Amman en route Manama with the mega producer Shai Shpiegelman. I am travelling around the world to cover events for 13 years but this is most exciting. It’s the 1st time Israeli journalists will be allowed to enter Bahrain. Follow for updates here,” Ravid tweeted late Sunday.

The Israeli journalist’s “excitement” didn’t stop here, he “cheered” on Monday over his presence in Manama by posting a photo of a beer with a statement: “With Lebanese beer in Bahrain. A new Middle East.”

Israeli media outlets have not been granted entry into the tiny Persian Gulf country since the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Ariel Kahana, Israel Hayom’s diplomatic correspondent, also voiced his “pride” for covering the Manama summit.

“Proud and happy to enter #Bahrein as an Israeli journalist with an Israeli passport to cover #BahreinWorkshop. May #peace come. Inshaala @IsraelHayomHeb @IsraelHayomEng,” Kahana tweeted on Monday.

Noa Landau, who writes for Haaretz Israeli daily, posted her photo wearing a scarf and standing near the hotel which will host the workshop in Manama.

Another Israeli journalist also posted his photo. However, he wanted to send a “pro-normalization” message as he appeared in the photo holding the Israeli passport near the Bahraini Society against Normalization with the Zionist Enemy. The photo was circulated by Bahraini activists on social media, but the identity of the journalist was no tmentioned.

Here is the difference between Israelis and so many Arabs. Israelis truly want peace and are happy to visit the countries of their avowed enemies. Arabs get upset when Israelis step foot on Arab land.

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06/25 Links Pt1: There Won’t Be Peace Until the Palestinians Accept Israel; Obama, Syria, and the Left’s Revisionist History; Marking 40 years of peace with Egypt, Rivlin urges pact with Palestinians

From Ian:

There Won’t Be Peace Until the Palestinians Accept Israel

Amnesia and willful ignorance seem to be running amok in today’s political arena, especially when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians — mostly due to the desperation for a peace agreement. And it is in this environment that we were introduced to President Trump’s plan to alleviate the economic hardships facing the Palestinian people.

But the uncomfortable reality of the situation is that the conflict is not about economics. Nor is it about two states. This festering conflict fails to cease because one side absolutely refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the other.

Even before being presented with the US plan, the Palestinians rejected it outright. They did not know any details, nor did they come to the table with any counter-proposals. They simply rejected it, just as they rejected the peace plans presented by former Israeli leaders Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert.

And they will continue to reject any proposal that will end the conflict — because right now, they do not want it to end.

Palestinian politicians are masters of intransigence. The peace proposals of the past would have ensured that they gained statehood on the majority of the land they claim to want as their own.

The Palestinians had an amazing opportunity when Israel withdrew from Gaza. They could have put aside their never-ending animosity, and truly experimented with nation building. True, Gaza may not have become a Singapore or a Hong Kong, but the Palestinians could have tried to build a new world for themselves. Instead, they broke down into civil strife and elected a monstrous terrorist organization to rule over them.

Noah Rothman: Obama, Syria, and the Left’s Revisionist History

Obama closed the speech by asking Congress not to vote on a resolution authorizing the use of force against Assad’s regime. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid postponed a vote indefinitely to the relief of his fellow Senate Democrats. But the crisis was not defused. The Syrian civil war raged, atrocities mounted, ISIS exploded over the border with Iraq, and Obama eventually ordered strikes inside Syrian territory just over a year later. A year after that, he put boots on the ground inside Syria. Obama insisted that this military intervention in a sovereign and adversarial nation was covered by previous congressional authorizations that target stateless terrorists, but that didn’t prevent coalition forces from conducting offensive operations against Assad’s forces. Accidents happen, you see.

Landler’s claim that Obama sought an AUMF against Syria to justify strikes on Iran is betrayed by the administration’s response to Iranian nuclearization in 2009, which was typified by diplomacy, not ultimatums. The same month that Obama backed off his plan to strike Iran’s allies in Syria, he reached out to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani—the first bilateral contact between U.S. and Iranian leaders since 1979. That November, Kerry joined his Iranian counterpart in Geneva to settle on the terms of a precursor agreement to what would become the 2015 nuclear accords.

Unlike Assad, the Iranians “did not cross the red line” according to Landler, which he defines as Sec. Mike Pompeo’s warning to Tehran that it would face retaliation only if American service personnel were harmed. But no one needs to articulate the fact that multiple operations sabotaging commercial shipping in international waters and the direct, claimed attack on an American military asset constitute acts of war. The notion that “Iran’s actions were rooted in” Trump’s decision to partially withdraw from the 2015 nuclear accords suggests that Iran should have put an end to attacks on Americans and their allies when the U.S. was a party to that accord, but they did not.

Landler concedes only that “defenders of Mr. Trump” claim that Obama never truly wanted congressional approval for strikes on Iran but only an excuse not to act. But a judicious review of the administration’s confused messaging and lethargic legislative strategy in the run-up to a strike leave cautious observers with no other conclusion.

Landler’s attempt to rebrand Obama’s legacy on Syria as the product of strategic thinking and gamesmanship derailed only by events beyond his control is unpersuasive. Indeed, these excuses contradict Obama himself, who told The Atlantic’s Jeff Goldberg that he was “very proud” of this mortifying sequence of events. By linking the canceled strike on Syria to Trump’s halted response to Iranian aggression, Landler inadvertently demonstrates how hard it is to defend Obama’s legacy.

Marking 40 years of peace with Egypt, Rivlin urges pact with Palestinians

President Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday hosted Egypt’s envoy to Israel at an event marking 40 years since the peace treaty between the two countries and urged that the pact serve as an inspiration for reaching a similar agreement with the Palestinians.

He also told Egyptian Ambassador to Israel Khaled Azmi that he would like to meet with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

Rivlin and Azmi were joined at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem by Foreign Minister Israel Katz and Regional Cooperation Minister Tzahi Hanegbi, according to a statement from the president.

“The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt was signed only six years after a terrible war between our countries in 1973,” Rivlin said. “We could never have imagined that only a few years later our leaders would hug and shake hands. This should serve as an inspiration for our efforts to achieve peace with all of our neighbors, and especially our Palestinian neighbors.

“When courageous leaders are willing to end their conflict, and set out on a new path based on reconciliation and mutual respect, peace can be achieved more quickly than we can imagine,” he said.

Members of the diplomatic corps also attended the event, among them Israeli ambassadors who previously served in Egypt and officials who played key roles in the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace accord, signed by prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. The pact was brokered by US president Jimmy Carter and formally signed at the White House.

“I want to especially express our appreciation to President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, whose commitment to peace, stability and cooperation has ensured that our relationship stays strong,” Rivlin said.

The Palestinians are so dignified! (Poster)

CodePink's Ariel Elyse Gold, who I am increasingly convinced is as dumb as the butt of stereotypical blonde jokes, tweeted:

Kusher is stupid enough to think the Palestinian people can be bought off for $50 million

Freedom justice and dignity are priceless https://t.co/GHOJhGKYeb
— Ariel Gold🔥☮️ אריאל (@ArielElyseGold) June 24, 2019

Besides misspelling "Kushner" and mixing up "million" and "billion," she seems to have a strange definition of "dignity," which I pointed out in a response and later with a poster:

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Palestinians: "Let's respond to a plan to help our economy by striking, thereby hurting our economy!"

Palestinians are on a general strike today in response to the economic workshop in Bahrain.

The Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and a host of other terror groups all released statements denouncing the workshop, and marches are being organized for today and tomorrow.

Stores are shuttered as people are encouraged to attend rallies opposing the plan. The Gaza fisherman's union instructed its members to stay off the water.

Who exactly are they hurting with the strike? Their own people!

Any business or shop owner who would have opened up today would be subject to attack. So, because the PLO and Hamas want to make their political positions known, they are telling their own people who need incomes to go to hell.

Which is as good a summation of their attitude towards the workshop itself as can be.

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The Bahrain workshop: Its assured "failure" is its success

I believe that the Bahrain economic workshop was designed to "fail." The Palestinians are playing the roles assigned to them by Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt perfectly.

The Trump team is smart, and they know how Palestinian leaders act - far better than the professional diplomats who kept trying to entice them with more and more Israeli concessions, which only made the Palestinians increasingly intransigent.

Kushner and Greenblatt have been spending lots of time speaking with the Gulf leaders, the people who have been the biggest funders of the Palestinians over the decades. They know quite well what most of the professionals have been pretending isn't true: the rich Arab nations have been sick of the Palestinian issue since even before the Arab Spring.

These leaders have seen the Palestinians turn down offer after offer. They've seen them refuse to even talk with Israel. They've seen how they cannot solve the Fatah/Hamas crisis.

The Gulf leaders never intended to be a permanent welfare source for a dysfunctional quasi-state. They want to invest their money, not throw it away. Over the past ten years, maybe more, they have publicly been pretending to fully support the Palestinians - and have privately been reneging on their pledges.

Other Arab states have been burned by the Palestinians as well. Even before the conference, when the Palestinians went on their full court press to get every Arab nation to boycott the conference, Jordanian media close to the king said that there is no harm in attending the workshop and see what could be on the table. Egypt has been trying to mediate between Hamas and Fatah for years, to no avail but much to Egypt's frustration at the terror group on its doorstep.

The professional diplomats only hear the Arab states say how the Palestine issue is the most important one in the region, a mantra that has been meant to cover up the problems each Arab country has at home and sometimes between themselves. The professionals believed it.

Kushner and Greenblatt know better. They have been able to cut through the bull, helped a great deal by the fact that the Gulf states felt so abandoned by the Obama administration's disastrous tilt towards Iran.

If there is one thing that was a sure bet, it is that Mahmoud Abbas would instruct his government to boycott this conference. And this is exactly what was expected.

The conference is meant to make the wedge between the Palestinian leaders and most of the rest of the Arab leaders explicit. Here is a workshop where some $50 billion in aid is being offered, with no strings attached, as a vision of what could be if Palestinians would just accept Israel, stop haggling over issues Israel will never give up on, and actually accept a state.

Palestinian intransigence, the most reliable force in the region, is what can pave the way for Gulf states to finally drop the linkage between the moribund "peace process" and having closer relations with Israel. The Gulf states know that they need to modernize, to diversify from oil, to invest in education and high tech. They know that Israel would love to help them.

Given a choice of who would help them more, Israel or "Palestine," there isn't even a question.

The US invitation for Palestinian officials to come to the workshop was half-hearted at best. If they would come, great, but if they refuse, even better.

The predictable Palestinian refusal to have anything to do with progress is part of the bigger peace plan that the Trump administration is working on - the real peace between Israel and the Arab world.

The world, and the diplomats of the previous era, have been the victims of the tunnel vision that the only important peace is that between Israel and the Palestinian leaders who have shown time and time again that they don't want peace at all. Not only had the "peace process" turned into a religion, but so had the idea that there was a linkage between the Palestinian issue and all the problems of the Middle East. These myths have driven the US, EU and UN's thinking since before Oslo.

Real peace is not based on artificial and arbitrary demands by a spoiled welfare state that believes that the world owes them unconditional funding and support forever. Real peace is based on shared interests. Real peace is one that all of the parties actually want, rather than one where one party uses the word "peace" as a means to politically pressure and destroy the other.

Israel and the Arab states have already had a de facto peace which has been getting better despite the worsening relations Israel has had with the Palestinian leaders. Linkage has been shown to be a myth.

Only when Palestinians understand that the world has changed and that they can no longer rely on automatic, reflexive support from their fellow Arabs can they even start to consider going back to the table with Israel.

These former diplomats, now pundits, still don't get it. They belittle the economic workshop, saying that "oh, we've already tried that before" and "the document looks like a real estate prospectus." They are still stuck in the past, devoted to their old myths, and not understanding that Bahrain is already a success before it even starts.

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06/24 Links Pt2: Poll: Hatred of Israel, Homosexuality and Women’s Emancipation Are Dominant Beliefs in Arab World; A Fake Massacre Serves as Historical Backdrop to a New Palestinian Novel

From Ian:

Hatred of Israel, Homosexuality and Women’s Emancipation Are Dominant Beliefs in Arab World, New BBC Poll Reveals

A clear majority of the Arab world continues to believe that Israel is the main threat in the Middle East and North Africa, a comprehensive BBC poll of 11 Arab countries revealed on Monday.

The poll — which involved interviews with over 25,000 respondents in Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinian territories, Yemen, Iraq, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria — also demonstrated that a strict social conservatism prevailed throughout the region, exemplified by a violent hatred of homosexuality.

Opposition to women holding positions of power and influence, as well as sympathy for the practice of “honor killings” — the execution of female relatives for allegedly shaming their families — remains widespread as well.

The poll, conducted for the British broadcaster by the Arab Barometer research organization, showed that residents of the Palestinian territories were more resistant to liberal democratic values than are their neighbors in several respects.

Only five percent of Palestinian respondents — the lowest number in all the countries surveyed — regarded homosexuality as “acceptable.”

Israel Advocacy Movement: Verified antisemitism on Twitter

Twitter is drowning in antisemitism. We’ve uncovered dozens of VERIFIED accounts posting anti-Jewish racism. This video will shock you, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Follow us on Twitter as we highlight an account a day.

Discrimination ‘unbearable’ in Arab lands

Last Thursday was World Refugee Day. And according to the United Nations page devoted to this commemoration, every minute 20 people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror. I am one of those people, declares Miriam Shepher in this JTA piece. (With thanks: Ralph)

In 1948, when I was 6 months old, my mother risked everything to escape Tunisia with my siblings and me in search of a better life. My father stayed behind until he could meet us years later at our final destination. We crammed into a ship called the Negba and endured a difficult journey to France. We waited for a year until it was our turn, at last, to enter the land that my mother had always considered our home: Eretz Israel.

I am just one of 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran who left, fled or were expelled from the countries where they had lived, in many cases, since the Babylonian period. In the years that followed the independence of the State of Israel, Jews in Arab countries suffered unbearable discrimination and acts of violence that led to their forced expulsion. Jews were forced out of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and later Iran. They left behind their property and belongings, carrying only necessities as they escaped to safety.

Entire Jewish communities were wiped out, and centuries of religious customs, traditions, culture and music vanished from the Middle East and North Africa. Like my family, nearly half of these refugees settled in Israel. Our stories remainlargely untold. Many still do not know of our collective trauma.

A Fake Massacre Serves as Historical Backdrop to a New Palestinian Novel

In the novel Children of the Ghetto: My Name Is Adam—recently published in English translation—Elias Khoury tells the story of a Palestinian who fled the city of Lydda during Israel’s war of independence and takes as its theme the “silence” of members of that generation. The subject of a fawning review in the New York Times, the book employs as its central conceit an exercise in Holocaust inversion (made clear by the title), comparing the plight of the Palestinians to that of the Jewish victims of Nazism. But the supposed massacre perpetrated by the Haganah at Lydda—which had a formative impact of the protagonist of Children of the Ghetto—never happened, as Martin Kramer demonstrated in Mosaic in 2014:

Lydda, along the route from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, was an Arab city of some 20,000, swollen by July [1948] to about twice that size by an influx of refugees from Jaffa and neighboring villages already occupied by Israeli forces. The 5th Infantry Company of the Transjordanian Arab Legion (approximately 125 soldiers) was deployed in the city, supported by many more local irregulars who had been making months-long preparations for battle.

On July 11, . . . the 3rd Battalion of the [Haganah’s] Yiftaḥ brigade moved into southern approaches to the city. . . . By the next day, as Israeli forces were strengthening their hold on the city, two or three armored vehicles of the Arab Legion appeared on the northern edge and began firing in all directions. This encouraged an eruption of sniping and grenade-throwing at Israeli troops from upper stories and rooftops within the town, and from [what was known as] “the small mosque” only a few hundred meters from the armored-vehicle incursion.

Israeli commanders feared a counterattack by the Legion in coordination with the armed irregulars still at large in the city. The order came down to suppress the incipient uprising with withering fire. The Great Mosque and the church, [crammed with male Arab civilians], were unaffected, but Israeli forces struck the small mosque with an antitank missile.

In short, a fierce battle took place, and Israeli troops fired on a mosque that had become an enemy outpost, but, as Kramer goes on to prove, there is no evidence of a massacre.

Dozens of journalists demonstrated Monday morning in Gaza City, condemning the Bahrain conference.

They demonstrated in front of the headquarters of the Red Cross in Gaza, for some reason, to protest what they called the normalization of information about the workshop in Bahrain.

"The demonstration today is to denounce the attempts to normalize the workshop in Bahrain," said leader Ahed Farwana.

The word "normalization" now doesn't only mean to treat Israel and Israelis as human beings, but even to cover stories that somehow can be perceived as benefiting Jews and Israelis!

Farwana called for the boycott of Israel and its media and to criminalize any journalist who participates in the workshop, noting the decisions of the General Union of Arab Journalists, which criminalized normalization with Israel.

When Western media uses Arab stringers, or reports on Gaza news sources, they never mention that the people they are dependent on actually oppose any kind of journalistic standards. To them, politics is more important than truth.

Sadly, too many Western journalists agree with that idea.

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Some bad news hit Oberlin College recently in the form of a $33,000,000 judgement against the school for libel ($11M in compensatory damages, $22M in punitive), a bill that might go higher if the school has to cover the legal fees of the plaintiff.

Legal Insurrection covered (and continues to cover) the Gibson’s Bakery vs. Oberlin case, so I suggest you head over there to get the details of what happened. I bring up the story now not because BDS was specific to events that led to the suit, but because it reminded me that Oberlin might be the third example of the gods punishing bad choices in strange and unexpected ways.

The first example is Evergreen College in Washington State, ground zero in the Northwest for the boycott and divestment “movement.” Evergreen was the school Rachel Corrie attended when she was recruited by activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and taught how to sneak into Israel, find her way into a conflict area, and protest by putting herself in harm’s way.

Her death during one of those protests triggered and then anchored anti-Israel activities at the school and beyond for years. As BDS hardened into dogma on that campus, it became clear that anyone with interest in identifying with or supporting the Jewish state should apply elsewhere, and so campus political life became more homogenized and radical.

In fact, the ability to say and do what they wanted without fear of challenge (much less punishment) turned the students of Evergreen into strange sorts of monsters who have been on a rampage in recent years, attacking professors and administrators who do not accept and embrace ever-enlarging lists of required beliefs and associated demands.

Behavior that once turned off any Jewish student who did not adhere to the BDS party line now seems to have turned off anyone not interested in going to a college where they might get threatened with baseball bats for saying or thinking the wrong thing. Understandably, Evergreen’s enrollment plummeted and budgets were cut to make up for the shortfall. In an era when colleges that can’t make ends meet are closing their doors, it is a very real possibility that Evergreen might one day have to decide whether to continue or close up shop.

One famous school already facing that stark choice is Hampshire College in Massachusetts. BDS-followers will remember Hampshire as the place where modern BDS project got kicked off after the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter created the momentum for campus divestment by claiming the school was the first college to divest from the Jewish state, a hoax the boycotters continue to spread today.

In the case of Hampshire, the school did the right thing by denying that divestment had taken place and chastising the students spreading that lie. But that wise choice did not prevent leaders at the school from allowing SJP to make the lives of Israel-supporting students (mostly Jewish) hell for years afterwards.

One amusing element of the whole Hampshire debate was that the school has always had one of the smallest endowments of any college, meaning there was very little to divest in the first place. But that small endowment became less of a joke once the school hit financial difficulties and had no cushion to fall back on. While the demise of Evergreen is speculative, the end of Hampshire is a very real possibility with the current entering class consists of just fifteen students hoping the school figures out a way to bail itself out of the current crisis, possibly through a merger with another institution.

Again, Hampshire’s current crisis has nothing to do with BDS, although I do wonder if the school might have had more good will to draw upon in seeking a partner to save them had they not earned a reputation for thoughtless radicalism through the “heroic” efforts of SJP years earlier.

Which gets us to Oberlin. Like Evergreen and Hampshire, anti-Israel forces have been in the ascendant at that college for years, driving supporters of the Jewish state underground (or causing them to apply elsewhere) and this success may have emboldened students towards even greater radicalism. All of the pathologies we have seen on college campuses: accusations of systematic bigotry (targeting a school that was at the forefront of abolition and civil rights movements no less) and demands for ever more subservience to the radicals have been turned up to eleven at Oberlin, which may explain how the college ended up looking down the wrong end of a nine-figure legal settlement.

While it is impossible to read minds or Tardis our way into the past to attend meetings where decisions were made, it seems likely that administrators at the school thought the most effective way to diffuse student attacks against them as being bigots was to deflect student fire towards an innocent small business that some students were accusing of racial profiling after an African American undergrad was arrested for shoplifting at the store.

That seems to be the storyline that won over the jury, and while the college continues to insist it did nothing wrong, there seems to be no acceptance that the school has a responsibility to use its voice to prevent students from harming others (in this case, harming a hundred-year-old small business that had to suffer days of protests – participated in by both and at least one college administrator – where the family that owned the store was condemned as racists).

The world is too complex to draw a direct line between tolerating intolerance towards one group (Jewish supporters of Israel) to tolerating intolerance generally, but it certainly makes sense that once you have decided to throw one group to the wolves that the wolves might take that as an open invitation to demand more food.

In the case of Oberlin, the food bit back and it remains to be seen if other places where BDS reigns supreme will suffer similar fates as Evergreen, Hampshire and Oberlin, now that we know even seemingly permanent institutions (including colleges and universities, academic associations, even centuries-old churches) might not last forever.

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