Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 03, 2019

Book Review: Speaking for Israel by @AvivaKlompas

Ron Prosor is Israeli UN ambassador I enjoyed quoting most in this site. I published the full text of several of his speeches. The speeches were witty, and always included some funny jokes or sound bites.

From 2013 through 2015, they were written by his chief speechwriter, Aviva Klompas.

Klompas has now written an account of her time working at Israel's Mission to the UN, entitled Speaking for Israel. It is a fun read, at times funny and at times maddening, as this polite Canadian woman gets thrown into Israeli government insanity, working long hours for little pay but with the satisfaction of knowing that she was helping Israel.

After an interview where she is asked to do an impossible task (write an op-ed about Mali in 30 minutes,) Klompas is hired and hurled into international politics and Israeli bluntness.

Prosor is the star. Personable, funny and charismatic, he also has a very clear idea of what kind of message he wants to give to the UN and journalists. He loves cheesy one-liners and Winston Churchill quotes. But sometimes he wants to show a righteous anger at how ridiculous and unfair a world is that constantly vilifies Israel.

Klompas manages to get inside his head and write what he wants. But she also has to write for visiting ministers (their speeches are supposed to be written in Israel yet somehow they always arrive empty-handed and requiring a speech in an instant). Prosor might want to write an op-ed for the New York Times or Wall Street Journal - and it is Klompas who actually does the writing.

Much like his boss, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ron Prosor loved props for his speeches. During the 2014 Gaza war he was to speak at the UN Security Council, and Klompas suggested he play the sound of the Tzeva Adom sirens that Israelis in the range of Gaza rockets had to hear day and night. Without having a chance to practice, Prosor spoke and Klompas gave her phone, siren blaring, to Prosor at the proper time.

Beyond that, Klompas had even more pressure during UN sessions. Israel has the right to respond to others' speeches, and while before Prosor it rarely exercised that right, he used it liberally. This means that Klompas had to write a response in real time in the UN chambers to be handed to the ambassador.

Not that Prosor couldn't work without her. His extemporaneous speeches were great as well. But he had a lot to do and needed his staff to do work like this. Klompas herself needed lots of help from interns and other staffers, and when things were really crazy during that 2014 war she once reached out to her predecessor to give her a hand.

Klompas describes the all-nighters, the constant pressure, the contradictory demands from different people, and the "advice" from people who were not native English speakers. She talks about Prosor's attempts to help Israel gain an equal footing at the UN as every other nation, something denied to Israel traditionally because of Arab hate. She describes her shock at being expected to just pick up a phone and call the Israeli ambassador to the US on his cell phone for advice on a section of a speech.

One accented person called her, without identifying himself, and asked for a lesson in pronouncing the word "lengths." (After a few minutes, she gave up and told him he got it perfect.)

The book is filled with funny anecdotes like those. But in between those stories and excerpts of speeches, it describes Israel's position on everything, its history with trying to reach peace with the Palestinians, the endemic anti-Israel bias at the UN, and other background information that makes "Speaking for Israel" a nice defense of Israel as well.

(The forward from Alan Dershowitz is a worthless page and a half. It looks like it was written in ten minutes and is more an ego trip for Dershowitz. But his name is just as prominent on the cover as Klompas'. Marketing!)

"Speaking for Israel" does not describe much about Klompas' personal life, and it may have benefited from a bit more opening up - we have no idea how this high pressure position affected her social life or if she had any social life outside the Mission at all. It has little about her upbringing or family. (I had to go to her webpage to find out she is now Associate Vice President of Israel & Global Jewish Citizenship at Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston.)

"Speaking for Israel" is an entertaining and educational book, showing not only what goes on behind the scenes at the Israel Mission to the UN (which I had the privilege of visiting earlier this year) but also how Israel defends itself in the international arena. It also might be a great introduction to showing today's youth how a young person with skills but no prior experience can make a real difference for Israel.

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The Jew who is helping to save hundreds of thousands of Arab lives

In 2014, the Egyptian army announced they had created a revolutionary new device that could detect and cure AIDS, Hepatitis C and other diseases - without touching the patient.

14 million Egyptians have hepatitis C - by far the highest rate in the world - because in the middle of the 20th century Egyptian doctors reused needles use to treat schistosomiasis, inadvertently spreading hepatitis. Thousands of Egyptians die each year as a result. Hep-C can cause liver disease, hepatocellular carcinoma and cirrhosis.

Egyptian and other scientists ridiculed the announcement of the miracle cure by the army. When the date for the public release of the device was pushed off and indefinitely delayed, the media lost interest in the bogus cure.

But quietly, behind the scenes, Egypt did start a huge initiative to help cure the millions who have hepatitis C.

And the country worked with a Jew who was born in Egypt in 1950.

Israel in Arabic tweeted:

This is true. Raymond Schinazi, was born in Egypt to a Jewish family, who fled in 1964 when he was 14. Schinazi was one of the founders of Pharmasset which created the Hep-C drug Sovaldi (sofosbuvir), refined with Gilead Sciences. In 2014, he specifically made it available for Egyptians at a tiny fraction of the price of the drug in the US.

Here's his story:

After this tweet, Arabic-language media are starting to write about him.

Schinazi should be a hero in Egypt the way Jonas Salk was in the middle of the 20th century. But up until now very few Egyptians have heard of him.

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A reporter from Al Quds al Arabi asked Karen Pierce, the British head of the UN Security Council this month, whether she renounces the Balfour Declaration, whose 102nd anniversary was Saturday.

She said, not at all, and that Britain remains proud of its role in creating Israel (despite itself.) She then went on saying that Britain supports a two state solution.

Arab media are upset. Egypt's Youm7 said her statement "provokes Arabs."

Hanan Ashrawi on Saturday demanded not only that Britain apologize for the declaration and to immediately recognize a Palestinian state on the so-called 1967 borders, but that Britain should compensate the Palestinians for their suffering.

The Democratic Reform Movement of Fatah echoed Ashrawi's words, adding that the world must "submit to the principle that there is no peace, security and stability in this region of the world until the restoration of our people's rights, the first of which is the right to independence and the building of its state and its capital Jerusalem."

A handful of bored looking people make a half-hearted protest at the British embassy in Amman, Jordan.

An Egyptian site interviewed a few young people, none of whom had ever heard of the Balfour Declaration, even in university courses.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

11/02 Links: IDF attacks terror targets following rocket barrage from Gaza Strip; Pro-Palestinian student group promotes anti-Semitism at US college conference

From Ian:

Adam Milstein: Pro-Palestinian student group promotes anti-Semitism at US college conference

America has all too readily ignored genocidal anti-Semitism before. We must recognize that the modern campaign has roots in hatred that runs just as deep and bloody as the ideology that fueled support for Nazi Germany.

Before the massacre of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, American universities welcomed leaders from Nazi Germany – even though their horrifying racist ideology was well-known – while setting quotas to severely limit the enrollment of Jewish students.

In the wake of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism was no longer acceptable on American college campuses. The hatred of the Jewish people was suppressed and marginalized for about 70 years.

However, as the memory of the Holocaust fades and slogans such as “Never Again” and “Never Forget” are becoming old clichés, Jew-hatred is coming back on campus in frightening ways.

Today universities are once again lending their platforms and legitimacy to mainstream the new anti-Semitism. The lessons of the past are seemingly forgotten, as elite institutions like Columbia University invite notoriously anti-Semitic world leaders such as Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to address their students, opening their safe spaces to intolerance, prejudice and hate.

The BDS movement and Students for Justice in Palestine are fundamentally anti-American as well as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, because they reject our most cherished values.

SJP should be ostracized on college campus and students should be taught the facts about it and the BDS movement.

Qanta Ahmed: The terrifying reaction to a panel debate on Islamophobia

Not mentioned in the reporting of the recent Policy Exchange event was the hour of repeated statements made by each of the panellists and the moderator, deploring and mourning lethal anti-Muslim xenophobia – the more accurate term to describe discrimination of a Muslim individual for their membership of the Ummah (the Muslim brethren).

Instead, Sayeeda Warsi denigrated the panel as ‘disingenuous’, a ‘panto’, and accused us of ‘shutting down’ Muslims attending the event. No balancing quote was sought by the Guardian from me, nor were Transport minister Nusrat Ghani’s extensive arguments about the defence of pluralist Muslims as well as other minorities targeted by Islamism included in the piece. Baroness Hussein-Ece of the Liberal Democrats also joined the pile-on. Strangely, she even discounted the remarks of the leader of the world’s biggest Muslim organisation from Indonesia.

At great personal risk, I have travelled to witness and lend support to the de-radicalisation of Taliban child soldiers in the former badlands of north west Pakistan. More recently, I have worked with colleagues at the University of Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan to support not only the Yazidi and Muslim and Christian survivors of Isis’s occupation, but also the rehabilitation of Isis child soldiers who were enslaved and indoctrinated. Nowhere have I been labelled as Islamophobic. Unlike in Britain, in these societies Muslims have no problem with describing a jihadist as a jihadist and calling out extremist ideologies.

None of my actions could be considered Islamophobic – quite the opposite. But speaking about the Muslim victims of Islamism and the extremism of some Muslims in today’s Britain is apparently enough for me to be denigrated and demonised as Islamophobic by high-profile Muslims in Britain. From a distance, this looks worrying. Close-up, as I found, it’s terrifying.

I flew a 6,700 mile round trip in 24 hours to make one key fact patently clear to the Conservative party: be under no mistake about what is at risk here. They should see the ‘Islamophobia’ campaign for what it is: what the late Christopher Hitchens referred to as a ‘cultural fatwa’, where all discussion of Islam let alone Islamism becomes off limits, followed by the formal criminalisation of exactly such discourse. The reaction to our panel’s discussion of the subject makes our case. In even considering whether to outlaw so-called ‘Islamophobia’ you only empower Muslims who agree with Baroness Warsi and those like her with a weapon to silence pluralist Muslims like me.

A lost temple – new findings might shatter Biblical archeology paradigm

The historical, religious and mythic importance of Jerusalem is deeply ingrained in Jewish civilization, as well as in Western and Islamic cultures. The holiest site for observant Jews today is the Western Wall, the last remaining segment connected to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

Destroyed by the Babylonians, rebuilt with the blessing of Cyrus the Great of Persia – and burned by the Romans when Titus conquered the Jewish city – it is a powerful site of divine promise, Jewish continuity and the ability to survive hardship. Jesus, the New Testament tells us, chased the money lenders out of the Temple. The prophet of Islam, Muhammad, used a winged horse to visit the Temple before ascending to heaven to converse with Adam and Moses.

The religious importance of the Temple Mount is so great that various answers have been suggested as to how the tensions around it can be resolved. The site, the holiest for the Jewish nation, also includes the Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, which is managed by Jordan – making the zone explosive on both theological and diplomatic fronts.

Under the 1948 UN resolution to recognize a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian one, it was suggested that Jerusalem should be controlled by an international actor, such as the UN itself. Former US president Bill Clinton suggested that Israeli sovereignty over the site might be extended to the inside of the Temple Mount, leaving the Jordanians with managing the top. This is important for many Jews, since archaeological excavations into the mountain are vital to discover the remains of the actual Temple.

King Hussein of Jordan suggested that God alone should be named the power that controls the site; legal expert Prof. Ruth Gavison suggested that Israeli sovereignty over the site should be valid but willingly suspended, meaning that Israel would agree to not fully exert it.

BUT WHAT IF Jerusalem is not the first location the Torah had in mind when it says “the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name” (Deuteronomy 26:2)? What if the first divine site – the one spot on Earth where the divine presence of God manifested itself – was not in Jerusalem, but in the West Bank?

11/01 Links Pt2: Anti-Israel Activists Now See the Holocaust as a Topic Inherently Inimical to Them; Lipstadt: Take anti-Semitism seriously ‘not just when there are dead bodies’

From Ian:

Anti-Israel Activists Now See the Holocaust as a Topic Inherently Inimical to Them

Last week, Harold Kasimow, a retired professor of religious studies, came to Benedictine University in Illinois to speak about his experiences surviving the Holocaust as a child. At his talk he was confronted by a member of the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) who wanted to know if he supported or condemned “the establishment of the Zionist Israeli state”; the student eventually walked out after he refused to give the answers she hoped for. Video of the incident has been making the rounds on social media. Jonathan Tobin comments:

Kasimow wasn’t there to talk about Israel or [even to argue that] the history of oppression in the Diaspora that culminated in the Holocaust justified the quest to create a Jewish state. But in spite of his narrow, apolitical agenda, . . . SJP was still in effect ready to “cancel” him unless he didn’t merely condemn Israeli policy but agree that Israel needs to be erased.

Now it is not enough to demand that Jews acknowledge the tragedy of the Nakba for Palestinians. A Jewish refusal to treat the Arab disaster as morally equivalent to the Nazi “final solution” apparently justifies a walkout from a talk by an apolitical Holocaust survivor. The support [the student] gained on the Internet for her crude [attack on] Kasimow provides a troubling context for the incident.

Israel’s enemies have thus gone beyond Holocaust inversion—the claim that Jewish “oppression” of the Palestinians is equivalent to the Nazis’ attempted extermination of the Jews—to what Tobin terms “Nakba supersessionism”: the idea that the “catastrophe” entailed in the creation of a Jewish state should overshadow or replace any discussion of the Holocaust.

Prof. Phyllis Chesler: The war continues and it is a long war

This coming weekend (November 1-3), the University of Minnesota will be hosting the infamous Students for Justice Palestine (SJP). The nature and history of SJP has been exposed countless times, but to little avail.

This time, Ilhan Omar, whose district includes the Twin Cities, as well as Senator and Presidential contender Bernard Sanders, will be holding a rally on the same weekend, on Sunday, November 3rd.

On November 12th, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst will be hosting a pro-BDS panel featuring the former (fake) women’s rights activist and (always real) pro-Palestine activist, Linda Sarsour, Cornel West, and Omar Bhargouti (via video), among others.

The UMass/Amherst Chancellor, Kumble Subbaswamy, has issued a sobering critique of the cleverly devious view that attacking BDS is an attack on legitimate “dissent.” The faculty has launched a petition castigating or taking issue with the Chancellor.

A cursory view of the signatories reveals that one professor of African-American Studies, the distinguished John H. Bracey, did co-edit a book about Black-Jewish relations after Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan’s “divisive” visit to the campus in the 1980s. His other books are all about Black History and Black Arts in America.

Ironically, so few of the professor-signatories seem to be academic experts in the history of Israel, Zionism, or Judaism; or about the Arab Muslim rejection of the only Jewish state; or about Islam’s historical relationship to the black African slave trade, slavery in general, colonialism. imperialism, and gender and religious apartheid.

Q & A with Brooke Goldstein: Defending the rights of Jews

Brooke Goldstein, who was born in Toronto and graduated from McGill University, is the founder and executive director of the New York-based Lawfare Project, a non-profit advocacy organization that serves as a legal think tank and litigation fund intended to uphold the civil and human rights of Jews and pro-Israel activists around the world. She also co-authored the book, Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech: A First Amendment Guide For Reporting in an Age of Islamist Lawfare, which serves as a guide for journalists reporting on the national security threats faced by liberal democracies.

Goldstein will speak at Adath Israel Congregation in Toronto on Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m.

What’s a good definition of lawfare? It’s acquired a bad rap as a kind of frivolous or vexatious legal action.

That’s basically what it is. It’s a term used to denote the use of the law as a weapon of war. So instead of “warfare,” it’s “lawfare.” But more generally, it is the frivolous and malicious use of legal systems to undermine basic rights and civil liberties. A perfect example that I use is the al-Qaida manuals that were discovered by coalition forces, which instructed captured militants to file false claims of torture in order to reposition themselves as victims in the eyes of the media and the law.

Since then, lawfare has been used in a variety of situations, whether it’s to silence and chill free speech about issues of national security, such as terrorist organizations or terrorist sympathizers who file lawsuits against anyone who is brave enough to report and speak publicly about theologically motivated terror, in an effort to basically intimidate them. And then you have any type of lawsuit that does not have the goal of the pursuit of justice or recovery of a wrong, but of intimidating someone for political purposes.

Actually, it’s funny because the name of our project is sort of counter-intuitive. We are the “Counter-Lawfare Project.” We don’t engage in lawfare. We engage in civil rights advocacy on behalf of the Jewish community, as a minority community. We fight against lawfare.

I started my career working for Daniel Pipes of Middle East Forum. I ran a legal defence fund, where we raised money to support anyone who was sued, whether it was the counter-terrorism community, moderate Muslims or reporters who were speaking publicly about issues that others wanted to have silenced. I realized that there were millions of dollars going toward these lawfare strategies. When I left Daniel Pipes, I said, “I want to work for a pro-Israel litigation fund,” and there wasn’t one. So we set up the Lawfare Project about 10 years ago and we got into the litigation game about four years ago.

Iran's Press TV (and other media outlets) have had a series of articles from crackpot American conspiracy theorists about the death of ISIS leader Al-Baghdadi.

Here are sections of one article and some of the equally nutty comments:

The Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whom US President Donald Trump claimed had been killed, was in fact a US or an Israeli agent, says an American scholar.

Trump’s announcement and the photos that followed the announcement were a farce, according to Kevin Barrett, an author, journalist and radio host with a Ph.D in Islamic and Arabic Studies.

The truth is that Baghdadi ”is in fact a US or Israeli agent,” Barrett noted, adding,“some reports claim that there is a specific Israeli individual who has played this role.”

Barrett likened the announcements regarding Baghdadi’s death to the announcement of killing of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

As with bin Laden, Baghdadi’s remains were allegedly dumped into the sea.

Barrett said both the staged killings were fake.

Comments:

Who the hell builds a caliphate on Israel's borders,while Israel does nothing about it?

Absolutely right.
He was commissioned by John McCain.
He could be a Jew, imposing as a Muslim Jihadist.

Trump, of the many puppets, is set up by the satanists for staging sad comedy by his masters in hellaviv.

It's not just Kevin Barret, even The New York Times reported this, and many other News Outlets so it's what you call a Poorly Kept Secret. Trump will blow himself up like a dog
when they impeach him though ! al-Baghdadi is back in Israel now, this whole thing by
Trump is so phony, he even said, "Wow, the video is so good, it looks like a movie"
yep, cause it was, pure invented propaganda, Trump wouldn't kill this guy cause he's
a Mossad Agent and Trump works for Apartheid Israel

I believe that the term was used "DNA proof". DNA proof at the end of a tunnel within minutes? This could be a DNA results speed record!
>>The lies grow exponentially!
>>>>Lies are all the US of (A)ipac have and they make no attempt to defend their lies.

It truly is hilarious. However this comes from a supposedly 'head of state'.
>>>Zio appointed Puppet head of state

Breach of international law now the norm for the chosenite exceptionalists. It's unbelievable what they get away with. The tide will turn and this isisraeli kosher tribe will get a taste of their own criminal medicine eh...

Al Baghdadi is not dead just like Bin Ladin. These Guys are valuable for the west. 1000% none of them are dead.

His real name Simon Elliot (Elliot Shimon) aka Al-Baghdadi was born of two Jewish parents and is a Mossad agent, FACT.
>>just like the"taliban" leader called dezi cohen

>>Al-Baghdadi was born to a long list (going back generations) of Polish Rabbis. To his close family he only ever spoke Yiddish.

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11/01 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: Al-Baghdadi and Trump’s Syrian chess board; Evelyn Gordon: Does Jewish morality require Israel leave the West Bank?; Iranian aggression bringing Arabs and Israelis closer together

From Ian:

Caroline B. Glick: Al-Baghdadi and Trump’s Syrian chess board

In other words, by preventing Russia from seizing Syria’s oil fields, Trump is forcing Russia to behave in a manner that protects American interests in Syria.

The focus of most of the criticism against Trump’s Syria policies has been his alleged abandonment of the Syrian Kurds to the mercies of their Turkish enemies. But over the past week we learned that this is not the case. As Trump explained, continued US-Kurdish control over Syria’s oil fields provides the Kurdish-controlled SDF with the financial and military wherewithal to support and defend its people and their operations.

Moreover, details of al-Baghdadi’s assassination point to continued close cooperation between US and Kurdish forces. According to accounts of the raid, the Kurds provided the Americans with key intelligence that enabled US forces to pinpoint al-Baghdadi’s location.

As to Turkey, both al-Baghdadi and ISIS spokesman Abu Hassan al-Mujahir, who was killed by US forces on Tuesday, were located in areas of eastern Syria controlled by Turkey. The Americans didn’t try to hide this fact.

The Turkish operation in eastern Syria is reportedly raising Erdogan’s popularity at home. But it far from clear that the benefit he receives from his actions will be long-lasting. Turkey’s Syrian operation is exposing the NATO member’s close ties to ISIS and its allied terror groups. This exposure in and of itself is making the case for downgrading US strategic ties with its erstwhile ally.

Even worse for Turkey, due to Trump’s public embrace of Erdogan, the Democrats are targeting the Turkish autocrat as Enemy Number 1. On Tuesday, with the support of Republican lawmakers who have long recognized Erdogan’s animosity to US interests and allies, the Democratic-led House overwhelmingly passed a comprehensive sanctions resolution against Turkey.

The al-Baghdadi assassination and related events demonstrate that Trump is not flying blind in Syria. He is implementing a multifaceted set of policies that are based on the strengths, weaknesses and priorities of the various actors on the ground in ways that advance US interests at the expense of its foes and to the benefit of its allies.

Evelyn Gordon: Does Jewish morality require Israel leave the West Bank?

Obviously, this doesn’t mean anything goes. Even in wartime, the Bible sets limits on an army’s behavior – the original laws of war. But Jewish tradition utterly rejects the idea that morality requires national suicide. On the contrary, it views defending the Jewish commonwealth as a positive moral good.

So what does all this have to do with the Palestinians? It’s very simple: Even if you accept the (false) premise that ceding the West Bank would actually satisfy Palestinian demands, the fact remains that Israel isn’t there solely or even primarily because of the settlers, who have repeatedly proven incapable of preventing territorial concessions (see the Oslo Accords, the disengagement from Gaza, the far-reaching offers made by prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert). It’s there because, based on bitter experience, most Israelis see no way to leave without committing national suicide.

Withdrawing from parts of the West Bank under the Oslo Accords led to the lethal terror of the Second Intifada, which ended only when the Israeli army retook control of these areas. Withdrawing from Gaza resulted in 14 years (and counting) of almost nonstop rocket and mortar fire on southern Israel; a similar outcome would be far deadlier in the West Bank, which, unlike Gaza, is in easy range of Israel’s main population centers, economic hubs and international airport. Withdrawing from southern Lebanon in 2000 enabled Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, to acquire a missile arsenal greater than that of many national armies, aimed straight at Israel.

All this has convinced most Israelis that barring a radical and unforeseen change in Palestinian behavior, ceding the West Bank would be militarily suicidal. And since a one-state solution still looks demographically suicidal, that leaves some version of the status quo as the least bad option – not only for Israel but even for the Palestinians, as I’ll explain in a subsequent column.

So is conditional Zionism anti-Semitic? That depends on the conditions. But nowadays, the key condition usually involves suicidal Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. Thus today’s conditional Zionists require one nation, of all the nations in the world, to destroy itself for another’s sake. And yes, that’s anti-Semitic.

Petra Marquardt-Bigman: Palestine Misunderstood

From my home on the southern outskirts of Tel Aviv, I hear the Muslim call to prayer every day as it issues from a mosque half a mile away in neighboring Jaffa. Jewish Israelis see Arabic on their money, on street signs, on buses, and on the labels adorning foodstuffs that provide consumers with nutritional information. They hear Arabic in the stores, shopping malls, and cafes they routinely frequent. And if they visit a clinic or hospital, Jewish Israelis will hear Arabic spoken by their fellow patients, and by the doctors and nurses who tend to them. Israel may be the world’s only Jewish state, but Arabs account for roughly 21 percent of its population, so the sounds and sights of the Arabic language are simply part of daily life in this corner of the Levant.

So I was surprised to learn, from an article written by Michael Humeniuk for Quillette, that “when Jewish Israelis hear spoken Arabic, which they perceive as screams, they don’t know if a bomb is about to go off or one guy is simply complimenting another guy’s shoes.” Humeniuk is from Toronto, and his article is a well written and (presumably) well intentioned attempt to look beyond the “solemn stereotypes” he and other Westerners have absorbed of Palestinians “as freedom fighter or terrorist—geopolitical character actors within the grand narrative of what is vaguely described as ‘the Middle East conflict.’” Others, like him, who have travelled to Middle East because they are “touched and troubled by the plight of the Palestinians,” are so preoccupied by the politics of the conflict that they forget to notice “the Palestinian people themselves—how they cook and eat, how they tease and flirt, how they celebrate and mourn.” It is to this unenlightened view that Humeniuk wishes to offer a corrective.

Unfortunately, as Humeniuk relates his experiences in Palestine’s de facto capital, it becomes increasingly evident that he knows little about the region, its people, or its complexities. And so his lesson (audaciously entitled “Ramallah for Beginners”) soon lapses into tiresome clichés that contrast a heavily fortified and paranoid Israeli state with a portrait of peaceable donkey-riding Palestinians quietly tending their picturesque olive groves or enjoying the city’s party life (“cheaper and more welcoming,” we are told, than that offered by Tel Aviv). This perspective not only misunderstands the fraught history and political present of the region, but it unhelpfully caricatures Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs on both sides of the Green Line that separated Israel and the Jordanian-annexed West Bank before the Six Day War of 1967.

Humeniuk’s essay lends implicit support to the notion that a Palestinian state will be modern, open, and peaceful, if not positively progressive, and not the bastion of fanaticism that exists in Israelis’ fearful imagination. The wishful thinking this requires is betrayed by his own testimony. Lest Humeniuk and his Jewish-Canadian friend Ari are mistaken for Israeli settlers, they take care to disguise their Nissan Micra by hanging Islamic prayer beads from the rear-view mirror and laying a Keffiyeh—”the black-and-white scarf symbolic of Palestinian opposition to Israel”—across the dashboard. “You’re also,” he adds, “supposed to smoke—constantly—as many Palestinian men do.” This subterfuge is presumably intended to emphasize the importance of local knowledge, but it also suggests that recognizable Jews should worry about attracting the kind of dangerous hostility from Ramallah’s populace conspicuously absent from the rest of Humeniuk’s account.

The Kuwait Film Festival ended off Wednesday night with a showing of a documentary about Orthodox Jews in New York City.

The film, named "Mitzvot," is described as "part experimental documentary, part ethnographic film; a study of the Hasidic aesthetic in New York City. A chronicle of the day leading to Sabbath in three distinct neighborhoods: Borough Park, Crown Heights, and Williamsburg."

Its brief trailer does not show much.

The film has won awards.

The filmmaker, Bader AlAwadhi, is from Kuwait originally but now lives in New York. He took filmmaking school in California.

He now works for the Jewish Museum in New York as a marketing coordinator.

I have no idea of the point of view of the film, but it does not appear to be antisemitic - and if that is true, its screening in Kuwait is significant.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

A small anecdote of dysfunction from the Palestinian Authority

A year ago, the PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Palestinian Legislative Council - against Palestinian law - in his never ending effort to ensure his power is as complete and unquestioned as possible.

The PLC was an elected body, and in 2006 most Palestinians voted for Hamas members in the PLC.

The PLC, however, had not met since that election. Abbas made sure of that. So for 12 years it did literally nothing.

But when Abbas dissolved it, it triggered one other event: the salaries that the PLC members received were cut.

So now in Hamas media there is a sob story about how distinguished members of Hamas who have been spending the past decade plus getting full salaries for doing literally nothing are now forced to find work!

Mahmoud al-Khatib, a member of the Legislative Council from Bethlehem, had to open a falafel shop.

Al-Khatib revealed other sad stories of people who suddenly lost their incomes for watching TV all day. One was forced to sell some of his land. Another resorted to selling eggs.

Other Hamas members appealed to the Palestinian Authority to pay them salaries as former prisoners, so they could maintain their lifestyle of doing nothing for money. But the PA has been quietly cutting "pay for slay" to Hamas members so they were rebuffed.

This is a completely dysfunctional society. The PA is corrupt, Abbas is an unrepentant dictator, Gazans are suffering collective punishment from Fatah, Gaza is run by terror groups (and so is the PA territories) - and Hamas newspapers are upset that people who do nothing are forced to make a living.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Haaretz has a fascinating article about the amount of support the Netanyahu governments have given to Israel's Arab minority, a story that the Western media is simply unaware of (besides some bloggers...)

Ron Gerlitz says he will never forget that dramatic week at the end of 2015. A few months earlier, as codirector of the Jewish-Arab nonprofit organization Sikkuy – The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality, he had been called to the Finance Ministry. He was informed that the ministry had conducted a comprehensive, secret study of budgetary discrimination between Israel’s Jewish and Arab communities, which it wanted to address. The solution would be a plan aimed at equalizing the government budgets in an unprecedented way. This would involve not a one-time payment to the country’s Arab communities, as had been made in the past, rather it would change the budgeting mechanisms fundamentally, so that the population would receive its fair, proportionate share of support in some areas, like public transportation, but a favorably disproportionate amount in other areas, as part of a process of affirmative action.
...
The cabinet met on December 27, 2015, to vote on the scheme, known formally as Resolution No. 922: a five-year Economic Development Plan for the Arab Sector. The ground had been prepared. But that morning, the Hebrew edition of TheMarker published an article titled “Right-wing government involved in largest plan for Arab community ever – 15 billion shekels.” The Likud ministers withdrew their support for the move, worried about what their voters would say.

The sponsors of the resolution persisted and an amended version of it was voted on three days later, on December 30. It also failed to pass, this time because of a demand by some ministers to condition any affirmative action involving Israeli Arabs on their doing national service. Levy, Saif, Gerlitz and Benjamin Netanyahu himself almost gave up, yet the prime minister managed to convene the cabinet again, that same afternoon. It was the third such meeting within a week on the same topic – something that usually only happens in wartime.

Today, the 46-year-old Gerlitz, who left his post at Sikkuy last month, says that he is certain Netanyahu really wanted the resolution to be approved because he made the cabinet meet the two additional times until they finally passed it – without the national-service clause.

“That was exceptional,” he says. “Netanyahu could have caved in to the ministers’ opposition and not passed the plan, postponed further discussion until 2016, made massive changes to it or conditioned its passage on all kinds of demands of the Arabs. And yet he insisted that it be pushed through with barely any conditions, as the budget division had delivered it. People at the cabinet meetings say the opponents of the plan did a lot of shouting. ‘I haven’t been in a nursery school like this for some 60-odd years,’ Netanyahu said, rebuking the ministers who were loudly arguing against it.’”

This is Netanyahu pushing against most in his own party on a plan to help Arabs - and getting them to agree, unanimously.

Does this sound like the Bibi we read about in the media?

And these initiatives have concrete results:

...Over the past seven years, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of Arab students enrolled in universities and colleges in Israel has risen by 80 percent. Over five years the number of Arabs studying computer sciences, and the number of Arab students pursuing master’s degrees (in all fields) have both jumped 50 percent, while the number studying for a Ph.D. has soared 60 percent.

In the last decade, the number of Arabs working in high-tech has increased 18-fold, and one-quarter of them are women. By 2020, it is estimated that Arabs will make up 10 percent of the country’s high-tech work force, according to Tsofen, an organization that serves to connect members of that community with Israel’s high-tech employers. The proportion of Arab doctors in Israel has climbed from 10 percent in 2008 to 15 percent in 2018, and 21 percent of all male doctors are Arab, according to the Health Ministry. Educational institutions in Arab locales are receiving unprecedented levels of funding – including 130 million shekels ($37 million) for informal-education programs. Moreover, public transportation is finally making inroads into the smaller Arab towns, to the point where the Bank of Israel recently declared that the gap in access to such transport between Jewish and Arab locales with fewer than 20,000 residents has shrunk considerably.

Why would a person that much of the West is convinced is a racist do such a thing? The article has some guesses:

There are differing opinions as to why Netanyahu backed the plan, Gerlitz continues: “Maybe he was simply pursuing Israel’s economic interests. Maybe it was important for him to go along with Kahlon, Gamliel and the budgets department people who were all pushing for the plan. Another theory that got some backing is that he wanted to offset the negative impact of his anti-Arab incitement to keep things from getting out of hand.”

Perhaps there is another possibility, one that Haaretz and the Left cannot fathom.

Maybe Netanyahu isn't a racist. Maybe he is a moral human being who wants to see a strong Israel with a flourishing Arab minority.

A racist would not be secretly doing things to help the people he or she hates. Bibi's aid to Arab communities was done without the media being aware of it for the most part, and the story above shows what happened when it was exposed - the exposure was a setback for implementation of the plan, because some people in Bibi's coalition are indeed anti-Arab.

Which brings us to the real answer.

Netanyahu has a vision for Israel's strength and security for the next century. That is, and has been, his paramount goal. He cannot accomplish that goal without winning elections - the opposition parties simply do not share his strategic vision, if they have one at all.

To win elections, Bibi has to sometimes appeal to the less liberal elements of his party and of Israeli society. If he doesn't win, in his mind, Israel loses.

Bibi's supposed "racism" is public - he doesn't give a damn if people think he is racist because if he doesn't win, nothing can be done to help Israel in his mind. His true attitudes towards Arabs are revealed by what he does behind the scenes, and the anecdote that the article begins with shows that he has done far more to help Arab society in Israel than any previous prime minister from any party.

The weaker his political position, the more he uses racism as a tool (among many) to get re-elected.

Netanyahu is a politician, and for the past decade, he's been a very good one. His political instincts are what helps him accomplish his vision for Israel. His vision for Israel is a state where the Arabs are treated as equals and given all the same opportunities as Jews in a Jewish state.

It sure is a better explanation than the ones floated in the article.

In 2016, Bibi visited an Arab school and gave advice to the first graders:

I remember when I came to first grade; I was very excited. It is very exciting. “Welcome first grade” was written on the blackboard. It took me a little while to be able to read the words. Afterwards it was “Hello second grade” and ‘”Hello third grade” – and so it went and this is what awaits you. Boys and girls, I want each and every one of you to do two things: First, learn. Second, be good children. Listen to your parents and your teachers. I want you to listen to me because I want you to learn – learn to write, learn to read, learn Hebrew, Arabic and English. I want you to learn mathematics. I want you to learn science. I want you to learn history – history of the Jewish People, the history of your public. I want you to learn the truth, and the truth says that we were destined to live together. I want you to be doctors, scientists and writers, and be whatever you want to – and are able to – be. I want you to be loyal citizens, integrated into the state of Israel; this is your state. I am truly excited for you. Learn well. Go back home and do what mother and father tell you. May you be successful.

This is probably as accurate a picture of Netanyahu's desire for Arabs in Israel as has ever been written.

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A 5th grader taught "P is for Palestine" author some Talmud!

Right after the reading of the book "P is for Palestine" - the book that glorifies terrorism by saying "I is for Intifada" - in Highland Park NJ two weeks ago, I received an email describing some of the things that happened inside the actual reading by the author, Golbarg Bashi. I didn't report it because it is the sort of story that could easily have been changed in the retelling. Here is what it said:

In the end, three children and their parents showed up, with the boys wearing kippot.
One of the boys was asked by Bashi, "What is your favorite book?" His answer "The Mishna ! ". When she followed up to ask him what book he was reading, he said "Bava Metzia ! "

The Mishna is the basis of the Talmud, and Bava Metzia is the volume of Talmud that religious Jewish kids usually learn in fifth grade.

It's a funny story. And it turns out that Bashi confirmed it in her account of the reading.

Here I am reading and engaging with 3 innocent children who were accompanied by their Zionist fathers and a grandmother to Sunday's event at Highland Park Public Library in the State of New Jersey. I had been informed by the head of the library that all seats in the reading room had been immediately reserved in person by Zionist Highland Park Library Card holders on the day registration for the event opened up.

Still, the 3 innocent children who attended the reading (albeit under the unfortunate watchful and weary eyes of their Zionist families--two fathers, and one grandmother) brought a genuine smile to my heart.

When the people registered for the event, did they have to answer a question whether they were Zionist? Does Dr. Bashi have a Zionist detector?

No, of course not. Any religious Jew is obviously a Zionist. Bashi just doesn't want to say "Jewish." Their children, however, are "innocent" of the crime of Zionism.

The 6 year-old little boy was sharp, engaged and so cute! His brother in 5th grade spoke of his love of sports and the NFL, and someone named Adam who plays for the NFL (when I asked him if the NFL is basketball, he patiently explained that the NBA is basketball) and told me his favorite subject in school right now, takes place during second period and currently involves a particular mode in Jewish religious ethics, named "mitzvah" or "the obligation to return lost objects to their owner." The 5th grader enlightened me on what applies within mitzvah and what one must do when finding e.g. a lost purse as opposed to a pencil belonging to an unknown person on the street.

Bashi misunderstood - the kid said something like "I'm learning Bava Metzia about the mitzvah of returning a lost object" and Bashi thought he meant that a mitzvah was defined as returning a lost object.

The kid seems to have accurately summarized parts of the Talmud for the author. I wonder if Bashi knows that! "Talmud" is an evil word in Arabic media.

They asked fun questions, were incredibly attentive, and had the most creative suggestions on words that start with certain letters of the alphabet. For example for the letter A, our 5th grader suggested that the certain Adam who plays for the NFL and [אַבְרָהָם,] Avram (Prophet Abraham or Ibrahim (to Muslims), the name of the first monotheistic Prophet, and of great significance to millions of people who adhere to Abrahamic religions, namely Muslims and Christians. We talked more about Prophet Abraham and that he is buried in Al-Khalil/Hebron which makes the city and the entirety of Palestine, so precious).

Of course, under Muslim rule, Jews couldn't visit the place where Abraham - or Isaac, Jacob and their wives - are buried. Only since 1967 have Jews been able to visit, and now half of the site is off-limits nearly all year to Jews.

Too bad no one asked about that.

But someone did bring up something similar:

Upon reading the page for B is for Bethlehem, the 5th grader's father sternly instructed him to ask if Jews can also live in Bethlehem. . .

Did she answer? I don't know. But the answer is a resounding "no."

Which would be called apartheid if it was a Jewish town...

You can still read my more cynical - yet accurate - illustrated version of a Palestinian alphabet book here.

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10/31 Links Pt2: Despite terror ties, SJP 'antisemitic force' active at Harvard, Columbia; Antisemite Of The Week- Max Blumenthal, an Antisemitic Jew Obsessed with Hating Jews

From Ian:

Despite terror ties, SJP 'antisemitic force' active at Harvard, Columbia

The National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is an “antisemitic force on campus,” according to a new 96-page report about the organization.

The document, published by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) in advance of NSJP’s annual conference being held November 1-3, tracks the history of the organization and highlights how NSJP “promotes antisemitic rhetoric” and is “associated [with] violence and terror, ideologically and politically.”

The study, titled “National Students for Justice in Palestine and the Promotion of Hate and Antisemitism on the University Campus: The Threat to Academic Freedom,” is authored by Charles Asher Small, David Patterson and Glen Feder.

“For centuries, the most violent antisemitic attacks on Jews, including expulsions and pogroms, were rationalized by a need to bring justice to other groups,” said ISGAP chairman Natan Sharansky. “Today, the new antisemitism is brought to the world of academia under the pretext of justice for Palestinians.”

In the report’s foreword, Sharansky says that demonization, delegitimization and double standards against Jews are now being applied to the Jewish collective in the State of Israel.

“All those who value both justice and academic freedom should be resistant to it,” he said.

The report cites dozens of incidents, mainly on social networks, in which traditional antisemitic tropes are used by NSJP local chapters.

In 2017, for example, Students Supporting Israel at City College in NY described on their Facebook page a reaction by SJP members to the visit of Dani Dayan, the Consul General of Israel in New York. According to the post, “Comparisons to Hitler and Nazis were hurled by students… Rather than listening to what the speaker had to say, they put their antisemitic hate on blast, demonizing the Jewish State of Israel and all who would support it.”

Harvard’s NSJP chapter, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, posted on their Facebook page in 2012 that “Zionism is racism. Women who immigrated from Ethiopia eight years ago say there were told they would not be allowed into Israel unless they agreed to be injected with the long-acting birth control drug Depo Provera, according to an investigative report aired yesterday on Israel Educational Television.”

Stony Brook University’s SJP also had multiple inflammatory posts, including one noting that “together, we can create a domino effect to ensure Zionism is an extinct ideology.”

A Beginner’s Guide to the SJP National Conference

In a surprise to nobody, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) announced that its upcoming National Conference, set to commence on November 1, will be held on the University of Minnesota Campus in Minneapolis (UMN). Why is this unsurprising? Because Minneapolis happens to be the district of antisemitic Congresswoman Rep. Ilhan Omar, a prominent figure in the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel.

This is not a coincidence. In fact, the very first goal stated on the conference website is to capitalize on shifts in the political climate, represented by the elections of BDS supporters Rep. Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib. However, the REAL shift in the political climate- one that SJP themselves have played a substantial role in- is the resurgence of the world’s “oldest hatred” in the US, under the guise of BDS.

Countless articles and in-depth studies have delineated the various calls for violence by SJP leadership, as well as their intimate connection with Palestinian terror organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP, all of whom thrive off an ideology of Jew-hatred. It’s not just the leadership which is guilty of purveying antisemitism, but many student members of SJP as well. How many times must an SJP chapter host convicted terrorists like Rasmeah Odeh at their events before they are called out for their antisemitism? How many social media posts fawning over convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti and PFLP founder George Habash must be shared by official SJP accounts until the tech overlords ban SJP from their platforms? How many t-shirts glorifying PFLP terrorist Leila Khaled must be sold at their events before the world opens its eyes?

In the past few years, several analyses have been published revealing the link between BDS activity on campus and antisemitism. According to a Brandeis University study, one of the strongest predictors of hostility towards Israel and Jews on campuses is the presence of an SJP chapter. Furthermore, the campus antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative found that antisemitic activity was 8 times more likely to occur on campuses where anti-Zionist student groups were present.

This brings us back to the SJP National Conference, the epicenter of left-wing antisemitism. We will not be privy to real time updates from the conference since access is heavily restricted, and the speaker list has yet to be announced. But If history is any indication, the conference will be replete with the usual delegitimization and demonization of the Jewish State. They will sell paraphernalia with slogans advocating violence; they will compare Israel to Nazis; and they will host terrorists.

Just another meeting at a university

Here are students listening to a lecture at a university.:

Well, the university is in Gaza, the sponsor of the talk is the Islamic Association at Al-Aqsa University.

The topic was "Our Jihad: The time is coming," to celebrate the anniversary of the Islamic Jihad terror group and of Israel's assassination of its founder.

Dr. Riad Abu Znada told the group, "We stand today to commemorate the major symbol of Palestine, a commando who sacrificed everything to instill the idea of jihad and resistance in our minds."

Another speaker said the state of conflict with "the occupation" will remain in place until Israel ceases to exist.

Who says Palestinians aren't progressive? Chances are we will see lectures like this in universities worldwide, soon enough!

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'Monsters, Inc.' Documentary Explores Israel Harvesting Palestinian Children's Screams For Energy (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Ramallah, October 31 - Academics and political advocates focusing on the Middle East in general and Palestinian issues in particular have expressed puzzlement that a groundbreaking 2001 film exploring Israel's exploitation of Palestinian children's terrified reactions to its monstrous presence to produce electrical power attracts little to no attention from important audiences.

Monsters, Inc. launched in 2001 and at the time made significant cultural impact, but, activists observe, has had no measurable lasting effect on the discourse around Israel-Palestine, a fact that has prompted them to wonder whether sinister, repressive forces have managed to silence such a powerful public relations tool.

The 90-minute documentary follows the events over several days in a secret Israeli facility that processes Scream, a form of energy that Israeli soldiers and agents extract from innocent Palestinian children by scaring them. Over the last several decades, cumulative Israeli atrocities and crimes have resulted in more resistant, harder-to-scare children, forcing Israel to resort to more and more extreme measures to secure fuel for its increasing energy needs. The forecast shortfall in energy production leads Israels leadership to new depths of crime and depravity involving the abduction of Palestinian children for experimental new scream-extraction methods that demonstrate no regard for whether the child lives or dies.

"This should have been a watershed moment in the history of the conflict," observed Omar Barghouti, who has campaigned for years to get companies, artists, and institutions to boycott Israel over its treatment of Palestinians, all while earning a postgraduate degree at Tel Aviv University. "This film had a brief moment when the whole world was abuzz with it, but that seems to have faded, and that's unfortunate. No one talks about Palestine except for every organ of the UN, a disproportionate number of NGOs, and tens of thousands of political and cultural figures."

Some academics believe that while overall the documentary tells a solid story of Israeli evil and Palestinian innocence, it took some liberties with the presentation. "The whole fantasy sequence where everything is resolved through laughter is a nice dream, but that should have been left out as unrealistic," remarked commentator Reza Aslan. "The only way to stop the real Scream Extractor from terrorizing Palestinian children is to destroy Israel, because there's always some Jewish tentacled beast trying to oppress and control while looking respectable and moral. I also suspect those of us who might otherwise have been more vocal have been silenced by the Mossad-trained CDA."

"Also, for some reason everything was in English. That was a weird choice."

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10/31 Links Pt1: The Balfour Declaration and the Jewish Threat that Made Britain Honor It; The Myths Indulged by Israeli Advocates of a Palestinian “Right of Return”; Israel, US seek tighter UN scrutiny of UNRWA

From Ian:

Ben Shapiro: EXCLUSIVE: Excerpt From Ambassador Nikki Haley’s Upcoming Book, Slamming Media And Obama Administration

On Thursday, The Daily Wire obtained an excerpt from Ambassador Nikki Haley’s upcoming book, With All Due Respect. Haley is widely perceived to be among the leading Republican candidates in 2024 and beyond; her approval numbers as of April 2018 were unprecedentedly high, with a 75/9 split among Republicans, 55/23 split among Democrats, and 63/19 split among independents. The excerpt demonstrates just why Haley was so popular with Americans across the political spectrum: she was extraordinarily willing to speak hard truths to countries with malign practices and intent, and she stood strongly with American allies in her position as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

The excerpt opens with Haley explaining that when she first arrived in her new position, she made sure to break with foreign policy tradition by taking her first meetings with the members of the U.N. Security Council. Instead, she writes, “We decided to send a message by going another way. I thought it was important to visit our friends first.” After meeting with the British and French ambassadors, therefore, she next “ditched protocol and met with the ambassador from Israel, Danny Danon.” Haley explains:

Seeing Danny in person gave me an opportunity that I had wanted for some time: to know what the passage of Resolution 2334 had been like from his perspective. Danny said he knew something was going on in those last weeks of the Obama administration, he just didn’t know what. He and his colleagues tried for days to reach out to Ambassador Power and everyone they knew in Washington. No one would take their calls. No one would return their messages. The United States had literally stopped talking to Israel.

The most painful part of our conversation was Danny’s recounting of the vote itself. When a non–Security Council member country, like Israel, is the subject of a Security Council vote, its ambassador sits at the huge C-shaped table with the Security Council members. So when Resolution 2334 was passed, Danny was right there. Disgustingly, all the ambassadors at the table stood up and applauded after the vote was tallied. The audience cheered. And in the middle of it all was the Israeli ambassador, remaining seated while the council applauded his country’s humiliation. As Danny told me about it, all I could think was how that feeling was all too familiar to me. I know what it feels like to be different, humiliated, and ostracized for being who you are.

Greenblatt's Legacy: The Administration's Peace Vision

U.S. Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason D. Greenblatt will leave his post at the end of October.

Greenblatt repeatedly took the Palestinian Authority to task over its duplicity, such as over its "pay-to-slay" policy of paying Palestinian terrorists and their families.

He asked the UN Security Council, "How is it that we can't find an international consensus that the Palestinian Authority rewarding terrorism and the murder of Israelis using public funds, some donated by countries in this very room, is abhorrent and must be stopped?"

"There is no easy answer as to how to balance the absolute imperative of protecting Israel's security - a principle on which the United States will never compromise - with Palestinian aspirations," he said in June. "Yesterday's peace plans have been unable to create a path to a brighter and more prosperous future while addressing the many challenges to overcome."

One of his legacies is a semantic shift in the vocabulary of U.S. negotiators. Greenblatt has refused to use the word "settlements" for Israeli communities beyond the Green Line, and has instead called them "cities" and "neighborhoods."

Greenblatt told the UN Security Council, "It is true that the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority continue to assert that east Jerusalem must be a capital for the Palestinians. But let's remember: An aspiration is not a right....Aspirations belong at the negotiating table. And only direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians can resolve the issue of Jerusalem if it can be resolved."

The Balfour Declaration and the Jewish Threat that Made Britain Honor It

November 2 marks the 102nd anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, about which I have previously written at length in Mosaic. There, I focused on how the actors who brought the declaration into being assured it would have international legitimacy, and on the tragic failure of Britain and the international community to keep their promise to the Jewish people in the aftermath. Here I want to reflect on an overlooked rationale proposed by the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann to give the declaration some staying power after the world war would finally end.

Historians have long been preoccupied by this question: why did the war cabinet of Prime Minister David Lloyd George issue the November 2, 1917 declaration in the first place? After all, it seemed so improbable, both at the time and in retrospect. That sense of improbability was well expressed by the Hungarian Jewish writer Arthur Koestler, who called the declaration “an act dangerously outside the cautious routine of diplomacy. The whole thing was unorthodox, unpolitic, freakish.” Given that impression, the document quickly invited obsessive speculation as to the real motives behind it, and initially the speculation ranged very widely.

The guesswork would subside when Britain opened its archives in the 1970s. We now know that, far from being “unpolitic,” the Balfour Declaration was very politic indeed. The bottom line was this: the British war cabinet thought a declaration supporting a Jewish national home in Palestine would make for good propaganda among the Jews of Russia and America, who had been tepid in their support of the Allies in a war that had been dragging on for three long years. The Jews, so the reasoning went, would be fired by the prospect of a Jewish Zion, and would use their influence to keep Russia firmly in the fight and persuade the United States to step up.

The war cabinet also thought that official British sponsorship of Zionism would give England an edge over France in the inevitable postwar wrangle over the disposition of the territories of the Middle East. By assuming the noble burden of helping the Jews, Britain would extricate itself from its promise to share Palestine with France as stipulated in the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement—a deal that Lloyd George wanted to break for reasons of postwar imperial strategy.

To summarize: the Balfour episode was a matter of realpolitik all along. True, some have argued with surface plausibility that both Lloyd George and foreign minister Arthur Lord Balfour were motivated at least in part by religious sentiment. That they held such sentiments is not in doubt; but no evidence of this shows up in the cabinet papers themselves. Rather, British officials debated Palestine as they debated India or Egypt, that is, as an element in their thinking about how best to preserve and, if possible, expand the presence of the British empire on the world map.