Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

05/20 Links Pt1: Netanyahu to Iran: Those who threaten Israel will be destroyed; ICC Blues, Sue the Palestinian Authority for Hamas war crimes; 1 out of 10 Israelis calls Jerusalem home

From Ian:

Netanyahu to Iran: Those who threaten Israel will be destroyed

Anyone who threatens Israel will himself be threatened, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khaminei via Twitter on Wednesday.

“Khamenei’s threats to carry out ‘The Final Solution’ against Israel bring to mind the Nazi ‘Final Solution’ plan to annihilate the Jewish People,” Netanyahu said. “He should know that any regime that threatens the destruction of the State of Israel faces a similar danger.”

Netanyahu’s tweet came in response to one from Khamenei, featuring a poster that reads: “Palestine will be free. The final solution. Resistance is referendum.”

Khamenei displayed the antisemitic poster in English, Farsi and Arabic on his official homepage.

The picture shows a conquered Jerusalem with photos of the late Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani.

The US and the EU classified Soleimani as a leading international terrorist. A US drone strike killed the Quds Force leader in January. He was responsible for the murder of over 600 US military personnel as well as Israelis.

The poster was released from Khamenei’s office to celebrate Quds Day, the annual Iranian regime rally calling for Israel’s destruction.

Khamenei also tweeted a screed against Israel, writing that "the Zionist regime was built based on oppression, lies, deception, bloodshed, massacre and trampling human rights" and compared "the Zionists" to "a cancerous tumor...masscring children, women and men."

The Iranian leader called for Muslims around the world to unite against Israel and US President Donald Trump's peace plan, which he called "satanic." He called for Palestinians to be armed.

US Secretary of State Slams ‘Disgusting, Hateful Antisemitism’ of Iran Regime Leader

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday blasted Iran’s titular “supreme leader” for a flurry of “disgusting and hateful antisemitic remarks” posted to his Twitter feed.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a series of tweets on Monday and Tuesday that viciously attacked the State of Israel as the “occupying Zionist regime” and described the Jewish state as a “cancerous tumor.”

Slamming neighboring Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia for moderating their stances toward Israel, Khamenei urged that Palestinians in the West Bank “must be armed, just as Gaza.”

The Iranian leader repeated the myth that Israel’s survival was dependent on external backing, as he denounced the “satanic” US for providing “unconditional, shameless support” alongside those “Arab and Islamic governments refraining from supporting Palestine.”

Addressing the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative, Khamenei mocked the US president as “Physician Trump” and called Pompeo “the lowly, ranting Secretary of State who keeps making illogical, nonsensical comments here and there.”

In response, Pompeo pointed out that a recent Iranian propaganda poster threatening a “Final Solution” to the conflict with Israel “invoked the Nazi call for the Final Solution.”

“I ask all nations: is this someone who can be trusted with deadly weapons?” Pompeo asked.

Yet again, it is left to U.S. (@SecPompeo) as sole voice of conscience to condemn the vile Antisemitic remarks from #Iran's @khamenei_ir. Meantime Europe, which just marked 75 years since end of Holocaust, looks other way, choosing instead to attack #Israel over 'annexation'. pic.twitter.com/RVH4Q2WeAb
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) May 20, 2020

In last 24 hours, #Iran's @khamenei_ir has referred to #Israel as a "cancerous tumor" and called for "The Final Solution" for the Jewish state.

Have you heard all those enlightened voices who didn't waste breath to condemn Israel over 'annexation' now condemn Iran? Me neither. pic.twitter.com/ptp7bgp91T
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) May 20, 2020

Thousands of Iranians ask Israel for asylum and help

The number of Iranians asking Israel for help has spiked in recent months, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

“Thousands of people are asking to come to Israel for medical assistance or to emigrate,” according to Yiftah Curiel, head of Digital Diplomacy at the Foreign Ministry.

The requests have arrived mostly through private messages on the Foreign Ministry’s social media accounts in Persian, as well as from e-mails. Some have been made openly, in public comments on social media, but by accounts using pseudonyms.

Curiel said many of the messages are serious asylum requests.

“Sometimes they are from people who have been forced to flee and are refugees in other countries, or people who had to flee after expressing solidarity with Israel,” he stated.

One of the messages they received was from a 31-year-old man who said he “had to escape Iran because of the corrupt regime. I asked for asylum in Turkey, and my wife and 4-year-old daughter and I are in unlivable conditions; there is no one who can help. We have been abandoned and our lives are in danger.”

Iran's "final solution" for Israel appeals to the Left and to Nazis

Iran issued this poster ahead of Al Quds Day:

There is a lot to talk about - the Nazi-invoking use of the term "final solution," the glorification of terrorists, the direct call to terror as "resistance," the ignorance of the artist of the basic geography of the Temple Mount (the people and vehicles pictured would be suspended in mid-air above the archaeological park to the south of the Mount.)

But what is meant by the "referendum"?

It is am Iranian plan on using "democracy" to ethnically cleanse Jews.

In 2019, Iran presented a plan to the UN for a "referendum" on Palestine, where all "Palestinians" could vote as to what their state would be like:

The objective of the plan for a "National Referendum in the Territory of Palestine" is to provide the grounds for the people of Palestine to exercise their right to self-determination.

Implementation Mechanisms:

All people of Palestine including Muslims, Christians and Jews will have the right to participate in the referendum.
Representatives of the people of Palestine from among the Muslim, Christian and Jewish will assume the primary and managerial role in all planning and implementation phases of the Plan.
With a view to facilitate the participation of all Palestinians, particularly the Palestinian refugees in this referendum, the global project for comprehensive identification, census and identity registration of all Palestinian citizens in Palestine and other countries will be implemented. An international authority with the participation of the representatives of the people of Palestine will be mandated to implement this project.

Some Jews will be allowed to participate, along with millions of Arabs who never lived in Palestine. But which Jews?

The implementation of this Plan includes four main phases:

Enforcing the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their historical homeland.
Holding a national referendum among the people of Palestine, including the followers of all religions, who inhabited in Palestine before the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, for the self-determination and determination of the political system.
Establishing the political system determined by the majority of the people of Palestine.
Deciding on the status of the non-indigenous residents of Palestine by the political system elected by the majority.

So the plan is to set the clock back to 1917, and only the descendants of people who lived in the areas of what would later become British Mandate Palestine at that time would be allowed to vote.

Get it? Nearly all of the Jews who live in Israel now cannot vote, but all the descendants of Palestinians who now live elsewhere can.

Then, after the huge Muslim majority is firmly in control, they can decide what to do with those disgusting, subhuman Jews who immigrated to Israel after 1917, most fleeing persecution from a different set of antisemites.

This is similar to the plan that socialist Left antisemites want to see, but they call it a "binational state."

I wonder what democratic decision the Muslims would come up with for the 7 million Jews who live in "Palestine" now and who would not get to vote on their own fates?

Whatever it is, I'm sure that the original coiners of the term "final solution" would approve.

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.

The EU's hypocritical use of "international law" that only applies to Israel

The EU's High Commissioner Josep Borrell tries very hard to appear even-handed and pro-peace in regard to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But when he pushes fictions in official press releases, the EU's real antipathy towards Israel shines through.

International law is a fundamental pillar of the international rules-based order. In this respect, the EU and its Member States recall that they will not recognize any changes to the 1967 borders unless agreed by Israelis and Palestinians. The two-state solution, with Jerusalem as the future capital for both States, is the only way to ensure sustainable peace and stability in the region.

There are no such things as "1967 borders." On April 3, 1949, Israel and Jordan signed an armistice agreement and a boundary was drawn between them with a green marker on a map - but it was explicitly not meant to be a border, and Israel maintained the right to claim lands to the east of the Green Line.

It is also recognized that no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.

This is the only source for the "1967 borders."

Most diplomats are careful not to call the 1949 armistice lines "borders" because they know this history. They use the word "lines" or "boundaries". The EU's use of the word "borders" here is a conscious lie - and contrary to the precious "international law" that the EU claims to want to uphold.

Jordan abrogated this 1949 agreement by attacking Israel:

No warlike act or act of hostility shall be conducted from territory controlled by one of the Parties to this Agreement against the other Party.

UN Security Council Resolution 242 makes clear that any actual borders must be "secure" - and Jordan's attack in 1967 showed that the 1949 armistice lines were not secure for Israel.

The EU and the UN have gone way beyond this already egregious fiction of "1967 borders" with another fiction: that the lands on the east side of the Green Line, including in Jerusalem, somehow belong to a Palestinian entity that never signed this armistice agreement.

Certainly nothing Israel and the PLO signed during Oslo presumed that the 1949 lines were the borders between two states. The only legal way Palestinians can claim ownership of any land whatsoever is by agreement with Israel. This is basic international law, and law that Borrell knows quite well. Yet he has the nerve to invoke "international law" to take away Israel's legal claims, indicated in the 1949 armistice agreement, and to award the Palestinians land that in no way can be said to belong to them.

Borrell's hypocrisy doesn't end there:

We strongly urge Israel to refrain from any unilateral decision that would lead to the annexation of any occupied Palestinian territory and would be, as such, contrary to International Law.

Yet the EU encourages Palestinians to make unilateral decisions to claim land, especially in Area C, by illegally building there. Indeed, the EU directly helps them build villages in Area C from scratch in areas that the EU insist are occupied - which means that according to the EU's own interpretation of international law, Israel alone has the rights to give out building permits in those areas as the belligerent occupier.

I was given a tour of these ramshackle structures, many with EU flags on them, in 2016:

Here is a time lapse animation I made a few years ago of illegal Palestinian building in Area C near Jerusalem that the EU encourages - haphazard, dangerous structures with no infrastructure, slapped together on any empty land they can find.

The EU says anything that Israel does unilaterally is illegal - but it directly supports these unilaterally built illegal structures and blatant land grabs in areas under Israeli control. These structures violate international law under existing, signed agreements.

Borrell's invocation of international law that only applies to Israel, but doesn't apply to the Palestinians nor to the EU itself, is breathtakingly hypocritical.

EoZTV: Jonathan S. Tobin on Abbas' folly and more

Last night on EoZTV I interviewed Jonathan S. Tobin, editor in chief of JNS and writer in numerous publications. We spoke about Mahmoud Abbas' folly, King Abdullah's choice, whether Israel will extend sovereignty over parts of the territories, Joe Biden's likely stance on Israel if he would become president and the difference between the Israeli left and J-Street.

05/19 Links Pt2: EU Parliament condemns PA textbooks that promote hate and violence; The Forgotten Jewish Refugees from Arab Land; Dead Sea Scrolls secrets revealed live online this week

From Ian:

European Parliament condemns PA textbooks that promote hate and violence

The European Parliament passed three resolutions that condemn the Palestinian Authority for using school textbooks that promote hate and violence.

The resolutions were passed Thursday as amendments by the Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control in a budgetary report, according to the EU Reporter, and passed by a vote of 402-263, with 13 members abstaining.

Among the issues covered by the budgetary report, which was dated March 3, is the use of EU funds transferred as foreign development assistance.

One of the resolutions calls on the European Commission to make sure that “no Union funds are used to finance textbooks and educational material which incite religious radicalization, intolerance, ethnic violence and martyrdom among children.”

The resolution adds that the European representatives are “concerned that problematic material in Palestinian school textbooks has still not been removed and is concerned about the continued failure to act effectively against hate speech and violence in school textbooks.”

Money allocated for textbooks should “be used for drafting and teaching curricula which reflects UNESCO standards of peace, tolerance, coexistence, and non-violence,” the resolution said.

Jerusalem Day 2020: Examining the city's developing ecosystem

On Friday, Israelis will celebrate "Jerusalem Day," marking 53 years since the city's reunification in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War. This year, Start-Up Nation Central, in partnership with the Jerusalem Development Authority, the Ministry for Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, is sharing insights and data about the unique technological ecosystem which came about in the capital of Israel and the role that the Jerusalem ecosystem is playing in the global fight against COVID-19.

Jerusalem is usually thought of as a city with rich history and culture, comprised of old neighborhoods, narrow passageways and exotic fragrances. One might not expect that alongside its rich history and culture, Jerusalem has evolved in recent years and has become a magnet for entrepreneurial activity and cutting-edge innovation.

According to Start Up Nation Central, there are currently 405 active companies in the Jerusalem ecosystem, a 102% growth since 2012. In 2019 alone, $233.5M were invested in Jerusalem-based companies and start-ups, a 21% increase from the year prior.

While most Jerusalem-based companies are considered "small-medium" with 92% of them having under 50 employees, many of Israel’s largest tech exits originated in Jerusalem. The best example of this is Intel’s acquisition of the Jerusalem-based company Mobileye for $15 billion.

"This proves there are ecosystems developed outside of Israel’s Center that can function, prosper, and be part of the economic growth in Israel's periphery," says Wendy Singer, Executive Director at Start-Up Nation Central.

There are several factors that help prosper a culture of innovation and success in Jerusalem. First, is the city's diverse population – secular and religious, Jews and non-Jews, men and women, Israeli-born and new immigrants. Diversity and inclusion are two values highly cherished by technology companies around the world, understanding that the more diverse team a team is, the more diverse ideas are conceived. It should come as no surprise that diverse companies perform better. Drawing on the city’s diverse demographic makeup, there has been a movement to train and integrate the Israeli Arab and ultra-Orthodox communities into the tech sector, thereby creating an innovative model being studied by foundations and governments in other countries.

Second, is the presence of world-ranked academic institutions like the Hebrew University for Life Sciences and Computer Sciences, and Bezalel Academy for Arts and Design or Hadassah College. There is a strong leaning in the city towards the Life-Sciences, of which Jerusalem’s students constitute over a quarter of all students in Israel studying this field. The nexus point between technology, design, and science, results in great creativity and human capital, attracting the eyes of global audiences.

Jerusalem divided: 1947

During the war, my father, Mordecai Chertoff, was an editor at the Palestine Post and simultaneously, a member of the then illegal Haganah. A godsend to the army, his press credentials gave him the freedom to move about the city with unfettered access to almost every location. Referring to his press pass in a letter to his parents during the summer of 1947, he wrote that his “little green book is almost armor-plate.” Mordecai used this freedom to visit and sketch British positions and sensitive security points, especially within Bevingrad. There are many such sketches in the Haganah Museum (although I did not find any that were definitely his work).

The third dimension of the complex situation in Jerusalem was the frequent curfews imposed by the British on the Jewish neighborhoods, usually following attacks by Jewish underground groups. From January 1, 1946 through October 20, 1946 Jewish Jerusalem was under curfew for 57 days. This includes the dusk to dawn curfew following the bombing of the King David Hotel (16 days) as well as other curfews, some lasting 22 hours/day.

With the departure of the British and the removal of the security zones in mid-May 1948, the fight for Jerusalem began in earnest. The battle for the Old City occurred during the second half of May. During the night of May 18-19, the Palmach managed to take the Zion Gate entrance to the Old City but were unable to hold it. Ten days later, the Jewish Quarter surrendered and was systematically destroyed by a mob. It would be nineteen years before Jerusalem would once again be an integrated whole.

Today, Jerusalem is a unified city. And while it would be an overstatement to claim that it is a model of racial harmony, Jews, Christians, Muslims and other ethnic groups, nevertheless coexist peacefully. Holy sites are open to all, Arabs and Jews share Railroad Track Park leading to the “First Station” commercial center, Arabs and Jews work side by side in many shops and business and perhaps most importantly, teams of Arab and Israeli doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health workers, together battle the Coronavirus with excellent results. The fissures that once divided Jerusalem continue to slowly fade.

We've mentioned the Ramadan TV series "Umm Haroun" that has been causing so much controversy because it treats Jews in Arab countries as regular human beings.

A new outrage came from an incident in the latest episode.

A Kuwaiti Muslim and a Kuwaiti Jew who are brought before a British police officer - this is when Great Britain controlled Kuwait - who asks them, through a translator, about why they were fighting. The Muslim guy said that his son took the Jew's daughter, and the two ran away and got married. The British police officer then asks what's the problem, since they are from the same country. The Muslim then says that the Jew's lineage is not honorable enough because, well, he's a Jew.

To this the Jew replies with the part that is getting everyone upset. He says that the Muslim is not honorable enough for him, and adds that ever since Jews were defeated at Khaibar (by Mohammed,) Jews have been oppressed and wronged in the Muslim world.

So while no viewer ha a problem with a Muslim saying that Jews have a tainted lineage, they are upset at a Jew saying that Jews have been oppressed by Muslims. In addition, people are complaining that saying that Mohammed oppressed Jews is an insult to Mohammed himself, which is completely unacceptable.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Tracking another PLO lie: "957,000 refugees in 1948"

The Negotiations Affairs Department of the PLO tweeted this on Friday:

957,000? Where did they get that number from?

The only place that this number is mentioned was in an UNRWA report from 1950. Yet even then, in the chaos of trying to set up a new agency with thousands of people attempting to pretend to be refugees in order to get free food, UNRWA knew the number was wrong:

In May, the first month of its active life, the Agency, with more than 950,000 names on its refugee lists, attempted to cut ration distribution to 800,000, but so many debatable cases were brought forward and so much adverse discussion arose that it was decided that 860,000 rations were the minimum feasible to distribute unless the Agency was to leave itself open to grave criticism on humanitarian grounds....Although many fraudulent cases have been discovered, it is important to remember that the deductions are made from the names inherited from the Agency's predecessors.... It is regretted that, despite its earnest desire to do so, the Agency has to date been unable to remove many undeserving individuals from its relief rolls. It has no illusion about the unpopularity of its endeavours in that direction. It feels little hope that it will meet with any co-operation in its efforts toward the goal set. Conferring refugee status on non-refugees in the first instance has created a situation that cannot be ignored, but removing it exposes the Agency to unwarranted and unfair criticism from the misinformed public as well as fanatical opposition on the part of the undeserving recipient and his friends and supporters.

In the report for 1951, UNRWA went further:

One of the first tasks undertaken by the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East was to organize a census operation to determine who should and who should not receive relief. In spite of these efforts,... it is still not possible to give an absolute figure of the true number of refugees as understood by the working definition of "a person normally resident in Palestine who has lost his home and his livelihood as a result of the hostilities, and who is in need". ...A further difficulty is that, whereas all births are eagerly announced, the deaths wherever possible are passed over in silence, and as the birthrate is high in any case, a net addition of 30,000 names a year is made to the relief rolls. In spite of this, a considerable reduction has been achieved and many false and duplicate registrations weeded out. By June 1951, there were 876,000 persons registered on UNWRAPRNE relief rolls compared with 957,000 when the Agency took over.

But UNRWA admits even today that even this 876,000 number is wrong - today it says there were 750,000 refugees in 1950.

According to UNRWA's estimates from 1951 of births, if 30,000 new "refugees" were being born every year, in 1948 there would have only been 690,000.

This lower number is supported by an earlier UN report which said, in October 1950:

The estimate of the statistical expert, which the Committee believes to be as accurate as circumstances permit, indicates that the refugees from Israel- controlled territory amount to approximately 711,000. The fact that there is a higher number of relief recipients appears to be due among other things to duplication of ration cards, addition of persons who have been displaced from area other than Israel-held areas and of persons who, although not displaced, are destitute.

This number would support an estimate of about 650,000 in 1948 assuming 30,000 births a year.

At any rate, the PLO is lying, as usual. No one on the planet has ever claimed 957,000 refugees in 1948, and even UNRWA didn't claim that number in 1950 - just that this was the number of people who were listed on their rolls, many falsely.

And it is not only the PLO - the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has also quoted the bogus 957,000 number as fact.

The entire Palestinian leadership is a mythocracy.

05/19 Links Pt1: Israel: The Settlements Are Not Illegal; Caroline Glick: King Abdullah's empty threats; The Duma lesson; Lebanon’s Interwoven Fantasy Worlds All Lead to War With Israel

From Ian:

Israel: The Settlements Are Not Illegal

Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired (Art. 26.1) and that the exercise of these rights shall be free from discrimination of any kind (Art. 2). — UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007.

Among others, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Israel and Luxembourg voted in favor of the Declaration. Since 2007, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, who voted against, formally endorsed the Declaration in 2010. In their relations with Israel, these states cannot claim that the Declaration does not apply to Israeli Jews, since such position would amount to blatant racial discrimination.

[I]t cannot seriously be contended, as the EU, France, Britain, Russia, China and other states do, that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal and that annexation is contrary to international law. This position is political, not legal.

Article 80 of the United Nations Charter (1945) recognized the validity of existing rights that states and peoples acquired under the various mandates, including the British Mandate for Palestine (1922), and the rights of Jews to settle in the Land of Palestine (Judea-Samaria) by virtue of these instruments. (Pr. E. Rostow). These rights cannot be altered by the UN.

"Except as may be agreed upon in individual trusteeship agreements...nothing in this Charter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties." — Article 80, paragraph 1, UN Charter)

Does the Term “Annexation” Even Apply?

The territory that was to become British Mandatory Palestine was designated as a future Jewish National Home 100 years ago at the post-World War I San Remo Conference.
This history is pertinent to the debate that has emerged about Israel retaining parts of the West Bank this year in fulfillment of the U.S. peace plan.
This is commonly referred to as "annexation" and states have pointed out that they oppose the annexation of someone else's territory. But can you annex territory that has already been designated as yours?
The Turkish invasion of Cyprus was an act of aggression. The Russian invasion of Crimea was an act of aggression. Israel in the West Bank is an entirely different story. International law draws a distinction between unlawful territorial change by an aggressor and lawful territorial change in response to an act of aggression.
In addition to the designation of these territories as part of the Jewish national home, one must remember that the West Bank was captured by Israel in a war of self-defense in 1967. That makes all the difference.
It would be more correct not to use the term "annexation" but rather "the application of Israeli law to parts of the West Bank."

Caroline B. Glick: King Abdullah's empty threats

If Jordan abrogated the peace deal, Israeli water and gas transfers would obviously cease. And since Israel's sovereignty plan will be undertaken in the framework of the US peace plan, it is hard to imagine that US support for the kingdom would be unchanged in the event that Jordan abrogated its peace deal in retaliation for Israel's move.

All this is not to say that Israel's relations with Jordan are stable. Anti-Semitism is almost universal in Jordan. And support for the peace with Israel is non-existent. The Hashemite monarchy itself is deeply unpopular.

It is possible that one day, with his back to the wall, Abdullah will abrogate the treaty. It is equally possible that one day he will be overthrown and that the successor regime will abrogate the peace treaty with Israel.

Facing this state of affairs, Israel's proper response is not to set aside the sovereignty plan, which among other things, secures Israel's long border with Jordan by applying Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley. The proper response to Jordan's enormous hostility – a state of affairs that existed long before the sovereignty plan and the Trump plan were conceived – is to draw up detailed contingency plans for the day after the Hashemites are overthrown or the peace treaty is abrogated.

In his remarks at the Foreign Ministry, Ashkenazy rightly praised US-Israel relations. "The United States is Israel's closest ally and the State of Israel's most important friend," he said.

During his visit with President Donald Trump in the White House in January, according to a senior American official, Gantz committed himself to implementing the Trump peace plan, including the sovereignty plan.

To preserve US-Israel relations, Ashkenazy and Gantz need to uphold that commitment. Failure to do so is liable to undermine Israel's credibility as a stable ally among administration leaders and other friends of Israel in Washington.

Ashkenazy acknowledged that through his peace plan, President Trump, "presents us with a historic opportunity to shape Israel's future and its borders."

Israel mustn't permit King Abdullah, and his empty threats stand in its way to seizing that opportunity now.

Amb. Alan Baker: Can Jordan Revoke Its Peace Treaty with Israel?

It is highly unlikely that Jordan would want to take such a step, especially in light of the fact that a unilateral act by Israel of applying law or sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria, even if not favored by Jordan, would not constitute an act of aggression against Jordan’s sovereignty or territorial integrity and as such would not be grounds for revoking the treaty.

Since the issue of the status of Judea and Samaria is, in article 3, specifically excluded from the border delimitation provisions of their respective territory, Jordan cannot claim that unilateral application of law or sovereignty by Israel in such territories constitutes a violation of the peace treaty or grounds for its revocation.

Since the Israel-Jordan peace treaty determines such basic bilateral components of their relationship such as the delineation of the international border between them (article 3), bilateral security arrangements (article 4), full diplomatic and consular relations as well as normal economic and cultural relations (article 5), it would appear to be virtually impossible to regress backwards from peaceful to hostile relations, unless one side conducts an act of aggression against the other.

Some of the central components of the peace relationship represent interests that are vital to Jordan such as water allocations (article 6), economic relations (article 7), Jordan’s special historic role in Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem (article 9), freedom of navigation and access to ports (article 14), and civil aviation and rights of overflight, including Jordanian overflight of Israeli territory to reach points in Europe (article 15). To cancel or revoke such vital components would not serve the interests of Jordan and would undermine its very stability.

The parties agreed, in article 25, to fulfill in good faith their obligations without regard to action or inaction of any other party and independently of any other instrument inconsistent with the peace treaty.

Should Jordan wish to solve a dispute with Israel regarding the application or interpretation of the peace treaty, article 29 establishes a dispute settlement mechanism of negotiation, conciliation, or arbitration.

Peace Now US to feature liar Saeb Erekat in briefing call. Let the threats begin!

Americans for Peace Now is happy to welcome one of the most egregious liars on the planet to a conference call:

West Bank Annexation: The Palestinian Leadership’s Perspective - Briefing Call with Dr. Saeb Erekat

Friday May 22, 2020, 2:00 pm (Eastern Time)

An Israeli government decision to annex large parts of the West Bank would threaten the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations and the future of the Authority (PA). The PA has recently threatened to renounce all agreements with Israel if the Israeli government proceeds with its plan to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank. Some analysts predict that such an Israeli measure might cause the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. Some predict another eruption of violent protests in the West Bank.

What would annexation mean for Palestinians? How would their leadership react to such an Israeli step? Does Mahmoud Abbas’ PLO have a plan for reacting to annexation on the world stage? Would the Palestinian Authority’s security cooperation with Israel collapse? Would the PA collapse?

Addressing these and other questions would be veteran Palestinian diplomat Dr. Saeb Erekat, the Secretary General of the PLO’s Executive Committee, who for many years served as the Palestinian chief negotiator with Israel.

Erekat is not there to offer predictions or insights into the PLO reactions to any Israeli moves. He is there to threaten the world with lies about how the PLO will respond.

We know this because we've seen this play before. It wasn't that long ago that Erekat went before Western media to threaten the PLO's response to any possible move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem.

In 2016, Erekat said that the embassy move would be "sending this region to more chaos, lawlessness and extremism." When the media ignored that threat, he added that:

The PLO will immediately revoke its recognition of Israel

The prospect of a two-state solution will be over

Any hope of Israeli-Palestinian peace in the future will vanish

Erekat would immediately resign as the chief Palestinian negotiator

All American embassies in the Arab world would be forced to close by the infuriated Arabs

These weren't predictions nor promises. These are threats.

Guaranteed, Erekat will repeat these threats now, even though not one of them came true last time as a result of the embassy move. (The two state solution was killed by the PLO many years ago.)

Erekat still heads the Negotiations Affairs Department. The Palestinian Authority still cooperates with Israel. The Arab world shrugged off the embassy move.

This time, the PLO is using the same tactics, and is also enrolling Jordan and the EU to pressure the US and Israel with more threats. Americans for Peace Now doesn't want Erekat to tell them the truth either - they want him to give them ammunition to go to members of Congress with confident predictions backed up by a high-ranking liar.

The Washington Post reports that a major cyberattack on Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port terminal appears to have originated in Israel, in retaliation for cyberattack traced to Iran on Israel's water distribution networks last month.

That April 24 attack was not successful but Israel's presumed response was to send an unmistakable message to Iran - don't even try to get into a cyberwar with Israel unless you want to have your entire economy crippled.

The Shahid Rajaee port terminal is Iran's most important commercial port, handling nearly 150 million tons of cargo last year. Some 50,000 ships dock there every year. It is important not only for Iran's own imports and exports but also as a means to transport goods through Iran to points further east. It is also situated at a "Special Economic Zone" where it is easier for Iran to trade with other countries with less paperwork and foreign currency restrictions. The port is strategically located at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

The hack caused miles-long traffic jams on highways leading to the port, and there were still dozens of container ships waiting off the coast to dock days after the event.

Israel's presumed message was unmistakable: If Iran wants to launch a cyberattack on Israel, Israel has the ability to cripple Iran's economy without firing a single bullet. Iran has eight ports available to the world, and Israel could as easily shut all of them as one of them.

At a time when Iran's economy is already reeling from US sanctions and the coronavirus, it can ill afford to start a cyberwar with Israel.

In some ways, this message to Iran was starker than the hundreds of airstrikes Israel has hit Iranian targets with in Syria and elsewhere. While those strikes show Israel's unparalleled intelligence capabilities, this cyberattack hits much closer to home for Iran. Iranians might not care much about airstrikes a thousand miles from home but when critical goods cannot be imported it affects everyone.

The Washington Post characterized this as a tit-for-tat attack, but that is not what it was. It was a message that Iran would be foolish to even think about retaliating.

One more time: British Mandate Palestine has NOTHING to do with today's Palestinians

Issa Amro, the popular Palestinian protester who gets rapturously profiled in Western media, tweets:

Yes, he is using a British document from British Mandate Palestine to somehow pretend that it proves there was an independent Palestinian state.

We've demolished these arguments before, but...there's no shortage of material we haven't used yet.

Here's some Palestinian history for you:

"Restoring Palestine" means restoring the Jewish homeland.

Some Palestinian arts and crafts - with Yiddish, that ancient Palestinian language.

The SS Tel Aviv, under the very flag of Palestine!

Some everyday pictures of Palestinians with a famous Palestinian quote.

This one is interesting. The Jewish Brigade under the British in World War II had a band that gave this concert in 1945.

Somewhere out there is a video of the band playing, but I can no longer find it.

This is the only Palestinian culture that existed before 1948. It isn't politically correct to say so, but that doesn't make it less true.45

05/18 Links Pt2: Nakbacide - the failed genocidal war against the Jews; Moderna’s Israeli top medical officer: We’ve shown today that our vaccine works; One Professor’s Anti-Israel Fantasy

From Ian:

The Unlearned ‘Nakba’ Lesson About Compromise

The war that would decide the fate of the country began the morning after the UN’s adoption of the partition resolution. Local Arabs, as well as others who came from surrounding countries, began a campaign of terrorism, attacking isolated Jewish communities and besieging Jewish Jerusalem. Their goal was to drive out the Jews, hoping that once the armies of five neighboring countries invaded the country on May 15, 1948, they would do just that.

Of course, that’s not the way things worked out, and the embattled Jewish state won this fight for its life. And far from celebrating the demise of the Jews, approximately 700,000 Arabs fled their homes, either because they feared what would happen to them under Jewish rule or in a few cases because they were driven out.

Rather than being resettled in the surrounding Arab nations or elsewhere in the Muslim world, they were kept in place in refugee camps. The United Nations created a refugee agency to deal with them — UNRWA — distinct from the single agency that helped the many millions of other homeless peoples throughout the world so as to aid the effort to use them as a weapon against Israel’s legitimacy. Meanwhile, approximately 800,000 Jews fled or were forced to flee their homes in the Arab world and found new lives in Israel or the West.

The Palestinian Arabs could have compromised and gotten a state. But they refused to accept anything less than their maximal demands, and as the years went by, their options in terms of territory and support from the rest of the Arab world dwindled. Not even after Israel repeatedly offered the Palestinian Authority a state would they agree to end their century-old war.

At any point in this narrative, the Palestinians could have accepted one of the deals offered them. If so, there wouldn’t be any Jewish communities in the territories for Israel to seek to annex.

But even now, with their cause largely abandoned by much of the Arab world, they refused to negotiate with the administration of President Donald Trump over its “Peace to Prosperity” proposal that would also give them a state, albeit not as large a one as they could have gotten in 2000 or 2008, let alone 1948. And the official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority this week published a front-page article again vowing Israel’s destruction as a religious imperative.

The lesson of the nakba is not one of the world’s indifference, Israel’s alleged sins or even the suffering of the Palestinians. It is, instead, the folly of maximalism, in which by seeking everything, they consistently wind up with nothing. What will happen this year with the settlements is just more proof of the fact that if all you care about is preserving a victim status, the price of intransigence will continue to rise.

Nakbacide - the failed genocidal war against the Jews

Imagine if every year on the 7th of May, Germans held an annual commemoration of the defeat of the Nazi state, complete with Swastikas, anti-Semitic chants and slogans, and claims that the Volksdeutsche expelled from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were the real victims.

That's the spectacle that takes place every May as Muslims in Israel chant and riot to protest their unsuccessful genocide of the indigenous Jewish minority.

And the media sympathetically covers this repulsive spectacle of historical obliviousness, of a regional majority responsible for multiple genocides, dressing up as the victims because their invasion of Israel ended in a stalemate, rather than the intended genocidal purge of the Jews.

The revisionist Muslim history of Israel ethnically cleanses the thousands of years of history of the original Jewish inhabitants and a thousand years of persecution under Muslim rule.

It leaves out the massacres and atrocities carried out by the Muslim invaders against the Jewish inhabitants in the 20th century, including the Hebron Massacre, and the Nazi collaboration of their leader, the Mufti of Jerusalem. Instead it begins and ends with Deir Yassin and angry old women holding up oversized housekeys while reminiscing about the good times they had massacring Jews.

There are about as many Jewish refugees from the Muslim world, as there are Muslim refugees from Israel. The difference is that the Jewish refugees were a minority fleeing the violence of a brutal majority, while the Muslim refugees were a regional majority making a strategic withdrawal in response to calls from the leaders of invading Arab countries to pull out so they could kill the Jews.

"We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down," Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said had promised

There's your Nakba. Go wave your fake giant housekeys in Baghdad.

Moderna’s Israeli top medical officer: We’ve shown today that our vaccine works

The Israeli chief medical officer of US biotech firm Moderna said Monday that its experimental anti-COVID-19 vaccine “actually works,” after tests on a small number volunteers, and that it will start Phase 3 testing on thousands of people in July.

“We got the first results today… and today we are showing that it actually works… we are able to stimulate the immune system,” Dr. Tal Zaks said.

In an interview with Israeli television, Zaks said he was confident that, toward the end of the year, “we’ll be able to present first results that prove that our vaccine indeed prevents the disease.”

“By about the end of the year, the start of next year, there’s a reasonable likelihood that we’ll see this vaccine on the market, at least on the American market,” he said in the Channel 12 interview from Moderna’s headquarters in Massachusetts.

Zaks said the battle against COVID-19 marked the firm’s ninth bid to develop vaccines against viruses, “and we succeeded with the previous eight.” Thus, he said, “the degree of confidence within the company was always high” that it would succeed this time, too.

News of the company’s progress, revealed in a release earlier Monday, lifted shares of Moderna more than 22 percent, and helped drive the broader stock market higher.

The company said the vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, appeared to produce an immune response in eight people who received it, similar to that seen in people convalescing from the virus.

Zimbabwe is one of the worst violators of human rights today. Of course they love Iran and hate Israel.

I was scrolling through the large amount of anti-Israel propaganda being released this week by Iran for "Quds Day" when I came across a supposed "op-ed" in Zimbabwe's state-owned Herald newspaper.

The Herald is a joke, only including articles approved by Zimbabwe's authoritarian government. And that government brutally oppresses and often executes opponents, prohibits homosexuality, and defends China's treatment of Uighurs.

So, naturally, it published this op-ed from its Iranian embassy filled with the typical absurd lies of the Iranian regime.

Here it is, if you are unfamiliar with Iranian propaganda.

Imam Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, designated the last Friday of Ramadan as the day of Quds, presented to Muslims, freedmen and the oppressed of the world in this day and age.

Every year, on this day, the free people of the world march in support of the oppressed people of Palestine and condemn the crimes of the usurping Zionist regime.

The rallies are not limited to Islamic countries, and even in some non-Islamic countries that support Zionism, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, demonstrations are held on the occasion of Al-Quds Day.

Famous intellectuals like Gandhi, Mandela, Chomsky and even athletes and some Hollywood actors have always condemned the crimes of the Zionist regime.

The Zionist regime is no more than seven decades old and is the product of colonialism.

Contrary to the claims of the Zionists, who claim to be the original owners of the Holy Land, citing the rule of David and Solomon, historical evidence shows that the main inhabitants of the Occupied Territories were Arabs who entered Palestine from 2500 BC and ruled those lands for 1 500 years.

Quds Sharif has been declared the eternal capital of Israel since the Zionist occupation in 1967.

The Zionist occupiers, with the support of the world’s tyrants and colonialists, forced the Palestinians to leave their homes and lands in one of the largest forced migrations in history.

Quds is a symbol of the unity and determination of the free and oppressive people of the world amidst the Zionist military crimes and the arrogant supporters in Palestine and Gaza.

Quds Day is the day of resistance of the oppressed of the world against the arrogant and the day of the cry of oppression of a nation that with the blood of its children reveals the ugly face of the usurping Zionist regime.

This year’s Quds Day is more special than any other year, because it coincides with the day 700 000 Palestinians were evicted from their homes on the day of the tragedy, the Day of Nakbah.

Along with all the freedom fighters and peaceful people of the world, we can once again create the necessity and obligation of the oppressed Palestinians and the veil from the evil face of these Zionist usurpers.

Human rights is one of the concepts that Western countries, which today support Zionism, have essentially created and developed.

The crimes of the Zionists in the occupied territories and the Gaza Strip violate these laws.

In other words, the Zionists are also considered criminals within the framework of the laws enacted by their supporters.

The Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians, for example, has become like an apartheid system. Resolution 3379 of the UN General Assembly, adopted on November 10, 1975, also condemned the Zionist regime as a racist system.

The resolution was adopted in the 2 400th session with the participation of all members (72 positive votes, 35 negative votes and 32 abstentions.

Clarifying the international community’s mindset on human rights abuses during the years of occupation by the Zionist regime, including terrorism, the illegal construction of Jewish settlements, the construction of a racist retaining wall, and the lack of citizenship services such as drinking water and repelling urban waste to the Palestinians and violating the freedom of expression of Palestinian writers and artists seems essential.

The intellectual foundations of Zionism are so irrational, racist, and contrary to the principles of Judaism that even many Jews oppose it.

These Jews have also set up anti-Zionist movements in order to create a barrier to Zionist oppression in the occupied territories and elsewhere.

As a result of the exorbitant costs of propaganda and the Zionist media, many people around the world mistakenly consider these criminals to be oppressed who commit crimes in self-defence.

One way to correct this misconception is to explain the racist views of thinkers and prominent Zionist figures.

These people clearly consider themselves superior to other peoples of the world and give themselves the right not to be bothered by any crime to occupy Palestine.

The importance of Holy Quds is due to the fact that this holy land, the place of life and resurrection of the divine prophets, was the first qibla of Muslims and the place of the heavenly ascension of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), just as Jerusalem is of special religious importance to Christians.

The article was provided by the Embassy of Iran (Cultural Centre)

I especially like how they imply they have nothing against Judaism but implicitly deny any Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

From the British census of Palestine in 1922, which put the population of the Beersheba district at 75,254:

The Ottoman authorities in 1914 placed the tribal population of Beersheba at 55,000, and since that date there has been a migration of tribes from the Hejaz and Southern Transjordan into the Beersheba area mainly as a result of succession of adequate rainfalls and of pressure exerted by other tribes east of the River Jordan.

That is some 20,000 Arabs who came from southern Jordan and from the Hejaz area of Saudi Arabia to settle in Beersheba, increasing the population there by close to 40% in a few years.

People tend to forget that Arabs (especially the Bedouin represented here, but also other Arabs) never considered any national boundaries as being meaningful. They freely moved from one area to another. We’ve noted this before with a major influx of Arabs from the Hauran area of Syria in the early 1930s because of a drought:

Which was preceded by as many as a hundred thousand more illegal Arab immigrants in the late 1920s (with one arguing that the 1922 census

What do all of these people have in common?

They are all considered “Palestinians” today, and to have lived in Palestine for centuries beforehand.

In fact, a significant number of Arabs who lived in Palestine in 1948 were there for far less time than the 72 years since.

05/18 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: Israeli Sovereignty, Not Appeasement, Is the Key to Lasting Peace; 20 years after Lebanon pullout, Hezbollah is itching for another battle

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Israeli Sovereignty, Not Appeasement, Is the Key to Lasting Peace

In the coming months, Israel is expected to apply its civilian law and administration to the 30 percent of Judea and Samaria (or the "West Bank") that President Donald Trump's recently unveiled peace plan anticipates remaining with Israel after a final peace agreement.

One might expect that Israel's plan would be hailed for advancing peace and the equal rights of Israelis and Palestinians alike. But the more common response of many so-called experts has been to distort the facts and preemptively condemn Israel.

The distortions begin with the very words used to describe Israeli plans. Across platforms, "experts" fret over what they call "Israeli annexation."

As I explained in my 2014 book The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, Israel cannot "annex" any part of Judea and Samaria. Annexation is an act under which a state imposes its sovereignty over another state's territory.

The state of Israel has sovereign rights to Judea and Samaria by force of its declaration of independence issued 72 years ago, on May 14, 1948. With its declaration of independence, together with Britain's surrender of the Mandate it had been granted by the League of Nations to reconstitute the ancient Jewish national home, Israel became the one and only state that acquired sovereignty over all the Mandate's territory.

When Israel applies its civilian law, it will be exercising sovereign rights that it has held for decades.

The second problem with the discourse surrounding Israel's plan to apply its laws to these areas is that it ignores both why doing so is important for Israel and why President Trump included Israeli sovereignty in his peace plan in the first place.

From Israel's perspective, the plan is important because it will significantly improve the rule of law and the civil rights of residents of the areas. For the past 26 years, Israel has shared governance of the "West Bank" with an autonomous Palestinian Authority. Israel has governed its portion of the territory under military administration. Nearly half a million Israelis and more than 100,000 Palestinians reside in cities, towns and villages in Judea and Samaria governed by the Israel Defense Forces.

Israel's civilian legal code is far more liberal than the military laws that currently apply to the areas. The civil rights of area residents—Jews and Arabs alike—will be far better protected under Israeli law than they have been under Israeli military administrative law.

Baroness Deech: Why I support the Board’s decision not to comment on annexation

I support the decision that the Board of Deputies should make no statement on the proposed territorial annexation by Israel. My experience in and out of Parliament with people who hate Israel and also with anti-Semites is that they are very willing to associate all Jews in the UK with the actions of Israel. If Israel carries out an action of which they disapprove, they call on UK Jews to dissociate themselves from it. In their view, all Jews are considered "guilty" or responsible for Israel's unpopular actions.

Those who urge the Board to make a statement against annexation are playing into the hands of people who hate Israel and who hate Jews. Calling for a statement or, worse still, making one, gives credence to the notion that all Jews are responsible for Israel's unpopular actions and that all Jews can instruct the Israel government to change its policy.

By making no statement, the Board will make it clear that while Jews in the diaspora generally support Israel, they are not responsible for her actions, they are not citizens with a vote, they do not have the right or the power to change her policies, and that anti-Semitism is, as it always has been, hatred of Jews, not a reaction to the existence or the policies of Israel. We should not get involved in Israeli politics as if we were Israeli citizens.

David Singer: Jordan’s King Abdullah Tries to Torpedo Trump Peace Plan

Neither Trump nor Netanyahu has advocated a one-state solution.

The “Palestinian Authority” no longer exists – Mahmoud Abbas having changed its name to the “State of Palestine” by decree on 3 January 2013.

Maybe a massive conflict if Israel “annexed” the West Bank – but 30% – an area of 1697 km2 [square kilometres]?

The interviewer did not query Abdullah – but blithely continued:
DER SPIEGEL: You would suspend the peace treaty with Israel?
King Abdullah II: I don’t want to make threats and create a loggerheads atmosphere, but we are considering all options. We agree with many countries in Europe and the international community that the law of the strongest should not apply in the Middle East.

Empty posturing.

The Hashemites have controlled Jordan since 1920.

The PLO has controlled Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria since 2004 and allowed its hapless residents only one vote in 2006.

The law of the strongest is alive and kicking in the Middle East.

Abdullah faces Trump calling on him to fill the negotiating void left by the PLO jettisoning Trump’s plan – because:
Transjordan invaded Judea and Samaria in 1948 driving out every Jew living there
Transjordan and Judea and Samaria were merged into one territorial entity in 1950 and renamed “Jordan” whilst “Judea and Samaria” was renamed “West Bank”
“West Bank” Arab residents were granted Jordanian citizenship between 1950 and 1988
PLO made no claims to territorial sovereignty until Jordan lost Judea and Samaria to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day Wa
r.
The one-state solution is a desperate Abdullah ploy to remain uninvolved.

The realistic two-state solution – Jordan and Israel – is coming.