Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

08/19 Links Pt2: Democratic convention brings back former Women's March leaders accused of anti-Semitism; The ADL is targeted for not being woke enough for extremists

From Ian:

Democratic convention brings back former Women's March leaders accused of anti-Semitism

The Democratic National Convention utilized two of the former leaders of the Women's March, both of who faced allegations of anti-Semitism during their time on the board.

Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour participated in separate convention events on Monday and Tuesday, respectively. Mallory spoke on Monday at a virtual meeting of the Democratic Black Caucus while Sarsour addressed the convention’s Muslims and Allies Assembly.

Joe Biden's presidential campaign, in response to an attack from President Trump's reelection campaign, reaffirmed the former vice president's stance on Israel and the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, which calls for a boycott of Israeli goods in order to pressure the country's government to improve the quality of life for Palestinians.

“Joe Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel and a vehement opponent of anti-Semitism his entire life, and he obviously condemns [Sarsour's] views and opposes BDS, as does the Democratic platform,” Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said, according to CNN’s Jake Tapper. “She has no role in the Biden campaign whatsoever.”

Bates also pointed to the official Democratic platform, which includes the declaration: “We oppose any effort to unfairly single out and delegitimize Israel, including at the United Nations or through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement.”

Biden Campaign Repudiates Linda Sarsour, Condemns BDS Movement

Prominent anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour appeared on Tuesday on the live stream of the Democratic National Convention’s Muslim Delegates Assembly.

Sarsour — who acted as a surrogate for Bernie Sanders during the primaries — remarked, “The Democratic Party is not perfect, but it is absolutely our party in this moment.”

Following Tuesday’s event, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden repudiated Sarsour, with a spokesman for his campaign stating, “Joe Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel and a vehement opponent of antisemitism his entire life, and he obviously condemns her views and opposes BDS, as does the Democratic platform.”

“She has no role in the Biden campaign whatsoever,” the spokesman added.

WATCH: “Hey man” @JoeBiden, I have a message for you and all @TheDemocrats:

YOU’RE A BUNCH OF HYPOCRITES & FRAUDS!

Featuring vile antisemite Linda Sarsour to mollify Bernie is appeasement worthy of SHAME #NotMyVote

First you mainstream haters, then their hatred #NotOnMyWatch https://t.co/qn7m8RrwOa pic.twitter.com/Vr4xXa3mSu
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) August 19, 2020

Dozens of State Legislators Slam Democratic Socialists of America for ‘Blatantly Antisemitic Litmus Test’ of New York City Council Candidates

Dozens of members of the New York State Assembly have condemned the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for issuing what they called a “blatantly antisemitic litmus test” to prospective City Council candidates.

The DSA’s questionnaire to candidates included the line, “Do you pledge not to travel to Israel if elected to City Council in solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation?”

“Even though foreign policy falls outside the purview of municipal government, gestures like travel to a country by elected officials from a city the size and prominence of New York still send a powerful message, as would the refusal to participate in them,” the questionnaire added.

The next question was an aggressive near-endorsement of the antisemitic BDS campaign, reading, “Do you support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement? If not, why?”

Sovereignty, or the application of civil law to Judea and Samaria, has been hereby suspended, in favor of a peace accord with the UAE. How long that suspension will last is anyone’s guess. Some think it’s a done deal—that the subject of sovereignty is permanently off the table—while others think Bibi will make good his electoral promise of sovereignty, doing the right thing at the right time, in good time. But was sovereignty ever really on the table in the first place?

“Peace for peace,” said Netanyahu in his remarks to the nation about the accord, emphasizing that this would not be a cold peace, but a peace in which Israel and the UAE would be equals and friends. But the prime minister’s words also suggested that Israel traded not sovereignty for peace, but peace for peace: that Israel got something so huge in the exchange that it was worth it—worth giving up Israel’s sovereignty. But are sovereignty and peace commodities that might be traded, one for the other, even Steven? Is peace somehow bigger and more important than sovereignty? More worthwhile?

A reasonable person might ask: is "peace for peace" only more Netanyahu oratorical sleight of hand? For how is peace made, if not by sovereign entities as equals? And if Israel is robbed of the right to self-determination in parts of its lawful, indigenous territory, one might argue that it has no power to make an accord. That the right to make accords belongs solely to sovereign countries.

Giving up sovereignty is unfortunate in many ways, not least for creating a gap between the UAE and Israel, removing any semblance of parity between the two. Suspending sovereignty at the behest of the U.S. turns Israel into a vassal state, tied to Uncle Sam’s apron strings. It means that America decides the fate of the Jews and the land God gave them. Or rather, in agreeing to suspend sovereignty, Israel has ceded its rights, making America sovereign over the Holy Land.

This is what Netanyahu did in agreeing to suspend sovereignty. But who knows, perhaps sovereignty was never really on the table at all. Perhaps the suggested parameters of sovereignty were only meant to suggest the borders of a “Palestinian” state.

I put the question to Nadia Matar, co-chairman of Women in Green with Yehudit Katsover. The two have lately gone on to create the Sovereignty Movement (Ribonut), which serves as a forum and a campaign for the application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. Matar’s response to my question regarding partial sovereignty was succinct: “Bibi is on his way to create a PA state. He has to go.”

The same question put to Professor Efraim Inbar, however, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, yielded a surprising response, one that is brimming with optimism for the future, “The Americans got cold feet and Bibi got an agreement with UAE. Not so bad. Sovereignty remains for better days. History does not end in 2020.”

Inbar sees Bibi and Israel as the big winners here. A different picture emerges, however, in a recent interview of Finance Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) on Kan Bet, where Katz said that sovereignty had been frozen before the agreement with the United Arab Emirates. The MK was frank in stating that there actually is no connection between the peace accord with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the decision to suspend sovereignty. That it was simply “more convenient” for the Arab nations to present the accords as if they had brought about the suspension of sovereignty.

In this light, freezing sovereignty is akin to Israel freezing construction in Judea and Samaria, or what hostile elements call “settlement expansion.” It was canny of the UAE to squeeze this concession from the Jews. In theory, if not in application, the suspension of sovereignty makes the UAE a hero to the Arab people for staying Israel's hands in applying its land rights in the Holy Land, land that is coveted by the Arab people.

President Trump announces the agreement on August 13, 2020

Jared Kushner, however, asserts that the entire question of sovereignty is moot, “That land is land that right now Israel quite frankly controls. Israelis that live there aren’t going anywhere. There shouldn’t be any urgency to applying Israeli law. We believe they will respect their agreement.”

With this statement, Kushner betrays his lack of understanding of a very basic issue: that the territories have been under martial law since 1967, and living under martial law, is no way to live. Sovereignty means bringing civility to Judea and Samaria. For the wild, wild “West Bank” is a lawless place, where anything might happen when tensions flare, and the only thing to stop it is soldiers.

This is not a proper or humane state of affairs for Jews or Arabs. Asked if the application of civil law to the territories stood to benefit the Palestinians, Khaled Abu Toameh, an Israeli Arab journalist and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, responded, “I believe they would prefer any law to the existing set of laws, which includes Israeli military law, Jordanian law and Palestinian law. These laws have complicated the lives of Palestinians and created much confusion for many.”

The Point of the Deal: A Palestinian State

The Trump peace plan doesn’t factor in that confusion. It’s not the point or the focus of the deal. The purpose of the Deal of the Century, is to create a Palestinian state on 70 percent of Judea and Samaria through the application of Israeli sovereignty to just 30 percent of that land, effectively giving up another huge chunk of Jewish land to the Arabs for good, land that now legally belongs to Israel under international law. The normalization agreement with the UAE, however, puts a stopper into that idea, stipulating that Israel suspend its plan to extend Israeli law to these areas.

Kushner was frank about all this in his public remarks on the accord, in which he stated that Prime Minister Netanyahu had agreed to a map dividing Judea and Samaria into a Palestinian state with a part that would belong to Israel, calling it “the first map ever agreed publicly to by one of the parties.”

This, it appears, was the intent of partial sovereignty from the beginning. In giving up sovereignty over most of Judea and Samaria, Israel gives up more land to the Arabs for a state. Hence Trump’s peace plan turns the application of civilian law into another Israeli land giveaway, yet more land for peace. The plan actually turns sovereignty into something that is anathema to the world: annexation, by making Israel the thief in asserting its rights to a mere 30 percent of Jewish land, when in fact it is Israel, giving away yet more of its God-given land, more lifeblood, to the Arabs.

The Deal of the Century gives the Arabs license to encroach on yet more Jewish land, in the very same sort of creeping annexation of which Israel stands accused. Make no mistake: this is an Arab land grab going all the way back to the British Mandate for Palestine, when responding to Arab entreaties, Britain reneged on its promise to the Jews, and created Transjordan on 78 percent of the Mandate. It is the same creeping Arab annexation of Jewish land that was Oslo, the same creeping Arab annexation of Jewish land that resulted from the expulsion of the Jews from Gaza. And yet it is Israel that is the enabler of this state of affairs, in which the Arabs get more Jewish land over time, as the Jews are squeezed into borders that shrink over time, inching ever closer to the sea.

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A most interesting tweet from PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We should respect the national symbols of the UAE. The UAE flag is a national symbol that must be respected and honoured , so should other Emirates national symbols . <a href="https://t.co/OITcIjTdQS">https://t.co/OITcIjTdQS</a></p>— Dr. Saeb Erakat الدكتور صائب عريقات (@ErakatSaeb) <a href="https://twitter.com/ErakatSaeb/status/1296071978328227841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 19, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

If national symbols must be respected, then Israel’s flag must not be burned by Palestinians – but that happens every day and Erekat remains silent.

So it must be that Erekat does not consider Israel to be a nation.

08/19 Links Pt1: UAE Agreement Demonstrates That Netanyahu Is the Master Peacemaker; The Palestinians weren’t betrayed by the UAE. They were simply left behind

From Ian:

David Singer: Saying no one time too many : The PLO sidelined

Trump’s Vision offered the PLO Gaza and possibly 70% of Judea and Samaria for a second Arab State in former Palestine - in addition to Jordan.

Abbas – who has been demanding 100% for the last 25 years – made his displeasure known in terms that must not have endeared him to Trump:

“I say to Trump and Netanyahu: Jerusalem is not for sale; all our rights are not for sale and are not for bargain. And your deal, the conspiracy, will not pass … We say a thousand no’s to the deal of the century,”

Trump’s offer – spurned so dismissively by Abbas - now seems destined for the dustbin of history.

The UN and European Union’s insistence that the “two-state solution” was the only solution that could end the Jewish-Arab conflict has been debunked as Israel and the UAE begin the path to peaceful co-existence.

Jordan and Egypt’s involvement after a 53 years absence becomes increasingly possible.

Israel’s planned application of sovereignty in the 30% of Judea and Samaria designated in Trump’s plan has been placed on hold – as Trump pointed out in his carefully worded White House statement:

“As a result of this diplomatic breakthrough, and at the request of President Trump with the support of the United Arab Emirates, Israel will suspend declaring sovereignty over areas outlined in the President’s Vision for Peace and focus its efforts now on expanding ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim world. The United States, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates are confident that additional diplomatic breakthroughs with other nations are possible, and will work together to achieve this goal”..

The operative word is “suspend” not “abandon”

Once again Israel has made a major concession in pursuing peace by suspending its extension of sovereignty into the Jewish People’s biblical heartland – specifically designated for reconstitution of the Jewish National Home by the Mandate and preserved until today by article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

A bigger picture beckons as other Arab states could shortly follow the UAE’s decision and establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

Trump’s incredible efforts over the past three years to achieve peace between Jews and Arabs should see his most trenchant critics eating humble pie.

Jonathan Tobin: UAE Agreement Demonstrates That Netanyahu Is the Master Peacemaker

As far as most Democrats are concerned, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is one of their least favorite world leaders. Though not all of them go so far as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who scorns him as a "reactionary racist." But even those who consider themselves pro-Israel stalwarts draw the line at expressing support for Netanyahu.

Their allies in the media and the foreign policy establishment agree. Most pundits and so-called Middle East "experts" believe the Likud Party leader and his policies to be the principal obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. Many American Jews also deprecate him as a foe of liberal values whose refusal to compromise and alleged corruption is a threat to Israeli democracy.

But in the wake of the historic agreement reached last week between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to begin negotiations to normalize relations between the two countries, it's time for Netanyahu's detractors to acknowledge a truth they'd rather deny or ignore. Far from being a hard-liner or an obstacle to peace, Netanyahu is the most skillful and successful diplomat in Israel's history.

Few would dispute that as the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, Netanyahu is a master politician whose ability to stay on top is nothing short of remarkable.

It's also true that despite his truculent reputation, Netanyahu has been the most cautious of Israeli prime ministers when it comes to the use of military force. Unlike virtually all of his predecessors, he has been reluctant to use the Israel Defense Forces in all-out campaigns to silence attacks in the south, from Hamas-run Gaza, or in the north, from Hezbollah. Indeed, domestic critics from the left and the right have often criticized him for being too soft on terror, rather than being the warmonger depicted in the international press.

But the greatest misnomer about Netanyahu is the claim that his bluster is isolating his country.

Where did all the “Israel is increasingly isolated” people go? Are they ok? pic.twitter.com/oWjKGb8EtR
— Daniel Paul Rubenstein (@paulrubens) August 18, 2020

Ruthie Blum: Netanyahu’s bold move

In answer to critics on both sides of the spectrum, Netanyahu penned an op-ed on Monday to “remind [readers] that in the current agreement, not only has Israel not withdrawn from so much as one square meter, rather the Trump plan includes, at my request, the application of Israeli sovereignty over extensive territories in Judea and Samaria. It was I who insisted on including sovereignty in the plan, and this plan has not changed. President Trump is committed to it and I am committed to conducting negotiations on this basis.”

He went on to say, “At the U.N. in 2013, I said that for years, many believed that Israeli-Palestinian peace would advance a broader reconciliation between Israel and the Arab world. I said that I was of the view that peace would be achieved in the opposite fashion: It was expanding reconciliation between Israel and the Arab world that would likely advance an Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

There is no question that Netanyahu was right all along that the root of Middle East strife was not a lack of Palestinian statehood. Only liberal Jews continued to believe that fallacy, to which even most Arabs have stopped paying lip service. Proof that they only used the Palestinian “cause” to bash Israel lays in the appalling treatment of Palestinians in their own countries.

This is something that members of the Israeli right never doubted. Many, however, have cast serious aspersions on Netanyahu’s convictions where preserving Jewish rights in the land of Israel is concerned. They see the UAE deal as a form of capitulation to foreign pressure.

They are wrong to perceive his actions in this light. He is not caving to Washington. Rather, he is buying time and creating optimal conditions for Israel’s road ahead. As Movement for Governability and Democracy managing director Daniel Seaman so aptly put it in these pages on Sunday: “While most politicians are busy playing checkers, Netanyahu has always been playing three-dimensional chess.”

During the 1834 Peasants’ Revolt in Palestine, both sides attacked Jews

The Peasants' Revolt was an 1834 rebellion against Egyptian conscription and taxation of Arabs in Palestine. Egyptian general Ibrahim Pasha attempted to take over all of Palestine, but at one point he went to Jaffa and the Arabs of Jerusalem started their revolt.

An account of what happened was published in a Sydney, Australia newspaper:

As I made continual excursions among the Arabs, and they conversed with me without reserve, I discovered that they were very discontented with the Pacha's government, particularly with his taking their young men for soldiers. They informed me that a widely extended conspiracy was on the point of breaking forth into rebellion, and that I should do well to quit Palestine. I accordingly made preparations for my -departure ; but, in spite of all my diligence, I was too late. No sooner did the Pacha depart for Jaffa than the revolution commenced. …The Arabs from Samaria and Hebron marched on Jerusalem. The Pacha had left only 600 men in Jerusalem, and the assailants were more than 40;000. 'As, however, the walls were furnished with a few cannon, and the Arabs were armed with nothing but lances and muskets, we could have held out forever, had not the Arabs discovered a subterranean passage.

They entered at midnight, and: the soldiers, after a gallant defence, .were obliged to retire to the castle. All the Christians fled to the different convents and thus, saved their lives: For five or six days the city was given up to plunder, and never did I witness such a heart rending spectacle.

The Jews, who had no place of safety to which they could retire, suffered very much; their houses were so,pillaged that they had not a bed to lie on, many were murdered, their wives and daughters violated &c.; in fine, barbarities were committed too shocking to relate.

Ibrahim Pasha returned to Jerusalem with 5000 soldiers and conquered the city again. He then went on to Hebron in August, where he attacked the Arab rebels hiding there – and the Jews.

From an 1851 account of "The Revolt and Earthquake of Jerusalem in 1834."

The Pasha, after taking Nablus, remained there three weeks to disarm the people, and took fifteen thousand guns. The sheikhs . having fled to Hebron, ,where they were determined to make their last stand, the Pasha marched thither. After twice defeating the rebels in the field, he took the town by assault and gave it over to the soldiers to plunder. They killed all the Muslim inhabitants they could find and, some of them fleeing into the Jewish quarter, the soldiers carried on the work of plunder there also, and completely stripped the Jews, their houses, and even their synagogues.

Arabs fought Arabs – and used it as an excuse to attack the Jews.

Last October, during a debate, Tunisian presidential candidate Qais Said said, “Normalization [with Israel] is high treason, and those who are dealing with an entity that have displaced and annihilated an entire people must be brought to trial. The word normalization is an inherently wrong word, we are in a state of war with a usurping entity.”

Qais Said won the election and is now president of Tunisia.

And he hasn’t said a negative word about the United Arab Emirates plan to normalize relations with Israel.

Tunisians have noticed, and reporters try to contact the president for a statement, but he has not returned their calls.

This is similar to the silence of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, both of which would routinely issue anti-Israel statements for years and both of which are now silent, much to the frustration of the PLO which used to be able to dictate to them what to do:

The State of Palestine summoned its ambassador to the UAE and demanded the UAE to retract its position. The leadership called on other Arab countries might take a similar step and called upon the Arab League to respect the will of its people; to put an end to such a unilateral and irresponsible behavior and to abide by its charter based on the foundations of Arab solidarity and the joint and unified Arab position. The leadership called for immediate emergency sessions of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to address this matter.

It is a new world.

Muslim clerics have always used Jerusalem as a political fatwa football

Yesterday I reported that the Mufti of Jerusalem issued a fatwa saying that UAE residents are “forbidden by law” to visit Al Aqsa.

Now a major Islamic scholar, former deputy at Al Azhar University, says that the Palestinian Mufti doesn’t know anything about Islamic law.

Dr. Abbas Shoman, a member of the Supreme Council of Senior Scholars of Al Azhar Al Sharif, expressed his astonishment over a fatwa forbidding Emiratis’ prayers at Al Aqsa Mosque, issued by the Mufti of Jerusalem after the announcement of the UAE-Israel peace treaty.

Dr. Shoman said: “I refuse to issue Sharia fatwas that are not based on sharia rules, and I do not know as a specialist in Islamic jurisprudence that there is a justification that annuls the prayers of an entire people of a Muslim country in a mosque on the grounds of a political position taken by their state.”

He added: “Indeed, the fatwa is selective and not based on Sharia….As far as I know, there has never been a fatwa in our Islamic history that prevents a person or a group from praying in a mosque for Muslims.”

This actually is similar to another dispute from 2012 when a former Mufti of Jerusalem Ekrima Sabri criticized Egypt’s Grand Mufti visiting Jerusalem. He used bizarre logic:

Sheikh Sabri said from a political perspective Gomaa’s visit implied the recognition of Israeli’s occupation.
“Recognition is a form of normalization because no one can enter Jerusalem without an Israeli visa or without proper coordination with the Israeli security forces.”
But if Muslim citizens of Europe or America visit Israel, their visit would not be considered as an act of “recognizing the occupation,” Sabri said.
“If German or French Muslims visit Jerusalem, this is not normalization since their countries already recognize Israel.
“Some Arab governments might not boycott Israel, but their people do and they reject normalization.”

Another dispute over whether Muslims can visit Jerusalem erupted in 2010 when an Egyptian soccer team planned to play a friendly match against the Palestinian team in the West Bank, and Egyptian extremist clerics issued a fatwa against it.

Similarly, major Muslim Brotherhood cleric Yusuf Qaradawi once issued a fatwa against non-Palestinian Muslims visiting Jerusalem:

He stressed in remarks published yesterday in Doha, "We should feel that we are deprived of Jerusalem and fight for it so that Jerusalem is ours, and that the responsibility to defeat the Zionist aggression is the responsibility of the Islamic nation as a whole and not the responsibility of the Palestinian people alone," he said, adding: "It is not reasonable to leave the Palestinians alone in the face of the Zionist state with a large military capabilities."
He said that "Jerusalem will not return except through resistance and jihad, and the combined efforts of the Arab and Islamic nation."

Muslim clerics like to use Jerusalem as a political football, just like Muslim politicians do. Indeed, there seems to be little distinction between Islamic jurisprudence and politics based on how Muslim clerics have issued contradictory (and sometimes self-contradictory) fatwas on Jerusalem in ways that happen to align with their political positions.

An antisemitic PLO poster circa 1970

Here is a photo of Yasir Arafat together with Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader, Nayef Hawatmeh and Palestinian writer Kamal Nasser at press conference in Amman in 1970.

Notice the poster behind them with the Star of David?

This poster, as seen in the Palestine Poster Project, is the one Arafat chose to pose in front of.

as pal

That, ladies and gentlemen, is antisemitism.

(h/t jess)

08/18 Links Pt2: Meir Y. Soloveichik: The 1620 Project; When George Washington Met Moses; Israeli supermarket baron sues UNHRC for defamation over 'blacklist'

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: The 1620 Project

Four hundred years ago this month, the Mayflower set sail for the New World. On board was William Bradford, who would serve for decades as governor of Plymouth Colony and whose memoir is still the central source of knowledge about the colonists’ triumphs and travails. His grave is in Plymouth as well, an obelisk marking the spot and bearing his name. But above the engraved English words three words appear, etched in Hebrew: Adonai ezer hayai, the Lord is the help of my life. To most tourists, the Hebrew words are gibberish, but to Jews who come upon them, they are a source of fascination—and a reminder, 400 years after the Mayflower set sail, of the remarkable tale of America itself.

The origin of the intriguing epitaph can be found in Nick Bunker’s fascinating book on the Pilgrims, Making Haste from Babylon. There he reveals Bradford’s fascination with Hebrew, and how, at the end of his life, he began to study what he saw as a sacred script. “I have had a longing desire,” Bradford reflected, “to see with my owne eyes, something of that most ancient language, and holy tongue … and what names were given to things, from the Creation.” With paper scarce, Bradford “copied out his exercises on blank pages at the front of the manuscript of his history of the plantation. He covered the white space with nearly 900 Hebrew words, starting with eight names for God.” Bradford’s Pilgrims, like the Puritans who would follow him, “wished to swim back up the stream of learning, and to absorb the wisdom of the Bible from as close to the source as possible.” They sought out Christian exegetes with interests similar to theirs, who “read with sympathy the rabbis of the Roman Empire, Egypt, and medieval Spain, authors whose books were preserved by the Jews of Germany or Venice.”

Bunker further reveals that Bradford’s engagement with Jewish tradition began on the Mayflower itself. One book he carried with him was a commentary on the Psalms by the Hebraist Henry Ainsworth. While Ainsworth was interested in the vastness of rabbinic tradition, he was in love with Maimonides, whom he called “the wisest of the Hebrew Rabbins.” Ainsworth cites Maimonides in explaining how Psalm 107 serves as the source for Jews to express gratitude to God after successfully crossing a wilderness or a treacherous body of water. Bradford’s brethren could certainly identify with this teaching, and his memoir, which references the words of this Psalm, recounts that upon arriving safely at Cape Cod, the Pilgrims expressed their own gratitude to the Almighty. The feast that we annually commemorate today would not come until 1621, but, as Bunker reflects: “If we could ask William Bradford to define the first Thanksgiving in America, he would point to something else. He would say that it took place at the instant of arrival, at the moment on Cape Cod when the Pilgrims fell on their knees to say the Jewish prayer.”

Bradford’s Hebraism set the stage for what would follow. The Puritans who arrived after the Mayflower were equally obsessed with the people of Israel. This was succinctly and sublimely described by George W. Bush in remarks to Israel’s Knesset:
The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friendship runs deeper than any treaty. It is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul. When William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, he quoted the words of Jeremiah: “Come let us declare in Zion the word of God.” The founders of my country saw a new promised land and bestowed upon their towns names like Bethlehem and New Canaan. And in time, many Americans became passionate advocates for a Jewish state.

When George Washington Met Moses

In 1790, the United States of America was a new nation, but Moses Seixas was already living what would come to be called the American Dream. The son of Sephardic Jews who had migrated from Lisbon, Portugal, to Newport, R.I., Seixas took advantage of the opportunities his state and nation offered to civic-minded entrepreneurs of all faiths. He would become a leading town merchant and cofounder of the Bank of Rhode Island. He would also become the warden — or lay leader — of Congregation Jeshuat Israel, which had built a beautiful synagogue with a domed ceiling and Greek-style ionic columns at the center of town. (The synagogue, later called the Touro Synagogue, still stands at the center of Newport’s downtown.)

Though Seixas and other Jews of Newport had achieved prosperity, they were worried that their freedom to worship and participate in civic life wouldn’t last. Given what had happened to Jews throughout the old world, they had reason to worry. Jews had been kicked out of various European countries through the centuries, “expelled from England as early as 1290, forced to leave Spain in 1492, and kicked out of Portugal four years later.”

But Moses Seixas and many Jews in the new United States, numbering only around 2,000 in a total U.S. population of 2.5 million when the American Revolution began, found hope in the words of George Washington and the Founding Fathers on religious liberty and equality under the law. And when he learned that Washington would be visiting Newport — as part of a visit to Rhode Island in celebration of its becoming the final original state to ratify the U.S. Constitution — Seixas saw it as an opportunity to ask Washington to confirm explicitly that the Founders’ promises applied to Jews.

Soon after Washington arrived in Newport in August 1790, Seixas presented him with a letter from the members of Congregation Jeshuat Israel. Accounts differ as to how Seixas delivered the letter. An entry on Founders Online, a digital repository of letters maintained by the National Archives and University of Virginia, speculates that “Seixas probably presented it to GW on the morning of 18 Aug. 1790 when the town and Christian clergy of Newport also delivered addresses to the president.” Yet articles in the authoritative Mount Vernon Digital Encyclopedia say Washington actually visited the synagogue during that trip.

What is undisputed, however, are the powerful messages of religious freedom and equality under the law from the Jewish congregation’s letter and Washington’s swift response. The letter dated August 17 states: “Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens, we now (with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events) behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People — a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance — but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship.” The letter implicitly asks Washington to affirm that the views of the promise of the new nation held by Seixas and the congregation were correct.

Einat Wilf and Oren Gross: Jews Without Israel

Between those two massive forces vying for America’s future, it appears that at least some Jews have become convinced that the survival of Jews in America would be better served by the success of this universalist coalition—and if the price of that be forswearing Zionism and Jewish self-determination, so be it. It has become a matter of urgency to reassure members of the self-proclaimed universalist coalition of “the left” that American Jews can be counted upon to support the universal vision across the board and not succumb to their tribal instincts when it comes to Zionism and Israel. Where the left celebrates a multiplicity of groups asserting their own identities, American Jews are required to shed their identity in order to be, perhaps, counted.

Knowing that the vast majority of Jews, including in America, are not so ready to give up their support for Israel and Zionism as the price of admission, a new “gateway vision” has been concocted that would serve to steer Jews away from Zionism. The Israel/Palestine imagined recently by Peter Beinart, for example, is designed to sound very much like the state American Jews inhabit, or believe they inhabit—one of equality, diversity, pluralism, and most importantly, the ability to live life freely and safely as a Jew in a non-Jewish majority country. That all experience from failed multiethnic states points to the fact that this Israel/Palestine country cannot exist peacefully and safely (certainly not for Jews), and that it would descend (yet again) into bloody civil war, makes no difference. The democratic deficit across the Arab world is conveniently ignored. So is the historical record of persecution and pogroms and second-class citizenry of Jewish minorities that eventually resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Jews and Jewish culture from the Arab world.

To help Jews move away from Zionism, Zionist history, Arab and Islamic history, and the contemporary politics of the region, all of these must be distorted beyond recognition. The simple fact that the overwhelming share of Zionists envisioned a state from the beginning, and only called for a more ambiguous “national home” for reasons of feasibility and attainability, especially when facing the empires that controlled the land, is also ignored. Thus, the argument that statehood is not inherent to Zionism has about the equivalent validity of arguing that voting rights are not inherent to feminism because women once were content to fight for elementary school education. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, whose plea to have Yavneh and its sages Beinart seeks to emulate, asked for Yavneh when Jerusalem was all but lost and destroyed. Beinart, on the other hand, calls for the effective destruction of Jewish sovereignty in order to get to an impossible Yavneh.

The Yavneh Beinart truly seeks to secure is not in Israel, but in the United States. Beinart could ignore fact, history, and evidence because his essay is not really about how to solve the conflict between Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land, but rather about how to secure the future of Jews, especially like himself, in America. To get there he would use the Jewish state as a sacrificial lamb. This is the reason why Beinart’s essay and numerous one-state essays and proposals published over the years have found no audience in Israel. Israeli Jews recognize none of their concerns in those visions of a magical one-state solution that is the product of narcissistic neocolonialism that draws borders to serve its own needs.

Ultimately, it is up to Jews in America to choose their allies, struggles, and vision for their life as individuals and as a community. It is up to them to decide whether their life in America is better secured by support of Zionism and the Jewish state or not, and whether the spirit of America is more in line with that of Zionism or anti-Zionism. Most Jews in America still believe that Zionism is deeply entwined both with their Jewish and American identities, and that Zionism incorporates both the particular and the universal, and we believe they are right on both counts. But either way—it is their choice. Jews in Israel will continue to celebrate the fact that they finally live in the sovereign nation-state of the Jewish people and can therefore walk this Earth knowing that someone has their back. Jews in Israel viscerally know exactly how fragile is this so-called privilege, that so many nations share, and have absolutely no intention of checking it at anyone else’s door.

Thank you @BenShapiro for hosting me to discuss @Twitter’s double standards against Jews and the Jewish State that were exposed in our Knesset hearing.

We MUST demand accountability to end the culture of impunity. #NoSafeSpaceforJewHate pic.twitter.com/EDdEycUTZo
— מיכל קוטלר-וונש | Michal Cotler-Wunsh (@CotlerWunsh) August 17, 2020

Hey Alma has yet another article about how young Jews who attended Zionist summer camps are unaware of the complexities of the Israeli/Arab conflict.

As is typical in these articles, the assumption is that the newly anti-Zionist Jews have been cheated out of real knowledge, and now they know better, and must “unlearn” the hasbara/propaganda they were force fed by evil former IDF soldiers.

For example:

My Jewish education at camp heavily involved learning about modern-day Israel and the reason why it was so central for Jews to have their own homeland. I remember first learning about Theodor Herzl at camp, along with famous Israeli prime ministers like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir. We had Hebrew lessons every day which often came with education about Israeli culture, and a section of our madrichim (counselors) were Israeli, young and usually fresh out of the IDF. They would teach us about where they grew up and put on a week-long celebration of Israel’s independence every summer. Posters with facts about Israeli culture and history were commonplace in camp buildings: Did you know that the average Israeli consumes 22 lbs of hummus each year?

I loved learning about Israel and felt a spiritual connection to this country I had never lived in or been to. When I was told by my counselors that Israel was the only democracy in the Middle East, that it had every right to defend itself from missile attacks coming from the West Bank, I believed them — why would I not? I was never told about the nation that existed before the formation of Israel or the native Palestinians who lived there. I was never told about the occupation and what it means for Palestinians living under Israeli rule.

So they are “unlearning” that Israel is a democracy and “learning” that there was a Palestinian nation on the land beforehand. Isn’t that great? Myths are replacing a vacuum.

It is way past time (if it isn’t happening already) for Jewish kids to be taught an accurate version of modern Israeli history, one that is proud and unapologetic. There is no reason to demonize ordinary Palestinian Arabs but there is a need to describe the antisemitism of their leaders, of the Hadassah Hospital convoy massacre, of how the Arabs attacked immediately after the partition vote, of how the Zionists waited for months before finally fighting back, of the drama of the UN vote and the declaration of the state, of the Palestinian Arabs who fled from Jaffa after their leaders abandoned them. It can all be taught accurately in a way that kids can understand.

From Al Monitor:

To pressure Palestinians and force them to back down from their decision to stop security coordination, Israel is refusing to recognize more than 24,000 Palestinian newborns while preventing their movement through crossings as well as their travel abroad.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — After waiting for six months, Anwar Abdel Hakim, a Palestinian from the town of Mikhmas in the center of the West Bank, managed to obtain the identification papers and US-Palestinian passport for her son Mohammed to join her husband in the United States. They were supposed to travel Aug. 9.

However, Hakim did not know that upon arrival at the Karama border crossing to Jordan, the Israelis would ban her newborn Mohammed from traveling. His ID number was not in the Israeli records because it was not transferred from the Palestinian Authority (PA).

This is the case for thousands of Palestinian newborns who were born after the PA announced in May it would halt security coordination with Israel because of the Israeli annexation plan.

In normal times, the PA would regularly transfer the records of newborns and the names of those who renewed their passports to the Israeli authorities, which control the border crossings and security permits in Israel.

..

Like Mohammed, there are thousands of babies that to this day have not been recognized by Israel after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced in May that he wants to halt security coordination with Israel. This prevented hundreds of these babies from traveling with their families to their areas of residence despite full coordination with the Jordanian authorities.

According to figures Al-Monitor obtained from the General Authority for Civil Affairs, 24,279 Palestinian babies — 13,567 in the West Bank and 10,712 in the Gaza Strip — were born between May 20 and Aug. 9 and remain unrecognized by Israel.

The Palestinian Ministry of Interior says it is doing all the required work related to registering newborns in its records and issuing the official papers, but such records are no longer transferred to the Israeli side as was the case before the security coordination was halted.

Israel, like every country, has policies on who can enter or exit. it didn’t change those policies. The PA decided to stop giving Israel the information necessary to verify the identity of the travelers.

And they blame Israel.

Undersecretary of the Interior Ministry Youssef Harb told Al-Monitor that these unilateral measures are taken by Israel to manipulate the fate of these children in order to pressure the Palestinian political leadership into backtracking on its decision to stop the security coordination.

The only party that did anything unilaterally was the Palestinian Authority.

…Ahmed al-Deek, political adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, who is following up on this issue, told Al-Monitor that the Israeli position is a racist measure that violates human rights principles and the duties of the occupying state to facilitate the movement of the population.

Somehow, Israel doing exactly what it has been doing for decades is now racist.

It just goes to show that Palestinians never take any responsibility for their actions, and blame Israel for everything.

It is also absurd that the PA refusing to cooperate with Israel even for lifesaving transfers of patients to hospitals is called “security coordination.” It is a euphemism meant to hide the fact that the PA has decided to hurt its own people just so articles like this can be written and some Westerners will think that Israel is awful.

08/18 Links Pt1: Netanyahu: Ushering in a New Era of Peace; Destruction of Iranian Nuclear Facility Should Remind Democrats of Israel’s Unique Value as an Ally

From Ian:

Benjamin Netanyahu: Ushering in a New Era of Peace

Last Thursday, together with President Donald Trump and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, I declared the historic peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. This is the first peace agreement between Israel and an Arab country in 26 years. It is different from its predecessors because it is based on two principles: “peace for peace” and “peace through strength.” Under this doctrine, Israel is not required to withdraw from any territory and together the two countries openly reap the fruits of a full peace: investments, trade, tourism, health, agriculture, environmental protection, and in many other fields, including defense, of course.

This peace was not achieved because Israel weakened itself by withdrawing to the 1967 lines. It was achieved because Israel strengthened itself by cultivating a free economy, military and technological strength, and by combining these two strengths to achieve unprecedented international influence.

This strong international position found expression in our willingness to take a stand against Iran’s aggression in the region and its efforts to attain nuclear weapons. The fact that we stood alone, and sometimes I had to stand alone against the whole world against Iran and the dangerous nuclear agreement with it, made a major impression on Arab leaders in the region.

A simple fact was proven anew: Strength attracts and weakness repels. In the Middle East, the strong survive and with strength, one makes peace. I have advanced the cultivation of Israel’s strength over the years and thereby the doctrine of “peace for peace” as well. I do this with leaders around the Arab and Islamic worlds.

This concept found public expression in my meeting with the president of Sudan about six months ago, in my meetings with senior Arab foreign ministers in the open meeting in Warsaw a year and a half ago, and in my open visit to Oman two years ago at the invitation of the late Sultan Qaboos. I can tell you that it found expression in a series of secret meetings, about which I shall not go into detail.

This doctrine stands in complete contradiction to the concept that held, up until a few days ago, that no Arab country would agree to make an official and open peace with Israel before a conclusion was achieved in the conflict with the Palestinians. In the Palestinians’ view, and in the view of many in the world who agreed with them, it would be impossible to achieve this peace with our capitulating to the Palestinians’ demands, including the uprooting of communities, the division of Jerusalem, and a withdrawal to the 1967 lines.

In effect, this mistaken concept gave the Palestinians a veto over achieving peace between Israel and Arab countries. It held Israel and the Arab world as hostages to the Palestinians’ most extreme demands, which put the State of Israel in genuine existential danger. Perhaps, in my view, the greatest danger was that more than a few Israelis agreed with the absurd conditions. No more. This concept of “peace through withdrawal and weakness” is gone from the world. It has been replaced by a different concept: Genuine peace, peace for peace, peace through strength. This is what we are advancing today.

I remind you that in the current agreement, not only has Israel not withdrawn from so much as one square meter, rather the Trump plan includes, at my request, the application of Israeli sovereignty over extensive territories in Judea and Samaria.

Khaled Abu Toameh: It's Official: Palestinians Join Iran-led Anti-Peace Camp

By holding a political protest at the compound of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Palestinians are not only desecrating the sanctity of the site, but also sending a warning to citizens of UAE not to visit Jerusalem or the mosque, as many apparently hoped to do.

The Joint Statement of the United States, Israel, and the UAE on August 13 points out that according to President Donald J. Trump's Vision for Peace, "all Muslims who come in peace may visit and pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Jerusalem's other holy sites should remain open for peaceful worshippers of all faiths."

This warning shows that the Palestinians believe they have exclusive control over Islam's third-holiest site and are free to decide who can visit the site and who cannot. It is therefore the right time for Arabs and Muslims to step in to demand an end to Palestinian hegemony over the Al-Aqsa Mosque and other holy sites in Jerusalem.

By declaring war on the UAE, the Palestinian leadership has chosen to align itself with those who seek the elimination of Israel: Iran, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. The Palestinian leadership has again demonstrated its determination to act against the interests of its own people, who could have benefited from the UAE-Israel deal by seeking financial aid from the Arab countries and jobs in the Gulf states.

Destruction of Iranian Nuclear Facility Should Remind Democrats of Israel’s Unique Value as an Ally

An explosion at the Natanz nuclear complex on July 2 laid waste to the Iran Centrifuge Assembly Center (ICAC), a workshop designed to mass produce thousands of advanced centrifuges for enriching uranium. Satellite pictures strongly suggest that the blast's cause was a powerful bomb placed at a critical juncture inside the facility. Not implausibly, many experts pointed to Israel—not least because “a Middle Eastern intelligence official,” widely suspected to be Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, told the New York Times that Israel was, in fact, responsible. If true, it’s a potent reminder of Israel’s enormous value as a strategic partner of the United States, one that combines the will, capabilities, and tactical skill to confront the region’s most dangerous threats in ways that are largely unrivaled by any other American ally. The point may be particularly worth underscoring in the run up to the 2020 elections, especially for a Democratic Party where support for Israel has seemed increasingly under stress.

The destruction of the ICAC was a significant blow to Iran’s nuclear program. Once deployed, the advanced centrifuges being assembled there would have dramatically reduced the time required to produce enough highly-enriched uranium (HEU) not just for one nuclear bomb, but for a small arsenal. Their mass production would also have made it much easier for Iran to divert a critical number of advanced centrifuges to a covert site, where any rapid breakout to develop nuclear weapons could proceed in secret. With a single exquisitely executed act of sabotage, cloaked in mystery, and avoiding the attendant risks of war associated with an overt military strike, those powerful Iranian cards have now been swept from the table—at least for the time being. Estimates are that the explosion could have set back Iran’s centrifuge program by up to two years.

That’s not to say that the danger has been eliminated, far from it. Deep underground, at a different facility in Natanz and at another in Fordow, several thousand older centrifuges, known as IR-1s, continue to churn outgrowing quantities of enriched uranium under the gaze of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Over the last year, in response to the re-imposition of crippling U.S. sanctions following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iran nuclear deal, Iran has slowly but surely begun violating several of the deal’s restrictions—including on enrichment levels, stockpiles of low-enriched uranium, and research and development on advanced centrifuges. Roughly 1000 next-generation IR-2m centrifuges that were dismantled under the JCPOA could also be available for re-installation, leaving Iran’s breakout time for producing sufficient HEU for one nuclear bomb as low as 3 to 4 months—significantly less than the JCPOA’s 12-month target.

Nevertheless, there’s no question that the risks from Iran’s nuclear program are significantly more manageable without the looming danger posed by the thousands of far more powerful centrifuges that the ICAC was set to produce. The facility’s destruction has almost certainly bought those determined to contain the Iranian nuclear threat important time and space that, before the explosion, were rapidly dwindling in the face of Iran’s JCPOA violations.

One of Hamas’ demands: 100,000 Gazans working in Israel

Ma’an quotes Yediot Aharonot with a list of Hamas’ demands from Israel to stop the many incendiary balloons from being launched that are causing massive fires in Israel.

Hamas leaders told Egyptian mediators that they want a commitment for Israel to approve economic infrastructure projects related to electricity and water, something Israel never objects to.

In addition, Hamas has demanded that Israel allow Gaza to increase imports and export, keep the Kerem Shalom crossing open, and increase the fishing zone to 20 miles.

Most notable is Hamas’ demand that Israel increase the number of work permits for workers from Gaza to 100,000.

At the same time that Mahmoud Abbas is trying to minimize the number of Palestinian workers in Israel, Hamas wants to increase them.

Israel had been quietly increasing the number of work permits for Gazans every month before COVID-19. Israeli jobs pay double what jobs in the Palestinian Authority pay, and probably at least triple what jobs in Gaza pay, so 100,000 workers would mean a huge boost in Gaza’s economy – and a huge boost in Hamas’ budget.

Suddenly, BDS is not so important to Hamas.

It is also notable that Hamas is demanding that Qatar double the amount of aid it gives to poor Gaza families. Qatar’s response should be quite interesting.

A very small example of how much things have changed in the Middle East

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported on Saturday:

Member of the Supreme Advisory Council of the Arab Tourism Organization affiliated with the Arab League, Faisal Khazal, said that the UAE’s decision to normalize relations with the Israeli occupation state weakens the Arab position in uniting against one enemy.

In an interview with Voice of Palestine Radio today, Saturday, Khazal called on all Arab countries to take a unified position to defend Palestinian rights, which is the front line for all Arab issues.

Wafa always has stories like this – relatively obscure Arab officials saying things that Palestinians like to hear, highlighted by Palestinian media to give the impression of a groundswell of support.

But this time something else happened.

Faisal Khazal was sent a message by the Arab Tourism Organization saying that he has no right to speak or give statements on behalf of the group.

Khazal is a prominent Kuwaiti businessman but the Wafa article only referred to his position at the Arab Tourism Organization, because they wanted to make it appear that the Arab League was against normalization, when it in fact has not issued a statement.

Khazal was so upset at the message that he resigned from the organization, saying that he will never give up his support for the Palestinian cause.

Even though this is a tiny story, it shows how much things have instantly changed in the Middle East. Mild statements of support for Palestinians and of hate for Israel are no longer automatically assumed to be OK. No one wants to upset the UAE.

It is hard to overstate how big a deal this is.

Palestinians keep shooting themselves in the foot

Palestinians continue to respond to the Israel/UAE agreement in the worst possible way for them.

The Mufti of Jerusalem issued a fatwa saying that UAE residents are “forbidden by law” to visit Al Aqsa. UAE residents will of course ignore it – they aren’t bound by his fatwas. If he thinks that this will make them want to support Palestinians, he’s not too bright.

Similarly, the Palestinian prime minister Muhammad Shtayyeh said that Palestinians will boycott the Dubai Expo scheduled for October 2021.

The main weapon Palestinians have is propaganda, and in these two instances they are giving the chance to tell their story to a captive Arab audience away. And in both cases, nothing is accomplished by their supposedly principled positions.

It’s a wonderful way to ensure they never get a state.