Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, September 09, 2020

The beginning of the end of the honor/shame culture

I have discussed at length how critical the understanding the Arab honor/shame culture is in interpreting how Arabs act, specifically towards Israel. Israel's very existence has been an intense source of shame for the Arab world, since the seemingly powerful Arab armies were defeated by the weak, second class Jews - who then took up residence in the very heart of the Arab world, dividing it in half.

As long as the honor/shame culture exists, real peace is not possible.

The UAE, by publicly embracing Israel, is puncturing not only the Arab world's united anti-Israel front, but the entire honor/shame culture as well.

Honor/shame relies to a large degree on the ability to lie - both to others and to oneself. This is because the honor/shame society is more centered on appearances than on truth. As long as one can hold oneself high, and everyone else is willing to play along, the facts aren't what is important. Lying is necessary to maintain honor when reality doesn't agree, and to avoid humiliation. Lying is part of the culture.

Another aspect of the honor/shame culture (although not exclusive to it) is the inability to admit mistakes. This blocks nearly all progress. People and societies grow from acknowledging mistakes and learning from them, but the fear of being shamed usually is much worse in the Arab world than repeating the mistake.

The system works quite well as long as everyone plays along, and as long as those who don't play can be shamed and marginalized by the system. But we now live in an interconnected world, and in the Western world it is embarrassing to be caught in a lie or to be revealed to be a hypocrite.

I always thought the honor/shame mentality was built in, and it could never be changed. I felt that since it was immovable, the West should not pander to it but to use it to advantage, to shame Arabs by confronting them with their own moral failures in public. This has worked to an extent - honor killings and female genital mutilation are now considered shameful in the Arab world in no small part because Arabs do not want to fall short of Western standards of morality, and it is shameful to defend such practices.

But the UAE deal with Israel has the potential not of only remaking the Middle East, but of seriously damaging the honor/shame culture altogether.

The UAE is telling the rest of the Arab world the truth: Israel is here to stay. It is powerful. It is modern and advanced. Pretending that we will defeat it is ridiculous. Jews are not evil. We can gain a lot more by partnering with it rather than opposing it. The Palestinians are, to a large extent, responsible for their own problems.

The honor/shame culture can paper over some truths when everyone knows and plays the game, but it cannot ignore what one of its most powerful players says. The usual response to Western criticism is screaming "how dare you insult us!" which often results in the Westerners backing down to show respect for Arab culture. But when fellow Arabs drop truth bombs on their brethren, the explosion is huge - and can cause a chain reaction.

Already, other corners of the Arab world are gingerly discussing what the world would look like if they, too, recognized or normalized relations with Israel. There is almost a palpable relief at not having to continue to lie to themselves. Truth is contagious, and taking responsibility for mistakes is empowering.

Look at this Lebanese video released by MEMRI where a former minister drops more truth bombs on a shocked hostess:

This sort of thing is happening all over the Arab world today, and it was unthinkable a mere month ago.

The Palestinians and Iranians are trying mightily to shame the UAE and to pre-emptively shame any other Arab nations from following suit. But that weapon is losing its effectiveness more and more every day.

In some ways, the UAE's normalization and willingness to deal with the truth is much bigger than peace with Egypt or Jordan was. It has the potential to completely remake the Middle East - and to change the mindset of hundreds of millions of people.

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09/09 Links Pt1: Trump Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for UAE-Israel Peace Deal; Israel should treat the EU like it treats us; In blow to Palestinians, Arab League refuses to condemn Israel-UAE deal

From Ian:

Trump Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for UAE-Israel Peace Deal

A Norwegian lawmaker has nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 for helping broker a deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the second time he has put forward the U.S. president for the honor.

Thousands of people are eligible to nominate candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize, including members of parliaments and governments, university professors and past laureates.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which decides on the award, declined to comment.

"It is for his contribution for peace between Israel and the UAE. It is a unique deal," Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of parliament for the right-wing Progress Party, told Reuters.

Tybring-Gjedde, who nominated Trump for the 2019 award for his diplomatic efforts with North Korea, said he also nominated him this year because of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Last year Trump said he deserved to be awarded the Peace Prize for his work on North Korea and Syria, but he complained he probably would never get the honor. Former President Barack Obama, a nemesis of Trump, won the prize in 2009 just months into his first term in office.

Nominations for this year’s award closed on Jan. 31 and the winner will be announced on Oct. 9 in Oslo.

Why Trump Deserves the Nobel

By thinking out of the box and looking at the world though a prism untainted by the swamp, the Trump administration accomplished what previous American administrations could not. It had bucked politically insurmountable odds to foster cooperation between historical enemies and in so doing, brought political stability and economic opportunity to two volatile regions.

So will Trump receive a Nobel Peace Prize? Don’t hold your breath. The highbrow folks who sit on that worthless Norwegian Committee revile Trump. They are an integral part the swamp, viewing the world through an elitist prism that is detached from reality. These are the same people who gave a Nobel Peace Prize to the now deceased gangster of Ramallah, Yassir Arafat, a revolting figure who was arguably the most notorious terrorist of the last century and whose word wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

In October 2009, the Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama, barely nine months after the former freshman senator and community organizer assumed office as America’s 44th president. Between January 2009 and October 2009, Obama hadn’t a single foreign policy success. In fact, during his tenure, Obama’s foreign policy was marked by failure and fecklessness. He downplayed the ascendancy of ISIS, vacillated when Syria used poison gas against its own people, emboldened Iran through policies of appeasement, ignored human rights abuses in Turkey and China, and shut down a very promising investigation into Hezbollah’s transnational criminal enterprise.

The Nobel committee’s mindset mirrors that of the establishment media, which detests Trump and operates as the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. That is why the establishment media buried the Israel-UAE peace accord beneath deprecatory articles on Trump and tributes to his challenger, despite the deal’s enormous positive implications for regional peace and stability. And that is why members of the press corps directed off-topic questions at Kushner, O'Brien and Grenell when the trio issued a press conference on the Serbia-Kosovo-Israel breakthrough. Grenell, though, would have none of it and angrily responded to a journalist’s off topic question by dryly asking the journalist if he could find Serbia or Kosovo on a map. But Grenell’s tongue lashing didn’t stop there. He deprecatingly noted that there was a “crisis in journalism,” and that “people aren’t listening to you (journalists) anymore.”

So despite his achievements in forging peace on two continents, Trump will not receive the Nobel Peace Prize. But judging by the lowly caliber of the people issuing that prize, their dishonest media allies, and their skewed world outlook, the lack of committee recognition, though contemptible, should be viewed as a positive thing.

They will say Trump in ineligible for Nobel because Obama already made Peace in the Middle East. https://t.co/2LTVHQ5ont
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) September 9, 2020

UAE-Israel deal-signing ceremony to be held Sept. 15 in Washington

The signing ceremony of the Abraham Accord between Israel and the UAE will take place on September 15 in Washington, the White House confirmed on Tuesday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will represent Israel, the Foreign Affairs Minister and the crown prince’s brother, Abdullah bin Zayed will represent the UAE.

Netanyahu said he is “proud to be going to Washington next week at US President Donald Trump’s invitation, to participate in the historic ceremony in the White House, celebrating establishing a peace treaty between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.”

Last week, Israel and the United Arab Emirates started discussions to open embassies in each other’s countries, during a high-level government meeting in Abu Dhabi.

The Israeli delegation headed by National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, together with his American counterpart Robert O’Brien, White House special advisers Jared Kushner and Avi Berkowitz, and others arrived on the first-ever direct flight by an Israeli airline from Israel to the UAE. The El Al plane, bearing an Israeli flag, was also the first-ever Israeli flight over Saudi Arabia.

The Arab League was founded in a large part in response to Zionism. Its first major actions were to gain consensus among Arab states for boycotting Jews in Israel and even though Arab states have always disagreed strongly about virtually everything, they could always pretend to agree how much they hate Israel, so the Arab League was able to maintain a pretense of unity through its many anti-Israel resolutions.

Zionism may be what destroys the Arab League.

This morning, the PLO "foreign minister" Dr. Riyad Malki gave a speech to the Arab League where he expressed the Palestinian frustration at the lack of response by the Arab League to the UAE's decision to make Israel an ally.

But he went further than that.

Malki said that usually any joint Arab actions at the Arab League supporting the Palestinians were "only for show, not implementation...But there was neither commitment nor respect for these decisions."

He called this "duplicity" and said that it put "Palestine" in many embarrassing situations, particularly when non-Arab countries would note that what they hear behind closed doors from Arab governments contradict their Arab League commitments (speaking of payments to the PLO and "supporting Jerusalem.")

"We would boast about the Arab resolutions," Malki said in his speech, "only to be told that those were nothing more than just ink on paper."

He explained that even asking for an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League to condemn the UAE proved strenuous. One country refused and asked for an ordinary meeting, and later refused to even add the Israel/UAE deal to the agenda, while another threatened to table an alternative communiqué from the one that the PLO would have written, expecting a rubber stamp as they always have gotten.

A frustrated Malki said, "How do we explain these acts? Are they determining what became acceptable or not for the Arab League meetings? Who defines this? Those with influence and money or who? Did Palestine go too far by asking for an extraordinary meeting or by adding an item to the agenda? Did Palestine cross pre-determined, but not declared, red lines?"

Malki then went on to ask whether the Arab League is even committed to its own Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. "Is this initiative for show? If so, we need to know that. Is it for implementation? If so, what do we do about those who violate it?"

He went on to say that unless the Arab League publicly opposes the UAE/Israel deal, the meeting would be considered to be blessing this deal, colluding with it or providing it with a cover. "This will not be accepted by the State of Palestine."

If the Arab League can no longer be relied on to consistently oppose and condemn Israel, the last fig leaf for its existence as a unified voice of the Arab world goes away.

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The New York Times has an interesting article about Israelis managing to harvest dates from the famous Judean date palm, planted with seeds that are over 2000 years old:

The plump, golden-brown dates hanging in a bunch just above the sandy soil were finally ready to pick.

They had been slowly ripening in the desert heat for months. But the young tree on which they grew had a much more ancient history — sprouting from a 2,000-year-old seed retrieved from an archaeological site in the Judean wilderness.

“They are beautiful!” exclaimed Dr. Sarah Sallon with the elation of a new mother, as each date, its skin slightly wrinkled, was plucked gently off its stem at a sunbaked kibbutz in southern Israel.

They were tasty, too, with a fresh flavor that gave no hint of their two-millenium incubation period. The honey-blonde, semi-dry flesh had a fibrous, chewy texture and a subtle sweetness.

These were the much-extolled but long-lost Judean dates, and the harvest this month was hailed as a modern miracle of science.

Where was the seed found again?

Hannah’s seed, which came from an ancient burial cave in Wadi el-Makkukh near Jericho, now in the West Bank, was carbon dated to between the first and fourth centuries B.C.E., becoming one of the oldest known seeds to have ever been germinated.

The phrase "now in the West Bank" is awkward - did the cave somehow move from Judea to the "West Bank"? But for the Times to more accurately say "now called the West Bank" would be problematic for a paper that chose to embrace that term only in the 1970s.

No one had ever heard of the "West Bank" before the 1950s, yet that Jordanian name is now considered the most accurate for media like the New York Times while "Judea" is considered a right-wing Israeli term created to supplant it. Articles like this are awkward precisely because they highlight that the land has always been associated with Jews, not "Palestinian" Arabs.

Luckily, the scientists who managed this remarkable feat aren't bound by the political correctness of using a brand new term for a Jewish historic area:

Ancient Judea was ideally placed between North Africa and Asia, along major trade routes, and the Romans, who traded all over the Mediterranean, could have brought western varieties with them to pollinate the older varieties from the east.

“Putting it simply, what do we find?” Dr. Sallon said. “The story of ancient Israel and the Jewish people, of diasporas, trade routes and commerce throughout the Middle East.”

(h/t Charlie)

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I recently reported that Harvard University named serial liar and PLO propagandist Saeb Erakat to be a Fellow, teaching diplomacy this year.

The Clarion Project looked at what foreign nations give donations to American universities and colleges. It is no secret that many countries give lots of money to influence US curricula. Most give to several universities.

The Palestinian Authority itself only gave money to one university in the US.

Guess which one.

Even though the Palestinian Authority gets virtually all of its money from the West and it is always begging for more, somehow it found in its budget $2.6 million to give to Harvard. And by some sort of crazy coincidence, now Saeb Erakat is free to push his lies on today's Harvard students.

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09/08 Links Pt2: Israel, UAE to sign deal at White House ceremony next Tuesday; Where do you draw the line with anti-Semites?; Unpleasant news for Thomas Friedman

From Ian:

Israel, UAE to sign deal at White House ceremony next Tuesday

Israel and the United Arab Emirates will sign their historic deal normalizing relations at a White House ceremony on September 15, a senior White House official confirmed to The Times of Israel on Tuesday.

US officials said senior delegations from both countries would likely be led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayad, the brother of the Abu Dhabi crown prince.

The officials, who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the ceremony would either be held on the South Lawn, the Rose Garden or inside, depending on weather.

Netanyahu’s office issued a statement in the premier’s name on Tuesday evening confirming his attendance. “I am proud to travel to Washington next week, at the invitation of President Trump, and to attend the historic White House ceremony establishing the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates,” the prime minister said.

Numerous Arab diplomats, including from countries that don’t have formal ties with Israel, are expected to attend the ceremony, in a bid to show that the agreement enjoys widespread support, the Walla news site reported.

The ceremony will come just a month after the agreement to establish full diplomatic relations was announced on August 13. The deal delivered a key foreign policy victory to US President Donald Trump as he seeks reelection, and reflected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely overtaken traditional Arab support for the Palestinians.

According to Walla, Israel and the US are still working toward a diplomatic breakthrough with another Arab state before the signing ceremony, though it is unclear if this will be possible.

Jonathan S. Tobin: Where do you draw the line with anti-Semites?

What do you think would happen if President Donald Trump decided to meet with the family of a shooting victim, and it turned out his father was a neo-Nazi? It would be front-page news in the country’s leading newspapers and be discussed pretty much continuously on CNN and MSNBC. Whatever the other circumstances surrounding the incident, such a meeting would be rightly seen as showing Trump’s indifference to hate.

What do you think would happen if his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, did something just like that? The mainstream media would ignore it. Those who brought up the issue or even asked questions about it would be branded as “right-wing” provocateurs or denounced as trying to divide the country on race.

That was what happened when Biden met last week with the family of Jacob Blake, an African-American man who was left paralyzed when he was shot by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis., after resisting arrest.

Since the death of George Floyd, all incidents involving police shooting African-Americans have become the focus of intense scrutiny as the nation debates the questions of racism and alleged police brutality. Outrage about these shootings has propelled the Black Lives Matter movement to the center of public attention, as well as leading to protests, riots and violence.

In the days since the shooting of their son, both of Blake’s parents had made many public appearances. His father, Jacob Blake Sr., spoke at the March on Washington on Aug. 28 at which Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 event was commemorated. In his remarks, he pronounced America “guilty” of racism and other crimes in a speech that was widely broadcast and published in leading newspapers. Indeed, as The Washington Post put it, the Blake family represented the feelings of all African-Americans.

But a few days later, when the elder Blake’s views became known to the public, the same news media that was transfixed by his angry speech in Washington lost interest in him.

Unpleasant news for Thomas Friedman

Does the level of the Kinneret have anything to do with the prospects for peace in the Middle East? Thomas Friedman would like you to think that it does.

Friedman has been the foreign affairs op-ed columnist for The New York Times since 1995. That means that for the past 25 years, he has enjoyed one of the most prominent and influential platforms in public discourse. Not only are his columns read by movers and shakers around the world, but he is also frequently interviewed on national television and radio shows, and invited to speak at major public forums and events hosted by Jewish organizations that should know better.

I say “that should know better” because in his writings about Israel, Friedman sometimes crosses the line in ways that would earn other pundits pariah status in the Jewish world. In 2004, he wrote that Israel “had George Bush under house arrest in the Oval Office.” In 2011, Friedman claimed that the standing ovations Israel’s prime minister received in Congress were “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” In 2013, he asserted that “many American lawmakers [will] do whatever the Israel lobby asks them to do in order to garner Jewish votes and campaign donations.”

Despite those Pat Buchanan-like sentiments, Friedman has managed to maintain his status as a prominent opinion-shaper. Partly that’s because as long as he has the imprimatur of The New York Times, he is considered legitimate. Partly it’s because every once in a while, Friedman writes something mildly critical of the Palestinian Arab leadership; that gives him a fig leaf to pretend that he is “even-handed” and not an Israel-basher.

So, Friedman is taken seriously in many quarters when he periodically proffers some new Arab-Israeli “peace plan.” Since all of his plans involve Israel retreating to its nine-miles-wide pre-1967 borders—what diplomat Abba Eban called the “Auschwitz borders”—the only way Friedman can pitch his latest version as “new” is to come up with some new reason why the plan is (supposedly) so urgent.

Earlier this year, Friedman wrote that climate change should be the urgent new factor in Mideast diplomacy. Mother Nature will overwhelm the various political and military conflicts, he declared. His proof? “In the summer of 2018, the Sea of Galilee was so low from droughts and water withdrawals for rising populations that it was threatening to become another saline lake, like the Dead Sea.”

The solution, according to Friedman, is to pressure Israel to permit the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state—and then Israel, Jordan and “Palestine” can form “a confederation of their sovereign entities based on sea and sun.”

Ironically, less than a year before Friedman unveiled his sea-and-sun plan, a headline in Ha’aretz (no doubt Friedman’s favorite Israeli newspaper, given its slant) announced: “Lake Kinneret Is the Fullest It’s Been in Five Years, and There’s More to Come.”

In a story about how the Palestinian Authority has watered down its criticism of the Israel/UAE agreement for a draft Arab League resolution, Reuters writes:

Announced on Aug. 13, the accord was the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years, and was forged largely through shared fears of Iran.

This is one of those statements that seem so obvious to supposedly professional observers of the Middle East - and a little bit of thought shows it to be just as obviously false.

Yes, Israel and the Sunni Arab states in the Gulf have a shared interest in countering Iran. But that does not explain - at all! - the UAE's normalization with Israel. After all, Israel and most Gulf states have been quietly cooperating on security and intelligence for quite a long time now, and that can go on indefinitely. It isn't like Israel is going to tell the Arabs, "sorry, we won't help you defend yourself against Iran any more until you recognize us."

And the UAE could have gone the Egypt/Jordan route of a minimal recognition and a cold peace. So far, not only has the UAE made it clear that it wants a warm peace, but it has pushed back hard against Arab critics of the agreement.

Clearly, Iran is only one of many factors behind the UAE's actions.

The UAE wants to partner with Israel on business and banking initiatives. It wants to become a gateway for Israel to trade with the larger Arab world. It wants to take advantage of Israeli technology, especially water tech. It wants to share expertise on medical technologies. It wants Israeli tourists. It wants to attract branches of Israeli businesses as well as businesses that have been reluctant to go to the UAE because of the weakened but still official Arab League boycott. The UAE views itself as a progressive, tolerant Arab state and Israel is a natural partner. It wants to position itself for a time when oil is no longer enough, and Israel is a leader in energy tech. The UAE wants F-35s from the US. It is even possible that the UAE admires Israel's mix of religious and secular culture as a possible model for its own people.

There are probably a dozen more reasons real experts could come up with, as well as secret deals no one knows about that would be mutually beneficial for the two nations.

But one thing is certain: Iran is not even close to the main reason for the two countries to want to become full allies.

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When Iran arrests converts to Christianity, the charge is "Zionism"

From the the Christian Barnabas Fund:

[D]ozens of Christians [were] arrested in a co-ordinated series of raids by Revolutionary Guards targeting homes and house churches across three cities on June 30 and July 1.

At least 35 Christians were either interrogated or arrested on charges of “acting against national security by promoting Zionist Christianity” as part of the operation carried out in Tehran, Karaj and Malayer.

Promoting Zionist Christianity?

It turns out that Iran uses that charge routinely against converts from Islam to Christianity in Iran, along with some other charges. For example, in 2017 three Azerbaijani Christians and an Iranian Christian convert were sentenced by the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal of Iran to ten years in prison each. The charges were " action against national security and the soft overthrow of the system through the promotion of Christianity" and "the propagation of Zionist Christianity."

This way, Iran can claim to be tolerant of all religions and still arrest Christians under the excuse that they are really Zionists.

Mohabat, the Iranian Christian News Agency, has been routinely reporting on these arrests. Lately, Iranian judges have been imposing astronomical bail terms on arrested Christians, up to $137,000.

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09/08 Links Pt1: Daniel Pipes: Convincing Islamists, fascists and all anti-Zionists that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is over; France protests Israel’s deportation of terrorist who planned to kill chief rabbi

From Ian:

Daniel Pipes: Convincing Islamists, fascists and all anti-Zionists that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is over

The naive view, which prevails internationally, holds that Arafat and the other Palestinian leaders, including the current one, Mahmoud Abbas, are completely serious about accepting “the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.” Therefore, moving forward requires the Israelis to be more generous. Outside powers try to make themselves useful by pressuring Jerusalem to be more forthcoming, which they are only too pleased to do.

The realistic view — now dominant in Israel — holds that Palestinians never reconciled themselves to Israel’s existence. To be sure, Palestinians acknowledged their weakness in 1993 by making empty promises. But, as Mrs. Ashrawi reiterates, they never abandoned the goal of eliminating Israel.

Rather, they bided their time, probing for signs of weakness. They seemed to find these in the Oslo accords, Israel’s 2000 retreat from Lebanon and 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. Exhilarated, Palestinians ramped up the violence, believing they had a fatigued Israel on the run, that pure revolutionary fervor made up for economic and military weakness, that Muslims would annihilate Jews.

But they were wrong: The powerful Israeli state had made painful concessions in the hope that its enlightened self-interest would turn Arafat, Abbas and Co. into “partners for peace” and settle an antediluvian conflict obstructing its creative culture and hi-tech prowess. And so, the would-be revolution failed.

With time, Israelis — and youths far more so than their elders — realized that the hopeful discarding of deterrence in favor of appeasement and then unilateral withdrawal inspired not Palestinian goodwill but dreams of conquest. Israelis finally understood they had failed to perceive the continued Palestinian determination to eliminate the Jewish state; that they had ignored the persistent Palestinian drive for victory.

This hard-earned insight now needs to be translated into a new strategy. But which? Not “price tag” attacks on West Bank Palestinians, foul provocations that discredit Zionism. Not annexing parts of the West Bank, which undermines the integrity of Israel and spurs widespread opposition.

Rather, it is achieved by crushing the Palestinians’ persistent anti-Zionist dream, by an Israel victory based on an indominable Israeli will. Palestinian insistence on victory, in other words, compels a parallel Israeli retort. Fortunately for Israel, the Palestinians lack muscle but rely on fumes: religious doctrine, international support and Israeli timidity.

While naifs seek yet more useless agreements premised on counterproductive Israeli concessions, we realists scoff and call for Israel to win. We understand that only defeat will convince Palestinians like Mrs. Ashrawi, and through them Iranian, Turkish, Islamist, leftist, fascist and other anti-Zionists, that the century-plus conflict is over, that Israel has prevailed, and that the time has come to give up on futile, painful and genocidal ambitions.

MEMRI: Senior UAE Official Dr. Ali Al-Noaimi: The UAE-Israel Deal Is Not a Mere Diplomatic Accord

Dr. Ali Al-Noaimi, the Chairman of the UAE Federal National Council’s Defense, Interior, and Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an August 31, 2020 show on Sky News Arabia (UAE) and in an August 16, 2020 show on i24 TV (Israel) that the recent UAE-Israel peace deal is a comprehensive peace that is meant to open new horizons for Arabs and Israelis alike. He emphasized that this agreement is should not be compared previous agreements between Israel and Arab countries, in that it is intended to bring “hope for a decent life” to the younger generation of all Arab countries and the Palestinians, in particular. Dr. Al-Noaimi said that the UAE hopes the peace deal will bring stability, security, love, peace, and cooperation in the fields of global relations, politics, medicine, and technology. He said that people are tired of being held prisoner by conflicts, and that the UAE’s vision is to build bridges and send a message of peace to Israelis, Arabs, and Iranians.

#EU efforts to educate #Serbia & #Kosovo are shocking. The European Union has removed the mask and unfortunately, despite many fruitful collaborations, it has repeatedly slammed the State of Israel and challenged our historic right to the State of Israel. 1/3 https://t.co/whbRNmO73C
— Sharren Haskel השכל שרן (@SharrenHaskel) September 7, 2020

The Turkish Daily Sabah site has an article surveying various rumors and reports that Israel and the UAE are establishing intelligence bases and listening posts on the strategic island of Socotra which is at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden. The bases would allow Israel to monitor electronic intelligence from Sudan, Yemen, ISIS, Ethiopia and even naval movements of Iran and Pakistan and all shipping that goes through the Suez Canal.

Socotra has been under Yemen's control, but the UAE took it over in 2018.

How true is this story? It certainly makes sense that Israel would be interested in that island, and Israel and the UAE have shared intelligence for years before going public.

Seth Frantzman in the Jerusalem Post writes about the story indirectly, using it as an example of how one cannot be sure what information is accurate when it comes from sources like Turkey that have an agenda and how rumors get "laundered" into seemingly legitimate stories. This of course happens all the time including in Israeli media, where (for example) Kuwaiti newspapers that literally make things up will have their stories reported as if they had any legitimacy.

Frantzman traces the Socotra story to an article in the French Jewish news site JForum but says that the trail goes cold from there:

Reading the JForum post of August 30 leaves it unclear where the information in its report came from. It says: “According to the same Yemeni sources, who provided the information to Syrian sources, Israel and the Emirates are making all logistical preparations to set up intelligence bases to collect information throughout the Gulf of Aden Bay from Bab al-Mandab on the island of Socotra, in southern Yemen, which is under the control of the Emirates.”

However, JForum was not the original source - the information came from the Israeli open-intelligence site Nziv, which has been following the story of clandestine Israeli/UAE coordination on Socotra since 2016, before the UAE's official takeover, quoting Eritrean sources. In 2016, Israel was very concerned over Sudan smuggling arms to Hamas. The Nziv story notes the topography of the island and how its mountains are an ideal location for electronic intelligence gathering.

The Daily Sabah story takes some leaps from the original reports, saying confidently that any intelligence installations would be a "through -and-through Israeli project" where the UAE wouldn't even be involved, which seems fanciful. It then contradicts itself and claims that the US is a major player since Socatra might be able to monitor shipping to Pakistan's Gwandar port that is critical for shipping goods overland to China:

Israel, or in this case the U.S., cannot bear having Gwadar Port develop into a strategic business hub. It is trying its best to create obstacles to hinder the entire project, and what can be concluded from all this is that Socotra will from now on neither be for the Houthi rebels, nor for the UAE or Yemen, but under the complete control of Tel Aviv and Washington. This rapidly changing scenario is altering the world's balance of power as never before and Israeli – and U.S. – radars will soon be in the most strategic places in the region.

Frantzman is clearly correct that one cannot trust the reporting of dodgy sources like Daily Sabah when nation-states use the media for their own agendas. However, the main story that Israel and the UAE are cooperating on intelligence in Socatra has a little more fire behind the smoke - it makes strategic sense, it makes political sense, it fits well in with both the UAE's and Israel's interests in countering the Houthis at the very least, and the UAE would want advanced Israeli equipment rather than rely on its own intelligence capabilities. Plus the Israeli Nziv site is more reliable than either Daily Sabah or JForum.

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I had missed this article in Haaretz last year on "conflict tourism" where Palestinians rent out rooms or apartments in refugee camps via Airbbn.

This one part was particularly absurd:

Another sign that you’re not in Kansas anymore? At night, stray dogs can be heard barking loudly and fighting in the streets. Local Palestinians claim that settlers collect the canines and dump them in Palestinian areas during clandestine visits.

And then, in the morning, do the "settlers" gather up the stray dogs ahead of that night's repeat?

Syrian camps have the same problem, but no one yet blames Israeli settlers for sneaking into Syria to drop off the dogs. Give them time.

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From Al Arabiya:

The Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has called on Palestinian leaders, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, to apologize for the "provocative and erroneous" statements issued by some Palestinian factions against the GCC states.

The chief of the GCC, Dr. Nayef al-Hajraf, expressed his condemnation of some of the participants in the meeting of the General Secretaries of the Palestinian factions held last Thursday during which he said “irresponsible language of incitement and threats” were made toward the GCC countries.

The heads of several Palestinian factions, including Fatah, Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), held a virtual conference last Thursday to discuss recent regional events, including the recent historic peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

This is also remarkable. This is a public condemnation of Palestinian leaders by their fellow Arabs. I can't recall this ever happening before.

The "experts" who tried to downplay the Israel/UAE agreement are proven, once again, to have been wrong. The repercussions are only beginning to be felt, but the Gulf Arab countries are already tilting away from their traditional, reflexive pro-Palestinian positions into being critics of their intransigence and constant threats.

Western European nations need to wake up. They are still reluctant to say anything negative about Palestinian demands that have been the main obstacle to peace.

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09/07 Links Pt2: How to Dismantle the Distorted Western Discourse on Israel; Ideology Binds And Blinds; Jewish Voice for Peace and BADIL Team up to Downplay Terrorism and Promote BDS

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: How to Dismantle the Distorted Western Discourse on Israel

Israel's critics often follow misconceptions and flawed assumptions that indicate an inherent lack of seriousness and lack of intellectual honesty.

Claims that "Zionism is a settler-colonial, ethno-nationalist project" ignore the long-term historical evidence of Jewish presence in the land and Israel's valid historical, legal, and political claims to its sovereign territory and land. To single out and condemn Zionism in such a manner is tantamount to singling out the Jewish People and denying them a fundamental right that is possessed by all other national peoples.

Israeli settlements that were established since 1967 were in full compliance with customary international norms, on land that was not privately owned by any local Palestinian. Residents of Israel's settlements were neither forcibly nor illegally transferred into the area in violation of international conventions.

Israel is faced with ongoing aggression and terror, including periodic, massive rocket fire against its cities and villages, and offensive tunnels into its sovereign territory in order to enable infiltration by terrorists intent on committing attacks against its population. Israel's actions in responding to aggression and acts of terror are fully compatible with its international rights to defend itself against such acts.

There exists no such thing as "internationally recognized Palestinian land" or "Palestinian territory," either politically or legally. There exists no binding, authoritative international determination that recognizes Palestinian statehood or Palestinian land. There are only a plethora of non-binding, politically-generated resolutions initiated by the Arab states in the UN, expressing nothing more than the "wishful thinking" of those states.

The State of Israel was not established as a colonizing entity in place of an Arab state. Rather, it was established as a fruit of decolonization of the former Turkish Ottoman Empire together with other independence movements in the region in the 20th century. Israel always intended to exist together in peace with an Arab state in the area of Mandatory Palestine. This constitutes a founding principle of Israel's Declaration of Independence.

And we're live… "How a Zionist views Islam" with @JassemTamim https://t.co/iz6yO4YTDj
— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) September 6, 2020

Dore Gold: Legal Rights Scholar Justus Reid Weiner Dies at Age 70

On Sep. 5, Justus Weiner, an international lawyer at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, passed away at the age of 70 after a long illness. Weiner was a human-rights lawyer who exposed the persecution of Christians in the territories under Palestinian jurisdiction.

He was most noted for an extremely courageous article he published in the September 1999 issue of Commentary, in which he exposed the Palestinian polemicist Edward Said, who had grown into being one of Israel's most formidable intellectual adversaries. A Columbia professor, Said served as the main author of Yasser Arafat's 1974 address to the UN General Assembly.

The article was entitled "'My Beautiful Old House' and Other Fabrications by Edward Said." Weiner proved that in pursuit of the truth, he was prepared to defy conventional wisdom. That was a secret source of his strength.

A key part of Weiner's story related to Said's house in Jerusalem, including the legal title the Said family supposedly had to the house. By initiating a title search in Jerusalem, Weiner disclosed that the house that had been so pivotal in Said's writings and speeches never had the name of the Said family on it, punching a huge hole in Said's argument claiming rights to the land. Said sued Weiner in court after the article appeared - and lost.

Iranian media is particularly amusing in wake of the Israel/UAE lovefest.

This article is typical - and hilarious:

The United Arab Emirates’ decision to normalize ties with the Zionist regime has increased the vulnerability of Abu Dhabi in the region and would allow Israel to carry out its plot to split up the UAE, a senior adviser to the Iranian parliament speaker said.

In an interview with Al-Alam, Iranian parliament speaker’s adviser for international affairs Hossein Amir Abdollahian said the UAE’s wrong decision and strategic mistake to normalize ties with Israel reveals that Abu Dhabi is under the influence of the US and cannot make independent decisions.

“The American and Zionist pressures caused the UAE to suffer such humiliation and commit this treason against the Palestinian nation and cause,” he added.

The Iranian official also warned that Israel’s main objective behind normalization of ties with Arab states is to have access to Arab and Islamic countries to carry out a major plot for disintegration of the region.

The American-Zionist plots entail disintegration of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Amir Abdollahian said, adding that Israel plans to partition even a small country like the UAE and create seven separate states or emirates.

The Iranian adviser warned the Emirati officials that playing in the field of the US and Israel would increase their vulnerability in the region. “It means that insecurity in the region will escalate, and escalation of insecurity could have inappropriate impacts on all regional countries, including the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

He went on to say that the Emirati rulers have been thrown into great political confusion and have adopted wrong policies on the basis of trial and error, adding, “If the UAE does not rethink its ties with the Zionist regime and its policies on neighbors and the region, the Zionists who have come under the guise of peace today will push them back for tens of years.”

Iran sure knows a thing or two about disintegrating the region when getting involved in the affairs of other countries. Look at what happened to Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon when Iran is allowed to meddle in their affairs! Israel couldn't do more damage if it tried.

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Sotal Iraq (Voice of Iraq) has been one of the most consistently antisemitic news sites in the Arab world.

It is absolutely shocking to see an article that is not only conciliatory towards Jews, but also to potential normalization between Iraq and Israel, published there.

Hamed Shehab writes first about the history of when Jews left Iraq:

Many Jewish men and their merchants had remarkable roles in the history of Iraq, with all Iraqi sects feeling their national belonging, and viewing the Jewish citizen is part of the fabric of Iraq...

These days, some Jewish personalities say they would like to preserve their Jewish heritage and property in Iraq, and that they would like to have contact, but without returning, and they are directing appeals through the international community and the United Nations...they wish to maintain a state of connection with their national heritage in Iraq, their synagogues, religious relics, manuscripts and documents of Jewish history, so that they can communicate with Iraqis through them, and they have a political legacy in Iraq.

Things get interesting as writes a tribute to Kol Yisrael radio in Arabic that morphs into a sense of desperation about the Arab world altogether:

We were in the seventies listening carefully to “Voice of Israel Radio” in Arabic, which devoted many of its programs to broadcasting the wonderful Iraqi songs and monologues, prepared by the Iraqis in the era of civilized Iraqi openness and its original creativity...There are cynical programs from the tendencies of some Iraqi politicians and their frequent repetition of the saying that the Jews should be thrown into the sea, fanning the flames of wars. Many Iraqis listened to the [Kol Yisrael] programs in the sixties and seventies; they allocated a full hour per day at noon to Umm Kulthum’s famous songs, and other hours to Arab singers, many of them Egyptians, Syrians and from Gulf states, and these songs were presented in a way that makes you feel the value of the original Iraqi Arab heritage, at a time when Arab radio stations were busy with the clamor of battles and their military manifestos and their incitement to fight the Israeli enemy and how those wars witnessed victories and were then followed by defeats, in which the Arabs lost a lot, especially after the 1967 war, and that year produced a setback, rather a setback, until 1973, when Egypt managed to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egyptian sovereignty in the October War, which the Arabs used to sing about that it restored some hope to them that they could recover the rest of the lands, but this hope has subsided and diminished, and this dream is no longer possible, after years of war preoccupation with their internal and external wars their countries have broken up into entities divided on themselves, and instead of preserving the unity of Iraq and the unity of Arab countries, our countries were divided into states and sub-states, and the dream of regaining what remains of occupied lands is gone, never to return !!

And then comes the part that would have been inconceivable to be published in any Iraqi media a month ago:

These days, the discussion of the possibilities of "normalization" between Iraq and Israel began as if it were a conversation that establishes a "preparatory" stage. The state of popular rejection has begun to diminish, especially after the neighboring countries started tampering with the capabilities of Iraq and dominating its people, and want to turn it into a village or province affiliated with them. And everyone wants to devour the Iraqi body, according to its national and religious components, so that they will be able to dominate its capabilities, and the situation of the Iraqi components continues to suffer from paralysis, tensions and political strife, as if the Iraqi sects have turned into pawns in the hands of politicians, everyone wants to drag his audience to the camp closest to him religiously or nationally. The talk about “normalization” as if it was a normal matter might find its echo in the next few years, because “normalization” is no longer a “taboo”. ...How many Iraqis wished to establish relations with various countries of the world, including Israel, if that relationship gives them back some of their prestige? They may prefer to seek the help of the foreigner, even if it is counted from the enemies, against those who try to break the will of the Iraqi citizen and violate his dignity, and they find in establishing a relationship with Israel and America, which can reduce the weight of the interference of neighboring countries, and they find Western support of Israel what can provide safe havens for the Iraqis, away from the hustle and bustle of wars, their sick language and their broken records, where these voices find nothing but the alienation, sickness, and even disgust of many Iraqis, and they are on the side of those who help them against those who target their dignity and those who want to shed the blood of the people of the country, to employ it in his dirty wars, on his behalf, so that the Iraqis would be fuel for those wars in which they have no interest.

Perhaps the Kurdistan region was the forerunner in establishing communication relations with Israel, and those relations have existed since the fifties, and the Kurds found in Israel that it is the one who facilitates the task of separating from Iraq and establishing a Kurdish state....The matter of thinking about “normalization” with Israel is no longer regarded as impossible, or falling within “taboos”. Rather, “normalization” and even establishing semi-normal relations may be closer than many imagine!!

This is absolutely mind-blowing.

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