Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Columbia U referendum was meaningless - but it proved that J-Street U tacitly supports BDS

There have been a lot of headlines over the past day about the Columbia College student referendum supporting divesting from Israel.

The vote was meaningless. All it showed is that Israel-haters could get more people to vote than Israel supporters during a time that Jewish students were busy dealing with Jewish holidays. According to Jewish Insider, far less than half the students voted which means that this vote was as self-selecting as a an online (or Twitter) poll.

Not only that, but the language of the question itself was leading and misleading. It was, “Should Columbia University divest its stocks, funds, and endowment from companies that profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s acts towards Palestinians that, according to Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), fall under the United Nations International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.” This implies that Israel is an apartheid state under the UN definition, which it isn't.

Furthermore, the vote is meaningless simply because it cannot and will not change Columbia University's investment strategy.

But there is one thing that this vote proved.

Even though J-Street claims that they are against BDS, at Columbia the group chose to stay on the sidelines.

“Overall, J Street U [at Columbia] did not support the referendum nor participate in the efforts by SSI and Aryeh to oppose it this fall,” Brit Zak, the chapter president of J Street U, told JI. “The purpose of our group is not to fight BDS on campus but to create a social and political climate for U.S. foreign policy that furthers Palestinian human rights and self-determination.”

Making a deliberate choice not to oppose BDS on campus is tacit support for BDS. It certainly shows that J-Street's official position opposing BDS is worthless.

(h/t Andrew P)

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If you want to see Leila Khaled, here's your chance

The International League of Peoples' Struggle is proud to present a webinar featuring Leila Khaled.

This October, the ILPS, its member organizations, country chapters, and allied networks will be launching a month-long campaign of Global Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

As part of the Month of Solidarity, the ILPS will deal with issues such as the recently announced Imperialist/Zionist annexation plan, the history of Israeli colonialism and apartheid, the rejection of agreements of humiliation and “normalization” between Zionism and some Arab countries, the global campaign to return to Palestine, support for the Intifada, the liberation of the Palestinian people, the unified capital of Palestine, the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine and so on.

We are inviting everyone to tune in to the launching of this campaign on OCTOBER 3, 11 PM Melbourne time. Our keynote speaker is no other than Palestinian woman activist Leila Khaled, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

For some reason, no Zionists are trying to "censor" this event. In fact, no one really cares. The problem with Khaled is when respectable institutions give her respect.

Interestingly, San Francisco State University specifically told the organizers of their Khaled webcast not to mention the PFLP, under the pretense that she was speaking in a private capacity, in their attempt to avoid violating US anti-terrorism laws. The ILPS, on the other hand, is proud to trumpet Khaled's active ties to terrorism.

In fact, the webinar registration form starts off with "The International League of Peoples’ Struggles (ILPS) stands in militant solidarity with the Palestinian people," leaving no doubt of their support of terror. To Khaled's fans, her terrorism and her support for violence is a feature, not a bug.

It would be a shame if Zionists would treat this webinar the way that Israel-haters treat pro-Israel events, by disrupting it and putting the organizers on the defensive. But if something like that should happen, it would be amusing to see if the ILPS response would be one that supports free speech.

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Another philosopher fails basic logic when it comes to Israel

We've discussed before the strange phenomenon of so many philosophers through history who were also antisemitic.

It's hard to know why this is, but I pointed out that philosophers often think that they are smarter, better and have more insight into subjects than the dumb masses, and this hubris extends into the idea that they think that anything they come up with must be assumed to be correct.

Brian Leiter is a philosopher and legal scholar who is a Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School and founder and Director of Chicago's Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values. He wrote a pithy post on his blog, which he says is the "world's most popular philosophy blog."

The biggest threat to free speech on campus and academic freedom consistently comes from the pro-Israel interest groups. They are running scared because they realize that far too many of Israel's actions can not withstand public scrutiny.

He's referring to the Leila Khaled incident, of course.

Interestingly, any first year student of logic could see that his second sentence is not at all implied from the first. The idea that not wanting a PFLP terrorist to be honored by a university is somehow really a fear that she is going to say something damning about Israel that we cannot read in the newspaper (or philosophy blog) is absurd and doesn't stand even five seconds of analysis.

Not that his first sentence is true either. There is at least as much of a threat to free speech by the Left. Even Leiter writes about cancel culture which is primarily a Leftist phenomenon. How many campus Middle East Studies departments have hosted Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria? If free speech is the goal, then why is the only speech allowed on most campuses so tilted against Israel?

It is undoubtedly true that Jews living in their ancestral homeland are far more likely to have their speech suppressed on campus than Palestinian terrorists.

Two sentences. The first one has no basis in reality, and the second one does not logically follow the first. That's a pretty bad track record for a philosopher.

Leiter links to an article about the Leila Khaled event from Academe Blog. That article is not as bad, although it incorrectly refers to the incident as "censorship." It isn't.

Censorship is the suppression of speech because it is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient. Yet the objection to Khaled's talk wasn't about the content of her talk, but about her being an objectionable person - inviting an unrepentant terrorist whose support of violence against the innocent has not changed for five decades is as inappropriate as inviting a proud racist or rapist on campus. This is obvious because no one I am aware of objected to the other anti-Israel speakers at that webinar.

Moreover, Khaled has nothing original to say. Her words would have been the same socialist anti-Israel garbage that is said every day among the "woke" - it isn't as offensive as it is boring.

At least the Academe blog has enough intellectual honesty to point out that progressives engage in censorship as well:

For those on the left who demand that tech companies censor speech they think are wrong or offensive, this is a chilling reminder that censorship is a dangerous weapon that can be turned against progressives.

Leiter, with all his philosophy and legal credentials, flattens what could be a nuanced discussion of how different groups try to influence discussion into a very one-dimensional assertion of "Zionists bad."

And for someone who is such an opponent of censorship and advocate of free speech, it is curious that Leiter does not allow comments on his blog. Perhaps he has the fear of truth that he imputes to Zionists.

(h/t Dan P)

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09/29 Links Pt2: Netanyahu at UN reveals Hezbollah arms depot in Beirut, warns of fresh ‘tragedy’; Jewish Democrats release campaign ad comparing Trump and 1930s Germany

From Ian:

Netanyahu at UN reveals Hezbollah arms depot in Beirut, warns of fresh ‘tragedy’

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday revealed a secret arms depot belonging to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah near Beirut’s International Airport, warning of another catastrophic explosion and calling on the Lebanese people to protest against the terror group and its Iranian sponsors.

“We all saw the terrible explosion at Beirut port last month,” he said in a pre-recorded statement broadcast to UN delegates, referring to August 4’s huge blast that devastated the Lebanese capital.

He pointed to the site of the blast on a map displayed next to his podium. “The explosion happened here. This is the Beirut port. Two hundred people died, thousands of people were injured, and a quarter of a million people were made homeless,” he said.

“Now, here is where the next explosion could take place. Right here. This is the Beirut neighborhood of Janah. It’s right next to the international airport. And here, Hezbollah is keeping a secret arms depot.”

The depot in the city’s Janah neighborhood, the prime minister said, is adjacent to a gas company.

“And it’s embedded in civilian housing here, [and] civilian housing here,” he said, pointing at the map.

He proceeded to display photographs of the entrance of the facility, which he said was a Hezbollah missile factory.

“I say to the people of Janah, you’ve got to act now. You’ve got to protest this. Because if this thing explodes, it’s another tragedy,” Netanyahu said.

“I say to the people of Lebanon, Israel means you no harm. But Iran does. Iran and Hezbollah have deliberately put you and your families in grave danger. And what you should make clear is that what they have done is unacceptable. You should tell them, ‘tear these depots down.’” Full text of Netanyahu’s address to the 2020 UN General Assembly

UN will ‘lose its right to exist’ if it doesn’t treat Israel fairly, envoy says

Israel’s new ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan on Tuesday claimed the international body was at risk of “losing its right to exist” over its unfair treatment of the Jewish state and predicted it could be defunct by the end of the century.

“The UN is risking the loss of whatever relevance and legitimacy it has left. If the organization can’t take action against the worst regimes and continues to cling to the Palestinian obsession, in 75 years there will be no UN to mark its birthday, because it will simply lose its right to exist,” Erdan wrote in a column for the Israel Hayom daily.

He was referring to the UN’s 75th anniversary, which was marked earlier this month. Israeli leaders have taken a hard line against the UN in recent years, accusing it of disproportionately criticizing Israel while ignoring abuses by other countries.

Erdan, who took up the post in August, lashed the United Nations for turning a blind eye to abuses by Iran, and also singled out the secretary-general, Antonio Gutteres, for omitting mention of Israel’s normalization deals with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in his opening speech at the General Assembly last week.

The UN must “rechart its course” and make room for Israel in its institutions, said Erdan. “I will fight for this with all of my power and I believe that if the UN wants to remain relevant, it must treat Israel fairly and in a balanced way.”

Erdan’s column was published ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the UN General Assembly Tuesday evening.

Seated in the General Assembly hall, Erdan introduced Netanyahu, and in his opening remarks protested what he said was the failure of the UN “to encourage more countries” to follow the leads of the UAE and Bahrain in making peace with Israel. “Most states are missing this opportunity,” Erdan said.

A new NGO has sprung up, named DAWN: Democracy for the Arab World Now. The New York Times praised it ahead of its announcement Tuesday.

Sounds reasonable. Who can be against democracy in the Arab world?

Except that the organization, founded and run by anti-Israel activists like Juan Cole, Sari Bashi and Sarah Leah Whitson, is very selective as to which non-democratic nations they want to pressure:

As a US-based organization, DAWN focuses its research and advocacy on MENA governments with close ties to the United States and the military, diplomatic, and economic support that the US provides these governments, as that is where we have the greatest responsibility.

We believe that we can have the most impact by convincing the US government and other international entities, including businesses, to uphold their human rights obligations by ending support for abusive and undemocratic governments in the region.

Oh. So they only care about human rights in Arab nations that are allied with the US, so they can pressure the US to withhold aid and arms to those nations, while the other nations can go ahead and deny human rights all they want.

Specifically, the nations that are funded by Iran are off limits to this group.

So, what is the desired effect of DAWN's advocacy? It is to create a Middle East that is dominated by Iran!

That sounds like a human rights paradise! I mean, human rights in Syria and Hezbollah-occupied Lebanon and Iraq and under Houthi rule in Yemen is the envy of other Arabs!

And by sheer coincidence, the Arab nations in DAWN's crosshairs are also those that are somewhat allied with Israel. Imagine that.

It is no surprise that DAWN associates itself with the late Jamal Khashoggi, who also was feted as a pro-democracy activist when in fact he supported the violent Muslim Brotherhood brand of Islamism and Hamas terror.

These people will insist that they care about human rights, but it doesn't take much to see that their agenda is quite the opposite.

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The New York Times writes about the trial in Paris for the alleged Islamist collaborators of the 2015 Hyper Cacher massacre with the headline question: "At Trial, Jewish Victims of 2015 Paris Attack Ask: Why the Hatred?"

The question of why people hate Jews has been around as long as Jews have been around. But the New York Times only gives a single answer:

“The only motive for these crimes is the origin, real or presumed, of these people; their Judaism,” Galina Elbaz, a lawyer representing the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, said at the trial.

“It’s the conspiracy-minded idea that originated with the far right, the idea that Jews have a grip on power,” she said.

I cannot find Ms. Elbaz' full testimony at the trial, but the head of her organization, the Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l’Antisémitisme writes about the trial on their website, and what they have to say sounds nothing like the tiny part quoted by the NYT:

My purpose was to remind people that LICRA stands alongside the victims of this anti-Semitic crime. The assassin Amedy Coulibaly had said during the attack “You are the two things I hate the most in the world. You are Jewish and French.” Universalism wants all French people to be Jews when there is an anti-Semitic attack. When a Jew is affected, it is the Republic, the whole of France, which is damaged. This process must be a moment of awakening. I would like us to be able to say loud and clear: today we are all Jews and French.

I also wanted to remind you that, from the experience we have acquired at LICRA since 1927, in particular at the Barbie, Touvier, Papon, and Merah trials, and at the trials of the Tutsi genocidaires, it is that hate crime is not based on small reasons. The hand of the anti-Semite who kills is supported by a multitude of complicit hands, a mechanism in which everyone has their share of responsibility in the final act that is committed or in the fact of not having prevented it. If one of the links is missing then the pursued victim is annihilated.

Based on this and other articles on the LICRA website, it is clear that they understand that antisemitism is not strictly a right-wing phenomenon. In fact, it has nothing to do with Right or Left.

Islamist antisemitism may have borrowed from the tropes of an all-powerful Jewish cabal running the world, but that is hardly only a far-Right idea. There is cross-pollination of antisemitic ideas between all antisemitic movements, whether they are Nation of Islam or Arab or Muslim or Black Hebrew or white nationalist or socialist.

One of the founding documents of Soviet "anti-Zionism," Yuri Ivanov's "Beware: Zionism," is based on the exact same antisemitic lie of a cabal of rich Jews (mostly Rothschilds) who are pulling the strings of capitalism and the media. While Ivanov insists he has nothing against Jews, he sure spends a lot of time railing against the "wealthy Jewish bourgeoisie" who are behind Zionism.

Clearly the idea of an all-powerful Jewish conspiracy that holds the reigns of power is not only a right-wing belief, and it animated Leftist "anti-Zionism" from its inception.

Assuming that Elbaz' testimony about the root causes of antisemitism was longer than one sentence, the New York Times chose to cherry pick her answer to the titular question to only blame the Right for antisemitism - even Islamist Jew-hatred.

Politicizing antisemitism in that way is contemptible.

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09/29 Links Pt1: Mordechai Kedar: Do Arab States Really Support the Palestinians?; Don’t count on Joe Biden being a Clinton-era pro-Israel Democrat

From Ian:

Mordechai Kedar: Do Arab States Really Support the Palestinians?

On a political level, the Palestinians have managed to arouse the hatred of many of their Arab brethren. In 1990, Arafat supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In revenge, Kuwait, once it was freed of the Iraqi conquest, expelled some 400,000 Palestinians, most of whom had been living in the emirate for decades, leaving them destitute overnight. This led to an economic crisis for their families in the West Bank and Gaza, who had been receiving regular stipends from their relatives in Kuwait.

Today, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are supported by Iran, a country abhorred by many Arabs who remember that airplane hijackings and the ensuing blackmail were invented by the Palestinian Arabs. It was they who hijacked an El Al plane to Algiers in 1968, 52 years ago, beginning a period of travail still being endured by the entire world.

Despite the 1989 Taif agreement, which ended the civil war in Lebanon and was supposed to lead to the disarmament and dissolution of all the Lebanese militias, Syria allowed Hezbollah to keep its arms and develop its military power unrestrainedly. The repeated excuse was that the weapons were meant to “liberate Palestine” and would not be aimed at the Lebanese. To anyone with a modicum of brains, it was clear that the Palestine story was a fig leaf covering the sad truth that the weapons were going to be aimed at Hezbollah’s Syrian and Lebanese enemies. “Palestine” was simply an excuse for the Shiite takeover of Lebanon.

Worst of all is the Palestinian demand that Arab states refrain from any relations with Israel until the Palestinian problem is solved to the satisfaction of the PLO and Hamas leaders. A good portion of the Arab world cannot find any commonalities that could unite the PLO and Hamas. As they watched the two sides’ endless squabbles ruin any chances of progress regarding Israel, they gave up on the belief that an internal Palestinian reconciliation can be achieved.

To sum up the situation, the Arab world — that part of it that sees Israel as the only hope in dealing with Iran — does not appreciate the expectation that it must mortgage its future and its very existence to the internal fighting between the PLO and Hamas. And let us not forget that Egypt and Jordan have signed peace agreements with Israel, moved outside the circle of war for the “liberation of Palestine,” and forsaken their Palestinian Arab “brothers,” leaving them to deal with the problem on their own.

Much of the Arab and Muslim world is convinced that the “Palestinians” do not in fact want a state of their own. After all, if that state were established, the world would cease its steady donations of enormous sums. There would be no more “refugees,” and Palestinian Arabs would have to work just like everyone else. How can they, when they are addicted to handouts that come with no strings attached?

One can say with assurance that 70 years after the creation of the “Palestinian problem,” the Arab world has realized that no solution will satisfy those who have turned “refugee-ism” into a profession. The “Palestinian problem” has become an emotional and financial scam that only serves to enrich the corrupt leaders of Ramallah and Gaza.

When a Jew builds a house in Jerusalem… liberals call him a Nazi

When 131 Palestinians are killed attacking Israel in 2019… liberals accuse Jews of genocide

But…

When China puts 2 million Muslims in concentration camps… liberals say nothing

Spineless hypocrites. https://t.co/6qr9KhW4Ap
— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) September 29, 2020

Trump lands third Nobel Peace Prize nomination: 'Producing peace in the world in a way in which none of his predecessors did'

President Trump locked down his third Nobel Peace Prize nomination after a group of Australian professors nominated him based on his “Trump Doctrine."

"He went ahead and negotiated against all advice, but he did it with common sense. He negotiated directly with the Arab states concerned and Israel and brought them together," Australian law professor David Flint told Sky News Australia, lauding the president for his “Trump Doctrine” foreign policies.

“What he has done with the Trump Doctrine is that he has decided that he would no longer have America involved in endless wars, wars which achieve nothing but the killing of thousands of young Americans,” Flint added.

Hundreds of diplomats and government officials gathered at the White House earlier this month to witness leaders from the UAE, Israel, and Bahrain sign the "Abraham Accords," which normalized diplomatic relations between the nations.

Trump has already been nominated twice for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, including by a Norwegian member of Parliament for the Middle East peace deal and by a member of the Swedish Parliament for normalizing relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

Law professors and members of Parliament can nominate a person for the esteemed prize. Flint joined three other Australian legal scholars in nominating the president on the basis of his “Trump Doctrine.”

Honest Reporting: Reuters Ignores Palestinian Rejectionism and Violence as Cause of Conflict

The article’s description of “a failed peace summit in the United States” and the “Palestinians signalled they would accept nothing less than a viable state in what is now Israeli-occupied territory with its capital in East Jerusalem” is terribly misleading and omits critical background.

The “failed peace summit” refers to the Camp David Summit. Any true reporting of those meetings between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat cannot suggest that the Palestinians were not offered “a viable state” as this article implies. During that summit, Israel offered the Palestinians 73% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip with a plan to eventually transfer control of 91% of the West Bank, with an elevated highway and railroad to connect the two territories. The Palestinians would also receive the equivalent of one percent of the West Bank by taking control of the Halutza Sand region next to the Gaza Strip.

Regarding Jerusalem, Israel offered to make East Jerusalem the capital of the Palestinian state and proposed giving the Palestinians “custodianship” over the Temple Mount and “administration” over the Muslim and Christian Quarters of the Old City and all Islamic and Christian holy sites. They would be allowed to raise the Palestinian flag in all these locations. Israel also agreed to allow for 100,000 Palestinian refugees to move into Israel proper with an international fund worth $30 billion which Israel would contribute to, would register claims of property lost by Palestinian refugees and provide appropriate compensation.

White House aides who were present at Camp David II were surprised at how far Barak was willing to go and felt that his offer met most of what the Palestinians were asking for.

The Reuters article, simply referencing a “failed summit,” neglects to blame Arafat for rejecting an offer for close to 100% of what he demanded. Writing that the Palestinians were holding out for a “viable state” implies that no such offer was made. And that is false.

The article’s first reference to the as a “five-year intifada in which more than 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians were killed” similarly misleads by implying his was a war between two sides in which more Palestinians than Israelis were killed. ” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Only much, much later in the article, historian Benny Morris is quoted explaining that during the Second Intifada, “over 1,000 Israelis were killed by bombers, snipers, in restaurants and so on.”

During the five-year Second Intifada, Palestinian terrorists blew themselves up in pizza parlors, busses, and other public areas in Israel, murdering over 1,000 and injuring over 8,000. Those injuries included Israelis whose limbs were blown off and whose bodies were filled with shrapnel from explosives filled with nuts, bolts, and nails..

One of the expected benefits of the Abraham Accord is that Arab support for the Palestinian Authority, especially financial support, would no longer be automatic. Ideally, that would pave the way towards the Palestinian leadership realizing the need to change strategy and actually show up at the negotiating table.

The PA got a kick in the pants a week before the official signing of the Abraham Accord, when they attempted to get the Arab League to publicly condemn the accord -- to no avail. Instead of condemning the agreement, the Arab League refused to even acknowledge the Abraham Accord might be against the Arab consensus.

But according to the Jerusalem Post, that potential cut in Arab aid has actually already begun this year.

The Palestinian government's funding dropped by half with respect to foreign aid in the first seven months of the year, from $500 million in 2019 to $255 million in 2020, dropping in Arab aid during the same period by 85% – from $267 million in 2019 to $38 million in 2020.

Part of the drop in Arab aid is because of Covid, but part of it is because Trump has explicitly asked the wealthier Arab countries not to send money to the Palestinian government.

But if developments in the Arab world are tending towards bigger financial problems for the PA, there are other developments outside of the Middle East that are promising even more problems.

We are long past the time when diplomats and the media threatened Israel with isolation if they did not make the 'necessary' unilateral concessions to the Palestinian Arabs. Instead, between Israel's various technological and medical advances combined with Netanyahu's diplomacy, Israel is making headway in international relations that seem to dwarf the successes that Abbas made not so long ago.

Aaron David Miller, a Middle East analyst, wrote last week about how the Abraham Accords confounded the predictions of the experts -- including himself. Miller credits Netanyahu with the diplomatic successes that have helped make this possible, such as:

o  In 2016, Benjamin Netanyahu became the first Israeli prime minister in decades to travel to East Africa, where he met with leaders in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda

o  In 2017, he became Israel’s first prime minister to visit South America

o  Israel has expanded trade relations in east Asia

o  Netanyahu has established closer ties with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, in 2017, became the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel.

o  Israel now has better relations with all 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council
(China, France, Russian Federation, the UK, and the US) than at any time in its history
o  MASHAV, Israel’s international development agency, has programs in medicine, agriculture and education in developing countries around the world

Miller's point is the possible implications this wave of Israel's diplomatic successes could have for Abbas and the Palestinian Authority:

It may be the case that some of these countries see cooperation with Jerusalem as a way to stay in Washington’s good graces, especially during the Trump years. But it also suggests that much of the international community is no longer prepared to tie their own interests to the Palestinian cause and that they see real advantage in dealing with and benefiting from Israel’s technology and expertise.

Even in the EU, there are signs that Europe is waking up to how their money is being used. According to that Jerusalem Post article:

Last June, European Parliamentarians called for a thorough investigation into how European taxpayers’ money is ending up in the hands of Palestinian terrorists, insisting that any loopholes in the law through which the money is slipping must be closed.

Added to that is the new economic agreement between Serbia and Kosova -- with Serbia saying it would move its embassy to Jerusalem, and Kosovo (which is Muslim) ready to establish diplomatic ties. Both Serbia and Kosovo are working towards acceptance into the EU. If successful, they would join countries such as Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia who have been sympathetic to Israel.

This could be important, because joint statements issued by the European Union in the name of EU member states require unanimous agreement. Back in February, when the EU was looking for unanimous agreement on condemning Trump's peace plan -- Hungary and Austria, among others, blocked the move. As a result, instead of a powerful condemnation, the EU was reduced to a statement by High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell -- alone.

Currently, the EU is making it clear they disapprove of Serbia's plans to move their embassy to Jerusalem. But even if Serbia gives in so that they will be accepted by the EU, this is still the addition of 2 states to the EU that could end up being part of a growing block within the EU that sympathizes with Israel.

That could further undercut the EU's support for the PA.

And Trump still has a month to go till the November elections.

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Hanan Ashrawi talks about Israel "occupying" DC and calls the Washington Monument a "phallic symbol"

On Saturday, tens of thousands of Christians gathered at the Washington Mall for Franklin Graham's Prayer March.

The people moved to seven different iconic locations, like the White House, the Lincolm Memorial, the World War II Memorial and the National Archives, with specific prayers at each stop.

None of the prayers were political.

One person noticed a superficial resemblance between the worshipers who gathered at the base of the Washington Monument and how Orthodox Jews pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and tweeted this disparaging note, gathering thousands of retweets:

This tweet is complete fiction. None of the Prayer March literature, either before or after the event, references the Kotel or even Israel in any way. The Washington Monument is simply the only "prayer point" where people could gather that has a flat wall where people could approach it directly for prayer.

Keep in mind that the tweet is insulting to Jews as well as evangelicals. Jews never call the Kotel the "Wailing Wall," a purely 20th Century British term, and that characterization is considered derogatory nowadays.

None of this stopped PLO spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi from adding further insult to this lie, with a sarcastic tweet that moves from the antisemitic meme of Jews occupying the US government to calling the Washington Monument a "phallic symbol."

White supremacists often refer to Washington as the "Zionist occupied government," or ZOG, and Ashrawi can hardly be unaware of her use of the word "occupy" in this context.

And while it is hard to deny that the obelisk has been seen as a phallic symbol for centuries, and the Washington Monument is the world's largest obelisk, that was not its original meaning when used by the ancient Egyptians (unlike some explicitly phallic Greek architecture.)

Ashrawi in one tweet insults the United States and Jews while using a white supremacist dog-whistle.

(h/t Yoel)

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From Qantara.de:

The conversion of Hagia Sophia back into a mosque was a spectacular move. Some saw this change in the status of this publicly accessible site with its magnificent art, frescoes and architecture as sacrilege, but for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it constituted a "resurrection", indeed, a "harbinger" for the liberation of the next holy site, the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

When proclaiming this mission, Erdoğan used the Turkish term "Mescid-i Aksa", which, similar to the Arabic term "Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa", has long meant not only the mosque but the entire Temple Mount. Another reason why the term is preferred to "Al-Haram Al-Sharif" (venerable sanctuary), which was once in common use, is because it is mentioned in the Koran in connection with Muhammad's Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem.

This rhetoric is intended not only to make Muslims more aware that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the third holiest place in Islam; its consistent use is in fact part of a global Muslim campaign to guard the site against Israeli control.

Turkish Islamists joined the campaign years ago and can be assured the support of the Turkish state and foundations close to it. The fact that the call to "liberate Al-Aqsa" – which was long heard in such circles – is also being voiced by the Turkish head of state himself, has elevated the mission to official Turkish state ideology.

Erdoğan’s rallying cry regarding Al-Aqsa is being spread via all possible channels. On the day of the re-consecration of Hagia Sophia, the words were already emblazoned on posters put up in various cities by the "Turkish Youth Foundation", which has close links to the state. Activists from the foundation, on whose board of directors Erdoğan's son Bilal sits, distributed sweets to mosque visitors and passers-by, who congratulated them on the "resurrection" of Hagia Sophia – and the imminent "liberation of Al-Aqsa".
...
...

The Turkish Al-Aqsa campaign serves in part to spread state-prescribed Neo-Ottomanism. The Istanbul-based association "Mirasimiz" (Our Heritage) strives to "protect and preserve the Ottoman heritage in and around Jerusalem". Mirasimiz sees the restoration of sacred buildings dating from the Ottoman era, which the association supports financially and logistically in cooperation with the Turkish Agency for Cooperation and Coordination, as cultural resistance to the Israeli occupation and the progressive "Judaisation" of East Jerusalem.

The association's journal, Minber-i Aksa (Al-Aqsa Pulpit), repeatedly draws attention to the Ottoman heritage in Palestine, and in the case of the Temple Mount, it goes overboard in glorifying the achievements of Ottoman rulers there as builders and guardians of the sanctuaries. The small buildings left by the Ottomans there are often featured in the journal.

No mention is made, however, of the way that the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock were severely neglected in the late Ottoman period. Instead, an article in the latest issue of Minber-i Aksa reports in detail on the restoration work carried out on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, focusing in particular on the efforts undertaken from 1922 to 1925 by Mimar Kemaleddin, a Turkish architect who was trained in Berlin. The account fails to mention the Egyptian and British experts who were also deeply involved in the project, emphasising instead how Kemaleddin was honoured by the British for his work.

The "Minber-i Aqsa" association, likewise based in Istanbul, has also played a prominent role in the Turkish Al-Aqsa campaign – just one of a growing number of government-affiliated organisations and media initiatives in Turkey committed to an Islamic Jerusalem. For the last three years or so, "Minber-i Aqsa" has been trying to recruit legal scholars from as many Islamic countries as possible for the Turkish campaign. At an international conference on the subject in Istanbul in the summer of 2018, which attracted 400 participants, the city's Mufti, Hasan Kamil Yilmaz, conjured the vision of a new Saladin who would soon set out to liberate the "usurped" city of Jerusalem.

The Istanbul mufti may well have had Erdoğan in mind here, but so far, state officials and AKP functionaries have refrained from comparing Erdoğan to Saladin. When the AKP politician and director of the district administration of Iznik (Bursa province) Halil Ibrahim Gökbulut quoted Erdoğan's Al-Aqsa slogan while speaking to the faithful before the reopening of Hagia Sophia as a mosque, he referred to the Turkish President as "Saladin of the Umma" (Saladin of the community of Muslims), the opposition Kemalist newspaper Sözcü deemed it sensational.

On Turkish social media, however, the Saladin analogy is already widespread among AKP supporters – as is the dismay this vision generates among their opponents.

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09/28 Links: Yisrael Medad: A call to revolt, 90 years on; New York Times Tilts Toward One-State Solution on Israel-Palestine; American Jews should reject Joe Biden

From Ian:

Yisrael Medad: A call to revolt, 90 years on

Yom Kippur 5691 fell on a Thursday – October 2, 1930. The next day’s edition of The Palestine Bulletin, the forerunner of this newspaper, informed its readers on page one that “an incident took place last evening when a young Jewish enthusiast desired to have the ram’s horn blown contrary to the temporary regulations issued last year.... Mr. [Julius] Jacobs argued with the youth and tried to persuade him to visit the synagogue nearby.... This he refused to do, and he was accordingly placed under arrest. One hour later he was released.” But let us go back two years to a previous Yom Kippur, which fell on September 24, 1928, to understand the event.

According to a memorandum by Leopold H. Amery, the colonial secretary, issued on November 19, titled “The Western or Wailing Wall in Jerusalem,” what happened was that without “prior consultation with the proper officers of government as to the arrangements for the services at the Wall,” Jews had affixed a mechitza (partition) to the pavement adjoining the Wall, and, among “other innovations,” additional petrol lamps, a number of mats and an ark “much larger than was customary” were brought to the site.

Incidentally, the mechitza itself was put up by the Radzymin Rebbe, Aharon Menachem Mendel Gutterman (1860-1934), head of the Meir Baal Haness charity, who was visiting at the time.

Called to the area, Inspector Douglas Duff and the district commissioner of Jerusalem, Edward Keith-Roach, requested of the chief Ashkenazi gabbai, Rabbi Noah Baruch Glaszstein, that evening to have the screen removed. It did not happen.

The following day, as Duff relates in his book Bailing with a Teaspoon, he and other policemen came down from Mount Scopus. They removed the partition as Jewish women hit them with their parasols. After tearing down the partition, a Jewish man clung to it as Duff and his men pushed through the angry crowd. Duff tossed the partition, along with the man still clinging to it, a distance from the Wall. According to Davar of September 28, an American Jewish woman was injured in the melee.

With or without normalization, expert on Gulf sees Israel as regional peacemaker

One may be tempted to think Sigurd Neubauer’s new book on Israel’s relations with Arab Gulf states was doomed to become antiquated even before it came out.

The official publication date for “The Gulf Region and Israel: Old Struggles, New Alliances” was September 1 — two weeks after the United Arab Emirates surprisingly announced that it had agreed to normalize relations with Israel, and two weeks before both countries signed a historic peace agreement at the White House lawn. In between, Bahrain also agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

But the dizzying pace of developments in the region is actually good news for him, the Washington-based Middle East analyst said in an email interview this week, because it sheds new light on a lesser-known aspect of the Israel-Gulf alliance: Jerusalem’s quiet but crucial role as a regional peacemaker.

“While the UAE-Israel relationship has been strategic in nature for over a decade, the timing of the accords is of significant geopolitical value,” he said, as they came after “Israel had established itself as a peacemaker in the Gulf after it had helped stabilize intra-Gulf disputes, including between Qatar and its immediate neighbors — the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain — and between the UAE and Oman.”

Israel took “decisive steps” to maintain a balance of power between the region’s rival Arab states to prevent Iran from taking advantage of the Gulf crisis, he posited.

In 2017, Qatar was accused by four Arab states of supporting Hamas and other terrorist groups. They imposed a choking blockade on the small country, but Israel threw Doha “a diplomatic lifeline” by cooperating on aid for the Gaza Strip, Neubauer argued. “In this context, Qatar’s motivation for cooperating with Israel — to help alleviate Gaza’s precarious humanitarian situation — is not motivated by fear of Iran per se but by the threat posed by its own neighbors.”

Jerusalem letting Qatar give money to needy Gazans “changed the narrative in Washington away from Qatar supporting Hamas to one that focused on its leveraging its relationship with Hamas to get all the parties to cooperate in support of the Trump administration’s peace plan,” Neubauer previously argued in a piece for Foreign Policy in August.

New York Times Tilts Toward One-State Solution on Israel-Palestine

The New York Times offered readers a signal of what the post-James Bennet, post-Bari Weiss opinion and editorial pages would look like with an op-ed and podcast by Peter Beinart proposing the elimination of the Jewish state of Israel and its replacement with a country Beinart calls “Israel-Palestine,” “a Jewish home that is also, equally, a Palestinian home,” “a Jewish home that is not a Jewish state.”

With its reaction to the peace agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the Times is doubling down on the anti-Zionism of Beinart and his internal champion at the Times, senior opinion editor Max Strasser.

The Times published an op-ed piece by Diana Buttu, a Canadian-born champion of the Orwellian-named “One Democratic State Campaign.” As recently as May, Buttu compared Israel to the Ku Klux Klan, “Just as we would think it unfathomable to dialogue with the KKK, or to accommodate the KKK, so too we must stop coddling Israeli settler-colonialism.”

Under the Times headline, “The U.A.E-Israel Flight Is Nothing To Celebrate,” Buttu wrote, “Rather than continuing to press for a two-state solution, the P.L.O. should instead press for equal rights. … Mr. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders should aim to provide a workable strategy for achieving our rights rather than working to appease Israel, and the international donor community, by adopting an anti-apartheid strategy.”

The Buttu article follows the Beinart-Strasser line, that Zionism is South Africa-style racist apartheid and a one-state solution is preferable to a Jewish state and a Palestinian-Arab state.

G'mar Chatima Tovah 5781 -- גמר חתימה טובה

This is an update my Yom Kippur message of previous years.

I unconditionally forgive anyone who may have wronged me during this year, and I ask forgiveness for anyone I may have wronged as well.

Specifically (as enumerated in previous years, based on the list from The Muqata a few years back):

-If you sent me email and I didn't reply, or didn't get back to you in a timely fashion -- I apologize.
-If you sent me a story and I decided not to publish it or worse, didn't give you a hat tip for the story -I'm sorry. I'm also sorry if I didn't acknowledge the tip. I sometimes get multiple tips for the same story and I usually credit the first one I saw, which is not always the earliest. And I cannot publish all the stories I am sent, although I try to place appropriate ones in the linkdumps, or tweet them.
-If you requested help from me and I wasn't able to provide it -- I'm sorry.
-I apologize if I posted without the proper attribution, with the wrong attribution, or without attribution at all.
-I'm sorry that I usually don't give hat tips on things I tweet.
-Subtweets are usually on purpose. Sorry.
-If I didn't thank you for a donation, I'm very, very sorry.
-I'm sorry if I didn't give the proper respect to my co-bloggers Ian, PoT, Vic, Varda, Daled Amos and the guest posters. Also to people who send me tons of tips and help like Tomer, Irene, and Ibn Boutros.
-I'm sorry if any of my posts offended you personally.
-If I forgot to send you the perks for donating at Patreon - I'm sorry. If you really care, bug me!
- For all the initiatives I started and didn't complete - I'm sorry. It's been a busy year.
- Please forgive me if I wrote disparaging things about you.
- I'm sorry for not always scrubbing spam from the comments as quickly as I would like.
- I'm sorry if things got published in the comments that violated my comments policy but that I missed. I have not been able to monitor most comments for various technical reasons.

May this be a year of life, peace, prosperity, happiness, security and especially health.

I wish all of my readers who observe Yom Kippur an easy and meaningful fast.

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09/27 Links: UAE minister: Iran’s aggression made Arab world look at Israel ‘with fresh eyes’; 'Israel had more than one 'angel' during Yom Kippur War'

From Ian:

UAE minister: Iran’s aggression made Arab world look at Israel ‘with fresh eyes’

The United Arab Emirates didn’t need peace with Israel to counter Iran, a top UAE official said Friday, but he said Iran’s aggressive policies over three decades alarmed many Arab countries and made them look at their relationship with Israel “with fresh eyes.”

Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, acknowledged at a virtual briefing on the sidelines of the equally virtual UN General Assembly’s annual meeting of world leaders that this may not have been Iran’s intention. But its actions had an impact in the region, he said, though he wouldn’t speculate on whether other Arab countries would follow the UAE and Bahrain in establishing relations with Israel.

“The only thing I want to say is the more strategic the Israelis look at these relationships, the more doors will open to them,” Gargash said. “If they look at it very `transactionally’, I think that it is not going to send a very good omen for normalizing relations with many of the Arab countries.”

Gargash said the UAE’s message to Israel is to “look at these opportunities and build strategically, and think long term rather than short term” — and prove wrong the countries who say that because of the Israeli political system its decision-makers think only tactically.

A month after the US-brokered diplomatic agreement with Israel signed at the White House, Gargash said the two countries are negotiating “what I would call normal bilateral relations.” He said the UAE has sent several agreements to the Israelis on protecting investments, double taxation, visa exemptions and air services.

“We’re waiting for them to come back to us, because it is essential for a relationship to be built on these solid bases,” Gargash said.

With spy series 'Tehran,' Israelis reach out to an enemy

Things are not as they seem in the new Apple TV+ series "Tehran" − as it should be in a spy thriller.

The series opens with a commercial flight from Jordan to India that's suddenly diverted to Iran. A few of the passengers on board have secrets. Those secrets will soon have war jets scrambling and a covert manhunt launching.

As audacious as the premise, "Tehran" is equally bold: an Israeli production that offers viewers a sympathetic view of Iran − one of Israel's greatest foes − without anyone from the production setting foot in the Islamic Republic.

"The core of the show is dealing with the question of identity, nationality, immigration and family roots," Moshe Zonder, the show's co-creator and co-writer, said from Tel Aviv. "It asks how we connect to them and our obligation to them and can we get free from them? This is relevant to everyone on the globe."

The show's eight episodes aired in Israel in June and July, to largely rave reviews. The espionage thriller, with dialogue in Hebrew, English and Farsi, debuted on Apple TV+ on Friday.

"Tehran" centers on a computer hacker-agent undertaking her very first mission in Iran's capital, which is also the place of her birth. When the mission goes wrong, the agent has to survive by her wits.

With several of the same actors and featuring a woman spy dealing with Middle Eastern and Central Asian intrigue at its center, some viewers may see similarities with the recently completed run of "Homeland."

But while that Showtime series explored how notions of good and evil can become corrupt and twisted on the international stage, "Tehran" is about making connections across ideological borders.

"There is not one clear enemy. It's not about one side against the other. It's really about people," Niv Sultan, the actress who plays the "Tehran" spy heroine, said from Tel Aviv. "For the first time, we're showing a different point of view of this conflict."

Story of unknown Egyptian officer who helped Israel avert defeat in Yom Kippur War reveleaed

On Friday, Oct, 12, 1973, at 2:30 pm, Prime Minister Golda Meir convened her so-called "Kitchen Cabinet" – the small forum that made the Israeli government's major military-political decisions. The Yom Kippur War had entered its seventh day, and the discussion centered on one fateful question: should the IDF cross the Suez Canal the next night.

After the IDF had successfully pushed the Syrian army back from the Golan Heights, breaking through the Syrian border, the war's center of gravity shifted to the south. These were the most crucial moments on the Egyptian front. The decisive meeting took place in Golda's room and included Zvi Zamir, the director of the Mossad; GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Haim Bar-Lev, and Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Benny Peled.

The situation reports presented at the discussion were stark. Chief of the General Staff David (Dado) Elazar warned that with no decisive victory the forces would grow exhausted, and proposed requesting a ceasefire. Major General Benny Peled said that the Air Force had already lost a large number of planes and that it was nearing the threshold of 220 planes – which, if reached, would mean it could no longer assist the ground forces.

Israel's defense establishment had for many days been expecting Egypt's 2nd and 4th Armored Divisions, deployed west of the canal, to move eastwards; their failure to do so reduced the chances of a successful crossing. Nevertheless, Bar-Lev and Peled expressed their support for the operation. Then, before Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Israel Tal, had a chance to sum up the discussion, Zamir was called away to answer an urgent phone call from his bureau chief Freddy Eini and Yoel Salomon, head of the Mossad's technology division.

Upon his return to the room, Zamir said that he had received a "golden piece of information," according to which the Egyptian army was preparing a paratrooper assault on the Mitla and Gidi Passes within a day or two. The operational conclusion was that the armored divisions would follow.

"I understand that Zvika has ended our discussion," said Meir, and the decision was made: the crossing of the canal was suspended; the IDF was to organize for a defensive battle, lay in wait for the Egyptian forces, contain the attack – and then begin the crossing.

While Mahmoud Abbas' speech to the UN on Friday generated very few headlines, it is worth analyzing.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Palestinian people have been present in their homeland, Palestine, the land of their ancestors, for over 6000 years, and they will continue living on this land, steadfast in the face of occupation, aggression and the disappointments and betrayals, until the fulfilment of their rights.

It is insane that this lie continues to go unchallenged in mainstream media. No respectable historian claims that today's Palestinian Arabs have anything to do with ancient Canaanites. Yet the head of a purported state has no problem telling the world this absurd lie. (Although it is not as ludicrous as Saeb Erakat's 9000 years.)

We have always sought a just, comprehensive and lasting peace, and we have agreed to all the initiatives presented to us. I have personally dedicated my life to achieving this desired peace, notably since 1988, followed by the Madrid Conference and the Oslo Accords in 1993, and to this very day.

Well, except for rejecting all of them that involved any compromise.

Finally, it announces normalization agreements with both the UAE and Bahrain, in violation of the Arab Peace Initiative, and the terms of reference of a comprehensive, lasting and just solution in accordance with international law.

It is notable that he didn't attack Bahrain and the UAE for violating the Arab Peace Initiative - but Israel, which never agreed to it. Perhaps Abbas realized that his attacks on Gulf Arab states did not have the desired effect.

The Palestine Liberation Organization has not given a mandate to anyone to speak or negotiate on behalf of the Palestinian people ...

Actually, they have. They outsourced all negotiations to the EU, the UN, the Obama administration, while they sat back and waited for pressure to collapse Israel.

In this regard, I call on the Secretary-General of the United Nations to undertake, in cooperation with the Quartet and the Security Council, preparations to convene an international conference with full authority and with the participation of all concerned parties, early next year, to engage in a genuine peace process, based on international law, UN resolutions and the relevant terms of reference, leading to an end the occupation and the achievement by the Palestinian people of their freedom and independence within their State, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on the 1967 borders, and resolving all final status issues, notably the question of the refugees, based on resolution 194.

This is a meaningless appeal to try to look like Abbas has something new to say, while trying to get back to getting the world to pressure Israel.

Now comes the part he can't resist:

Let everyone know there will be no peace, no security, no stability and no coexistence in our region while this occupation continues and a just, comprehensive solution to the question of Palestine, the core of the conflict, remains denied.

As he has done so many times before, he is threatening terror if Palestinians don't get what they want.

Finally, some comedy:

In Palestine, ladies and gentlemen, there is a living nation, creative, civilized, peace-loving, aspiring passionately to freedom. A nation that has been able – despite the occupation that besieges our lives – to build an active and modern society, that believes in democracy and the rule of law and has been able to preserve its national existence and identity despite all the political and philosophical differences between its diverse components. Here we are, despite all the obstacles that you know too well, preparing ourselves to hold parliamentary elections, followed by presidential elections, with the participation of all factions and political parties.

Will this be the time they have elections when the last dozen times they promised elections didn't pan out? Well, since they believe in democracy, no doubt.

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On Friday, Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez changed her mind about participating in an event commemorating former prime minster Yitzhak Rabin on the 25th anniversary of his assassination.

She made her decision after backlash from "pro-Palestinian" activists, who told her that Rabin was a monster and that Palestinians are worse off after Oslo than before.

The event is sponsored by Americans for Peace Now.

In August, there was another clear split between Peace Now and the far socialist Left, when Peace Now praised the Israel/UAE agreement and the socialists were horrified by it.

There is a common thread here.

Peace Now supports Israel living in peace and security in the Middle East. While I strongly disagree that their policies would result in such an outcome, their motivation is based on ending the conflict and leaving an Israel at peace with its neighbors.

On the other hand, the socialist Left is against Israel making peace with anyone under circumstances that leave Israel existing as a secure Jewish state.

If you look at Peace Now and see a racist, apartheid-supporting group, as the Israel-haters do, then you aren't against racism or apartheid. You are against the existence of a Jewish state and using codewords to hide your hate.

These two examples show how the socialist Left, that is making increasing inroads in the Democratic Party, has an effectively antisemitic agenda - the destruction of the Jewish state and its replacement with a Jew-hating, terror supporting Palestinian Arab majority state, which they ludicrously claim will treat Jews with equal rights. Sure. The same equal rights they have under every other Arab regime.

When Peace Now is too far to the right for you, you are not interested in peace. You are against any rights for Jews in the Middle East.

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