Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

US negotiators, mourning Erekat, unwittingly reveal why their peacemaking was always doomed

Haaretz has an article praising the late Saeb Erekat, written by a group of people who were involved in negotiations between Israel and the PLO over the decades: Martin Indyk, Daniel Kurtzer, Robert Malley, Aaron David Miller, Dennis Ross, Jonathan Schwartz, and Toni Verstandig.

In their rush to say how wonderful Erekat was, they tell us a bit more about themselves.

We had our differences because at times he could be inflexible. But then, without an independent base of his own and subject to Arafat’s whims, Saeb had little flexibility to depart from core Palestinian positions, and we often suspected, his bosses did not want him to do so.

And what are those core positions? A state on the 1949 armistice lines, all of east Jerusalem, Israel releasing all terrorists from prison, the "right to return" - all things that Israel cannot possibly accept if it is to remain a secure and Jewish state.

This is revealing. These negotiators knew that these are red lines for Israel. They would often say words to the effect that "everyone knows" that the Palestinians will in the end compromise on "return" or prisoners or "1967 lines." But in the actual negotiating room, what "everyone knows" was shown to be false - the Palestinians are incapable of compromise with Israel, of abandoning that they call their "constants."

This is hardly a secret. Palestinian leaders brag about how they have not modified their core positions since 1988. It is a source of pride - and once it crosses the line into becoming a matter of honor, then Palestinian leaders have purposefully painted themselves into a corner where they cannot compromise even if they wanted to because they would be branded traitors or worse.

So we know that these negotiators knew (or "suspected") that Arafat and Abbas simply had no desire for real peace with Israel. Their "constants" are not a recipe for a Palestinian state but as a stage for the destruction of Israel, entirely consistent with Arafat's "phased plan" of 1974.

Even though these professional diplomats knew this, most of them kept castigating Israel in public as the obstacle to peace and had nothing negative to say about the Palestinian side, no matter how many times the Palestinians simply responded "no" to every offer, idea and framework.

This article shows that they know the truth - that Palestinian leaders will never change their position without extreme pressure and that Israel is not the problem. Which makes the attacks on Israel by some of them unconscionable.

We are now on the verge of a new US administration that will be filled with people like these diplomats, who think the Oslo process is still alive, that if only Israel would compromise a little more there would be peace. It failed before Trump and it will fail after him - because the Palestinians aren't interested in peace.

And everyone knows it.

__________________________________________

Since 2015, Erekat was Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the PLO, which is a pretty high position. I don't see any moves that he made towards peace when he actually had political power of his own.

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11/11 Links Pt1: How can pro-Israel policies still be advanced for conservatives Jews?; How Biden Will Turn the Clock Back in the Middle East; Iranian chess team faces ban for refusal to compete against Israelis

From Ian:

Josh Hammer: How can pro-Israel policies still be advanced for conservatives Jews?

The Republican Senate, for its part, must hold the line against the worst excesses of the Biden-Harris administration. The Constitution’s framers famously wove an elaborate system of checks and balances into our legal order. Despite 100 years of accumulation of unwarranted power in the executive branch, Congress retains many tools to push back against a rogue president.

First and foremost is the power of the purse: A Republican-held Senate can, as a point of leverage, threaten to defund any number of nefarious presidential hobby horses. Chief among these for the Biden-Harris administration is a prospective return to the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal. A Republican-held Senate can also wield its investigative and oversight powers to expose any potential malfeasance of a Biden-Harris State Department — and foreign policy-national security apparatus, more generally. A Republican-held Senate can also easily forestall the administration from entering into any number of harmful formal treaties, thus ensuring that any prospective return to the Iran deal retains the comparatively weak legal status of nonbinding executive agreement. It was this weak legal basis for the JCPOA that allowed Trump to so easily withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 agreement.

It would be truly tragic if the Biden-Harris administration reneged on the stunning Middle East successes of the past four years, which emboldened Israel and our Sunni Arab allies and subdued the Iranian mullocracy and its henchmen, and instead returned to the failed decades-long consensus of browbeating Israel at every opportunity in order to force it to yield precious land for an elusive peace with an implacable foe.

Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed the lie at the heart of Washington’s bipartisan professional “peace process” — namely, that broader Israeli-Arab peace was impossible without a two-state solution. The Abraham Accord definitively disproved this fatal conceit, shelving aside the “Palestinian veto” that had previously hindered Arab-Israeli rapprochement. Friends of Israel — not to mention proponents of a generally more stable, secure and prosperous Middle East that aids American interests and contains hegemonic Iranian ambitions — need to relentlessly do their best to ensure the Biden-Harris administration not forsake all that genuine progress which Trump and his Middle East team made.

For pro-Israel Jewish conservatives, the next four years could prove difficult. But they can be made a lot less so if the relevant political actors and public figures urge the right people to hold the line and steer the course.

I thank our friend Donald Trump for recognizing our capital Jerusalem, moving the embassy there, recognizing our sovereignty on the Golan, his stance on Iran and at the UN, and the peace agreements. I also appreciate that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris welcomed these agreements.
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) November 10, 2020

Gil Troy: Can Jews on the Right, Left find common ground? – opinion

As Joe Biden launches his transition, and the Republicans, telling Donald Trump he lost, show off their regrown tongues, spines and souls, the Jewish community remains polarized.

As a first step to rebuilding a healthy dialogue, can we agree on certain facts? By identifying enough inconvenient truths to unnerve partisans at both extremes, perhaps we can lower the rhetorical temperature and raise awareness about some of the goals, interests and values that unite us, not just the tactical issues dividing us.

Bidenistas should acknowledge that Trump leaves at least three welcome facts on the ground in the Middle East. First, America’s embassy is now in Jerusalem – fulfilling promises Democrats and Republicans made for decades. Second, the Abraham Accords have Israelis and Arabs excitedly building business, cultural, personal and diplomatic ties. Third, Trump’s economic sanctions have sent Iranian unemployment rates and consumer prices skyrocketing – while starving Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups that target Israelis, Jews, Americans, Westerners.

And it’s not controversial to admit that Biden’s win thrilled Palestinian rejectionists, progressive anti-Zionists worldwide, and the Democratic Party’s small, loud, growing anti-Israel faction.

How Biden Will Turn the Clock Back in the Middle East

The history of the Holy Land is ignored, for the Marxist framework does not fit the historical facts. For example, when the Romans invaded ancient Israel—it was the Romans who named it "Palestine"—all of Israel, "from the river to the sea," was inhabited by Jews, and Islam, which was not invented until six centuries later, and Muslims, were unknown.

Harris also asserts that "We will also oppose annexation and settlement expansion," by which she means Israeli presence beyond the 1949 green armistice line into the heartland of ancient Israel: Judea and Samaria. She even opposes the building of new houses within communities to accommodate population increase. We can fully expect the Biden-Harris administration to demand that Israel withdraw to suicidal boundaries and that Palestine be given independent state status with an independent military.

The Biden-Harris Administration will rejoin the JCPOA, remove the sanctions from the Islamic Republic of Iran, and perhaps repeat the Obama-Biden policy of sending pallets of cash to the mullahs so that they will have more money to pass on to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iranian Revolutionary Guard legions in Syria. The Islamic Republic will be better able to ramp up its military, rocket, and nuclear capacity development, and to pursue its aim of destroying Israel.

How will Israel respond to this American abandonment of keeping Iran in check? Israel will return to its "blue and white" strategy of self-reliance, as it did in the past in destroying Iraqi and Syriannuclear facilities. In other words, Israel will consider striking Iranian nuclear facilities, which would probably entail pre-emptive strikes on Hamas and Hezbollah as well. In this case, Iran would not stand idle, and the result could be an all-out war in the Middle East.

Joe Biden, in collaboration with Democrat Party socialists and Islamists, will return to the post-American stance of the Obama-Biden administration, which demanded that America be transformed into a democratic socialist state and that America apologize to the world for its ill deeds, and bow to international organizations such as the United Nations, now run by a majority of third-world despots. An integral part of this plan is a return to all of the Obama failed policies in the Middle East and the conflict and loss of blood and treasure that will inevitably follow.

What Jews in America and in Israel Should Expect from the outcome of the US Elections

Speaking with Caroline Glick on what Jews in America and in Israel Should Expect from the Outcome of the US Elections.

Islamic Jihad official says "assassinations of our leaders make us stronger." Let's find out!

One year ago, Israel carried out a targeted killing of Bahaa Abu el-Atta, a senior Islamic Jihad leader who even the terror group admits was in the process of instigating an attack against Israel at the moment of his death.

On the anniversary of his death, an Islamic Jihad official in Lebanon is saying that such targeted killings only makes Islamic Jihad stronger.

Ihssan Ataya said that "the Israeli assassination policy against the resistance and its leaders will never achieve its goals and will backfire in favor of the resistance, which is getting stronger."

Ataya said: "History proves that the Islamic Jihad Movement, when leaders were assassinated, did not retreat or break down, but rather grew in strength and development, and was able to confront the occupation more than once, and made great achievements."

If that's the case, then in the interests of making Islamic Jihad even stronger, all of its leaders should take a walk towards the Gaza fence with hand grenades. They'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!

I wonder who these terrorists think they are fooling when they say stuff like this.

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Human Rights Watch just issued a 45-page report on the use of white phosphorus and how it can injure people if not used correctly. While the report claims to be about "incendiary weapons," it exclusively discusses white phosphorus.

Under international law, white phosphorus is not considered an incendiary weapon.

The Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons (Protocol III). Geneva, 10 October 1980 defines incendiary weapons:

1. "Incendiary weapon" means any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target. (a) Incendiary weapons can take the form of, for example, flame throwers, fougasses, shells, rockets, grenades, mines, bombs and other containers of incendiary substances. (b) Incendiary weapons do not include:

(i) Munitions which may have incidental incendiary effects, such as illuminants, tracers, smoke or signalling systems;

White phosphorus is used only for smoke and illumination, not as an incendiary weapon.

HRW acknowledges this and calls to change the definition in Protocol III, but its use of the term throughout the paper is misleading.

There is nothing wrong with HRW calling to increase restrictions on WP use, since it can be misused and cause burns and other injuries.

However, this report gives the impression that Israel still uses white phosphorus, dedicating one of its three case studies to Israel's use of WP in Gaza in 2009, liberally quoting its own 2009 report.

The other two case studies are Syria and Afghanistan. It doesn't mention that WP was also used by the US in Iraq, or by Turkey in Syria, or by both Armenia and Azerbaijan in their conflict.

It doesn't mention that Israel stopped using WP in 2013 and that it reprimanded officers for the misuse of the weapon in the 2009 war.

For a report of this size, these omissions seem to be purposeful. HRW wants to put Israel in the same human rights category as Afghanistan and Syria, and it wants its readers to think that Israel still uses WP unlawfully. Anything that would blunt inciting readers to hate Israel is omitted.

If this was the only time HRW did something like this, perhaps one could say this was an oversight. But it isn't. Even though Israel is not the target of this report, it ends up being a major villain, and it provides no context at all on Israel's former use of the still legal weapon.

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From VPalestine:

Cancer-stricken Palestinian detainee, Kamal Abu Wa’er, 46, died today in Israeli occupation jails following a severe deterioration in his health due to medical negligence.

Abu Waer, from Jenin’s town of Qabatiya, suffered from throat cancer. He was arrested in 2003 and sentenced to multiple life sentences for resisting the occupation.

Qadri Abu Bakr, head of the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Commission in the Palestinian Authority, held the Israeli authorities fully responsible for the death of Abu Wa’er, slamming his death as a premeditated crime committed by the Israeli prison service, which was fully aware of the seriousness of his health condition and refused to release him despite many calls made for his immediate release.

I never heard of murder by throat cancer before, but those wily Israelis are capable of anything.

The PLO also blamed Israel of "medical negligence." Hanan Ashrawi said Israel was "directly responsible" for his death.

This "negligence" included multiple surgeries and months of cancer treatments.

Besides that obvious lie, the Palestinian media also lies about why he was serving six life terms.

According to the PLO and Arabic Wikipedia, he was arrested in 2003 for "resisting the occupation" and "repelling Israeli invasions." Wattan says he stabbed a soldier while defending a young girl from harassment, doubting that the soldier even died.

In reality, Abu Wa'er was a cold blooded child killer for Fatah's Force 17 involved in a number of murders, including:

The drive by shooting of Aliza Malka, 17, near Kibbutz Merav

The shooting and murder of Arnaldo Agranionic, 48, a guard from Itamar

The murder of Rabbi Binyamin Herling, 64, at Mount Ebal in 2000

The murder of Israeli Druze border policeman Madhat Yousef as he guarded Joseph's Tomb

These murders are what the PLO today extols as "resisting the occupation."

Which goes to show that when they say that they are against terrorism, they are still lying. They regard people like Abu Wa'er as a hero.

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11/10 Links Pt2: Arsen Ostrovsky: Fighting Anti-Semitism: Lessons From Kristallnacht; The UN’s ‘Zionism is Racism’ Resolution: From Passage to Repeal and Beyond

From Ian:

Arsen Ostrovsky: Fighting Anti-Semitism: Lessons From Kristallnacht

Eighty-two years ago yesterday, Nazis and their enablers across Germany and Austria razed over 1,400 synagogues, smashed the windows and plundered over 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses, and murdered almost 100 Jews in a violent pogrom that became known as "Kristallnacht"—or the "Night of Broken Glass."

In the weeks that followed, approximately 30,000 Jews were transported to concentration camps in a jarring prelude to the further evil that would ensue.

Kristallnacht was a murderous example of the capacity of humans to escalate from indifference, demonization and singling out of a group of people—Jews, in this case—to violence. First by words and through dehumanization, and then through the Nazi infrastructure of death.

Today, this singling out of Jews again—and by extension, the Jewish state, including through nefarious attempts to boycott Israel—represents a collective form of amnesia, indifference and willful disregard of history. It indicates that for many, very little has, in fact, been learned from history.

As the great philosopher George Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

For some, the phrase "Never Again" may be no more than an empty slogan. But not for the Jewish people, the Jewish state or those with a clear moral conscience.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel implored us to "take sides," warning that "neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

This week, it is imperative we not only remember our Jewish brothers and sisters murdered in the Kristallnacht by the Nazi machinery of death, but also to recall that so many of their fellow citizens stood idly by—many outright cheering on—as accomplices in the greatest act of evil in modern history.

The UN’s ‘Zionism is Racism’ Resolution: From Passage to Repeal and Beyond

November 10, 1975: 45 years ago today. This was a very telling moment regarding the United Nations’ — and the international community’s — stance on Israel.

Twenty-five states sponsored Resolution 3379, which “determine[d] that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” Seventy-two states voted in favor, 32 abstained and 35 were against the motion. The resolution referenced the 1963 UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; the 1973 resolution condemning “the unholy alliance between South African racism and Zionism;” and the August 1975 Conference for Foreign Affairs of Non-Aligned Countries, which called Zionism “a threat to world peace and security,” and urged world capitals “to oppose this racist and imperialist ideology.”

Prior to the vote, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Chaim Herzog told the General Assembly: I can point with pride to the Arab ministers who have served in my government; to the Arab deputy speaker of my Parliament; to Arab officers and men serving of their own volition in our border and police defense forces, frequently commanding Jewish troops; to the hundreds of thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East crowding the cities of Israel every year; to the thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East coming for medical treatment to Israel; to the peaceful coexistence which has developed; to the fact that Arabic is an official language in Israel on a par with Hebrew; to the fact that it is as natural for an Arab to serve in public office in Israel as it is incongruous to think of a Jew serving in any public office in an Arab country, indeed being admitted to many of them. Is that racism? It is not! That … is Zionism.

Herzog then pulled out a copy of the text of the resolution, held it up, and declared: “For us, the Jewish people, this resolution based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, is devoid of any moral or legal value. For us, the Jewish people, this is no more than a piece of paper and we shall treat it as such.”

Herzog then tore the document in half.

The United States "does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act."

~ Daniel Patrick Moynihan delivering possible the best speech ever at the United Nations, #OTD 1975, on the infamous 'Zionism is Racism' Resolution. pic.twitter.com/7mZqMNWDD5
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 10, 2020

David Collier: The cruel sewer of the far-left. Not for the faint-hearted

This piece on the cruel sewer of the far-left is not for the faint-hearted. The article contains sickening responses to the news of the passing of Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi. My research is here to provide a historical record. As such, this piece, however difficult to write or read – needed to be made public.

If you are easily offended or upset, I strongly suggest you give this one a miss. The cruel and sickening responses

It is easy to go and find some anonymous troll making an offensive or cruel comment. It is for others to engage in distortion and propaganda. What is important to note about this blog is that these are not trolls or bots. These are real people and most have held or hold key positions in anti-Israel activism or other political circles.

I start with Mick Napier the chair of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

That vile post by Napier was liked by Jacqueline Walker – ex Vice-Chair of Momentum.

At the time of writing, Napier’s post has received around 50 likes and has been shared 17 times. Walker, not content in simply liking a grotesque post about Lord Sacks, set out to post some comments on her own timeline.

More Bedouin villages that popped up out of nowhere

After I found that the village of Humsa al-B'qaia has been created only recently - deliberately inside an IDF firing zone - I looked at a couple of other areas that people have been screaming that Israel demolished in recent years.

All of them were built in Area C. All of them knew very well that Israel could not tolerate the haphazard building of illegal structures in the middle of lands that are administered by the State of Israel. Most of them are built with the funding and encouragement of the EU. And children are purposefully moved into theses areas from the secure houses they lived in before- just to make the demolitions looks more heartless.

Some are not easy to find, since even Google Maps never heard of them. But here are a couple.

Izbiq, in 2004 and 2013.

And here is a video I made of Khirbet Zanuta from 2004 to 2016.

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Continuing on with how JTA reported on Joe Biden over time, this is from the early 1980s:

March 21, 1980:

Secretary of State Cyrus Vance told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today that the Carter Administration would not disavow completely the anti-Israel resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council on March 1 and refused to say that the Administration would not support another resolution of a similar nature in September when the matter of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories comes up again.
...Sen. Joseph Biden (D.Del.) declared that Begin seriously underestimates the resentment of the American people over new settlements” and “the Begin government is dead wrong in establishing new settlements. ” But, he pointed out, “Israel is in the U.S. security interest” and Israel, “free, strong and unintimidated is a strategic asset of the U.S.” He asked Vance “What is Israel’s role in our security position regarding the Persian Gulf” oil fields?

May 29, 1980:

The United States has rejected Israel’s request to renew a five-year agreement that allows Israel to buy industrial diamonds from the American strategic stockpile at a negotiated price, Stockpile items are normally said’ by competitive bidding....
The refusal to renew the accord came despite a last-minute plea to President Carter by five members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee-Frank Church (D. Idaho), the committee chairman; Jacob Javits (R. NY), the ranking Republican; Joseph Biden Jr. (D. Del.). Paul Sarbanes (D.Mo.) and Richard Stone (D. Fla.).

August 22, 1980:

Secretary of State Edmund Muskie was advised orally and by telegram by leading Senators to veto the UN Security Council resolution on Jerusalem.
Sen. Jacob Javits (R.NY) reached Muskie at his vacationing place in Maine Tuesday night and expressed displeasure at the Carter Administration’s planned abstention vote. Muskie’s reply, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned, was that the Administration had given a great deal of thought to the resolution.
Yesterday morning, 13 Senators led by Frank Church (D. Idaho), the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, and Javits, its ranking minority member, urged Muskie by telegram to veto the resolution since it would invoke, for the first time, punitive actions against Israel.”

Joining Church and Javits in the telegram, which was hurriedly originated yesterday morning and rushed to Muskie, were Sen. Daniel Moynihan (D.NY), Richard Stone (D.Fla.), Robert Dole (R.Kons.), John Danforth (R,Mo.), Paul Laxalt (R.Nev.), Harrison Williams (D.NJ), Joseph Biden (D Del.), Bob Packwood (R. Ore.), Alan Cranston (D.Cal.), Richard Lugar (R.Ind.) and Paul Sorbanes (D.Md.).

May 4, 1981:

Sen. Joseph Biden (D. Del.), a leading opponent of the proposed U.S. arms package deal for Saudi Arabia, strongly chastized the American Jewish community and Israel here last night for not reacting immediately in opposition to the Reagan Administration’s plan to supply offensive weapons to the Saudis.
Addressing members of the national executive committee of the Zionist Organization of America, Biden, the second ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned that the Administration will initiate tactics that will modify the American arms package.
He cautioned, however, that the dangers to U.S. and Israel security will continue. The Senator said he intended to join Sen. Alan Cranston (D. Calif.) in sponsoring a resolution of disapproval in the Senate as soon as the Administration’s proposal arrives on Capitol Hill. “If we do not make the fight now,” Biden said, the appetite of Saudi Arabia” will not be satiated.”
Ivan Novick, president of the ZOA, praised Biden for his fight against the sale.

May 2, 1983:

Sen. Joseph Biden (D. Del.), called on President Reagan today “to read the message of Congress” and ship F-16 jet fighter-bombers to Israel. He also urged the President to halt all arms sales to Arab nations in the Middle East and declared that the U.S. should begin to treat Israel “as an ally and brother and not wash dirty laundry in public.”
Biden, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke at the luncheon session of the 83rd national convention of the Zionist Organization of America here. He said American public opinion is beginning to understand what is at stake in the Middle East, “that oil is not a weapon, that the Israelis are the ones who have made concessions in Lebanon ” and that it is the Syrians, the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Lebanese government which are “intransigent."

August 18, 1983:

In the major address of the [Hadassah] banquet, Sen. Joseph Biden (D. Del.) declared that the failure of President Reagan’s peace initiative has contributed to the improvement in Israeli-U.S. relations.
“The Reagan initiative was born out of the naivete shared by the last Administration,” Biden explained. He said it was based on King Hussein of Jordan, Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat and the Saudi Arabian regime being “capable of independent action” when even if they were positive toward negotiations with Israel, “they are not capable of independent action.”
Biden said that Hussein was expected to demonstrate a “courage” that he did not have to go it alone in the Arab world, while Arafat, “even if he wanted to, and I believe he does not, is incapable of bringing along the PLO on any negotiated settlement with Israel.” The Saudis have had to make “deals” to keep their oligarchic regime in power and are not “institutionally capable” at this time of supporting peace with Israel, Biden maintained. But he noted that if either Jordan or Arafat had agreed to go along with the negotiations, Israel would have been painted as intransigent because the U.S. public would not have understood the Israeli refusal to go along based on Israel’s knowledge of the inability of the three parties to negotiate peace.
Biden, who said he supported Israel’s efforts to destroy the PLO in Lebanon, said the Lebanese action brought U.S.-Israeli relations to an all time low last year. But he said the situation has improved now for two other reasons.
One is Moshe Arens replacing Ariel Sharon as Defense Minister. The other is the Israeli-Lebanese agreement for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon which “made it crystal clear to the United States and to the world that the party that was intransigent was not Israel but Syria and the PLO.”

September 29, 1983:

If the Israelis were to pull their troops out of Lebanon tomorrow, the Reagan Administration would “have apoplexy,” a ranking member of both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence told the United Jewish Appeal-Federation Women’s Campaign Leadership Conference.
Sen. Joseph Biden (D. Del.) warned the 200 leaders of the Women’s Campaign from New York City, Long Island and Westchester that if the Reagan Administration’s commitment of marines in Lebanon ends badly, the blame will fall on Israel. This, he said, would be unjust. The United States, he said “is in Lebanon because of United States interests, not because of Israeli interests.”
Biden emphasized that “We have an obligation as a government to educate the American people to the vital role that Israel plays in the United States security interests. Israel’s presence in Lebanon is vitally important. The Reagan Administration would have apoplexy if (Israeli Premier-designate Yitzhak) Shamir said tomorrow, ‘I’m bringing all the troops home’.”
The Senator said, “If the Administration does not put forward candidly why it has decided to be in Lebanon, the blame will eventually fall on Israel, not on this Administration’s policy.” Biden has been an outspoken critic of Secretary of State George Shultz’s statements that the Administration would not feel bound by legislation invoking the War Powers Resolution and authorizing the U.S. marines to remain in Lebanon for 18 months.

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11/10 Links Pt1: Can Biden See What’s at Stake in the Middle East?; A Biden presidency resurrects ’67 lines, Palestinian state; Saeb Erekat Dies After Contracting COVID-19

From Ian:

Can Biden See What’s at Stake in the Middle East?

The real issues in the immediate future are how the Biden Administration positions American interests vis a vis Iran and, in particular, the JCPOA. Trump’s Iran adviser, Elliott Abrams, was dispatched over the weekend to Israel to engage in a series of meetings and briefings with top Israeli officials, including, of course, Prime Minister Netanyahu. Media reports indicate that, in its final two months, the Trump Administration will issue a barrage of sanctions against Iran in coordination with Saudi Arabia and, likely, other Gulf states. The focus of such sanctions will be to impact the development of the Iranian ballistic missile system and, generally, to frustrate the incoming administration’s instinct to pander to the Iranian regime, a la Obama.

The Iranian economy is on the finest knife-edge, more imperiled than at any time during Obama’s tenure. Perhaps the hope of the Trump Administration is that sharpening the blade a touch more could be lethal and tip the balance, forcing Iranian capitulation on certain civil liberties and human rights issues, and further pressuring the increasingly besieged tyrannical regime in Tehran.

Biden and his team have been very clear regarding their intentions to “reopen” the JCPOA for renewed American leadership and participation pending Iranian compliance with its terms. The incoming administration has also telegraphed a desire to support the realization of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

Each of those sweeping positions is code for a radical re-alignment of Mideast geopolitical policy from the Trump years; basically, reverting to the so-called “Obama doctrine”, which was far from a raging success in its eight-year lifespan.

Biden enters the White House at a time when the strategic and commercial alliances in the Middle East have been utterly transformed from what they were four years ago. Among his earliest tests will be whether he understands the gravity and irreversibility of this change. Obama turned his back on traditional U.S. allies in the region, causing a deep mistrust to set in and harden. Biden cannot just walk back into the room and flick the switch. The centrality of Palestinian statehood to Middle Eastern reality was the foundation of Obama’s approach to the region. That “reality” no longer exists. The Gulf states have made clear that they recognize a permanent Israeli presence in the region and urge the Palestinians to do so, too.

Without fresh eyes and policies, Biden risks the humiliation of a very downgraded relevancy in the region. The same old same old just won’t cut it.

Mordechai Kedar: How Israel Should React to President-Elect Biden

One of the realities to which Israel will have to adjust during a Biden administration is that Barack Obama will probably play a role, officially or otherwise, as an advisor on national security or political affairs. This means Israel needs to start having conversations with members of the emerging Biden administration rather than move forward, in the waning days of Trump’s term in office, to achieve goals that the Biden administration will not accept.

It has been suggested that Israel should exploit the remaining months of the Trump presidency to extend sovereignty over parts of the West Bank. Doing so would echo the approach of Barack Obama, who, during his own transition out of the Oval Office in December 2016, supported the thoroughly anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334, spurning President-elect Trump’s request that he not do so.

Applying Israeli sovereignty to parts of the West Bank over the next two months without coordination with the incoming Biden administration might so greatly disturb a Biden administration that pressure could be brought to bear to declare all Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank illegitimate. Implementation of sovereignty could even result in the imposition of US sanctions on Israel (in relation to settlement, sovereignty, or both), a move that would be heartily endorsed by members of Congress of the likes of Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Senator Bernie Sanders.

Israel must absorb the fact that the Democratic Party of today is not the same party it was eight years ago. It has become extremist in some ways, a process that intensified sharply in response to Trump’s entry into the White House and accelerated throughout his four-year term in response to his policies, both domestic and foreign. Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel positions have multiplied and increased their grip on Democratic constituencies. Voices are already being heard suggesting the reopening of Palestine Liberation Organization offices in Washington and moving US embassy activities back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem.

But the most complicated problem with applying sovereignty right now concerns the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan, and also (implicitly) Saudi Arabia. These countries will view an Israeli implementation of sovereignty without prior coordination with them as evidence of Israeli fraud, because the excuse to normalize relations with Jerusalem was Israel’s agreement to indefinitely postpone the application of sovereignty in the West Bank. If Israel responds to Trump’s loss by immediately withdrawing from its commitment not to enforce sovereignty, Jerusalem’s new friends will feel it has deceived them. That feeling will surely work against Israeli interests.

From PM News Nigeria:

Kannywood embattled actress, Rahama Sadau will be appearing in a sharia court in Kaduna over allegations of blasphemy levelled against her after sharing racy photos on social media.

Rahama Sadau is allegedly under police investigation after the racy photos she shared triggered blasphemous comments.

It was gathered that the investigation is linked to the blasphemous comment on the Holy Prophet Mohammed the racy photos incited.

According to a press release signed by Lawal Muhammad Gusau on behalf of the Concerned and Peace-Loving Muslim Ummah, listed some conditions that must be met before she defends herself.

It was also noted that the case against her “is a matter relating to the Hadiths of the Prophet and the Glorious Holy Qur’an and not a matter relating to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.

It would be bad enough if the photos themselves got Sadau to be summoned to a sharia court, but in this case she is being charged with blasphemy for the comment by someone else on her photos!

When Rahama Sadau posted the photo on November 1, Islamic conservatives in Nigeria criticized her, and others defended her. Apparently someone complained to the sharia court and the best excuse they could find to bring her before the court was to accuse her of blasphemy.

As soon as the controversy bubbled up, Sadau removed the photo and condemned any blasphemy. But that is apparently not enough - for a woman.

The man who made the blasphemous comments is not even mentioned in news articles, nor is there any indication that he is being arrested or summoned to court.

Even more outrageous, the person who brought the complaint against Sadau said that she should be arrested because her photo might cause riots - mentioning another case of a singer earlier this year whose house was burned down after he posted a video on WhatsApp that was supposedly blasphemous. The criminals aren't charged.

In 2016, Sadau was accused of indecency after a music video of her doing little more than holding hands with a man was released. She was blacklisted from the Nigerian movie industry for two years after that.

The charge of blasphemy in Nigeria is treated with kid gloves by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. If a political figure is charged with blasphemy, then they cover the story as political repression. The charge of blasphemy itself - a gross violation of the human right of free speech - is not criticized by these supposed human rights groups at all. Not a word was written by HRW or Amnesty about the singer mentioned above or a 13-year old boy sentenced to ten years in prison for blasphemy in Nigeria in October.

Here is a case of clear sexism, injustice and violation of freedom of speech that the major human rights organizations will not talk about because they do not want to be labeled "Islamophobic."

(h/t Yasmine Mohammed)

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At the official Palestinian Wafa news agency, in Arabic, Mahmoud Abbas referred to the late Saeb Erekat as a "martyr" - a shahid - implying that he was killed by Israel.

The President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, today, Tuesday, mourned, in his name and in the name of the Palestinian leadership and government, to the masses of our people and our Arab and Islamic nation, and friends in the world, the great national leader and the martyr of Palestine, the secretary of the Executive Committee of the PLO, A member of the Fatah Central Committee, and the prominent academic, Saeb Erekat, who spent his life as a fighter and a hard negotiator defending Palestine, its cause, its people, and its independent national decision.

In English, though - no shahid:

President Mahmoud Abbas today mourned Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), member of Fatah Central Committee, and a prominent academic who spent his life as a fighter and a hard negotiator defending Palestine, its cause, its people, and its independent national decision.

The rest of the article is virtually identical between English and Arabic.

I have not seen any accusations that Israel killed Erekat while he was treated for COVID-19 at Hadassah Hospital, but give it a day or two.

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The Art of the Really Bad Iran Deal

Times of Israel reports:

Amos Hochstein, a former aide to President-elect Joe Biden, tells Israeli television that rejoining the Iran nuclear deal remains “high on his agenda.”

“I believe that in the first months [of his presidency], we’ll either see him rejoin the deal fully, or what I would call ‘JCPOA-minus,’ meaning lifting sanctions in exchange for suspending some of the Iranian nuclear programs [developed] in the past three years,” he tells Channel 12.

Hochstein, who oversaw energy sanctions on Iran under former president Barack Obama’s tenure, says Biden wants “some changes” to the pact clinched in 2015 — which Trump withdrew from in 2018 — including its expiration date.

It isn't as if Biden hasn't pretty said all of this already. He wrote in an op-ed in September exactly how he plans to get "tough" on Iran.

[T]here is a smart way to be tough on Iran, and there is Trump's way....

First, I will make an unshakable commitment to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Second, I will offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy. If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations. With our allies, we will work to strengthen and extend the nuclear deal's provisions, while also addressing other issues of concern. This includes working aggressively to free unjustly detained Americans and calling out the regime for its ongoing violations of human rights, including the execution of wrestler Navid Afkari this week and the wrongful detention of political prisoners, such as human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. And we will work to help our partners reduce tensions and help end regional conflicts, including the disastrous war in Yemen.

If re-joining the JCPOA is the starting point to try to pressure Iran, what incentive does Iran have to negotiate about ballistic missiles or human rights after the US re-joins? What other carrots or sticks are there?

Biden is showing all his cards and then expecting Iran to somehow pretend it hasn't seen them.

Iran is hurting because of Trump's sanctions. But Biden is acting as if the US is dying to re-join the JCPOA and will do anything necessary to have that happen.

In other words, Biden is setting the stage to make the JCPOA even worse than it was, not better!

Iran is of course acting like a rational poker player:

Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Monday reacted coolly to suggestions that US President-elect Joe Biden would revive the 2015 nuclear deal between the Tehran regime and six world powers including America.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told a news conference in Tehran that the Islamist regime was “not aware” of comments made by an aide to Biden suggesting that a modified version of the original deal was on the table.

Khatibzadeh described the JCPOA — the technical term for the Iran deal — as the fruit of ten years of negotiation that was legally binding on all parties.

Iran is sending a message opposite to Biden's. It is saying that he US rejoining the JCPOA is not a big deal, and anyway the US is legally obligated to so don't even think of asking for more concessions.

Biden is squandering any chance the US had of negotiating a better Iran deal by telling Iran that (a) restoring the deal is one of his top priorities, (b) he will not condition any return to JCPOA on Iranian actions to make the world a safer place, and (c) after the US grovels to rejoin the JCPOA, then it will beg Iran to pretty please stop terrorism and other bad things without having anything left to negotiate with.

If you want a textbook case on how not to negotiate, this looks like it.

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No, Trump didn't unfollow Netanyahu on Twitter

Social media has been filled with the "news" that Donald Trump unfollowed Bibi Netanyahu on Twitter. Here's one of the tweets that has so far gotten over 9000 "Likes."

It is completely false. Trump never followed too many people, but he followed 50 before election day and still follows 50. Here is proof of the 50 from early Saturday morning, before Bibi's tweet.

There are articles about who Trump follows and Bibi is never mentioned. In fact Trump's account never followed any world leaders, although the White House account would follow some during state visits.

The rumor seemed to start on Sunday - this is the earliest mention I could find on Twitter, and it started getting traction from this tweet.

The neo-Nazi Daily Stormer site picked up on the fake story, which pushed it even further.

And practically no one is telling the truth.

Here's the thing about fake news: when it fits people's preconceived notions, no one wants to check whether it is true. This story "feels" right. As the expression goes, it is "too good to check."

And that desire to want to believe something is so overwhelming that even when confronted with the evidence, no one wants to believe that they were wrong. I informed a number of people that the story was false and they either ignored me or felt that it was true enough because that is something Trump would do, so the details aren't so important about whether he actually did.

This is a microcosm of how fake news works. If it fits one's biases, people will believe it. The expression (not by Mark Twain - although everyone wants to believe it is!) that "a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on." remains as true as ever.

What is scary isn't so much how false rumors start. It is how little interest people have in the truth. And that is what makes it so easy for foreign countries to manipulate public opinion.

Schools really need to teach students how to think critically, especially about things they want to believe. I don't think it is hyperbole to say that the future of the free world depends on it.

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11/09 Links Pt2: Rabin’s True Legacy; Joe Rogan Is the Aleph; The BBC Reports on Less Than 5% of Terror Attacks in Israel; Thousands remember Kristallnacht with March of The Living campaign

From Ian:

Professor Efraim Inbar: Rabin’s True Legacy

A close look at Rabin’s core diplomatic and defense views, above and beyond Oslo, does the late prime minister more justice. It is worth remembering that the centrality of Israeli national security in his worldview never wavered.

Rabin was ready for partition of the West Bank, which was the classic Zionist position, but he insisted on defensible borders for Israel. He never entertained a return to the 1967 borders or any territorial swaps. In his last speech to the Knesset (October 5, 1995), he outlined his preferred map. Israel’s defensible eastern border was to be the Jordan Valley (“in the widest sense”). The areas around a united Jerusalem were to be included in Israel. He spoke of a Palestinian “entity” (which he said would “be less than a state”) to run the affairs of Palestinians.

These formulations were (and remain) in sync with the Israeli consensus, and they are quoted in this year’s American administration peace plan (the “Trump Plan”). Indeed, Rabin’s cautious and skeptical attitude toward peace politics is a needed corrective for some of the euphoric thinking on display in Israel these days. Rabin often reminded audiences that Israel is in the Middle East where peace treaties generally are a temporary phenomenon at best.

Rabin also believed that Israel would have to live by its sword for many years. Therefore, he insisted that large defense outlays were mandatory even after the signing of peace treaties. According to Rabin, Israeli military power was a necessary condition in guaranteeing the preservation of treaties with neighbors in a turbulent Middle East. This view is still very relevant nowadays.

Indeed, various aspects of Rabin’s complex personality have become the foci of identification for different types of Israelis. Rabin’s personal traits were admirable! He was an Israeli patriot who unselfishly dedicated his life to the security of Jewish state. He had an impressive analytical mind. He was an honest Israeli, who spoke his mind without varnish.

Some of Rabin’s views changed over time, but the centrality of national security for Israel remained basically unchanged. This is the best prism for understanding Yitzhak Rabin. For most Israelis, Rabin represented “Mr. Security” – definitely not “Mr. Democracy” or “Mr. Peace” as some in Israel have since tried to portray him.

Rabin’s achievements in the area of national security were remarkable. As Chief of Staff he built the IDF into a mighty military machine and led it the victory of 1967, including the liberation of Jerusalem. As Prime Minister he helped rebuild the IDF in the post-1973 period. As Defense Minister he extricated Israel from the Lebanese quagmire in 1985. He managed to fight the intifada tenaciously without leaving too many scars on the IDF and in Israeli society. In 1994, he reached a peace treaty with the Kingdom of Jordan.

The assassin deprived Rabin of the opportunity of coming to come to grips with the failure of the Oslo process; a process which Rabin did not initiate but proudly backed.

The mythology on Rabin is still in the making. As time passes, we should try to remember not only his weaknesses and failures, but also his great achievements.

Joe Rogan Is the Aleph

My vote this election day was for coming to terms finally with the fact that the past is gone and never coming back, even if it’s never really past.

Only three modern candidates competed in this year’s presidential race: Futurist Social Democrat Andrew Yang, mystical love-healer Marianne Williamson, and the avant-garde Christian humanist Kanye West. None had a chance. Instead we got two men aging into their late 70s whose attachments to the past, even in the insults they use to discredit each other, obscure the kind of future they would work to bring about in America.

Joe Biden is neither a socialist nor a Democrat in the 20th-century sense, since that party no longer exists. Donald Trump is no fascist but neither is he a Republican in the same mold as Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush. The political organizations denoted by those names belong to a bygone age. Economically, we live now in a country that is globalized, dominated by finance and technology, supported by an overburdened service sector, and moving toward dependence on forms of artificial intelligence that, in the course of manufacturing goods and amusements, also remake the fabric of reality. Socially we have been cast out of the protective sphere of communal institutions and the stability of elite consensus, and into the unknowable wilds of the digital.

The story of the 20th century was individuals living within the institutions of mass society. The 21st, so far, has identities rather than individuals, connected by digital networks that periodically effloresce into large collectives like “The Resistance” and MAGA. Our ability to comprehend reality is strained to the breaking point by the pace of technological change. And yet our political leadership is divided between postwar boomers and modernizers who are still fighting the Cold War. It’s time to update our political maps to understand what the world really looks like now, once the clutter of outdated relics is removed. To do that, let us clear a space, if we can, from our election-addled minds to spare a thought for the powerful podcaster and political harbinger, Joe Rogan.

Recently, one of the key architects of the creaking post-2001 political framework that updated the Cold War as the War on Terror turned his attention to Rogan. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum almost acknowledged reality when he gestured disapprovingly at the podcast host. "Wanted,” Frum tweeted: “Smart, non-polemical assessment of emergence of Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Glenn Greenwald, Donald Trump Jr., Matt Taibbi, the Federalist group of writers etc. as a coherent and cohesive faction in American politics. They share more than just the same dislikes.”

To appreciate the meaning of the Rogan phenomenon, it’s best to leave Frum and turn to the work of the Argentine writer Jorge Louis Borges. In Borges’ short story The Aleph a character discovers that an acquaintance’s basement contains a portal into infinity called ‘the aleph.’ In this single point located on a cellar stair, all of space-time has been compressed and is revealed to the observer who stumbles into just the right position to peer through the keyhole into existence:

Modest Funeral Under Covid Regulations Pays Tribute to Influence of Late UK Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks

The former British Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was buried on Sunday at a modest funeral that was conducted in accordance with coronavirus social-distancing guidelines.

Only 30 mourners — the maximum allowed under the UK government’s rules — attended a service that would ordinarily have attracted a presence of several hundred, among them senior politicians, Jewish leaders and representatives of other faiths.

Among the absentees was Sack’s successor as chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, who was unable to take part due to being in quarantine.

The hesped, or eulogy, composed by Rabbi Mirvis was instead delivered by Rabbi Mordechai Ginsbury of Hendon United Synagogue in London.

Mirvis reflected in his eulogy that it was “difficult if not impossible to think of Rabbi Sacks” — whose passing from cancer was announced on Saturday — “in the past tense.”

An emotional eulogy was delivered by Gila Sacks, a daughter of Rabbi Lord Sacks.

“That single belief — that nothing was inevitable, that no problems were too big for people to try to solve, that things could always be changed and people can always change them — that belief shaped everything else,” she recalled in describing her father’s influence.

StandWithUs: Remembering Lord Jonathan Sacks

So many are reeling from the news that a towering figure in the Jewish world has passed away. Just prior to Passover, former British Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, joined StandWithUs for a program titled "Emerging from Crisis, Stronger". Rabbi Lord Sacks was, as ever, full of wisdom, energetic and eloquent as he navigated viewers through issues relating to the pandemic, bereavement, antisemitism, the centrality of Israel in Jewish life and much more. We are making the video available for you to watch as we remember the life and legacy of Rabbi Sacks, which will last for generations to come. May the memory of HaRav Ya’akov Zvi ben David Arieh z’l, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, be a blessing.

People are going to say that I am a broken record. They will say that almost nobody really cares about the Taylor Force Act. They will argue that it is ridiculous to think that a Biden administration will finance the murder of Jews in Israel, despite "pay-for-slay" or the "Martyrs Fund."

Of course, the great majority of people who make such claims will not have the slightest idea who Taylor Force was or what the Taylor Force Act is.

The Taylor Force Act (H.R. 1164) was passed by the 115th Congress. It was signed into law by the House of Representatives on December 5, 2017, and the US Senate on March 23, 2018.

Section 4, subsection A tells us that US tax dollars may go to the Palestinian Authority on condition that the PA takes "credible steps to end acts of violence against Israeli citizens and United States citizens that are perpetrated or materially assisted by individuals under their jurisdictional control, such as the March 2016 attack that killed former United States Army officer Taylor Force, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

What this means is that the US government is prohibited from handing over US cash dollars to the PA so long as it maintains the "Martyrs Fund." That is, so long as they insist upon paying off the murderers and attackers of random Jews or Americans in the streets of Israel, Mahmoud Abbas or the PA or the PLO will not receive a dime from the American taxpayer.

One would need to be an ethical homunculus to think that Americans have an obligation to pay-off the murderers of our brothers and sisters in Israel.

With Donald Trump, there was no question that we would not be forced to pay for the murder of Taylor Force, pictured below. He was a 29-year-old Army vet who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan before he was murdered, and his wife severely injured, in a PA-inspired slashing spree in the streets of Jaffa on March 9, 2016.

This puts a Joe Biden presidency in a very tough spot because Biden promises that he will give US tax dollars to the PA even as the PA vows to maintain the "Martyrs Fund."

Biden also claims that he will abide by the Taylor Force Act. That is good. That is what we need clarification on because a President Joe Biden simply cannot have it both ways.

He cannot keep his promise to Mahmoud Abbas if Abbas, as he swears to, maintains the Martyrs Fund.

And he cannot keep his promise to American Jews, and Americans, more generally, if he allows such payments to go through and thereby maintaining "pay-for-slay."

Thus, Biden is a cypher on this question. It remains a mystery because no one discusses it and he never gets asked about it.

But the reason that it is not discussed is because we, ourselves, are not discussing the question and we need to. This is not a secondary, minor issue. This is a question around whether or not the American taxpayer will be forced to finance the murder of Jews and Americans in Israel.

I have asked Hen Mazzig and Seth J. Frantzman, both of whom are Biden supporters, what they think of the "Taylor Force Question" and neither has so much as acknowledged it, from what I can tell.

On his website, Mazzig describes himself as an "Israeli writer, international speaker, social media activist and advocate." Frantzman tells us on his Facebook page that he is a "journalist, writer, photographer, PhD." We need pro-Jewish and pro-Israel supporters of Biden, such as these two guys, to ask the hard questions

Most importantly, Joe Biden needs to clarify his contradictory stance on the issue because I, for one, despise the idea that an American political party will force me to pay for the murder of my fellow Jews and Americans.

{Not my nickel, damn you.}

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