Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 24, 2020

How did the @StateDept bypass last year's appropriations bill, allowing funds to Jordan despite refusing to extradite Ahlam Tamimi? Will @ABlinken waive the requirement too?

Earlier this week, I wrote about the ‘Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021’’ that:

While there are various strings attached to many of these programs, not a word is in the budget about conditioning aid to Jordan on its extraditing terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to the US.

I was wrong. There is a section of the Act that addresses this situation, without mentioning Jordan, which mimics language from the 2020 Appropriations Act:

SEC. 7055. (a) LIMITATION.—None of the funds appropriated in this Act may be used to provide assistance ...for the central government of a country which has notified the Department of State of its refusal to extradite to the United States any individual indicted for a criminal offense for which the maximum penalty is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or for killing a law enforcement officer, as specified in a United States extradition request.

(b) CLARIFICATION.—Subsection (a) shall only apply to the central government of a country with which the United States maintains diplomatic relations and with which the United States has an extradition treaty and the government of that country is in violation of the terms and conditions of the treaty.

(c) WAIVER.—The Secretary of State may waive the restriction in subsection (a) on a case-by-case basis if the Secretary certifies to the Committees on Appropriations that such waiver is important to the national interest of the United States.

This year's bill is not yet signed into law, but last year's was, on December 20, 2019.

Which brings up the question: did Mike Pompeo sign a waiver for Jordan to continue to receive aid from the US even though they have refused to extradite Tamimi?

The language of the Act doesn't seem to allow for any other possibility. Yet that does not seem to be Pompeo's style. Reporters at the State Department should ask this question of how exactly Jordan received funds despite its refusal to extradite Tamimi - if Pompeo explicitly authorized the waiver or if something was done further down in the State Department to quietly bypass the rule.

According to this Jordanian news article, some $845 million was given to Jordan in June, way ahead of its original schedule of the end of the year and part of the $1.2 billion given the entire year. It seemed to be done because there were noises from the Trump administration that it would stop aid to Jordan because of Tamimi so some people decided to send the money ahead of time to make any actions moot.

It seems some games were being played to avoid or obfuscate the restriction mentioned in the Act in 2020. And that is unconscionable.

With a new administration, assuming that this section of the Act survives the current attempts to modify it, next year we need to watch to see if Tony Blinken will sign such a waiver or if there are any other ways used to bypass the restrictions. If Jordan continues to receive the $1.65 billion mentioned in the Act (a significant increase from 2020), Blinken must be forced to publicly explain his reasons for going against the will of Congress - and why justice for terror victims is not considered a priority.

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ZDNet published a list of organizations and Internet domains that appear to have been hit by the massive Russian SolarWinds hack.

Security experts reverse-engineered the malware, known as Sunburst, and found dozens of Internet domains that communicated with the Russian command and control center, indicating at least that they were hit with the initial attack. It doesn't mean that they were necessarily further compromised with a second-stage attack.

Major companies like Intel, nVidia and Cisco are on that list, and they have admitted that they were attacked. But the list also includes three Israeli university domains:

mnh.rg-law.ac.il - apparently the College of Law and Business in Ramat Gan

staff.technion.ac.il - Technion
tr.technion.ac.il - Technion

None of these three subdomains are accessible from the Internet, so decoding their names is a very strong indication that they were hit by the malware.

Hopefully they have patched the initial Solarwinds issue and are vigorously investigating what data might have been stolen and whether any additional backdoors or malware were installed in their networks.

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12/23 Links Pt2: To fight anti-Semitism, the UN must first define it; Europe’s Highest Court Gives Its Approval to Attempts to Outlaw Jewish and Muslim Life

From Ian:

To fight anti-Semitism, the UN must first define it

The United States “must deal with the insanity at the center of the Human Rights Council — persistent and egregious anti-Israel bias,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft declared last Monday. She criticized the council for targeting Israel more than any other country in the world. Craft is right about the U.N.’s anti-Israel bias, but an effective response to the problem begins with recognizing that this bias is rooted in plain anti-Semitism.

It is the kind of anti-Semitism that manifests itself in double standards. The council obsesses over Israel to the point of distraction and deems it a pariah, all the while turning a blind eye to genuinely oppressive regimes, such as those in Beijing, Tehran, or Damascus.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has recognized that such double standards constitute anti-Semitism as much as other manifestations such as Holocaust denial and symbols like the swastika. The IHRA is a joint initiative of dozens of governments, mainly European, committed to Holocaust education and combating anti-Semitism. Its definition of anti-Semitism has been adopted by more than 25 countries, the European Parliament, and even the English Premier League.

The Human Rights Council may be the U.N. body that has most often engaged in IHRA-defined anti-Semitism. The UNHRC maintains agenda item seven, which requires the council to review Israel’s human rights record at every meeting. No other country is singled out in this way. In fact, resolutions targeting Israel far outnumber those leveled against China, Iran, Syria, and North Korea combined. The UNHRC also supports a special rapporteur whose mandate is limited to investigating alleged Israeli crimes but not Palestinian ones.

In 2016, the council called for the creation of a database of all businesses conducting activities in or related to Israel’s settlements. The list is intended to intimidate companies out of operating in the West Bank, even though they are legally allowed to do so, and even though no such list exists for any other conflict zone around the world, from Russian-occupied Ukraine to the Turkish-dominated northern Cyprus.

Meanwhile, the U.N. General Assembly maintains a special committee to investigate accusations of Israeli abuses. It also has a committee and a division dedicated to advocating for Palestinians, which in practice has mainly entailed denunciations of Israel. The U.N. maintains no analogous bodies dedicated to defaming any other country.

Of course the BDS supporting and Assad loving @MaxBlumenthal would like to defund @elliecohanim’s position ... it would make it easier for him to keep spreading his vile Jew hatred. https://t.co/9eIMznf0ji
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) December 23, 2020

4th Anniversary of Anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334 Can you guess who played a major role?

This December 23rd is the fourth anniversary of the infamous United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which declares that “the establishment of settlements by Israel in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.” The Obama-Biden administration broke with the longstanding practice of both Democratic and Republican administrations to protect Israel from one-sided, anti-Israel United Nations resolutions when it refused to veto Resolution 2334 and abstained instead. Biden was reportedly involved behind the scenes in pushing the resolution forward for approval, including purportedly pressuring Ukraine to vote for the resolution rather than abstain. Biden has not expressed any regret since then for his participation in the Obama-Biden administration’s decision to sell out Israel.

Resolution 2334 demands that “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” Resolution 2334 also calls on all nations “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.” According to the resolution, “East Jerusalem” (including the Western Wall in the Old City) is specifically considered a part of the so-called Palestinian "territories occupied since 1967" that are supposed to be off limits for any nation's dealings involving Israelis. When it comes to the resolution’s call to prevent “acts of terror” and “to refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric,” the resolution refers elliptically to “both parties.”

As a 2017 Harvard Law Review article noted, “the resolution’s legal language vindicates the Palestinian story of dispossession and could facilitate prosecutions of Israeli officials at the ICC [International Criminal Court].” The article went on to say that “2334’s legal rhetoric entrenches the PA’s [Palestinian Authority] maximalism.”

Resolution 2334 remains in effect to this day. However, despite what the resolution’s supporters continuously assert, it is not legally binding under the UN Charter because it was not passed under the provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter. The resolution is not self-enforcing and would require a further resolution to impose sanctions or other punitive measures, which the Trump administration would surely have vetoed.

The question now is whether Joe Biden as president will return to the Obama-Biden administration’s support of the anti-Israel resolution and its distancing from our closest ally in the Middle East. The answer is most likely yes, despite Biden’s claims of unwavering support for Israel’s security. Biden, his Secretary of State-designate Tony Blinken and incoming chief of staff Ron Klain are adamantly opposed to Israel’s settlement activities.

David Singer: Trump’s two-state solution should not be trashed

Kerry was at pains to point out that America had nothing to do with drafting Resolution 2334: "The United States did not draft or originate this resolution, nor did we put it forward. It was drafted by Egypt – it was drafted and I think introduced by Egypt, which is one of Israel’s closest friends in the region, in coordination with the Palestinians and others… In the end, we did not agree with every word in this resolution. There are important issues that are not sufficiently addressed or even addressed at all. But we could not in good conscience veto a resolution that condemns violence and incitement and reiterates what has been for a long time the overwhelming consensus and international view on settlements and calls for the parties to start taking constructive steps to advance the two-state solution on the ground."

Abstaining on - rather than vetoing - Resolution 2334 - when it did not address or sufficiently address important issues - was irresponsible.

Kerry showed how (intentionally?) out of touch the outgoing Obama-Biden administration was with President-elect Trump’s intentions: “President Obama and I know that the incoming administration has signaled that they may take a different path, and even suggested breaking from the longstanding U.S. policies on settlements, Jerusalem, and the possibility of a two-state solution. That is for them to decide. That’s how we work. But we cannot – in good conscience – do nothing, and say nothing, when we see the hope of peace slipping away… This is a time to stand up for what is right. We have long known what two states living side by side in peace and security looks like. We should not be afraid to say so.”

Kerry specifically recounted Israel’s former Prime Minister Peres telling him: “The original mandate gave the Palestinians 48 percent, now it’s down to 22 percent. I think 78 percent is enough for us.”

That was Revisionist history and pure rubbish: The original mandate gave the Arabs 78% – and that is what they have, 78% (Jordan) - and promised the Jews a national home in the remaining 22% - down to 17% (Israel until the Six Day War) The remaining only 5% comprised Gaza, Judea and Samaria.

Trump’s Peace Plan provides a detailed and comprehensive two-state solution, which was intended as a starting negotiation point: i>Israel: with its current borders extended to include sovereignty over 30% of Judea and Samaria immediately A demilitarised Palestinian Arab State comprising Gaza and 70% of Judea and Samaria on condition it renounces terror and is willing to make peace with the Jewish State, with a four year testing period before its establishment.

Trashing Trump’s Plan going forward and going back to square one would be the height of folly.

The Biden Administration and the “War of Return” (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

Judging from the few public statements made so far and what is known about his appointees, the Biden Administration will take up the same stance toward Israel and the Palestinians as the last Democratic administration, led by Barack Obama.
That means that it will return to the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria more or less on the pre-1967 lines. It will go back to financing the Palestinian Authority, which will find a way to pay terrorists and support their families while pretending not to, in order to circumvent the Taylor Force Act which requires the US to deduct such payments from aid to the PA. The administration will likely close its eyes to the subterfuge. It will go back to funding UNRWA, the agency that supports the exponential growth of a stateless population made up of the descendants of Arab refugees from the 1948 war, despite the fact that it exists to perpetuate the problem posed by this population, not to solve it.
I believe that it will return to the principle that the main reason the conflict has not ended is that Israel has not made enough concessions to the Palestinians, and that the way to end it is to pressure Israel to give in to Palestinian demands: for Jew-free land, for sovereignty without restrictions, for eastern Jerusalem, and perhaps even for the “return” of the refugee descendants. Although not directly part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it will probably reduce pressure on Iran and possibly even return to the JCPOA, the nuclear deal.
It’s too early to tell if it will also adopt the open hostility to the Jewish state that characterized Obama’s reign. That will depend on who influences Biden, both among his official advisors as well as the numerous think tanks, lobbies, and pressure groups that have an interest in the conflict – including the one operated by Barack Obama himself.
I suspect that the administration will have its hands full with other matters and so will not immediately launch a new “peace” effort. But one never knows. Sometimes rationality goes out the window when the subject turns to the Jews and their state.
Although nothing can be done with those who take a position because they see it as a step in the direction of the ultimate elimination of our state, there are still “people of good faith” who believe that the Land for Peace paradigm that inspired the Oslo Accords does provide a path to ending the conflict. If the new administration is dominated by the latter type of people, there is hope that correcting their fundamental misapprehensions might lead to a more productive policy.
These misapprehensions are spelled out persuasively in a recent book, The War of Return, How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream has Obstructed the Path to Peace, by Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf (All Points Books, 2020). Schwartz and Wilf fall on the left of the Israeli political spectrum (Wilf was a Member of the Knesset for the Labor Party), and they still favor a two-state solution. But unlike most of their comrades, they have listened to the Palestinians, and understand their actual concerns and objectives. In their book, they explain why the traditional approach has failed and propose the initial steps that are necessary for any settlement of the conflict.
All previous Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have miscarried because Israelis and Western interlocutors have failed to realize the paramount importance of one issue – the “right of return” demanded by the Palestinians. This is possible because they have systematically misunderstood the language – whether English or Arabic – used by the Palestinians. The “constructive ambiguity” that often characterizes diplomatic language and allows parties that don’t quite agree with each other to nevertheless sign agreements has made it possible for the same words to have diametrically opposed meanings when uttered by Westerners or Palestinians.
The prime example of this is the phrase “a just solution to the refugee problem.” To an Israeli or Westerner, this can include the normalization of the refugees* in their countries of residence, their emigration to other countries, or their resettlement in a Palestinian state, should one be created. This has been the approach taken by the international community to the numerous refugee populations, including Germans living in Eastern Europe after WWII, Holocaust survivors, Jews who were forced out of Arab countries after 1948, and so on. But the Palestinian position is that there is only one “just solution”: anyone with refugee status has the inalienable right to “return” to his “home” in Israel if he wishes to do so, or to receive compensation if he prefers. And that is what this phrase means when they use it.
Naturally, given the numbers of Arabs who claim this “right,” such a mass return would change Israel into an Arab-majority state, even assuming Jews were prepared to leave their homes and peacefully give them to their “rightful owners.” The absurdity of the demand is evident. Yet Yasser Arafat walked away from Camp David precisely because Israel would not agree to it.
Another phrase whose ambiguity has prevented agreement is “two-state solution.” Virtually every Israeli that favors this understands it as “two states for two peoples.” But the Palestinians want one totally Jew-free Palestinian state, and one state in which the right of return for Arab refugees has been implemented (and which theoretically might contain Jews, at least for a while). They have never accepted the idea of any Jewish sovereignty between the river and the sea, and hence reject the formulation “two states for two peoples.”
Schwartz and Wilf explain that Western and Israeli negotiators have always assumed – perhaps because the demand is so extreme – that the right of return was a bargaining chip that the Palestinians would cash in for the currency of borders, the removal of settlements, or rights in Jerusalem. But they were wrong. The demand for “return” is the essence of the Palestinian movement.
Palestinian children learn about it, down to the particular locations to which each has the “right” to return, in UNRWA schools where they are taught by Palestinian teachers (99% of UNRWA’s employees are Palestinians). Someday, they are told over and over, they will return. Guaranteed.
Everything UNRWA does is geared toward increasing this population of angry people, convinced that a massive injustice has been done to them, and that the only solution will be for them to return, and through this return, wipe the Jews from the face of the land they are convinced we stole from them.
UNRWA was created after the 1948 war with the intention of providing temporary assistance to the refugees until they could be resettled and normalized the way all other groups of refugees had been. But the only country that cooperated was Jordan, which gave the Palestinians citizenship and allowed them to integrate into their own populations. In Lebanon there were especially harsh restrictions and poor conditions. Little by little, the Arab nations changed the temporary UNRWA into a permanent tool to mold a refugee army that they hoped would ultimately do what their conventional armies could not: eliminate the Jewish state.
Today UNRWA is the main obstacle to solving the refugee problem. But it need not be. Schwartz and Wilf provide a relatively detailed, step by step program for phasing out UNRWA in the various places that it operates, and providing solutions for the refugees from the host countries and other agencies. For example, in the Palestinian Authority areas, they propose shifting both the responsibility for the refugees, and the money that supports UNRWA, to the PA. Former refugees would study in PA schools, go to PA health clinics, and so on. There are similar programs for Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon where the remaining refugee “camps” (today mostly neighborhoods on the outskirts of cities) are located.
Real peace can only be achieved when the consciousness of the Palestinians changes and they understand that the dream of return will not be realized. This would be a long and difficult process that could only begin with the elimination of UNRWA. But it has to start before it can finish. It will require cooperation of all of the Western donor countries that have been supporting UNRWA. Perhaps the fact that from a financial standpoint UNRWA will soon be unsustainable (after all, the number of “refugees” is growing exponentially) will encourage them to cooperate.
In the short term, it’s essential that everyone involved in relations between Israel and the Palestinians understand the real issues that underlie the conflict. And it would be a good thing if all parties could agree to use words the same way. Schwartz and Wilf say that “constructive ambiguity” should be replaced by “constructive specificity.” If the European Union, for example, believes that the State of Israel should be replaced by a Palestinian state, it should say so. Otherwise, it should unambiguously oppose a right of return, and work to dismantle UNRWA as quickly as is practical.
Back to the incoming Biden Administration. I hope it will resist the attempts of the anti-Israel Left to revive the hostility of the Obama days, and instead choose to be a force for real peace.
To that end, I will be sending Joe Biden a copy of this book, with a suggestion that he read it and pass it around among his foreign policy team.
________________________
*From here on, I use the word “refugees” by itself, although it refers to those descendants of the approximately 550-700,000 original refugees who have been granted this status by UNRWA. There are more than 5 million of them today, and the number grows every day. No such refugee status has been granted to any other population; the UNHCR agency which takes care of all non-Palestinian refugees, grants refugee status to those individuals who cannot return to their country of origin due to well-founded fear of persecution (see the full definition here), and to their children. Unlike UNRWA’s refugee status, it is not hereditary.

Cartoon of the Day: Tikkun Olam is the ubermitzvah

Continuing my series of recaptioning cartoons....

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12/23 Links Pt1: Israel's Peace Deals Show How Abnormal Israel's Treatment Has Been; Israel calls 4th election in 2 years as Netanyahu-Gantz coalition collapses

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: Israel's Peace Deals Show How Abnormal Israel's Treatment Has Been

Acceptance of the isolation of Israel and erasure of Jewish history in the Middle East has been an open wound afflicting the whole region. It should never have happened. Israel and some Arab countries fought a war in 1948, and there are legitimate reasons that Palestinians and their supporters opposed Israel's policies. But similar terrible wars, such as that between India and Pakistan in 1948, didn't result in dozens of countries not recognizing India or pretending that Hindus don't exist. Normalization and the presence of diplomatic relations are the most basic geopolitical norms throughout the world. Yet so many politicians, like former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who pushed for engagement with Iran, blindly accepted the fact that so many countries did not normalize ties with Israel.

The whole nature of the conversation about Israel over the last decades has been tainted by accepting as normal a situation that was inherently abnormal. It became normal in Western universities to debate the very existence of Israel, and to advocate for a "one-state" solution without even consulting the eight million people in Israel and millions of Palestinians. In no other instance in the world do American college students blithely decide that they will erase countries and shoehorn them into new "one-state" solutions, like recreating Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia without first asking people in Slovakia and Kosovo. Only when it comes to Israel was it taken for granted that people will debate its very existence itself. This semi-genocidal debate, like the erasure of Jewish history in countries like Iraq, places from which the Talmud was created, is a brutal assault on both history and international norms.

Now, long years of this abuse are being corrected with the new era of relations between Israel, Morocco, the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan. The usual predictions of doom and gloom have not come true. Israelis can be safe in these countries. Instead of the ingrained anti-Semitism and ways in which Jewish holidays have been made to seem controversial if celebrated in most countries across the region, we now see how countries are embracing Jewish culture and history. The Crossroad of Civilizations Museum in Dubai, for instance, now has brochures in Hebrew. Kosher food is now offered at the Ritz-Carlton in Manama. These are symbolic changes that speak volumes about a new normal that is banishing the intolerance of the past. It feels like a revolution is happening in the Middle East.

Understanding the Abraham Accords inside and out - opinion

The Abraham Accords signify a potential paradigm shift in the Middle East, one that moves away from rejectionism and toward normalization. In a historic pivot, Arab states, once committed to an ideology embodied by the 1967 Khartoum Conference and its “three No’s,” have normalized relations and moved to a paradigm where country after country – the United Arab Emirates, then Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco – have shifted toward the “three Yeses,” declaring yes to recognition, yes to negotiation, and yes to peace.

While “negotiation” and “peace” are perhaps more intuitive to understand, the fundamental step of “recognition” is the most essential; without it, the additional processes are impossible to embark upon. To understand the precondition of recognition, we must identify what it was, or is, that is being rejected. Indeed, the very legitimacy of the State of Israel as Jewish and democratic to exist was, and remains, the hurdle for some. Only when Israel as both Jewish and democratic is recognized by its neighbors is it possible to move toward negotiation, ultimately enabling peace.

The imperative for recognition must be acknowledged, even and especially in the euphoria surrounding the Abraham Accords. While headlines focusing on business opportunities and transactions dominate the press, and though this is part of the historic process, it is secondary to the monumental acceptance of a Jewish and democratic Israel as an equal and legitimate partner by the UAE. In this regard, the fact that the UAE inculcated its children with “tolerance” of religious differences for years is far more ground-breaking than what military technology may be sold or shared.

Similarly, Israeli business leaders and tourists flocking to the UAE, anxious to grab a piece of this peace, must not take for granted the fundamental step of recognition. By focusing solely on interests and implications, we might miss the monumental potential of applying the transformative framework of “three Yeses” internally, to achieve internal recognition, internal negotiation and internal peace.

Israel calls 4th election in 2 years as Netanyahu-Gantz coalition collapses

The 23rd Knesset officially dispersed as the clock struck midnight on Tuesday night and the deadline to approve a 2020 budget expired, sending Israelis to the polls for the fourth time in less than two years. Elections were automatically called for 90 days from now, namely March 23, 2021, though that date could yet be changed by vote.

The failure to pass a budget came just seven months after the swearing-in of the “unity government” between Likud and Blue and White. The two parties, which had fought each other bitterly in three indecisive elections, agreed to form a power-sharing government with a rotating premiership between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz in May.

But despite pledges to put aside their differences in order to fight the coronavirus pandemic, the political turmoil followed them into government, with both leaders soon claiming the other was breaking their coalition agreements.

Unlike the previous three elections, when Netanyahu’s chief rival was Gantz and his centrist Blue and White alliance, the prime minister’s main challengers this time are set to come from his own right wing of the political spectrum. A former Likud minister, Gideon Sa’ar, has set up a new party, New Hope, dedicated to ousting Netanyahu, and the right-wing/Orthodox Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett is also aiming to try to supplant him. Both Sa’ar and Bennett are seen as more hawkish than Netanyahu on issues relating to the Palestinians and the settlements.

Netanyahu, 71, has held power uninterrupted since 2009, and also served a term as prime minister from 1996-1999, making him Israel’s longest-serving leader. He remains in office as head of the transitional government until the elections are held and a new coalition is formed.

#Israel might be going into our 4th election in two years, but Mahmoud Abbas of the #Palestinian Authority is going into the 16th year of his 4 year term.

At least the Israeli people have a say in free and fair elections. pic.twitter.com/2ogMRZ1ocy
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) December 23, 2020

Qantara reports:

This week United States Congress passed the Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, historic legislation delivering unprecedented levels of funding for peacebuilding in Israel and Palestine. This follows over a decade of advocacy by the Alliance for Middle East Peace – ALLMEP – toward the creation of an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.

The law provides $250 million over five years to expand peace and reconciliation programmes in the region as well supports projects to bolster the Palestinian economy.

Spearheaded by House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey (D, NY-17), Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R, NE-01), Senate State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), the law contains language that encourages international co-operation. It prioritises peacebuilding and reconciliation programming to disrupt growing polarisation and dehumanisation in the region over the long term.

It is worth reading the text of the act:

NITA M. LOWEY MIDDLE EAST PARTNERSHIP FOR PEACE ACT OF 2020

SEC. 8002. Congress finds the following:
(1) Economic development in conflict settings has been shown to support stabilization by empowering entrepreneurs, growing the middle class, and mitigating unemployment.
(2) In 2018, unemployment in the Palestinian territories was 32.4 percent. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the Palestinian territories declined from 2017 to 2019, and it is projected to further decline in 2020.
(3) According to the World Bank Ad Hoc Liaison Committee’s April 2019 Economic Monitoring Report, ‘‘to achieve sustainable economic growth, in the Palestinian territories, growth and job creation going forward will need to be private sector driven’’.
(4) According to the 2018 Joint Strategic Plan of the Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development, ‘‘assistance can help prevent new recruitment to terrorist organizations, reduce levels of violence, promote legitimate governance structures that strengthen inclusion, and reduce policies that marginalize communities’’.
(5) Although economic development is an important tool for stabilizing conflict-prone settings and establishing connections between communities, economic development by itself will not lead to lasting peace. People-to-people peace-building programs further advance reconciliation efforts by promoting greater understanding, mutual trust, and cooperation between communities.
(6) While the United States and its international partners continue to support diplomatic and political negotiations between the representatives of the parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such efforts require broad popular support among the people on the ground to succeed.
(7) Achieving sustainable, high-level agreements for lasting peace in the Middle East must come through, and with the support of, the people who live there, and the United States and its international partners can help the people of the region build popular support for sustainable agreements for lasting peace.

SEC. 8003. It is the sense of Congress that—
(1) building a viable Palestinian economy is central to the effort to preserve the possibility of a negotiated settlement leading to a sustainable two state solution with the democratic, Jewish state of Israel and a demilitarized, democratic Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace, security, and mutual recognition;
(2) United States and international support for grassroots, people-to-people efforts aimed at fostering tolerance, and building support for such solution, can help counter extremist propaganda and the growing issue of incitement;
(3) strengthening engagement between Palestinians and Israelis, including through people-to-people peace-building programs can increase the bonds of friendship and understanding;
14) investing in the development of the Palestinian economy and in joint economic ventures can advance multiple sectors to the benefit of local, regional, and global parties; and
(5) Congress encourages cooperation between Palestinian, American, and Israeli business sectors in order to benefit the Palestinian, American, and Israeli peoples and economies.

PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE PARTNERSHIP FOR PEACE FUND
SEC. 8004. Chapter 4 of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2346 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:
SEC. 535 PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE PARTNERSHIP FOR PEACE FUND.
(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—Beginning on the date that is one year after the date of enactment of this section, the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development is authorized to establish a program to provide funding for projects to help build the foundation for peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians and for a sustainable two-state solution. The program established under this subsection shall be known as the ‘People-to-People Partnership for Peace Fund’ (referred to in this section as the ‘Fund’).
...

It all sounds great, right?

Except that the Palestinian Authority forbids any "people to people partnership" programs. They have opposed any such programs for many years, no matter who sponsors it. The EU used to have lots of funding for such programs, and perhaps they still do, but the programs have morphed into intra-Israel cooperation between Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews.

While the Palestinian Authority does not subscribe to BDS, they have been very keen in stopping anything that sounds like "normalization" - which is what most of this Lowey Act is concerned with.

Israelis would love to engage in people to people dialogues and cultural initiatives with Palestinians. Some Palestinians would, too. The problem has always been the Palestinian Authority.

Even today, it is considered taboo to talk about Palestinian intransigence. But that is the key issue that stops any sort of real peace, and these sorts of programs prove it, year after year.

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The political splits between Hamas and Fatah, along with the other Palestinian factions like the PFLP, Islamic Jihad and many others, are well known.

But the terror wings of those groups have no such issues.

Today, the Joint Chamber of the Palestinian Resistance Factions announced that its member organizations will, for the first time, carry out joint military maneuvers.

Details and timing will be officially announced in the future.

These terror groups include the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas), the Al-Quds Brigades (Islamic Jihad), the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades (DFLP), the terror arm of the Popular Resistance Committees, and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (Fatah.)

The only unity that Palestinians can muster is in unifying terror groups.

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Palestinian Arabs: forever jealous, bitter and clueless

Al Jazeera has an op-ed by Jalal Abukhater whining about normalization between Israel and the UAE.

Abukhater went to the University of Dundee, Scotland, and since then has used his English skills to write for Countercurrents, Electronic Intifada and most recently The Guardian. He lives in Jerusalem.

In his Al Jazeera piece, he complains that Emiratis visiting Israel are a "slap in the face" for Palestinians.

He writes:

In the second half of the year, a series of Arab states added to our collective misery by announcing their decision to normalise their relations with Israel. By effectively abandoning their supposed commitment to supporting Palestinian self-determination for money, weapons and a few short-term political gains, they sent us a clear message that our suffering and struggle for the most basic human rights no longer matter to them.

If there is one skill that is completely lacking in Palestinian DNA, it is the ability to view the world from any other perspective besides their own bitter viewpoint. They have been so blinded for so long that they simply cannot comprehend that there has been a huge change happening under their feet for two decades in how the Arab world views them.

Arab leaders would speak about their support for Palestinians out loud every day, drafting lots of anti-Israel resolutions in Arab and international forums, but beneath the surface everyone but the Palestinians themselves could see the fissures in the relationship. Arab nations would pledge hundreds of millions of dollars for "Palestine" or "Jerusalem" and pay only a tiny portion, if anything. They expressed deep frustration at how Palestinians couldn't unify under one leadership. They saw how the Fatah and Hamas would fight, bicker and arrest members of the other groups. They saw Palestinian leaders say "no" to repeated peace offers by Israel. And, of course, the Arab nations saw how Palestinians continued to cozy up to Iran as Iran threatened the Arabs of the Gulf.

Palestinians kept themselves blind to this. Their newspapers would rarely report on these stories. Their anger at the UAE "betrayal" is more because of their own choice to ignore 20 years of warning signs than anything the UAE is actually doing.

As far as the UAE not caring about Palestinians, this is clearly not true - they have sent COVID aid to the Palestinians, which was rejected by the PA even before the Abraham Accords but which Hamas has accepted. The UAE has been arranging to bring the Russian COVID vaccine into the PA territories.

More manifestations of Palestinian cluelessness manifest in Abukhater's op-ed:

The arrival of hundreds of Emiratis in Israel to enjoy the historic sites of Jerusalem and pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque was a slap in the face for us. After all, millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, just two dozen kilometres away from Al-Aqsa, can only dream about stepping foot in the mosque that is the third holiest site in Islam.

They can only dream about it? In recent years, Israel has issued hundreds of thousands of travel permits for Palestinians to visit Jerusalem - and even Tel Aviv! - during Ramadan, and Palestinians over 40 didn't even need a permit. In fact, some years the PA itself prohibited Palestinians from traveling!

There's another irony here. Abukhater lives in Jerusalem, meaning that he can visit Al Aqsa every day. He can also visit the rest of Israel every day. And he can also visit Ramallah every day. He, an Arab, has more freedom of movement than any Jew in Israel, including Jews who want to visit holy sites in Nablus or Jericho or elsewhere.

Of course, we Palestinian Jerusalemites were already used to seeing Muslim pilgrims from Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia or other non-Arab Muslim-majority countries at Al-Aqsa. Over the years, Palestinians rarely had any problem with these visitors, as they overwhelmingly believe this holiest of mosques should not be monopolised by any subset of Muslims, even under the devastating conditions of an occupation.

But the Palestinian Jerusalemites were not as accepting of Emirati tourists as others.

So who is intolerant?

Abukhater doesn't even realize what he is saying here. Citizens of countries that make peace with Israel are given the right to visit Israel proportionate to the closeness of relations. This should not be surprising - it is natural.

A Jewish woman was murdered, apparently by Palestinians, only two days ago. There was a Palestinian terror shooting also this week in Jerusalem. Is it really so strange that Israel limits Palestinian access to areas with Jews?

If Palestinians would act like Emiratis, they would have a state. If they accepted Jews as natives of the Middle East as Emiratis do, accept Israel as a Jewish state, and end their rhetorical and monetary support for terrorists, they would be able to visit Israel freely as well.

Israel's peace with the UAE and other Arab states proves this. Israel isn't anti-Arab or Islamophobic - it wants peace, security and acceptance, and is willing to bend over backwards to accommodate Arabs who provide that.

Palestinian hate and antisemitism and intransigence are the obstacles to peace. The UAE and Bahrain and Morocco prove it.

(h/t Josh Korn)

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12/22 Links Pt2: Stop Ignoring Antisemitism in Inconvenient Places; Bob Dylan’s ‘Neighborhood Bully’ Gets Memory-Holed; JVP Got One Thing Right

From Ian:

Stop Ignoring Antisemitism in Inconvenient Places

An exhibition that is currently running at the Wiener Holocaust Library in London reveals that in every European country that fell under Nazi control, there were Jews who mobilized and formed underground resistance organizations while also participating in armed uprisings. Their heroism was also displayed through cultural resistance. Risking their own lives, they held clandestine religious gatherings, established underground schools, and helped smuggle important documents out to be preserved by history. Even in the face of unspeakable terror, Judaism was not viewed as an inconvenience.

Today, for some Jews, our religion is primarily being redefined by our entrenchment in social activism. We have become so deeply embedded in promoting tikkun olam, that we ignore instances of antisemitism when they come from sources claiming to represent social justice.

This past summer, the horrific and criminal killing of George Floyd ignited months of social unrest in this country. As was the case during the 1960s civil rights movement, many Jews sprang into action and were quick to attach ourselves to the largest and most popular civil rights organization of our time, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

Yet with Martin Luther King, Jr. at its helm, the civil rights movement of the 1960s does not mirror some of the ideals currently espoused by the BLM movement. And while everyone can agree that all Black lives matter, there is a difference between that sentiment and some formal organizations affiliated with BLM.

Dr. King’s protection and love of the Jewish people was shown through numerous speeches he made, including one at Harvard in 1967, where he remarked: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking antisemitism.”

The Zionist tenets encompassing Dr. King’s movement contradict one BLM platform, which labeled Israel an “apartheid state” and accused it of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people. (This version was later retracted.)

In May, a BLM rally in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles resulted in the defacement of Jewish institutions and businesses, with participants yelling anti-Israel obscenities. While the violence was never called for by BLM, there was hardly any repudiation or rejection of it.

EU court prioritizes animals over Jews and Muslims in backing ritual slaughter ban

Without question, Thursday’s ruling stands in stark contrast to Europeans’ preferred image of themselves as open-minded and tolerant. Insisting that Jews and Muslims adapt religious laws, which seek to minimize animals’ pain, simply to suit contemporary sensibilities is anything but that. European Christians might also note this decision overturns the logic of Genesis, with Muslims and Jews no longer “rul[ing] over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

This decision will also have tangible consequences. As Benizri foreshadowed to me in a July exchange, this ruling not only “matters as a [legal] precedent. It also matters in terms of the security of the supply chain, and we know from the current sanitary crisis that we cannot rely solely on imports." He went on, "Some damage has been done, but the Brussels region may be tempted to adopt similar rules if the Walloon and Flanders laws are upheld, and other countries might follow suit.”

In other words, this ruling won’t be contained. Kosher meat, which is already expensive, will likely become even harder to obtain in a growing number of countries. Further, this ruling is likely to encourage political extremists who would relish making life inhospitable for their countries’ Jewish and Muslim minorities.

Reflecting from abroad, Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, president of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, which represents rabbis in 12 Muslim countries, told me, “It seems at times that Rabbis in Muslim countries are more respected and enjoy more religious freedom than their counterparts in Europe. We have been able to practice our Judaism without interference or disturbance for thousands of years. Kosher slaughter is done in many Muslim countries.” Chitrik continued, “The ruling of the European Court should also serve as a reminder that Jews and Muslims are facing similar religious struggles in Europe and elsewhere, and it is high time for Jews and Muslims to confront together both Islamophobia and antisemitism.”

Europe’s hostility toward religious outsiders is a centuries-old tradition. It appears that it will always find a way to justify bigotry.

Bob Dylan’s ‘Neighborhood Bully’ Gets Memory-Holed

I wanted to hear the Bob Dylan song “Neighborhood Bully” off his 1983 record Infidels. That’s how I discovered that YouTube won’t let you hear the song. It turns out that this man Bob Dylan, so beloved by the American cultural establishment and winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature, is guilty of hate speech. Sooner or later, they all are.

I wanted to hear “Neighborhood Bully”—a jaunty four-and-a -half minute rock ‘n’ roll number—but I can’t remember why. The song has its charms, including a driving three-chord electric guitar, but it’s nowhere near Dylan’s best and I’m not some kind of fanatic who enjoys wallowing in the master’s obscurities. The impulse might have come to me while I was trying to Google something else, and the search results triggered the association.

I can assure you that Googling “Neighborhood Bully” was in no way intended by me as a political statement or gesture. “Neighborhood Bully” is assumed to be a song about Israel being singled out and maligned among the world’s nations, but Dylan has rejected this interpretation just as he always denied narrow political readings of his work. “I’m not a political songwriter, he told an interviewer shortly after the record came out. “‘Neighborhood Bully,’ to me, is not a political song, because if it were, it would fall into a certain political party. If you’re talkin’ about it as an Israeli political song—in Israel alone, there’s maybe 20 political parties. I don’t know where that would fall, what party.”

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land He’s wandered the earth an exiled man Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn He’s always on trial for just being born He’s the neighborhood bully

My intentions were not to make trouble. It's not as if I started off the day seeking out banned materials and deviant songs. It's just that one thing led to another. You know how it is: The links start thinking for themselves, the minutes turn into hours, and you end up watching some YouTube video with no connection to whatever you’d been looking for in the first place, hazily trying to recall how you got there like a drunk guy who’s woken up in a strange room. Only, I was brought up short. I couldn’t listen to “Neighborhood Bully” because the song wasn’t there. It had vanished. (h/t Yerushalimey)

Demonization is Caring: Cartoon of the Day

Continuing my series of recaptioning single panel cartoons...

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Esther Horgan, HY"D

Esther Horgan went for a run in the forest, as she was wont to do on nicer days. The air would be crisp and pine-scented, and she loved the feel and smell of being free in such a beautiful part of Eretz Yisrael. Here she could sing as loud as she wished, with only the clouds to hear. It felt good to stretch her limbs.

No doubt she came here often to run and to think, to exercise and stay in shape, while pondering life’s issues, large and small. There was bound to be always something to think about and resolve. After all, Esther Horgan was a mother of six and an immigrant who sought refuge in Israel from France, a European country that has seen more than its share of violent antisemitism over the past decade or so. Here in Israel, Esther might have thought, one can worry about things like where to send a daughter to high school or a son’s religious studies, instead of worrying that a child might be killed, God forbid, in the halls of a Jewish school, for the crime of being Jewish.

And that might have been true. And Esther Horgan may have been safer in that forest in Samaria, in the heart of Eretz HaKodesh, except that evil exists and infiltrates everywhere. Even in the Jewish State, or perhaps especially so. For many are the Arab terrorists who covet our beautiful land and want it, Jew-free, for themselves.

And the thing is, Esther Horgan wasn’t stupid. She knew that Arab terrorists might be anywhere, looking for opportunities to kill Jews. But the forest where her children were robbed of their mother was not just a random, isolated wood, but a nature preserve, a protected Jewish tourism site. The Israeli government invested here in bike paths and signage. It should have been safe.

It should have been safe for Esther Horgan to run and think and stretch her limbs in this part of the ancient Land of Israel. There should have been no danger to breathing in the pine-scented air of a forest whose name means “fragrant basil"—to bask in the glorious freedom of being alive in the Jewish State and of “coming home” to live in Tal Menashe in Samaria, indigenous Jewish territory for thousands of years.

But it wasn't safe. Eitan Melet, a field coordinator at Regavim posted about it on Facebook with this stunning 360 degree photo of the Reihan Forest, where Esther was murdered:

(photo credit: Eitan Melet/Regavim)

Eitan Melet tells us that while the forest is beautiful, and the Israeli government has invested in developing the nature reserve, there's absolutely no police or army presence there, and it's become a shooting gallery and a dangerous hangout for all the Arabs of the area—from Umm el Fahm and Reihan and the entire area—who do unspeakable things there. Melet was there only recently—a fully-armed, combat-trained male—and he was very uncomfortable.

And still, Esther Horgan went out of her home that morning, as she always did, seeking nothing but the peace of the forest. Nothing had ever happened to her before. But this one time, when she didn't come home, they found her dead, with signs of violence on her body.

From the Jerusalem Post:

"We walked together for 30 years and yesterday you went and did not return. How can a few words describe the depth and breadth of your beauty and goodness?" said Esther's husband, Benyamin. "You built both a physical house and a spiritual house – everything – and it was supposed to be just the beginning. There were so many more plans.”

Nothing had ever happened before, but she was a small thing. You can see it in the pictures. She may have been fit, but she was no match for a brutal murderer, filled with lust for Jewish land soaked with Jewish blood. It shouldn't have happened, but it did.

And still, if Esther Horgan could speak, she would tell you how much better it is to run in the forest, to die as a Jew in the Land of Israel, than to die on the foreign soil of a France that never loved us. She would tell you to keep running in all the forests and beautiful parts of our indigenous territory, land that God gave us alone, to build on and live in. Land where we might someday run, free of any danger from the enemy within.

My neighbor Jocelyn Reisman Odenheimer, not to be deterred, runs on the security road behind her home, in memory of Esther Horgan. (photo credit: Ephraim Odenheimer)

(Thanks to Naomi Linder Kahn, director, international division of Regavim, for her assistance with this piece.)

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12/22 Links Pt1: Mother-of-6 killed in apparent terror attack remembered for her ‘joy for life’; The Battle for Washington’s Foreign Policy Has Begun; The Olympics must ban Iran

From Ian:

Mother-of-6 killed in apparent terror attack remembered for her ‘joy for life’

Esther Horgen, who was found dead in a northern West Bank forest in an apparent terror attack, was eulogized for her love of life as she was buried on Tuesday morning.

“For 30 years we walked together, and two days ago you went for a walk and didn’t return,” said her husband Benjamin. Horgen’s body was found a day after she went for a run in a forest near their West Bank home.

“How can a few words manage to express the depth of your heart and your generosity, your joy for life and love for others?” he said.

Esther’s daughter Odelia mourned the loss of her mother and expressed pain that she would not be at her future wedding.

“My mother is my best friend. She came to visit me at the end of the world, in Australia. Where are you now, mother?” said Odelia. “I am sorry that you will not dance at my wedding.”

Dozens of mourners attended the funeral including Settlements Minister Tzachi Hanegbi.

Community leader Rabbi Reuven Uziel said that Horgen’s killer would not be able to “sully” Israel.

“On Friday we sat together at a Shabbat meal. Not for a second we did not think this was the last time we would meet. You were a person of love and lightness, of joy and a smile,” Uziel said. “The murderers will not be able to sully the land of the Land of Israel, which will remain blessed and holy, and you will remain blessed and pure.”

In an interview on Tuesday morning, Benjamin said that his wife had lived life to the full.

“She lived every moment of her life. She had so much to give,” Benjamin Horgen told the Kan public broadcaster. “I trust the defense establishment to do their job, they have updated [us] that things are progressing.”

The Moroccan deal with Israel fills me with joy

There were 20 years of silence. And then, last week, Trump announced that Morocco and Israel would be resuming diplomatic relations. In a tweet afterwards, the President reminded the world that Morocco was the first country to recognise the United States as a nation, in 1777 and, simultaneously, urged for an international recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.

Good news is flowing from the region: the Jewish state, also at the behest of Trump has established ties with Bahrain, the UAE and Sudan. Of course, the most recent news did not please everyone. Some frowned upon the fact that the US released the information before Morocco or Israel; others criticised the power imbalance between Morocco and Israel on one hand, and Palestine and Western Sahara on the other. The latter has been waging a war of independence against Morocco for several decades, led by a socialist separatist group with Islamist ties.

Hamas, naturally, is outraged and denounced the Moroccan treachery; while in its customary partiality against the Moroccan monarchy, the French media — both mainstream, such as Le Monde, and more independent sites such as Mediapart — quickly attacked both Trump and King Mohammed VI of Morocco for an agreement in which both Palestinian and Sahraoui self-determination was jeopardised.

This grumbling contrasts with the elation and relief felt by many Jewish families around the world as the first candle of the Menorah was lit, and by many Muslims in Morocco who can recall what things were like before the 1960s. Having grown up in Morocco, and with a father who remembers those happier times of coexistence, I was moved to tears by the sight of Israelis dancing in the street to traditional Moroccan song, waving flags of both countries and pictures of the King Mohammed.

Almost a million people in the Jewish state are of Moroccan descent, from families who were exiled six decades ago, a mere blip in time compared to the thousands of years they’d spent in the Maghreb. For them, as well as Jewish North African communities in France and increasingly in London, the deal is a hugely welcome Hanukkah gift during a difficult year.

How Moroccans are Reacting to Normalization with Israel

Peace with the Arab world? Tunisian musican sings of peace, is threatened and fired

United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan. The list of countries of the Arab-Islamic world that have made peace with Israel in recent months is impressive.

A Tunisian singer thought it was time to put this atmosphere of normalization into music. So, on December 13, Noamane Chaari uploaded a video of a song he had just recorded with an Israeli musician. The song, in Arabic, speaks of dreams of peace, of olive trees, of the sea, of Tunis, of Jerusalem. Chaari recorded it with Ziv Yehezkel, an Iraqi Jew. An invitation to build bridges between Jews and Arabs.

In the supposedly most moderate country in the region, the only "Arab Spring" of any success, it is still a crime to sing peace with the Jews. Host of a broadcast of the famous radio station Mosaïque Fm, the young musician was the subject of death threats. Stressing that the author of the lyrics, a Yemeni poet, remained anonymous so as not to risk beheading in his country, host Hedi Zaiem asked: "What will happen to the man who sang it?".

Threatened with death, fired by his employer, Channel 1 of public television, Noamane Chaari now tells L’Obs: "I have been accused of espionage and treason. Some media have deliberately tried to antagonize Tunisian public opinion, invoking the violence against me ".

Thus, in the supposedly most moderate country in the region, the only "Arab Spring" of any success, it is still a crime to sing peace with the Jews. Conservative president Kaïs Saïed speaks of a "Zionist entity", like the Iranian ayatollahs. And the Ugtt union, which won the Nobel Peace Prize, has put back on the table the idea of a law that criminalizes the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. The union of music professionals, affiliated precisely with the Ugtt, condemned Chaari's "provocation against the Tunisian people and all the Arab people".

The singer had also traveled to Israel with an Arab delegation. His "fault" is also that of having written the song with a Jew of Iraqi origin and a Moroccan mother, while images of Baghdad appear together with those of Tunis in the music video.

Yesterday, a tweet went viral that claimed that the COVID-19 relief bill that was passed by Congress included $500 million for Israel.

It is a pernicious lie, to make people think that aid that could have gone to COVID instead is being directed to Israel. In fact, it was a separate 6000 page budget bill, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, that included the money for Israel.

The antisemitism that followed the tweet - written by a journalist, no less, who defended it while admitting it was incorrect - was predictable.

And this is textbook antisemitism, where Israel is singled out as somehow uniquely stealing US tax dollars.

The bill also gives money to Arab and Muslim countries. A lot of it.

SEC. 9026. Of the amounts appropriated in this title under the heading ‘‘Operation and Maintenance, Defense Wide’’, for the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, $250,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2022, shall be available to reimburse Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman under section 1226 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (22 U.S.C. 2151 note), for enhanced border security, of which not less than $150,000,000 shall be for Jordan.

Page 1436:

Of the funds appropriated by this Act under the heading ‘‘Economic Support Fund’’, not less than $125,000,000 shall be made available for assistance for Egypt, of which $40,000,000 should be made available for higher education programs, including not less than $15,000,000 for scholarships for Egyptian students with high financial need to attend not-for-profit institutions of higher education in Egypt...

And apparently a separate item on page 1437:

Of the funds appropriated by this Act under the heading ‘‘Foreign Military Financing Program’’, $1,300,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2022, should be made available for assistance for Egypt.

Back to Jordan, page 1442.

JORDAN.—Of the funds appropriated by this Act under titles III and IV, not less than $1,650,000,000 shall be made available for assistance for Jordan, of which: not less than $845,100,000 shall be made available for budget support for the Government of Jordan; not less than $10,000,000 shall be made available for programs and activities for which policy justifications and decisions shall be the responsibility of the United States Chief of Mission in Jordan; and not less than $425,000,000 shall be made available under the heading ‘‘Foreign Military Financing Program’’.

While there are various strings attached to many of these programs, not a word is in the budget about conditioning aid to Jordan on its extraditing terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to the US.

Where's the outrage over that? (UPDATE: There actually is such a condition - one that was ignored in 2020, which is a different kind of outrageous. See here.)

The ‘‘Afghanistan Security Forces Fund’’ is allocated $3,047,612,000. The ‘‘Counter-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Train and Equip Fund’’ gets $710,000,000.

If you care about how the US government is allocating money to foreign countries during a time of domestic COVID economic woes, then why not mention the far higher amounts earmarked to other countries besides Israel?

You know the reason. Because these people are so immoral they will even use the pandemic to push their anti-Israel agenda.

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Moroccan peace and Kazablan (full movie!)

Today an Israeli delegation is going to Morocco to sign several normalization agreements.

Jews whose ancestors lived in Europe generally don't look back nostalgically at their history there. But that is not the case for Jews who immigrated from Muslim countries. The Jews whose grandparents came from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco speak with a warmth about those countries that you never hear from those whose ancestors lived in Poland or Tzarist Russia.

In this sense, the normalization with Morocco is much more personal for many Israelis than the agreements with Bahrain or Sudan or the UAE, which only had tiny Jewish communities. There are hundreds of thousands of Israelis whose ancestors lived in Morocco and they want to be able to visit.

Moroccan media is humanizing Israel as well in conjunction with the agreements. This article interviews Abd al-Rahim Chehaibi who realized that he has been fed antisemitic propaganda about Israel and went there to see the country for himself, visiting in 2015 and 2017.

Chehaibi went on to say that during his visit to Israel he was impressed by the urban and economic development of this country, and was very impressed by the way in which cultural and religious pluralism was managed there.

He says that he understood through his visits that “this country really deserves to be a role model,” and that “many of the things that we see in the media are false and ideological,” adding that “Morocco's political and economic rapprochement with Israel can benefit everyone."

Israel haters like to point to the experience of Mizrahi Jews in the early days of the State as proof that Israel is racist, saying that Israeli Ashkenazim didn't treat their fellow Jews from Arab lands as equals. It is true, but the haters don't really care about the Mizrahim. They are just looking for new excuses to call Israel racist.

Which brings us to Kazablan.

Kazablan was a popular Israeli musical from the 1960s that was made into two movies in 1973 - one in English and one in Hebrew.

The movie is cheesy, although the songs are catchy. It is not easy to find, so I uploaded it, at least until it gets taken down for copyright reasons. (This is the Hebrew version with English subtitles.)

A gang leader named Kazablan, named after his hometown of Casablanca, lives in a slum in Jaffa along with many other Mizrahi Jews and a smattering of Ashkenazim. (His gang seems to do nothing but dance.) He falls in love with an Ashkenaz girl but he has to navigate always being treated less than human by the Ashkenazim. He gets framed for a crime by a romantic rival, and it is too easy for the police to believe that he is guilty because of his background. A subplot has the entire neighborhood in danger of being condemned by the authorities and the neighbors needing to work together to save it.

One of the songs - this one from the English version - shows Kazablan singing longingly about his home in Morocco.

The counterpoint song is "Kulanu Yehudim," "We Are All Jews," where Jews celebrate their unity even as they have so many differences in origins and temperaments, even as they are insulting each other.

This tension between the huge differences among Jews and their commonality is the story of Israel.

The play and movie are notable because they were so popular. Clearly the Israeli public was receptive even in the 1960s to the theme of how there was a second class in Israel who had been unfairly mistreated.

Since then, of course, Israel has integrated its Mizrahim. The idea of Ashkenaz and Mizrahi Jews marrying doesn't raise an eyebrow.

The theme of the movie, that Jews are unified despite their differences, is the polar opposite of the message from the "anti-Zionist" Jews. They want to divide the Jewish community. They are against not only unity, but the concept of unity among Jews.

Kazablan is the anti-"Jewish Voice for Peace," the anti-J-Street.

Moroccan feelings about Israel are complex. There are Islamists who have been preaching anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric for a long time, but that is not the mainstream. However, I am not seeing the overwhelming enthusiasm for normalization that we saw in the UAE. It is seen more as a small price to pay to strengthen Morocco's claim to Western Sahara.

Kazablan should be translated to Arabic. (It wouldn't be hard to create an Arabic subtitle track.) Moroccans should be able to watch this if they want to understand Israel's history with Jews from Arab countries and the love that they have for their heritage there as well as the underlying Jewish unity that helps Israel be a role model for the region.

A 1973 movie could help solidify a peace deal in 2020.

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