Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 04, 2021

Time for the Muslim Brotherhood to throw out all their computers and phones

The International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), which is effectively the supreme legal authority accepted by the Muslim Brotherhood, just issued a fatwa that it is obligatory for all Muslims to boycott all Israeli products.

The 90,000 Muslim scholars who make up the organization issued the statement in response to Israel's agreements with the UAE, Sudan, Bahrain and Morocco.

The fatwa goes way beyond the BDS position. BDS limits its calls to boycott Israeli products in ways that would allow them to continue to use Israeli chips, Israeli technology and other Israeli products that are sold by non-Israeli companies.

I don't see any such loopholes in the IUMS fatwa:

The conclusive legal evidence indicates the necessity of an economic boycott of all goods, services and technologies produced by the usurper occupier, so it is not permissible to sell them, buy them, import them, use them, or market and promote them. Because all these products are included in the usurped money or what is produced from it, as long as they are generated from the usurpation of lands, farms, homes and water, and are the result of the occupying power and the gangs of occupying settlers. And whoever participates in that by buying and selling and the like, then he is a participant in the crimes of the occupation and consuming usurped and forbidden money, and he is a participant in sin and aggression, according to what the Sharia evidence have stated.

This says that Muslims who follow the IUMS cannot use Israeli technologies. And Israeli technology is behind the microprocessors in most computers, in the software of much of the Internet, in email protocols, in SMS messaging, in Google searches, in Microsoft operating systems, in 4G technology - it is nearly impossible to live in the 21st century without using Israeli tech.

I don't think they thought this through.

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Iran announced today that it had started enriching uranium to 20% levels at the underground Fordow facility, a move that it threatened to do a couple of weeks ago.

This is a further violation of the 2015 JCPOA agreement.

20% enrichment is a small technological step away from the 80% enrichment needed for practical nuclear weapons. It has very few non-military applications.

AP notes:

Iran’s decision comes after its parliament passed a bill, later approved by a constitutional watchdog, aimed at hiking enrichment to pressure Europe into providing sanctions relief. It also serves as pressure ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has said he is willing to re-enter the nuclear deal.

Even though the US left the Iran deal because of Iran's violations, the UK, France and Germany remained in the deal.

Iran is now violating the deal by any definition.

Yet there has been no indication that either of those Western European powers are interested in invoking the "snapback" sanctions that the people behind the deal promised would keep Iranian nuclear ambitions in check.

In fact, Iran is so confident that those three nations will do whatever it takes to remain in a deal where one party is unilaterally shredding its key provisions that it is not at all nervous about political consequences of increasing its uranium enrichment. On the contrary - Iran is treating violating the JCPOA as a means to better its negotiating position.

This section of J-Street's FAQ about the JCPOA seems almost quaint in its deliberate naivete:

If Iran is found to be non-compliant, can we trust that the UN will reimpose sanctions?

We don't have to “trust” anyone — it will happen automatically because the United States refused to be party to an agreement without that very assurance. If Iran violates any part of the agreement, the UN Security Council resolution requires that the sanctions snap back unilaterally, provided the US and our EU partners demand that they do. Neither Iran, Russia, nor China could block the snapback of these sanctions. Additionally, the EU and US can snap back their own sanctions at any time if Iran does not meet its commitments. The US will always retain the ability to take whatever steps necessary to protect America’s security and prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Iran isn't at all worried about the Europeans invoking snapback sanctions in response to its violations of the agreement - on the contrary, Iran fully expects them to bend over backwards to relieve sanctions in response to its violations!

Is there any greater proof that the JCPOA was worthless?

Iran understands the psychology of the liberal West and knows that their aversion to risk allows Iran to run roughshod over them with no fear of consequences.

And now an incoming United States president, who has openly prioritized returning to the JCPOA, is strengthening Iran's position immeasurably.

The US political ability to invoke UN snapback sanctions was weakened by leaving the JCPOA. But the Europeans can do it if they wanted. Iran's uranium enrichment is as clear a reason to do exactly that as one can imagine - it is exactly the type of situation that the JCPOA backers claimed would be a firewall against Iranian nuclear ambitions.

But Iran understands the liberal West very well, and it knows that it can do what it wants with impunity while the spineless Europeans - soon joined by the equally spineless US leaders - will bend to Iran's will.

Instead of the West forcing Iran into compliance, it is reduced to begging for compliance.

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Mrs. Elder and I discuss the absurd reporting from various news organizations that libelously claim or imply that Israel is withholding vaccines from Palestinians.

We talk about why they are wrong from the perspective of international law, existing agreements, and even how some of the demands are infantilizing Palestinians.

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Iranian parliament orders the government to destroy Israel by 2040

Last week, a group of Iranian lawmakers announced a 16-article plan for Iran retaliation against the killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, and part of it obliged the Iranian government to make arrangements to destroy Israel by 1420 in the Persian calendar. which is twenty years from now.

This seems to be the same date that Iran had already predicted Israel's demise, with a digital countdown clock in Palestine Square in the center of Tehran.

The difference is that previously Israel's demise was predicted, but now it is mandated.

The part of the plan that discusses Israel, Article 5, doesn't seem to be earth shattering, though.

Article 5 - The government is obliged to make the following arrangements to destroy the usurping Zionist regime by 1420.

1- Breaking the siege of Gaza by sending basic goods from official naval bases to Gaza in exchange for money or free of charge; The first shipment, including at least public aid and private institutions, will be sent within six months after the entry into force of this law.

2- Pursuing the provision of welfare-economic-security services and infrastructures to support the popular march "Right of return of Palestinian refugees" and support its development in other borders of the occupied territories under such headings as "Return to Jerusalem", "Liberation of the Golan Heights", "Pilgrimage to Quds".

There isn't much difference from what already as been happening for years.

Other parts of this plan would impact Joe Biden's plan to negotiate with Iran over ballistic missiles and other non-nuclear issues:

Article 3 - As long as the US government has not officially apologized for the assassination of Sardar Qassem Soleimani , any bilateral or multilateral negotiations with the United States are prohibited and the person who does that is sentenced to lifelong dismissal from government and public office.

There's lots more, like a promise to retaliate against any US attack with a larger counterattack, and a cash reward to any terrorists who manage to push the US out of the Middle East.

However, it is unusual for a direct threat by a parliament (assuming that this report is translated accurately) to destroy a sovereign nation - especially by a certain deadline. Usually Iran's threats to Israel are carefully written to be couched as retaliation against any Israeli aggression, this is a direct threat, and as such should be subject to a formal complaint at the UN. Not that it means much but it would make it a little harder for Europe to cooperate with Iran.

(h/t Bryan Leib)

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Cartoon of the Day: Friendly competition between HRW and Amnesty

Continuing on my series of re-captioning cartoons...

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01/03 Links: The Arab-Israeli conflict may finally be over; Sign Petition: Help Reveal the True Number of Palestinian Refugees; Blair Calls for Israeli Approach to Vaccine Distribution

From Ian:

The Arab-Israeli conflict may finally be over

The dawn of the new year is rising on a world that would have been unrecognisable 12 months ago. The scourge of Covid, the fall of Trump, the resolution of Brexit; all have carved history in unpredictable ways. But nowhere has seen greater changes than the Middle East, where, for the first time, people are daring to believe that the Arab-Israeli conflict is over.

In January 2020, Israel was as isolated as ever in the region. Its ‘cold peace’ agreements with Egypt and Jordan, which were not matched by affection on the street, were as good as it got. The Arab League’s notorious threefold rejectionism — no to peace, no to recognition, no to negotiation — seemed unmovable.

Trump’s peace plan was dismissed out of hand by the Palestinians in February, and things hit a new low in May. When a new Knesset considered annexing parts of the West Bank, an impotent Palestinian Authority suspended all security co-operation. Then, with unprecedented masochism, it refused to accept more than half a billion pounds of Israeli tax revenues. Overnight, the Palestinian Authority deprived itself of 60 per cent of its budget, setting it on a course for self-imposed bankruptcy and impoverishing tens of thousands of its own citizens.

The act of self-harm brought to mind Mohamed Bouazizi, the despairing Tunisian street vendor who burned himself to death on the streets of Sidi Bouzid as a desperate act of protest. But the Palestinian Authority's immolation did not trigger an Arab Spring. Instead, a different kind of regional revolution was already underway, one that would put the Palestinians and Israel in closer proximity to reconciliation than they had been for a quarter-century.

For years, Benjamin Netanyahu — that caricatured bogeyman of the western left — had been quietly pursuing an ‘outside in’ strategy for peace. The first stage was to build bilateral links with countries outside the region, like India, Brazil and Japan. The second was to achieve normalisation with the Arab world. Finally, the theory went, with the Palestinians boxed in on all sides by cordiality, the last piece of the puzzle would slot into place.

President @realDonaldTrump on the Abraham Accords: The world sees that they’re choosing cooperation over conflict, friendship over enmity, prosperity over poverty, and hope over despair. pic.twitter.com/dmHYzeW9yd
— Department of State (@StateDept) January 2, 2021

UN Watch: “Arc of History Bends Toward Peace“ — Hillel Neuer to UNHRC

Sign Petition: Help Reveal the True Number of Palestinian Refugees

Dear Friends,

For decades, Israel has been blamed for the failure of peacemaking attempts while Palestinian intransigence has been widely ignored and underplayed. Even now, as historic normalization agreements have been struck in recent months, Israel is portrayed as perpetuating Palestinian suffering while, in fact, the Palestinian Authority is supporting violence to achieve the Right of Return and rewarding terrorism with life-long pensions.

Together, we can reshape the narrative to more truly reflect reality.

The United Nations treats Palestinians differently from any other group of refugees. All other refugees are looked after and usually resettled by the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees. But, the Palestinians are under the auspices of UNRWA which has reinvented the concept of refugee as an inherited characteristic. Sign Petition: Help Reveal the True Number of Palestinian Refugees

Today, therefore, they count four generations of refugees, all the descendants of the original 750,000 Palestinians who fled during the 1948 war.

These now total over five million people all of whom are counted as refugees, even those who have been resettled. In every other conflict around the world, refugee populations decrease over time. Only here do the numbers continue to rise – a phenomenon which weaponizes the concept against Israel. The Palestinian Authority and UNRWA now declare that these 5 million Palestinians should be granted the “right of return” to their homes in what is now the State of Israel, a member of the UN.

Clearly this distorted, unfair figure precludes any talk of genuine peace.

Vaccine rollout inspires Jews to move to Israel and Israelis to return

The coronavirus crisis has accomplished what decades of government ad campaigns did not do — it has brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis back from abroad and made the country more enticing as a home for American Jews.

As of July, more than 190,000 Israelis had returned to Israel from abroad, including more than 6,000 who had been away from the country for over half a year, according to data released by the Foreign Ministry. Many of those who returned early in the pandemic had been Israelis working in China, where the effects of the virus were first felt. Israeli embassies and consulates abroad have issued approximately 10,000 travel documents, including issuing new passports (often for children of Israelis born abroad who had not been in Israel yet) and renewing and extending passports for Israelis planning to come back since the beginning of the pandemic.

While Israel has had its challenges handling the pandemic, it still has a notably lower mortality rate from the disease than many countries around the world where Israelis tend to live, notably the US, which has had over 1,000 deaths per every million of the population, as opposed to Israel, with 370 deaths per million. Areas where many Israelis live, including such cities as New York, have been hit particularly hard. For example, there have been over 7,700 deaths in the borough of Brooklyn alone since the pandemic began, many of them in the Jewish community.

And now, with the vaccination campaign in Israel bringing the Pfizer vaccine to more than one million Israelis in less than two weeks, Israel is looking more attractive than ever as a place to live, both to Israelis who have been living abroad and American Jews who are thinking of moving to Israel.

“We have no idea when we are getting vaccinated,” said Manhattanite Shira Dicker, a freelance writer and public-relations consultant. Although she is 60, her husband is 71 and they have private insurance, “We just don’t know.” She was recently approached by someone she calls a “nominal friend,” with a suggestion about “how we could jump the line” for getting vaccinated, an offer she calls “sleazy” but which she sees as a sign of the times, following the ParCare fraudulent vaccine scandal in New York.

In response to Suha Arafat's controversial interview with an Israeli newspaper, where she said that Israel didn't kill Yasir Arafat and that the second intifada was a mistake, the Fatah movement issued a statement to Suha. They said that Arafat was indeed poisoned by Israel.

Suha herself all but accused Israel of poisoning Arafat back in 2013 and certainly did not claim it was a fellow Palestinian who killed him, as she now say.

Beyond that, they insult Suha for running to Paris when the second intifada broke out, implying that she is a coward.

Most tellingly, they defend the terror spree that was the second intifada, which killed a thousand Israelis with bus bombings and suicide terror - and resulted in the deaths of many more Palestinians. This is, to Fatah, a glorious episode of honor.

Does Fatah think that this message will endear them to the West that they demand money from?

Here is the press release from Fatah.

At the height of our people's celebration of the 56th anniversary of the glorious start of the Fatah movement - the start of the contemporary Palestinian revolution, whose name and history are forever linked to the name of the founding leader martyr Abu Ammar [Yasir Arafat], Mrs. Suha looks at us through the window of the occupation to try again to distort the history of the martyr, the symbol Abu Ammar, by giving a document of innocence for his blood is for the enemy whose leaders have devoted all their tools of murder and terror to get rid of him through a long series of successive assassination attempts, pursuit and sieges, the last of which was his siege in the "Muqataa", which ended with poisoning Commander Abu Ammar with radioactive polonium that no one in the region possessed - only the settler occupation state can manufacture it.

Regardless of the sinful hand that Israel used to reach Abu Ammar, the direct responsibility for his assassination rests with this terrorist entity, and Mrs. Suha Al-Tawil does not have the slightest legal, political or moral foundations to absolve the enemy of this crime, and thus she is placing herself in the trench of enemies.

As for her talk about the second intifada - the Al-Aqsa Intifada, this is her point of view that is consistent with her practices since the beginning of the uprising, as Mrs. Suha fled the homeland and abandoned her natural role in standing by her husband in the siege, indifferent to the threat that he was lurking in.

For comparison, many citizens of foreign countries refused to leave Palestine and preferred to stay with their life partners who were ordinary Palestinian citizens. The Al-Aqsa Intifada does not await the testimonies of those fleeing the confrontation. It is an uprising that has become a part of the history of our people and their struggle that we are proud of and all the sacrifices that this people made during it in order to wrest their freedom and independence.

Mrs. Suha Al-Tawil should stop trying to distort the life of the eternal leader Abu Ammar and distance herself from participating in the campaign waged by the enemies of our people to instill despair in its ranks and whiten the image of the occupation state and those who collaborate with it, whether they are rushing to "normalization" or those who have taken refuge in themselves.

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Israel isn't only leading the world in per-capita COVID vaccinations, but it is accelerating its lead

By now, you have probably seen a chart like this showing how far ahead Israel is in vaccinating its citizens for COVID-19 per capita compared to the rest of the world:

This is due to a strong infrastructure where the security apparatus of the state has pivoted to provide virus protection. But part of it is also by having a centralized decision making process where, for example, leftover vaccines at the end of the day that would have been otherwise discarded (because of Pfizer's requirements that the vaccine is kept in ultra-cold temperatures and they cannot be re-frozen) are being used for people who would otherwise not qualify for the first round that is meant for front line workers and the elderly.

It is also due to Israel's willingness to reportedly pay a huge premium per vaccine in order to ensure that it would have an adequate supply, as well as a huge publicity campaign to ensure that people who might otherwise be skeptical - such as the Arab and haredi communities - get vaccinated.

Yet as well as Israel is doing, there is an even more remarkable chart from the same source that shows that Israel's efforts are getting even better every day in the percentage of the population being inoculated:

These charts are not going to remain looking like this, because some countries will hold off on giving first vaccinations and prioritize giving second vaccinations to the people who already had it. However, Israel seems to have realized that it can reach herd immunity in relatively little time compared to other countries and reaching that goal - which will allow things to return to near-normal - is worth investing huge amounts of time and money in, and ultimately will be a bargain where the economy can rebound.

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Recently, David Collier published a must-read article about the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bias in Wikipedia.

It is a significant problem. As he documented, there is practically an army of editors that waters down references to massacres of Jews while exaggerating fictional massacres by Jews.

Another example - pointed out to me by ShabbatX in 2019- is for the pretty terrible Wikipedia entry on "Persecution."

It starts off with reference to the Rome Statute on what falls under the definition of persecution:

Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender...or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph [e.g. murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, apartheid, and other inhumane acts] or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court

Most of the examples given fall under one of those categories, even if they give most of them short shrift. The section on Jews, for example, is only 103 words long.

But then there is a section on persecution "based on military service" that was written for one reason, Israel. It has no sources and no examples of anything that anyone could credibly call persecution. Yet it is 218 words long:

Persecution on the basis of army service (or the lack of it) operates in Israeli society. In the State of Israel, Jewish citizens who receive an exemption from service in the Israel Defense Forces cannot take up many prestigious career options, especially in the field of security. The root of discrimination on the basis of army service lies in the practice that at age 17, non-Arab citizens (including Druze) are called up to be examined for eligibility to compulsory military service. A record for each potential conscript is made. Those who actually serve in the military are distinguished from those rejected from service by a Discharge Card, which has additional information on it, including the soldier's rank, military profession, and behavior during army service. Potential employers show a particular interest in Discharge Cards, since they constitute a universally available source of information about a potential employee. Employers frequently look down upon citizens rejected from the army, typically believing that "those who are unfit for army service are also unfit for the work environment",[citation needed] and that those who succeeded in the army are also likely to become good employees. Job advertisements in Israel very frequently specify a requirement of "Full Army Service", thus the decisions taken by the draft board regarding a 17-year-old minor may affect entire careers.

The page doesn't mention slavery of Africans as an example of persecution, but Israeli employers preferring people with experience in the army are given one of the larger examples of persecution!

This is only one example of how anti-Israel editors pollute Wikipedia, but it is pretty egregious.

(h/t Ernesto)

UPDATE: Because of this post, another Wikipedia editor removed this section of the article. We will see how long the edit remains or if it will be reverted by the person who added it.

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01/02 Links: How Israel became a world leader in vaccination; I Won The ‘American Muslims for Palestine’ Raffle, But Still Haven’t Received My Kuffiya Socks

From Ian:

Seth J. Frantzman: How Israel became a world leader in vaccination

Israel’s unique approach has been to use a national security apparatus that is usually used to confront terrorists to fight against the virus. This was only possible because of a solidarity among Israelis. This wasn’t always the case – some communities continued to hold weddings and funerals in breach of the guidelines and some officials violated the rules by inviting family members for holidays – but in general Israel was able to mobilise nationally against Covid because it has a citizen’s army and national security ethos that is used to fighting wars. Israel’s ‘home front command’ for instance often carries out drills to deal with earthquakes and national disasters, and has been tasked with distributing gas masks in past wars.

But the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now in his tenth year in power and heading for his fourth election campaign in two years, had to balance lockdown with the destruction it wrought on the economy. After restricting travellers from entering the country, Israel’s tourism industry was crushed and hundreds of thousands have lost work this year. Unemployment reached 26 per cent in May but by September the relaxed restrictions led to the highest infection rate in the world for Covid.

Israel’s government gambled on acquiring masses of vaccines to try to right the ship in the fall of 2020. It acquired 8 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine in November, with some 4 million doses arriving in early December. Israel also scrambled to acquire Moderna’s vaccine, purchasing 6 million doses in December. Israel’s population is just under 9 million. After the Pfizer vaccine was approved in line with the US in mid-December, the rollout of the vaccine began on December 20, two weeks after the UK kicked off its own vaccine programme. The Israeli health authorities set a goal of 150,000 vaccinations a day, beginning with those over 60 years old, as well as soldiers, police and medical staff.

Small wonder: How Israel rolled up its sleeves and became vaccination nation

Caveats aside, there seems little doubt that Israel is in a stronger position than most people imagined.

It’s due to a mixture of factors: good supplies, excellent logistics and strong community medicine. The campaign is also benefitting from traits in the population: it’s tech-savvy, haunted by fears of missing out (also known as being a sucker), and the few anti-vaccination people are keeping mostly quiet.

Supplying Israel early was an attractive proposition for vaccine companies, firstly because Israel has shown a willingness to pay top dollar, and then some, to get the vaccine earlier than elsewhere. Some reports have put the cost at more than double what the US or European Union is paying for the Pfizer vaccine.

But Israeli officials have also said the pharma firms saw Israel as an excellent marketing tool for their vaccine, providing a mix of conditions that can showcase the power of their products.

Israel’s small size, densely concentrated population and highly developed infrastructure mean that with a relatively small number of shipments, it could swiftly immunize a wide swath of the country. This would hopefully give the world an early glimpse of what widespread vaccination, and a COVID-safe nation, can look like. The theory, proposed by Israeli officials, has not been confirmed by any of the vaccine manufacturers as a motivating factor.

So far, Israel’s drive has been boosted by its leveraging the military, and those with military experience, to deal with tough logistical challenges, like distributing Pfizer vaccines that need super-cold storage.

But the real key to making Israel Vaccination Nation has been the way its healthcare system is set up.

Unlike the US, where healthcare is privatized and payment is made through a web of employer-provided insurance schemes, Israeli healthcare is simple, overwhelmingly public and practically free. Unlike the UK, where the nation is served directly by the National Health Service, Israel’s four health maintenance organizations (HMOs) compete for prominence and patients, which pushes them to perform well.

I Won The ‘American Muslims for Palestine’ Raffle, But Still Haven’t Received My Kuffiya Socks

Back in November 2020, I registered for and attended American Muslims for Palestine‘s (AMP) annual Palestine Convention, presented via Zoom. American Muslims for Palestine randomly selected me as one of their raffle winners. But now, they won’t send me my prize! I wonder why…

You can read my coverage of the event in ‘American Muslims for Palestine’ 2020 Annual Conf Exploited Racial Tensions to Use Against Israel.

This was the second AMP annual conference I’ve attended; you can read all about how AMP staffers kicked me out of their 2019 conference in Chicago and then assigned several of their large, male ‘security guards’ to follow me around the hotel for the remainder of the weekend—all because they were afraid of negative coverage—in Fearing Negative Coverage, ‘American Muslims for Palestine’ Conference Ejects Legal Insurrection Reporter. You can also read about the historical revisionism and blatant bigotry AMP fostered at the convention in Rep. Rashida Tlaib Keynotes ‘American Muslims for Palestine’ Conference Devoted to Destroying Israel.

This year, AMP was forced to try lots of new things to boost attendance and participation at their conference, given the continuing pandemic.

One of those was to guarantee that anyone who registered would be automatically entered into AMP’s raffle for a wide variety of wonderful “Palestine”-related prizes donated by the conference’s commercial co-sponsors, such as the company Halal Socks.

Interestingly, though I registered (as I usually do) with my LIF email address and real name, AMP did not seem to be vetting the registrants. I received lots of reminder emails and donation solicitations throughout the conference; on December 10th, AMP Development Coordinator Mohamad Habehh sent me an automated note letting me know that I had been randomly selected as an AMP Palestine Convention prize winner!

Iran's Foreign Minster Javad Zarif is suddenly very concerned about American soldiers:

New intelligence from Iraq indicate that Israeli agent-provocateurs are plotting attacks against Americans—putting an outgoing Trump in a bind with a fake casus belli.

Be careful of a trap, @realDonaldTrump. Any fireworks will backfire badly, particularly against your same BFFs.
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 2, 2021

Does it make any sense for Israel to attack its biggest ally to possibly force a war-averse lame duck President to retaliate against Iran?

The downside of a failure would be an immeasurable rupture in Israeli/American relations. The upside would be - a war that most Americans wouldn't support.

This is a transparent attempt by Iran to make America think twice about retaliating against any attack by Iran that might be planned for around the first anniversary of the Soleimani assassination, a revenge attack that Iran has promised to do multiple times.

The secondary effect of Zarif's tweet is to prompt US antisemites to jump on the bandwagon calling any Iranian attack an Israeli false flag operation.

It's great propaganda - but, ironically, it points to the thought that Iran is planning an attack against Americans sooner rather than later.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

01/01 Links Pt2: Caroline Glick: Pollard and the great Jewish divide; Israel zooms past 1 million vaccinations in sprint to vanquish pandemic

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Pollard and the great Jewish divide

The rift between Israeli and American Jews is palpable almost everywhere you turn today. The most glaring disparity surrounds how they view President Donald Trump. The vast majority of Israelis adore Trump. The vast majority of American Jews despise him.

But Trump isn't the only thing or even the main thing that separates them. The main issue that separates Israelis from American Jews is the issue of exile. Israelis by and large hold to the traditional Jewish view that all Jewish communities outside of Israel are exile – or diaspora – communities. American Jews, by and large, believe that the exile exists in all Jewish communities outside Israel except in America. This disagreement is existential. It goes to the heart of what it means to be a Jew.

The divide between Israeli and American Jews is more apparent today than it was in the past but it has been around since the dawn of modern Zionism. But if one date marks the point it became an irreversible rift it was November 20, 1985, the day Jonathan Pollard was arrested outside Israel's embassy in Washington, DC.

From the day of his arrest, Pollard became both the symbol and to a degree, the cause of the divide. That divide was unmistakable on Wednesday morning when the news broke that in the middle of the previous night, Pollard and his wife Esther had landed in Israel.

Israelis celebrated the Pollards' arrival. Many wept watching the footage of Pollard kiss the ground on the tarmac.

In contrast, American Jews bristled both at the news and the happiness with which Israelis greeted Pollard's arrival.

Melanie Philips: Lessons from Britain’s Brexit breakthrough

From Iran to North Korea, from China to the Palestinians, rogue states, terrorist regimes and other aggressors have been able to continue their murderous, expansionist activities because they think that, however much the West may threaten them, it won’t follow through.

So the Palestinians never believed the West meant it when it told them they had to accept the right of Israel to exist. Why should they have believed this, when until 2016 at least the West never stopped excusing, funding and incentivizing their aggression?

The one exception to this has been U.S. President Donald Trump, who called the Palestinians’ manipulative bluff. Told by the rest of the West that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would provoke the Arab world to violence, he ignored this and moved it anyway.

Not only was there no such uprising, but now the Palestinians have been marginalized by an Arab world that’s increasingly making its peace with Israel in a way that was previously unthinkable.

That’s largely due in turn to Trump taking the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal and reimposing sanctions on the regime. He thus showed that, unlike former President Barack Obama or the British and the Europeans, when he said he intended to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, he really did mean it.

Now there are fears that President-elect Joe Biden may reactivate the Iran deal and start pumping money again into the regime’s nefarious activities; or he may once again incentivize the Palestinians’ agenda of destroying Israel; or he may allow China to walk all over him in its drive to dominate the West.

This is based on the fear that Biden may behave as the left always behave. They have no red lines of principle over stopping aggressors and protecting their victims. Instead, their doctrine of moral equivalence means that they make no such value judgments between aggressor and victim. Their red line is instead merely to keep negotiations and peace processes going. The result is that they excuse and empower aggressors just to keep them from walking out of the talks.

So when they claim to be against tyranny, racism and oppression, the world’s tyrants, racists and oppressors know they don’t mean what they say.

Britain now faces more battles with the E.U. The free world faces more battles with Iran, China, Russia, Islamic jihadists and other lethal foes. The Jews face their interminable battle against those who wish to destroy them.

What the Brexit deal reminds us is that hypocrites are dismissed with contempt as paper tigers; and that for freedom, justice and democracy to win against aggression, injustice and tyranny, the leaders of the free world must not pay mere lip-service to defending the former but actually mean what they say.

16 African country lawmakers discuss strengthening ties with Israel

Lawmakers from 16 African countries participated in a two-day Zoom conference this week hosted by Israel Allies Caucus to discuss strengthening ties with Israel. Those who participated in the conference are chairmen or members of the Israel Allies Caucus in their respective countries.

Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin and Deputy Speaker of the Zambian National Assembly Mwimba Malama opened the conference with remarks. Levin thanked participants saying, "Your consistent daily efforts standing for Israel and for our common values is what ensures the strength of our ties and allows us to continue having a positive impact together.”

Malama touched on the changes in Israel and Africa's relationship over time saying that the relationship has not always been strong which means that "it is therefore gratifying to note that in recent years, a number of sub-Saharan countries have re-established diplomatic relations with Israel."

Malama went on to say that "the State of Israel has made remarkable contributions to world development in general and Africa in particular. I have no doubt in my mind that as the Israel - Africa alliance continues to strengthen, the continent of Africa, and Zambia in particular, will greatly benefit in sectors such as agriculture, security, science and technology.”

Israel's ambassador to Zambia, Gershon Kedar emphasized the number of African countries who vote against Israel in the UN despite the countries' support of Israel. “Israel has many good relations with individual African countries, but it is time to turn these bilateral relationships into a multilateral one by strengthening Israel’s ties with Africa as a whole in international forums," said Kedar.

Cartoon of the Day: Maybe this year

Continuing my series of re-captioned cartoons....

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01/01 Links Pt1: 2021: What will the Middle East look like in the new year?; US, Israel Vote Against 2021 United Nations Budget, Citing ‘Hate, Antisemitism, and Anti-Israel Bias’

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: 2021: What will the Middle East look like in the new year?

THE SECOND side of the triangle in the Middle East is Turkey and its allies. Ankara’s ruling party is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood. It backs Hamas in Gaza and twice hosted senior Hamas terrorists this year. Reports indicate that Hamas plans attacks from Turkey, receives passports and support and uses Turkey as a cyber base for threats to Israel. While Turkey ended 2020 claiming it wants reconciliation with Israel after years of comparing the Jewish state to Nazi Germany, Ankara has consistently supported extremists and terrorists.

Turkey has other Islamist friends it recruited in Syria and in Libya. Turkey co-opted the Syrian rebellion and channeled it into a series of extremist groups it has sought to mobilize to fight Kurds and Armenians. In 2018 Turkey ethnically cleansed Afrin, a historically Kurdish area of Syria, then attacked Kurds in Serekaniye in October 2019. US officials worked with Turkey, hoping to undermine their own Pentagon’s policies in Syria.

We know from recent interviews that US envoys admired Turkey’s thuggish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and sought to outsource US policy to him. This caused Turkey to think it had a blank check to attack everyone in the region. It threatened Greece with a “flood” of refugees in February and March. It clashed with Syria and Russia in the Syrian city of Idlib. It sent extremist militias recruited from poor Syrian refugees to attack Kurds and Christians in the northeast Syrian towns of Ain Issa and Tel Tamr near the Turkish border. It sent Syrians to fight in Libya. It also threatened Greece using the excuse that it was seeking natural gas in the Mediterranean. Turkey wanted to thwart a planned Israel-Cyprus-Greece pipeline deal. In July and then in September Turkey prodded Azerbaijan to attack Armenians in Nagorna-Karabakh.

THE THIRD side of the Middle East alliance systems is the emerging Israel-UAE-Egypt-Jordan-Bahrain-Greece-Cyprus system of friendships. Israel made peace with Bahrain and the UAE in August and September in the momentous new Abraham Accords. With Saudi Arabia’s approval, Morocco followed. Sudan also agreed to normalize ties with Israel.

In each case the US was key in supporting the new agreements: weapons deals for the UAE, an end of sanctions for Sudan, as well as recognition of Morocco’s claims in Western Sahara came from Washington. The Trump administration poured efforts in its last year in office into this brave new world in the Middle East.

The burgeoning relationships offer massive economic potential for Israel and the Gulf. Seventy-thousand Israelis went to Dubai toward the end of the year. They were able to escape the COVID restrictions briefly, although by the end of December the lockdowns were back and Israelis were back home. A few stayed on in Dubai, awaiting the New Year’s parties. They might have been able to look back to February when Turkey first found COVID among flights coming from Iran and recall just how much has changed since then.

Much has also stayed the same, in terms of Iran’s and Turkey’s policies seeking to exploit the lack of US leadership and drawdown of US forces – to fight over the scraps of what was once US hegemony in the Middle East.

The Abraham Accords domino effect will lead to more peace deals

With 2020 behind us and 2021 beginning, there is discussion of even more dominoes falling, and even more countries joining the Abraham Accords. Trump administration officials have said they’re working to even make it happen in the next three weeks, before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

Mauritania, Oman and Indonesia are the names on Israeli and American officials’ tongues these days, which makes sense, because Israel has or has had some level of ties with all of them.

Mauritania declared war on Israel in 1967, but the countries established diplomatic relations in 1999, which were suspended in the wake of Operation Cast Lead in 2009.

Former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin visited Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, and thousands of Israeli and Indonesian tourists visit each other’s countries each year.

Netanyahu visited Oman in 2018, and Israel and Oman are part of the anti-Iran axis in the Middle East.

But the big hope is for Saudi Arabia. This is where Biden comes into play. Biden and his foreign policy advisers have spoken positively about the Abraham Accords, without commenting on the strings attached. At the same time, they have been very critical of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. If the Trump administration doesn’t find a way to quickly make it worth Riyadh’s while in the next few weeks, which seems unlikely, MBS and King Salman will probably wait to see what benefit they can exact from the Biden administration to go with peace with Israel. After all, the thought is, why shouldn’t they get something out of the deal, as the UAE, Sudan and Morocco did?

At the same time, a very senior official told The Jerusalem Post that Riyadh is expected to get on board in 2021. Netanyahu and MBS met in the Saudi city of Neom weeks ago. Salman is still reticent on the matter, holding on to the Arab Peace Initiative, also known as the Saudi Initiative, which requires peace with the Palestinians before normalization with the Arab League.

Looking ahead at the unfolding new year, it seems likely that the Abraham Accords domino rally will continue, and it seems almost inevitable that it will feature the biggest coup of all, Saudi-Israel peace.

But if there’s anything we learned from 2020, it is that January can be drastically different from December in ways we never expected.

Boycott israel (with a big asterisk)

A poster I made this week....

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