Monday, January 04, 2021
Elder of Ziyon
Continuing my series recaptioning cartoons...
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Monday, January 04, 2021
A couple of weeks ago, a series of NGOs including the Amnesty, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, B'Tselem and even two Palestinian human rights organizations issued a press release demanding that Israel provide vaccines for Palestinians.
They use poor arguments, most of which I debunked in last night's webcast, but one of them deserves more attention - because it shows how bigoted these groups are against Palestinians.
We express grave concerns about media reports that the Russian-developed vaccine will be delivered to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA has not fully indicated which vaccines it aims to purchase and distribute, although it has made clear that it does not have sufficient funds and capabilities to purchase the necessary vaccinations. Israel cannot transfer a vaccine which is not approved for its own citizens. Such a step would violate the Paris Protocol on Economic Relations and the long-standing policy of the Israeli Ministry of Health to only allow the distribution of medicines in the OPT which have undergone the necessary scientific and regulatory procedures. Although the Paris Protocol has come under criticism in the past for, inter alia, obliging the PA to import medications that are beyond its financial reach, as long as it is binding, Israel cannot import a vaccine that it has not approved for its own population and send it to the occupied population. Israel must ensure that the vaccines delivered to Palestinians in the OPT, also meet the approvals of the Israeli health system, and that these vaccines be purchased and delivered as soon as possible.
What does the Paris Protocol say?
...Both sides will maintain the same import policy (various exceptions) and regulations including classification, valuation and other customs procedures, which are based on the principles governing international codes, and the same policies of import licensing and of standards for imported goods, all as applied by Israel with respect to its importation. Israel may from time to time introduce changes in any of the above, provided that changes in standard requirements will not constitute a non-tariff-barrier and will be based on considerations of health, safety and the protection of the environment in conformity with Article 2.2. of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to trade of the Final Act of the Uruguay Round of Trade Negotiations.
So even if this paragraph applies to importing medicines (which is not at all obvious) Israel can change the policy for maintaining public health!
And what does the Agreement on Technical Barriers Article 2.2 say?
Members shall ensure that technical regulations are not prepared, adopted or applied with a view to or with the effect of creating unnecessary obstacles to international trade. For this purpose, technical regulations shall not be more trade-restrictive than necessary to fulfil a legitimate objective, taking account of the risks non-fulfilment would create. Such legitimate objectives are, inter alia: national security requirements; the prevention of deceptive practices; protection of human health or safety, animal or plant life or health, or the environment. In assessing such risks, relevant elements of consideration are, inter alia: available scientific and technical information, related processing technology or intended end-uses of products.
These very regulations referred to in the Paris Protocols say that Israel should not place any barriers in place to stop Palestinians from getting the medicines they need!
Clearly, when the Palestinians don't have ultra-cold freezers needed to stockpile the Pfizer vaccine , the Russian Sputnik vaccine seems like a viable alternative to help millions of their citizens. The Palestinian Authority has scientists and doctors that can look at the literature and see whether it makes sense to accept the Russian vaccine. Other countries like India have decided that the Russian vaccine is safe enough to rely on. One can argue about the decision, but is hardly irresponsible for leaders to choose the Russian vaccine in the interests of protecting the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time.
But Amnesty and these other NGOs disagree with this. They want to take away Palestinian choice as to how to treat their own people!
If anyone else would say that Palestinians are too immature or too ignorant to decide on how their own health programs should work, they would be rightly considered to be bigots.
Beyond that, Amnesty and the other NGOs are saying that it is better for Palestinians to wait for Israel to build an entire infrastructure to distribute the Pfizer vaccine, or to wait to receive the Moderna vaccine, than to import the Sputnik vaccine today. Every day a couple of dozen Palestinians are dying of COVID-19 and Amnesty is saying that time is not of the essence to provide vaccines to them, even though the logistics of Israel providing the vaccines in Palestinian areas is enormously expensive and time consuming.
The NGOs even say it is Israel's responsibility to keep the medicines cold:
Ensuring smooth entry of vaccines and other medical equipment to the oPt, including preserving a 'cold chain’ to keep vaccines refrigerated during transit if necessary.
Ultra-cold freezers aren't exactly available at Best Buy. There are only a couple of manufacturers and they are swamped. It would take months to acquire an adequate supply of this equipment to bring into the territories, by which time there will be other vaccines available that do not require anything colder than a refrigerator.
This demand, by itself, shows how out of touch these NGOs are - and how willing they are to sacrifice Palestinians as long as they can blame Israel for their deaths.
There is only one conclusion that can be drawn: Amnesty and the other NGOs hate Israel more than they care about Palestinian lives. This demand, by itself, proves how hateful they are both towards Israel and towards Palestinians themselves.
To call these "human rights "organizations is a sick joke.
From Ian:
Can the “Abrahamic narrative” grow beyond the Gulf states?
Can the “Abrahamic narrative” grow beyond the Gulf states?
The speed with which Israeli ties to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have taken off, and the warmth experienced by every Israeli business delegation and tourist group in these countries, is astounding.Seven reasons for the ‘post-jihadist’ milieu
One explanation for this alacrity is that the normalization of ties between these Gulf Arabs and Israelis partially is based on something deeper than security and economic relations. From the Gulf side, it is based on a genuine discourse of religious moderation and broad-mindedness.
The Emiratis and Bahrainis explicitly want to set an example for other Arab countries in the region. The question is whether their models of moderate and mature thinking indeed can be exported to other parts of the Arab world? Can it catch on elsewhere?
In fact, every Israeli to whom I have related my conversations and experiences in the Gulf has asked me this very question. They say: Let’s assume we believe you, and stipulate that some Gulf Arabs are genuine in their pursuit of peace and partnership with Israel, based on a self-conception that prioritizes open-mindedness and non-discrimination. But how are Gulf Arab leaders going to influence the Palestinians, or the Egyptians and Jordanians?
After all, Israelis have been conditioned to hear only bitterness from Israel’s immediate Arab neighbors; a narrative of self-pity and anger marked by complaints, false allegations, vituperation, and in some cases, glorification of violence against Israel.
Some of these Arabs still maintain a border conflict with Israel; some are deeply embedded in a rejectionist narrative that denies the Jewish People’s historic and legitimate connection to Zion; and some openly seek Israel’s destruction!
So, what can the Emiratis and Bahrainis really do about changing attitudes among the Arab populations that sit on Israel’s borders?
With America in a moment of deep polarization, elections looming in Israel and the coronavirus still wreaking havoc around the world, the local and global situation seems murky. And yet, ironically, within this mud-swamp grows a beautiful flower of Middle East hope: The Abraham Accords—the beginnings of the Arab world’s normalization with Israel. The Abraham Accords are, in turn, an outward manifestation of an even broader movement happening within the Arab world: post-jihadism.Seth Frantzman: Gulf reconciliation: Impact and implications for Israel - analysis
Jihad means struggle, and it represents the Islamic value of holy war against infidels. Post-jihadism, on the other hand, is the tendency away from pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism—the ideologies of Arab-Islamic conquest—and its replacement with the ideal of regional cooperation and the goals of societal and individual self-actualization and prosperity.
Post-jihadism has a long way to go, to be sure. But the old thinking is being challenged—and there are at least seven contributing factors that are helping ignite the imagination for a post-jihadist Middle East:
1. States running jihadism are a disaster
Regional Arabs are rethinking jihadism, because it doesn’t make sense in the modern industrial world. A posture of conquest simply does not equal power and wealth the way that it used to. Instead, the Arab street sees that the jihadist-leaning states and organizations, such as Iran and ISIS, eschew minimum freedoms, and bring misery, poverty and death to their people.
In other Arab states, rulers used jihadism as a national goal to draw popular ire away from inept leadership, endemic corruption, slothful bureaucracy and a stagnant pre-industrial economy. Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser had a goal of defeating Israel, while Iraq’s Saddam Hussein dreamed of defeating Iran. But the jihad distraction is no longer working. People in Arab countries are no longer content to forfeit their own lives and upward mobility for their corrupt leaders’ dreams of victory.
Discontent with jihadism is also rocking the foundations of a related concept: anti-Israelism. Destroying Israel was once a reliable rallying cry in the Arab world.
Qatar’s double game has never been clear. On the one hand, it appears open to Israel, and its friends say it is astute and could normalize relations with Israel. It has tried to sell itself to pro-Israel groups, including far-right pro-Israel voices, as being open to Israel. But at the end of the day, Qatar’s long-term role has been with far-right Islamist groups, not moderates.
Yet it claims to be open to hosting Israelis for sports events and being moderate. There were Hanukkah celebrations in Dubai, not Doha, in December. It talks about doing things, but when it comes to actually doing them, there is no real verification that it has changed.
The question is whether Ankara and Doha are just paying lip service to appear like the “good cop” for the Biden administration, or whether they will change. So far, Ankara hasn’t changed. It still backs extremists in Syria, it has ravaged Afrin, and it stirs up trouble in the Mediterranean.
These countries could have used their influence with Hamas to change it and change its antisemitic terrorism-supporting message. They didn’t do that. This illustrates that when it comes to reducing extremism, it’s not clear if these countries will do it.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have done more than just lip service. They want change, moderation and tolerance.
The question is whether Gulf reconciliation means that Qatar changes its role and reduces its reliance on Turkey and links to Iran, or whether the opposite happens and it seeks to open up doors for groups such as Hamas via its reconciliation.
Cairo and Riyadh likely would not want any opening to the Brotherhood after years in which they went as far as possible to crush groups linked to it. But they, too, want warmer relations with the new US administration.
Those are the question marks. What does Qatar’s game plan mean for the peace deals and Hamas and the Palestinians? Will it stoke tensions or reduce them? Will it mean more peace and normalization, or will it put the brakes on?
Israel, pragmatically, has been able to deal with Qatar in the past and will in the future. But Israel also knows that Ankara and its links to Doha and Hamas, represent a hostility that has not changed.
“Trust, but verify,” the saying goes. Ankara and Doha have not veritably changed. Many other peace-promoting countries have.
Monday, January 04, 2021
Elder of Ziyon
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.
- Monday, January 04, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
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.
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.
- Monday, January 04, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
COVID-19
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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Sunday, January 03, 2021
- Sunday, January 03, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
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)
- Sunday, January 03, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
- cartoon of the day, humor
Continuing on my series of re-captioning cartoons...
From Ian:
The Arab-Israeli conflict may finally be over
UN Watch: “Arc of History Bends Toward Peace“ — Hillel Neuer to UNHRC
Sign Petition: Help Reveal the True Number of Palestinian Refugees
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,Vaccine rollout inspires Jews to move to Israel and Israelis to return
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.
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.
- Sunday, January 03, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
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.
- Sunday, January 03, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
- COVID-19
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:
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.
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.
- Sunday, January 03, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
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.
Saturday, January 02, 2021
From Ian:
Seth J. Frantzman: How Israel became a world leader in vaccination
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.Small wonder: How Israel rolled up its sleeves and became vaccination nation
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.
Caveats aside, there seems little doubt that Israel is in a stronger position than most people imagined.I Won The ‘American Muslims for Palestine’ Raffle, But Still Haven’t Received My Kuffiya Socks
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.
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!
- Saturday, January 02, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
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.
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 2, 2021
Be careful of a trap, @realDonaldTrump. Any fireworks will backfire badly, particularly against your same BFFs.
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.
Friday, January 01, 2021
From Ian:
Caroline Glick: Pollard and the great Jewish divide
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.Melanie Philips: Lessons from Britain’s Brexit breakthrough
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.
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.16 African country lawmakers discuss strengthening ties with Israel
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.
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.
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