Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 05, 2021

01/05 Links Pt1: Esther Horgen’s killer can count on Abbas; Saudi Arabia and Qatar reconciliation: What might change in the region; The Soleimanification of the Middle East

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Esther Horgen’s killer can count on Abbas

Cabha, who has served time in prison for terrorism-related activities—told Israeli security services that he had been planning such a killing for six weeks. The idea for the location, he explained, came to him one day when he climbed through a hole in the security barrier in the Reihan Forest, near the northern Samaria settlement of Tal Menashe, and saw Israelis strolling there.

One reason he gave for wanting to commit the heinous act was to avenge the death of a friend, a Palestinian prisoner who died of an illness in an Israeli jail.

In the warped world of Palestinian terrorists, this is sufficient cause to come upon an innocent 52-year-old woman jogging through a forest and bash her head in with a rock. It didn’t occur to Cabha, of course, that the woman’s husband and children would be frantic when she failed to return home after her daily run, or that their lives would be forever marred by her absence, not to mention by the horrific manner in which she died.

No, all that was on his mind was fleeing from justice. He was abetted in this attempt by four other Palestinian paragons of virtue, who themselves are now in custody for helping him hide. All are likely to be tried by the Samaria Military Court.

If and when convicted, Cabha can expect to receive a life sentence. Once in jail, he will be put on Abbas’s payroll in accordance with “[P.A.] Government Decision Number 23 of 2010, Regarding the Regulation of Payment of the Monthly Salary to the Prisoner.”

The amount that he will get—as the murderer of an Israeli—will reach 12,000 shekels ($3,800) per month or four times the average earned by residents of the P.A. Even more extraordinary and disturbing is the process that he will undergo in order to receive the money, as it requires his signing over power of attorney to the Red Cross. Yes, as PMW has documented, the international humanitarian movement is actively involved in facilitating the payment of P.A. salaries to terrorists.

Because the anti-terror law was implemented in Judea and Samaria on Friday, Cabha and his cohorts may have to wait quite a while before being properly remunerated. After all, the money that Abbas pushed through on Thursday is earmarked for prisoners already behind bars, and future funds will have to wait until the “Independence Bank” is operational.

But leave it to the head of the P.A. to figure it out. Cabha’s literally counting on it.

Widower remembers wife killed in W. Bank terror attack

Widower of Esther Horgen raises funds for memorial park after his wife was killed in a terrorist attack in the West Bank: 'This is the place that she loved and we want to make it available to all,' says Benjamin Horgen.

MK Michal Cotler-Wunsh: Prompting a paradigm shift between Israel and the Diaspora

Michal Cotler-Wunsh is an Israeli-Canadian member of Knesset currently serving within the Blue and White Party, though just announced that she will not run with Blue and White in the upcoming elections—Israel’s fourth round in two years—slated for March 23. She entered the Knesset in June as a replacement for Alon Schuster, who resigned his seat under the Norwegian Law after being appointed to the cabinet.

Though she was born in Jerusalem and returned to Israel eight years ago with her spouse and four children, Cotler-Wunsh spent her formative years in Canada and made aliyah to join the IDF as a lone soldier, serving as an officer in various training and command positions.

An international-law, human-rights and free-speech expert, she earned degrees from the Hebrew University Faculty of Law in Jerusalem and at McGill University Faculty of Law in Montreal. She has held a number of legal positions, and during her years in Canada worked in mediation, formal and informal education, and extensive public activity. Her other experience has included bridging the religious-secular divide, countering terrorism and anti-Semitism, increasing legal services to nonprofits and preventing sexual harassment in the workplace.

In her Knesset role, Cotler-Wunsh has headed efforts to plan, develop and strengthen connections between Israel and the Diaspora, raising awareness and providing exposure of both challenges and opportunities for new immigrants (olim) to Israel.

Click below to watch the entire video ⬇️https://t.co/J9ujLuewXR
— BrookeGoldstein (@GoldsteinBrooke) January 5, 2021

Al Jazeera reports:

Israeli security forces committed “heinous killings” throughout 2020, shooting dead at least 27 Palestinians across occupied Palestinian territories and in Israel, according to Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

“Over the course of 2020, Israeli security forces killed 27 Palestinians, seven of them minors: one in the Gaza Strip, 23 in the West Bank [including East Jerusalem] and three inside Israel,” B’Tselem said on Monday.

The B'Tselem press release likewise says:

Over the course of 2020, Israeli security forces killed 27 Palestinians, seven of them minors: one in the Gaza Strip, 23 in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and three inside Israel.

What B'Tselem doesn't mention is that according to its own statistics, this is a huge drop in killings from 2019 (133, 80% drop) and 2018 (290, 91% drop.)

Why doesn't B'Tselem give even a little bit of context? Surely, it is happy to see an 80% drop in Palestinian fatalities in one year!

If B'Tselem and Al Jazeera were honest and cared about Palestinians, they would want to encourage Israel to continue in the direction it is going in reducing casualties. It could still write about the deaths that should not have happened but it would add needed context. It might even investigate what the IDF did that was successful in reducing casualties, and share that information with other armies.

Why wouldn't B'Tselem and al Jazeera mention a simple fact that this is so much of an improvement over previous years?

The reason is obvious. B'Tselem doesn't want to pollute its anti-Israel agenda by publishing anything that could show context that makes Israel look like it is actually succeeding in significantly reducing the number of Palestinians killed.

And proof can be found from another section of the B'Tselem report:

Israel demolished 273 homes in 2020, leaving 1,006 Palestinians – 519 of them minors – homeless. By comparison, Israel demolished the homes of 677 Palestinians in 2019, 397 in 2018, and 528 in 2017.

Suddenly, B'Tselem is eager to compare 2020 with previous years - when that comparison makes Israel look bad. But for killings, comparisons would make Israel look good, so that information must be hidden from the public.

Instead, we are told it is "heinous" - a word not used in their 2018 or 2019 press releases.

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When does the media call Israeli Arabs "Palestinians" and when not? Whichever makes Israel look bad.

Most Arab Israelis do not identify as Palestinian.

Despite that fact, and in opposition to the politically correct thinking that people should be able to define how they are labeled, most media refer to Arab citizens of Israel as "Palestinian" by default.

The Guardian:

The Washington Post:

Al Jazeera:

I don't agree with this terminology, and neither should any liberal. It makes it sound like some citizens of Israel are not really Israeli. It promotes division and discrimination. People who prize equality should abhor "otherizing" certain parts of the population.

So why does the major media consistently use this terminology that is both wrong and offensive to most Arab Israelis?

They do it exactly because it helps promote an anti-Israel narrative that Arab citizens of Israel are discriminated against. It pushes the agenda that Israel hates Palestinians both within and without Israel. It subtly tells readers that Arabs in Israel are not really Israelis and one day they will be free o fbeing forced to live in a Jewish state.

Yet recent headlines from these same major media outlets, about COVID-19 vaccinations in Israel, have flipped the script. They use the word "Palestinians" to refer only to Arabs under Palestinian rule, and not Israeli Arabs who are obviously getting vaccinated in Israel.

The Guardian:

The Washington Post:

Al Jazeera:

Suddenly, Palestinians are only a subset of what these newspapers usually call Palestinians!

If these newspapers were consistent, these headlines would be outright lies - no one denies that Israel is working hard to inoculate "Palestinians" who live in Israel. Clearly, in this context, "Palestinian" cannot mean Arab Israelis.

But there indeed is a consistency here.

When it helps them to bash Israel, Arab Israelis are "Palestinian." And when it helps them to bash Israel, only Palestinians under Palestinian rule are "Palestinian."

Media bias is sometimes subtle and insidious, but once it is pointed out, any fair person would see how outrageous it is.

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On Monday, Hamas sponsored a memorial service for the first anniversary of the assassination of Iran's Quds Force leaders Qassem Soleiman by US forces.

Prominent personalities from Hamas and Islamic Jihad spoke and praised Soleimani, emphasizing how much he gave those groups support in weapons and paying their salaries.

Hamas elder statesman Mahmoud al-Zahar let some antisemitism slip in his statement. He said, “[Soleimani] was killed by a Christian Zionist, an enemy of God and His Messenger, an enemy of Islam and Muslims, loyal to the Jews, and an enemy of his people and world peace.”

In the middle of a list of insults about Soleimani's killers, between "enemy of Muslims" and "enemy of his people," comes "loyal to the Jews."

It would be hard to argue that this is anything other than derogatory.

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01/04 Links Pt2: How anti-Israel voices made a hypocritical, inaccurate story on vaccines; The EU makes double standards a policy when it comes to boycotts

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: How anti-Israel voices made a hypocritical, inaccurate story on vaccines

The slander against Israel claiming that Israel is not vaccinating Palestinians is built on a variety of misleading information. A better line of questioning might ask why the international community has not aided the Palestinians more. However, the international community has in general done a poor job helping the global south with vaccines. Many wealthy countries can’t even vaccinate their own people, so the process in general is chaotic. Israel is an exception, but even its rapid vaccination is a first and in a way experimental because Israel is billing itself as a kind of test case.

The Palestinian Authority has decided which groups will get priority when a vaccine arrives. These include the elderly, journalists and security forces. So it isn’t like they haven’t been planning. They have. Reports should look at their plans. The Palestinian Authority spent late December trying to arrest a DJ accused of hosting a party at a shrine called Nebi Musa, rather than getting vaccines.

There is an added layer of hypocrisy to the story alleging Israel doesn’t vaccinate Palestinians. Neighboring states have not been vaccinating almost anyone. When it comes to providing vaccinations Israel has done an exemplary job, providing them to Arabs and Jews. For many who refer to Arabs in Jerusalem as Palestinians, Israel has been vaccinating Palestinians. The invention of the story was conjured up to try to tarnish the positive image, rather than report facts. Israel didn’t “exclude” anyone or “fail” to do something in Gaza or the West Bank. The same people who recognize Palestine as a state are the ones arguing Israel should vaccinate that state and the same ones who refer to Palestinians in Jerusalem as Palestinians, claim Israel didn’t vaccinate them, when Israel has provided for them.

The hypocritical attitude toward Israel has no parallel when looking at other occupied or disputed areas. The same voices have not asked who will vaccinate Idlib province in Syria, or Palestinians in Lebanon, or who will vaccinate northern Cyprus or Abkhazia and Crimea and the Donbas.

Health provision is a right for citizens, but it’s not clear what states are required to do for non-citizens. In general health authorities are often not discriminatory, they try to provide life-saving health care when needed. That’s how health care should work because when it comes to a virus the virus doesn’t distinguish citizen from non-citizen. In situations where you have self-governed areas, like the Gaza Strip, the sudden claim that Israel should take responsibility for vaccinations, but not other health services is designed solely to slander Israel for being at fault for something it is not at fault for. If Israel were to provide vaccinations that would be phenomenal, slandering it for not doing that and trying to refashion it as “occupying” an area it left 15 years ago is part of an agenda.

Hatred of Israel always finds a way to target Israel. Instead of celebrating Israel’s accomplishment and learning from it, the goal of the critics is to find some misleading fault in Israel’s unprecedented program. Instead of asserting that countries might learn from this and also help Palestinians, the goal is simply to excoriate Israel.

The Palestinian Vaccine Blood Libel

The facts are the Palestinians demanded autonomy, including over their people’s health care, under the Oslo Accords. As the Accords read, “Powers and responsibilities in the sphere of health in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be transferred to the Palestinian side, including health insurance. The Palestinian side shall provide vaccinations.” Israel signed it and the Palestinians are responsible for the health care of their people. It is Palestinian incompetence that led to their inability to provide vaccines to their people.

The Guardian article also claims the Palestinian Authority are “cash strapped.” The Palestinian Authority dedicates over $300 million annually to their “pay for slay” program which pays Palestinians a monthly stiped on a sliding scale based on how many Israelis they’ve killed or injured. This pay for slay burden on the Palestinian budget precludes their ability to pay for their people’s health care.

As if these weren’t enough to show how baseless the allegations against Israel are, Palestinians also denied help from Israel to acquire vaccinations. You can almost hear Abba Eben repeating from the grave, “Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” The most damning piece of evidence to the slanderous nature of these accusations is that Palestinian Ministry of Health officials announced they had secured vaccines.

Lazy journalists who try to play the moral high ground by demonizing Israel are a dime a dozen. Some are motivated by the need for approval of other moral crusaders and some are run of the mill anti-Semites. It’s easy pickings. It isn’t journalism.

Modern day blood libels aren’t as rare as one would think. Articles frequently appear demonizing Israel for mistreating Palestinians. After looking into these articles its easy to find the false information twisted to disparage Israel. It’s easy to defend these articles from charges of anti-Semitism, but those who have faced anti-Semitism know that the best spread anti-Semitism is hate disguised to look like legitimate criticism. The Guardian and all those spreading the vaccine lie are just as guilty of anti-Semitism as the haters who used to fabricate blood libels.

The malice and ignorance here are staggering:
1. The Oslo Accords grant responsibility for healthcare to the autonomous Palestinian Authority;
2. The Palestinians have procured their own vaccines;
3. The Palestinians have not asked Israel for help with vaccines. https://t.co/a4CIdbdwlS
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) January 3, 2021

Daniel Gordis: Vaccination Miracle Brings Israel Back to Its Roots

At the vaccination station at a large Jerusalem sports arena, a small army of nurses and medical techs injected one person after another with utter efficiency. We were reminded of the old Israel, the Israel that knows how to show our national resilience when facing a mortal enemy.

This is still a country that when a little kid is crying outside without an adult in obvious proximity, people scoop him or her up and wait for someone to show. These past few weeks have evoked once again that Israel that sees itself as a family.

I was momentarily confused as we waited the required 15 minutes after the shot, as staff members walked around handing out copies of little booklets: games for children. "What on earth are these for?" I wondered. "There isn't a kid in sight. We're all over 60." And then it struck me, as people happily and gratefully took copies of the booklet - and then asked for another copy or two. The booklets weren't for us - they were for our grandchildren.

There are still moments here when we recognize that this is not a country like any other. It is a country that was founded to give sanctuary to a particular people that desperately needed it, one that has weathered more in seven decades than most countries do in centuries, and that has produced a sort of familial resilience that can't be replicated anywhere else.

Kan retracts claim millionth vaccinee was murderer; ToI apologizes for citing it

The Kan public broadcaster on Monday retracted its claim and apologized for reporting on Sunday that the man highlighted as the millionth Israeli to receive the coronavirus vaccine, who was given his inoculation last week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing alongside him, served time for murder.

The Times of Israel apologizes for citing the erroneous reports in earlier versions of its article on the incident.

Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab Jabarin, 66, who got his shot on Friday, as Netanyahu was visiting a vaccination center in the Arab Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm, served 14 years for robbery and weapons charges, and was released in 1992.

Kan initially reported Sunday that Jabarin had been jailed for murder, and later said he had served time for manslaughter. The claim, carried prominently in Kan’s hourly news bulletins, was widely reported in Israeli media outlets, including ToI. On Monday, Kan retracted (Hebrew link) its reports, saying they were erroneous. It said two of its reporters had separately checked the information with multiple sources, some of whom it has worked with for years, who had verified it, but in fact were mistaken.

Jabarin later Sunday acknowledged the lengthy jail term, while denying the reports of more serious crimes. “It’s a lie that I did time for murder. I was jailed for robbery, and for [charges related to] weapons,” he told Kan.

Cartoon of the Day: Prehistoric BDS

Continuing my series recaptioning cartoons...

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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.

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01/04 Links Pt1: Can the “Abrahamic narrative” grow beyond the Gulf states?; Seven reasons for the ‘post-jihadist’ milieu; IDF sees record number of Israeli Arab recruits.

From Ian:

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.

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?

Seven reasons for the ‘post-jihadist’ milieu

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.

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.

Seth Frantzman: Gulf reconciliation: Impact and implications for Israel - analysis

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.

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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