Thursday, January 07, 2021
Elder of Ziyon
cartoon of the day, humor
Thursday, January 07, 2021Elder of Ziyonhumor, PreoccupiedOur weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.
Check out their Facebook page.
Geneva, January 7 - Human rights groups and international organizations drew dark parallels today between Israel's military and Germany under Adolph Hitler, noting that the soldiers of both states carried guns, wore protective gear, operated armored vehicles, and engaged in logistics.
Six human rights organizations, among them Amnesty International, B'tselem, and Human Rights Watch, submitted a report today to the United Nations Human Rights Council, urging action against Israel, specifically the Israel Defense Force, for engaging in activities that the Nazi military also did, such as march to music and prepare field rations.
"We regret to inform the Council that once again, the Israeli military engages in constant emulation of the vilest armed force in history, known for its atrocities and perpetration of war crimes and crimes against humanity," the report read. "Among the practices that the IDF and the Wehrmacht - including the notorious Waffen SS divisions - share are drafting, training, operating an air force, maintaining naval facilities, and wearing uniforms."
"It's actually kind of frustrating to have to point these things out again and again," lamented Dean Issacharoff of Breaking the Silence. "During my own service with the IDF, I engaged in numerous behaviors that you would find just as easily among the soldiers of Nazi Germany: learning to clean a weapon; maintaining certain standards of dress and neatness; digging trenches and foxholes; handling armaments; safety procedures; salute protocols; and that's just the basics. I could spend all day detailing the eerie parallels between the Israeli military and the Wehrmacht, but seldom is there anything that anyone does about it. I hope this report to the UN shifts things in the right direction." In 2020, the Human Rights Council denounced Israel seventeen times, and other countries a total of six.
Observers questioned the rhetorical wisdom of the move. "OK, fine, the Jews are the new Nazis, I get it," shrugged pro-Palestinian activist Ali Abunimah. "We've known that since we were allying ourselves with the actual Nazis in the 1930's and 40's. Old news. But the same analogies haven't gotten us very far, so you have to wonder whether it makes sense to keep beating the same stupid drum. There has got to be a better approach to constantly reminding everyone we think of Jews as the epitome of evil who should never be allowed to live peacefully. Few of these useless reports to the UN have resulted in anything more than a mere apologia for violence against Jews, and that's a far cry from rallying the entire world to destroy them."
Thursday, January 07, 2021Elder of Ziyon
The Israeli military has deployed air defense batteries around the southern city of Eilat in recent days amid concerns of an attack from the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen.The move came around the first anniversary of the United States killing of Qassem Soleimani, the influential head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ expeditionary Quds Force, in an airstrike in Iraq and a month and a half after Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of Iran’s military nuclear program, was killed, allegedly by Israel.Iran has indicated plans to exact revenge for these two high profile killings. The Israeli military assessed that such retaliation was likely to come from an Iranian proxy, potentially from the Houthis, a Yemeni group that has conducted a number of attacks over the years against Tehran’s other rival in the region, Saudi Arabia.Last month, IDF Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman told a Saudi news outlet that Israel had information indicating Iran was developing unmanned aerial vehicles and “smart missiles” in Iraq and Yemen, and that the weapons could have the ability to strike Israel.In light of this threat, Iron Dome and Patriot missile defense batteries have been deployed near Israel’s southern tip of Eilat in recent days. The Iron Dome is generally used against rockets and mortar shells, but can also intercept small drones and cruise missiles. The Patriot system is used primarily to defend against ballistic missiles and larger aircraft like fighter jets and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Israeli Patriot air defence battery deployed near Eilat, via @OrHeller pic.twitter.com/uDG8hv1xsj
— ELINT News (@ELINTNews) January 7, 2021
The support of the “Arab street” for the Palestinian cause was supposed (at the very least) to intimidate the leaders of the Arabic-speaking states from making peace with Israel. With regard to the two states that dared defy the purported threat of the Arab street and sign formal peace treaties with Israel, Egypt and Jordan, maintenance of popular support for the Palestinian cause was meant to prevent cold peace from growing warm.Palestinian ideology is the biggest obstacle to peace - opinion
One can hardly deny the intimidating and chilling effect Arab popular opinion, whether real or imagined, has had on Arab state leaders. Though Jordan’s King Abdullah, like his father before him, has held numerous secret and not so secret meetings with Israeli leaders, received military aid from the Jewish state, and maintained excellent security relations with Israeli security personnel in a common and successful effort to quell terrorism on both sides of the border, he has never challenged the cultural and educational boycott of Israel that prevails in Jordanian society and the anti-Jewish themes that pervade the local media.
Other Arab states, which have at times maintained consular activity, permitted Israelis with foreign passports to engage in business and commerce, and, in the case of Morocco, facilitated extensive tourism from Israel, followed the same path of cultural and educational boycott.
But three months into the Abraham Accords process, there is no doubt that Palestinian leaders on both sides of the PA-Hamas divide are deeply disappointed by, and worried about, the passivity of the Arab street.
And so they should be. If the passivity of the citizens of the very wealthy UAE and comparatively wealthy Bahrain could be explained away by the ability of its leadership to buy the support of the citizenry for unpopular policies like normalization, the argument wears thin regarding Sudan, one of the poorest Arabic-speaking countries, as well as the populous and relatively poor state of Morocco. This fear might explain why the Abraham Accords process began with the UAE as an initial test case: it was the richest of the states that were likely to normalize relations with Israel.
Contrary to the views of Israel’s many detractors — a prominent example of whom is Jamal Zahalka, former member of the Knesset, former head of the Balad party, and soon-to-be recipient of a lavish Israeli government pension — the growing indifference of the Arab street to the Palestinian issue is a long-term phenomenon. It displays occasional spikes of interest, but they are always short-lived.
A Google Trends graph of searches for the phrase “normalization with Israel” in Arabic — a phrase with a derogatory connotation in much of the Arab world — dating from 2004 shows that interest spiked more in the first decade of the new century than in the second. The graph is characterized by rigid rather than curved lines, which reflects the relatively small number of searches on the subject.
The problem for Palestinianism is not “the occupation” in 1967, but Israel’s existence. In this view, Palestine is the exclusive Arab homeland, and Zionists are colonialists; Palestine is an integral part of the Arab world, completely under Arab sovereignty. This is axiomatic. There are no exceptions and no compromises.Bank of Palestine to freeze terrorists' payments
Palestinianism – promoted in the media, mosques and schools to include anti-Jewish incitement, denial of the Holocaust and Jewish history, and rejection of the right of Jewish national self-determination – is the greatest obstacle to peace.
The alternative is a true Palestinianism liberation movement dedicated to meaningful human values and creativity, free of the destructive and self-destructive agenda of terrorist organizations.
A new Palestinianism can promote peace. For those who seek to express a Palestinian national identity and self-determination, they can move to Jordan and make it an economic, social and political oasis. The Hashemite rulers of Jordan claim to be descendants of Muhammad, the founder of Islam; Mecca and Medina are Muslim spiritual centers in Saudi Arabia with which Jordan shares a boundary. Jordan also shares a boundary with Iraq, ancient Mesopotamia.
This represents a potential cultural and spiritual link that can provide an ideology based on peace and reconciliation with Israel. Mount Nebo, in Jordan, the place where Moses (whom Muslims consider a prophet) died, can become a symbol for a Mosaic Accord, a bridge of understanding between countries and people.
The Bank of Palestine has recently discontinued its work with the accounts of terrorists who receive benefits from the Palestinian Authority.
According to official statements from the terrorist organizations, the bank has informed terrorists and their family members that they must withdraw all funds and close their accounts.
The decision stems from the warning the Bank of Palestine received from the Palestinian Media Watch, a non-profit Israeli institute that researches the Palestinian society.
The institute warned the bank about a year ago that according to the 2016 Counter-Terrorism Law, financial entities involved in the pay for slay system will be viewed as supporting terrorists – and will therefore be exposed to enormous legal and economic risks.
Israel's Military Advocate General had been delaying the application of the Counter-Terrorism Law in Judea and Samaria for years. Only after the murder of 17-year-old Rina Shnerb and following a demand by Palestinian Media Watch attorney Maurice Hirsch, who also represents the family, was Israel forced to clarify that the law does indeed apply to Judea and Samaria.
The Palestinian Authority prepared for the shift in advance. It paid a large part of terrorists' salaries several months in advance and is looking for new ways to continue the payments despite international pressure to stop doing so.
Thursday, January 07, 2021Elder of ZiyonRichard Landes
Thursday, January 07, 2021Elder of Ziyon
This morning, Thursday morning, armed settlers stormed the shrine and mosque of the Prophet Musa, between Jericho and occupied Jerusalem.Eyewitnesses stated that settlers stormed the shrine of Prophet Musa, heavily armed, with full protection from the occupation soldiers.The sources pointed out that settlers wandered around the shrine of the Prophet Musa and performed Talmudic rituals, and took pictures at the site.
Thursday, January 07, 2021Elder of Ziyon
The unveiling of a large statue in Beirut of an Iranian commander killed by the U.S. last year has sparked indignation among many in Lebanon — the latest manifestation of a growing schism between supporters and opponents of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah.The bronze bust of Gen. Qassem Soleimani was erected Tuesday by the Ghobeiry municipality in a Hezbollah stronghold near Beirut's airport to commemorate the slain general's supportive role in Lebanon's wars with Israel. Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s proxy militias in the Middle East, was killed in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad airport a year ago.Many Lebanese, mostly critics of Hezbollah, took to social media to lambast the celebration of a foreign military leader in Lebanon's capital. “Occupied Beirut,” tweeted one Lebanese, Amin Abou Mansour, who posted it with the hashtag #BeirutFree—IranOut.One Lebanese media personality said she received death threats after her criticism on social media of the new statue.The bronze bust about 3 meters (10 feet) high is located in a roundabout on a street named for the Iranian general and is linked to a highway named after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini — a reflection of growing Iranian influence in Lebanon.Giant posters of Soleimani were also installed along the airport highway and in streets and neighborhoods allied with Hezbollah, in some instances sparking angry reactions from locals.In the eastern Bekaa highway to the Brital area, unidentified men torched a billboard of Soleimani on Sunday, according to the local LBC TV channel.The following day, other portraits of Soleimani were burned north of Beirut in Nahr al-Kalb by men who brandished the portraits of Christian leader Bachir Gemayl, who was assassinated in 1982.
A senior leader of the Palestinian Hamas movement has offered an account of how in one tranche of cash aid, the Islamic Republic provided his group with $22 million back in 2006.In an interview with the state-funded Arabic-language news network Al-Alam, Mahmoud al-Zahar said during a visit to Tehran as Gaza’s foreign minister, he and eight other members of his delegation received the nine suitcases before departure from an airport in Tehran. “In the meeting, I raised with him our problems with salary payments and social services in Gaza,” al-Zahar said of his discussions with the former commander of Iran’s Quds Force who was killed in a US airstrike in Baghdad Jan. 3.“Soleimani was quick to respond to our demand. The day after, I saw $22 million in cash inside suitcases each weighing 40 kilos. Since it was only nine of us, we couldn’t carry any [more],” al-Zahar added, praising the Iranian commander as “a man of honesty and action.”
Abu Mujahid, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, a Palestinian group closely allied to Iran, who will participate in the ceremonies honoring Soleimani’s death anniversary in Qom, also spoke of support given by the late Qods commander to the “Palestinian resistance.”
“Martyr Soleimani…provided them with missiles that can destroy targets in the heart of Tel Aviv, Haifa and other cities of the Zionist regime,” he told the Tasnim news agency “When Haj Qasem delivered Kornet missiles to the Palestinian Resistance, a huge change was made in the deterrence balance in regards to Zionist regime.”
But not all Iranians are happy about this support of Hamas.
The Islamic Republic claims that the policy is a popular demand from ordinary Iranians, who share religious convictions with the resistance cause. This idea, however, has been openly challenged by many Iranians, especially since the country’s 2009 post-election protests. “No to Gaza, no to Lebanon! I sacrifice my soul for the sake of Iran,” they chanted. The slogan is rooted in the argument that at a time when Iran is suffering from multiple economic crises and sanctions, its own people ought to be prioritized. The same slogan was chanted with greater vigor and deeper fury eight years later in the 2017 economic protests and most notably during the 2019 nationwide unrest against a controversial plan to hike fuel prices.While the revelation by the Hamas official was no surprise to many Iranians, it renewed debates on how the Islamic Republic has over the decades increasingly sacrificed its people’s welfare for ideological ambitions and regional policies. “The suitcases that Soleimani offered to Hamas were filled with income from the very oil wells above which Omran Roshani Moghaddam hung himself due to poverty and his overdue salaries,” wrote human rights activist Dariush Zand in reference to a disillusioned oil field worker whose suicide scene back in June marked a moving paradox between Iran’s natural wealth and its citizens’ misery.“Just how many children working as garbage scavengers could have been saved with the very cash gift Soleimani gave Hamas?” asked exiled journalist Masih Alinejad, highlighting the growing malady of child laborers in Iran. “We could have bought 110,000 tablets for schoolchildren during the pandemic. One of them could have been Mohammad Mousavizdeh. He wouldn’t have to take his own life,” another user wrote.11-year-old Mohammad and several more Iranian children have committed suicide over their inability to purchase the required digital devices to join online classes.
Thursday, January 07, 2021Elder of ZiyonOpinion, Vic RosenthalVic Rosenthal's weekly column
I just watched an interview of the new Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely. She was interviewed by Colin Shindler, a historian and professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Shindler, despite his qualifications as a specialist in the history of Israel, displayed the typical bias against that country of most British academics, but Hotovely did an excellent job, demonstrating that a former firebrand politician can become a diplomat.
I found one question in particular interesting. Do you think, Shindler asked, that Israel’s recent normalization of relations with several Arab states will make war with Iran more or less likely? Hotovely’s response was that this was a positive development, and that it showed that Israel wasn’t the only country in the Middle East that was worried about Iran. But she didn’t answer specifically whether it made war more or less likely.
I suspect Hotovely thought, as I did, that it was unnecessary to add that of course it reduced the chance of violent conflict. After all, Iran’s attempt to expand her sphere of influence in the region, especially by trying to encircle Israel with armed proxies, is the typical behavior of an aggressor that will lead to war unless the aggressor can be deterred. And certainly an alliance between the potential victims of aggression has a deterrent force. So what on earth was Schindler thinking?
Here is another example: a recent CNN “analysis” included this: “Even if Biden is willing to return to the terms of the Iran nuclear deal, the case for diplomacy has been weakened by the Trump-ordered US strike that killed [Iranian General Qassem] Soleimani.”
Weakened? By killing Soleimani, Trump took an action that reduced Iran’s ability to take extra-diplomatic actions (read: terrorism or war). That strengthened the American negotiating position, making it more likely that the Iranians would make concessions. But the writer seems to believe the opposite. It should be obvious that achieving agreement in negotiations is much more likely when one side sees no alternative but to agree. If Biden wants to negotiate over Iran’s nuclear program, Trump did him a big favor by killing Soleimani and by applying tough sanctions.
I suspect it is a particular kind of illogic that seems to be common among those with a certain kind of historical ignorance, and in the case of Jews like Shindler, a certain psychological syndrome.
What motivates regimes? For good regimes, it is primarily the national interests of their countries; for bad regimes, it is the personal and political interests of the leaders. Motivations almost never include moral considerations or ideas of fair play or justice. Regimes are sometimes slightly influenced by fellow-feeling for their linguistic and religious fellows, as in the “special relationship” between the US and the UK, the Russian connection to other Slavic peoples, or the support for the Palestinians by fellow Muslims. But interests still predominate, and presidents, dictators, and kings get up in the morning and think about how they can promote them, and what might stand in their way. When an enemy backs down or shows weakness, they push forward. It would be irrational to follow suit in backing down, and usually they don’t.
A national leader has to play both offense and defense, in American football terms. They need to move their interests forward, while frustrating the designs of their enemies. Direct conflict is expensive and risky, so their offensive actions are usually incremental, and in proportion to what they can get away with. Defensive actions take two forms: direct defense, like antimissile systems; and deterrence, which is calculated to make the enemy’s possible offensive actions so expensive that they will not be justified in terms of interests. Both kinds of defense are necessary.
The Trump Administration’s strategy against Iran is classically rational. The high-level goal is to prevent Iran from taking control of the Middle East and its natural resources, and in particular to prevent the regime from getting nuclear weapons which would facilitate that takeover. This is accomplished by wielding the massive economic power of the US. The powerful American military functions as a deterrent against Iran’s using its favored weapon, proxy terrorism, in response. I have little doubt that if the Trump policy were continued, Iran could be forced to back down without open conflict.
The Obama Administration acted differently, either because it did not understand Iranian goals, or because its own objectives were not to frustrate Iranian expansionism, or because it was incompetent (or perhaps a bit of all three). Despite America’s enormous economic and military advantages over Iran, it negotiated as if from a position of weakness.
Israel today does not act with complete rationality for various reasons. For one thing, there is widespread disagreement about national goals. For example, as a “right-winger” I believe that it should be a national goal to achieve Jewish sovereignty over all the land of Israel, and that Israel should be the nation-state of the Jewish people. There are also Israelis that believe that Judea and Samaria should be under Arab sovereignty, and that Israel should be a “state of all its citizens” like the US; and there are Israelis who would take intermediate positions.
As a result, the (very democratic) Israeli regime has difficulty in implementing policy consistently, because it is pulled back and forth by various constituencies. From a military point of view, it relies too much on direct defense, like Iron dome and sophisticated barriers, and not enough on deterrence, which must be exercised from time to time in order to maintain credibility. But for various reasons, in part the fear of interference from outside powers, it is loath to do so.
There is also another issue, more of a spiritual problem: because Israeli Jews have lived so long in an antisemitic world, they are unsure of the legitimacy of their very existence. As Kenneth Levin explained in his book, The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege, Jews have come to accept the antisemitic judgment that their persecution is their own fault, and believe that they can influence their enemies by becoming “better” people. The effect is to prevent them from taking strong action when needed. Oslo Syndrome sufferers often echo the complaints of antisemitic Europeans and the “human rights industry.”
Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky hoped for a “new Jew” to replace the ones that cowered in the ghettos of Europe. Although they created a generation of Jews that were capable of fighting for their lives and to establish a state, it has been hard to repair all of the damage from the millennia of diaspora existence. Ben Gurion’s New Jews believed that they didn’t need religion, which they saw as part of the weakness of the old Jews. But the danger was that without it, once they succeeded in establishing a state and securing the Jewish people against persecution, they would forget why the Jewish people needed a Jewish state. And this has to a certain extent happened.
But there is also a new generation that represents a synthesis, Jews that are both strong enough to fight and spiritual enough to know why they need to. Call them “Newer Jews.” And the interview that prompted this post, which pits a member of this new generation of Jewish leaders, Tzipi Hotovely, against a Jew fatally stricken with Oslo Syndrome, Colin Shindler, is a good way to see the difference.
Wednesday, January 06, 2021Elder of Ziyonanalysis, censorship, conspiracy theories, elections, Freedom of Speech, Leila Khaled, Opinion, President Trump, twitter
As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C., we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy.This means that the account of @realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours following the removal of these Tweets. If the Tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked.Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.Our public interest policy — which has guided our enforcement action in this area for years — ends where we believe the risk of harm is higher and/or more severe.
A universal public healthcare system, which requires every resident to be covered by a healthcare maintenance organisation (HMO) and connected to a nationwide digital network, then kicks in.
Ran Balicer, chief innovation officer for HMO Clalit, said Israel has integrated infrastructures of digital data with “full coverage of the entire population, cradle to grave.”
“So it is easy both to identify the right target population and to create data-driven ‘outreach’ because this is something that is done as our everyday care routine,” said Balicer, who also chairs the government’s expert advisory coronavirus panel.
Administering about 150,000 shots a day at clinics and special facilities, Israel has prioritised over-60s, health workers and people with medical conditions. The city of Haifa offers drive-through vaccinations.
“I have been waiting to be liberated from this pressure, from the anxiety that’s there in the background all the time, to be free, to finally stop worrying,” said 76-year-old psychologist Tamar Shachnai. A week into the campaign she had already received a text message with instructions from her HMO, scheduled an appointment and got her first shot.
Shachnai was vaccinated at a centre in a Jerusalem sports arena where about 500 people had passed through by lunchtime. Towards the end of the day, about 20 younger people gathered outside the arena, hoping to receive the vaccine.
Israel has also added vaccination centres in Arab towns, said Aiman Saif, the health ministry’s coronavirus coordinator for the Arab community, following concerns about the low rate of vaccination among Israeli Arabs.
He said some Israeli Arabs initially appeared reluctant to be vaccinated and may have been put off by misinformation on social media, prompting Israel to accelerate a public campaign to combat “fake news” about alleged side effects.
Palestinian health official Yasser Bozyeh estimated that Palestinians would begin receiving doses in February through the World Health Organization’s vaccine scheme for poor and middle-income countries.
The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank and has its own health system, has also contacted private drugmakers.
Edelstein said it was in Israel’s interest to make sure the Palestinian population was also vaccinated and that he was open to discussing passing on any extra vaccines once Israel meets its own demand. Netanyahu’s office declined to comment.
“Palestinians,” the former Associated Press journalist and author Matti Friedman wrote in 2014, “are not taken seriously as agents of their own fate.” A December 19, 2020 Washington Post report, entitled, “Israel is starting to vaccinate, but Palestinians may have to wait months,” proves Friedman correct. The newspaper’s Jerusalem bureau chief Steve Hendrix and new correspondent Shira Rubi unfairly — and inaccurately — blame Israel for the failures of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Hendrix and Rubin write that “Israel, like many high-income countries, is moving quickly to roll out newly approved coronavirus vaccines,” but “next door in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the prospects for vaccinating almost 5 million Palestinians are far less certain, as financial, political and logistical hurdles could delay inoculations against the raging pandemic for months.” This “split,” the Post employees claim, “highlights the tense disparities between Israel and the Palestinian populations it effectively controls.”
“Few places,” they add, “offer a starker side-by-side example of the gap than Israel and the Palestinian territories.”
Yet, Israel doesn’t “effectively control” populations in either the Palestinian Authority-ruled West Bank or the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Nor is Israel responsible for their healthcare. In fact — although neither Post reporter mentions it in their 981-word article — the PA itself is responsible, per a signed agreement with Israel, for the healthcare of those living under the Authority’s rule.
Article 17 of the Oslo II agreement explicitly states that “powers and responsibilities in the sphere of Health in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be transferred to the Palestinian side.” Further, the Oslo Accords specify that “the Palestinian side shall continue to apply the present standard of vaccination of Palestinians and shall improve them according to internationally accepted standards in the field, taking into account WHO recommendations.” For nearly three decades, this has been the case — including with other vaccines.
It doesn’t get clearer than that.
The same group that always cites the Palestinian Ministry of Health now wants you not to know that it exists, is responsible for vaccinating its population & has rejected Israeli help. See this thread for key facts: https://t.co/GmnBe20xrs
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) January 6, 2021
Amnesty just wants you to hate Jews. https://t.co/7YulTFjAPn
The British newspaper The Guardian was criticized for a headline stating that Palestinians have been “excluded” from Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout. The January 3 headline states in full: “Palestinians excluded from Israeli Covid vaccine rollout as jabs go to settlers,” which was tweeted out from The Guardian’s Twitter account.
American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris tweeted that the headline was “malicious.” “Palestinians aren’t ‘excluded from Israeli Covid vaccine rollout,’” Harris wrote. “They rejected Covid cooperation w/ Israel. They’re in charge of own health care under Oslo Accords. They spurned UAE’s [United Arab Emirates] Covid aid -They’re awaiting millions of doses of Russian vaccine. An apology?”The Simon Wiesenthal Center similarly tweeted that the allegation that Israel is excluding Palestinians from obtaining COVID-19 vaccines is a “new anti-Israel libel.” “@guardian newspaper buries one inconvenient fact: Palestinian Authority is in charge of Palestinians in their territory,” they wrote. “It made NO request for #Israel for vaccine. Any doubt Israel would help if asked?”Malicious!
— David Harris (@DavidHarrisAJC) January 4, 2021
Palestinians aren’t “excluded from Israeli Covid vaccine rollout.”
-They rejected Covid cooperation w/ Israel
-They’re in charge of own health care under Oslo Accords
-They spurned UAE’s Covid aid
-They’re awaiting millions of doses of Russian vaccine
An apology? https://t.co/YouiU1gHA0
In a subsequent tweet, the Wiesenthal Center added: “Corrupt PA’s [Palestinian Authority] official policy no cooperation with Jewish state ever – bars sick [Palestinians] from Israeli treatment except top sick PA and Hamas officials.”International human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky tweeted that those criticizing Israel for not giving COVID-19 vaccines to the Palestinians should know that the “PA specifically asked [Israel] not to, as they want to themselves” and noted that “perhaps if PA wasn’t paying hundreds of millions $$$ in terrorist salaries, they could do this faster.”Corrupt PA’s official policy no cooperation with Jewish state ever – bars sick Pals from Israeli treatment except top sick PA and Hamas officials.
— SimonWiesenthalCntr (@simonwiesenthal) January 4, 2021The Guardian article does state later on that the PA “has not officially asked for help from Israel. Coordination between the two sides halted last year after the Palestinian president cut off security ties for several months.” It continues to say that “Israeli officials have suggested they might provide surplus vaccines to Palestinians and claim they are not responsible for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, pointing to 1990s-era interim agreements that required the authority to observe international vaccination standards.”To all those parroting the 'why is #Israel not giving #Palestinians #COVID19 vaccines':
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 4, 2021
1. Israel not obliged.
2. PA specifically asked not to, as they want to themselves.
3. Perhaps if PA wasn't paying hundreds of millions $$$ in terrorist salaries, they could do this faster.
The article also quotes an Israeli human rights NGO named Gisha stating that Israel still has an “ultimate responsibility toward Palestinians under occupation.”
A spokesperson from The Guardian said in a statement to the Journal, “The story in question reported the concerns of human rights groups, including an Israeli human rights group.”
.@piersmorgan @GMB
— NW Friends of Israel (@NorthWestFOI) January 6, 2021
Piers - Get your facts straight
Israel is NOT responsible for vaccinating the Gaza Strip
Hamas rules Gaza & the Pal Authority has ordered 4 MILLION Russian Sputnik doses for the West Bank & Gaza
Stop engaging in a modern day blood libel against Israel pic.twitter.com/TvnZv20url
Legislators in parliaments of several countries have echoed the false reports that Israel is barring Palestinians from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine in recent days.
Charlie Angus and Leah Gazan of Canada's left-wing New Democratic Party both repeated the misleading reports, with the former calling Israel an apartheid state and the latter saying Israel was "excluding people from being vaccinated based on discriminatory decisions and a clear violation of human rights.”
The false accusations were spread mostly by activists in the past month, but an article published on Sunday in the UK's Guardian headlined "Palestinians excluded from COVID vaccines and jabs go to settlers" exposed them to a much larger audience. Other news outlets had also tied Israel’s world-leading coronavirus vaccine rollout to the Palestinians’ slower progress on that front.
Under article 17 of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority is responsible for healthcare, including vaccines, for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has been vaccinating Palestinians in east Jerusalem. In addition, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein told The New York Times he had “no doubt” Israel would help the Palestinians, in an article published two days before the one in the Guardian. When the Guardian article was published, the Palestinians had not asked Israel to help.
The Palestinian Authority has ordered doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines and the AstraZeneca vaccine, and is expected to begin vaccinations in February. The PA is also participating in the World Health Organization’s vaccine aid program.
B'nai Brith Canada accused Angus of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories by sharing the Guardian article, a charge he rejected in a Facebook post on Monday.
Wednesday, January 06, 2021Varda Meyers Epstein (Judean Rose)Judean Rose, Opinion, Varda
Sovereignty is a dead issue in Israel for now, but maybe it
always was. The issue of applying Israeli civil law over the Jordan Valley and
Judea and Samaria comes up as regularly as Israeli elections, but never actually
comes to fruition. On September 10, 2019, however, it seemed the stars had at
last aligned to make sovereignty possible. That was when Prime Minister
Netanyahu announced, with only one week to go before elections, his intention
to apply Israeli sovereignty over all the settlements, beginning with the
Jordan Valley and then moving on to settlements in Judea and Samaria.
“One place that can have sovereignty immediately applied to
it after the elections is the Jordan Valley. The next government will apply
Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley.
“We haven’t had such an opportunity since the Six Day War,
and I doubt we’ll have another opportunity in the next 50 years. Give me the
power to guarantee Israel’s security. Give me the power to determine Israel’s
borders,” said Netanyahu, who added that there was an “unprecedented opportunity to apply sovereignty to our settlements in
the West Bank.”
We were to understand by this announcement that with
Netanyahu secure in office in Israel, and the Israel-friendly President Trump
in the White House, we would finally be free to do what we should have done in
1967: exercise Israeli sovereignty over all territory under Israeli control.
After all, this territory is Jewish indigenous territory and has been for
thousands of years. But the Jews had been dispossessed by one invading occupier
after another and the land had slipped out of Jewish hands, the Jews, dispersed.
Back in 1967, however, when Israel was once again attacked
by invading Arab armies, it looked like the end of the Jewish State. Instead,
Israel ended up liberating much of its ancient territory, but left the
disposition and administration of Judea and Samaria vague, in hopes that later,
they might barter the land for peace, something that was never to happen. This
has been a frustrating situation for many Israelis, in particular, those of us
who actually live in Judea and Samaria.
Those of us who live in Judea and Samaria, never felt this
part of Israel to be a commodity: something that could be traded away for
something else. To the contrary, we felt it an imperative to settle and build
on every part of our land: Jewish land. We never felt we had a partner for
peace, moreover, but instead a murderous rabble, looking for opportunities to
murder us, to murder Jews. Not that we thought it possible to give away our
inheritance, but even if we had, we understood that giving them land would only
encourage them in their bloodthirsty violence resulting in yet more dead Jews
for us to bury and to mourn, God forbid.
So the horizon seemed a bit more exciting when it seemed as
if, yes: this could finally happen:
this thing called sovereignty. Netanyahu and Trump would make it happen. Israel
would finally exercise sovereignty over this important part of our land and inheritance
as Jews
But it never did happen. First, the idea that we were going
to exercise sovereignty over all our territory was walked back. As I wrote in
August 2019, (Peace
for Peace or Sovereignty for Peace? Was Sovereignty Ever Really on the Table?)
it turned out that the goal was only “to create a Palestinian state on 70
percent of Judea and Samaria through the application of Israeli sovereignty to
just 30 percent of that land, effectively giving up another huge chunk of
Jewish land to the Arabs for good.”
And even that partial plan got suspended, thanks to the
Abraham Accords, when the United States promised the UAE not to support Israeli
sovereignty until 2024. The signatories to the accords assumed that by then,
Trump would be long gone from the White House. Anyone other than Trump in the
Oval Office was bound to be against the idea of Israeli sovereignty in Judea
and Samaria, effectively making the issue disappear off the table for good—though
some still hold out hope Trump will be in the running for the 2024 presidential
election.)
Still, it’s not fair and a little too facile, for Israel to
pin its hopes and aspirations on an American president. It’s not right because
the will to exercise Israeli sovereignty must come from the top: from strong Israeli
leaders. But our current Israeli leadership doesn’t care about this issue and now
and in the past, has had no will to discuss sovereignty except as a bargaining
chip for the enemy, or for the sake of pushing an Israeli election toward this
direction or that.
With this new Israeli election season upon us, some may be
wondering if the tried and true false promise of sovereignty might once again
be dangled before our eyes. But no, there are the Abraham Accords to tout, and
the—disastrous for Israel–results of the American election which means that the
White House will no longer be in Israel’s corner, plus the insistent need to
prove stellar handling of the pandemic. All of these red letter events: the accords,
the election, the pandemic, have shoved the issue of sovereignty into a faraway
corner, and have rendered it obscure and practically irrelevant.
Sovereignty will not soon again be an issue to lure Israeli
voters to the polls.
“I really doubt Bibi will push sovereignty. He didn't push
it in the last elections except as a little teaser; but essentially, when he
had the opportunity, he was not interested. And to the extent he dangled the
idea in front of his supporters, it was only because Trump was in favor,” said
Eugene Kontorovich who heads the International Law Department of the Kohelet Policy Forum, a Jerusalem
think-tank.
But what of the
changing of the guard? Why should it matter? Why doesn’t Netanyahu just do the
right thing and exercise Jewish sovereignty over all of Israel’s rightful,
legal, and holy land? “With Biden as president, I can't imagine Bibi opposing
him on this,” said Kontorovich "He doesn't care much about sovereignty
himself, and cares a lot about avoiding fights with POTUS. He likes things
quiet, and does not fundamentally understand the need for sovereignty.
Wednesday, January 06, 2021Elder of Ziyoncartoon of the day, humor
Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
