Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Cartoon of the Day: I'm just anti-Zionist

Continuing my series of recaptioned cartoons....

Generally when people speak about Palestinians in Jordan, they think about the majority who have full Jordanian citizenship.

They are still treated as not real Jordanians, and the native Jordanians regard them as people who will leave one day to live across the river. But they do have all of the benefits of citizenship.

However, there are a lot of Palestinians in Jordan who have no citizenship, no health benefits, and very few human rights. They are mostly the Palestinians who came from Gaza after the 1967 war.

Although UNRWA counts them as "Palestine refugees," they are not refugees by any measure. They came over voluntarily, well after the Six Day War, because they didn't want to live under Jewish rule. This New York Times article from November 7, 1967 says that even then, hundreds of Palestinian Arabs who couldn't leave Gaza under Egyptian rule were crossing into Jordan every day, and the reporter could not find one of them who said that the Israelis mistreated them.

How many are there? According to UNRWA, there are 158,000 - about 7%. But a census done in 2016 counted an astonishing 634,000 Palestinians who do not have national ID numbers.

This means that they are barred from the majority of positions in the public sector.

They are banned from many professions such as dentistry, engineering and law.

They need special work permits to obtain jobs in the private sector.

They have limited property rights. Up until recently, they could not own land at all.

They have limited or no services from the Jordanian National Aid Fund.

They cannot attend state universities or are forced to pay much higher fees than citizens.

They are ineligible for government health insurance, which means that any major medical procedure keeps them in poverty.

Even the ones born in Jordan are not eligible to become citizens.

There are more stateless Palestinians in Jordan today than there were Arabs who fled Israel in the 1948 "nakba."

Yet who even knows about this huge group of people? Who talks about them? Why is there such a discrepancy between UNRWA's estimates and Jordan's census in even counting them?

This is real apartheid against some 28% of the Palestinians in Jordan. Human rights groups are mostly silent.

And no one calls this "apartheid."

What President Biden Will Mean for Israel (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

As I write this, preparations are underway for the swearing-in ceremony of a new President of the US. Nobody truly knows what this will mean for us in Israel. Caroline Glick, who can be depended on to see the dark side – often, unfortunately, correctly – finds Biden’s appointments of numerous former Obama officials, some of whom are demonstrably anti-Israel, to be evidence that the new administration will return to the almost maliciously anti-Israel policies of the Obama Administration.

On the other hand, as Bret Stephens notes (in a masterful piece that I hope will be required reading for Biden and his people), the situation has drastically changed since Obama pursued his diplomatic assault on Israel. Everything is different (except perhaps the Palestinians). Israel, Iran, the Arab nations, and the situation in the USA have all undergone significant changes. The damage to American interests from continuing Obama’s policy today would be even greater than in 2008-2016.

But not all politics is rational, as history amply demonstrates. Bad regimes sometimes follow policies dictated primarily by the misapprehensions, prejudices or even obsessions of their leadership rather than the interests of their nations. The Obama Administration was one of those.

Indeed, its interpretations of the intentions of the Palestinians and the Iranian regime – which could be determined simply by paying attention to their words – were so far from reality that I often found myself asking, “stupid or evil?” Did American officials really think that the Palestinians would be satisfied with a peaceful state alongside Israel if only the right concessions were forced out of us? Did they really believe that the agreement with the Iranians would prevent them from getting nuclear weapons, or even significantly slow them down?

There was also an ideological element, a clear affinity of Obama himself to the Muslim opponents of Israel that was demonstrated by the speech he delivered in Cairo shortly after his inauguration. There was his comparison of the Palestinians to black Americans, one of the worst possible analogies. And there was his antipathy for our Prime Minister, which he famously shared in an off-mike chat with the French president. Taking all this into account, one can be excused for thinking that one of the deliberate objectives of Obama’s policies was to weaken and hurt Israel.

While these personal characteristics of Barack Obama do not apply to Joe Biden, he does seem to believe in the traditional (and wrong) principles of American Middle East policy, such as the primacy of creating a sovereign Palestinian state in bringing normal relations to the region. He agrees with Obama that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria are “illegitimate and an obstacle to peace,” a position that the State Department reversed under Trump.

American policy toward the Palestinians, going back to the Clinton Administration, has always been to provide ample financial aid to them and get Israel to make concessions up front, both territorial and practical (like freeing jailed terrorists). And Obama’s Iran policy was heavily front-loaded with financial benefits to Iran. One would think that professional diplomats would understand why this strategy failed over and over. Both the Palestinians and the Iranians have objectives that they cannot be paid to give up. Giving them presents only made them ask for more, and in both cases they used the money to pay for terrorism.

The non-professionals of the Trump Administration did understand this. They reversed course and applied economic pressure to both the Palestinians and the Iranian regime, in order to create leverage for negotiations. Unfortunately, the policy hasn’t been in place long enough to tell if it will work, but the desire to be “not-Trump” may cause the new Administration to end sanctions on Iran and re-fund the PA and UNRWA – making failure a certainty. Biden has already promised to restore Trump-suspended payments to UNRWA, the Palestinian refugee agency, thus continuing the decades-long growth of a hostile population of heavily indoctrinated, stateless welfare clients.

We can also expect a resumption of objections from the US against Jewish construction in Judea/Samaria and Eastern Jerusalem, joining the chorus from Europe. It wouldn’t surprise me if another unannounced but near-total freeze on construction will soon go into effect.

In more encouraging news, recent comments by Anthony Blinken, Biden’s nominee for Secretary of State, indicate that he doesn’t intend to reactivate the Iran deal immediately. Nevertheless, we should watch for any loosening of the Trump-applied sanctions on Iran as an indication of the likely direction the administration will take.

Israel has been engaged in a “war between the wars,” against Iranian installations in Syria. The Trump Administration did not interfere. I expect that attacks against these targets will be less frequent under the new administration. A warning sign will be if they stop entirely.

I had hoped that Israel would utilize the last weeks of Trump’s term to destroy the Iranian nuclear installations, perhaps even with American help; but apparently our PM and the IDF believe that their lower-level activities are effective enough that such an ambitious project wasn’t needed. We might regret this later; I will be very surprised if it happens under Biden.

All of the above is based on the assumption that the “moderates” in Biden’s administration, including Biden himself, will be in control. And here is where the real scary stuff begins.

Biden is 78 years old, older than any other American president at the time of his inauguration (Trump was 70 and Ronald Reagan was not quite 78 at the end of his second term). He certainly does not appear to me, admittedly a non-professional, to be at the top of his game … or worse. Even if he remains as president for a full term, it’s hard to imagine that he will be calling the shots. His vice president, Kamala Harris, is an unknown quantity in the area of foreign affairs. And there are strong forces that will be trying to exert their influence on the administration – unfriendly ones.

One is the left wing of the Democratic party, which supported Bernie Sanders for the presidency, and which is strongly anti-Israel. The other is the Obama organization.

When Barack Obama left the White House, he did not retire from politics and retreat to his home state, like so many other ex-presidents. Rather, he bought a home in walking distance to the White House, and transformed his highly effective campaign fund-raising organization into a social action group, with both domestic and foreign policy goals. It’s hard to believe that he will not try to exert influence over the new administration.

I believe that Israel will be able to work with an administration that is somewhat less friendly than that of Trump, as long as it is honestly interested in regional peace. Israel will present the evidence – which is overwhelming – that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons; indeed, is developing them now. Together with its new allies in the Arab world, it will argue that continued maximum economic and diplomatic pressure is the most effective way to stop Iran, short of war.

I believe also that Israel will be able to convince such an administration that the real reason for the lack of progress with the Palestinians is their refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state with any borders. We will explain that the development of Israel’s relations with other Arab states means that Palestinian sovereignty can be delayed indefinitely, until the Palestinians are prepared to accept the legitimacy of the nation state of the Jewish people.

But if the American administration undergoes a sharp turn toward the left, either as a result of a takeover by the left wing of the Democratic Party or from the influence of the Obama organization, we could see a return of Obama-era pressure for concessions, restrictions on our actions, and appeasement of Iran.

We’ve made a great deal of progress in the past four years. It would be a shame if it were reversed.

We’ll find out in the next few months.

-- Victor

01/20 Links Pt2: Israel’s Vaccine Triumph; Biden Changes U.S. Ambassador to Israel Twitter Name to Include West Bank and Gaza; Rachel Riley wins libel case against Vox journalist

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: Israel’s Vaccine Triumph

This lesson is the essence of Jewish identity. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik noted that “Israel,” the name given by the Bible to the chosen nation, originally belonged to the patriarch also known as Jacob. This, he argued, is no coincidence: Jacob, he pointed out, is the only biblical progenitor who is seen interacting not only with children but grandchildren. Drawing Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Menashe to him, the patriarch blesses them in the name of Abraham and Isaac, linking ancestors to descendants. We are all named for Israel because the original Israel, in joining generations, is our polestar; a nation that emulates his life cannot die.

With the coming of the vaccine, our forefather Israel was imitated in modern Israel. As Israeli seniors swarmed the vaccinations centers, one of them, Amnon Frank, expressed to the Israeli media what drew him there. “A grandchild without a hug is half a grandchild,” he reflected. “We haven’t hugged them since March.” This single succinct sentence captures the meaning of l’chayim; life is truly life when it is shared.

These two Israeli sets of statistics—the vaccination of the old and the perpetuation of the young—are two trends that are wholly connected with each other. A country that toasts l’chayim, a society that desires life, illustrates what life truly means. It ensures that grandfathers and grandmothers are written in the book of life, so that they are thereby able to embrace their grandchildren once again.

In one of the most famous of Talmudic tales, a group of rabbis beheld a Jerusalem devastated by Rome and wept, while one of their colleagues, Rabbi Akiva, laughed and stubbornly cited the prediction of the prophet Zachariah: “There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.” The story is cited as an example of profound faith, as indeed it is. But perhaps Akiva’s insight also is that the prophetic verse, joining grandparents and grandchildren, contained the secret of Jewish survival: A nation that reveres its elders and celebrates new life would outlast an empire that glorified war and death. In Israel today, Akiva’s seemingly preposterous prediction has come true, as the world discovers new meaning in the mantra am Yisrael chai—the nation of Israel lives.

I’m a so-called Palestinian.. I was born in Kuwait, now live in Israel on a permanent residency.. in this picture you see me getting my first covid shot..

How racist can Israel be to vaccinate a non-citizen Arab who is fraudenlantly claimed as a Palestinian refugee by PA & UNRWA https://t.co/OflSVLm4eS pic.twitter.com/ShwNmedjCU
— Mark Halawa - مارك حلاوه (@HalawaMark) January 19, 2021

Shumuely Boteach: Should Europe’s Jews move to Israel? - opinion

On Sunday, The Guardian reported the depressing fact that “almost half of British Jews avoid showing visible signs of their Judaism in public, such as a Star of David or a kippah, because of antisemitism,” according to a new study.

“The Campaign Against Antisemitism and King’s College London gave 12 statements that participants in the survey were asked to agree or disagree with,” The Guardian reported. “Twelve percent showed ‘entrenched antisemitic views’ by agreeing with four or more of the statements. The one that had most backing was ‘Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews,’ affirmed by almost a quarter (23%) of respondents.” That’s pretty sobering. But it gets worse. “Among the general public, a similar proportion agreed with one or more antisemitic statements put to them, pointing to a ‘deeply troubling normalization of antisemitism.’”

Is anyone surprised? The question is what to do about growing European antisemitism. Should Jews in Britain give up and move to Israel? On the other hand, making Europe “judenrein” is exactly what the Nazis sought through the annihilation of European Jewry, and should we give Hitler that posthumous victory?

Two of the greatest Jewish leaders of the 20th century had opposing views on this question.

Theodor Herzl concluded that antisemitism was unmovable, and the only hope for Jewish survival was the establishment of an independent Jewish state. He insisted on the necessity of using diplomacy to persuade the world that Jews have a right to self-determination in their historical homeland – Israel – and helped turn the centuries-old dream of returning to Zion into a reality.

Biden Changes U.S. Ambassador to Israel Twitter Name to Include West Bank and Gaza

The Biden administration on Wednesday reversed a change to the U.S. ambassador to Israel's Twitter account name to read, "the official Twitter account of the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza" after a Washington Free Beacon report highlighting the shift.

For a time on Wednesday, the official Twitter feed for the U.S. ambassador to Israel had its title changed to add "the West Bank and Gaza," territories the United States has for decades avoided taking a stand on due to ongoing peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. The title change sparked an outcry online, including among Republican lawmakers, and was quietly changed back to read only, "U.S. ambassador to Israel." The State Department would not comment on the initial change or why it was changed back to its original form.

Embassy officials have speculated that the title was inadvertently changed by Twitter due to a technical glitch when the accounts were switched from the Trump administration over to the Biden administration. The Free Beacon could not confirm the veracity of these claims.

"The U.S. doesn’t have ambassadors to any other disputed territory in the world. Singling out Israel, once again, is wrong," said Len Khodorkovsky, former deputy assistant secretary at the State Department. "Instead of building on all the progress that’s been made toward peace in the Middle East, the Biden administration seems to be reversing course toward the failed policies of the Obama years."

During the Obama administration, former ambassador Dan Shapiro was referred to in official communications as the "U.S. Ambassador to Israel."

While President Joe Biden has said he would maintain the U.S. embassy facility in Jerusalem—which former President Donald Trump moved in a historic policy shift—it is likely he will put greater emphasis on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which have long been stalled. Biden also will grapple with the last administration's decision to recognize the Golan Heights area along the Israel-Syria border as officially part of the Jewish state.

They switched it back pic.twitter.com/lhn8CsLHAC
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) January 20, 2021

The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) made headlines last week, when it announced it was cutting ties with Return Ministries, due to a breach of contract. But a closer look at the announcement reveals some head-scratching contradictions. Return Ministries, through its Aliyah Return Center in Israel, used the Jewish Agency’s 15-acre Bikat Kinarot campus to spread the gospel to lone IDF soldiers and new immigrants. We know this, because they said so in videos distributed to their followers. In an internal document distributed to the Jewish Agency board, however, JAFI claimed that Return Ministries did not engage in proselytization at Bikat Kinarot. The Agency says that Return Ministries only claimed to be engaging in proselytization, which is the breach that led to the termination of its contract with the group.

The JAFI statement says, for example, that accusations by Beyneynu (see: The Jewish Agency for Israel is Partnering with Evangelical Christians and “They’re not here just to pick grapes”) were “false” and that the Agency found “no evidence” that the group was proselytizing. At the same time, the Agency statement says “[Return Ministries] erroneously took credit in their media posts for involvement in areas such as Aliyah, specifically with proselytizing lone soldiers and new olim.”

In summary, the Jewish Agency appears to be saying, “Return Ministries didn’t proselytize, but they bragged that they did, and that’s the reason we ended their contract.” In that statement somewhere is also more than an intimation that my friend, Shannon Nuszen of Beyneynu, is a liar. Here is the official written statement from the Jewish Agency for Israel:

Return Ministries, through its Israel activity at their Aliyah Return Center, was found to have inaccurately portrayed our relationship with them at our Bikat Kinarot campus. They erroneously took credit in their media posts for involvement in areas such as Aliyah, specifically with proselytizing lone soldiers and new olim. We executed an examination of these flagrantly false representations during December 2020 and our leadership took swift and firm action, issuing Return Ministries a cease and desist letter, notifying them of the immediate termination of the partnership agreement in its current form. Return Ministries admitted this violation of our agreement.

The Jewish Agency then demanded Return Ministries remove all presence of Aliyah Return Center activity and employees at the Bikat Kinarot campus.

Our examination showed no evidence of any direct missionary activity. Yet the videos posted by Aliyah Return Center create a perception that is in direct opposition to the mission and values of The Jewish Agency for Israel and has unfairly entangled the organization’s work and reputation.

So there you have it: JAFI says that Beyneynu’s information is false and that no evidence was found to suggest the group was proselytizing. At the same time, the JAFI statement suggests the decision to terminate the contract was based on the information Beyneynu provided, in the form of video footage issued by the Aliyah Return Center, which Beyneynu found and sent to JAFI. These videos, says the JAFI statement, “create a perception that is in direct opposition to the mission and values of The Jewish Agency for Israel and has unfairly entangled the organization’s work and reputation.”

The reasoning here is so convoluted it beggars belief. The Jewish Agency severs ties because of evidence that Return Ministries portrayed itself as proselytizing to soldiers and new immigrants, and not because they actually did so. Perhaps that is because Return Ministries swears up and down to the Jews that it is not a proselytizing organization. They state that they do not and have not missionized any Jews. At the same time, they tell their followers that everything they do is in preparation for the Second Coming, which includes bringing the Jews to Jesus. Why, when apprised of this situation, does the Jewish Agency refuse to believe what they see in front of their eyes and hear with their ears?

Did they not even glance at the Return Ministries website, where this mission statement appears?

Here is where I would like to offer a few thoughts:

· An organization named “Return Ministries” is only going to be a missionary organization formed for the purpose of proselytization. It can’t possibly be anything else, as its name makes crystal clear. The belief is that Jesus can’t “return” until the Jews are saved.

· The Jewish Agency got caught letting the foxes run the henhouse. So now they’re engaging in a bit of CYA, terminating the contract while claiming the accusations of proselytization are false.

· If the Aliyah Return Center—there’s that word again: “return”—says it was proselytizing, and then trumpeted this fact to all and sundry on social media, why should the Jewish Agency believe otherwise (or even pretend to do so)?

If the Aliyah Return Center—there’s that word again: “return”—says it was proselytizing, and then trumpeted this fact to all and sundry on social media, why should the Jewish Agency believe otherwise (or even pretend to do so)?

Haaretz writer Allison Kaplan Sommer pleads the Jewish Agency’s tortuous case like this: "The decision to break with Return Ministries, [the Jewish Agency] stressed, was not because the group was conducting missionary work, but because it represented itself as doing so.”

To this claim that Return Ministries only “represented itself” as proselytizing and didn’t actually do it, I can only say, “Vas you dere, Charley?”

Which leads to my next point: why was what is clearly a missionary organization, left to run this Jewish Agency center for lone soldiers and new immigrants without any oversight? What in the world was the Jewish Agency thinking? (My best guess: free labor and lots of Evangelical shekels for the JAFI coffers.)

Will the Jewish Agency continue to work with Return Missionaries, albeit in a different capacity? According to the Christian Post, Return Ministries International Director Dean Bye finds this to be a real and plausible possibility. “As for the partner organization that has been persuaded to terminate agreements with us, we are yet to learn what all this entails but understand their ‘termination’ is only related to our Bikat Kinarot Campus agreement in its current form. As those who have committed our lives to God’s call to serve and bless Israel, we are prepared to work together on a peaceful resolution to the dissension that has been created,” said Bye, who continues, "We declare our continued commitment to Israel's Aliyah and Absorption, the Return and Restoration of God's people to their land. We pray that our relationship with the Jewish Agency for Israel will continue to grow stronger as truth prevails."

What, exactly, is the meaning of “termination in its current form?”

The termination of the Jewish Agency contract with Return Ministries, if it is indeed a termination, comes after the Agency worked double time to blame and defame the messenger: Beyneynu. Prior to terminating the contract with Return Ministries, the Agency threatened the nonprofit—dedicated to monitoring and raising awareness of missionary activity in Israel—with legal action: “Contrary to what is stated in your letter, Return Ministries has no involvement in the Jewish Agency's programs, and the Jewish Agency strongly [opposes] any prohibited missionary activity which is inconsistent with the Jewish Agency's character, goals and activities. Therefore you are hereby required to immediately cease your activity which contradicts the provisions of any law . . . The Jewish Agency will act in this matter to exhaust any right it has under any law, including against you personally . . . and will take every step necessary to charge you for any damage or expense caused . . .”

Note that the threatening letter says nothing about which laws were said to be broken by Beyneynu. That’s because Beyneynu broke no laws. Beyneynu did what it was created to do: raise awareness of missionary activity, in this case missionary activity occurring under the auspices (and nose) of the Jewish Agency for Israel.

The goal of The Aliyah Return Center, after all, is no secret. That goal is to aid in the fulfillment of “prophecy” regarding both the “physical and spiritual restoration of Israel,” a time when all Jews, God forbid, will come to accept Jesus as their messiah. Evangelicals believe all this will trigger his “return.” This belief is reflected in the name Aliyah Return Center, and its parent organization, Return Ministries. Beyneynu meant only to raise awareness of the inherent problem of the Jewish Agency working in tandem with an organization whose sole mission is to proselytize the Jews of Israel.

Instead of thanking Beyneynu for shedding light on the issue, and dealing with the problem, the Jewish Agency threatened Beyneynu. It was only when the story began to attract publicity that the Agency decided to cover its tracks by terminating its contract with the missionary organization. Why such a contract existed to begin with is, again, not difficult to fathom: free missionary labor, lots of missionary shekels, lather, rinse, repeat.

Beyneynu is taking it all in its stride. The termination of JAFI’s contract with Return Ministries is, after all, a victory for the organization and for Israel, on whose population the missionaries prey (no pun intended). Rabbi Tovia Singer, a counter missionary expert with Beynenu says he is “delighted that sound minds prevailed here. These are evangelical Christians who work in partnership with the Messianic movement and create a toxic environment. The wording of the Agency’s statement is simply ‘damage control.’”

Founder and Director of Beyneynu, Shannon Nuszen, also expressed satisfaction with the Agency’s decision. "I am pleased that in the end the Jewish Agency made the right decision to terminate this relationship. We are grateful for, and appreciate our non-Jewish friends of all faiths that stand with us. But, for the protection of the Jewish people it is the job of Jewish leadership to ensure that certain lines in this relationship are not crossed

"Beyneynu simply brought to light, through presenting the video evidence from Return Ministries themselves, that these lines were indeed being crossed at the Jewish Agency program. While it hurts that the Agency attacked our group through this process, I am happy to hear that in the end leaders made the difficult decisions that had to be made, protecting our most vulnerable Jews.”

Cartoon of the Day: Trigger warning

Continuing my series of recaptioning cartoons....

01/20 Links Pt1: As Trump exits, the full Mossad story on normalization into focus; Melanie Phillips: On Iran, it's groundhog day all over again; The many reasons Biden should not enrich Iran's rulers

From Ian:

EXCLUSIVE: As Trump exits, the full Mossad story on normalization into focus

As the administration of president Donald Trump exits stage left, it’s time to take stock of the four normalization deals that Israel has already signed.

But there is a crucial piece of the story that has not been emphasized.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, although the July-to-December 2020 wave of deals provided the historic photos, the turning point moments were back in 2017 and 2019, The Jerusalem Post has learned. Also, though, it has not yet signed an agreement itself, the key party was always Saudi Arabia.

Much of the de-emphasis of these points has to do with Mossad chief Yossi Cohen – whose acts were mostly shrouded in mystery until a major speech in July 2019 – who was leading the Israeli push by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

There have been multiple narratives about who really got the ball rolling between Israel, the US and the UAE, and about when was the critical turning point.

Of course, part of the complex answer is that each country in the Israel, UAE, US triad played its part.

Also, each of the countries that came afterward made its own contributions which helped form the order of who would be “in” during the Trump era and who would play “wait and see.”

But to properly understand what happened in 2020, Israeli intelligence sources would say that it is imperative to understand the behind-the-scenes role of Cohen and the Saudis and what happened in September-November 2017, and in July 2019.

Trump officials: Mauritania, Indonesia were next to normalize, but time ran out

The Trump administration was closing in on agreements with Mauritania and Indonesia to be the next Muslim countries to normalize relations with Israel, but ran out of time before the Republican president’s term ended, two US officials told The Times of Israel this week.

An agreement with Mauritania was the closest to being reached, with US officials believing they were mere weeks away from finalizing a deal. The northwest African country was identified by the Trump peace team led by senior White House adviser Jared Kushner and special envoy Avi Berkowitz as a likely candidate to follow the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in normalizing with the Jewish state, given that it once had relations with Israel.

Mauritania became just the third member of the Arab League to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1999, but severed ties 10 years later against the backdrop of the 2008-2009 Gaza war.

After the UAE agreed to normalize ties with Israel in August, Mauritania’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement offering tepid support for the deal, saying it trusted Abu Dhabi’s “wisdom and good judgment” in signing the accord.

Mauritania also has close ties with Morocco, which similarly established relations with Israel in the 1990s only to break them off several years later. The Trump peace team was encouraging Rabat to push its neighbor and ally to forge ties with the Jewish state.

The next most likely candidate to join the so-called Abraham Accords was Indonesia, the US officials said, claiming that a deal could have been inked if Trump had another month or two in office.

Melanie Phillips: On Iran, it's groundhog day all over again

When anxiety first surfaced that in Joe Biden the US would once again be led by a president who would be soft on Iran, some others attempted a positive gloss. Don’t worry, they said; in light of Iran’s appalling aggression over the past four years and the fact that the regime was now far weaker than it had been, Biden would be exceptionally stupid to cosy up to Tehran and re-empower this lethal threat to the Middle East and the west.

But with the Biden era about to begin, those fears have become even stronger. For the signals are all pointing towards the Democratic party’s cultural default of empowering evil people both at home and abroad and abandoning or actively trashing their victims. And against stiff competition from the world’s tyrants (China, North Korea, Russia), the Iranian regime is arguably the most dangerous.

In 2015, it was given a tremendous boost by the nuclear deal, brokered by US President Barack Obama and supported by (to their eternal shame) the UK, France, Germany and others. The fiction was that the deal would stop Iran from developing the nuclear weapons with which they had pledged to erase Israel and attack the west, because the agreement would bring the regime in from the diplomatic cold and thus transform it into a regular government.

The opposite happened. The deal funnelled billions of dollars into the regime, enabling it to increase its dominance of the region, repress its own people still further and continue its sponsorship of international terrorism. Far from stopping the Iranian bomb, the terms of the deal meant that at best it would only delay the Iranian nuclear weapons programme by a few years, and only assuming that the regime would not continue to cheat and lie.

It was actually a deal to facilitate the Iranian bomb and fund the regime’s genocidal and fanatical aggression abroad and tyrannical repression at home. It made Neville Chamberlain’s Munich agreement with Hitler look by comparison like an act of principled statesmanship.

Times of Israel reports:

The Trump administration was closing in on agreements with Mauritania and Indonesia to be the next Muslim countries to normalize relations with Israel, but ran out of time before the Republican president’s term ended, two US officials told The Times of Israel this week.

An agreement with Mauritania was the closest to being reached, with US officials believing they were mere weeks away from finalizing a deal. The northwest African country was identified by the Trump peace team led by senior White House adviser Jared Kushner and special envoy Avi Berkowitz as a likely candidate to follow the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in normalizing with the Jewish state, given that it once had relations with Israel.

The next most likely candidate to join the so-called Abraham Accords was Indonesia, the US officials said, claiming that a deal could have been inked if Trump had another month or two in office.

With a population of over 270 million, Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim country. That gave it “extra symbolic importance,” to the Trump administration, which maintained that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict need not be a hindrance to peace between the Jewish state and the Muslim and Arab worlds, a US official explained.

We have been told for years that Jared Kushner and Avi Berkowitz were neophytes with no diplomatic experience who cannot be expected to accomplish anything. Yet they managed to broker peace deals between Israel and four Arab states.

So certainly the new, seasoned diplomats in the Biden administration will find it trivial to finish the work done with Mauritania and Indonesia and get them to recognize Israel.

We will see if the experienced dinosaurs of Oslo can learn something from the nobodies who did more for peace than any previous administration. Or if they will go back to business as usual.

Jewish Voice for Peace writes on their Facebook page:

“Most Jews, including an estimated half-million Israelis, continue to choose to live in diaspora. Yet there is no name for the ideology that backs up the political choice to do so” — or at least there wasn’t, until Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz coined the term “diasporism.”
Kaye/Kantrowitz’s “diasporism” challenges two key Zionist assumptions: “first, that living in diaspora is an unfortunate lapse, unchosen and without value;” and “second, that true home and safety are to be found in the nation state.”
Instead of conceiving of the Jewish diaspora as “a problem to be solved by indoctrinating the next generation about their REAL home,” the ideology of “diasporism” celebrates our multi-rootedness and our ethnic and cultural diversity. It affirms our “right to be, and to fight for justice, wherever we are,” opening up opportunities to join with other diasporic peoples who oppose reactionary nationalism and “see borders as lines to cross.”
For Kaye/Kantrowitz, if there is a problem with Jewish life in the US, it’s not our estrangement from Israel, but “the narrowly prescribed options… for expressing and nurturing Jewish identity,” i.e. Zionism, antisemitism, and the Holocaust. If you’re looking for a diasporic home to express and nurture a Jewish identity beyond these options, JVP might be a great community for you!

You can see the appeal to the idea of "Diasporism" to anti-Zionists like JVP. It justifies their loathing for Jewish Zionists and Israel. It attempts to create a divide between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. It is an attempt to normalize their hate.

While I cannot speak to the original thinking of Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, as I have not read her book on the subject, JVP's formulation of "diasporism" is not a philosophy. It is a justification for the unjustifiable disguised as philosophy.

After all, Zionism doesn't preclude Jews living outside Israel. It doesn't say that Jews shouldn't work within their own communities for equality for all, or to fight against antisemitism. In fact, Israel gives resources to help Jewish communities worldwide.

The only real difference between Zionism and "diasporism" is that Zionism seeks unity among all Jews - the half of Jews who live in Israel and the half who do not - while diasporism seeks division between the two groups.

There is one simple way to show that diasporism is not a true liberal philosophy and is just hate hiding behind noble sounding words.

If diasporism is the ideal for Jews, then it must be the ideal for all groups who are outside the lands of their ancestors. If the ideal for Jews is to integrate into the nations they live in, then shouldn't Palestinians have that same right?

Where are the Leftist Jews who are agitating for Palestinians to have the right to live as equal citizens in Arab countries? Certainly most Palestinians themselves want that. The few times that Egypt and Lebanon allowed some to become citizens, Palestinians eagerly took advantage of the offer. But the standard Leftist opinion is that the Palestinians must remain outsiders in the lands in which they were born until they are allowed to "return," and that "return" is a human right that is more essential than equality.

Does anyone (outside Palestinians themselves) actually advocate "diasporism" for Palestinians?

Similarly, where were these "diasporists" when Jews were being expelled from Egypt and Syria and, even last year, Yemen? Does it only apply to Jews who are already comfortable in liberal western countries and not to Jews who actually have been under attack as Jews?

If the idea of disaporism isn't universal - if it applies only to Jews and only in the West - then it isn't a moral philosophy. It is nothing but an excuse for hate and division.

Steffi Hentschke, in German newspaper Die Zeit asks whether Israel is even a democracy. Its subhead asks that question explicitly.

Then we read the article.

Israel is making a name for itself these days because of its successful COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Three weeks after the first vaccination, around 1.8 million citizens - around 20 percent of the population - have been vaccinated. But this success cannot hide the fact that, 72 years after the founding of the state, Israel is in its deepest domestic political crisis. For the fourth time in two years , parliamentary elections are due at the end of March . In a recent study, 19 Western democracies were compared; nowhere else have there been so many elections since 1996 as in Israel.

You get that? Israel cannot be a democracy because it has too many elections.

Many in the country have long since doubted whether Israel is still a democracy at all . Thousands of citizens have been taking to the streets for months, criticizing the erosion of democratic structures. The focus is on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , who has ruled the country for 14 years.

Israel cannot be a democracy because the people can protest the Prime Minister every week without worrying about being arrested.

This makes him the longest-serving head of government in Israel's history - and the first incumbent to stand trial for criminal offenses, corruption, breach of trust and bribery.

Israel cannot be a democracy because its elected leaders aren't above the law and can be prosecuted like any other citizen.

Israel has no constitution. After the founding of the state, they could not agree on it, especially the first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was against and declared that as long as the majority of the Jewish people still lived in the diaspora, no stable constitution could be passed. Instead, basic rights with constitutional status were drawn up, which to this day form the foundation of the rule of law. These basic laws include the right to freedom of the press, the protection of minorities and the independence of the judiciary.

Israel cannot be a democracy because it has basic laws that include freedoms that no other non-democracies have.

The Supreme Court in Jerusalem takes care of compliance , a massive building made of sandstone with panoramic windows. Men in black robes hurry through the bright hallways, only the creaking of the soles of their shoes on the polished marble floors can be heard.

Israel cannot be a democracy because it has a judicial system that enforces freedom and democracy.

Do you see a pattern here? The very things that makes Israel a free country and a democracy are used to claim the opposite.

The article was also skewered in MENA-Watch.

(h/t someone on Twitter, sorry, didn't save it)

01/19 Links Pt2: MLK Proves Palestinian Intellectuals Never Cared About Human Rights; Tlaib Calls Israel a ‘Racist State,’ Spreads False Claims on Vaccinating Palestinians

From Ian:

Elder of Ziyon: Martin Luther King Proves Palestinian Intellectuals Never Cared About Human Rights

Historian and scholar Martin Kramer writes:
Not a year goes by without an attempt by someone to associate the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. with the Palestinian cause. It’s particularly striking because while he lived, no one had much doubt about where he stood. Here, for example, is the late Edward Said, foremost Palestinian thinker of his day, in a 1993 interview:

With the emergence of the civil rights movement in the middle ’60s – and particularly in ’66-’67 – I was very soon turned off by Martin Luther King, who revealed himself to be a tremendous Zionist, and who always used to speak very warmly in support of Israel, particularly in ’67, after the war.

Kramer goes on to show how King was an unabashed Zionist even though today the anti-Israel crowd tries to steal his legacy.

The Edward Said quote is fascinating, though. It seems to indicate that all of the good King did – all of the progress he made towards equal rights for all people – is worthless to Said because of this one position. Never mind that King’s position of support for Israel is entirely in line with his support for equal rights for all; after all, King saw the justice of having a Jewish state which in fact allowed Jews to be considered equals with other peoples in the world. But to Said, all of MLK’s legacy seems to be worthless because of his Zionism.

Further reading into Said’s writings show that this is in fact consistent. He addresses King briefly again in his memoirs, where he says:
Eleanor Roosevelt revolted me in her avid support for the Jewish state; despite her much-vaunted, even advertised, humanity I could never forgive her for her inability to spare the tiniest bit of it for our refugees. The same was true later for Martin Luther King, whom I had genuinely admired but was also unable to fathom (or forgive) for the warmth of his passion for Israel’s victory during the 1967 war. (141)

Said didn’t just disagree with these icons of human rights. He was revolted by them if they also were sympathetic to Jews and Jewish aspirations to self-determination.

Dr. King’s Clarion Call for Soviet Jewish Freedom Remembered on MLK Day

A 1966 speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. urging justice for the persecuted Jewish communities in the USSR has been reissued to mark the annual US holiday honoring the civil rights leader, who was tragically murdered in 1968.

The speech by Dr. King was delivered to the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry on what was billed as a “nationwide telephone hook-up” on Dec. 11, 1966.

On Monday, the National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry (NCSEJ) — a US NGO supporting Jewish communities in the former Soviet Union — distributed the speech online in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Day.

Opening his remarks with a famous John Donne quotation — “No man is an island entire of himself” — King said that these words affirmed “the interdependence and interrelatedness of mankind … particularly when we think of the plight of three million Jews in the Soviet Union.”

“Jewish communal rights are deprived by the Soviet government of elementary needs to sustain even a modest level of existence and growth,” King said.

King noted that while “Jews in Russia may not be physically murdered as they were in Nazi Germany, they are facing every day a kind of spiritual and cultural genocide.”

He argued that African-Americans could “well understand and sympathize with” the plight of Soviet Jews.

The naked pleading for domestic surveillance + censorship is breathtaking. The man manages to keep a straight face while drawing direct comparisons to 9/11.

How could this end badly? One timely example: America’s domestic surveillance apparatus was once directed at ppl like MLK. https://t.co/p59ZMGxIRC
— Kmele (@kmele) January 18, 2021

Anti-Semitic propaganda is not news

Accusing democratic Israel of committing "apartheid" against its Arab community, which enjoys full equality under the law and has been seeing an unprecedented rise in the number of working women (up 5%) and students in universities (up from 10% to 18%), while being highly represented among the country's doctors (17%) and pharmacists (47%), is patently absurd.

Finally, CNN echoes the outrageous position that Israel's identity as the homeland of the Jewish people, guaranteeing a Jewish majority and encouraging the "ingathering of exiles," should be considered racism. This reflects an attempt to apply globalist and racialist theories to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, fundamentally considering the world as an ethnic struggle between "oppressors" and "oppressed," and rejecting the very concept of religious and national identity – yet only when it comes to Jews.

B'Tselem attempts here to fawn on world progressive movements, creating an artificial parallel to the common trope of "white supremacy," by considering the Jewish affinity to Israel a form of "Jewish superiority."

The recent example of this "fashion" on social media to refer to "Jewish privilege" as a parallel to "white privilege" proves how anti-Semitic sentiments traditionally and still apply to these groups' credo. This is not only an insult to the historic yearning of Jews worldwide, but also to Israel's recognition and endorsement by the international community – in the 1920 San Remo Conference, in the 1947 Partition Plan, preceding Israel's foundation a year later, and on countless other occasions.

It is regretful that CNN has chosen to cooperate with the attempt to subvert Israel's very existence. Far from covering news, it cherishes distortions.

Israel is not an identity-free immigration hub; it has always been intrinsically bonded with Judaism as an inseparable part of Jewish existence while preserving equality under the law of all of its citizens, as is stated in its Declaration of Independence.

Cartoon of the Day: Genetic Jewish supremacy

Continuing my series of recaptioning single-panel cartoons...

From UN Watch (via email):

GENEVA, January 18, 2021 — Country speakers taking the floor today at the UN Human Rights Council showered praise on Lebanon during a mandatory human rights review that all UN member states undergo every five years. (See quotes below).

While the UN procedure known as Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is meant to scrutinize governments and thereby strengthen the basic rights and freedoms of their citizens, according to a UN Watch count, 89 out of 105 countries that spoke today at the UNHRC—85 percent—praised Lebanon for its human rights achievements.

This includes 54 countries that glowingly praised the corrupt Lebanese authorities for their human rights record, and another 35 that expressed some praise for the country's alleged achievements.

"It is shameful that only a very small minority of 16 countries used their allotted 1 minute of speaking time to apply scrutiny to Lebanon's human rights record," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an independent non-governmental human rights organization in Geneva.

"The vast majority—85 percent of the countries that spoke—turned a blind eye to Lebanon's torture by security forces, restrictions on freedoms of speech and press, high-level and widespread official corruption, criminalization of LGBTI status, and the government's ties to Hezbollah, a terrorist group that helped slaughter tens of thousands of people in Syria," said Neuer. "All of this was ignored."

Below is a selection of the praise expressed by 85% of the UNHRC delegates:

Bahrain: "We commend the tireless efforts by Lebanon in all fields of human rights."

China: "China appreciates Lebanon’s adoption of the National Strategy for the Prevention of Violent Extremism to combat terrorism and extremism, and protect people’s safety and human rights."

Egypt: "We commend the progress achieved in the field of human rights despite economic and social difficulties, particularly in the light of COVID-19."

India: "We commend the progress made by Lebanon since its second Universal Periodic Review, particularly its accession to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, and the adoption of the National Strategy for Gender Equality."

Iran: "Lebanon is fighting the pandemic despite all of the challenges, and this is commendable."

Iraq: "We commend the measures taken on the legislative and political front to improve the human rights situation and welcome their efforts against extremism and terrorism."

Jordan: "We hail Lebanon’s commitment to achieve and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms."

Kuwait: "Lebanon is a pioneering state in the field of human rights."

Pakistan: "Despite grappling with financial, political and security challenges, coupled with huge refugees’ influx, we appreciate Lebanon’s commitment to comply with its international human rights obligations."

Palestine: "We have taken note of the efforts taken by the government [of Lebanon] to promote human rights, and we urge Lebanon to continue its efforts to develop practical mechanisms for the promotion of human rights."

Remember, Lebanon has laws specifically excluding Palestinians from holding many kinds of jobs - and stopping many businesses from hiring them.

Lebanon does not naturalize Palestinians so they do not have access to health care from the state.

Lebanon has laws specifically banning Palestinians from owning property. They are not allowed to expand their dwellings in overcrowded, tiny "refugee" camps, some of which are built like prisons complete with watchtowers.

If there is any apartheid against Palestinians in the world today, it is happening in Lebanon.

And the UN Human Rights Council praises Lebanon's human rights record.

01/19 Links Pt1: State Department Cuts Ties With Islamic Charity Over Anti-Semitism; Wendy Sherman and the art of failing upward; Seven questions for Tony Blinken

From Ian:

State Department Cuts Ties With Islamic Charity Over Anti-Semitism

The State Department has cut ties with Islamic Relief Worldwide, an international charity that the United States accuses of spreading anti-Semitism. The public accusations represent a wholesale shift in how the United States approaches a global charity that was, until recently, an official partner of the American government and raked in hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars.

The State Department is "conducting a full review of the organization and U.S. government funding" due to the "anti-Semitism exhibited repeatedly by IRW’s leadership," Ellie Cohanim, the deputy special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, told the Washington Free Beacon.

IRW boasts a budget of more than $100 million annually and has a registered nonprofit arm in the United States. The State Department’s public reproach of the charity means that it will no longer enjoy the legitimacy that comes with a close relationship with the American government or be able to cash in from this stamp of approval.

Anti-Semitism watchdogs have been sounding the alarm on IRW for years. IRW was an official State Department partner in the Obama administration and, for a time, in the Trump administration, despite evidence the group’s senior leadership engaged in persistent anti-Semitism, including social media posts from the organization's senior leaders praising Hamas leaders and calling Jews the "grandchildren of monkeys and pigs." Israel has designated IRW as a supporter of terrorism. The outgoing administration’s decision to publicly chastise the charity sets down a marker for the Biden White House as it assesses U.S. humanitarian priorities abroad. The next administration could restore ties with IRW, though it is unlikely given the current State Department’s rare elevation of anti-Semitism claims against the organization.

"Now that the State Department has issued this warning about the anti-Semitic Islamic Relief, it would be a very worrying step back if the incoming Biden administration, like Trump, rejected European concerns and started to fund this dangerous charitable franchise once more," said Sam Westrop, a Middle East researcher and director of Islamist Watch who has documented IRW’s promotion of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Westrop described the Trump administration’s last-minute move as a severe blow for IRW, speculating the group stands to lose millions in funding from Western governments, the United Nations, and the European Union—all of which have contributed at least $100 million to the charity in the past decade.

Australian Government Probes UNRWA After Watchdog Report Reveals Antisemitic Educational Materials

The Australian Department of Foreign Trade and Affairs (DFAT) will investigate antisemitic and inflammatory educational materials used by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), after a report by an Israel-based watchdog organization, The Australian reported Monday.

“UNRWA has a fundamental obligation to remain unbiased and impartial while it delivers its humanitarian mandate,” a department spokesperson told the paper. “DFAT has reiterated to UNRWA the importance it places on non-discrimination, equality and neutrality in the education programs that UNRWA supports.”

Last week, the organization IMPACT-se, which monitors school curricula, released a report on racism, falsehoods, and incitements to violence in materials used by UNRWA.

Australia spent $8.39 million on UNWRA funding in 2020, the 19th-biggest contribution to the $921 million in total funds pledged to the organization. Last year the country reduced its aid allotted to the agency, following a similar move by the US in 2018.

“Instead of nurturing young Palestinians with the knowledge that they will need to lead satisfying and productive lives as citizens in a future Palestinian state, UNRWA is feeding their hearts and minds with the poison of racism and violent extremism,” said Peter Wertheim, CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, to the Australian daily on Monday. “It is time for Australia to look for new, more constructive partners through which to channel its assistance.”

Our recent report represents the first-ever audit of educational materials produced by @UNRWA. Sadly, what we found was a bevy of problematic content, all antithetical to the UN's vision, values and goals. Read the full report here:https://t.co/mXjRjieR5A pic.twitter.com/oWPW5nb3em
— IMPACT-SE (@IMPACT_SE) January 18, 2021

JPost Editorial: Gallant is right

The security fence and checkpoints on West Bank roads are not designed to perpetuate a regime where there is one superior and one inferior people, but rather to protect Israel from real-life terrorism. Anyone remotely acquainted with the Israeli-Arab conflict of the last century understands this.

Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the human rights organization B’Tselem, doesn’t understand this – and in a dramatic announcement last week, his organization declared Israel an apartheid state.

“The territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is governed by a single regime that works to maintain Jewish supremacy,” the organization stated. “In recent years, the Israeli regime has grown increasingly explicit regarding its Jewish supremacist ideology.”

It is because of this view that Israelis largely yawn at B’Tselem’s pronouncements, believing them to be so far from the truth as to be irrelevant.

The Jerusalem Post, unlike the Hebrew media, was one of only a few media outlets in Israel – all of them English – that reported on B’Tselem’s outlandish declaration, believing that the public should know what this group, trumpeted abroad as Israel’s “leading human rights organization,” is saying.

We do not believe, however, that B’Tselem should be given a blank check to peddle this pernicious lie in the country’s schools. Therefore, we support Education Minister Yoav Gallant’s directive to keep groups calling Israel an apartheid state out of the schools, a decision breached Monday when El-Ad delivered a Zoom talk to Haifa’s Hebrew Reali School.

El-Ad has both a right to his viewpoint and to articulate it. The state must by no means prevent him from expressing his opinion, but it need not provide him a platform. Gallant is not saying that El-Ad can’t express his opinion, only that state-funded schools don’t need to give him a bullhorn and an audience.

While some may say this is undemocratic, we contend it is just good common sense.

Would there be a Palestinian state if Israel lost in 1948?

I tweeted this fictional map on Monday, and it received a lot of attention.

If Israel had lost the 1948 war, there wouldn't be a Palestinian state in its place. The Arab countries would have divided up the area of British Mandate Palestine.

While it is an interesting exercise to guess who would have captured what part of Palestine...

...that isn't the point of the exercise.

If the Arabs had won, the area would have been picked apart by the Arab armies and there is zero chance they would have created a Palestinian state.

The tiny Palestinian national movement of 1948 would have also been stillborn, because Palestinian nationalism has from the start been a reaction to Zionism, not an organic movement of its own. Without Zionism, there was little to no desire for a Palestinian state.

Witness how little interest there was in a Palestinian state from 1949-1967, and how the 1964 PLO charter excluded areas under Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian control from its desired boundaries for a state - they coincided with what Jews controlled, no more and no less.

Can anyone seriously argue that there would have been a "Palestine" after 1948 if the Jews lost?