Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, February 05, 2021

Latest nutty rumor: Israel stealing oil, tourism dollars from Socotra island

Last year, a rumor started that Israel and the UAE were establishing intelligence listening posts on Socotra, a strategically located island at the base of the Gulf of Aden. There might be something to that rumor, since it makes sense - the UAE seized the island in 2018 and both they and Israel would gain a lot from being able to listen to signal intelligence of countries and ships in the region.

The latest rumor about Socotra is a little less credible.

From Middle East Monitor:

The Minister of Transport in Yemen's Houthi-led government, Zakaria Al-Shami, has claimed that Israel is looting natural resources belonging to the strategic island of Socotra, and has been enabled by the UAE.

"The Zionist regime, under the cover of the UAE, is operating in Socotra, looting and plundering its natural resources, and taking advantage of its geographical location, crude oil as well as medical and tourism capacities besides its other riches," he said during a meeting in the capital Sanaa on Saturday.

Israel must be excellent at logistics, able to clandestinely steal oil without anyone noticing. And hospitals!

Iranian media also spread this rumor. Big surprise.

02/04 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The vaccine blood libel; Piers Corbyn arrested by police over anti-vax Auschwitz leaflets; Spotify's neo-Nazi problem

From Ian:

Gil Troy, Natan Sharansky Explain Jewish Unity at StandWithUs Conference

Former Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky and McGill University Professor Gil Troy explained the meaning of Jewish unity on January 31 at the virtual StandWithUs 2021 International Conference.

Sharansky, who recently co-authored a book with Troy titled “Never Alone: Prison, Politics and My People,” said that when he was imprisoned in a Soviet Union gulag for nine years, he never felt alone because he knew that the Jewish people were with him. During his time serving in the Israeli government from 1996-2005, Sharansky knew that despite all of the various disagreements that went on, they all had the same goal of fighting for the principles of Judaism.

“You are never alone once you’re part of a Jewish family,” Sharansky said.

Troy said that in a recent conversation with Journal Editor-In-Chief David Suissa, he realized that the Jewish people now have a positive message: It’s no longer about simply being on the defensive against anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism; “We do what I call the Jew-jitsu… from never again to never alone, and that’s our message,” Troy said, adding that “we’re all together in this fight.”

Sharansky proceeded to explain how he came up with the 3Ds — demonization, delegitimization and double standards — to determine when criticism of Israel veers into anti-Semitism. He said he had heard accusations of Israel committing war crimes at U.S. universities during the Second Intifada; he even heard European politicians say that accusations of anti-Semitism are being used to censor criticism of Israel. Sharansky argued that he wants there to be plenty of room to criticize the Israeli government since “we are a democratic society which is full of self-criticism” and that he just wants to ensure that the “red line” isn’t crossed into anti-Semitism.

Where things stand with California’s ethnic-studies curriculum

For more than a-year-and-a-half, StandWithUs has worked tirelessly together with concerned citizens and partners to remove anti-Semitism, anti-Israel bias and other destructive ideas from California’s draft Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC). At the same time, we have pushed for the inclusion of positive education about anti-Semitism and the Jewish people. The stakes are extremely high because California public schools serve 6 million students, and the ESMC is likely to be used as a model in many other states as well.

As the ESMC receives increased national attention, we are providing an update about this critical challenge for California and the nation as a whole.

It is important to put this issue in context.

We face a massive statewide and nationwide threat: Extremists are shamelessly exploiting ethnic studies to promote hate and one-sided political agendas. We cannot allow hatred and ignorance about Jews and Israel to be institutionalized in American public education.

At the same time, we have a huge opportunity: The subject of ethnic studies is meant to give marginalized communities better representation in the classroom. The bill that led to the creation of the ESMC envisioned a “culturally meaningful and relevant curriculum,” educational standards guided by “equity, inclusiveness and universally high expectations,” and an “objective of preparing pupils to be global citizens with an appreciation for the contributions of multiple cultures.” These are goals we fully support for other communities and for our own. We can counter anti-Semitism and ignorance by teaching millions of high school students about the struggles and successes of the Jewish people.

The threat is amplified by the fact that a significant faction in the field of ethnic studies, represented by the Critical Ethnic Studies Association, institutionally promotes anti-Zionism and discriminatory boycotts against Israel. Too often, this faction engages in outright anti-Semitism by framing Jews as “white, privileged, colonial oppressors.” This is why, in September 2020, a program within San Francisco State University’s College of Ethnic Studies hosted an anti-Semitic event shamelessly glorifying convicted terrorist Leila Khaled. It is also why the first draft of the ESMC was so deeply problematic.

Melanie Phillips: The vaccine blood libel

That horror originated in medieval England with the accusation that Jews murdered Christian children to drink their blood, a demented fabrication which directly incited the murder of countless thousands of Jews. And there have been many other instances over the centuries of baseless accusations levelled against the Jews for spreading disease, notably when Jews were blamed for outbreaks of plague as a result of which thousands of Jews were slaughtered.

Today’s vaccine libel sits squarely within that horrific trajectory. For it promotes the grotesque lie that the Jews of Israel are deliberately helping cause the spread of disease and death among the Palestinians by refusing to make available to them a life-saving vaccine.

This not only weaponises yet another lie to demonise and delegitimise Israel. More fundamentally and devastatingly, it presents Israeli Jews as evil. It denies the fact that Israel is the most humane and moral country in the world, not least in the consideration it repeatedly extends to its Palestinian neighbours who never stop trying to murder its citizens and colonise its land. Instead, the vaccine blood libel suggests that Israeli Jews are devoid of compassion, empathy or moral sense and would callously cause the Palestinians to die from Covid-19.

And that is is one of the reasons why antisemitism isn’t just “another kind of racism,” as it is so ignorantly and often described, but is uniquely malevolent and murderous. For it presents the Jews as evil, a blight on humanity, a mortal threat to the rest of the world. In doing so, antisemitism incites the obvious impulse to eradicate such an evil, which has resulted over the centuries in countless massacres, pogroms and eventually the Nazi attempt to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth. And presenting Israeli Jews as similarly evil fuels exactly the same impulse to destroy them.

The claim is often made that the venomous falsehoods about Israel are not antisemitic but merely legitimate criticism of its policies. Well, the vaccine blood libel graphically demonstrates that this is not so. It is instead the latest, foul iteration of the attempt to demonise and destroy the Jews.

As the eternal people, the Jews will survive this. The society which gives rise to it will not.

Cartoon of the Day: Bad investment advice

Continuing my series of recaptioning cartoons....

Fringe Parties Warn Israeli Democracy In Peril If Fringe Parties Kept Out Of Power (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Knesset Tel Aviv, February 4 - Political groups at the extremes of Israeli society with a small following cautioned today that the representative, accountable nature of the country's political system risks collapse unless those groups exert some control over the government.

In advance of another round of parliamentary elections this coming March, parties at both far ends of Israel's political spectrum issued dire warnings that the democratic future of the country hangs in the balance: representatives of each party insisted that unless his or her tiny minority calls the shots, Israel can kiss its democratic status goodbye.

"We are the defenders of democracy," stated Meretz legislator Michal Rozin. "If we remain at our current number of seats - just a handful out of the 120 in the Knesset, corresponding to perhaps 100,000 votes - then democracy will die an even swifter death than we have warned is happening for the two decades since we last held real power. Failing to include Meretz in whichever coalition emerges in the next few months will sound the death knell for Israel as a democratic state, for at least the fortieth time in the last ten years. Israel can't call itself a democracy if it doesn't let a hundred thousand voters set policy for the other 4.5 million."

At the other end of the political spectrum, far-right activist Itamar Ben-Gvir asserted that only adopting his fringe group's agenda can the country stave off the collapse of its political system. "The challenge of our time is that, perversely, to save democracy, we must destroy it," he explained. "Some of my colleagues would like to see Arab citizens of Israel disenfranchised outright, but it might not be strictly necessary to save our democracy by limiting participation in it to people who agree with us. We also have the option of inducing non-Jews to leave and thereby forgo their right to vote. It's also a more feasible practical step, given the dominance the fringe Left has in such institutions as academia, media, and the court system. Just don't call us Kahanist! We've rebranded since the 1980's and now we identify as an oppressed minority."

Observers see parallels between the phenomenon and reactions among conservatives in the US following the failed reelection attempt by President Donald Trump. "We're seeing some of the same arguments," noted commentator Hanan Crystal. "Apparently, earning a number of votes insufficient to obtain genuine clout means that those who did vote for you are now 'disenfranchised' or 'marginalized' in some way. You're nobody today if you're not marginalized. It's what's fashionable."

02/04 Links Pt1: The Return of the Peace Processors; The U.N. Refugee Agency With Few Actual Refugees; The Palestinian Arabs demand Big Ben back

From Ian:

The Return of the Peace Processors

The establishment conversation on Israel and its neighbors has been dominated for more than 30 years by members of a guild referred to as the peace processors. The foundational premises that animate the guild's work in the Middle East have been shown, repeatedly and consistently, to be simply wrong. The reaction of the peace processors to the repeated failures of the real world to live up to their expectations speaks to an intellectual community that is blind to the realities of Middle East politics.

Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, we were told, was going to lead to an explosion of violence across the Muslim world, but nothing of the sort happened. A fence separating Israel from the West Bank was said to be doomed to fail because it didn't address the real motivations of suicide bombers, yet after the fence was built, suicide bombing dwindled. By achieving autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the Oslo Accords were supposed to lead to a reduction in violence. Instead they led almost instantly to a massive increase in violence.

Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank is said to be killing the peace process and that "time is running out" for a two-state solution. Yet the number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank remained largely unchanged and the amount of West Bank land built up remained between 1.5 and 2%. Moreover, the demographic balance between Israelis and Palestinians didn't change. Just as the number of Jews in the West Bank grew, so too did the number of Arabs.

Richard Goldberg: The U.N. Refugee Agency With Few Actual Refugees

In 2012, then- Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois tried to answer this question. His amendment to an annual spending bill demanded an estimate of people receiving Unrwa services who were actually displaced by the 1948 war. The Obama administration delivered a classified answer in 2015. The State Department guarded the secret, even during the Trump years—until Mr. Pompeo’s tweets.

“Unrwa is not a refugee agency; it’s estimated <200,000 Arabs displaced in 1948 are still alive and most others are not refugees by any rational criteria,” Mr. Pompeo tweeted. “Taxpayers deserve basic truths: most Palestinians under UNRWA’s jurisdiction aren’t refugees, and UNRWA is a hurdle to peace. America supports peace and Palestinian human rights; UNRWA supports neither. It’s time to end UNRWA’s mandate.”

President Biden reportedly intends to restore funding to the agency. Some questions he needs to answer: Should America support more than five million people through a refugee agency if fewer than 200,000 of them are refugees? Why should the State Department’s refugee bureau oversee Unrwa if the majority of its registry are not refugees?

Since most people registered with Unrwa are citizens or permanent residents of another country—such as Jordan—or currently reside within the borders of a future Palestinian state, Congress should work with the administration to find bilateral solutions. America can still assist the remaining 200,000 refugees while supporting others outside the Unrwa framework.

Remarkably, there are no technical teams from the U.S. Agency for International Development or other federal agencies designing programs, projects, or budgets to help Palestinians registered with Unrwa achieve economic independence. In other words, there are no plans to improve their lives. That needs to change.

American oversight of the U.N. must also change. When the U.S. contributes to U.N. agencies, it often takes a seat on the board to exercise basic oversight. Unrwa, however, has no board of governors and no oversight.

It took more than eight years, but we finally got the truth: Less than 5% of those on Unrwa’s registry are refugees. This means Unrwa is not a refugee agency, but something else entirely. That demands a bipartisan policy to halt the abuse of taxpayer funding.

Gerald M. Steinberg: A Pragmatic Peace for Israelis and Palestinians

For more than 70 years, peace between Palestinians and Israelis has eluded the most dedicated and experienced negotiators. Grand plans that focus exclusively on Palestinian perspectives, and downplay deeply embedded Israeli insecurity, including the growing Iranian threat, have no chance of success. And there is no value in presenting proposals that fail to consider the deep conflict between Hamas and Fatah, or the lack of a Palestinian leadership capable of reaching a historic compromise. The Palestinians and their supporters claim that the establishment of a sovereign state in which the Jewish people are the majority, with Jewish symbols, violates their rights. For Israelis, the injustices began with the Arab rejection of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, followed by an invasion aimed at "throwing the Jews into the sea," denying 4,000 years of Jewish history in this land, including Jerusalem. Palestinians have the potential for realizing the benefits of peace and cooperation, but this will require a willingness to let go of the goal of reversing the establishment of Israel. New leadership focused on improving the lives of Palestinians is necessary. To avoid doing harm, and to make lasting contributions, peacemakers should focus on steps that promote cooperation, rather than adding to the conflict.

Ma'an reports that the Palestinian minister of health, Dr. May Al-Kailla, announced the arrival of 10,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik vaccine to the Ministry of Health.

The vaccines arrived at Ben Gurion Airport this morning and are being transferred from Israel to the Palestinian health officials later today.

In a statement on official Palestinian radio, Al-Kaila said that the PA has purchased two million doses from Russia. This is in addition to "donations from friendly countries and institutions supporting our people and Palestinian communities," which probably refers to the COVAX mechanism.

She said that the first major shipment of the Sputnik-V vaccine will arrive between February 14-20.

A lot of the news about vaccines to the Palestinians has been contradictory and confusing, with rumors being reported as fact. I even saw one article blaming Israel for blocking vaccines, using the Paris Protocol as an excuse, yet this delivery of Russian vaccines proves that this was not true.

Meanwhile, Hanan Ashrawi went on RT to say that Israel is guilty of "apartheid" for not giving Palestinians free vaccines at the expense of Israelis. Now that she is no longer part of the government, she doesn't have to worry about mentioning the small fact that the PA never requested vaccines from Israel besides the 5000 doses that were delivered this week.

The political rhetoric on Wednesday between Republicans and Democrats made it crystal clear that Jewish lives don't matter in America. We are just cannon fodder in the never-ending and often stupid partisan fighting between the major political parties.

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is a conspiracy theory spouting nutcase who embraces antisemitism as one of her many insane beliefs. She was in the news last week after a 2018 Facebook post surfaced where she blames California wildfires on a conspiracy partially hatched by "Rothschild Inc." She has shared a video that says that quotes a Holocaust denier saying that “[A]n unholy alliance of leftists, capitalists and Zionist supremacists has schemed to promote immigration and miscegenation, with the deliberate aim of breeding us out of existence in our own homelands.” And she has a range of crazy conspiracy theories about George Soros that go way beyond his financial support for leftist causes and enter the realm of the Jewish puppetmaster controlling the world.

She doesn't belong in Congress, let alone as a member of important Congressional committees.

Yet yesterday, instead of stripping her of her powers in Congress, Republicans did nothing but condemn her crazed statements - which requires no political courage at all - and then said that evil Democrats are worse, anyway.

Here is House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy's full statement:

“Past comments from and endorsed by Marjorie Taylor Greene on school shootings, political violence, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories do not represent the values or beliefs of the House Republican Conference. I condemn those comments unequivocally. I condemned them in the past. I continue to condemn them today. This House condemned QAnon last Congress and continues to do so today.

“I made this clear to Marjorie when we met. I also made clear that as a member of Congress we have a responsibility to hold ourselves to a higher standard than how she presented herself as a private citizen. Her past comments now have much greater meaning. Marjorie recognized this in our conversation. I hold her to her word, as well as her actions going forward.

“I understand that Marjorie’s comments have caused deep wounds to many and as a result, I offered Majority Leader Hoyer a path to lower the temperature and address these concerns. Instead of coming together to do that, the Democrats are choosing to raise the temperature by taking the unprecedented step to further their partisan power grab regarding the committee assignments of the other party.

“While Democrats pursue a resolution on Congresswoman Greene, they continue to do nothing about Democrats serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee who have spread anti-Semitic tropes, Democrats on the House Intelligence and Homeland Security Committee compromised by Chinese spies, or the Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee who advocated for violence against public servants.

“In the end, this resolution continues to distract Congress, especially given the limited time that Speaker Pelosi and the Democrat leadership want the House to debate and work, on what it needs to focus on: getting Americans back to work, getting kids back to school, and providing vaccines to all Americans who need it.”

This is a long-winded attempt to take no responsibility for Greene's antisemitism and then deflect it by saying that Democrats are politicizing it.

Are they? You bet they are. The Democrats are guilty of the exact same papering over of antisemitism from their own members as the Republicans are. Representative Ilhan Omar is still a member of major Congressional committees after saying that Jewish money controls the United States and Jewish Americans are guilty of dual loyalty.

And, just like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Omar avoids using the word "Jew" in a pathetic attempt to pretend that she is not targeting Jews. Democrats pretend that attacks on "Zionists" using age-old antisemitic tropes are not dog whistles for classic antisemitism.

So the Republicans, instead of acting like adults and marginalizing Greene, did literally nothing - and used Greene as an excuse to call Democrats antisemitic.

The response from the Democrats was to push their own resolution to strip Greene from her committee assignments. Which would be appropriate - except that their own actions in 2019 show that there is nothing ethical about their supposed horror at Greene's remarks. That is when, instead of condemning Ilhan Omar's antisemitic statements and taking away her own committee assignments, they pushed a watered down, meaningless resolution that condemned "hate" - a resolution that Omar herself could vote for.

Democrats and their allies went even further, not only trivializing antisemitism. Twitter was filled with the accusation that those attacking Omar are racist and Islamophobic.

Both Democrats and Republicans circled the wagons around their own antisemites while claiming that the other side was antisemitic.

The bottom line is that Jews cannot rely on either political party to protect them in America. Both parties claim to be against antisemitism - yet when it comes to actions beyond rhetoric, both parties will actively defend the antisemitism of their members.

Both Democrats and Republicans are trying to woo the Jewish vote and Jewish money by shouting how much they support Jews and Israel, how much they hate antisemites and Nazis and white supremacists. When the chips are down, though, they both are willing to throw Jews under the bus to protect their own antisemitic bigots.

The clear message to Jews in America is that we are on our own.

Arab League meeting in 1957

In 1965, the Arab League issued The Casablanca Protocol which said, among other things, that Palestinians in any Arab state must be able to obtain jobs without any restriction, like any citizen of those nations. Arab nations could not discriminate against Palestinians.

Then you look at the fine print.

Kuwait added a reservation saying that private Kuwaiti businesses can discriminate against Palestinian employees.

Lebanon said that they would only honor this rule "in accordance with prevailing social and economic conditions" - meaning, if the economy is bad by any definition, Palestinians are last in line to get jobs.

Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Tunisia never signed the protocol to begin with!

Then, in 1991, the protocol was further watered down. "An amendment to a resolution passed at the 46th Session of the Arab League Conference of Supervisors of Palestinian Affairs held in August allows member states to observe the 1965 Casablanca Protocol in accordance with their national laws."

Which means that any Arab nation can pass a law that contradicts the Casablanca Protocol and it becomes meaningless. Which is exactly what was done in Lebanon.

This is the sort of thing that, had Israel done it to Arab citizens of Israel, there would be thousands of academic papers and op-eds denouncing this discrimination.

But Arab countries discriminating against Palestinians?

Yawn.

(h/t Irene)

02/03 Links Pt2: Bernard-Henri Levy: A Letter to the American President: The Killer of Daniel Pearl Must Not Go Free; Sarah Wilkinson, the Holocaust denying star of anti-Israel activism

From Ian:

Bernard-Henri Levy: A Letter to the American President: The Killer of Daniel Pearl Must Not Go Free

Mr. President,

I am one of those still living who has most extensively investigated the abduction and decapitation, in February 2002, of your fellow American, Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.

After the killing, I conducted research and interviews in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar, which led the 2003 publication of my book Who Killed Daniel Pearl?

In it I gave the name of the man who held the knife, four years before his confession in a special court in Guantanamo: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was al-Qaida’s No.3 man and the probable architect of the Sept. 11 attacks.

But, above all, I retraced in detail the machinations that drew Pearl to the Akbar Hotel in Rawalpindi; that lured and deceived him through a series of emails promising him an interview with Mubarak Ali Gilani, leader of the Jamaat ul-Fuqra and one of the inspirations for the founding of al-Qaida; and that finally led him, deep into Karachi’s Gulzar-e-Hijri neighborhood, to an isolated house in which Fazal Karim, Naeem Bukhari, and others were waiting to murder him.

I arrived, then, at the firm conclusion that the brain behind the operation, the man who conceived it with an almost diabolical zeal, the one who served as the link between the various jihadist factions that cooperated to pull it off, was Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British Pakistani who was immediately arrested, convicted, and imprisoned.

Moreover, I adduced proof that this man, Omar Sheikh, was no ordinary criminal but rather an influential member of a galaxy of terrorist organizations that gravitated around al-Qaida. Educated at the London School of Economics, he had been Osama bin Laden’s financial adviser and bin Laden referred to him as his “favorite son.”

David Collier: Sarah Wilkinson, the Holocaust denying star of anti-Israel activism

There is no goodwill

So remember all this the next time you see an attack on a Jewish or Israeli business led by a group such as Palestine Action or Extinction Rebellion. Think of the twisted ideologies of those behind the masks. Either they share antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial or don’t care if their fellow activists do.

And if a Holocaust denying, antisemitic conspiracy theorist is acceptable to JVP, the PSC, Palestine Action or Tikkun Olum – then what or who isn’t? Holocaust Denial and racism against Jews does not matter to them. There is a cause, Sarah Wilkinson is valuable to the cause – if she is a toxic antisemite, well then, they can look past that. They even get to benefit from the extra motivation this provides.

100s came out to support Wilkinson. And those that follow her do not seem to care either. A sitting member of the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee, when informed about Wilkinson’s antisemitism by a campaigner, chose to block the campaigner rather than unfollow Wilkinson.

This is why those on our side, who still think through prisms of ‘fair play’ and ‘moderates’, keep getting it wrong. There is no goodwill on the other side. Stop pretending it is there. This is not about settlements or Gaza. It is ALL about the very existence of the Jewish state. A Holocaust denying antisemite is helping to lead the charge against British Jews and NOT ONE of the pro-Palestinian organisations will publicly distance themselves from her.

In case anyone had any doubt Sarah, who took part in Pal Action's factory vandalism, is a seriously disgusting, lying antisemite.

According to this women we are evil incarnate.
(disturbing content)@GnasherJew @mishtal @GillianLazarus @jobellerina @SussexFriends @emmacpicken pic.twitter.com/KzDW4R8GcQ
— Yonatan יונתן يوناتان (@__jacker__) February 2, 2021

CAA submits evidence to Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights to counter claims that International Definition of Antisemitism restricts freedom of expression

Campaign Against Antisemitism has submitted evidence to Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights to counter claims that adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism, especially by universities, stifles freedom of expression.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights comprises members drawn from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and examines matters relating to human rights. One of its current inquiries is into freedom of expression.

The campaign to encourage universities to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism has encountered opposition on the basis that adoption somehow stifles freedom of expression, but this argument does not have merit, and the evidence that we have submitted lays out in detail why this is the case. “The claim that adoption of the Definition conflicts with the duty on universities to protect free speech is a familiar and flawed argument, notwithstanding its persistence,” our letter says.

The letter proceeds to analyse the difference between speech that is ‘merely’ insulting or offensive, and speech that is antisemitic, and the implications for whether those types of speech are protected under Article 10 of the European Charter of Human Rights.

We also cite the legal opinion, produced for us in 2017 by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar QC and Jeremy Brier, which argued that “this Definition should be used by public bodies on the basis that it will ensure that the identification of antisemitism is clear, fair and accurate” and emphasised that “Criticism of Israel, even in robust terms, cannot be regarded as antisemitic per se and such criticism is not captured by the Definition.”

Cartoon of the Day: Double standards are woke

Continuing my series of recaptioning old cartoons...

The Iran Policy Shipwreck (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

The other day YouTube decided that I wanted to see a compendium of large ships crashing into each other or into docks, cranes, and other installations. What impressed me was the unavoidability of the crashes: the ships moved ponderously, inexorably, toward their fates as tiny humans scuttled around on the decks, horns blowing with great urgency (I imagine the ship’s captains shouting “Full astern!”), but all for nothing when the almost irresistible force of the ship meets the almost immovable object of its nemesis in a crescendo of crushing, grinding, and snapping.

Whew. And this reminded me of the situation with Iran. The Iranians have ramped up their production of enriched uranium and activated advanced centrifuges in their Natanz facility, and they are threatening to kick out IAEA inspectors on 26 February. They are telling US officials that if they want to reenter the (worthless) deal, they’d better hurry and start removing sanctions while there is still time. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, for his part, is demanding that the Iranians first “return to compliance,” although what that would mean in practice considering the progress they have made is unclear.

What is becoming clear is that the Biden Administration is dead set on a course of returning to the deal, although Blinken, at least, wants to renegotiate it. On the other hand Robert Malley, President Biden’s choice for Special Envoy to Iran, wants to jump back in to the deal as it was when President Trump took the US out of it. Malley’s think tank published a position paper a few days ago, which contained this:

The Biden administration should pursue U.S. re-entry into the 2015 nuclear deal, starting by revoking the 2018 order ending U.S. JCPOA participation and initiating a process of fully reversing Trump-era sanctions while Iran brings its nuclear program back into full compliance. As further confidence-building measures, Washington could support Iran’s International Monetary Fund loan request as a sign of good-will in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and perhaps engage Tehran in discussions on a prisoner swap.

Do you hear the horns blowing and the captains shouting yet?

Persia was among the earliest known places where the game of chess was played, and the Iranians have proven to be very good negotiators. A strategy that calls for American concessions up front (“confidence building”) will fail, as it did under Obama. Only a tough strategy that demands action by Iran as an alternative to more pressure (“an offer that they can’t refuse”) will succeed. The Trump Administration left the US in a strong bargaining position toward Iran, with very painful sanctions in force. The US should insist on concrete, verifiable steps by Iran before removing any sanctions, and should threaten to take even stronger action if Iran does not comply.

Biden’s administration is replete with former Obama Administration officials (conservative blogger Jeff Dunetz calls it “the reBama Administration”), including Malley, who incidentally is also very out front about his pro-Palestinian sympathies. From the standpoint of American or Israeli interests, Malley is a wretched choice. He is far more pro-Iranian than even Blinken, Jake Sullivan, or Wendy Sherman, all former Obama-era Iran hands retreaded by Biden.

One wonders why Biden picked a team that is unlikely to produce better results than it did under Obama, and may even do considerably worse. Maybe Blinken vs. Malley is a good-cop bad-cop routine. But who knows if Biden was responsible for those choices, or if they were made for him?
Fortunately I am not Prime Minister of Israel, but if I were I would not expect better performance from a reBama Iran team than from the original one. And I think this could have been known for some time. Biden announced his intention to reenter the deal in September of 2020. From then on, it became clear that any military action by Israel – even special operations short of war – would be construed by the new administration as a slap in the face.

This could be the reason that Biden announced so early that he would be re-entering the deal: so that the “slap in the face” argument could be used against any last-minute Israeli action before Biden took office, or even before the election. And it was indeed deployed (by Obama surrogates Ben Rhodes and John Brennan) to criticize Israel’s assassination of the head of Iran’s nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, on 27 November.

Rhodes and Brennan said that Israel’s act was “aimed at undermining diplomacy” between the US and Iran, and that seemed ridiculous. How could anyone see it as anything but an attempt to slow Iran’s progress to the bomb? But in fact they were sending a message: after Biden becomes president, we’ll remember anything you do now, and you’ll be sorry.

I missed this. On 1 October, I wrote that I had expected that if Biden won the election, Israel would act against the Iranian nuclear facilities in the last weeks of the Trump Administration. I was wrong. Apparently our government got the message that the Americans would not forgive Israel if she eliminated the need for an Iran deal before Biden could sign one.

The weeks passed, Iran ramped up their processes, and Israel did nothing. Now that Biden is in the White House, it is even less likely that Israel will act, despite the recent sabre-rattling of our Chief of Staff.

Israel is in the position of a helpless observer on the deck of a small vessel who can only watch as a huge cruise ship or supertanker plows into it – which is just where the people pulling Biden’s strings want us.

02/03 Links Pt1: Joe Biden needs to understand that the Middle East has changed; Biden’s New Asst Sec of State Worked for Islamic Terror State That Funds Hamas

From Ian:

Joe Biden needs to understand that the Middle East has changed

It is very apparent that America will not stand against its interests in the Gulf in order to favour Iran. However, what America is required to know, is that if the Gulf states are forced to make a firm decision, they will do so. As they did during the presidency of Obama. During March 2011 the GCC responded to the request from Bahrain by sending its Peninsula Shield Force to assist the Bahraini government in defeating Iranian backed riots in the country (which were supported and backed by Obama’s administration).

Times like these cannot be forgotten, as countries like the Emirates and Bahrain have a strong and resolute ally, which is the State of Israel. Over the years, this ally has not changed its position and has continued to refuse any negotiations with the Iranian regime. However, the USA has and will continue to change its positions and allies with every change of presidency.

What needs to be made clear to Biden, is that the Arab world view and can compare the Iranian regime to the Nazis, however, the only difference is that Iran located within the Middle East. The Iranians have continuously proven to be fascist and racist towards all kinds of Arabs. Since the 1970s, the Iranians have occupied three of UAE’s islands. Iran has murdered millions of Arabs by inflicting and supporting multiple wars such as the ones located within Iraq, Syria, and Yemen and they’ve supported every terrorist attack in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

The citizens as well as the governors of GCC people know that Israel were not responsible for blast explosions near the Kaaba, and they did not target Makkah with its missiles. Israel did not manufacture militias that kill the people of Iraq and Yemen, nor did they swing pictures of Netanyahu in southern Lebanon, or occupy Syria, Ahwaz, and the Emirates Islands. Israel did not kill 4,000,000 people and make 7,000,000 migrate. Rather, Iran is responsible for all of the aforementioned situations and Iran continues to prove that they are the enemy of humanity as well the enemy of the Arab nations.

Now is the time that we should unite together in order to thrive together and to stand together as one against one enemy. Regardless of Biden’s suggestion to take a step back to square one by re-joining the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, we need to live in peace and prosperity and coexistence and have a mutual culture and religious understanding.

MEMRI: A New Alliance Rising In The East – Turkey, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, China – And Its Enemies – The U.S. and India

The year 2021 marks the emergence of a new Eastern alliance. MEMRI has been the first to richly document its rise, illustrated by a wide variety of media content.[1] Brought into sharp relief by the bloody November 2020 war between Azerbaijan and the Armenians of Artsakh, the alliance between three authoritarian regimes – in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan – seems to have acquired a surprising silent partner in the People's Republic of China. This is surprising because the first three countries are Muslim states, which are not shy about using religion as a tool of statecraft, but not so surprising because this alliance is as much about mutual cooperation as it is directed against a disparate group of potential adversaries large and small – India, Armenia, and the United States.[2] Some might add Russia and Iran to this list, but both countries are as often collaborators as they are rivals of their authoritarian neighbors.

The connections are not new. Religious, political, and emotional ties between the Muslims of then-British India and Turkey date to the end of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. Both Turkey and Pakistan (along with Pahlevi Iran and Hashemite Iraq!) were members of the ill-fated U.S./U.K.-supported Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) in the late 1950s. Pakistan reportedly facilitated the sending of 1,500 Afghan fighters belonging to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's faction to fight against Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians in 1993. But it is with the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as Turkey's president and the failed 2016 coup against him that these trilateral ties have blossomed. The first trilateral summit between Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan was held in 2017, while the second just concluded last month in Islamabad.[3] Islamabad has supported Turkey on Northern Cyprus and Azerbaijan on Nagorno-Karabakh, while those countries have reciprocated in supporting Pakistan on Kashmir.

Turkey's ties now make it Pakistan's second-largest arms supplier, after Islamabad's longtime patron China.[4] Pakistan has been helpful to Turkey in the defense field as well, especially in pilots after the Turkish purge of its air force after the failed 2016 coup. Of greater concern is the specter of Turkish-Pakistani nuclear cooperation.[5] Some observers were startled by Pakistan's recent reminder that it is not bound by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (no nuclear power is a signatory).[6] But perhaps more significant was the latest (the 15th) session of the Turkey-Pakistan High Level Military Dialogue Group (HLMDG) and the fact that Turkish engineering students are the second-largest group by nationality studying nuclear science in Russia (Russia is building four nuclear power plants for Turkey).[7]

While China has been an ally of Pakistan for decades, there was a time when the Islamist Erdoğan was an open critic of China and its treatment of Uyghur Muslims. Those years are long gone.[8] Since then, the Turkish leadership has been able to appease China, even on the Turkic Uyghur issue, where Turkey hosts a significant exile community of Uyghurs. China and Turkey are now linked by rail, bypassing a jealous Russia, with Turkey becoming an enthusiastic partner of China's Eurasian ambitions.[9] In December 2020, the first transport train from Turkey to China (through Azerbaijan) carried household appliances from Istanbul to Xian in just two weeks, having covered 5,402 miles, two continents, two seas, and five countries.[10]

Seth J. Frantzman: America Gets Middle East 'Withdrawal Fever' Again

To underpin the new bout of fatigue in dealing with the Middle East a group of experts have been publishing articles that they hope will be required reading in the new administration.

Robert Ford, former ambassador to Syria, argued recently that the U.S. had failed in eastern Syria and that it could rely on Turkey and Russia in Syria. Turkey's authoritarian regime, which is buying Russia's S-400 system and working with Iran, likes this idea. Russia surely likes it. The argument is that the U.S. isn't good at "nation-building." This is a false reading of the successful U.S. role in Syria.

Washington never tried "nation-building" in eastern Syria. The U.S. actually did very little there but its partners in the Syrian Democratic Forces accomplished a lot. It seems a bit strange the U.S. help would rid eastern Syria of ISIS and then just turn the area over to adversaries or countries like Turkey which have proven that their role in Syria is to ethnically cleanse minorities, the same minorities like the Kurds the U.S. was working with.

The strange thing about the constant argument that the Middle East is a "quagmire" and the U.S. "failed" and should "leave" is not how other countries view the region.

Russia doesn't view the region as a quagmire. It is building influence in Syria and Libya, as well as offering weapons for sale across the region. Turkey is working with Iran, Russia and China to do trade. Iran wants to do more business with China and Russia and is increasing influence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. China is moving into the region also.

None of these countries appear worried about open-ended commitments or state-building or forever wars. They want influence and to increase trade and military sales and support for proxy groups or governments. Only the U.S. appears to get a fever every four years about its role in the Middle East. It would be good to take a short rest, and disabuse ourselves that another haphazard withdrawal is helpful.

The region is not a quagmire and the U.S. should play a role supporting allies and friends in the Middle East.

Nada Elia teaches American Cultural Studies at Western Washington University. She's a frequent contributor to Mondoweiss.

She recently wrote an article in Middle East Eye that shows both her ignorance and her antisemitism.

After Israel’s interior ministry recently announced that members of the Jewish community of Uganda are not allowed to immigrate to Israel, many progressive Israelis and diaspora Jews denounced the decision as racist.

Of course it is; racism is a defining characteristic of Zionism, which privileges one ethnic group over others. The decision is also in keeping with the virulent anti-Black racism plaguing Israel, equalled or surpassed only by the country’s anti-Palestinian racism.

As anyone with even a passing knowledge of Israel understands, this decision by the Interior Ministry has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the Ugandans. It is because the State of Israel only recognizes conversions done by Orthodox rabbis, and the Abayudaya Ugandan community was converted by Conservative Jewish rabbis.

One can argue about whether Israel should accept non-Orthodox movement conversions, but this is not at all an issue of ethnic superiority or racism. If it was, then Israel would not have welcomed over 100,000 Ethiopian Jews.

Anyone who visits Israel can also see that there is no "virulent anti-Black racism" there; an entire generation of Hebrew-speaking Ethiopian Jews have integrated into society and no one blinks an eye. There is some racism similar to every single other Western nation and it is not condoned by anyone.

So why does Nada Elia lie?

Because calling someone a racist is the worst insult that one can hurl today. And Nada Elia delights in calling Israel (meaning, the Jews of Israel) racist. As a pejorative, it is the Leftist equivalent of "kike."

"Ethnic cleansers," "colonialists," "racists," "apartheid," "white supremacists" - all of these terms are conscious insults against Jews and only Jews when referring to Israel. They are the modern progressive versions of "sheeny," "Christ-killer" and "Shylock."

Calling Israeli Jews "Nazis" - which is what the critics of the IHRA definition condone - is the direct moral equivalent, and designed to cause the exact same pain, as using the other "N" word against Black people.

In a way, these insults are worse, because they pretend to be portrayals of the truth about Zionist Jews, and may be used in polite company. The main argument against saying these slurs as antisemitic is that, in the twisted minds of the haters, they are accurate. Entire papers are written justifying Israel being called an "apartheid" state or a "racist" state without showing the obvious counterexamples that prove the arguments are nothing but insults with no basis in reality.

The IHRA recognizes this and portrays these slurs accurately. Modern antisemites like Nada Elia pretend that the insults are so obviously true that they are barely worth proving.

(h/t Aryeh Meir)

On Monday, Israel and Kosovo formally established diplomatic ties. At that time, Kosovo recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and formally requested to open an embassy there.

This is especially significant because Kosovo is a Muslim-majority state and it is European.

Since then, there has been almost no reaction from Israel's usual critics. The hysterical condemnations that followed the UAE and Bahrain announcements are nowhere to be seen today.

The Palestinian Authority did not issue a statement.

The Arab League remained silent.

Some Arab newspapers published wire service versions of the story, with no comment for or against.

The UN refused to condemn the decision when it first was announced in September - even though it is in direct violation of UN Security Council resolution 478 (1980).

The only negative reactions came from Hamas - and the EU.

On Wednesday, Hamas condemned the recognition of Israel and Jerusalem as its capital, saying that it was a violation of international resolutions and humanitarian covenants.

On Tuesday, the European Commission spokesperson on foreign affairs, Peter Stano, said, “This is a regrettable decision […] because this decision is diverging Kosovo from the EU position on Jerusalem.”

The EU foreign service issued a veiled threat against Kosovo, saying, "Kosovo has identified EU integration as its strategic priority. The EU expects Kosovo to act in line with this commitment so that its European perspective is not undermined."

Except for Turkey, no one else expressed any opposition to the Jerusalem announcement. The new Biden administration didn't comment on the Jerusalem part, but it welcomed the agreement, with a tweet from the State Department spokesperson congratulating Israel and Kosovo.

This lack of reaction to the embassy announcement is in itself a big deal. Arab opponents of Israel have realized over the past year that their screaming is not only ineffective, but counterproductive - they can no longer force the UN to issue condemnations whenever they want. They would rather not take a position on Kosovo than show how impotent they are.

It is that impotence that is forcing them to be silent. They cannot get the Arab League to do what they want. They cannot shame a Muslim state to do what they want. They cannot even force Arab states to do what they want.

The only allies the haters of Israel have left is the EU.

In Ma'an, Dr. Rafiq Al-Husseini writes an analysis of the political moves Israel is making to keep American pro-Israel in the Biden era.

In the middle of the article, he writes:

Biden is the second Catholic to become President of the United States after John F. Kennedy, who did not tolerate Ben-Gurion at all. [Kennedy] had threatened him in 1963 to impose a boycott on Israel if it did not commit to disclosing its nuclear program, and his assassination was carried out by unknown hands a few weeks later!

Kennedy did want to make sure that Israel's nuclear program would remain peaceful and there was a series of letters between US and Israeli leaders from 1962 through after Kennedy's assassination. I am unaware of any threat to boycott Israel by the US, and that seems to be made up.

Husseini's clear implication, though, is that Israel was behind the murder of Kennedy.

Which fits in well with the conspiracy mindset of many Palestinians.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)