Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

02/16 Links Pt1: Israel hints it may not engage Biden on Iran nuclear strategy; Why Israel should be considered to join NATO; The international miscarriage of justice at The Hague

From Ian:

Why Israel should be considered to join NATO

The recent Abraham Accords between Israel and several Arab countries could also trigger the idea that in admitting the State of Israel, NATO would be playing globally, on one hand, and on the other hand, open the doors to further members around the World.

With a solid democracy and values driven society, Israel military capabilities would fit perfectly the present and future needs of the Alliance. The military quality hardware, technology or intelligence would enhance NATO’s existing capabilities. In a moment where NATO’s budget burned share is at the centre of many debates, Israel’s military budget is near the singular value of 4.5% GDP.

To be part of an Alliance, also means that one loses partial autonomy and such issue is remarkably pivotal for a nation that faces singular and constant security challenges. One of the core, if not the main, debates about an Israel NATO membership, will always be focus on NATO’s Article 5 (collective defence) activation over a potential attack from Iran or any of Iran’s proxies, such as the Hezbollah. The odds of such an attack are high and such an event would put the Alliance in a difficult position as this could prompt an armed conflict of years in the Middle East and even some regions in North Africa.

It is also clear that the full membership would not depend only NATO members, especially if Turkey will not veto that same membership, but also in Israel willingness in joining it.

In the balance, if one looks to NATO core values of: “individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law”; with three essential core tasks: “collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security”; one sees here the natural place for Israel to be part of.

On the opposite side, Turkey’s membership, despite its overwhelming present issues, should remain unchanged even if Ankara will suffer different sanctions from NATO member countries as the US and face high political pressure from Paris or London.

Looking at future picture, it is time to start building on Israel’s full membership to NATO.

Mordechai Kedar: The Truth About Financial Aid to the Palestinian Authority

In the past, the donor states have at times sought to circumvent the Palestinian Authority, opting instead to finance specific projects. This idea failed because of the mahsubiya method practiced in the PA: a contractor who gets foreign funding for projects transfers part of the money to the “right people” in the PA, thereby serving as a pipeline for the funneling of “kosher” funds to the instigators of terror.

Another problem is the Israeli government, which is well aware of the situation and yet continues to give artificial respiration to the corrupt PA. Following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993-1995, many in Israel sobered up and realized that the PA’s continued rule could lead to the growth of a terror state in the West Bank compared to which the dangers posed by the terror state that arose in Gaza would pale into insignificance. But no Israeli government has taken the necessary steps to put an end to the Oslo delusion.

After 15 years with no elections in the PA, it was recently announced that elections would at last be held for the Legislative Council and the presidency, a move that will afford the terror Authority a democratic stamp of approval. The question immediately arose as to whether Hamas will be allowed to run in these elections. Many fear that the democratic process would result in Hamas again winning the majority of seats on the Legislative Council and possibly the presidency as well. But what kind of democracy does not permit a preeminent organization to run in elections that are supposed to be free?

The holding of the elections appears to be fully supported by key officials in the Biden administration: both those who favor the establishment of a Palestinian state because of their blind faith in the two-state solution, and those whose sympathies lie with Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the US and elsewhere. The latter group would see a Hamas victory in the PA elections as a desirable outcome.

Muhammad Aref Massad understands that a terrorist Authority has been set up alongside Israel that could give rise to a terrorist state. When will the policymakers in Israel, Europe, and the US understand this?

Blinken’s Worrisome Golan Heights Hedge

On Monday, instead of endorsing President Trump’s 2019 decision to recognize Israel’s claims of sovereignty over the Golan Heights — the disputed territory it seized from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 — Secretary of State Antony Blinken hedged. He noted, during a CNN interview, that Israel’s control of the territory is “of real importance, to [its] security. Legal questions are something else. . . . And over time, if the situation were to change in Syria, that’s something we would look at.”

Asked about whether Blinken’s comments should be taken as a sign that he’s open to reversing Trump’s recognition of Israel’s claims, a State Department spokesperson told National Review on Thursday that, “The Secretary spoke to this earlier in the week and we have nothing further.” Although Blinken has also pledged to build on the Abraham Accords and view Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, his decision to leave the Biden administration’s stance on the Golan Heights ambiguous raises serious questions about the new administration’s commitment to Israel, its strongest regional ally, in the face of the growing threat from Tehran.

Downplaying legal recognition of Israel’s Golan claims further strained an alliance weakened by the new administration’s push to reenter the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief rival, Minister of Defense Benny Gantz, immediately pushed back against Blinken’s comments. “The Israeli position is clear. In any possible scenario, the Golan Heights will remain Israeli,” Netanyahu’s office told the Times of Israel earlier this week.

Though Israeli officials may be displeased by Blinken’s comments, they can also rest easy in the knowledge that, for the moment, the U.S.’s official position on the Golan claims has not changed: Reversing Trump’s sovereignty-recognition proclamation would require an official act of unrecognition, a move the administration hasn’t yet said it’s considering. “The Golan is, for the purpose of U.S. policy, part of Israel,” said Eugene Kontorovich, a George Mason University law professor who advised the State Department on the 2019 move. “He doesn’t have to call it part of Israel every time he speaks to make that true.”

The key question concerns the likelihood that Biden formally reverses Trump’s decision. Kontorovich calls Blinken’s comments a “trial balloon,” an effort to see what the domestic and global reaction might be if the administration were to use unrecognition of Israel’s Golan claims as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Iran. “Here they’re playing with something, which was not a card that was theirs to play,” Kontorovich said. “It would just be an extremely radical policy to unrecognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan for no productive end.”

How Jews were treated in Morocco in the late 19th century

Here is an account of Jews in Fez, Morocco, part of a longer article about Morocco that was published in the (Chicago) Inter Ocean, November 4, 1894.

Although the article seems slightly exaggerated (Jews weren't forced to wear peyos, and I am skeptical that there was a death penalty for a Jew being on a street with a mosque), the article describes how the Jews are persecuted by their Muslim neighbors.

It also has a fair amount of the typical unconscious antisemitism that is often seen in 19th century newspaper articles.

Here is another account, from the Kansas City Times, June 27, 1888:

Anger at JNF for wanting to purchase land shows it is 1940 all over again in Palestine

In 1940, the British Government of Palestine passed the "Land Transfer Regulations." It prohibited Jews from buying land in the vast majority of the British Mandate.

Here is a Jewish National Fund map from 1944 that shows the lands that it had purchased before this apartheid law, plus "Zone A" and "Zone B" where Jews were prohibited from buying lands.

The two zones encompassed the entire Negev, all of Judea and Samaria, the Jezreel Valley, the eastern Galilee, Jaffa and parts of the coastal plain south of Haifa.

The idea that Jews cannot privately purchase land anywhere in the world is anathema to any true liberal.

Yet here we are:

A major U.S. Reform Jewish group said Friday it strongly opposes a plan by the Jewish National Fund to purchase land in the West Bank for the potential expansion of Israeli settlements in the disputed territory.

"We have long opposed the proliferation of settlements because they endanger the possibility of a two-state solution," Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said in a statement. "We love and support the Jewish and democratic State of Israel, which is why we will continue to strongly oppose policies that undermine the safety, security and moral character of our Jewish homeland."

According to a proposal set to be discussed by Jewish National Fund’s directorate on Sunday, it would acquire private land, with priority given to land within settlements, land where construction is expected to face few obstacles, and land adjacent to existing settlements that can be used for their expansion.

According to the Union for Reform Judaism, "In the fall of 2019, we blew the whistle and strongly criticized KKL-JNF when we discovered that they were secretly purchasing land in the West Bank. With Sunday’s planned executive committee vote this longstanding Zionist institution plans to make those purchases openly as part of the agenda of the organization’s new right-wing leadership."

Mercaz Olami, the Zionist organization of the Conservative-Masorti movement, said in a sharply worded statement "opposing the move" that it “could irreversibly endanger KKL and our homeland."
The proposed decision, the statement said, “places KKL in a situation which potentially violates international law” and as such, it said, it could “harm” the Jewish communities in the 55 countries with JNF fundraising branches.

Arabs and even liberal Jews are agreeing that allowing the Jewish National Fund to purchase lands from Arabs, who sell the land voluntarily, for top dollar, is considered illegal and immoral.

Just like 1940.

It gets even more absurd. One of the arguments against Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria is that a small percentage of the land of these communities is on privately-owned Arab land. JNF wants to purchase those lands so the legal issues are resolved - and that is called "illegal."

How did prohibiting Jews from buying land become a moral position?

1.7 billion people have less electricity than residents of Gaza

There is a major project underway to build a natural gas line from Israel's Leviathan field directly to Gaza, which would provide much cheaper electricity for the enclave. The EU and Qatar are contributing to this initiative to help Gazans get access to more electricity, less expensively than today.

Gazans get about 14 hours a day of electricity today. This is about 203 megawatts of electricity for Gaza's two million residents, which comes out to about 99 watts available per Gazan on the average.

Given how much media attention is given to Gaza's electricity woes, one might think that Gaza is in the very bottom of any list showing how much electricity is available per person worldwide.

That is not true - at all.

Wikipedia has a list of how much power is available per capita for every country. It gets Gaza wrong, claiming .01 watts per person, which is completely false.

But assuming it is accurate for other countries, we see that there is more electricity per person in Gaza than in many other countries, including some that might surprise you like the Philippines or Morocco.

Country/Region	Average power per capita
	(watts per person)
Somalia	2
Chad	2
Guinea-Bissau	2
Burundi	3
Central African Republic	3
Haiti	4
Sierra Leone	4
South Sudan	5
Rwanda	7
Niger	8
Liberia	8
Ethiopia	9
Uganda	9
Malawi	9
Madagascar	9
Timor-Leste	9
Yemen	10
Burkina Faso	10

Tanzania	11
Benin	11
Comoros	13
Eritrea	14
Gambia	14
Nigeria	16
Solomon Islands	17
Afghanistan	18
Mali	18
Togo	18
Guinea	18
Kenya	19
Mauritania	22
Vanuatu	25
Nepal	26
Senegal	27
Kiribati	27
Cameroon	30
Ivory Coast	30
Sudan	31
Ghana	33
Angola	37
Myanmar	38
Congo, Republic of the	43
Sao Tome and Principe	43
Djibouti	45
Lesotho	48
Bangladesh	49
Papua New Guinea	49
Mozambique	50
Korea, North	56
Tonga	56
Zimbabwe	58
Cambodia	58
Pakistan	64
Nicaragua	65
Laos	65
Sri Lanka	70
Samoa	72
Guatemala	73
Honduras	78
Zambia	84
Bolivia	90
Morocco	93
Cabo Verde	94
Syria	95
Dominica	95
Philippines	99

Over 1.7 billion have less electricity than Gazans have!

I'm not saying that Gazan shouldn't have 24 hours of reliable, cheap electricity a day. Everyone should. But as usual, the media presents Gaza as being one of the worst places on Earth, and there are a lot of people who would love to live in Gaza.

(h/t Tomer Ilan)

02/15 Links Pt2: Israeli Study Finds 94% Drop in Symptomatic COVID-19 Cases With Pfizer Vaccine; With Israel’s skies closed, 600 athletes arrive for judo contest

From Ian:

Israeli Study Finds 94% Drop in Symptomatic COVID-19 Cases With Pfizer Vaccine

Israel’s largest healthcare provider on Sunday reported a 94% drop in symptomatic COVID-19 infections among 600,000 people who received two doses of the Pfizer’s vaccine in the country’s biggest study to date.

Health maintenance organization (HMO) Clalit, which covers more than half of all Israelis, said the same group was also 92% less likely to develop severe illness from the virus.

The comparison was against a group of the same size, with matching medical histories, who had not received the vaccine.

“It shows unequivocally that Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is extremely effective in the real world a week after the second dose, just as it was found to be in the clinical study,” said Ran Balicer, Clalit’s chief innovation officer.

He added that the data indicates the Pfizer vaccine, which was developed in partnership with Germany’s BioNTech, is even more effective two weeks or more after the second shot.

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science, who have been tabulating national data, said on Sunday that a sharp decline in hospitalization and serious illness identified earlier among the first age group to be vaccinated — aged 60 or older — was seen for the first time in those aged 55 and older.

Sheba researcher: Antiparasitic drug reduces length of COVID-19 infection

An Israeli tropical-disease expert says he has new proof that a drug used to fight parasites in third-world countries could help reduce the length of infection for people who contract coronavirus.

Prof. Eli Schwartz, founder of the Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Disease at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, last week completed a clinical trial of the US Food and Drug Administration-approved drug ivermectin, a broad-spectrum antiparasitic agent that has also been shown to fight viruses.

The double-blind, placebo-controlled study included 100 people with mild to moderate cases of the disease who were not hospitalized for the virus. It tested whether ivermectin could shorten the viral shedding period, allowing them to test negative for coronavirus and leave isolation in only a few days.

According to his still unpublished data, Schwartz said the drug was shown to help “cure” people of the virus within just six days. Moreover, the chances of testing negative for coronavirus were three times higher for the group who received ivermectin than the placebo, he told The Jerusalem Post.

“From a public-health point of view, the majority of patients with corona are mild cases, and 90% of these people are isolated outside of the hospital,” Schwartz said. “If you have any kind of drug that can shorten the duration of the infectiousness of these patients, that would be dramatic, as then they will not infect others.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci wins Israel’s prestigious $1m. Dan David Prize for 2021

Dr. Anthony Fauci has won the $1 million Dan David Prize for “defending science” and advocating for vaccines now being administered worldwide to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The Israel-based Dan David Foundation on Monday named President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser as the winner of one of three prizes. It said he had earned the recognition over a lifetime of leadership on HIV research and AIDS relief, as well as his advocacy for the vaccines against COVID-19.

In its statement, the private foundation did not mention former president Donald Trump, who undermined Fauci’s follow-the-science approach to the pandemic. But it credited Fauci with “courageously defending science in the face of uninformed opposition during the challenging COVID crisis.”

Fauci, 80, has served seven presidents and has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.

A tale of two Presidents (and Israel)

Jewish newspapers were aghast in March 1948 at the news that Harry Truman had reversed the US position on the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state.

Truman's daughter later said that he really didn't reverse his position:

Margaret Truman, in Harry S. Truman (New York, William Morrow & Company, 1973) asserts that her father never formally committed himself to the trusteeship plan (page 387). She quotes on page 388 from her father’s calendar for March 19 to the effect that the Austin statement represented the State Department pulling the rug from under him, that the State Department had reversed his Palestine policy and that with the Secretary and Under Secretary away, the third and fourth levels of the Department had succeeded in cutting his throat. Miss Truman notes on page 389 that not even in his memoirs did the President feel free to tell the whole story, although he hinted at it.

In Truman's actual press conference when he made the announcement, he said that this was meant to be a delay in partition, not a reversal:

Q. You are still, sir, in favor of partition at some future date?

THE PRESIDENT. That is what I am trying to say here as plainly as I can.

Whatever his intention, the response was immediate and angry.

A couple of weeks later a freshman congressman from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, denounced the new US policy to the local chapter of Jewish War Veterans.

Here are his notes for his speech:

One of the most discouraging aspects of recent American foreign policy is the unfortunate reversal of our ~~policy commitment~~ of our policy toward Palestine.

Since the end of first World War successive Presidents and Congress have 'reaffirmed' the solemn promise of the Balfour declaration.

The sudden reversal of our position in relation to the Partition of Palestine demands an explanation from the Administration.

There may be sufficient cause for the reversal in Palestine. If there is, we are entitled to know what it is.

Gal Berger of Israel's Kan News tweeted:

Breaking: The Palestinian Authority secretly sent vaccines to Jordan. These are 200 Sputnik vaccines that were transferred last Thursday via the Allenby Bridge to the Jordanian General Intelligence Agency. This is what Palestinian sources told Kan News.

It is unclear whether the vaccines are intended for the Jordanian defense establishment or for Palestinian officials living in Jordan.

In recent days, there has been growing criticism of the Palestinian Authority, which allegedly vaccinated senior officials, associates and official journalists, before it began vaccinating groups at risk in the general population.

To date, the authority has received enough vaccines to vaccinate only 6,000 people against the virus (12,000 vaccine doses) and as far as is known had begun vaccinating medical staff.

Why would the PA send the scarce vaccines into Jordan? The theory that it is going to Palestinian officials there makes the most sense.

Of course, the people complaining about how Israel is supposedly withholding vaccines will not say a word about how nepotism and politics, not need, seems to be driving Palestinian vaccinations.

(h/t ymedad)

02/15 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: Navigating Israel's ship of state through the Biden storm; How UK gives annual nod to hate-filled Palestinian education

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Navigating Israel's ship of state through the Biden storm

In a media briefing Friday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki refused to say whether the Biden views Israel as an ally.

Psaki's behavior was easy to understand. Although Israel is America's strongest and most reliable ally in the Middle East, Israel cannot follow where the Biden administration is now leading. President Joe Biden's policy steps and foreign policy appointments since taking office have made it abundantly clear that his first priority is to return the US to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action which was negotiated by Biden's top advisors when they served with him in the Obama administration is not a non-proliferation agreement. It is a blueprint for Iran to achieve independent military nuclear capability and regional hegemony.

Neither Israel nor the US's Arab allies in the Persian Gulf can partner with Biden and his team in advancing this policy. It puts them all in danger. This is the simple explanation for Biden's refusal to date to speak to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to other regional leaders. Quite simply, given his commitment to a policy that places their countries in jeopardy, Biden would prefer not to hear what they have to say.

Netanyahu adopted a three-pronged foreign policy when he was faced with a similar situation with Washington during the Obama presidency. After a four-year hiatus, the time has come to reinstate the policy.

The first component of that policy is a recognition that the US is irreplaceable. No other ally can provide Israel with the partnership that the US provides. That doesn't mean that Israel's government must bow and scrape before Biden and his advisors as they rush to empower Iran at Israel's expense. On the contrary. Facing a hostile administration, Israel must unapologetically stand up for itself and defend its interests and rights.

Think about this. Young US Jews are systematically harassed, attacked and ostracized on campuses by BDS goons. And @DanielBShapiro says it's RACIST for Jews to oppose Biden's placement of these BDS thugs in posts where they can turn their hatred into official US policy!
— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) February 15, 2021

My Telephone’s Not Ringing

There is genuine concern in Israel about several of Biden’s top advisers, in particular U.S. envoy to Iran Rob Malley, widely seen to be soft on Iran and less than sympathetic to Israel’s security concerns. There are also, though, significant yings to Malley’s yang, key among them the widely respected Secretary Antony Blinken, and others.

Which leads us to the second tweet. Jumping into the “phone call” fray two days after Danon, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, tweeted a sensible thread stating the obvious; that Biden assumed leadership of the free world at a particularly tempestuous time and was personally taking on only the most pressing and urgent domestic and global matters, reflected in the order of his days and his calls (well, with that Canada exception, eh?)

On Saturday night, the phone call question was put to Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Gilad Erdan, on the most-watched post-Shabbat political talk show in Israel. His response, was, well, exactly what one might expect. A seasoned political operative, Erdan, with a bemused countenance, told the interviewer that the conversation is not so important.

“Until there isn’t one,” she ricocheted.

As he must do, Erdan focused on the many sidebar conversations that have taken place at the highest levels between the most senior Israeli and Biden administration officials in State, Defense, and the NSA. The well-oiled relationship between the US and Israel is humming along nicely, Erdan reassured. No need for any concern.

Biden is also sensitive to the fact that Israel is in perpetual election mode and would not want to appear to be boosting a particular candidate. But, that seems to be a chronic feature of the Israeli condition, making it almost irrelevant.

Truth is, for the last four years Israel had become accustomed to being treated as a constant priority in the Oval Office, with the formidable and combined muscle of Ambassadors Friedman and Dermer, Jared Kushner brought to bear, combined with Trump’s reported lack of discipline in his approach to, well, everything.

If there is a message in the non-phone call phone call, it is likely far less dramatic than some may be thinking, and more like: “You’re important, Israel, but perhaps not always the most important.

Let’s hope so.

JN INVESTIGATION: How UK gives annual nod to hate-filled Palestinian education

British taxpayers are continuing to pay for a Palestinian education system in which school pupils are routinely taught incitement, hatred of Israel and glorification of terrorism. Many of the textbooks are written by vetted officials, whose salaries are paid by the UK.

Despite numerous assurances from the Palestinian education minister, detailed reports from the Israel-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) show that as recently as September last year, Palestinian school students were still learning maths by adding up the number of ‘martyrs’, including those who have led suicide bombings on buses and shopping centres. The curriculum is taught in Palestinian Authority and UNRWA schools in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem.

Not only does Britain continue to pay – in the past five years it has spent an estimated £105 million on Palestinian education professionals, including on the salaries of teachers who write the textbooks – but it appears to have a blind spot when it comes to challenging the Palestinians on the content of those books.

The UK and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have a Memorandum of Understanding, or MoU, which supposedly commits the Palestinians not only to “uphold the principle of non-violence”, but to take action against “incitement to violence, including addressing allegations of incitement in the educational curriculum”.

Money paid by Britain to the Palestinian partner is supposedly contingent on the PA’s performance on “curriculum reform”.

The New York Times published a feel-good story about how the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem has a program where ten year old religious Jewish kids play and learn along with ten year old Arabs who live in east Jerusalem.

As is often the case with the mainstream media, the real story is in what they choose not to report.

For the most part, Israeli Jews have always thirsted to be friends with their Arab neighbors, across the street and across the Middle East. There have been many such programs in Israel, some homegrown and some financed by the EU or the US - sports programs, support groups. scientific programs.

The Palestinians have always been dead-set against these programs. They regard them with the worst possible insult: "normalization."

Over this past weekend, there was an conference held by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean. Because Israel sent a delegation, the Algerian delegation quit the conference.

Palestinian groups praised the Algerians, saying, "Confronting normalization in all its forms is a moral, Arab and religious duty." Palestinian officials joined in.

Also this past weekend, there was a forum against normalization with Israel with participants from across the Arab world. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the PLO Central Council who is considered a moderate, said, "Normalization constitutes a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people."

Palestinians are planning later this month the " the first international conference to resist normalization with the Israeli occupation."

For years, the Palestinian leadership has been against any of the peace programs exactly as described by the New York Times - because they are "normalization."

Palestinian schools - including those operated by UNRWA - refused to participate in the "Seeds of Peace" program, a program that now-President Biden has endorsed. The reason? Because any joint Israeli-Palestinian project, unless it is designed to eventually destroy Israel, is considered "normalization."

And normalization translates to humiliation and shame, in Palestinian-speak.

Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah organization is against any sort of Palestinian/Israeli peace program. Yet it is funded by the EU.

There are numerous examples of how even the thought of friendship between Palestinians and Jews is anathema to most Palestinians.

The only people who oppose programs like the Bible Lands Museum's are Palestinians and their supporters. That is the real story - and it is a story that is rarely broached by the mainstream media.

Here's another news story that would have been literally unthinkable eight months ago.

From The Daily Tribune (Bahrain):

As Jewish life continues to flourish and grow in the Gulf, a first-of-its-kind association has been formed to boost their development.

On Monday, local Jewish communities from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar announced they had come together to form the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities (AGJC).

The AGJC is a network of Jewish communities from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries who are developing Jewish life in the region. While each community is independent, they share a common goal and vision: for Jewish life in the GCC to flourish for the benefit of both residents and visitors.

The organization includes Jews in countries that have no formal relations with Israel.

The webpage of the AGJC includes things we never thought we'd see:

Even though only two of the Jewish communities listed are from countries that have formal relations with Israel, none of this would be possible without the Abraham Accords - just another indication of the huge impact made by peace between Israel and the UAE/Bahrain.

The story is being reported in Arab media without any negative or antisemitic overtones - again, something that would be virtually unthinkable not long ago.

Stop Palestinian children being recruited as soldiers

Meet Anas and Saad Al-Skafi. They were twins who fought for Islamic Jihad.

Their obituaries on the Islamic Jihad military wing website today. You can see that they were born on December 5, 1996 - and they died on July 20, 2014.

Which means they were 17 years old.

They are only two of the child soldiers that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah routinely use. As recently as last month a 17 year old was killed as he attempted to stab an IDF soldier

There are dozens of examples of children who have been recruited to attack Israelis or to fight in Gaza terror armies.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad openly brag about their summer camp paramilitary programs.

This week is the second annual Palestinian Child Soldiers week, where petitions are sent to human rights groups to raise awareness on this illegal practice. As the PCS Week literature says:

● According to the 2007 Paris Principles, any use of minors (17 years of age or younger) in any military endeavours, by state or non-state actors, is rejected by the international community and is immoral. For decades, Palestinian minors have been used in varying military capacities, by groups that includes but is not limited to the PLO, Hamas, PFLP, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The military positions that have been held include but are not limited to: combat soldiers, suicide bombers, terrorists, military tunnel diggers, mules for IEDs and munitions, human shields, frontline skirmishers in mass organized riots, couriers of messages, and spies and lookouts.
● The goal of PCS Week is to bring awareness to and end the use of Palestinian minors in militancy. For decades, the systemic issue has been ignored or brushed off as unrelated individual incidents. Without pressure or consequences for using this practice, systemic Palestinian child militancy has flourished.

● The Coalition to Save Palestinian Child Soldiers calls upon UNICEF to demand that Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PLO, and PFLP to operate in accordance with the 2007 Paris Principles, and end the systemic use of Palestinian children in military efforts of any type.

You can send a letter to UNICEF at the site.