Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

08/25 Links Pt1: Two-states is so dead, it isn't on the Bennett-Biden agenda; The Afghanistan Catastrophe Is an American Humiliation; Into the Heart of a Hezbollah Terror Tunnel

From Ian:

Two-states is so dead, it isn't on the Bennett-Biden agenda

The Biden administration also seemed to downgrade expectations on that score. On Monday, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said of the coming parley that “we seek to see to it that Israelis and Palestinians alike can enjoy equal measures of what is important to both people: prosperity, freedom, and importantly, dignity.”

It was almost as if, even before the meeting took place, the Biden administration had written out acceptable talking points Bennett could get behind that did not address Palestinian statehood or self-determination.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren told The Jerusalem Post that Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken were as committed as their predecessors Barack Obama and John Kerry, to a two-state resolution to the conflict. But they are not going to “go down that road” now because they fear it would bring down Bennett’s government.

Instead, Oren speculated, the conversation would focus on small steps, in which the US would ask Bennett to make gestures to the Palestinians. If two-states is mentioned, it will be the US that speaks of it, he said.

The stumbling block here, however, is not just the policy difference between Bennett who opposes Palestinian statehood and Biden who believes in two states at the pre-1967 lines.

At issue is the acute financial and leadership crisis within the Palestinian Authority itself, that would make it impossible to move forward on statehood.

The question, these days, is less about how to make peace than how to prevent violence.

The conversation will likely focus on economic gestures Israel can take to help the Palestinians or steps in can refrain from taking in the West Bank's Area C.

Bennett’s public silence on the Palestinians is less about the topic’s unimportance than about the absence of any possible horizon. The harsh reality is that ‘two states’, once a standard bearer of the US-Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, has been buried so deep that the best one could hope for is a series of gestures to prevent violent explosions.

Hamas' latest antics in Gaza are aimed at Washington

Hamas has in the past few days organized several particularly violent riots ahead of the meeting between Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and U.S. President Joe Biden, set to take place on Thursday in Washington.

The leaders of the terror group that rules Gaza hope that this will push the issue of the enclave's rehabilitation following the 11-day May war to the top of the meeting's agenda.

Hamas expects the United States to both pressure Israel to advance the issue and be an active partner in the reconstruction of the Strip. This means that any attempts on Israel’s part to reconcile with Hamas by easing restrictions on the Strip are doomed to failure.

Israel’s conduct in Gaza over the past week - mainly its failure to retaliate for the rocket fire and lax response to violent riots on the perimeter fence - could only be described as a military blunder. It was only meant to contain the riots and avoid casualties on the Palestinian side in order to not exacerbate the situation.

Mainly, it was a strategic failure on the part of Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Both of them utterly failed to properly read the diplomatic map.

Israel thought it would be able to buy some peace of mind with money, while failing to understand that Hamas sees violent border riots as an opportunity to achieve much more than a few economic perks. For instance, it seeks to force the Americans to pressure Israel into reaching a long-term agreement with Hamas that would include the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

Hamas will never voluntarily agree to peace with Israel.

David Singer: The ghost of Trump's Peace Plan hovers over the White House

Biden’s seven months tenure as President has already seen unprecedented chaos and confusion in America’s internal and external relations following Biden’s unilateral dumping of three major Trump policies without consulting individuals, state or foreign Governments affected by such changes:
Ceasing construction of Trump’s security fence on America’s southern border - facilitating increased unauthorised and illegal entry of aliens into the US.

CNN reported on this continuing crisis on 13 August:
“The Biden administration is facing a "serious challenge" at the US southern border, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday, saying the US has encountered an "unprecedented" number of migrants illegally crossing the border.

During a news conference in Brownsville, Texas, Mayorkas stressed the sharp increase of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border, many of whom are fleeing deteriorating conditions in their home countries.”

- Blocking completion of the Keystone XL pipeline (costing 11000 jobs) and reviewing oil-exploration leases granted by Trump in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - reversing hallmark policies of Trump’s administration championing the oil industry by promoting oil-exploration projects in the interests of securing US energy independence.

- Ditching Trump’s plans for a conditions-based orderly American withdrawal from Afghanistan and replacing it with an unconditional withdrawal - leaving behind billions of dollars of American sophisticated and highly-secret military equipment, up to 15000 American civilians, and thousands of Afghani civilians who helped the US military – and their families - at the mercy of the anti-US Taliban terrorist militants taking over Afghanistan.

Biden cannot – after these disastrous unilateral policy decisions – dump Trump’s Plan without Bennett’s approval.

Trump’s Plan is the most comprehensive and detailed plan ever prepared by an American President for dividing sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza between Arabs and Jews.

Trump’s Plan – and his vision for peace - will surely be hovering over Biden and Bennett when they face-off in their White House meeting this week.

It's always Israel's fault.

For the third straight day, Egypt has closed the Rafah crossing, stranding thousands of people on both sides who want to cross the border. Egypt also closed the Salah a-Din Gate from where some truckloads of goods are sent.

Egypt's sudden closure is largely assumed to be an expression of anger over Hamas organizing violent protests at a time when Egypt has been putting its own reputation on the line to bring down tensions between Israel and Gaza.

Gisha, the Israeli NGO that monitors movement from and to Gaza, is upset over this - but they don't blame Egypt.

On the first day of the closure, they wrote, "The closure of Rafah compounds severe movement restrictions imposed by Israel, leaving Gaza residents with even fewer options to travel for medical, professional, educational, or personal needs."

And in its conclusion, they don't call on Egypt to lift the restrictions - but Israel: "Given its ongoing effective control over Gaza, which amounts to occupation, Israel is obligated to protect human rights and facilitate normal life in the Strip to the greatest extent possible. This includes facilitating access abroad, particularly given Egypt’s closing of Rafah Crossing."

This NGO doesn't even call for Egypt to lift the restrictions. Even though Israel cannot do anything to help people who want to go to or return from Egypt, Gisha is programmed to make everything Israel's fault and Israel's responsibility.

Moreover, Gisha doesn't even ask Hamas to stop its activities that are prompting Egypt to make this decision.

Arabs hurt Arabs and Israel gets blamed.

Gisha's obsession with castigating Israel is part of its DNA. For example, on August 17, it wrote that Israel was not allowing communications equipment into Gaza. However, since then Israel has lifted that restriction. You wouldn't know about it from Gisha, though - the article about the restriction is still on their front page, and there has been no update.

Israel has recently allowed over a thousand traders and businesspeople from Gaza to resume entering Israel to facilitate trade - but Gisha was silent. Israel recently resumes allowing construction material into Gaza for international organizations - but Gisha ws silent.

In fact, one can see more accurate information about imports and exports from Gaza from Islamic Jihad media than from an Israeli NGO. If you want reliable information on people and goods going in and out of Gaza, this Western-funded NGO is the worst place to look.

Gisha has 25 employees, a budget of $1.6 million and is funded from a variety of sources:

Action Against Hunger

Broederlijk Delen

Danish Representative Office

DROSOS FOUNDATION

Foundation for Middle East Peace

Irish Aid

Leonard Hill Charitable Trust

New Israel Fund

NGO Development Center

Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Oxfam SDC-Danida

Oxfam Novib

Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Salesforce.com Foundation (in kind donation)

Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs

The Embassy of Finland in Tel Aviv

United Nations Development Programme

All of them are complicit in demonizing Israel, even for things not under Israel's control.

The Foreign Press Association issued a press release yesterday:

On Saturday, August 21st, Palestinian security forces in the West Bank harassed, abused and threatened a pair of Washington Post journalists, Salwan Georges and Sufian Taha, covering a protest in Ramallah’s Manara Square.

The demonstrators had gathered to protest the Palestinian Authority’s handling of the death of Nizar Banat, a government critic who died in the custody of Palestinian police on June 24.

As police broke up the gathering, a Palestinian policeman grabbed the Washington Post photographer as he was taking pictures of the arrests. The officer seized the camera, held the photographer’s neck and tore his press badge.

Georges explained that he was with the international media and tried to hold onto his camera. But additional security men surrounded him, taking away the camera and telling him: “Here it’s different. We don’t care.”

The police held on to the camera for over an hour, deleting seven photos and preventing him from doing his job. When the camera was returned, both journalists were ordered to leave and told there would be a “big problem” if photos of one of the officers were published.

The Foreign Press Association condemns this egregious behavior in the strongest terms. We call on the Palestinian Authority to sanction the officers who were involved in this incident and to stand behind its past promises to respect the freedom of the press.

A government attacking media is pretty big news, right?

But this story - which happened on Saturday, and this press release issued Tuesday morning - has not gotten any coverage in the media that I could find.

Not even from the Washington Post!

The Washington Post made a conscious decision not to cover an attack on its own journalists. It chose to publish AP's story on the protest in Ramallah, and not the account of its own people on the scene.

The venerable news organization chose to adhere to the wishes of the Palestinian Authority that they censor their own story about Palestinian police violence.

Compare the lack of response here to the huge headlines when Israel attacked an office tower that housed AP along with Hamas offices and intelligence equipment in May. Article after article hinted that Israel deliberately attacked the media, a most ridiculous accusation. But when Palestinians target media explicitly - silence.

That cowardice is the real story here, not the attack itself. A news organization that makes a decision to censor itself in the face of threats from Palestinian bullies cannot be trusted to objectively report any news from the region - Palestinian threats clearly work.

And they aren't only effective against Washington Post reporters. There must be a tacit agreement among mainstream media to keep this story quiet, because 24 hours after the FPA issued their press release, there are still no articles on this (that I could find in Google News.)

This is just a small example of how media bias works - at all psychological levels. The media does not fear retribution from Israel so it can be as critical and unfair as it wants. It fears a great deal what the PA and Hamas can do so it censors itself. That self-censorship results in more anti-Israel stories to justify their cowardice and make reporters act like they are fearless in the face of a regional superpower.

The deliberate choice by the entire international media to ignore a story of attacks on journalists betrays a deep rot in today's journalism.

Too bad that story won't be covered by journalists.

UPDATE: David Gerstman reminds me that a few years ago, Israeli police accidentally detained a Washington Post reporter for a brief time and it made a headline in the New York Times.

UPDATE 2: Sufian Taha was arrested with Booth in 2016 - the very same person, two arrests, only one newsworthy!

From Reuters:

A U.S. donation of 500,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses arrived in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza on Tuesday, as Palestinian officials work to boost uptake and counter a surge in new cases by requiring some workers to get the jab.

The Palestinians began administering vaccines in February, but despite having purchased or received what officials have called “an abundance of doses”, uptake has stalled at just 35% of age-eligible Palestinians in the West Bank, and around 11% in Gaza.

With the U.S. donation of 500,000 Moderna doses, facilitated through the global COVAX vaccine-sharing programme, the Palestinians say they have now received 2.5 million doses. The West Bank will take 300,000 of the donation and Gaza 200,000.

"Stalled" is right. Few seem to want the vaccine in the Palestinian areas. A mere 4200 doses a day were administered over the past week. At that rate, they wouldn't run out of the vaccines they already have for seven months - enough time for the US donation to expire! (Assuming about 2.3 million Palestinian adults and 1 million doses already given.)

For months, we were told that Palestinians were being deprived of much needed vaccines. But none of those reporters bothers to take a survey of what Palestinians themselves want.

Hamas is offering cash rewards for people to take vaccines. and both Hamas and the PA are forcing their employees to get vaccinated or else lose their paychecks. The Palestinians are expecting a shipment of a million more vaccines in September, which will again expire before they are used unless there is a significant wave of new people taking the vaccine.

The only survey I found, from June, found that 35% of Palestinians refuse to take the vaccine. But that number seems to be low, since the vaccines have been widely available for months and most people are not bothering to get them.

Meaning that these 500,000 US vaccines should have gone to somewhere people need and want them.

08/24 Links Pt2: Emily Schrader: 'Woke' activists outraged by Israel stay silent on Taliban; Edward Said projected his self-hatred onto the whole of the west and its history.

From Ian:

Emily Schrader: 'Woke' activists outraged by Israel stay silent on Taliban - opinion

There’s no shortage of hypocrisy when it comes to anti-Israel activists and the selective outrage over Israel’s actions. For as long as there’s been an Israel, there has been an obsessive focus on critiquing the state’s every move while more recently, turning a blind eye to human rights atrocities around the world, including human rights violations of Palestinians by Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

With the tragedy in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of US troops, so-called “woke” activists who previously were concerned with “joint struggles for liberation” now seem to be largely silent on the issue. These activists and groups are ignoring the crisis in Afghanistan at the hands of Taliban and instead are choosing to demonize Israel to further their own political agendas, throwing their allegiance to “intersectionality” out the window.

As the Taliban has swiftly taken control of Afghanistan, the world watches in horror as we can only forecast what the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” will mean for women, minorities, the LGBT community, and more, who are already being stripped of whatever rights they had obtained in the past 20 years. Does a shared intersectional struggle only matter when it comes to Palestinians? Do Afghani lives not matter to these activists and groups?

There are numerous anti-Israel organizations who pride themselves on intersectionality and have championed the term in their advocacy: for example, the BDS-supporting Jewish Voice for Peace which claims to be an ally of the black community against police brutality, as well as other minority groups. JVP hasn’t even tweeted once from its own account about what’s happening in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, every day they have put out anti-Israel content.

Another organization, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), has also included intersectionality in its advocacy. AMP actively takes part in Black-Palestinian solidarity initiatives – yet like JVP, AMP has been silent about the Taliban takeover.

Have the Courage to Name the Real Threat to Afghan Women: Islamist Rule

The tragedy of Afghanistan today is not America's fault.

It's true that America has made many mistakes in Afghanistan. As far back as the Reagan era, we can clearly see heinous errors made by administration after administration. And it is certainly true that this latest crisis sits squarely on President Biden's shoulders. He failed to plan to get troops and allies out safely.

But the great tragedy of Afghanistan today—what the Taliban are doing to women—has nothing to do with America.

Americans did not train the Taliban to force women into blue body bags and to kill them if they disobey. America did not insist that they force women out of their jobs, that they force women out of school, that they force women to be housebound and to only leave if accompanied by a man. Americans did not instruct the Taliban to burn down amusement parks because they have statues in them. They did not insist that the Taliban hang gay people in the streets or throw them off of roofs before stoning them.

None of that training came from the American military.

The reason why families are handing their infants over to troops, why women are screaming at the airport, reaching their outstretched arms to American troops as if they are actively drowning and hoping someone, anyone, will extend a hand and save them, is not for a reason that is unique to Afghanistan. It is mirrored in across the world—in many other countries where women are enduring similar atrocities.

Where are the Feminists?

No, feminists in America will not be criticizing the Taliban, just as neither they nor gays in America have dared criticize the brutal treatment of women and gays under the governance of Hamas in Gaza. Feminists in this country are too consumed with another task: the destruction of the American male, who is seen as the producer of imperialism, “racist capitalism,” and systemic racial and gender oppression. This is their obsession. The destruction of the American male supersedes moral concern for the wanton annihilation of human lives in other countries. They will not speak out against the Taliban because they hate America and American men more than they care about the rights of any individual singled out as a target for discrimination based on membership in a demonized group.

As we hurtle towards a possible post-American future, this new breed of feminists, a phalanx of zealots, has forged fourth-wave feminism, and it’s far more rabidly anti-male than previous iterations of the ideological movement. You’d think because of its petty maliciousness and deranged radicalism, its appeal would be narrowly limited to the faculty lounges of liberal arts colleges. Yet since the inception of the #MeToo movement, the crazed foot soldiers of fourth-wave feminism managed not only to take their worldview mainstream, but also to put a headlock on the commanding heights of American culture. This is as impressive as it is terrifying.

These new man-haters are seething with toxic feminism, and the further spread of their noxious sentiment could likely spell the death of our country as we know it. Increasingly prevalent is their practice of exploiting female agency and identity to make blanket attacks on men, to neuter manliness, and to advocate for the end of masculinity. These goals are being achieved while simultaneously promulgating the dual concepts that men are by nature nefarious and that female advancement can only come through the wholesale annihilation of heteronormative constructs of maleness. The destructive consequences for relationships at every level of society—from the simple couple to the community to the nation—will be vast and irreparable.

The New Misandry, as I call it, arose out of the more extreme versions of second-wave feminism. Proponents of this form of feminism, such as Gloria Steinem and Kate Millett, Valerie Solanas (author of SCUM—Society for Cutting up Men) and Carol Hanisch, began the process of speaking to the irrelevance of men to women’s life and society in general. Steinem’s famous dictum, “a woman needs a man the way a fish needs a bicycle,” spoke to the changing cultural attitudes towards men that regarded them as disposable, annoying, and of having nuisance value only. Third-wave feminism, beginning in the early 1990s, saw a rise in affluent middle-class women influenced by Anita Hill who wielded their agency in strategic ways to exact a revenge against all men in the ways in which they imagined a malevolent, collectivist male psyche had inflicted irreparable damage on all women. Fourth-wave feminism, which arose in the 2010s, gained traction with the creation of the #MeToo Movement. This form of feminism is the most toxic brand we find in the history of feminism. With full malice aforethought, its adherents depict masculinity as inherently toxic, and claim that only the abolition of maleness will result in the creation of an egalitarian world for women.

I created a quick ebook with 50 (okay, 51) of my popular pro-Israel text memes that I have posted on Twitter.

Enjoy!

50 memes from EoZ

Al Masry al-Youm reports that Dr. Ahmed Karima, Professor of Comparative Jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University, has allowed husbands to take second wives on a “part-time” basis, under specific conditions.

The main issue is that the existing wife must agree to having her husband sleep with someone else for a few hours, and a nuptial agreement that the second "wife" has no claims to be provided with a place to live and does not stay overnight, that the marriage is witnessed by two men and that the man pays his "wife" a dowry.

Yes, it sounds like legalized prostitution.

Karima does not agree with the longer "temporary" marriages where men who travel pick up another "wife" for a fre months and discard them when they leave.

His opinion has caused an uproar in Egypt. Egypt's Dar al Ifta, which is an official Egyptian authority on Islamic law, tweeted a statement on the controversy that, even when translated into English, seems impenetrable:

We should not be drawn behind the calls for modern terminology in marriage which has increased in recent times wherein lies a love of showing off and fame and destabilization of values, which creates confusion in society and negatively affects the meaning of stability and cohesion of the family that our religion seeks and the state has nurtured through laws.

It sounds like they are expressing disapproval but tacitly admitting that there is nothing technically wrong.with this practice.

08/24 Links Pt1: Biden Brings Extremism, Terrorism Back to Life; The Largest Hostage Crisis in American History; It’s Italy’s turn to shun the Durban conference

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Arabs: Biden Brings Extremism, Terrorism Back to Life

For the first time in several years, the jihadis sense US weakness, confusion and lack of vision under the Biden administration.

"The United States withdrew from [Afghanistan] to open the door for its enemies and opponents to fill the vacuum.... If we assess the situation, we will find that the forces that will replace the US there are: Russia, China, Pakistan, and of course Iran. Russia and China are driven by the desire to exploit the vast mineral wealth of Afghanistan." — Jameel Al-Theyabi, Saudi journalist and political analyst, Okaz, August 15, 2021.

"The escalating threat of terrorism from Afghanistan appears to be taking place with the support and patronage of major countries... by turning a blind eye to the activities of violent and terrorist organizations, which require Arab and international solidarity to confront the threat of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda together." — Monir Adib, Egyptian expert on global terrorism, Al-Ain, August 16, 2021.

"The Americans must admit their failure to build a state, or an army, in Afghanistan, or even a movement to confront terrorism and extremism, and now it is withdrawing all its agents, leaving Afghanistan hostage in the hands of extremists." — Osama Saraya, former editor of the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram; Al-Ahram, August 16, 2021.

Thanks to the Biden administration, say the Arabs and Muslims, terrorist groups that want to wage jihad (holy war) against the US and Israel and threaten the security and stability of many Arab countries have firmly increased their foothold in the Middle East.

Noah Rothman: The Largest Hostage Crisis in American History

“Given the number of Americans who still need to be evacuated, the number of SIVs, the number of others who are members of the Afghan press, civil society leaders, women leaders—it’s hard for me to imagine all of that can be accomplished between now and the end of the month,” said U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff on Monday. A number of prominent federal legislators are demanding that the administration commit to a longer operation, and they are joined by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He will use the occasion of an emergency G7 summit on Tuesday to pressure Biden to “ensure safe evacuations, prevent a humanitarian crisis and support the Afghan people to secure the gains of the last 20 years.”

Joe Biden finds himself in a trap of his own making. U.S. forces operate out of Kabul’s airport at the pleasure of the Taliban. At any point, what Biden called a “ragtag” group can disable the airport and reengage in combat with the American forces they’ve so far allowed a narrow berth. Biden is determined to avoid that outcome. The only alternative to such a disaster would be to bribe the Taliban into submission. It’s an option the president has already foreshadowed. “The Taliban has to make a fundamental decision,” Biden said on Sunday. To be successful, they are “going to need everything from additional help in terms of economic assistance, trade, and a whole range of things.” The Taliban, Biden said, is “seeking legitimacy to determine whether or not they will be recognized by other countries.” No doubt, all these carrots are being dangled before our captors by CIA Director William Burns, who was this week dispatched to Kabul likely to negotiate an extension of our mission there.

The message from the Taliban couldn’t be clearer: Your money or your lives. And there are thousands of Americans in Afghanistan from which the Taliban might choose to make a few examples. As the heartrending audio received by Rep. Carol Miller’s office attests, the Americans trapped behind enemy lines believe they are abandoned by their government to the mercies of a vengeful Islamist militia. As one staffer at the abandoned American embassy admitted, “it would be better to die under the Taliban’s bullet” than to face the brutality of a likely unsuccessful effort to reach American service personnel on their own. Our citizens and friends are resigning themselves to a terrible fate.

America’s humiliation in Afghanistan did not end with the fall of Kabul. It is only just beginning.

Commentary Magazine Podcast: Hostages Abroad and Hostage at Home

Author and editor emeritus of The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, joins the podcast today to talk about the ongoing nightmare in Afghanistan, which is evolving from a debacle into a hostage crisis. But Americans get no respite at home as COVID has evolved from a pandemic into a lifestyle brand.

Ben Shapiro: President Biden has chosen decline

In November 2009, the late Charles Krauthammer gave a seminal speech, titled "Decline Is a Choice." In it, Krauthammer stated, "The question of whether America is in decline cannot be answered yes or no. There is no yes or no ... Nothing is inevitable. Nothing is written. For America today, decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice."

Last week, President Joe Biden chose decline.

That choice was not inevitable. It was foolhardy in the extreme, a symptom of Biden's commitment to his own idiotic ideology – an ideology that crashed headlong into the steel wall of reality in Afghanistan. Former Presidents Obama and Trump both wanted to remove the United States from Afghanistan, but both recognized the reality on the ground: that removing all American support from the Afghan military would result in the Taliban – the terrorist regime responsible for providing aid and support to Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaida in the run-up to and aftermath of 9/11 – taking over the country.

Biden knew this. He just didn't care. As he reportedly expressed in 2010, while speaking with Richard Holbrooke about American responsibility in Afghanistan, "F*** that, we don't have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it."

And so, Biden destroyed the stalemate in Afghanistan that had allowed America's counterterror mission in-country to continue successfully. The Afghan military was built to work with U.S. close air support; Biden withdrew that support. In fact, he went so far as to bar American contractors from entering the country to help the Afghan air force maintain its equipment. He cut the Afghan military off at the knees, then blamed them when they left the battlefield.

And Biden lied. He lied that Afghanistan represented an "endless war" carrying the possibility of "endless rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery"; in reality, the United States ended its combat operations in Afghanistan in 2014, had just 2,500 troops on the ground before Biden's unplanned pullout, and has not suffered a combat casualty since February 2020.

As we mentioned last week, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been trying to act as a hero to save Lebanon by organizing an Iranian oil tanker to deliver much needed fuel - and daring Israel and the US to stop it.

He doubled down, literally, on Sunday:

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday announced that a second ship carrying fuel will sail to Lebanon “within days.”

“Our first ship has become at sea, our second ship will sail within days and more ships will follow,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech commemorating Abbas al-Yatama, a Hizbullah military commander who died a week ago.

“We are seeking to alleviate the suffering and what we will bring will be for all Lebanese and all those living on Lebanese soil. It will not be for one Lebanese region without the other,” Nasrallah noted.

“We are not an alternative to the state in this matter or in any other matter. We cannot be so and we are not an alternative to the companies that import oil,” Hizbullah’s leader pointed out.

That bolded sentence shows how sensitive Nasrallah is to the criticisms of his first announcement.

He added for good measure, “If the (foreign) companies fear Israel and the sanctions, we are willing to bring an Iranian drilling company to extract offshore oil and gas, and let Israel bomb it,”

The Lebanese are not impressed.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday ridiculed Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s declared plans for bringing fuel ships from Iran.

“As for Sayyed Hassan’s promised ship, it is nothing but a silly little joke amid the tragedy that we are living,” Geagea said in a statement.

“Why hasn’t the Iranian oil solved Assad’s problem? It is noteworthy in this regard to mention that Syria’s fuel crisis is what amplified Lebanon’s fuel crisis due to the ongoing systematic smuggling,” the LF leader noted.

“My suggestion to Sayyed Hassan is for Iran to solve Syria’s fuel problem, which would instantly resolve half of Lebanon’s problem,” Geagea went on to say.

Hezbollah has been accused of smuggling fuel to Syria, so the Lebanese are cynical about their sudden interest in importing fuel.

The New York Times writes about Jews praying on the Temple Mount and how supposedly dangerous this is:

Since Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967, it has maintained a fragile religious balance at the Temple Mount, the most divisive site in Jerusalem: Only Muslims can worship there, while Jews can pray at the Western Wall below.

But recently the government has quietly allowed increasing numbers of Jews to pray there, a shift that could aggravate the instability in East Jerusalem and potentially lead to religious conflict.

“It’s a sensitive place,” said Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister. “And sensitive places such as this, which have an enormous potential for explosion, need to be treated with care.”

[D]ozens of Jews now openly pray every day in a secluded part of the eastern flank of the site, and their Israeli police escorts no longer attempt to stop them.

To many Palestinians, the shift is provocative and unfair. They feel that Muslims have already made a big concession at the Western Wall, which is now used mostly by Jewish worshipers despite its also being important to Muslims.

Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, the director of the mosque, said that the Aqsa compound should be reserved for Muslim prayer, in recognition of its importance to Muslims.

“It has been named Al Aqsa since the Prophet Muhammad rose to heaven there,” Sheikh Omar said.

The de facto change in policy is just part of a larger pattern of slights against Palestinian dignity across the occupied territories, he said.

“This is the prevalent reality, not only at the Aqsa Mosque, but also at checkpoints and other places in Palestine,” he said. “We face constant racist discrimination and infringement on our human rights.”

The tenor of the article is that the Israeli government has recently changed the status quo and there is a danger of this exploding into a religious war.

But buried in the middle of the article is this:

The policy began to change during the tenure of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, who led coalitions of right-wing and religious parties. Rabbi Glick said that the police began to allow him and his allies to pray on the mount more openly five years ago.

And as this Los Angeles Times article from 2012 shows, Jews were more or less openly praying longer ago than that.

A simple, ancient ritual is threatening the delicate security balance atop Jerusalem's most sacred plaza: Jews are praying.

On most days, dozens — sometimes hundreds — of Jewish worshipers ascend to the disputed 36-acre platform that Muslims venerate as Al Aqsa mosque and Jews revere as the Temple Mount with an Israeli police escort to protect them and a Muslim security guard to monitor their movements.

Then, they recite a quick prayer, sometimes quietly to themselves, other times out loud.

Jews praying on the Temple Mount is not a secret. We've been doing it for years. Arab media obsessively covers it with angry headlines about "settlers performing Talmudic rituals." Videos of worshipers are easily available. I myself prayed with a minyan (quorum) two years ago. No one asked me not to take pictures or not to write about it.

The prayers occur at the perimeter on the east side of the Mount, a spot Muslims typically don't visit.

And despite the articles warning of imminent violence erupting, nothing has happened - even though this has been going on for years. There are no clashes, no shouts, no "Allah Akhbar" chants. It is a daily event, observed by the Islamic Waqf.

In other words, organized Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount has become the status quo.

The only thing that can cause violence is articles like this one that interview Muslim leaders and put them in a position where they have to escalate tensions to keep their "honor." In that sense, warning of potential violence has the potential of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, this is the second NYT article on prayer on the Temple Mount this summer - the first one also gave dire warnings:

Bassam Abu Labda, a veteran Waqf official in Jerusalem, described the situation as “very dangerous,” adding, “The government is giving cover to the extremists.”

“Every day we have people making movements, performing prayers, lying on the ground and dancing,” Mr. Abu Labda said.

Daniel Seidemann, a longtime advocate for a shared Jerusalem, said there has been “a de facto erosion of the status quo going on for years,” with Temple Mount activists testing the boundaries, first by moving their lips in silent prayer, then whispering and swaying and now gathering in groups.

Look at that awful progression!

The fact is, Jews praying has become normal, and the sky didn't fall. The New York Times, embarrassed to have not picked up on this story years ago, is now pretending that something new and dangerous is happening which will make angry Muslims rise up and attack Jews - and they almost seem to want to provoke exactly that.

Rep. Cori Bush blames Israel for Palestinian Authority abuses

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) condemns the Palestinian Authority abuses of power against their critics - but blames their actions on "Israeli apartheid."

Bush manages to simultaneously write something antisemitic (calling Israel an apartheid state and puppet-master controlling another government) and anti-Palestinian (implying that Palestinians have no agency and are puppets of Israel.)

The Human Rights Watch report that says that Israel is guilty of apartheid, using a shoehorned definition of apartheid crafted specifically for Israel, has given Bush the license needed to attack the Jewish state while pretending to be a moral agent.

Interesting that her definition of "humanity" doesn't seem to include Jews in Israel - or elsewhere. In fact, the only time she has ever mentioned antisemitism was during the wave of attacks against Jews that finally received some press coverage in May, and she "all lives mattered" the issue.

Bush doesn't just stop at the "apartheid" smear. She also accuses Jews of ethnic cleansing.

The representative also likes to draw an imagined line between US police abuses and Israel because, well, she hates both so they must be linked. It's intersectionality!

Bush's intersectionality allows very real issues of racism in America to be hijacked by Palestinian activists who really don't care about US racism at all.

The only connection between the two is that people gain political points for linking them. No one says "we will not let up until the Uyghurs are free" or "we will not stop until the Rohingya are free" or "until there is an independent Kurdistan, we are all oppressed."

No, Bush's intersectionality is very specific for what helps her politically, and every other oppressed person who cannot help her get contributions for her next campaign can go to hell.

In recent years, attacking Israel is an easy way to gain publicity, lots of retweets and cash.

08/23 Links Pt2: Why Rename Judea and Samaria?; Defund Hillel? Defund Rutgers; The Guardian again promotes Forensic Architecture's anti-Israel vitriol

From Ian:

Why Rename Judea and Samaria?

There is good reason that the Arab world and the anti-Israel left insist on using the mendacious and geographically inaccurate term “West Bank” when they refer to Judea and Samaria.

Think about it: Imagine a human-rights movement built around the slogan: Ban Arabs from Arabia! Such a slogan and movement would raise many questions. For instance, where else would Arabs have a right to be if not Arabia, and who could have a greater claim to Arabia than Arabs?

Although freedom-loving Americans have endless reasons to squirm when contemplating Saudi Arabia (as do freedom-hating Americans), we all tend to agree that Arabs who want to live there have an assumed right to do so. Arabia for Arabs. India for Indians. Russia for Russians. Mongolia for Mongolians—some outer, some inner. Austria for Austrians. Guatemala for Guatemalans. Cuba for Cubans. Sounds right.

Somewhere along the litany it would make sense to say: Yehuda for Yehudim—i.e., Judea for Jews. Even antisemites would find it hard to get behind slogans such as “Ban Jews from Judea! Jews Never Lived in Judea!” The Jews (Yehudim in Hebrew) of the tribe of Judah (Yehudah) gave the land of Yehudah its name: Judea, as transliterated in the King James Version of the Bible.

It has always been preposterous to call Judea and Samaria the “West Bank.” Think of the most famous locations in the Bible: Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Beth El, Jericho, Shiloh, Shechem (Nablus), Galilee, Tekoa—all the places where the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs, the kings and prophets walked and lived. Jesus and the Apostles, too. Their lives all centered in Judea and in Samaria. Those terms are all over the Bible, with more than 100 mentions just of “Samaria” in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and in the Christian Gospels.

JPost Editorial: Don't hijack the Holocaust - editorial

Last week The Jerusalem Post published in these pages an opinion piece which unfortunately failed to go through a sufficient vetting system. We sincerely regret this error. The oped, written by an Australian under the name of David Goldman, was titled: “This disgraceful mocking of the Holocaust needs to stop now.” In it, he ridiculed and belittled Croatian Holocaust scholar Dr. Ivo Goldstein. Dr. Goldstein was given the right of reply which appeared in yesterday’s Post opinion pages under the title “A collage of lies.”

The publication of the original op-ed stemmed from the Post’s policy to offer our readers a broad range of opinions from a wide selection of writers. It is a policy of which we are proud, although it is occasionally and regrettably abused by writers.

The most important lesson we can take from this incident is the need to avoid helping, inadvertently, the battle over the truth of the Holocaust. As fewer and fewer survivors and first-hand witnesses remain to tell their experiences of the greatest atrocity of humankind, the stories have become a battle of narratives, exploited for different purposes.

These specific opinion pieces referred to the roles of the Croats and Serbs. The sensitivity exists equally for almost every country in Europe including Russia, Ukraine, Hungary and western European countries conquered by the Nazis in the Second World War. It can be seen particularly in Poland which recently passed laws making it a criminal offense to blame the Poles for crimes committed in their country during the Holocaust and halted the restitution of Jewish property wrongfully confiscated during the years of the Polish communist rule following the end of World War II.

It is true that concentration and death camps were run by the Nazis, but in many countries, they found willing collaborators among the local population who were more than happy to assist in eradicating Jews. What this has led to are two disturbing trends which are affecting the historical truth of the Holocaust. On the one hand, there is a trend by the countries where the Nazis ruled to portray themselves first and foremost as the victims. This is the case, for example, in Poland which prefers to focus on its own victimhood as opposed to the genocide of millions of its Jewish population.

Turbulent dimensions, years of pushing: Seeking justice with the help of StandWithUs

From an April 2021 Stand With Us announcement headed Bringing Our Child's Murderer To Justice:
In 2001, Malki Roth was murdered in the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing in Jerusalem along with 15 other people. Now, Interpol has dropped the international arrest warrant for the mastermind behind this heinous terrorist attack, Ahlam Tamimi. Tamimi, who now lives in Jordan, has shown no remorse for her despicable crimes.

On this week’s episode of StandWithUs TV Live, Malki’s father, Arnold Roth will join us in conversation with Roz Rothstein, StandWithUs Co-founder and CEO, about terrorism, the impact Malki’s tragic death had on his family and the battle to have Tamimi extradited to the US to face charges.

Join us live on Facebook: Sunday, April 11, 11:00AM Pacific time.

Our great and sincere thanks to Roz Rothstein and her indefatigable team of professionals and activists for their many years of fine work.

Israel allows more aid to Gaza. Hamas responds with more firebombs and rioting.

In the past week, Israel has helped arrange for Qatari funds to go directly to Gazans. It has allowed, for the first time since the war, imports of cement and steel to humanitarian recipients. It has allowed laptops and mobile phones.

In response, Hamas sponsored a riot that included shootings and more incendiary balloons that are igniting fires in the south of Israel.

Israel-haters always blame Israel for Palestinian violence. So how do they explain more Palestinian violence in direct response to Israel easing conditions?

Egypt has given its own answer. Egypt, which had been working hard to the cease fire between Israel and Hamas and negotiating to avoid a follow-up war, was incensed at Hamas' violent riots on Saturday. Even though the Rafah crossing to Egypt was scheduled to be open today, Egypt announced last night that it would be closed, and sources say it is in response to Hamas' provocations.

The funny part is, when Egypt responds to Hamas terror, no one cares. If Israel would respond by reducing imports or adjusting the fishing zone, the "human rights" NGOs would be screaming.

As the expression goes, if there were no double standards towards Israel, there would be no standards at all.

MEMRI published an interview with British-Palestinian journalist Abdel Bari Atwan where he advises Jews to learn to swim because they will be pushed out into the sea very soon:

British-Palestinian Journalist Abdel Bari Atwan: What Is Happening at Kabul Airport Will Repeat Itself at Ben Gurion Airport; Israelis Should Learn to Swim; Arafat Told Me in 1995 That I Would Live to See the Israelis Fleeing Palestine Like “Rats Fleeing a Sinking Ship" pic.twitter.com/Sp41KXOshk
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) August 23, 2021

It is of course outrageous that a journalist who has such opinions (and has a history of such) is respected enough to be regularly interviewed on BBC World, Sky News, Al Jazeera English and CNN World.

However, his anecdote with Yasir Arafat is interesting.

Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, and here he is quoted in 1995 as saying that he intends to drive the Israelis into the sea.

The entire Oslo process was a sham from the beginning. This isn't the only such Arabic Arafat quote during the Oslo "peace" process indicating that he regarded it as a stage towards the destruction of Israel, in line with the 1974 Phased Plan.

Yet gullible Westerners are so enamoured at seeing a terrorist mouthing words of peace that they don't 'even consider that perhaps he might not be telling the truth.

08/23 Links Pt1: The Forever War Isn’t Over; Setting the Agenda for the Bennett-Biden Meeting; How Elevator for Disabled May Ignite Israeli-Palestinian Tensions

From Ian:

The Forever War Isn’t Over

Biden also said he's "adamant that we focus on the threats we face today in 2021—not yesterday's threats." And the "terrorist threat," he went on, "has metastasized well beyond Afghanistan." He didn't acknowledge that one of the reasons the threat spread out of Afghanistan was that for 20 years America denied it a base there. Now that the Taliban is in, and the Americans are out, the elements of al Qaeda and ISIS in Afghanistan today will be joined by more holy warriors.

Not to worry, though, said Biden. "We conduct effective counterterrorism missions against terrorist groups in multiple countries where we don't have a permanent military presence." And we can do the same thing in Afghanistan, he continued, because "we've developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region and to act quickly and decisively if needed."

Let's hope he's right. The problem with his argument is that America does have a "military presence" in north and east Africa, Syria, and Iraq, as well as in Turkey, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and elsewhere. And America does have a naval presence in the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean. Our eyes are "firmly fixed" on bad spots in the Middle East and North Africa because we are nearby. The horizon over which our counterterrorism forces must travel is short. That won't be the case in Afghanistan.

Biden created a situation in which America has neither boots nor eyes on the ground in a landlocked, mountainous country thousands of miles from port and surrounded by unfriendly states. Unlike 20 years ago, China and Russia are strong and adversarial and looking for opportunities to embarrass the United States. Every threat or attack that emanates from Afghanistan will testify to U.S. stupidity and weakness. Furthermore, the Taliban, even as it is dogged by internal opposition, will command more territory and field stronger forces than any of the Salafist-jihadist outfits scraping by in the ungoverned and contested spaces of the Maghreb, the Sahel, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula. Our intelligence capabilities will be hobbled and our response time lengthened.

This dispiriting assessment doesn't include the propaganda boon to the Salafist-jihadist cause. Kabul will be transformed from an island of modernity to the global capital of anti-Western jihad. International terrorism flourished alongside the Islamic State. It manifested in spectacular, mass-casualty attacks in Paris, Marseilles, San Bernardino, Orlando, and Manchester. "For a long time now Islamist movements have defined the creation of an ‘Islamic state' as their goal and standard for achievement," writes former State Department official Charles H. Fairbanks. "A state provides a better terrorist sanctuary, and has far more versatile capabilities, than a movement." A state gives a movement safe harbor, institutional support, and physical inspiration for "lone wolves" in the West to murder unbelievers. Such a state is what the Taliban will build in America's place.

"I made a commitment to the American people when I ran for president that I would bring America's military involvement in Afghanistan to an end," Biden said. "And while it's been hard and messy—and yes, far from perfect—I've honored that commitment." Yes, he has. The Taliban's military involvement in Afghanistan, however, continues in our absence. And so the Afghan people are left to suffer, the world watches agog, and America is vulnerable to resurgent Islamic extremism. The Forever War isn't over—it's entered a new phase. Where the enemy has the upper hand.

Where did we go so wrong in Afghanistan? - opinion

The problem was not the need to withdraw, but the manner in which it was conducted. Why on earth did he begin to pull out troops without the proper preparation to ensure that US and other foreign diplomats and civilians, along with thousands of Afghan interpreters and other support staff and their families, departed orderly and safely?

To subsequently dispatch thousands of troops to secure the airport to ensure safe passage for those fleeing was certainly necessary. But this happened only following the chaos that swept Kabul and sent shivers down the spines of tens of thousands of Afghans and foreign diplomats and civilians. As I see it, this last sorry chapter is continuing a string of mistakes committed by Biden’s predecessors Bush, Obama, and Trump. They have learned nothing about the nature of Afghan society nor anything from the Soviet Union’s experience in the 1980s, when it departed Afghanistan after ten years of fighting with its tail between its legs.

Following the defeat of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in less than a year, former President Bush rushed to invade Iraq in 2003 through the concerted effort of his then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and then-Vice President Dick Cheney. He failed to make any arrangement over the prospect of continuing Taliban resistance with the transitional government at that time led by then-president Hamid Karzai. He lost focus on the unfinished Afghanistan campaign and subjected American troops to an uncertain future, as neither he nor his military brass had any plans as to how to conclude the campaign once the main objective of removing the Taliban from power was accomplished.

IMPOSITION OF DEMOCRACY
The decision to introduce democracy and engage in nation-building was doomed from the start. Yes, progress was made, a democratically-elected government was installed, and human rights and social reforms provided the hallmark of the American enterprise. But then the US ignored the fact that the imposition of a western-style democracy on a country that lived for millennia as a tribal society would be short-lived at best.

The US should not be in the business of spreading democracy by force. We seem to have learned nothing from Vietnam, let alone the US’ long history of instigating and interfering in regime changes. Instead of providing a model of a functioning democracy and human rights through the use of soft power to influence other countries, we come in charging with massive military to change the political landscape, only to end up retreating and delivering the country straight to insurgent forces.

MILITARY MISCALCULATION
Three successive presidents before Biden made their decision on the continuing efforts in Afghanistan based on the recommendations of military leaders who insisted that the war was winnable and wanted to secure a total victory. Troop surges have continuously been sent on the promise that victory over the Taliban was in sight, which obviously was proven to be completely misguided. In addition, the military strength of the Afghan National Army was grossly overstated; thousands deserted over the years and many sold their weapons to the Taliban. Over 2,300 American soldiers were killed and more than a trillion dollars were spent with little to show for it.

In ToI interviews, Jewish veterans of Afghanistan speak of relief…and betrayal

A week after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Captain Joshua Zager, a Marine Corps fighter pilot, stood in the historic Beth Israel synagogue in Beaufort, South Carolina, praying the Rosh Hashanah liturgy.

“Who shall live, and who shall die/who will die at his predestined time and who before his time/ who by water and who by fire, who by sword,” he said, chanting the U’Netaneh Tokef prayer along with the congregation.

Zager was especially focused on his prayers that year. The next day, he was scheduled to fly his F/A-18 Hornet onto the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which had already begun sailing for the Middle East to start striking al-Qaeda and Afghanistan.

Zager, who would fly 42 missions over Afghanistan in the ensuing months, was one of many Jewish soldiers who would fight in the distant country over the next 20 years, including at least 23 who died fighting there.

As America’s longest war comes to its inglorious end, Jewish soldiers, in interviews with The Times of Israel, reflected on their service in Afghanistan, their experiences as Jews, and their feelings on seeing the scenes of panic and flight in Kabul and beyond as the Taliban retook control of the country after twenty years of sacrifice.