Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, October 29, 2021

10/29 Links Pt1: Mark Regev: Balfour Declaration, Palestinian weaponization of post-colonial guilt; Israel Complied With Law of Armed Conflict During Gaza War

From Ian:

Mark Regev: Balfour Declaration, Palestinian weaponization of post-colonial guilt

Next week’s anniversary of the Balfour Declaration will once again highlight the seemingly insurmountable Israeli-Palestinian divide.

While Israelis venerate Britain’s decree of November 2, 1917, when His Majesty’s Government officially endorsed “Jewish Zionist aspirations,” Palestinians exploit the very same British pronouncement as a weapon in their war to negate Israel’s existential legitimacy.

For Israelis, Lord Balfour’s famous letter to Lord Rothschild is both an undeniable inflection point in their history and a genuine cause for celebration. It was the first time (since Cyrus the Great in antiquity) that a major world power publicly declared its support for the Jews’ desire to return and reconstitute their homeland.

The declaration also had a significant practical impact, leading directly to the pro-Zionist decisions taken at the 1920 San Remo Conference by the victorious allied powers, and to the League of Nations giving the Mandate for Palestine to Great Britain in order to “secure the establishment of the Jewish National Home.”

The eminent Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said characterized the declaration as colonialist collusion. In his words, it was “made by a European power… about a non-European territory… in a flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority resident in that territory.”

Twenty-first-century Palestinian nationalists follow Said’s lead and manipulate the contemporary post-colonial guilt widely felt across the West to assert that the Palestinian people remain colonialism’s greatest victim, and that hence, the international community owes the Palestinians an immeasurable moral debt.

How TIME reported the North African exodus in 1962

The independence of Morocco, Tunisia and now Algeria—joyful news to Moslems—has for Jews signaled another vast and melancholy exodus like so many other uprootings since Moses. A decade ago, 250,000 Jews lived in Morocco. 150,000 in Algeria and 100,000 in Tunisia; now about half of them have left. Last week alone, 5,000 North African Jews arrived by ship and plane in Marseille. By 1975, Jewish leaders estimate, their communities in North Africa will be reduced to less than 15% of their former size.

Jews were living and working in North Africa before the Romans came. Some of them are Berber tribesmen whose ancestors were converted from paganism before the 7th century A.D. Others are Sephardim—Descendants of Spanish Jews who were forced into exile across the Mediterranean by Visigothic persecution in the 6th century or the Inquisition of the 15th. A third strain consists of European Jews who settled in North African cities after World War II. All three have found that exile is the inevitable aftermath of independence.

In Tunisia, President Habib Bourguiba promised that Jews would be allowed to practice their religion in peace: “While I am alive, not a hair on Jewish heads will be touched.” But Tunisian Jews are trapped in the cold war between Israel and the Arab states. Bourguiba’s government has disbanded even Jewish religious organizations on the ground that they promote Zionism, and Jews fear that other Arab countries could force Tunisia to impose restrictions upon them.

In Morocco, the government placed restrictions on Jewish emigration until last October, and fortnight ago closed down the office of the agency in Casablanca that chartered ships and planes for Jews eager to leave the country. Although Jews who leave for Israel are officially forbidden to return to their homes, there is little overt anti-Semitism in Morocco. But emigration goes on, and businessmen in Casablanca complain that they cannot find Jewish labor. “Morocco is down the drain for us,” says one Jewish cafe owner.

In Algeria, Jews fear the onset of independence this week even more than their Christian pied-noir neighbors. Many were active supporters of the underground Secret Army; in Constantine, for example, the first anti-Moslem commando force was composed largely of Jews—and the F.L.N. has not forgotten it.

Honest Reporting: This Date In History: Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat Named Nobel Peace Prize Winners

On October 27, 1978, then-Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and then-Egyptian president Anwar Sadat were named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to end more than thirty years of conflict during which Cairo spearheaded four full-scale Arab-initiated wars against the Jewish state (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973).

Five months later, on March 26, 1979, the two leaders signed a formal US-brokered peace treaty in Washington, D.C.

In retrospect, the historic agreement seemingly paved the way for the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords, which, in turn, laid the groundwork for the October 26, 1994 peace deal signed between Israel and Jordan.

While Jerusalem has, as a result, maintained peaceful, albeit predominantly frosty, relations with both Cairo and Amman, the conflict with the Palestinians remains unresolved.

To mark the above-mentioned occasions, below please find links to materials HonestReporting previously produced in order to help elucidate the ramifications — and complexities — of these and other current related events.

Hillel Neuer: Warrior for Israel in Geneva

UN Watch’s defense of Israel against undue bias, and Neuer’s own related outspokenness in the media, may prevent potential collaborations with other promoters of universal human rights. But Neuer is unapologetic.

“Everyone will look at things in their own way and based on their own perspective, milieu and pressures. Some may be uncomfortable with us. But the reality is that we are who we are,” Neuer said.

Where does Neuer see himself a decade from now? Still at the helm of UN Watch, “fighting the good fight.”

If the workaholic can find the time, he would like to write a book on how the human rights movement “went off the rails.”

“It began with moral clarity fighting against Hitler, with people like Eleanor Roosevelt and René Cassin and has ended up with people like [Human Rights Watch executive director] Ken Roth who attacks Israel as a war criminal every single day, and basically compares Israel to Nazis,” Neuer said.

“It bothers me how the human rights movement got so subverted and skewed, and I want to understand how that happened,” he said.

Egypt's popular Youm7 (Seventh Day) newspaper wrote a profile of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels:

On this day, the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels was born

On this day, October 29, the German Joseph Goebbels was born in 1897 in the town of Rheydt, and had great skills in public speaking , which made him the voice and the mouthpiece of the Nazi Party from 1933 until 1945. He was known for his dedication to leader Adolf Hitler and directing the media machine to glorify his recent work and to discredit his political opponents and the Jews.

Known for his love of language and his desire to become a writer, he is similar to Hitler, who wanted to become a painter before turning to politics. He graduated from Heidelberg University after studying German philology, to join the Nazi Party in 1924 and complete a two-decade journey until his suicide by cyanide poisoning in 1945.

That's it. Goebbels was a good speaker, he originally wanted to be a writer, he was dedicated to his leader and he knew how to use the media against his opponents including Jews.

There is not a hint that he ever did anything wrong.

Another Egyptian newspaper, Al Masry Al Youm, also wrote a biography of Goebbels in May, on the anniversary of his suicide. That one was a little more expansive - it noted how skilled he was in the art of propaganda and lying.

And then, twice, it says that Zionist learned how to lie from Goebbels.

Egyptian media seems to treat Nazis either as admirable or as models for Jews.

Too funny: PLO unions declare NGO Monitor and Regavim to be terrorist organizations!

From Palestine News Network:

The Palestinian professional and popular unions in the PLO announced their decision to consider the Zionist organizations NGO Monitor and Regavim as terrorist organizations operating outside the scope of international law, and called on all relevant international institutions and bodies to sever relations and never deal with them, as they are among the many Israeli institutions that operate according to the directives of the occupation security services, and with direct instructions from the fascist occupation government.

They stressed that NGO Monitor is a specialized institution skilled in falsifying facts that seeks in all its reports to stigmatize the Palestinian national struggle and the development and human rights work of NGOs as terrorism, while the Regavim organization specializes in supporting settlement activity and works to monitor and prosecute any Palestinian activity in Area C. using incitement to prevent it for racist settlement goals. The occupation government and its security services rely on the false reports of these two institutions in their decisions against popular and civil Palestinian action.

This was of course in response to Israel's declaration that six "civil service" organizations were in fact diverting EU aid towards the PFLP terror group, whose members are employees at every one of them.

Regavim responded by saying "We must be doing something right: The Palestinian Authority has blacklisted us."

Meanwhile, NGO Monitor published the most comprehensive summary of the ties between the PFLP and these six organizations.

It notes that Fatah itself published an article in 2012 describing various organizations as affiliates of the PFLP, including Addameer, the Union of Women's Committees and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees.

The Biden administration is insisting that the US must open a consulate in Jerusalem for Palestinians - directly insulting Israel by saying that it wants a divided Jerusalem that would be a Palestinian capital.

Why wouldn't it open up a consulate in Ramallah, the actual seat of the Palestinian government?

Not too many people know that since 2014, the US has had an official presence in Ramallah. From the US Embassy in Israel page:

America House Ramallah
America House Ramallah, established in June 2014, is the Palestinian Affairs Unit’s educational and cultural outreach center in Ramallah City. While the current America House Ramallah location is under renovation, , America House programming continues at partner spaces and other venues.

The mission of America House is to encourage dialogue between Americans and Palestinians in order to foster mutual understanding and emphasize shared values. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State through the Palestinian Affairs Unit in Jerusalem, America House is a place where residents of Ramallah and West Bank can learn essential skills to take advantage of new economic opportunities, including English language, entrepreneurship, and technology skills. It also serves as a place where people can come together and take advantage of the many resources we offer, including our library, 3D printer, wifi connection and computers. America House Ramallah offers a wide variety of presentations about U.S. society and culture throughout the year, hosts regular film screenings, and presents English language classes.

There is also an America House in Jerusalem for Palestinians.

There is absolutely no reason there cannot be an American diplomatic presence in Ramallah - there already is one.

Which makes the desire to create a consulate in Jerusalem even more of an insult.

Even stranger is the news that the US State Department admits that the US cannot re-open the old consulate without permission from Israel.

Brian McKeon, the U.S. deputy Secretary of State for management and resources, said on Wednesday that Washington would need the Israeli government’s consent before reopening the consulate in East Jerusalem it once used to serve Palestinians.

McKeon said it in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he was asked by Republican Senator Bill Hagerty whether Israel would have to agree to the United States’ reopening a consulate.

“That’s my understanding – that we’d need to get the consent of the host government to open any diplomatic facility,” McKeon responded.

This was not thought through before it became an international incident.

(h/t Irene)

10/28 Links Pt2: Tree of Life rabbi: ‘We can’t let evil win, and it won’t go away on its own’; If boycotting Israel: Ben & Jerry's should also cut ties with China

From Ian:

David Singer: UN''s racist plan to exclude Jews from East Jerusalem backed by Biden

Biden’s decision will certainly give added impetus to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 – passed on 23 December 2016 as then Vice President Biden was vacating his office in the White House prior to the handover of power from President Obama to President-elect Trump.

Security Council Resolution 2334: If you have never read it, now is the time to see the extent of Obama's betrayal of Israel when he did not keep lto the ongstanding American tradition of vetoing anti-Israel resolutions.

1. Reaffirmed that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, had no legal validity and constituted a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;

2. Reiterated its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard;

3. Underlined that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations;

This racist resolution:
-Ignored that all Jews living in East Jerusalem before 1948 had been ethnically cleansed from there following Jerusalem’s invasion and partial conquest by Transjordan in 1948.

-Denied Jews had any right to return or take up residence there after 1967

-Failed to acknowledge that Jews had lived there for 3000 years

The Obama-Biden administration failed to veto this overtly anti-Jewish Resolution to ensure it could never be weaponised to attack Israeli policies.

NGO Monitor: PFLP Ties of Six Newly Designated Terror NGOs

On October 22, 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense (MoD) designated six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the MoD, Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P), Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Al-Haq, Addameer, Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC), and Bisan were included on Israel’s list of terrorist organizations because they are operated by and for the benefit of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.1 (A seventh PFLP-linked organization – Health Workers Committee (HWC) – was designated in January 2020.)

The MoD, building off a ISA (Shabak) May 2021 press release, explained that these NGOs diverted humanitarian funds from European donors to the PFLP and recruited members into the terror group. Relatedly, a security official told Israel’s N12 news site on October 23 that these NGOs provided a funding “lifeline” for the PFLP, employed PFLP terrorists, and that PFLP terror operatives used NGO offices for meetings.

In addition, since 2007, NGO Monitor has published numerous reports, based on open sources, documenting the close connections between these and other Palestinian NGOs and the PFLP. It is likely that Israeli authorities possess further materials on the NGO-PFLP ties, but it is unknown whether they will make this public.

See below for details – all previously published by NGO Monitor – regarding each of the newly designated organizations, including organizational ties between the NGOs and the PFLP, as well as individual links between NGO board members, officials, and employees and the terror group. We have also included statements made by NGO officials that glorify or excuse violence.

The Caroline Glick show: Ep24: The West’s War Against the Jewish State (and the Abraham Accords) | Guest: David Wurmser

In Episode 24 of the Caroline Glick Mideast News Hour, while Gadi is travelling, Caroline was joined again by her colleague at the Center for Security Policy in Washington Dr. David Wurmser. The two discussed the Biden administration’s unmoving hostility to Israel and the new unity of anti-Israel purpose joining the U.S. with Europe. Caroline and David then moved on to the political instability in Sudan and the Biden administration’s weird request that Israel suspend its normalization talks with Sudan. It was a riveting, eye opening discussion. Watch, enjoy, subscribe and share and together we’ll win the war of ideas!

Excellent thread debunking the latest media-leftist-"human rights" attack on Israel https://t.co/41RlNhAsti
— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) October 27, 2021

Why Israel is boycotting human rights NGOs.

Progressive Dems submit motion panning Israel for outlawing Palestinian groups

A group of progressive Democrats introduced a resolution in the United States House of Representatives on Thursday condemning Israel for its “repressive” and “anti-democratic” decision to blacklist half a dozen Palestinian human rights organizations.

The resolution describes the labeling of the six Palestinian groups as “a repressive act designed to criminalize and persecute important Palestinian human rights organizations.”

It is highly unlikely to pass, given the unwillingness of the vast majority of lawmakers from either party to criticize the Israeli government so harshly.

The measure was introduced by Rep. Betty McCollum, one of the most vocal critics of the Israeli government in Congress, but also a proponent of the two-state solution who sometimes votes in favor of pro-Israel bills (McCollum voted in favor of legislation to offer $1 billion in supplemental funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system last month).

Her latest resolution was co-sponsored by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Cori Bush, Chuy Garcia, Marie Newman, Raul Grijalva and Andre Carson. All of them voted against the Iron Dome supplemental funding — except Ocasio-Cortez who chose to abstain on the legislation.

The resolution calls on US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “publicly condemn this authoritarian and antidemocratic act of repression” and publicly call on Israel to cease such measures.

Breaking the silence not only sides with PFLP, but also the same voices responsible for the surge in violence against Jews in May. “Leaders” like @Ilhan who knowingly lie to the public and claim Israel’s self defense is “terrorism” and who openly call for more Israelis to die. pic.twitter.com/21kz9X7vlk
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) October 28, 2021

But yet your Administration still has the audacity to question #Israel over the designation of #PFLP Palestinian terrorists, who seek our destruction? Sorry, but your words on antisemitism and terror ring hollow … https://t.co/3eKxTDhzOD
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 27, 2021

IMI Sues Kevlar Yarmulke Maker Over Use Of 'Iron Dome' Name (PreOccupied Teritory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Ramat HaSharon, October 31 - A government-owned Israeli corporation that manufacturers arms and other defense goods took legal action today against a producer of Judaica, charging that the latter's branding of its armored skullcap series violates the military corporation's trademark on the its renowned air defense system against rockets and long-range artillery.

Israel Military Industries sent an official warning today to Talleisim East, a producer of high-end yarmulkes and other Jewish ritual items, that use of the name "Iron Dome" is reserved by law for the air defense system by that name, and that Talleisim East's use of the term for its line of kevlar-reinforced kippot constitutes an illegal breach. The warning included a demand that Talleisim East recall all the units it has distributed under the trademarked name, and sell no more under the Iron Dome name.

A spokesman for IMI stated that the firm will pursue an aggressive defense of its rights. "The danger here lies in the fact that customers, and the public at large, will erroneously conclude that Israel Military Industries produces these goods, or endorses them," explained Shem Baduy. "Talleisim East is welcome to manufacture armored kippot to its hearts content - but not billed as Iron Dome, which is an IMI trademark." Attempts to reach the offices of Talleisim East in Jerusalem proved unsuccessful, and a call to o a Mt. Vernon, NY, phone number listed in the company's promotional catalog went similarly unanswered.

Iron Dome skullcaps have sold as novelty items in Judaica and souvenir stores, according to the proprietor of the Etrog chain of shops in central Jerusalem. "It's too bad, because it's a great gimmick," she lamented. "They come in several types of camouflage pattern, of course, but there's military green and black, as well. We've sold six or seven in the last week alone, and they only became available a few weeks ago. I hope IMI and the manufacturer can come to some sort of agreement, maybe license the name, because there's business to be had here." She voiced the pessimistic view that entrenched protectionist attitudes in Israeli government and government-run enterprises will view the situation only through the prism of a threat, and not the commercial opportunity it presents.

Legal sources revealed that IMI also attempted to file suit against a mountain in northern Israel for unauthorized use of the name Tavor, but at the last minute withdrew the filing when the company received information indicating the mountain may have taken the name before its application to the IMI-manufactured assault rifle.

10/28 Links Pt1: US State Dept. official acknowledges Israel must approve consulate reopening; The Global War on Terror Comes for Joe Biden; Britain Ends Direct Funding of PA Teachers

From Ian:

US State Dept. official acknowledges Israel must approve consulate reopening

A senior official in the US State Department told senators on Wednesday that Israel’s permission would be required before the United States could reopen its consulate in Jerusalem serving Palestinians.

US Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian McKeon appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to answer questions on a variety of issues. McKeon was asked by Senator Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee, about the potential reopening of that consulate.

“I just want to confirm something, on the record — is it your understanding that under US and international law the government of Israel would have to provide its affirmative consent before the United States could open or reopen the US consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem?” Hagerty asked McKeon. “Or does the Biden administration believe it can move forward to establish a second US mission in the Israel capital city of Jerusalem without the consent of the government in Israel?”

McKeon replied: “Senator, that’s my understanding — that we need the consent of the host government to open any diplomatic facility.”

In this case though, the facility the US is likely to operate the consulate out of is already under its control. The only Israeli approval required in this process will be in the decision to accept the credentials of whomever the Biden administration appoints to be the consul general in Jerusalem when they are presented to President Isaac Herzog.

US President Joe Biden has pledged to reopen the consulate, but the issue has been a sticking point between Israel and the United States, as well as among some members of Congress. The consulate was shuttered by then-US president Donald Trump in 2019 and its staff was folded into the US embassy — which had been moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem a year earlier — in what the Palestinians view as a downgrading of their ties with the US.

At last, @StateDept confirms #Israel would need to provide consent under American & international law for U.S. to open Palestinian consulate in #Jerusalem. Question is, how much pressure are they willing to exert on Israel? pic.twitter.com/GAP2bA5V8Y
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 28, 2021

From my @thejpc interview:

"You would have thought after 3,000+ yrs, we were past #Jerusalem being in contention or question as #Israel's capital. It's not if Next Year in East or West Jerusalem. Is JUST Jerusalem. Full stop. It always has been. It is. And thus it shall remain." pic.twitter.com/qB9CYHObaf
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 28, 2021

Noah Rothman: The Global War on Terror Comes for Joe Biden

On Monday evening, U.S. officials casually announced that a hostile foreign power was responsible for a “complex, coordinated, and deliberate” attack on an outpost operated by American soldiers.

According to the Pentagon, as many as five drones armed with explosives targeted a Syria-based garrison last week where U.S. forces and Syrian opposition fighters are stationed. The drones were Iranian in origin. The attack was encouraged and materially supported by Iran. And the targeting of this base has disrupted the U.S. mission in northwestern Syria to deter and contain the Islamic State in the Levant.

Just hours later, Colin Kahl, undersecretary of Defense for policy, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan represent a threat to the United States that is all but imminent. “I think the intelligence community currently assesses that both ISIS-K and al-Qaeda have the intent to conduct external operations, including against the United States,” Kahl said. Current estimates indicate that the Islamic State in Central Asia could mount attacks on the U.S. homeland anywhere from six to 12 months from now. As for al-Qaeda, the group responsible for the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil in the nation’s history will again be able to hit the homeland within a year or two.

These two episodes might appear unrelated, but only to those who have forgotten the objectives outlined by George W. Bush at the outset of the West’s Global War on Terror. That enterprise was never limited to non-state actors. That war was to be conducted against terrorists and their state sponsors—“any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism.” Afghanistan is once again just such a nation. Iran always was.

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Role of Iran's Palestinian Mercenaries

Hamas and PIJ, it seems, want to continue receiving funds and weapons from Iran, but they do not want to be seen by Arabs and Muslims as mercenaries serving Iran's interests in the Middle East.

Hamas and PIJ want the Palestinians and the rest of the Arabs and Muslims to believe that their only goal is to "liberate all of Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea" -- a euphemism for driving the Jews out of Israel and replacing it with an Islamist state.

That is most likely why both Palestinian terror groups were quick to issue statements denying that their main goal is to defend Iran and serve its interests in the Middle East.

"Take your armies and go with them back to Iran, where you can fight your battles away from the peoples you occupy to achieve your agendas," said Sami Gemayel, head of the Lebanese Kataeb Party. He also criticized the failure of Lebanese leaders to respond to the admission that Hezbollah was created to serve Iran, and not Lebanon: "Are you ready now to face the truth?"

The Iranian commander's [Maj. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid's] statements coincide with the Biden administration's delusional commitment to the fiction that the US will somehow convince Iran to abandon its plans to acquire nuclear weapons.

While the Biden administration is talking about "diplomacy" as the best way to rein in Iran's nuclear program, the mullahs are preparing for war and advancing their scheme to annihilate Israel and, with the help of their six "armies," occupy still more Arab countries.

In a press release on Monday denouncing Israel advancing a plan to build houses in Judea and Samaria, the EU stated - as it has literally hundreds of times before - "The European Union has consistently made clear that it will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by both sides."

The EU has used that phrase for as long as it has existed in its current form - literally hundreds of times. The specific language here is taken from a 2011 EU resolution supporting Palestinian statehood.

When resolutions such as that one are drafted, there are committees that meet for days or months crafting the language to be as precise as possible.

Why does the EU consistently refer to a set of borders that never existed?

Before 1967, Israel existed behind the 1949 armistice lines. Those lines were - at Arab insistence! - not borders. The Jordanian-Israel agreement said, quite explicitly, "The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in articles V and VI of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto."

There was similar language in Israel's agreement with Egypt. But that was superseded by the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, which did demarcate international borders between the two.

What about the lines between Jordan and Israel?

The 1994 peace agreement between the two seems to be very clear-cut:

Annex I (a)
Israel-Jordan International Boundary Delimitation and Demarcation
1. It is agreed that, in accordance with Article 3 of the Treaty, the international boundary between the two states consists of the following sectors:

A. The Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers B. The Dead Sea C. The Emek Ha'arva/Wadi Araba D. The Gulf of Aqaba

This agreement does two things: it supersedes the 1949 armistice agreement that is the source of the "pre-1967 borders" myth, and it defines the international borders between Israel and Jordan to be the Jordan River, Dead Sea and so forth.

Not between "Palestine" and Jordan - between Israel and Jordan.

There is a tiny caveat, which does not seem to have any legal impact on the actual borders defined:

The orthophoto maps and image maps showing the line separating Jordan from the territory that came under Israeli Military government control in 1967 shall have that line indicated in a different presentation and the legend shall carry on it the following disclaimer: "This line is the administrative boundary between Jordan and the territory which came under Israeli military government control in 1967. Any treatment of this line shall be without prejudice to the status of the territory."

The agreement is not saying that the boundary between Israel and Jordan is in question. It is instructing any maps created based on this agreement to include language that says Judea and Samaria's legal status has not been determined.

Under accepted international law, maps themselves are generally regarded as evidence, but have no legal value in and of themselves. The text in a map does not have the same weight as a legal agreement, unless it is attached as part of the agreement itself. The ICJ ruled as such in 1986.

The crucial point is that there was no such map attached to the agreement itself. Without that, the agreement text is the only legal definition of the border between Israel and Jordan - meaning that under international law, Israel's border ends where Jordan's begins.

Whatever legal status Judea and Samaria have, the 1949 armistice lines were not legal boundaries (borders) in 1949, nor in 1967, and certainly not after this 1994 agreement.

The EU knows this. It calls the 1949 armistice lines "borders" anyway.

Which means that the EU is knowingly lying about the facts to push its own political agenda of creating a Palestinian state on borders that never existed in any way.

In any other context, this would be a huge scandal. But when it comes to Israel, facts suddenly become optional and narratives are what drives EU resolutions.

(h/t Irene)

Al Quds reports on a meeting between a senior Palestinian official and the head of UNRWA in Ramallah yesterday.

Ahmed Majdalani is a member of the PLO's Executive Committee and secretary-general of the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front. He met with UNRWA Commissioner-General Philip Lazzarini, ostensibly to support UNRWA's efforts to line up more donors to keep the agency going.

But Majdalani doesn't care about UNRWA helping people it calls "refugees." To him, and to Palestinian leaders as a whole, it serves an entirely different purpose: to help destroy the Jewish state.

According to the article, he told Lazzarini that he supports UNRWA not as an institution that provides services to Palestinian refugees, but because it represents a political basis for the "right of return": of millions of Palestinians to flood Israel and turn it into another Arab state.

To help achieve this, Majdalani said he opposed the US insisting that UNRWA teach that Israel has the right to exist and not teach incitement. He strenuously opposes the UNRWA's agreement with the US to ensure objectivity as a condition for funding, saying, "We consider this agreement to carry risks that target and threaten the refugee issue, in order to undermine and liquidate it. It also redefines the refugee, and this is considered a dangerous matter for us in the Palestine Liberation Organization."

He is not only speaking for himself, but for the PLO altogether.

UNRWA pretends to be a non-political, objective organization, but of course it isn't. It says it must exist until there is a resolution to the "refugee" issue, and since the Palestinians won't accept any resolution short of destroying Israel, UNRWA essentially agrees with Majdalani and the PLO.

In the meeting, Lazzarini apparently didn't say a word of disagreement to Majdalani's characterization of the agency, instead praising Majdalani for his words supporting UNRWA's goals of obtaining more funds.

His silence is admission. UNRWA will not say it out loud, but it regards itself as a crucial tool in the eventual destruction of Israel as well.

Over the past month, Palestinians have edged more towards supporting a peace agreement with Israel than they did previously.

According to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, when asked "the most preferred way out of the current status quo" 36% said “reaching a peace agreement with Israel” while 34% prefer waging “an armed struggle against the Israeli occupation.”

In September, 28% said a peace agreement while a plurarilty of 39% said they felt terror was the best way.

When asked a somewhat different question, as to the most effective way to end the "occupation," a smaller plurality than September prefers terror. 44% chose "armed struggle" and 36% negotiations, compared to September's 48% preferring terror and 28% preferring negotiations.

I think the reason is that after the May conflict, Palestinians identified more with Hamas, which they respected for shooting rockets at Jerusalem to "defend Silwan" or "al-Aqsa." A month after the fighting, the "end the occupation" question resulted in 49% chose armed struggle, 27% negotiations, roughly the same as September. Before the war, in April, 36% said that they prefer reaching a peace agreement with Israel and 26% said they prefer violence.

So the tilt towards supporting terror seems to have been a bump in support of Hamas' philosophy as a result of the war, and now disillusionment on how little that helped is starting to set in. (The poll also showed that Hamas' popularity has gone down in October.)

Another factor may be that Palestinians are reacting positively towards Israeli goodwill gestures under the Bennett government, like allowing 4G networking in the territories.

But as we are seeing, support for negotiations is not a solid position. Public opinion can easily turn towards supporting terror at any time, as it has many times before.

No one mentions the consistent pattern in the polls: acts of terror like suicide bombs and rocket barrages do not bring revulsion from the Palestinian public, but huge waves of support.

Refuting the Narrative and Winning the Tribal War (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

Last week, Elder of Ziyon described an interesting conjecture on the origin of the word “Palestine”: that it is derived from the Greek word for “wrestler,” which is part of the name taken by Jacob when he wrestled – “isra” – with an angel of God, “El.” So “Palestine” means “Israel.”

Is it true? Who knows? But it is ironic in the light of the assertions of the Palestinian Arabs that they are “natives,” an indigenous people that were “colonized” by the European Jews who, according to them, are not even a people but just a religious sect.

This is the heart of the Palestinian narrative that is presented as a justification for their violent struggle to expel the Jews from Eretz Yisrael. The post-colonial ideology that is current today, especially on the part of European former colonialists, demands that colonists turn control of the lands they exploited over to the indigenous residents. If the colonists refuse to do the right thing, then the natives are – if not entirely justified in turning to violence – at least understood and sympathized with. The Palestinians even make the absurd claim that the UN Charter, which permits victims of aggression to defend themselves, approves.

The oldest indigenous people on the land, and the most legitimate claimants for aboriginal rights, are the Jewish people. The fact that they won their battle – against British and Arab colonists of their ancestral land – does not change that. The fact that Jews may have been a minority in the land on any particular day from biblical times to the present, does not change that. The fact that most of the Jews living in Israel today are descended from Jews that had been living in exile in Muslim countries, Europe, Africa, India, and other places, does not change that.

The Palestinian Arab claim to being an aboriginal people that was invaded and colonized is false in two respects: first, specifically Palestinian peoplehood did not exist to a great extent before the mid-1960s, when it developed in opposition to Zionism. And second, few Palestinian families have a connection to the land that extends more than a couple of generations before the arrival of the Zionists.

Prior to the appearance of Palestinism, which was catalyzed by the KGB-advised PLO in the 1960s, Arabs in the land primarily viewed themselves as members of their extended families or tribes. The land itself was considered “southern Syria,” and there are numerous quotations from Palestinian Arab leaders, as late as 1977, that deny the existence of a Palestinian identity in favor of a pan-Arab one.

There may be Palestinian Arabs that are descended from people that lived in the land during biblical times, or arrived in the Arab conquest of the 7^th century. But almost all came no earlier than the invasion of Syria (which included Eretz Yisrael and Lebanon) by Muhammad Ali (not the boxer) around 1830, and many of them migrated from the surrounding countries to take advantage of the economic development of the land by the Zionists and later the British Empire. When the UN defined “Palestinian refugee” in 1948, it included “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948…”, to include numerous recent migrants.

The last time Eretz Yisrael was governed by its indigenous inhabitants was during the Hasmonean Dynasty (140-137 BCE), the folks that gave us Hanukah. Since then, it has been ruled by a succession of invaders, including the Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamelukes, Turks, and British. Until the advent of the Palestinian Authority in 1993 and the Hamas takeover in Gaza, there has been nothing approaching Palestinian sovereignty anywhere.

A recent NY Times hit-job on Israel inadvertently made the oppositional nature of Palestinism clear. Asmaa Azaizeh, an Arab citizen of Israel and an intellectual, was quoted thus:

“Being a Palestinian is a way of resisting injustice,” she said. If there was nothing to resist, “I wouldn’t care if I was Palestinian or Egyptian or Lebanese or Jordanian.”

Palestinians are Arabs and they share the language, religious beliefs, and customs of Arabs in the surrounding countries. What makes them specifically Palestinian, as Ms. Azaizeh says, is their opposition to Zionism and the Jewish state. It doesn’t need to be said that in comparison, the Jewish people have a unique language and religion, as well as a relationship to this particular piece of land that goes back for millennia. As explained in the Torah, this land is inseparable from Jewish identity.

***

As I wrote last week, we are engaged in a conflict of tribes over the land. Regardless of the justice of their position, the tribe that prevails will have the land, and the loser will disappear.

The Arabs that call themselves Palestinians understand the importance of the land to their ideology far better than secular Jews do. That is why, with all the divisions and rivalries among them, they can agree almost single-mindedly on their goal of recovering their land and their honor.

One of the biggest mistakes that Israel makes in dealing with Arabs is in failing to understand the importance of maintaining her own honor. In the Middle East, honor is the greater part of deterrence. There is a Bedouin story about a rich man with many animals, several wives, and a number of sons. One day he sees someone steal a goat, and does nothing. He has many goats; maybe the thief is hungry, he thinks. The thief is emboldened and brings his friends. Little by little they take everything the man has. He has lost his honor, and without honor has no rights. Soon he finds his animals gone, his sons murdered, and his wives raped. He is left sitting outside the tent that used to belong to him.

Every time a Jew is humiliated on the street, every time they steal a car, burn a centimeter of land or make us afraid to walk on it, the Arabs move forward, closer to their goal. Every time a Jew moves away from the periphery of the country because of crime and insecurity, we lose ground. When we allow Arabs to shoot at us, or God forbid, kill us, without taking revenge, they gain and we lose.

There is a strategy for us to win in this conflict. It is to push forward in all parts of Eretz Yisrael to fully control the land, to make the Arabs understand that they have no hope of driving us out. It means increasing Jewish presence and control at the Temple Mount, and not the opposite, as has been happening since 1967. It means ending the no-go zones inside our capital. It means adopting a death penalty for terrorist murderers, and meeting Bedouin banditry in the south with overwhelming force. It means crushing the genocidal regime of Hamas, even if it requires a military occupation of Gaza. It means stopping the flow of money from the EU into illegal Arab building in Judea and Samaria, and encouraging hundreds of thousands of Jews to move there. It will probably also mean targeted killings and expulsions.

Life would not be as easy or pleasant for the Jews of Israel as it is now if they take on this task. It would require more military service, and it would cost money and lives. The state would have to become less open, liberal, and democratic. There would be opposition from the Israeli Left, Europe and America. The special position of the Jewish state as “the Jew of nations” ensures that, even if the nations of the world generally went out of their way to intervene on the side of justice, they would not choose our side.

On the other hand, if we don’t do it, if we allow the Arabs to continue their incremental gains and their erosion of our sovereignty, the day will come that we find ourselves outside our tent with no sons, wives or camels. There isn’t another alternative.

There is no doubt in my mind that we have the resources and the ability to win, to assert Jewish dominance over all of Eretz Yisrael. The harder question is this: how can we develop the will and the unity required to do it?

10/27 Links Pt2: Bari Weiss: When Your Body Is Someone Else's Haunted House; Emily Schrader: Boycotts Hold Universities Back; BU's Elie Wiesel Center mocks the Holocaust

From Ian:

Bari Weiss: When Your Body Is Someone Else's Haunted House

Tomorrow marks three years since the massacre at Tree of Life, the most lethal attack on Jews in American history and a watershed event in the lives of so many I love.

I find myself pulled back to that time. To the shock I felt. To the sense I had immediately that the country I thought I lived in was changing in radical ways, even if I didn’t yet fully understand them.

One of the people who helped me make sense of it all — who helped me see that the fate of Jews and the fate of liberty are intertwined; who helped me grasp that an assault on Jews was an assault on the very notion of difference — was Dara Horn.

Dara is a novelist and an essayist whose writings on Jewish history, culture politics has shaped my own thinking. Her new book is called “People Love Dead Jews.”

Here’s my review: My wife read it in a single sitting, pausing only to read lines out loud to me.

But don’t take my word for it. Read The Washington Post’s review. Or UnHerd’s. Or The Wall Street Journal.

This is a book deeply relevant to everyone who cares about the future of America, not just the future of American Jews.

Until then, here is an excerpt from “People Love Dead Jews”:
Sometimes your body is someone else’s haunted house. Other people look at you and can only see the dead.

I first discovered this at the age of seventeen in the most trivial of moments, at an academic quiz bowl tournament in Nashville, Tennessee—where, as the only girl from my New Jersey high school, I shared a hotel room with two girls from Mississippi. We were strangers and competitors pretending to be friends. One night we stayed up late chatting about our favorite childhood TV shows, about how we had each believed that Mr. Rogers was personally addressing us through the screen. We laughed together until one girl said, “It’s like Jesus. Even if he didn’t know my name when he was dying on the cross, I still know he loved me, and if he knew my name, he would have loved me too.” The other girl squealed, “I know, right? It’s just like Jesus!” Then the two of them, full of messianic joy, looked at me.

I said nothing—a very loud nothing. The girls waited, uncomfortable, until one braved the silence. “It seems like people up north are much less religious,” she tried. “How often do you go to church?”

Emily Schrader: Boycotts Hold Universities Back

Before becoming the resounding success it is today, the Cornell-Technion partnership came under fire from SJP and other anti-Israel hate groups. They continue to target science and innovation by opposing academic collaboration between the U.S. and Israel. As the Technion and other Israeli institutions build on the success of this program by creating new international partnerships with more universities, SJP persists in its attacks. It is notable that they only target the democratic state of Israel – as opposed to China, Russia, or any country with a poor track record on human rights. Their criticism is rooted in bad faith and should be dismissed out of hand.

The University of Minnesota has enjoyed a strong collaborative relationship with multiple universities in Israel throughout the past few decades. Since 1980, more than 1,400 documents have been co-authored between the University of Minnesota and various Israeli universities, and the numbers tend to follow an increasing trend. 16 documents were written in collaboration with Tel-Aviv University in 2018, and now 29 have been written thus far in 2021. Between 2018-2019, 10 documents were published in collaboration with Bar-Ilan University, whereas 31 were published between 2020-2021. Ben-Gurion University also saw increasing numbers, and although the Weizmann Institute of Science did not, it still had 15 documents published in collaboration with the University of Minnesota in 2021. In total 103 documents were published in 2021 with this co-authorship compared to 79 in 2018.

Cornell and the Technion’s partnership marks one of the most ambitious – and successful – international academic efforts in contemporary history. Bridging oceans, continents, and cultures, this relationship enables the best and brightest minds in both New York and Haifa to create a brighter future for the Middle East and the entire world. The Twin Cities, hopefully, will become the next great center of American-Israeli cooperation.

Gil Troy: BU's Elie Wiesel Center mocks the Holocaust

Honorees and donors to BU – and every other university – beware. As Elie Wiesel’s family has learned the hard way, once you lend your name to an academic institution, you’re powerless. And in today’s perverse academic world, when Jew-hatred is so mainstreamed it’s often undetected, such profanations of sacred names will only proliferate.

To exorcise this ugliness, recall Elie Wiesel’s courageous article in Le Figaro in 1975, after the UN declared Zionism “racism.” With his survivor-scarred skepticism about labels, Wiesel had resisted calling himself a Zionist. But he could smell Jew-hatred, even when perfumed with human rights rhetoric. “Reproaches, condemnations, indictments by other nations – the plot is clear. It leads to public humiliation, the forced isolation of a people whose suffering is the oldest in the world,” he wrote.

He understood that “to prepare ‘solutions’ to the ‘Jewish problem,’ the first step was to divorce the Jew from humanity.” And anticipating today’s crisis among young Jews, he added: “To weaken us they attempted to distort our self-image.... We are told that it is not about Jews, this is about Zionists. That, too, is hardly new. They try to divide us, to pit us one against the other after having pitted us against the world.”

Rejecting this anti-Zionist con game demonizing his people, Wiesel declared, “I have no choice but to consider myself a Zionist. To do otherwise would mean accepting the terms of reference used by Israel’s enemies. I wish our non-Jewish friends would do the same, and claim Zionism as a badge of honor.”

I honor the Wiesel family for extending “a hand” to tonight’s speaker. May he and others embrace Elie Wiesel’s challenge: learn what Zionism truly is, stop using it as a curse word, and celebrate it “as a badge of honor.”

When Palestine Was Kosher (Judean Rose)

Once upon a time, everyone knew that Palestine was Jewish land. It didn’t matter who was sovereign, who lived there, or how many Jews were there. The fact is, Palestine had always been Jewish land, and everyone knew it.

Palestine was also occupied land, only nobody called it that back then. Not even the Jews. Meekly, we prayed for return as the foreign ones came, one after the other.

So nu. We had the Brits. Before that the Turks. And before that EVERYONE else. Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Mamluks, you name it: they came, and it was ugly and brutal for our people.

Everyone wanted a piece of the action.

Everyone wanted our land. They still do.

Now all of this was foreign domination of Jewish land. And everybody knew it. Everybody knows it, still.

The Arabs know it. The world knows it. Even The Squad knows it.

Because it’s hard to deny history, which is this: Down through the ages, everyone and his dog has wanted our land—Jewish land—and they still do. Right now, thank God, we’ve got a sliver. But bad people want to drive us into the sea and give it to others, this one tiny sliver of our land. This time, the world wants to give it to Arabs.

Who will they give it to next, one hundred years from now? China? Korea? Mars?

It matters not. Take our land from us again and again. Expel us. Install another people, another government. Call it something else. Call it Palestine or Israel, Eretz Yisrael, or the Holy Land, it’s all the same. It will never matter. It is and will always be Jewish land.

In our daily lives we called it “Palestine,” because we knew it meant “Israel.” Palestine was the Israel of our prayers and holy books. The geography and history were identical. Go to Palestine and one could pick up ancient coins from the ground, mute testimony to Jewish tragedy and longing.

One time, during the Depression, my grandfather came home from work, and saw a small wrapped rectangular item on the table marked “Elite.”

“What’s this?” he asked my grandmother.

“Chocolate from Palestine,” said my grandmother, with reverence. She’d bought it from someone going door to door.

Grandpa unwrapped a corner and took a bite. “FEH,” he spat. “Tastes like ground-up Arabs!”

That's pretty much it in a nutshell: My grandmother saw “Palestine” as a holy cause. My grandfather, meanwhile, saw Arabs as pesky interlopers. They were both right. And that generation knew the truth. It’s only now our brains have been twisted into pretzels of inverted truth.

And still, once upon a time, it was no big deal to say these things out loud—a time when everyone knew that Palestine was a label applying to both Jews and the Holy Land. A sign on a Chicago storefront reading “Palestine Kosher” gave no one cognitive dissonance (except for its proximity to the phrase “Fried Shrimp”), because it made sense: Jews eat kosher and are from Palestine. (And not Arabs.)

More interesting, perhaps, is the fact that our storefront photo of an admittedly much older building is from 1963. Israel had already become a state. Yasser Arafat had not yet begun to talk narishkeit about Arabs being “Palestinians.” So there were no protests, riots, or talk of appropriation. What's clear is that “Palestine” the word, as late as 1963, still held fond associations for most kosher Jews. (Also, it took time for the new/old name “Israel,” to kick in.)

Indeed we did finally get up the courage, in 1948, to call Palestine by its real name: Israel. The “new” name just confirmed what everyone had already known. That it was Jewish land. That it was ours.

The Times got it as far back as September 1, 1929 and the Hebron Massacre. The Gray Lady called it as it was: the Arabs were invading Palestine (when Yasser Arafat was naught but a puling Cairo infant).

Even as late as 1948, the world still knew what was what, and who was who. One people was native, the other a belligerent outsider. The AP knew it, and the Boston Evening Globe repeated it. So did the Raleigh Times (and a slew of others, too numerous to mention).