Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, November 15, 2021

Palestinian prime minister denies any trace of Jewish history in Jerusalem. (Yes, that makes him an antisemite.)

Mohammed Shtayyeh, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, is considered a moderate. He is looked upon as someone the West can deal with.

He received a Western education, getting his PhD from the University of Sussex in Brighton. He does not have a history of being involved in terror attacks. He has published books and has written at least one op-ed in the New York Times. He was received with respect in his latest trip to Europe this month.

And it just so happens that he is an antisemite.

This week's Palestinian cabinet meeting was in Al-Ram, just outside Jerusalem's municipal borders. During the meeting, Shtayyeh spoke about Jerusalem:

We are on the outskirts of the eternal capital, the jewel in the crown, the point where heaven and earth meet, the flower of all cities, the object of longing of the hearts of the Muslim and Christian Believers who come to it to pray in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and to walk on the Via Dolorosa in order to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which witnessed the signing of the Pact of Umar, in which the Caliph Umar pledged to the people of Iliya (the Arab version of Aelia Capitolina/Jerusalem) that no Muslim would pray in their church. “Iliya Al-Quds” has Canaanite, Roman, Islamic, and Christians antiquities and is theirs alone, and no one else has any traces in it.

Denying Jewish history, and deliberately denying the historic importance of Jerusalem to Jews, is antisemitism.

Before Palestinian nationalism, no Muslims ever denied the Jewish history of Jerusalem. It is well accepted that the entire reason the Dome of the Rock was built was as a successor to Solomon's Temple. The Waqf used to admit this as "beyond dispute."

Temple denial is only a few decades old, and only became popular when Yasir Arafat denied the Jewish Temples were ever in Jerusalem to Bill Clinton.

Shtayyeh is going beyond that, denying the clear historical, archaeological, cultural and religious evidence of the unbreakable Jewish attachment to Jerusalem.

This is antisemitism, and this respected face of Palestinian politics is an antisemite.

Unfortunately, antisemitism isn't enough to disqualify Palestinian politicians from being respected and honored by Western leaders.

In a fair world, he should be treated exactly as if he would have denied slavery of Black people. But antisemitism in the guise of "anti-Zionism" is not only respected, it is celebrated.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

UPDATE: In English, Shtayyeh said only last week, “The issue for us is not about Jews and Judaism. We have a great respect to every single Jewish person in the world.”

Rabbi Yehuda Gerami, chief rabbi of Iran, has been touring the US for the past couple of weeks, meeting with other rabbis and speaking in shuls.

The rabbi gave a speech at the Chabad of Northern Virginia last night where he essentially admitted that antisemitism in Iran is institutional and official.

Rabbi Gerami has publicly slammed Israel in Iranian media and voiced support for the worst of Iran's terror leaders, drawing condemnation from other Jews, and his speech broadly implied that he has no choice.

Iran’s chief rabbi said on Sunday evening that the country’s Jewish community feared physical attacks from some Muslim neighbors in the wake of the January 2020 killing of Iranian al-Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani by the United States.

“The situation was very sensitive,” said Rabbi Yehuda Gerami, speaking at Chabad of Northern Virginia in Fairfax, Virginia. “We felt that sensitivity, not from the government, from the people. They talked about revenge.”

Gerami said that he decided to condemn the strike publicly on the news and to pay his condolences to Soleimani’s family in order to calm the situation, which was effective.

“We felt there could be danger,” he explained. “Then we had to go give interviews and say we were not for it, that we don’t agree with this war.”

As far as official antisemitism, he addressed it in the context of a joke:

He admitted that there are some positions in the military and senior management roles that are closed to Jews. “Maybe they can’t learn atomic energy,” he added with a smile.

But perhaps the most telling indication of Iranian antisemitism came when he defended Iran's tolerance towards Jews. “Iran is the only place where synagogues don’t need any security. But we have to use our wisdom, we are guests and we have to be diplomatic.”

Saying that Jews are guests in Iran says it all.

Even after living there for thousands of years, Jews are not considered full citizens.They are guests - guests who are not full members of society, guests who are only there at the forbearance of the hosts, and guests who can be forced out at any time if they are impolite.

Iranian Muslims and Iranian Jews both know that the Jews aren't really Iranians, just as Jews have not been considered full citizens by antisemites in every country they ever lived in.

Could the next Arab country to make peace with Israel be - Libya?

Israel Hayom reports:

The political camps in the North African country, which has suffered two brutal civil wars over the past decade, are preparing for a highly charged election campaign that will determine Libya's future.

According to senior Libyan officials with close ties to the leading presidential candidate, Gen. Khalifa Haftar, it appears the large Arab country is moving toward normalization with Israel. Haftar has recently voiced his desire on several occasions to normalize ties with Israel, and declared he would work to that end if he is elected president on December 24.

Israel Hayom reported in late October that an Israeli consulting firm was advising both Haftar and his main rival, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the former tyrant Muammar Gaddafi, who was deposed and killed in a violent uprising 10 years ago.

Haaretz reports that Haftar actually secretly visited Israel at the beginning of the month.

Libya was one of Israel's most implacable foes under the elder Gaddafi.

Its media has not been reporting these rumors, although they did report about both major candidates using the same Israeli PR firm for their campaigns, using different UAE addresses.

The current Libyan Government of National Unity has not warmed up to Israel, though. They announced that if Israel would attend the Paris Conference on Libya, they would refuse to attend themselves. It is unclear if anyone invited Israel in the first place.

If it happens, it would be the strongest signal yet that Arab leaders are realizing that shunning Israel does not accomplish anything and can even put them at a competitive disadvantage.

It doesn't look like this would be a peace of warmth and normalization, if it occurs. Libya is still teetering on the edge of chaos and most citizens would oppose peace. It would be more a peace treaty for convenience, where each party will get something they want out of it.

A bad peace is still a lot better than a quiet state of war. But a treaty that would cause the government to fall would signal to other Arab leaders that the price of peace with Israel could be more costly than the benefits, and it could hurt longer term integration of Israel into the region.

(h/t Yoel)

Military experts agree: Israel didn't break international law in Gaza, but Hamas did - and the media failed to report it

JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security in America, created a Gaza Task Force to go to Israel and report on what they found out about the Gaza conflict last May.

The members of the task force are:

LTG Robert Ashley, USA (ret.), Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
LTG John M. Bednarek, USA (ret.), Former Senior Defense Official in Iraq; former Chief of Office of Security Cooperation in Baghdad
LTC Geoffrey S. Corn, USA (ret.) Former Chief International Law for U.S. Army Europe
Lt Gen Jon Davis, USMC (ret.) Former Deputy Commandant for Aviation
LTG Karen Gibson, USA (ret.) Former Deputy Director for National Intelligence for National Security Partnerships
LTG Stephen Lanza, USA (ret.) Former Commanding General of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis McChord
RADM Brian Losey, USN (ret.) Former Commander of Naval Special Warfare Command
Lt Gen Richard Natonski, USMC (ret.) Former Commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command
LTG Raymond Palumbo, USA (ret.) Former Deputy Commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command
GEN David Rodriguez, USA (ret.) Former Commander of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM)
Lt Gen Thomas Trask, USAF (ret.) Former Vice Commander of United States Special Operations Command
Gen Charles Wald, USAF (ret.) Former Deputy Commander of United States European Command (EUCOM)

I'd say that this group has orders of magnitude more expertise in the laws of armed conflict than the entire staffs of Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, the UN Human Rights Council and Oxfam combined.

They released their report last month, with nearly no coverage in the media. And no wonder: they prove that the media and the NGOs they adore have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to international law.

The report does not only discuss what Israel did right. It also expands on Israel's missteps, mostly with messaging (the bombing of the Al Jalaa media building and the apparent deception to the world media that a ground operation was starting, for two.) It describes how Hamas learned lessons from previous wars and how they attempted to gain specific advantages. It discusses what lessons other democracies can learn from how Israel fought terrorists who are willing to make their own people human shields.

The report emphasizes how Hamas and its allies used the media to spread lies about the laws of armed conflict. Two examples of egregious ignorance about the laws of war from two popular comedy news hosts are given:

Trevor Noah, The Daily Show
On May 11, 2021, Trevor Noah did a segment on The Daily Show in which he argued that, because Israel is more militarily capable, it should refrain from defending itself: “If you were in a fight where the other person cannot beat you, how hard should you retaliate when they try to hurt you?”
John Oliver, Last Week Tonight
Oliver’s viral May 16, 2021, segment about Israeli actions included the unfounded accusation that it “targeted the al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan,” and that the IDF’s strike on a multi-story building in Gaza used by Hamas “sure seems like war crime, regardless of whether you send a courtesy heads-up text.” Oliver dismissed Hamas' firing of rockets at Israeli civilian population centers because “most of the rockets aimed toward Israeli citizens this week were intercepted.”

Both of these examples were multiplied, subtly or not, by mainstream media coverage that amplified Hamas' and its supporters' lies that every civilian killed in a war is a war crime.

Two of the members of the task force wrote an op-ed in the New York Post today that summarized the findings and what it means for America in the future:

In its conflict with Hamas in May, Israel endured a barrage of rockets — as well as war-crime accusations. Iron Dome intercepted most of the former. The latter are more dangerous, for Israel and even the United States.

After reviewing the Israeli Defense Forces’ operations during the Gaza conflict as retired senior US military officers, we find these accusations spurious — fed by Hamas’ disinformation and a widespread misunderstanding of the Law of Armed Conflict, or LOAC. These dynamics could soon feature in conflicts involving the US military.

Delegitimizing Israeli operations — not military victory — was one of Hamas’ main objectives in this conflict. “The real crimes,” Hamas’ spokesperson told the media, “were committed by [Israel] targeting civilians … killing more than 100 children and women and demolishing buildings.”

With such false claims, Hamas casts any civilian casualty as illegal. Unfortunately, many in the media and public embraced this false narrative.

“Destroying a civilian residence sure seems like a war crime,” comedian John Oliver opined on his show. Seeming like a war crime and being one are quite different.

LOAC requires militaries to distinguish between — and only attack — military, not civilian, targets. Commanders are obliged to make a good-faith effort to take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian risk.

These rules do not preclude unavoidable civilian casualties. It is a sad but undeniable reality of war that international law tolerates harm to civilians if it’s not deliberately inflicted, caused by indiscriminate attacks and avoidable with feasible precautions.

In our professional opinion, Israeli actions in Gaza reflected a consistent and good-faith commitment to respect and implement these LOAC principles.

As we've noted numerous times, modern wars involve messaging no less than munitions. The report shows that Israeli officials are almost resigned to the fact that the world will report unfairly anyway, but that doesn't mean they should give up improving how they get the truth across. The spokespeople should be involved nearly as much as the lawyers are in determining how to target and what information needs to be available instantly after an operation.

11/14 Links: Peace-Processing Like Its 1993; Did US cover up airstrikes in Syria? What does it mean for Israel, ICC?; Documentary on worst antisemitic attack in US shows courage under fire

From Ian:

Peace-Processing Like Its 1993

The Palestinian Authority incites against Jews and Israelis, pays “salaries” to terrorists in violation of US law, and in an ultimatum in September, PA strongman Mahmoud Abbas told Israel: “Our patience and the patience of our people have limits. This is our land, our Jerusalem, our Palestinian identity, and we shall defend it until the occupier leaves.” Hamas fired more than 4,000 rockets into Israeli towns and villages.

And yet, according to Ross, the onus is on Israel. It is incumbent on the government in Jerusalem to “show it is doing its part to reduce friction, make life better, enhance movement, and preserve an outcome other than a single, binational state.”

And Israel had better get on with it — for its own sake, of course — lest it face the rise of left-wing anti-Israelism in Congress and pressure from the administration.

A more worthwhile approach would recognize that the world has changed since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. Since then, the Palestinians have proven themselves corrupt, incompetent, and dictatorial in the governance of their own people in the Gaza Strip and in Judea and Samaria. They have taught their children that Israel will disappear and that the land will be liberated by brave Palestinian children, many of whom will die in the effort — but that’s OK with their parents. Hamas fires its weapons into civilian centers in Israel (a war crime) and places its weapons amid its own civilian population to maximize Palestinian casualties that can be blamed on Israel (another war crime). They have maintained a state of war against Israel, even as Israel permits 130,000 Palestinians to work in Israel every day.

But still, Israel has to do something, says Ross.

But it did. The actual genius of the Abraham Accords is that Israel allows countries with a progressive attitude towards their own people’s health and well-being to operate freely and remove the artificial barrier to Arab-Israeli cooperation in fields from tourism to defense to scientific endeavor. All the Palestinians have to do is be as forward-thinking as the United Arab Emirates, as open-minded as Morocco, as welcoming as Bahrain, and as realistic as Sudan.

Then we can peace process like its 2021.

Biden’s Israel Policy and America’s ‘Course Correction’

Biden’s persistent and inappropriate pressure on Israel to open a consulate in Jerusalem for Palestinians will also be a wedge issue. Such a move would not only be a violation of American law; it would be a waste of the American taxpayers’ money, since the US embassy in Jerusalem already performs all the functions that the proposed consulate is supposed to perform.

It would also divide Jerusalem — something that, for the past 50 years, Biden has said he’d never do. He also had his State Department criticize Israel for giving the green light to building 3,140 housing units in Judea and Samaria. His administration also gave Israel a hard time over designating six Palestinian NGOs that are fronts for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as terrorist organizations.

Biden will find out that all of the above factors will hurt him significantly in the midterm elections. This reality is coming into sharper focus with each passing day.

Did US cover up airstrikes in Syria? What does it mean for Israel, ICC? - analysis

The dust still has not settled following the stunning New York Times exposure this weekend of a series of US airstrikes on an ISIS camp in Baghuz, Syria on March 18, 2019, which may have killed dozens of civilians.

But the smell is awful and allegations of war crimes and a cover-up are in the air.

Of course, there are major differences between emotional reactions and legal analysis when it comes to the tragic killing of civilians in the midst of the fog of war.

If the narrative provided by official US spokespeople regarding the incident is accurate, there may not have been any war crimes.

According to US defense establishment claims, there was an imminent attack on Syrian Democratic Forces allies who desperately needed aircover. ISIS had unleashed a counter-attack from its camp including a mix of armed attackers and mobile suicide bombers.

Moreover, large numbers of civilians had fled in anticipation of further US attacks on one of ISIS’s few remaining strongholds. So those who remained were viewed as very hardcore.

PM on Israelis detained in Turkey: ‘Innocent citizens, we are doing all we can’

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said at the opening of Sunday’s cabinet meeting that he was working to secure the release of an Israeli couple detained in Turkey for taking photographs of the president’s palace.

“They are two innocent citizens who accidentally got into a complicated situation,” Bennett said. “I spoke with the family yesterday and we are doing everything we can to resolve the issue. I ask the family, despite the great difficulty, to be strong. We are with you. Beyond that, it wouldn’t be right to expand [on the matter] at the moment.”

Turkish authorities detained Natali and Mordy Oknin, residents of Modiin, on Thursday for photographing Erdogan’s palace in Istanbul. The couple and their family insist they did not know it was illegal to do so.

Earlier on Sunday, Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid held urgent consultations on the issue.

Bennett and Lapid reviewed the efforts made over the weekend and agreed to continue to work to find a solution as soon as possible. Foreign Ministry Director General Alon Ushpiz, National Security Council head Eyal Hulata and other officials participated in the talks.

Lapid is leading the effort to secure the couple’s release and is in talks with Israel’s consular representative in Ankara.

Turkey considers charges against Israeli tourist couple

Interview with Amb. Alon Liel, former Head of Israeli Diplomatic Mission to Turkey.

Prosecutors considering espionage charges against Israeli nationals for taking photos of presidential palace

Prosecutors in Turkey say that they are weighing charges of espionage against an Israeli couple detained in Istanbul for taking photographs of the president's palace.

The couple could still face the lesser charge of engaging in acts that harm the country's national security, according to Israeli TV reports.

Business site Globes (Hebrew) reports that while the Saudis are not interested at this point in joining the Abraham Accords or to make relations with Israel official, they want to reap some of the benefits without risking angering the Arab street.

According to the report, the Saudis are ready to promote commercial, economic and civil relations with Israel.

Examples include additional transportation agreements and promotion of joint ventures in countries that already have relations with Israel.

A political source in Saudi Arabia told Globes that the business, government and private sectors have been given the green light to trade with Israeli companies, at this moment age through Bahrain and the Emirates. While there have already been some transactions of that kind in recent months, this green light is expected to expand the initiative and reduce any hesitation that Saudi businesses might have had.

It is yet another Abraham Accords breakthrough that Israel-haters hate to admit.

(h/t Yoel)

Palestine Online tweeted:

Villages?

No one claims that there was more than one village there, Umm al-Rashrash so we immediately see the lie.

According to Zochrot, which claims to catalogue all of the "depopulated Palestinian" towns, it had a population of 50. It has several photos of the area, all taken by the Israeli Palmach on March 10, 1949, the day it was conquered: three mud huts that comprised the British police station in the area and photos of the IDF raising a hand-drawn Israeli flag on top of the same British police station.

The British police station was empty when Israeli forces took it. Transjordan claimed a skirmish between Israeli troops and its forces near Aqaba, but apparently they hugely exaggerated a couple of pot shots taken by the Jordanians when a patrol hastily withdrew from the area which was never within Transjordan's borders.

Where was the village and the villagers?

I cannot find any photos of them. I can't even find evidence that such a village existed at the time.

Accounts of Israel's Operation Uvda, the last ditch effort to control the Negev before permanent borders were drawn, do not mention any village or Arabs leaving the area.

Wikipedia mentions evidence of people living there in the 7th millenium BCE and during the Umayyad reign, but nothing between then and the building of the British police post there.

Eduard Rüppell, a German explorer, drew a detailed map of the region in 1822 and showed no village where Umm al-Rashrash had been.

Modern Eilat is located between the mountain "Gatal Mahamar" and the area labelled "marais saumâtre" (brackish marsh).

The Wikipedia page of "List of towns and villages depopulated during the 1947–1949 Palestine war" says the village had a population of 46, and it bases this (and all other statistics on the page) on Salman Abu Sitta's 2010 Atlas of Palestine.

The Abu Sitta Atlas, in turn, says that its detailed list of villages is based on the British Mandate government's publication Village Statistics. Jerusalem: Government Printer, 1945 and a 1970 PLO publication, Sami Hadawi, Village Statistics 1945, A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine, With Explanatory Notes, Facts and Figures No.34. Beirut: PLO Research Center, September

1970.

The original Village Statistics does not mention Umm Rashrash. Here is what ist says about the population of every village in the Beersheba (Negev) District from 1945:

The 1970 Sami Hadawi book publishes a slightly different version:

While there are over 47,000 Bedouins in the Negev, there is no indication whatsoever of any settlement in Umm al-Rashrash.

Abu Sitta's own table said that there was a population of 38 - among various other purported Negev villages with the unlikely coincidence of exactly the same number of people.

It is hard to escape the idea that most of these statistics - and even communities - are simply made up.

Israel Magazine 1974: Vol 6 Issue 3 has an article about how important the Negev was to David Ben-Gurion, especially access to the Red Sea. It describes Umm al-Rashrash as three mud huts - the same huts used by the British police (including their living quarters.) It described the area as "a place usually avoided even by desert dwellers."

British Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, fretting over the possibility of Israel gaining a foothold at the Red Sea, described the entire area as a "purely tribal area," - meaning, no permanent villages. (Quoted in Benny Morris' Road to Jerusalem.)

I've seen some sources say that Umm al-Rashrash was a place for Egyptians to rest on their way to Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage, and that it was also called Bet El Hujaj (House of the Pilgrims.) But I cannot find any source for an actual permanent village in Umm al-Rashrash in the 20th century before Israel built Eilat there.

If I'm right, then how many of the hundreds of Arab villages supposedly destroyed by Israel have been made up or exaggerated?

If anyone can find evidence of this village that Israel supposedly depopulated, let me know. I'll happily update this.

(h/t Jim W)

UPDATE: Irene notices what looks like they might be buildings in the distance on the right of this photo.

It is hard to tell, to me one structure on the left of the detail seems large enough to be a residence (and it appears to have a roof overhang) and the others might be animal shelters.But it is so fuzzy, they could be vehicles as well.

From the London Metropolitan Police:

A man reported to police after wearing T-shirts supporting proscribed terrorist groups has admitted offences under the Terrorism Act.

Feras Al Jayoosi, 34 (02.06.87), of Swindon was observed on Tuesday, 8 and Wednesday, 9 June wearing two T-shirts in Golders Green in north London - one bearing the logo of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group, and the other with the Hamas Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades logo. Both are proscribed terrorist organisations.

The sightings were reported to police, and officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) launched an investigation.

Al Jayoosi was quickly identified as the person wearing the T-shirts, and was arrested at his home address two days later, on Friday, 11 June.

Further enquiries revealed he had worn the Hamas Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades T-shirt in Swindon on Sunday, 30 May.

He was charged on Wednesday, 27 October.

Appearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday, 12 November, Al Jayoosi admitted to four charges of wearing an article, namely a T-shirt, in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he was a supporter of a proscribed organisation, contrary to section 13(1) and (3) of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Following the pleas, he was conditionally bailed, and will be sentenced at the same court on Friday, 17 December.

Golders Green is a heavily Jewish neighborhood in London.

This is a classic case of where the antisemitism of the "anti-Zionists" is obvious to all. Unless I'm mistaken, Jayoosi custom made these T-shirts - they both say "Free Palestine" on top and have what appears to ba a photo of masked terrorists on the bottom, with the logos of two different terror organizations in the center. It seems unlikely that these shirts with such similarities are for sale anywhere.

This means that Jayoosi printed up these shirts, included the "Free Palestine" part to make them look like mainstream political messages, and deliberately walked with them - on different occasions - through a Jewish neighborhood where he knew he would upset residents. He probably assumed that the "Free Palestine" would make him immune to prosecution since that is a common slogan in British locales.

Ironically, his wearing both shirts is the best indication that Jayoosi is not a terrorist - a real terrorist would only associate himself with one of the terror groups. His "Free Palestine" message was aimed at intimidating Jews first and foremost, and only secondarily to show solidarity with Palestinian terror groups. It is the modern, single-person equivalent to the neo-Nazi planned march through the Jewish neighborhood of Skokie in 1977.

Modern Orthodox Jews apparently make the best negotiators between Israel and Arabs

Arab media is reporting that a tentative agreement has been reached in the maritime border dispute between Israel and Lebanon.

This rumor has come from a single Lebanese newspaper, Al Anbaa. There hasn't been any confirmation as of this writing.

While the agreement still seems to require approval from Hezbollah and Hezbollah won't agree without Iran, any agreement between Israel and Lebanon would be a very big deal.

The US negotiator between Israel and Lebanon is Amos Hochstein, a close aide to President Biden and an expert on energy. A senior Israeli official told Axios last week, "Hochstein told us he is not going to present a proposal that both sides like, but the opposite — that both won’t like. But if three to four months from now he sees the parties are not willing to take the deal, he would drop the whole thing and won’t deal with this anymore.”

Lebanon needs access to gas fields desperately as its economy is in crisis.

If this story about a tentative agreement is true, that means that the most successful American negotiators in making agreements between Israel and Arab nations have all been modern Orthodox Jews - and Zionists.

Jared Kushner and Avi Berkowitz helped broker the agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. They also helped solve the crisis between Saudi Arabia and Qatar in late 2020, meaning that the pair (along with Jason Greenblatt) are the most successful Middle East negotiators in history.

Hochstein was born in Israel, served in the IDF and - like Kushner and Berkowitz- identifies as a modern Orthodox Jew.

Traditional diplomats would no doubt never consider the possibility that an Arab nation would accept a religious Jewish Zionist as an honest broker between Israel and the Arab world. However, religious Jews have a language in common with religious Muslims, as both religions share a mentality that is very different from Christianity in the sense that they both are based heavily on law rather than faith.

Perhaps Arab Muslims respect that these Jews are people who have faith and conviction and can speak and understand their language, making them better interlocutors than the last 150 years of mostly Christian Arabists at the State Department.

11/13 Links: Jews need to be united on a united Jerusalem; UNRWA - the worst thing that ever happened to Palestinians;

From Ian:

Jews need to be united on a united Jerusalem

This is the time for the entire American-Jewish community to unite to keep Jerusalem united, because Biden’s move is about a lot more than the consulate.

The Abraham Accords came from then-president Donald Trump making clear that there is no daylight between Israel and the US. He emphasized that lack of daylight with every step he took, from renouncing the dangerous Iranian nuclear deal, to recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights to formally recognizing united Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the US Embassy.

Reopening the US consulate for the PA would be a destructive step on the way to undoing other moves courageously undertaken by Trump for Israel, America’s closest and most loyal ally. It would be a sign that the Biden administration is purposely creating daylight with Israel again.

It is understandable that the Biden administration would want to harm the Abraham Accords, which were an unprecedented accomplishment initiated by the president’s predecessor from a rival party. But it would be completely short-sighted and would distance Middle East peace after significant progress was finally made.

This move would isolate Israel in the international community and return to the intransigent Palestinian leadership the veto power that enabled them to quash all peace overtures by Democratic and Republican presidents and secretaries of state in the past. It would also harm chances of formally expanding the Abraham Accords to other countries, most notably Saudi Arabia, which was active behind the scenes in efforts to advance Middle East peace during the Trump administration.

The diverse Israeli government, which is divided on most issues, is united in favor of expanding the Abraham Accords, so failing to do so by refocusing diplomatic energies on the Palestinians again would be a tremendous missed opportunity.

Itamar Marcus: UNRWA - the worst thing that ever happened to Palestinians

In a shocking admission of the political agenda behind UNRWA, PA Social Development Minister Ahmed Majdalani recently told UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini how the PA sees UNRWA in an online article from Al-Quds on October 27. “Majdalani emphasized the necessity of protecting UNRWA not as an institution that provides services to the refugees, but rather because it is a political symbol of the refugees’ right of return,” the article reads.

UNRWA is not intended to help the refugees but to preserve them as refugees serving the PA’s goals. The world saw a tragic example of the PA’s ideology during the Syrian civil war. Palestinians in refugee camps were being killed and Israel offered to allow them into PA areas on the condition that they be taken off the UN refugee lists. Shockingly, Mahmoud Abbas refused. The PA preferred that they be killed as refugees than live as free people in the PA areas. Estimates are that as many as 4,000 camp residents were killed during the fighting.

As a supreme international priority, something must be done to save the 5.7 million victims of UNRWA, and there is a solution. The UNRWA infrastructure must be closed and the administration of all their camps must be transferred to UNHCR – free of the dictates of the PA. UNHCR will be tasked with solving the problem as opposed to UNRWA whose task has been to perpetuate the problem. UNHCR will go to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the PA areas with the mandate to take the chains off the refugees and give them freedom.

UNHCR will use its billions of dollars to train them, create jobs and give them homes in the countries where they were born and lived their entire lives, where they must be granted full citizenship. Countries that refuse to resettle their fellow Arabs must be ostracized by the international community and denied international aid until they agree. Instead of chaining an additional 100,000 new refugees every year, hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions can be resettled every year until all the political refugees are freed.

UNRWA as the PA’s “political symbol” does not fit the world’s values or serve the interests of those suffering in the prisons of UNRWA. Disbanding UNRWA and having UNHCR resettle these chained people is a human rights imperative. If the international community allows UNRWA to continue, by 2030 there will be seven million refugees, and by 2050 probably 10 million or more. Every day another 274 children are born into UNRWA’s 58 prisons. Every year another 100,000 children are denied their freedom. It is immoral to allow UNRWA to exist even one extra day.

1,500-plus rabbis rebuke US for abstention vote on UN resolution targeting Israel

The largest rabbinic public-policy organization in the United States called the Biden administration’s decision to abstain from a U.N. General Assembly draft resolution that targeted Israel “quite disappointing.”

The text, called “Assistance to Palestinian Refugees,” demands “compensation” for descendants of Palestinian refugees who lost property when they fled their homes, as well as an unlimited “right of return” for Palestinian refugees to a sovereign Israel.

Israel would cease being the world’s only Jewish state as a result of the resolution, which is related to the work of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Israel was the sole country that opposed the text, which passed the General Assembly on Tuesday 160-1 with nine abstentions from the United States, Canada, Cameroon, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papa New Guinea and Uruguay.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), which represents more than 1,500 traditional Jewish leaders, said: “This resolution employed a blatantly anti-Semitic double standard, demanding ‘compensation’ for Arabs who left as advised by the genocidal Arab League, but no similar compensation from Arab states for the endemic ethnic cleansing of Jews and confiscation of their property, much less a ‘right of return’ to countries unsafe for Jews to enter.”

“The [Biden] administration abstained on an issue of hate and bigotry,” he added. “This is not moral leadership. The previous administration took the morally correct approach, and we did not expect its position to be so rapidly abandoned.”

Mike Pompeo: Israel has 'duty' to defend itself from Iran absent US support | Global Perspectives

IDF publishes a video of the joint two-week-long drill with the US Marines. pic.twitter.com/S4JpgPPorv
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) November 13, 2021

A presentation at the Jordanian pavilion at the Dubai Expo says that Jordan says there are three regions in Jordan: Amman, Aqaba and - Ramallah.

في إكسبو الجناح الأردني
ثلاث مناطق أردنية
" عمان والعقبة رام الله "
😌🤦‍♀️#اكسبو_دبي #الاردن pic.twitter.com/9TsJu36C8U
— هلا العبادي🇯🇴💙 (@HalaZAlabbadi1) November 12, 2021

This is a bit of karma since all Palestinian maps include all of Israel - now they can know how it feels!

The Arab world was more upset that the presenters misspoke about the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, saying it started in Syria and ended in Yemen, and because of that the company in charge of the presentations was fired.

(h/t Khaled Abu Toameh via Yoel)

11/12 Links Pt2: The Palestinians must acknowledge their role in the Holocaust; David Collier: pro-Assad Hadi Nasrallah and Twitter combine forces to take me off Twitter

From Ian:

Mark Regev: The Palestinians must acknowledge their role in the Holocaust

CONSIDERING HUSSEINI’S shameful war record in the absence of a German occupation of Mandatory Palestine, there can be little doubt what it would have included had Hitler’s armies reached the Holy Land. The Führer would have been keen to exploit Husseini’s leadership of the Palestinians, dispatching him to Jerusalem to head a collaborationist administration dedicated to working with the Nazis on “solving the Jewish problem.” Together, they would have been highly effective in doing so, with the Palmah’s plans to wage a Tito-style guerrilla war against the Germans from the Carmel mountains having only symbolic importance, with no realistic possibility of preventing genocide.

Sadly, today in the Palestinian Authority, Amin al-Husseini remains a respected figure, an honored founding father of the national struggle. Far from critically confronting evidence of wartime collaboration, Palestinians choose to pervert history. President Mahmoud Abbas speaking before the Palestinian National Council in 2018 asserted that the Holocaust was caused by the Jews’ “social behavior, [charging] interest and financial matters.” Abbas dedicated his 1982 doctoral thesis and a 1984 book to the mendacious proposition that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis. (Former London mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from Britain’s Labour Party in 2016 for regurgitating this argument.)

Palestinian historical revisionism also includes the contention that the Palestinians are themselves Holocaust victims, claiming that they were forced to pay for Europe’s crimes, losing their homeland so that the West could atone for its sins against the Jews.

In 2019, Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, herself of Palestinian heritage, seemed to endorse this tortuous argument when she stated that “it was my ancestors – Palestinians – who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence... in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews,” conveniently omitting the Palestinian leadership’s behavior during those fateful years. Germany’s post-war integration into Europe was predicated upon taking full responsibility for its wartime actions. Across Europe, East and West, nations condemn those of their citizens who collaborated with Nazi antisemitic policies. It is high time the Palestinians did the same. Maybe the European Union’s representatives to the Palestinian Authority should encourage them to do so. For without such an unequivocal official repudiation of Amin al-Husseini’s legacy, doubts will endure as to the current Palestinian leadership’s character, doubts that affect present-day Israeli deliberations.

David Collier: pro-Assad Hadi Nasrallah and Twitter combine forces to take me off Twitter

I am currently locked out of my Twitter account. What did I do? Absolutely nothing. Hadi Nasrallah, a pro-Hezbollah, pro-Assad extremist, falsely reported my account – and Twitter bent over backwards to facilitate him. Currently I am locked out – and unless I delete the tweets that they want me to – which are clearly both in the public interest and do not break any of Twitter’s rules – then I won’t gain access to my account again.

I have no intention of deleting them. Nor should I be required to.

Who is Hadi Nasrallah
Hadi Nasrallah is a pro-Hezbollah, pro-Assad extremist. He is from Lebanon and graduated from the University of Westminster in 2017. His BA dissertation was on Hezbollah:

When radical Islamic terror groups commit blatant war crimes by firing rockets at Israeli civilian cities – Hadi Nasrallah explicitly supports them:

This is what he says about the terror group Hezbollah and their attacks on both Israeli and US targets:
H*zb*llah as a group of indigenous Lebanese fighters has a legitimate right to fight the Israeli occupation of their land including its support system which in that case was the American military bases in the country.

Notice how he edits the name of the radical Islamist terror group to avoid Facebook censorship. Just think. during his time at a London campus – Hadi Nasrallah was free to spread his extremism and hate. It cannot be stated often enough – we have a problem on our campuses and this is evidence that it is far more troubling than many believe. Would you want your children on the same campus as extremists like Hadi Nasrallah?

Hadi Nasrallah is a hard-core Assad fanboy. His time line is full of endless Assad glorification. I could fill a book with examples from his public posts. In 2017 he proudly posted an image of himself on a Syrian Tank:

Antisemitism researcher locked out of Twitter

Mr Collier said the move from Twitter was: “potentially very damaging for anyone involved in the fight against extremism and antisemitism.

“If we are restricted from using publicly available images that are clearly covered as being in the public interest - then we go into the battle with our hands tied behind our backs.”

It is “truly worrying” how easy it is to abuse on the platform, the campaigner added.

“This is a deliberate attempt to silence a voice of a Jewish campaigner against antisemitism and it needed nothing more than a mouse click to succeed,” he said.

In a statement, Twitter told the JC: “The account referenced has been temporarily locked for violating our private information policy.

“The account owner is required to delete the violative Tweet before regaining access to their account.”

"Moderate" Palestinian op-ed says strong shekel from Jewish usury history, muses on how to "break" Israel

The shekel is very strong, and this bothers Zaher Abu Hamda, a Lebanese pundit writing for the relatively moderate Ma'an News.

One might think that a strong shekel is good for Palestinians, who get paid in shekels, and it allows them to import goods at reduced prices. But that is way too straightforward an analysis for today's Jew-haters.

According to Abu Hamda, the strong shekel is a direct outgrowth of Jews engaging in usury during the Middle Ages.

Since Jews were so good at cornering the market on banking, they parlayed that into a monopoly on diamonds and sulphur before World War II, which then led to their success in high tech fields, which means a strong shekel, all using the same underhanded methods that Jews have always used.

Makes perfect sense - if you are an antisemitic conspiracy theorist.

The last paragraph reveals a bit more, though:

The main reason for the strengthening of the Israeli economy is the security factor. For example, with the second intifada, 20 years ago, the shekel fell against the dollar to 4.5. Here, it becomes clear to us that the Israelis are buying security by any means, whether it is a truce with Gaza or the temptations of permits (for Palestinian workers) in the West Bank. Therefore, if we want to break Israel, we must think of ways to defeat the shekel and their economy, or at least weaken it, before thinking about military and political plans.

It sure doesn't sound like the goal is a Palestinian state.

11/12 Links Pt1: Sheikh Jarrah explains why Palestinians will remain stateless; PFLP Boasts About its Ties to Iran; Organizer of 2010 Gaza Flotilla Launches Congressional Campaign

From Ian:

Sheikh Jarrah explains why Palestinians will remain stateless

Palestinians maintain that Arabs have the right to live in Israel but deny the right of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria. A Palestinian state that is Judenrein is far worse than an apartheid state. None of the two-staters or supporters of the Palestinians care, but Jews are supposed to support their ambition.

Palestinians complain about settlements, but did they really expect Israel to prevent Jews from moving to parts of their homeland while they plotted Israel's disappearance?

Consider that when they rejected autonomy in 1979, there were fewer than 10,000 Jews in the territories. When their terror attacks destroyed the 1993 Oslo Accords, there were about 150,000. There were 200,000 when Arafat rejected the Clinton Parameters in 2000 and about 275,000 when Abbas walked away from former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's offer in 2008.

In the years since then, the Jewish population has increased to 475,000, not counting the 200,000 Jews living in Jerusalem that the Palestinians also consider settlers.

Do the Palestinians, their supporters and two-staters seriously believe those Jews are going to disappear or that any Israeli government will force them out of their homes as part of an agreement that, like Oslo, won't be worth the paper it's written on?

The Arab states couldn't force the Jews into the sea, and now, they are more interested in peace with Israel than helping the Palestinians who they view as ungrateful and obdurate. Do the Palestinians think the EU or the UN can force Israel to capitulate to their demands? Do they listen to the insignificant members of "The Squad" repeating their propaganda and expect the United States to abandon its ally?

The Palestinians created fantasyland long before Walt Disney.

Two state advocates refuse to acknowledge not only this history but the present, which is not just reflected by the Sheikh Jarrah case but also by the broader Palestinian rejection of compromise. According to recent polls, for example, 66% support annulling the Oslo Accords, 54% oppose returning to negotiations, 54% believe a return to an armed intifada is the best way to achieve their goals and, by a 62-36% margin, oppose a two-state solution (and support has been steadily declining).

The Sheikh Jarrah residents' intransigence may lead to their homelessness just as their fellow Palestinians' obstinance has guaranteed their statelessness.

Palestinian officials outraged at slow pace of U.S. policy toward PA

Frustrated Palestinian officials say American promises to the Palestinian Authority (PA) are just a “mirage,” and that the United States’ policy toward Ramallah under President Joe Biden is no different than it was under his predecessor, Donald Trump, describing the contrast as a “cosmetic change.”

A Palestinian official close to PA President Mahmoud Abbas said that the 86-year leader is “outraged” at the slow pace of U.S. policy toward the Palestinians. Privately, officials in Ramallah have accused Washington of stalling and misleading them.

“Everything that they promised evaporated, they didn’t follow through on any of their pledges,” said the official.

Biden still refuses to meet with Abbas, according to sources in Ramallah, who said that Abbas canceled his trip to the United Nations General Assembly in September, because of efforts by the PA to secure a meeting for Abbas with Biden failed.

The two spoke once by phone last May, following the 11-day cross-border conflict between Israel and Gaza, and there is an official communication channel open between the two. Meanwhile, American officials are visiting Ramallah again.

Abbas became furious at the Biden administration in a meeting with Palestinian leadership last month, lashing out against U.S. officials, calling them “liars for not keeping the promises they made to us.”

Those promises include reopening the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington, providing financial support to the PA, and reopening the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.

Recently, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, a member of the Central Committee of the Fatah movement headed by Abbas, said that “the current U.S. administration does not have any initiative for peace.”

The Palestinians were counting on renewed U.S. support, both politically and financially.

Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh: We were offered billions of dollars to accept a Palestinian state with temporary borders, but without Jerusalem. The Palestinian leadership said no. pic.twitter.com/AKicNpiObq
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) November 12, 2021

FDD: PFLP Boasts About its Ties to Iran

In a recent interview, Abu Jamal, a spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, stated the group and the ‘Palestinian Resistance’ benefited from Iranian support in its war against Israel.

“We and the Islamic Republic fought the Zionist enemy in Lebanon and we also fought them in Gaza and the West Bank with the support of the Islamic Republic (sic),” Jamal stated.

Furthermore, Jamal lauded the relationship the group had with Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by referring to them as ‘blood brothers’ and ‘comrades’ that shared a ‘common destiny’ in defeating Israel.

It’s unclear when Iran began supporting the group. However, in 2013, Iran reportedly resumed military and financial support to the group after leaders from both sides held several meetings in Tehran, Beirut and Damascus under the auspices of Hezbollah.

Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and Popular Resistance Committees have boasted about their relationship with Iran including military support they have received. After the May conflict in Gaza, the aforementioned groups praised Iran and Hezbollah for their military support during the eleven days of fighting. Additionally, smaller Palestinian factions have benefited from some Iranian aid including the now defunct Harakat al-Sabireen.

The close relationship between Iran and the PFLP was also on display when a PFLP delegation met with President Ibrahim Raisi after his swearing in ceremony in Aug. As expected, Raisi affirmed the Islamic Republic’s continued support for the ‘Palestinian Resistance’ and the ‘liberation of Palestine.’

Great Britain answering Muslim lies about Palestine in 1936

In 1936, an Indian Muslim group sent a letter to the British Viceroy there accusing Great Britain of anti-Arab behavior in Palestine.

This Palestine Post article doesn't quote the original letter, but the response summarizes the wild accusations. More importantly, it refutes some lies that have remained even 85 years later.

First of all, although the letter doesn't say it explicitly, it broadly implies that Arab immigration to Palestine - non-existent before 1919 - had exploded after Jews arrived, with the Arab population increasing by over 50% in only 14 years - and most of those Arabs moved to be near Jews and the booming economy that the Jews brought.

Secondly, the response notes that rather than Jewish farming taking away from Arab farming yields, the size of Arab citrus fields more than doubled in four years. Again, this was probably due to improved farming techniques and increased opportunities for export.