Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, April 05, 2022

04/05 Links Pt2: In the Middle East, the silent majority want normalization with Israel; The Anti Muslim-Brotherhood League; EU funding illegal Palestinian projects in West Bank

From Ian:

Emily Schrader: In the Middle East, the silent majority want normalization with Israel

AS THE Negev Summit went on, extremists tried to derail the atmosphere of peace. While the attacks are heartbreaking and must be stopped, they actually proved that Israel’s alliance with the Arab world is authentic. For the first time we saw foreign ministers of Arab states condemning terrorism against Israelis, openly speaking out about the importance of people-to-people peace in preventing and stopping extremism.

In the days following the Negev Summit, we also saw Turkey strongly condemn terrorism against Israel, despite years of tension and support for Hamas terrorists, and a historic visit of Defense Minister Benny Gantz and President Isaac Herzog to Jordan to meet King Abdullah.

Simultaneously, a similar phenomenon is occurring within Israel: Israeli society and the younger generation of Israeli Arabs are pushing further toward unity, as understanding grows that Israelis really are one people, and those who attack us, attack all of us.

Despite that, extremists from the Israeli Arab society have tried to hijack the narrative to distract and fight this reality. This occurred last May with the riots, and it occurred this past week with several of the terrorists murdering their fellow citizens.

Israel must do everything it can to stop this wave of terrorism, but we have more reason than ever to be hopeful as the momentum is continuing to head in the right direction, both regionally and within Israel. The path to normalization isn’t easy, but at this point it is inevitable.

Israeli society is diverse and unique, composed of Jews, Arabs, and Druze, the vast majority of whom want to be Israeli, and want to live together in peace. As time goes on, the silent majority who support normalization will prevail.

Islamic Tolerance: The Anti Muslim-Brotherhood League

This month’s issue of Sephardi Ideas Monthly inaugurates a new series exploring a very important cultural development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) that has been almost completely ignored by the Western Press. What’s the story?

A serious struggle is being waged by Islamic scholars from Morocco to the Gulf to cultivate and advance a tolerant form of Islam that respects non-Muslims and that recognizes minority rights based upon Islamic principles.

The efforts of Islamic scholars must of course be seen within larger political contexts. In the Middle East, religion and politics are rarely separable. Additionally, even if one identifies with these scholars’ aims, it’s possible to wonder about the effectiveness of scholarly-religious pronouncements and documents, in general. Different dimensions and critical perspectives will be examined in the course of the series.

But Sephardi Ideas Monthly respectfully submits that if you had been following the various forms of Islamic reform and their interaction with global Jewish communities over the past few years, meetings often spear-headed by the American Sephardi Federation, then you weren’t terribly surprised when the Kingdom of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates established and the Kingdom of Morocco restored and upgraded diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in 2020. In order to understand political developments across MENA, it’s helpful to keep an eye on religious developments.

Report: Israeli Delegation Secretly Met With Senior Sudanese Military Officials

An Israeli security delegation held meetings with senior Sudanese defense officials during a secret visit to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum recently, Kan News reported in recent days.

According to the report, the Israeli delegation also held meetings with the head of Sudan’s Sovereign Transitional Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who in the past has confirmed that his country’s relations with Israel include cooperation on intelligence, security and military cooperation, the London-based Alsharq Al-Awsat added on Sunday.

This is the third reported visit for a security Israeli delegation in six months.

In January 2021, Sudan became the third Arab state, after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, to normalize relations with Israel by signing the Abraham Accords. Steps to normalize ties between the two countries began the previous year.

“In 2021, Sudan’s ruling sovereignty council and cabinet voted to abolish the Israel boycott law as part of the normalization of ties between the two countries. The law had been in force since 1958,” said Alsharq Al-Awsat.

Abba Eban explains the Palestinians

I found this quote from Abba Eban yesterday, in a 1954 op-ed (same Indianapolis Star page as the Egyptian president I quoted earlier):

This is exactly right. The only reason Jordan and Egypt signed peace treaties with Israel is because they realized that Israel cannot be destroyed, and therefore it was in their interest to make the best of the situation.

But Palestinian media (as well as, unfortunately, Jordanian media) keeps publishing the idea that Israel is on the ropes, that the Jews are frightened, that terror attacks will force the Jews to leave. They love republishing Haaretz op-eds that forecast a horrible future for Israel. They pretend that the early bigotry against Mizrahi Jews still exists and will rip apart Israeli society.

Terror leaders parrot these same ideas in their speeches, that Israel is a paper tiger, that it can easily be defeated with rockets or stabbings.

It is that fantasy that stops peace.

For decades, the Palestinian leadership has been waiting, under the illusion that the UN or the ICC will swoop in and declare Israel to be null and void, presumably thinking the Jews will simply go so the Palestinians can move in to their houses.

So they have no incentive to compromise, because they believe they are only months away from victory. This is what they teach their kids.

Most Arab nations accept, explicitly or tacitly, Israel's existence. The Palestinians still haven't.

Abba Eban's 1954 words apply to them, today.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Amnesty's demonization of Israel has been consistent for over a decade

After I published the chart yesterday showing how Amnesty International mentioned Israel more often in its annual report than any other nation, I decided to look at previous reports and see if this is a long-standing pattern.

It is.

Except for the height of the Syrian civil war, Israel has been the most mentioned country in every Amnesty report since at least 2011. (The 2019 report was divided by region, but Israel still ended up with far more mentions than any other state in the Middle East then as well.)

Anyone who thinks that Israel is the biggest violator of human rights on the planet is an idiot and/or an antisemite. The truth is the opposite - Israel cares about human rights in a difficult situation more than any country in remotely comparable circumstances.

But Amnesty International pushes this lie, consistently, year in and year out.

In the aggregate, it is even worse: Amnesty spends more time and effort trying to find things to accuse Israel of than anyone else. More than states that execute gays. More than states that incarcerate minority groups.

Any pretense of objectivity by Amnesty is proven to be a lie by this chart. The organization has an agenda to target Israel, an agenda that has culminated in its ridiculous charge of apartheid.

It is all here in black and white.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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04/05 Links Pt1: Russia wants to turn us into slaves, Zelenskyy tells Security Council; The endless ignorance of tying Ukraine needs to Israel’s Iron Dome

From Ian:

Russia wants to turn us into slaves, Zelenskyy tells Security Council

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the United Nations Security council on Tuesday after even more grisly evidence emerged of civilian massacres in areas that Russian forces recently withdrew from.

"Russia is committing the most serious crimes since World War II. There is no crime that Russia hasn't committed. It wants us to become slaves," Zelenskyy said, calling on the West to increase sanctions on Moscow, highlighting the need to stop European dependence on Russian gas.

"Moscow must get away with this without punishment," the Ukrainian president said.

The dead were discovered after Russian forces pulled out of a town on the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv, and have sparked global outrage and vehement denials from the Russian government that it was responsible.

Videos and photos of streets in the town of Bucha strewn with corpses of what appeared to be civilians, some with their hands tied behind their back, have led to global revulsion, calls for tougher sanctions on Russia and its suspension from the UN's premiere human rights body, the Human Rights Council.

Zelensky Says Ukraine Will Become a ‘Big Israel’ to Defend Itself

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made the most explicit identification of his embattled country with the State of Israel on Tuesday, saying that Ukraine will have to become a state on permanent war footing in order to protect itself from further Russian aggression.

In comments reported by Israel’s N12 news, Zelensky said on state television that even if a ceasefire is reached via ongoing talks with Moscow, Russia will still be capable of striking Ukraine again within a few years.

“We will become a ‘big Israel,’” Zelensky said, “with security becoming the highest priority issue for the next 10 years.”

Zelensky has previously identified Ukraine with Israel as a nation threatened by a much larger neighbor that is nonetheless fighting successfully to defend itself, and has cited former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir — who was born in Ukraine — as a model to be emulated.

At the same time, some pro-Palestinian forces have compared the defense of Ukraine to the Palestinian cause, while calling for a comprehensive sanctions regime to be placed on Israel similar to that imposed on Russia.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. https://t.co/bMs6Ne7vGv
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 5, 2022

Bennett issues condemnation of Bucha Massacre

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett condemned the massacre in Bucha, Ukraine on Tuesday, four days after photos of mass civilian casualties came to light, but stopped short of accusing Russia of war crimes.

"We are shocked by what we see in Bucha, horrible images, and we condemn them,” Bennett stated. “The photos are very harsh. The suffering of Ukrainian citizens is huge and we are doing all we can to help."

In contrast to Bennett, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid reiterated his accusation that Russia committed war crimes.

“A large and strong country is invading the territory of a smaller and weaker country with no justification,” Lapid said in Athens. “The photos and testimony from Ukraine is horrific. Russian forces committed war crimes against a defenseless civilian population. I condemn these war crimes.”

Lapid said that there is hope, because “the world is not silent; the world is not cynical and limited to interests and economic benefit” and is working together stand with Ukraine.

Corpses were found in the streets of Bucha, outside of Kyiv, shortly after Ukraine retook the town from Russian forces over the weekend. Hundreds were buried in mass graves. Some had their hands tied behind their backs and appeared to have been shot at short range.

Photos released of the incident show that Russian forces organized the killing of civilians in Bucha by a gunshot with their hands tied behind their backs, according to a report by The Kyiv Independent. Similar killings took place in the city of Irpin, the report added. A mass grave with bodies of civilians, who according to local residents were killed by Russian soldiers, is seen, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Bucha, in Kyiv region, Ukraine April 4, 2022. (credit: REUTERS/VLADYSLAV MUSIIENKO)

Not true, Russia. Here's the evidence. https://t.co/MjaCcq764u https://t.co/J0fkwlE5Ja pic.twitter.com/cmSkKefVZk
— Malachy Browne (@malachybrowne) April 4, 2022

A forgotten 1953 Israeli peace offer

The Mirror News (Los Angeles), June 1, 1953, published a peace offer from Israel's foreign minister that I had never seen before:

Moshe Sharett, Foreign Minister, told this writer in an exclusive interview, that his government is willing to make a compromise arrangement with the Arabs.
Some of the concessions include minor rectifications of existing frontiers; financial aid in re-settling Palestine refugees in Arab lands; and possibly the creation of a free zone in the port of Haifa to assist Jordan, which has no outlet to the Mediterranean.
Israel, in turn, would expect the Arabs to resettle Palestinian refugees, which they largely refuse to do thus far; eliminate border incidents; lift the economic boycott; and offer free use of the Suez Canal and Red Sea for Israeli shipping.

Sharett repeated the offer in September, 1954 while speaking to US News and World Report.

See how unreasonable Israel was? Adjusted 1949 armistice lines and a port for Jordan in exchange for... real peace.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Aman, a Palestinian anti-corruption NGO, issued its annual report on corruption in the Palestinian Authority last week.

Its findings are exactly what you would expect - and so is the lack of news coverage.

They included:

-Passing of laws "to reinforce domination of the President’s office over public institutions and in particular the regulatory institutions. "

- Appointments to diplomatic, sharia and senior management in public institutions to Fatah loyalists or relatives of those in power.

- Firing or otherwise punishing PA employees who are not considered loyal enough to the government.

- Continued opacity in budgeting and spending, creating an atmosphere ripe for stealing government funds.

- The PA security services are used for political purposes.

Ironically, the head of the official Palestinian Anti-Corruption Commission was elected to chair the next session of the Conference of the States Parties to the Arab Convention against Corruption last month.

The PA is especially harsh to employees who are whistleblowers. Even though "Palestine" signs every international convention it can find, including against corruption and protecting whistleblowers, those who point out actual corruption get fired or even prosecuted.

Hamas, of course, is no better. Today there was an article about how massive amounts of aid sent to Gaza are disappearing, with Hamas presumably redirecting the aid to their own people or those it favors. One person reported seeing food that was labeled "a gift from the Italian people to Gaza" at a store warehouse in Nuseirat where it was going to be sold.

Outside The New Arab, I cannot find a single English-language news report of the Aman anti-corruption report. The region is filled with reporters yet they somehow manage to avoid any story that shows that the Palestinian Authority is filled with cronyism, nepotism and corruption, and that president Abbas is in every respect a dictator.

Because it doesn't fit the narrative of "evil Israel, righteous Palestinians," and that is the only story the media is willing to report.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Arabs have been predicting Israel's demise for seven decades. They still are.

Iyad al-Baghdadi achieved a level of fame during the Arab Spring as an advocate of liberty in the Arab world. He calls himself a Palestinian who now lives in Norway, but his name betrays that his ancestors came from Iraq, not the Levant.

He tweeted that Israel has no chance of surviving the next twenty years:

Israel is a fundamentally unsustainable project. Over the next 20 years, every one of its unsustainabilities will come to a head. Smart Israelis know it. Meanwhile the oblivious majority still think they've "won". Israel is fundamentally unsustainable and its myriad unsustainabilities will boil over in the coming two decades. No amount of disinformation or pile-ons will change this fact. Time will prove these tweets true.

Arabs have been making similar predictions for as long as Israel has existed.

I found this op-ed by Egyptian president Mohammed Naguib, written in January 1954, published in the Indianapolis Star:

I cannot understand why the Jews in various countries throughout the world renounce their nationalities, their comfortably organized life and their financial and scientific activities to embark on the hazardous enterprise of emigration to this tiny area—Israel.
From contrasting environments in different countries, and speaking various languages, they are crowding themselves together to face a new life full of risks and difficulties. They certainly cannot hope to create there the same agreeable existence to which they were accustomed in their countries of origin.
In Egypt, for example, there are 50,000 Jews. They enjoy full rights, live their own life, and conduct their own affairs in exactly the same way as all other Egyptian citizens.
Our sister country, the Lebanon, has large and numerous communities of her nationals in the Argentine and the United States. Together their numbers total more than the population of the Lebanon itself. They are most energetic communities, having achieved prosperity in commerce and business. But the Lebanese people have never come to regard this as a reason why they should all emigrate from their motherland.
Indeed, if all Jews everywhere are to go to this little land of Israel it will be able neither to accommodate nor sustain hem.
Therefore, it is most advisable for the Jews to stop entirely this emigration to Israel, and to permit the return of the Arab refugees to their native land and to their property - their legitimate right.
In addition to all this, Israel is a small country which has imposed itself in the midst of a group of Arab states. She is hard hit by their political and economic boycott which makes her very existence —and continued existence — an absolute impossibility.

Both predictions have something in common: a complete ignorance of what makes Jews want to live in Israel to begin with. General Naguib even admits he cannot understand why Jews would want to move to Israel - the emotional ties that Jews have to the Land of Israel. Arabs are forced to deny any Jewish historic or religious ties to Israel or else they would be forced to admit that Jews have a right to the land. Because of their denial of Jewish history, they cannot fathom why Jews won't just run away at the first sign of trouble. And therefore they confidently predict Israel's demise based on their ignorance.

General Naguib is but a footnote in history. He was president for less than 18 months and was forced to resign later that same year by his successor Gamal Abdul Nasser. And the nation that he was so sure could not survive has outlived him and all his contemporaries.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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04/04 Links Pt2: The incredible shrinking MESA; ‘March of the Living’ Resumes After 2-Year Hiatus: ‘Almost the Last Opportunity to March With Holocaust Survivors’

From Ian:

Martin Kramer: The incredible shrinking MESA

The membership of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) has endorsed a resolution to boycott Israeli academe. The general referendum took place over nearly two months, and the final count came to 768 for a boycott, 167 against.

My longtime readers won’t be surprised. I saw it coming eight years ago, and just wish it had happened sooner. That’s because I’m not a member or a well-wisher of MESA. I’m pleased it’s finally been exposed for what it’s mostly become: a pro-Palestine, anti-Israel political society whose members just happen to be academics.

I’m not the only one who saw it coming. MESA has a category for institutional membership—mostly university Middle East centers, which pay $1,100 a year for the privilege. A growing list of institutional members has always been a badge of prestige for the association. In 2013, MESA’s institutional members included 53 North American universities and university-based programs. As of this moment, there are no more than 31, and maybe less.

Most of the dropouts are state universities. Over the past decade, many state legislatures have adopted anti-boycott laws, which prohibit state funding for boycotters. Paying dues to MESA with taxpayers’ money might become a problem, and while the anti-boycott laws are open to interpretation, who wants to contest one over MESA? I imagine many of these institutions saw the MESA boycott coming, and decided to slip out the back door, by not renewing their membership.

As a result, MESA has been totally swept out of the southwest. The universities of Texas, Utah, and Arizona, all seats of major Middle East centers, left MESA, as did Brigham Young, a major center for Arabic study. Arizona, it’s worth noting, had hosted the headquarters of MESA since the early 1980s; a few years ago, it gave MESA notice. (The state of Arizona has perhaps the strongest anti-boycott legislation in the country.)

Academia cannot tolerate student groups that call for the ethnic cleansing of other student groups. SJP, as well as other Zionophobic or Islamophobic groups, have no place on any university campus.
2/2
— Judea Pearl (@yudapearl) April 2, 2022

#OTD 4 years ago (2018). The most classic #Pallywood post ever! Still paging Dr. Doogie Howser MD for comment … pic.twitter.com/BnDmWHwita
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) April 3, 2022

Quoting Palestinian incitement is, according to Palestinians, Zionist incitement

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency monitors Israeli media for incitement, much as Israeli NGOs monitor Palestinian media for incitement.

Their examples are a bit weirder, though.

In their latest edition, here's their first example:

Maariv newspaper published an inciting article by the lawyer and writer Nadav Hatsani, claiming: “On Tuesday evening, with the news of the identity of the terrorist who carried out the operation in Bnei Brak, Atta Abu Rumaila, Secretary General of the Fatah movement in Jenin, published a message of joy and a declaration of responsibility, in the name of movement in the city.
"The president's men continued to build incentives to carry out the next terrorist operations. Mahmoud al-Habbash, the first judge of the Palestinian Authority and an advisor to Abu Mazen, warned in recent days that 'Israel is planning crimes against Al-Aqsa Mosque during the month of Ramadan.' The Palestinian Minister of Religions Affairs Hazem Abu Bakr claimed this week that Israel is trying to Judaize Jerusalem and is committing crimes against Al-Aqsa and the Ibrahimi Mosque. All this according to the constant analysis of the Palestinian Authority who finds justification for terrorism against Israel."

None of this is inaccurate - but apparently reporting the truth about Palestinian incitement is, in fact, incitement itself.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Modern antisemitism: Amnesty's annual report criticizes Israel more than ANY OTHER COUNTRY

Amnesty released its latest annual report on human rights issues worldwide.

Here is a chart of how often selected countries are mentioned in the report, which is a pretty good approximation of how much effort Amnesty spends on documenting issues in each country.

Yes, Israel is mentioned 118 times - more than Syria, more than Russia, nearly triple that of China, and more than Burundi, North Korea, Algeria and Congo combined.

For comparison, here is Statista's list of the worst human rights abusers according to objective criteria:

Of course, Israel isn't close to the top. Only antisemites claim it is.

The report, as usual, is filled with the usual lies and deceptions. For example, it says, "In an act of institutionalized discrimination, Israel left out around 5 million Palestinians under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza from its vaccine campaign." Amnesty ignores that the Palestinian Authority didn't ask for, nor desire, Israel to provide them with vaccines (with one small exception that Israel agreed.)

That's merely one example of dozens of how Amnesty twists facts to make Israel appear to be, literally, the worst human rights violator in the world.

Oh, and remember how Amnesty defended itself from singling out Israel with it's "apartheid" accusation by saying it also has accused Myanmar of apartheid? In this report, no other nation in the world is accused of apartheid besides Israel.

Amnesty is a joke. And anyone who defends its obsessive, crazed hate for Israel is guilty of Jew-hatred as well. There is no possible justification for this amount of demonization that is so thoroughly out of proportion to Israel's actual actions.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

04/04 Links Pt1: David Singer: Jordan and Israel can end the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict; Caroline Glick: Why Israel is in a do or die moment

From Ian:

David Singer: Jordan and Israel can end the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict

It took Jordan’s King Abdullah II just 10 minutes to fly by helicopter from Jordan to Ramallah on 26 March to meet Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah – which is only 15 minutes’ drive from Jerusalem – Abdullah’s first trip to Judea and Samaria (West Bank) since 2017.

The Arab Weekly reported on Abdullah’s visit:
“Well-informed Jordanian sources have linked the previously unannounced visit of the Jordanian king to Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, to the Negev Summit. They said that Jordan was uncomfortable with the new “Abrahamic” peace process between Israel and Arab countries. It particularly resents being marginalised and losing control over its most important card, the Palestinian issue.”

Abdullah has only himself to blame for Jordan’s growing marginalisation – abandoning the policy pursued by his great-grandfather King Abdullah 1, and his father King Hussein in unifying the two banks of the Jordan River between 1950 and 1967.

Abdullah instead has been supporting the PLO in calling for the creation of an independent Arab state west of the Jordan River – in addition to Jordan east of the Jordan River: two Arab states within the territory comprised in the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (Mandate).

Abdullah needs to rethink this policy position if he wishes to regain control of the decisions to be made in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza between Arabs and Jews – the remaining 5% of former Palestine where sovereignty still remains unallocated between Jordan and Israel after 100 years of conflict.

Abdullah’s marginalisation also risks Jordan losing its role as the custodian of the Muslim Holy Shrines in Jerusalem conferred on Jordan by the Washington Declaration and the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty.

Between 1950 and 1967:
All of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) – which included Ramallah – was part of Jordan – and all its residents were Jordanian citizens – electing their own representatives to the Jordanian Parliament.
The PLO did not claim regional sovereignty “over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” or the “Gaza Strip” since its founding in 1964 – claiming only that “Palestine with its boundaries at the time of the British Mandate is a regional indivisible unit”
Abdullah’s father King Hussein – at page 118 of his published memoirs Uneasy Lies the Head (1962) – had justified continuing Jordanian rule both east and west of the Jordan River against international condemnation:
“Palestine and Jordan were both under British Mandate, but as my grandfather pointed out in his memoirs, they were hardly separate countries. Transjordan being to the east of the River Jordan, it formed in a sense, the interior of Palestine”

Amid rise in terror, Arab Israeli minister says Abraham Accords can spark peace with Palestinians

As Israel grapples with a surge of terror attacks, one of the government’s more left-leaning ministers told Jewish Insider last week that the way to combat extremist violence is to bring the Palestinians into the wave of regional normalization deals sparked by the Abraham Accords.

Issawi Frej, an Israeli Arab and member of the Meretz party who currently serves as minister of regional cooperation in what is considered politically the broadest coalition government in the country’s history, said that a way must be found to include the Palestinians in the process, which began in September 2020 with Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signing the Accords. Morocco and Sudan inked their own agreements in the following months.

“The Middle East is like a picture, with Israel and other countries, the Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco and Jordanian in the frame, but the picture is not complete without the Palestinians,” said Frej, who was in West Palm Beach, Fla., last week to attend the Jewish Funders Network Conference.

His comments came as foreign ministers from five regional countries and the U.S. held a first-of-its-kind summit in Israel’s Negev desert exploring ways to increase cooperation and boost stability in the Middle East.

In Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s closing remarks at what was called the “Negev Summit,” he said that such cooperation between Israel, the UAE and the U.S. would serve to “widen the circle of friendship to include other countries interested in securing greater peace and prosperity for their own people.

But, he also cautioned, “We have to be clear that these regional peace agreements are not a substitute for progress between Palestinians and Israelis.”

The other participating foreign ministers also mentioned the Palestinians in their closing remarks. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid emphasized, “We are today opening a door before all the peoples of the region, including the Palestinians, and offering them to replace the way of terror and destruction with [a] shared future of progress and success.”

The Current Terror Wave in Israel: Characteristics and Implications

The recent terror wave of shootings and stabbings in the large Israeli cities of Be'er Sheva, Hadera, and Bnei Brak shows several significant characteristics that distinguish it from previous terror surges such as the one in 2015-16 (known as the "Knives Intifada"). The attacks were all perpetrated within pre-1967 Israel, undermining the sense of security of many Israelis who wanted to believe they were not targets of terror.

Three of the four terrorists were Israeli Arab citizens, one from the Bedouin village of Hura and the other two from the town of Umm al-Fahm. Israelis, including the security services, did not expect Israeli Arabs to go that far.

The affiliation of the two Israeli Arab terrorists from Umm al-Fahm with Islamic State was a surprise, since terror against Israel is not high on its order of priorities, and it has no organized structure among the Palestinians and the Israeli Arabs.

The Israeli government and the security services wanted to believe that by improving the economic situation in the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, they could gain at least temporary quiet. Pouring money into Israeli Arab society was also considered a way of bolstering their interest in integrating into Israeli society and keeping them away from violent and criminal activities.

The PA and Hamas, as well as elements of the pragmatic leadership of the Israeli Arabs, may take advantage of the economic gestures and deliver what is expected of them, but they are not in control of the terror threats. In addition, the PA and Hamas continue to stoke terror and hatred, and Hamas calls for terror from the areas not under its control, including by Arabs in Judea and Samaria and within Israel.

Most of the Palestinian people, including many Israeli Arabs who consider themselves Palestinians, are committed to the Palestinian narrative of an ongoing struggle against Zionism.

The Caroline Glick show Ep46 – Why Israel is in a do or die moment

Caroline is joined by Dr. David Wurmser to discuss why Israel has no choice but to replace the U.S. as the strong horse in the Middle East and lead an anti-Iranian coalition of Sunni Arab states. Caroline and David discussed how the Arabs view the Biden administration’s betrayal, and why Israel’s current government, which fails to understand the implacable nature of the administration’s hostility, is endangering Israel’s ties with its Abraham Accords partners and its very future.

UN's new Palestine rapporteur Francesca Albanese is “opposite of impartial” — Hillel Neuer on i24

Hillel Neuer tells i24 News about Francesca Albanese, a pro-Palestinian advocate who compares Israel to Nazi Germany, and the UN's new Special Rapporteur on “Israel's violations.” April 3, 2022.

Here are stories of Israeli and Emirati cooperation from only the past seven days. all from the Emirates News Agency:

- The "Negev Summit" in Israel
- The UAE hosted the International Security Alliance which included the interior ministers of UAE, France, Italy, the UK, Morocco, Spain, Israel, Senegal, Singapore, and Slovakia
- The UAE and Israel signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in maritime transport
- The UAE and Israel agreed on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)
- The signatories of the Abraham Accords held a football match at the Dubai Expo along with famous soccer players from dozens of other countries
- The UAE and Israel signed an MoU for mutual recognition of driving licenses between the two
- The UAE, United States and Israel held the inaugural meeting of the Trilateral Religious Coexistence Working Group in Dubai

This is a dizzying array of initiatives and cooperation, mostly being done under the radar with little news coverage.

Because normalization is normal. What's abnormal is the insistence by some holdover bigoted states, whose human rights records are invariably poor, pretending that it is beneath them to interact with Israel - because they are so moral.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Haaretz interviews Dr. Mahmoud Habbash, chief Sharia judge for the Palestinian Authority and top religious affairs advisor for Palestinian president Abbas.

He says, “Ramadan is a month of prayer and mercy. But Israel’s behavior as an occupying entity in Jerusalem and the West Bank is causing an escalation.....”

Such a peaceful man, wanting to make sure that things don't escalate during Ramadan and certain that only Israel is fanning the flames of violence.

Haaretz, for some reason, didn't ask Dr. Habbash about other statements he has made that haven't been exactly moderate or peaceful.

Just last week, he said, "the Holy Land of Palestine will remain the property of the Palestinians only who alone have the right to it and those who have legitimacy. " Which means that Jews have no right to be there.

MEMRI has lots more clips of Habbash which show that he is not exactly a moderate peace-seeker.

A year ago, he made up a quote by Theodor Herzl, claiming that he said about Palestinian Arabs: 'We must exterminate them. We must throw them in the deserts or in the jungles of Africa, and let wild beast devour them.'"

In 2019, he said that normalization with 'the enemies of the prophet Muhammad' is treason.

And before that he called for "jihad" to protect Al Aqsa Mosque.

Sure sounds like incitement to me.

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An Egyptian "expert" explains that the seven branch menorah has nothing to do with Judaism

It's Ramadan, and that means thirty-part Ramadan TV series being broadcast throughout the Arab world.

One series that appears to be very popular in Egypt is the supernatural thriller Al- Maddah 2: The Legend of the Valley. In this series, a man suffers from strange dreams that affect his real life and will eventually bring him to war with a demon (jinn.)

The show includes many puzzles and clues as to where it is going, and Egyptians are parsing it to figure out what every word or image means.

In episode 1, this was seen:

Fans of the show are curious about whether this means that some Jewish magic or something is involved in the show. So Al Masry al Youm went to their local Jew-hating professor to ask what he thought it might mean.

Dr. Magdi Shaker, chief archaeologist at the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, said that the seven-branched candlestick is one of the oldest symbols of the Children of Israel, as it says after historical accounts that the seven-branched candlestick is one of the symbols and connotations of the hidden secrets of the children of Israel, including, of course, the arts of magic.
Shaker explained, in exclusive statements to Al-Masry Al-Youm, that the inscription of the menorah or the menorah with seven or nine branches, which the Jews took as their emblem, has no historical basis, and while the menorah was mentioned in the Book of Exodus, some attributed it to the Sumerians, because It is very similar to the shape of the sacred Sumerian tree of life. Some attributed the candelabra to Canaanite origin, and then the Jews used it because they had no civilization of their own.
He continued: "The menorah has emerged as a Jewish symbol since the beginnings of the Roman era. It is a special symbol of the Roman civilization. As for the religious reference they relied on to link this symbol to the history of the Jews, it does not have any correct religious basis."

There you go. The extensive descriptions of the menorah in the Torah and Tanach are not original, and they resemble the ancient Sumerian Tree of Life, even though I cannot find any ancient trees of Life that remotely resemble the candelabra.

But Egyptian "scholars" as so filled with hate for Jews that they start from the assumption that Jews have contributed nothing original to world culture and therefore they must have simply stolen the symbol from others. (Shaker doesn't even know the origin of the Chanukiah!)

On a related topic, I have a must-read article from 2013 that notes that Muslims often put a menorah on their own coins, and the reason they did it fits in very nicely with their desire to subvert Judaism in all forms.

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The REAL cycle of violence

There really is a cycle of violence, but it isn't what the media says it is.

Here are excerpts from a couple of Arabic articles over the past couple of days.

Jordan's Ad Dustour has an op-ed, also in its print edition:

On the anniversary of Palestinian Land Day: All indications confirm the demise of the Zionist entity
The overwhelming joy with which the Palestinians in particular and the free people of the world in general received yesterday evening news of the operation carried out by the son of the city of Jenin al-Qassam Diaa Hamrasheh in the heart of Tel Aviv is the constant truth that many parties are trying to hide, meaning that the Zionist occupier will not be safe from the weapons of any resistance.
On the night of the Palestinian Land Day, Diaa did not only kill five Zionists, but also raised the morale of the Palestinians to the highest level. He also struck terror in the hearts of the settlers who had usurped the Palestinian land, which had been occupied by Jewish Zionist gangs for nearly seventy-four years. Global Zionism is working to prolong its life through a security system, and it will not last.

Another article from Jordanian outlet Jo24, but it mirrors what Palestinian media is saying:

An observer of the Zionist (Israeli) media and the statements of Israeli officials concludes that the Israeli public is terrified, and the Israeli is afraid of going out to the streets and shopping in the markets or malls, after the Palestinian resistance achieved great success in three guerrilla operations in the heart of Tel Aviv and in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948.
Today, the Palestinian people and their resistance, with the support of the Axis of Resistance, are capable alone,while abandoned by the Arabs, to confront Israel and restore their usurped right that was stolen 70 years ago.

These articles are telling the Palestinians that terrorism will cause the Jews to flee Israel and leave it open for them to simply take it over. They use as evidence that Israel is mobilizing troops to keep the peace.

The idea is a fantasy. Jews aren't leaving their homeland. But this fantasy of Palestinian victory created by fatal terror attacks fuels the next wave of attacks. Every dead Israeli and the adoration that follows gives others the desire to emulate the terrorists.

These articles don't create the incitement by themselves. They are an accurate representation of how Palestinians think. The terror attacks themselves, the videos of dead Israelis and of Palestinians with guns in the middle of Jewish population centers, drive more to want to become terrorists. The veneration of the murderers, and the absolute lack of criticism for them in Palestinian, Jordanian and Egyptian media encourages the next wave of attacks.

The attacks aren't prompted by Israel's response - they are prompted by Palestinian adoration of the original murders. It is a self-sustaining cycle. Israeli reactions are trying to stop that cycle, not prolong it.

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