Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, April 02, 2023

"Jewish Voice for Peace" says to symbolically burn US and Israeli flags on Passover eve

From Jewish Voice for Peace's Facebook page:

Nationalism is chametz, during Passover and always!
Freedom only for some is never enough. This Passover, at a time when violence against Palestinians by the Israeli state, military and settlers continues to escalate, we gather to demand and dream liberation for everyone.
For anti-Zionist Jews, this holiday can be a challenging time. For some, it can feel impossible to separate our holiday traditions from Zionist propaganda advocating ethnic cleansing and land theft. Many of us feel reluctant to even celebrate the holiday as Zionist terror escalates in Palestine. And many of us may be facing yet another holiday where our beliefs and politics are not welcome.
This year, bring your whole anti-Zionist self to our virtual seder! Our beloved community is coming together to set the Pesach table for you. Our seder will feature joy and rage and hope from our Havurah, BIJOCSM and student networks, our campaigns, our rabbis, and from JVP members from near and far—all gathered for collective liberation for us all.

They never seem to have a problem with Palestinian nationalism. I wonder why.

Their latest "Haggadah" is just as twisted in its interpretations of what Passover is about. I looked at a previous version in 2012, which was 28 pages long and included an essay on "pinkwashing."

Apparently that was way too much for the current TikTok generation that JVP wants to attract, so this new one is a mere 14 pages long, deleting nearly all of Maggid, Hallel and Nirtzah. it doesn't even describe the overstuffed seder plate of the previous editions that included an olive (for Palestinians) and an orange (for feminists and LGBTQ+.).

This one still includes the third cup of wine celebrating BDS, though.

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!

"Palestine" ranks better than most countries in "multidimensional poverty" and "human development index"

The UN Human Development Reports of the UN Development Program defines a "Multidimensional Poverty Index" (MPI.)

The MPI looks beyond income to understand how people experience poverty in multiple and simultaneous ways. It identifies how people are being left behind across three key dimensions: health, education and standard of living, comprising 10 indicators. People who experience deprivation in at least one third of these weighted indicators fall into the category of multidimensionally poor.

The MPI score is based on these metrics:

How do Palestinians do?

Pretty good, actually.

While Western nations are not listed in this chart, the Palestinians are shown to be in far better shape than over 100 countries that are listed. I call out some of them.

Anti-Israel activists like to pretend that Palestinians have "no choice" but to turn to terror, and one of the reasons they like to trot out is how impoverished they are.

If that was the case, then why are we not seeing the same support for terror in the 100 countries who have a higher poverty score than they do?

Until COVID, Palestinians had also been steadily getting better scores every year in UNDP's Human Development Index, but even after a brief setback they are ranked "high" in various metrics.

Israel haters hate context like this. Because by any metric, Palestinians aren't in nearly as bad shape as people in over a hundred countries - but Palestinians get far more aid per capita than every single one of them.

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!

Tabia Lee was the Director for the Office of Equity, Social Justice, and Multicultural Education at De Anza Community College in Cupertino, CA, and was recently fired from that position because she didn't adhere to the standard DEI orthodoxy. She describes her experiences in Compact:

What made me persona non grata? On paper, I was a good fit for the job. I am a black woman with decades of experience teaching in public schools and leading workshops on diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism. At the Los Angeles Unified School District, I established a network to help minority teachers attain National Board Certification. I designed and facilitated numerous teacher trainings and developed a civic-education program that garnered accolades from the LAUSD Board of Education.

My crime at De Anza was running afoul of the tenets of critical social justice, a worldview that understands knowledge as relative and tied to unequal identity-based power dynamics that must be exposed and dismantled. This, I came to recognize, was the unofficial but strictly enforced ideological orthodoxy of De Anza—as it is at many other educational institutions.

One section of her essay is relevant for this site:

The conflicts were not limited to my tenure-review process. At every turn, I experienced strident opposition when I deviated from the accepted line. When I brought Jewish speakers to campus to address anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, some of my critics branded me a “dirty Zionist” and a “right-wing extremist.” When I formed the Heritage Month Workgroup, bringing together community members to create a multifaith holiday and heritage month calendar, the De Anza student government voted to support this effort. However, my officemates and dean explained to me that such a project was unacceptable, because it didn’t focus on “decentering whiteness.”

When I later sought the support of our academic senate for the Heritage Month project, one opponent asked me if it was “about all the Jewish-inclusion stuff you have been pushing here,” and argued that the senate shouldn’t support the Heritage Month Workgroup efforts, because I was attempting to “turn our school into a religious school.” The senate president deferred to this claim, and the workgroup was denied support.

I looked up what she did for Jewish Heritage Month, and from what I can see, it was incredible.

The first event in 2022, I believe, was this one on defining antisemitism, with panelists Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. from the National Jewish Advocacy Center and Alyza Lewin from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. They both explain the logic behind the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism and explain why the "3D" test is an accurate description of when criticism of Israel crosses the line into antisemitism. Rabbi Goldfeder spoke specifically about why labeling Israel as an apartheid state, as the then-recent Amnesty report did, is in fact antisemitism.

Dr. Lee even went through a breakout room exercise where students could take real world examples of "anti-Israel" slanders and identify whether and why they were antisemitic.

No wonder the hard Left on campus was upset about this!

This video is nearly two hours long, but it includes not only excellent presentations by Goldfeder and Lewin, but also a video by the later Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explaining why anti-Zionism is often antisemitism.

I don't know how many people attended this, but it is astonishing that this was shown on any campus today.

There are many other videos of different events celebrating Jewishness, moderated by Dr. Lee, that interview Jews who are unabashedly woke but also often unabashedly Zionist. One example: This one interviews Dr. Brandy Shufutinsky, a Black Jewish social worker who disagrees with critical social justice and intersectionality theory, and features rap videos by her quite proudly Jewish son "Westside Gravy."

I am fairly certain that De Anza will not have another Jewish Heritage Month.

Tabia Lee appears to be a principled warrior against all kinds of racism and bigotry, and as such she couldn't survive on that campus. I hope that there might be a larger university that actually cares about real equality and anti-racism that hires her and gives her the resources she needs to lead the students, not be led by the extremists.

Her dismissal is a huge loss for the De Anza community. I hope some other campus can gain her expertise.

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!

04/01 Links: Big business: the monetization of antisemitism; Thanks to Biden Administration, Iran's Mullahs Winners of Russia Invasion of Ukraine; Three Israelis injured in car-ramming attack in Judea

From Ian:

Big business: the monetization of antisemitism

In a 2020 report, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a British non-profit organization with offices in London and Washington, DC, found that “Facebook and Instagram [were] hosting dozens of accounts that sell neo-Nazi merchandise to fund far-right extremism.” Both social media behemoths are owned by Meta Platforms and the organization accused “tech giants” of providing purveyors of hate with “a platform to reach mainstream audiences and generate funding.”

Similarly, Cooper warned in December 2022 that “the monetizing of antisemitism” was one of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s greatest concerns regarding the rise of anti-Jewish sentiment.

“We have to fight very hard to make sure [monetization] doesn’t become mainstream, so that someone’s going to get on a United Airlines flight wearing the swastika and say what’s wrong with that?” he said at the time.

“The sale of goods with antisemitic messaging and Nazi memorabilia is an issue of deep concern for Jewish communities,” European Jewish Congress Executive Vice-President & CEO Raya Kalenova tells The Media Line, calling it a “rising and lucrative phenomenon” with uneven responses that need to be regulated more tightly across countries and retail organizations.

“In some EU member states like Germany, Austria and France, it is illegal to sell Nazi ‘collectibles’,” she says. “In some other countries, there is a gray area to the advantage of large online retailers. Therefore, we must call for a systematic legal framework banning the sale of National Socialist symbols or other objects with clear antisemitic messages across Europe.

“Famous auction houses like Christie’s or Sotheby’s refuse to sell Nazi memorabilia; eBay also has an ‘offensive materials policy.’ It is important that giants like Amazon or smaller online retailers enforce clear guidelines regarding the sale of these forbidden items, using efficient AI searches and trained employees to remove them swiftly. At a time where hate speech and hate crimes are on the rise, it is up to the online marketplaces to ensure that their platform is not used to promote racism and antisemitism,” according to Kalenova.

Rich says that most of the mainstream payment services such as PayPal have done “a lot of work” to make sure that their services are not used by such sellers, but concedes that some will have “slipped through the net because it's just such a big ecosphere.”

Cooper also argues that the internet has enabled antisemites to monetize their hate. “Whenever there's a new tweak in internet technologies, you can be sure the antisemites will be there,” he says.

According to Rich, it is not just through merchandising that antisemitism and hate make money in the darker recesses of the internet, but also through ad revenue created by clicks on videos and other online media.

He gives the example of British extremist Tommy Robinson, founder of the xenophobic and Islamophobic English Defense League, whom he says has made a “pretty enormous income stream” from online videos.

“These people are content creators,” Rich says, “and they're following the same economic model as all content creators who make money that way, but that content is hate.”

Kalenova also accuses the media of benefiting from antisemitic expressions through “sensationalist” reporting that draws readers in. This increases traffic on their websites – and potentially ad revenue as well.

“Some news outlets serve as a daily clickbait platform for recognized antisemites to share their opinions and thoughts in an unrestricted way,” Kalenova tells The Media Line.

“The internet is a breeding ground for the spread of antisemitic rhetoric and certain media outlets take advantage of this dynamic to share all kinds of sensationalist articles,” she says. “Just recently, a lawsuit has been brought against French newspaper Le Monde for spreading a negative image of Sephardic Jews.”

Cooper argues that the only way to combat the current rise in antisemitism, including its monetization, is for Jews to stand firm and stand together and “find creative ways to hold internet companies accountable.”

“As long as there's no price to pay, this is just going to expand and expand and expand,” he said.

Thanks to Biden Administration, Iran's Mullahs Winners of Russia Invasion of Ukraine

Russia also reportedly wants to buy ballistic missiles from Iran, which has the largest and most diverse ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East. The Iranian regime therefore should officially be considered an accomplice to Russia's war crimes.

The Iranian regime, probably because it knows that the Biden administration will not take any action, is ratcheting up its engagement and weapons exports to Russia.

"President Biden's leadership is non-existent.... Look at what's happening right now with unemployment — eight million jobs are unfilled right now, and President Biden just ushered through a partisan bill to pay people billions of dollars not to work when eight million jobs are unfilled right now. We're paying people not to work, and they're borrowing money from our kids and our grandkids to do it.... We're seeing inflation starting to go through the roof. Our country is less secure. Look at what's happening around the world — the Middle East, Iran — who the President wants to let back into an agreement to get a nuclear weapon. [The Iranians are] helping funnel these bombs that are being shot into Israel. I mean where is the President's leadership on any of these crises?" – US Rep. Steve Scalise, Fox News, May 2021.

US indictment: Russian spy sought to gather intel on Israelis, including party head

A Russian intelligence operative who entered the US under a fake identity to gather information on American citizens also visited Israel with the same aim and managed to meet with the leader of a political party, according to an indictment filed by the US Justice Department earlier this month.

Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, 37, moved to the US under the guise of attending graduate school at Johns Hopkins University in 2018 under the alias Victor Muller Ferreira, the charge sheet released last Friday said. He had previously established the alias in Brazil, where he pretended to be the son of a deceased Brazilian national.

While in the US, Cherkasov allegedly connected with a State Department employee, a Capitol Hill staffer, an “Israel expert,” a US Naval Academy professor and others to gather intelligence about US policy regarding a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine in the months and years leading up to the war, the indictment alleges.

“I was working with my contacts… to find out what the academic community, political advisers and analysts think about the recent Russian military build-up near the Ukrainian border,” the indictment alleged he wrote in one message to his handlers.

In January 2020, Cherkasov visited Israel as part of a trip with a university. The indictment said while there, he texted his handler a list of names of people he met. These included “literally every single” staffer at the US Embassy, including its “LGBTQ adviser,” in addition to a security expert identified as “N.G.” along with the head of an Israeli political party who he described as a “kingmaker” with the initial “L.”

The visit came ahead of the March 2020 Knesset elections, when Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman was seen as a kingmaker because his party held the balance of power between the rival political blocs. The Times of Israel contacted Liberman’s office for comment but has not yet received a response.

‘April 1 absurdity’: Russia takes over rotating presidency of UN Security Council

Russia assumed the rotating presidency of the United Nations’ Security Council on Saturday for a month, a move decried as an April Fool’s Day joke by critics.

“As of 1 April, they’re taking the level of absurdity to a new level,” said Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s permanent representative, according to The Guardian.

“The security council as it is designed is immobilized and incapable to address the issues of their primary responsibility, that is, prevention of conflicts and then dealing with conflicts,” said Kyslytsya.

Ukraine is not a member of the council but has been called to speak on matters related to the Russian invasion, however the envoy said Kyiv would not be represented at the body except in the case of an “issue of critical national security interest.”

Russia will be permitted to hold its own sessions at the council, and The Guardian said Moscow was planning to hold three.

The first will be on “risks stemming from the violations of the agreements regulating the export of weapons and military equipment,” at which it is expected to attack allies for supplying arms to Ukraine.

In addition, it will hold two sessions on “effective multilateralism” and on the situation in the Middle East, to be led by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry is reportedly concerned by a hardening of Moscow’s rhetoric toward Jerusalem after Israel was said to have authorized the sale of defensive military equipment to Kyiv for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The United Nations is more worried about Israel ???? and our protests of hundreds of thousands peacefully expressing their views than the fact the Islamic regime in Iran has murdered 500 protesters, beats women and children and poisons schoolgirls.

Think about that.

The hypocrisy… pic.twitter.com/703hzmcql6
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? ????? ????? (@emilykschrader) April 1, 2023

03/31 Links Pt2: The “Good Jews” Are Never Good Enough; UN Testimony: UNRWA Teachers Call to Murder Jews; How the Palestinians got their name

From Ian:

We must keep the memory of the Holocaust alive

THESE DANCING, Bavarian coopers receive applause from the delighted crowd. I stare at the figurines. No longer are they 16th-century coopers but 20th-century hassidim, pious Eastern European Jews who are dancing and singing themselves into ecstasy to come closer to God. The sound of the chimes starts to warp into a distant rumbling that seems to be coming closer.

I hear the staccato of machine gun fire. Its volume increases with each chime. I hear the cries of the dancing Jews as they fall into the pits they have dug with their own hands. I see my distant relatives in Pinsk being shot by the drunken officers of the mobile killing units, the Einstazgruppen, in July 1941. I hear the machine gun fire, the screams and the sobbing of one million victims of the four Einsatzgruppen.

The chiming continues as the coopers dance and the screams continue as old photographs I have seen return from memory: Jews, young and old, being led to their execution in Ponary, the ninth Fort, Babyn Yar and Lvov, as SS men laugh as the victims attempt to cover their nakedness. I hear the screams of Jews in Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec and Chelmno and the cries of terror from death by gas. The screams and the chimes of the Glockenspiel fuse – they are one. A feeling of shame passes over me: my own vague nightmare seems to belittle the suffering of one million Jewish children, five million Jewish adults and millions of other humans whom the Nazis murdered.

The chiming of the Glockenspiel pauses and the horrible cries leave me. The uppermost level of the balcony presents its lone, small figurine: a crowing cock. The sound of the chime changes slightly and mimics the sound of a bird at cockcrow. Yet, I can only hear the whistle of trains packed with human cargo.

I can only see 300,000 Warsaw Jews being loaded like cattle onto trains for Treblinka by smiling SS men brandishing truncheons. I see 400,000 Hungarian Jews destroyed in Birkenau in 10 weeks during the summer of 1944. The mouth of the bird opens but it is not his crowing chime that I hear, only the whistle of trains heading for the death camps of Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka.

The whistling disappears. The chiming stops. The tourists applaud and begin to disperse. In envy, I look at them and ask myself: Can’t a Jew in Munich who stands at Marienplatz 8 listening to the chimes of the Glockenspiel simply enjoy the beauty of the colorful figurines, the aesthetics of the Rathaus facade and the clarity of the chimes without thinking of mass graves, gas chambers and crematoria? No.

For the destruction of European Jewry – the systematic murder of one out of every three Jews living on earth – took place in our epoch, a minute span in the history of mankind. Memory must overcome the ravages of time. We must see photographs of the Holocaust period and read the accounts of those who lived through it.

The “Good Jews” Are Never Good Enough

Jewish Anti-Zionist Excuses
Diving into the most plain assertion of Jewish Anti-Zionist tokens, we can also unpack further. Many of them today may assume innocence by repeating the talking point that “Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism” (a foundational lie for token Jewish opponents to the majority-consensus [IHRA] definition of antisemitism). Similar to the concept of “racial colorblindness”, it is problematic to assert that Zionism and Judaism have no connection (even if coming from ignorance, fear, or good intentions). Zionism: the belief in the Jewish right to revive self-determination in [at least part of] the indigenous, ancestral homeland of the Jewish people is an inherent element of Jewish heritage, not only because half of the world’s Jews live in and rely on the State of Israel for refuge and freedom, but because there would be no Jewish people without the establishment of the Kingdom of Israel, over 3,000 years ago. Zionism isn’t only part of Jewish heritage. It is a moral value to embrace — not an abstraction to feign estrangement from.

To drive the point home, out of 613 laws in Judaism, only around 270 can be practiced today outside the land of Israel. Observant Jews worldwide have prayed for return (some even attempting return) to Israel from forced exile by many empires for centuries (secular and religious alike). The hypocritical, numerically microscopic ultra-Orthodox faction of Neturei Karta (less than a third of one percent of world Jewry) have only around 100 members who actively protest against Israel and have many more who’ve returned to live in Israel — only denying the State of Israel’s right to exist until the arrival of the Messiah.

For thousands of years, Jews have practiced land-specific Israelite rituals, including in diaspora for holidays like Sukkot, Shavuot, Hanukkah, Tisha B’Av, Pesach (Passover), and more, focusing on our connection with the land of Israel, its sacredness, the capital of Jerusalem, and our return. Among many more reasons, we can confidently affirm that Zionism is intrinsic to Jewish heritage.

Some Anti-Zionist Jews who actually recognize these innate ties, try to eliminate these parts of Jewish identity or try to fabricate new traditions in their place. Saying the mourner’s kaddish for neutralized armed Palestinian terrorists, performing justice Havdallah ceremonies in daylight while widely known to be meant for nighttime, manipulating the traditional Passover seder to omit the Exodus and the age-old saying “L’shanah ha’ba’ah bi’Yerushalayim” (“Next Year in Jerusalem!”), redacting mentions of the word “Israel” in Jewish siddurim (prayer books) and texts are but a fraction of losing practices. Ultimately, these are all losing practices because there is nothing that can save “The Good Jews” from antisemites.

What we’ve learned is that Anti-Zionism, like many fads of antisemitic and totalitarian conformity, is futile. No matter the alibi at the time or the place in question, to the antisemite, it’s not just about our insistence on specific elements of particularity and peoplehood that will never be acceptable, it’s about our existence at all. (h/t L_King)

How the Palestinians got their name

Before Israel was founded, several prominent Jewish and Zionist organizations used the name “Palestine.” These included The Palestine Post newspaper and the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, which are now The Jerusalem Post and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

At the time, many Arabs in British Mandatory Palestine considered themselves part of Greater Syria rather than “Palestinians.” In 1937, a local Arab leader told the Palestine Royal Commission, “There is no such country [as Palestine]. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented! Our country for centuries was part of Syria.”

Arab historian Philip Hitti echoed this sentiment shortly before Israel declared independence, saying, “There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not.”

The watershed moment for the “Palestinian” national movement came after the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel won control of Judea and Samaria from Jordan. The words of author Walid Shoebat of Bethlehem sum up the profound shift in local Arabs’ identity: “On June 4, 1967, I was a Jordanian, and overnight I became a Palestinian.”

Since 1967, a whole national mythology has been created around the terms “Palestine” and “Palestinian.” For example, the Palestinian Arabs have claimed to be descendants of the Canaanites who preceded the ancient Israelites and Philistines in the Holy Land.

In 2018, Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas told the United Nations’ Security Council, “We are the descendants of the Canaanites that lived in the land 5,000 years ago and continued to live there to this day.”

But most Palestinians trace their origins to prominent tribes in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Egypt. Yasser Arafat was born in Egypt. Even the Kanaan family in Nablus (Shechem) traces its ancestry to Syria. In any case, the Canaanites had disappeared more than 1,600 years before the Arabs first arrived in the Holy Land.

Preposterously, Palestinians have even asserted that Jesus was a Palestinian. In a 2013 Christmas message, Abbas called Jesus a “Palestinian messenger.” In 2019, Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour posted on Twitter, “Jesus was a Palestinian of Nazareth.”

We beg the pardon of Mr. Abbas and his fellow fantasists, but Jesus was a Jew from Judea, which was named Judea because it was and still is the homeland of the Jewish people.

While the Arabs of the region are free to call themselves whatever they want, they are not free to hijack the 3,000-year history of the Holy Land for themselves. In the end, the name “Palestine” represents the Jews’ original dispossession of their homeland 1,900 years ago.

Saudi, Tunisia, Sudanese and Somali delegates meet in Israel for security conference

From i24 News:

More than 20 guests from different Arab Gulf and African countries arrived in Israel on Wednesday for a historic visit to Jerusalem, where they will discuss a range of issues that pertain to regional links with the Jewish state.

Among these guests, some of whom were from countries with which Israel does not have diplomatic relations, were representatives of think tanks, institutes of applied diplomacy, and journalists, Ynetnews reported. They participated in a three-day conference, initiated by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, focused on Israel's relations with the countries of Africa and the Gulf region.

Representatives of Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Djibouti, Tunisia, Mauritania, and Sudan - states that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel - were among those at the forum, as well as envoys from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Jordan, Kenya, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Somaliland, South Africa, South Sudan, and Uganda.

To have delegates from Tunisia and Saudi Arabia is not a small thing.

Arab media and social media are filled with these photos of the delegates:

Topics discussed included the war on terrorism and radicalization, water desalination, food safety and the war on hunger.

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!

03/31 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: America’s outrageous attack on Netanyahu’s right to govern; IDF: 1 year of Operation Break the Wave; Arabs Chant in Support of Hamas at Temple Mount

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: America’s outrageous attack on Netanyahu’s right to govern

Whatever one thinks about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, any true Israeli patriot will surely react viscerally to U.S. President Joe Biden’s outrageous attack on Israel’s right to govern itself without foreign interference.

On Monday, Netanyahu announced he was suspending his coalition’s judicial reform legislation in order to negotiate a compromise with the opposition.

The next day, Biden told Netanyahu to “walk away” from the legislation, saying he was “very concerned” about the health of Israeli democracy. Warning that Israel “cannot continue down this road,” he added for good measure that he wouldn’t be inviting Netanyahu to the White House “in the near term.”

It is deeply disturbing that the U.S. should brazenly and insultingly interfere in the internal affairs of another country and tell its prime minister how to behave. Biden was supposedly speaking as Israel’s friend, but he sounded like a colonial administrator barking at the natives to fall into line.

While Likud politicians hit the roof, left-wing and centrist politicians and commentators got behind Biden and kicked Netanyahu even more viciously in the head.

After three months of mass protests, incitement to hysteria and ludicrous hyperbole about the end of democracy that have caused Israel untold social, financial and reputational damage, those who shared responsibility for the crisis took their cue from Biden and blamed Netanyahu instead.

Benny Gantz, leader of the National Unity party, called Biden’s comments “an urgent wake-up call for the Israeli government,” which he accused of delivering a “strategic blow” to Israel’s ties with the U.S.

One of his MKs, Gideon Sa’ar, declared, “Never has any government caused such immense damage to the country in such a short time.” He called Likud politicians’ objection to Biden’s unprecedented foreign interference “a total loss of judgment.”

This is all straight out of the Palestinian Arabs’ Orwellian playbook: Subject Israel to aggression and then blame Israel for causing that aggression by choosing to exist.

Matthew Continetti: Biden’s Mideast Mess

Think it’s impossible to screw up two countries at once? You’ve never seen President Joe Biden in action.

On March 27, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that his government would pause the progress through the Knesset of a controversial judicial bill until later this spring. Netanyahu’s decision came after weeks of mounting street protests over the reform, which would allow the legislature to rein in the judiciary. Military reservists stopped reporting for duty. Israel’s largest union declared a general strike. U.S. officials were critical.

So, when Netanyahu suspended the measure, U.S. ambassador to Israel Tom Nides welcomed the move. Asked when Netanyahu might visit President Biden in the White House, Nides said: "I’m sure he’ll be coming relatively soon."

Nides didn’t check with his boss. He extended an open hand to Israel’s elected leader. Biden slapped it down. On March 28, during a visit to North Carolina, the president spoke to reporters. Calling himself a "strong supporter of Israel," Biden said he was nonetheless concerned that Israelis "get this straight. They can’t continue down this road"—the road, presumably, of a democratic majority following due process of law. A reporter asked Biden if he’d be welcoming Netanyahu in Washington. "Not in the near term," Biden replied.

Some friend. No matter your opinion of the judicial reform—and there are plenty of committed Zionists who are leery of it—there is no question that Biden’s rebuke of Netanyahu was a breach in U.S.-Israel relations. Americans and Israelis scrambled to repair the damage. Netanyahu posted a Twitter thread underscoring his commitment to the alliance, while reminding Biden that Israel is a sovereign nation that will determine its own course. Or, as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir put it: "Israel is an independent country, not another star in the American flag." On March 29, White House national security spokesman John Kirby played down the differences as best he could.

Caroline Glick: A new phase in U.S.-Israel relations

Israel may be better off paying for U.S. military platforms out of its own pocket and transforming its relationship from that of a client into one of a partner in defense technology development. On March 13, the U.S. Air Force conducted another unsuccessful test of one of the two hypersonic missiles it is developing. Washington may or may not want Israel’s help with its hypersonic missile program, which is lagging far behind China and Russia’s programs. But Israel is probably the only U.S. ally capable of helping. Certainly, under the present circumstances, Israel’s relationship with the United States will be more secure if it is based on collaboration in areas of mutual interest rather than dependence.

With the U.S. position on issues of critical importance to Israel—first and foremost, Iran and the Palestinians, changing completely depending on the president’s partisan affiliation— Israel needs to stop relying on America on issues that require continuous, high-intensity cooperation.

Building interest-based partnerships with other nations
This brings us to the second difference between the new phase we have entered in U.S.-Israel ties and de Gaulle’s breach of Franco-Israeli ties in the 1960s. When the French leader turned on Israel, Israel had the United States more or less at the ready, willing to replace France as Israel’s superpower ally. Today, Israel has no alternative waiting in the wings.

But it may not need one. Israel is much more powerful today than it was in the 1960s. It doesn’t need a protector; it needs partners. Beginning in 2013, Netanyahu began a process of building interest-based partnerships with nations across the region and across the world. These relationships with states in the region and worldwide already form the nucleus of a strategic posture that can secure Israel’s position.

Biden’s statement on Tuesday was roundly applauded by Israeli leftists hell-bent on overthrowing Netanyahu’s government. They would do well to think this through. Sure, Biden has issues with Netanyahu. But the policies Biden pursues vis-à-vis Iran and the Palestinians work to Israel’s strategic disadvantage regardless of who is in power, as his strong-arming of Lapid on the Hezbollah gas deal made clear.

Biden is not de Gaulle, in stature or in influence. American support for Israel is diminishing in some quarters. Still, it remains strong overall. Much can be done to change the situation for the better. And Israel is a powerful, wealthy nation with viable alternatives to strategic dependence on the United States.

This has been a bad week for Israel-U.S. relations, but it isn’t cause for despair. Rather, it is cause for a sober-minded reassessment and rearrangement of Israel’s relations with America to bring them in line with current realities.

By Daled Amos

Among the casualties of the demonstrations in Israel opposing the judicial reforms is the relationship between Israel and the US, between Netanyahu and Biden.

But just how much of the current tension is recent?

Politico already reported back in December that the Biden administration was looking for a fight with Netanyahu:

The Biden administration will hold the presumptive Israeli prime minister personally responsible for the actions of his more extreme cabinet members, especially if they lead to policies that endanger a future Palestinian state, two U.S. officials familiar with the issue told POLITICO.

What was overlooked then, and overlooked (or ignored) now during the protests, is that Netanyahu had the backing of a majority of Israelis. Is the White House was just looking for an excuse to destabilize the Israeli government?

Is it surprising that Biden went out of his way to announce that there were no plans to invite Netanyahu to the US in the near future? Netanyahu had already agreed to suspend the push for the reforms for the time being, yet on Tuesday, Biden was still discussing the issue in public and saying that Bibi should drop the reforms altogether.

Biden has allowed tensions between the US and Israel to reach the point that a NASA astrophysicist scheduled to be a keynote speaker at a conference in Israel was forced to cancel.

The Israeli business daily, Globes, has an article suggesting that the increased criticism from the US is only natural and Israel has to accept it:

Of course, Israel is sovereign; but Israel also has to be realistic. For decades, it has demanded special treatment as "the only democracy in the Middle East". As a democracy, it necessarily exposes itself to criticism from other democracies. [emphasis added]

Maybe -- as long as the criticism comes from a genuine concern for democracy and not from a political agenda.

The Wall Street Journal suspects the latter and is unimpressed by Biden's swipe at Netanyahu by publicly not inviting him to the White House -- instead of giving him credit for reaching out to the opposition and looking for compromise. Biden's "concern" for Israel is less an issue of preserving democracy and more one of "Woe betide the ally who runs afoul of American progressive opinion."

The Journal notes that Biden cannot even project a consistent message on what he claims to expect from Israel and Netanyahu. On Monday, Biden said

Hopefully the Prime Minister will act in a way that he is going to try to work out some genuine compromise. But that remains to be seen.

But on Tuesday, Biden said about Netanyahu:

“I hope he walks away from it.”

Are Biden's comments coming from a place of genuine concern, or a political agenda, fueled by left-wing Democrats who would like to see Netanyahu fail and Israel become more compliant?

The Jewish Press notices a certain inconsistency in the US concern for democracy when it comes to Israel:

Funny observation: President Joe Biden, whose Attorney General leads the effort to prosecute the January 6 mob, today supports the efforts of Barak’s anarchists to storm Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home on Gaza Street in Jerusalem, bring the government down to its knees by paralyzing the country with mass demonstrations and strikes, and force the Knesset majority to abandon its legislation.

Foreign policy analyst Mitchell Bard points out another inconsistency in Biden's claim of concern for democracy:

Contrast the vitriolic administration critique of the mechanisms of Israeli democracy with its total silence on the undemocratic behavior of the president of France. Just as tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in opposition to the government’s position on judicial reform, even larger numbers of French citizens have been protesting President Emmanuel Macron’s unilateral decision to raise the retirement age. The State Department has not called on Macron to compromise with the protesters or questioned French democracy

Macron accomplished his end-around by using an executive order, which causes Bard to note:

And who else has resorted to executive orders because he cannot get support from the democratically elected representatives of the country?

Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Biden has taken every opportunity to remind us that he is a strong friend of Israel. But considering Biden's long history of gaffes -- and outright fabrications -- Jews should be judging Biden by his actions, not by his words.

And those actions are not reassuring.

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!

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch submitted a memorandum to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities about the problems of Palestinians with disabilities.

Not surprisingly, it places most of the blame for Palestinian leaders not adhering to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on - Israel.

Here is a section about how Israel restricts movement in and out of Gaza:

Human Rights Watch found that sweeping Israeli restrictions on the movement of people and goods, at times exacerbated by restrictive policies by Palestinian authorities, curb access to assistive devices, health care, and electricity essential to many people with disabilities.

For more than 15 years, Israeli authorities have blocked most of Gaza’s population from traveling through the Erez Crossing, the only passenger crossing from Gaza into Israel through which Palestinians can travel to the West Bank and abroad. Israeli authorities often justify the closure, which came after Hamas seized political control over Gaza from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in June 2007, on security grounds. The closure policy, though, is not based on an individualized assessment of security risk; a generalized travel ban applies to all, except those whom Israeli authorities deem as presenting “exceptional humanitarian circumstances,” mostly people needing vital medical treatment and their companions, as well as prominent businesspeople.

Israeli authorities also significantly restrict the entry and exit of goods into Gaza. While there are no restrictions on the import of assistive devices, policies regarding “dual-use” items have restricted the entry of spare parts and batteries for hearing aids and other devices, according to the Israeli human rights group Gisha.[7] Medical Aid for Palestinians has documented that Israel has restricted as “dual-use” items carbon fiber components used to stabilize and treat limb injuries, and carbon fiber and epoxy resins used to produce artificial limbs, resulting in patients being fitted with heavier, more uncomfortable alternatives.

....Hamas authorities in Gaza and humanitarian organizations have sought to provide assistive devices to those in need of them, but their efforts often fall short. Gaza’s Social Development Ministry reported on its website in September 2017 that it had allocated US $500,000 in its 2018-2020 plan for assistive devices, but it is unclear what devices it secured and distributed, and what standards it relies on to assess need.[14]

....Under the CRPD, States Parties should take effective measures to ensure personal mobility, including by facilitating access to assistive technology and by promoting the availability, knowledge, and use of assistive devices and technologies.[16] International humanitarian law obliges occupying powers to ensure the safety and welfare of civilians living in the occupied territory.[17]

Israel’s sweeping restrictions on the movement of people and goods, at times exacerbated by restrictive policies by Palestinian authorities, restrict the right of people with disabilities to freedom of movement and access to assistive devices, as set out under articles 20 and 14 of the CPRD.

Here's how HRW's bias works:

It mentions a couple of times that Palestinian authorities also restrict Gazans from leaving the territory. But while it goes into some detail on Israeli restrictions, it doesn't say anything about the Palestinian restrictions. Is it Hamas or the PA? (The answer is both.)

This memorandum is meant as a submission to the CPRD review of Palestinian policies, as they are signatories to the CPRD and have specific obligations under that convention. Israel's policies on allowing Gazans into Israel are not a part of Palestinian responsibilities under the CPRD. HRW is using this as another excuse to bash Israel.

Notice also that the word "Egypt" is not mentioned once in this memo. It is another border through which people and goods can pass, but only Israel is responsible for restrictions, not Egypt.

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!

03/30 Links Pt2: Passover 2002: A Tale of Two Massacres; New Executive Director of Human Rights Watch has Anti-Israel History; 4 Things The BDS Movement Doesn't Want You To Know

From Ian:

Passover 2002: A Tale of Two Massacres

The Use & Misuse of the Term “Massacre” Today
The term “massacre” is a powerful rhetorical tool, conjuring up feelings of moral disgust and revulsion in the face of wanton cruelty and depravity.

Thus, when Israel referred to the Park Hotel suicide bombing as the “Passover Massacre,” it was not only an appropriate designation but also meant to convey the enormity of the attack’s cruelty and monstrosity.

Similarly, when the Palestinians falsely claimed that a massacre had taken place in Jenin, this was intended to not only besmirch the Jewish state but also to provoke a visceral emotional reaction against Israel and in support of the Palestinians.

Over the past 20 years, there have been a number of similar cases where the word “massacre” is thrown around so as to provoke an emotional reaction against Israel and its actions, even when the incident in question does not qualify as a massacre.

This includes Al Jazeera’s use of the term “Passover Massacre” to refer to the killing of violent rioters along the Israel-Gaza border in March 2018, the claim of a second “Jenin Massacre” during clashes between the IDF and Palestinian gunmen in January 2023 and the allegations of a massacre in Nablus during clashes between the IDF and Palestinian gunmen at that time.

When the word “massacre” is used haphazardly in order to make a political point rather than accurately describe a violent incident, it not only weakens the import of the word but also lessens the severity of events that can correctly be termed “massacres,” such as the Baruch Goldstein massacre of Muslim worshippers in 1994 and the Kafir Qasim massacre in the Arab town in 1956.

Thus, it is important that, when reporting on incidents of violence, journalists are careful with their words so as to not aid in the spreading of false libels or diminishing the import of events that can correctly be deemed a “massacre.”

Jonathan Tobin: An obsession with diversity leaves plenty of room for hate

DEI education is now inextricably linked to critical race theory teachings in which all people are divided into two groups: oppressors and victims. In the mindset of CRT ideology and intersectionality, Jews and Israel are falsely depicted as white oppressors of people of color. That’s because intersectional thinking falsely analogizes the Palestinian war on Israel with the struggle for civil rights in the United States.

Diversity is therefore merely a matter of empowering designated minority groups who are deemed victims. Since in the leftist mindset of those who have been indoctrinated in woke doctrine Jews are the bad guys, their rights are trashed, and smears aimed at boosting efforts to destroy Israel are naturally promoted.

As a study conducted by the Heritage Foundation discovered, diversity officers are making college campuses a hostile environment for Jews because of their anti-Zionist attitudes.

In this manner, CRT teaching gives a permission slip to antisemitism. That’s reflected not just in debates on college campuses, where these noxious theories had their origins. But it has also influenced a wide range of educational activities, as a lawsuit aimed at exposing the Jew-hatred in the so-called “liberated ethnic studies” programs being used in California schools has shown.

Nor has the ADL shown itself immune to these awful trends.

As a Fox News Digital exposé showed last fall, the curricula the ADL has been handing out to schools as part of its “No Place for Hate” program included CRT teachings about “white privilege”; the need to address the problems of “whiteness”; praise for the antisemitic Women’s March group; and support for the idea of contemporary American paying reparations to those whose ancestors were enslaved.

The ADL claimed that it was a mistake, but the presence of this material in their work was entirely in keeping with the organization’s actions and decisions under Greenblatt as he has made it a priority to stay in sync with fashionable radical ideas about race in order to avoid being tagged as reactionaries by their left-wing allies.

When placed in this context, how can anyone be surprised that a “No Place for Hate” school would wind up being the setting for an outrageous incident of open antisemitism?

The question now is not so much how to fix the mess at Bloomfield Hills High School that the obsession with a particular idea about diversity has caused. It’s whether the ADL itself and its entire massively funded apparatus of anti-hate education is now so badly compromised by woke ideas that it cannot be salvaged. While the mission of the group is still vital, the available evidence leads to the inescapable conclusion that at this point, the ADL may be doing a great deal more harm than good.

Jews entering an Arab town are risking their lives.

What Happens When a Muslim Women Enters a Jewish Town in #Israel #FreePalestine from the brutal corrupt dictatorships of the #PalestinianAuthority & #Hamas pic.twitter.com/zIfErsXBEV
— Common Sense (@barry100CA) March 30, 2023

New Executive Director of Human Rights Watch has Anti-Israel History

Human Rights Watch, an NGO with a history of anti-Israel advocacy, announced its interim executive director Tirana Hassan will now hold the position permanently.

“Different leader, same antisemitic, Israel-obsessed, Jew-hating,” Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the International Legal Forum, tweeted of Hassan’s appointment.

In 2014, Hassan tweeted: “When Israel strikes ‘targets’ and takes out large civilian casualties it’s sloppy, reckless and illegal.”

“My commitment to justice and human rights is drawn from lived experience. My family—from Pakistan to Jaffna in Sri Lanka to Singapore—faced the kinds of threats to their human rights that we are combating today in communities around the world,” Hassan said in a video that the NGO posted on Twitter.

“We are living in an era where facts are up to debate,” she added.

Unpacked: 4 Things The BDS Movement Doesn't Want You To Know

Throughout modern history, boycotts have proven to be a powerful tool for defeating oppression and advancing change. Yet, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement that aims to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel actually hurts the Palestinian economy and disrupts efforts towards peace.

Back in 2009, I (very quickly) wrote a Zionist Haggadah.

It is a complete, traditional Haggadah, with added commentary based on religious Zionist divrei Torah I found online.

The theme is simple. The Haggadah tells a story of the Jewish people moving from slavery to freedom. This is also the story of modern Israel.

Passover is as Zionist a holiday as one can imagine - the beginning of freedom for the Jewish people. And freedom is not complete without having a physical land where people can be authentically and wholeheartedly Jewish.

The main part of the Haggadah starts with הָשַּׁתָּא הָכָא, לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּאַרְעָא דְיִשְׂרָאֵל - Now we are here, next year we will be in the Land of Israel.

The penultimate praise of Dayenu thanks God for bringing us to the Land of Israel, הִכְנִיסָנוּ לְאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל.

The end of the Seder includes בְּקָרוֹב נַהֵל נִטְעֵי כַנָּה פְּדוּיִם לְצִיּוֹן בְּרִנָּה, "Bring close, lead the plantings of the sapling, redeemed, to Zion in joy," followed by the celebratory "Next Year in Jerusalem."

Anti-Zionists have been trying to hijack Judaism (and the Passover seder itself!) to justify their hate and attract disenfranchised Jews. They don't want them to experience the real thing. The real Judaism is authentic and rooted in the Land of Israel - not in celebrating "diasporism" as a core Jewish value.

This is the real thing.

Every year I plan to update this Haggadah so I can publish a print edition, but I never get around to it. This version uses copyrighted material so I cannot publish it or sell it. I need to get new illustrations, to paraphrase and update the commentaries, and to re-format it (although the two columns on a single page format is surprisingly good.)

But I have printed it and had it bound, and used it at my own Seder some years, and it is really quite good and usable.

You can download it here (if you prefer not to use Scribd, you can use this link.)

I also made a version that adds some English transliterations of the most important parts; you can download that here (without the cover art, alas.)

I hope you use it and enjoy it!

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!

Peaceful Israeli Demonstrations Confuse Palestinians (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Tel Aviv, March 30 - Weeks of protests against the Israeli government's proposal to overhaul the country's judicial system have left their neighbors baffled, especially the ones under the rule of Fatah and Hamas, with specific lack of comprehension regarding the absence or near-absence of violence at the numerous well-attended rallies.

Palestinians across the political and demographic spectrum voiced their bewilderment today after repeated, vehement demonstrations against the proposal resulted yesterday in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announcing the postponement of the process until at least June, with negotiations to take place in the interim over what changes, if any, to make to the plan. The lack of vehicular assaults, stabbings, Molotov cocktails, shootings, firebomb balloons, stones, bricks, and other features of Palestinian protests has left that group wondering how the Israeli protesters managed to achieve results without resorting to any of those familiar tactics.

"Am I missing something?" wondered Nimr Halabi of Nablus. "With no violent unrest, there's no hope for change. That's just how I know it works. Our entire society is based on that assumption. So I think what's really happening is either it's all a big show and it's all fake, with the Jews manipulating everyone into thinking that's what happened, without violence, or, and I think this one's a little more likely, the Jews control all the media, and the media simply didn't show the violence that we know had to happen, because without violence there's no political change. There was political change, ergo, violence preceded it, and probably happens afterwards, too, but the Zionist-controlled media won't show it."

"There are usually individual clips that come out even with the Jewish control though," argued Fatima Qawasme of Hebron. "And I don't mean the ones that come from other places that our supporters relabel as 'Palestine' to make Israel look evil. I mean there's no such thing as one hundred percent media control, or we'd never know that there's Jewish control of the media. But there's nothing in this case. It's scary to think, if what we're seeing is the whole story, that change is possible without killing people - that change is possible without killing some Jews. That would undermine everything we live and die for here."

Palestinian leaders in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank took pains to assure the Palestinian public that in their case, any change of leadership would require violence, and would lead to violence in the aftermath of any such change.

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!

A short lesson in Hamas propaganda

This cartoon was in Hamas' Felesteen:

The caption is "Occupation violations of Al Aqsa." It shows the Arab world smoking a hookah, eyes closed, while the Dome of the Rock burns.

There is a huge difference in the quality of propaganda between saying that Jews are determined to destroy the mosques on the Temple Mount - and saying that Arabs are ignoring that destruction.

After all, if the entire cartoon was the left side of the cartoon, and the main point was that Jews were destroying the structure, casual readers would consciously realize that this is the message that the cartoonist is trying to convey, and they could evaluate the message on its merits. The claim that the Jews are hellbent on destroying Al Aqsa have been rampant for over a hundred years, and nothing has happened in that century, so the reader might be resistant to that message.

But when the message is that the Arab world is ignoring Israel's destruction of the site, then the reader's attention is no longer directed towards what the Jews are doing but what the Arabs are. The message that Jews are destroying Al Aqsa is almost subliminal - it must be accepted as a given before the viewer can evaluate the claim of about the foreground of the picture.

By only saying indirectly that Jews are destroying Al Aqsa, that message is that much stronger.

There is another layer here, though: the image of the Dome of the Rock burning would cause a visceral reaction of anger to Palestinian Muslims. It is like an image of a burning Quran. In that sense, it is incitement. But, again, the message is magnified by not being the main focus of the cartoon, but the artist wants a twofold reaction: one of anger towards Arab leaders, but also to inspire Palestinian Muslims to "defend Al Aqsa" themselves - which practically means attacking Jews.

I cannot tell how effective this is. But it is a model for effective propaganda that is meant to rile up people.

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!

03/30 Links Pt1: Israel Is Proving It Is Still the Only Democracy in the Middle East; The dire consequences of America’s Iran-friendly strategy; IRGC Urges Palestinians To Take Advantage Of Turmoil In Israel

From Ian:

Jake Wallis Simons: Israel Is Proving It Is Still the Only Democracy in the Middle East

You may have read that the situation in Israel is dire. People are talking of the end of democracy. Take a step back, however. These political convulsions are not the end of the world.

The two groups of protesters - Netanyahu supporters have also taken to the streets - both fly seas of Israeli flags. They both sing the national anthem. Both are demanding more democracy, not less. And the demonstrations have been non-violent. It could be argued that protests in France have been less peaceful.

Yes, there is reason to be concerned about the polarization these events are fostering. But what people are arguing about is the arcane matter of balancing the relationship between the executive, legislature and judiciary.

The Israeli government has placed its reforms on hold. So much for dictatorship. And it is entering a period of negotiation. So much for the end of democracy.

The most striking thing about all of this is the passion with which Israelis are concerned about their democracy and their country.

Biden Meddles in Israeli Democracy

Biden’s comments threaten to further inflame an already divided Israeli society and come just weeks after the Washington Free Beacon reported that the State Department has been funding one of the anti-Netanyahu organizations fueling nationwide Israeli protests. The Jewish state has been besieged by far-left protests since Netanyahu unveiled his plan to rein in Israel’s Supreme Court, which has historically held great power over the country’s legislative branch.

"They cannot continue down this road. And I’ve sort of made that clear," Biden told reporters on Tuesday. "Hopefully the prime minister will act in a way that he can try to work out some genuine compromise, but that remains to be seen." Biden also said that he has not communicated directly with Netanyahu on the issue, instead instructing the U.S. ambassador to deliver this message.

Biden’s comments conflict with his administration’s own messaging, which has been more positive after Netanyahu decided on Monday to put his judicial overhaul plans on ice until tensions in the country settle. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Monday that the United States’ interest in the issue comes from a place "of respect and friendship." However, reports emerged on Wednesday that behind closed doors, Biden administration officials are saying Netanyahu’s government "has authoritarian leanings" that could erode the Jewish state’s democracy, according to Politico.

Netanyahu, in a response to Biden, said he would not be pressured by U.S. criticism.

"Israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends," the Israeli leader said in a statement. "My administration is committed to strengthening democracy by restoring the proper balance between the three branches of government, which we are striving to achieve via a broad consensus."

Pro-Israel Republicans also criticized the White House for jumping into the fray.

"Utterly disgraceful," Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted in response to the president’s comments. "Biden gleefully hosts anti-American radicals like [Brazilian president] Lula, while shunning close American allies like Netanyahu."

"It's clear that Biden and his officials are high from funding what they believe to be successful anti-government protests in Israel," Cruz said, referring to the Free Beacon’s earlier reporting.

The dire consequences of America’s Iran-friendly strategy

President Biden’s Gulf strategy, which is a continuation of former President Obama’s Iran-oriented doctrine, has benefited both China and Iran.

In addition to allowing Iran to keep its nuclear capabilities, this doctrine, which culminated in the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), requires Saudi Arabia to “share” the region with Iran and allows Iran to expand its influence in the Arabian Gulf region and beyond. The pursuit of an Iran-friendly strategy has led to the decline of US influence and the growing erosion of its deterrence in the Arabian Gulf. Here are four likely consequences of the Iran-Saudi deal for the region:

1. Further US retrenchment from the Gulf region
The Iran-Saudi deal would expedite America’s retreat from the region. The China-mediated Iran- Saudi deal is a lose-lose game for America and at the same time, would empower China and Iran.

Even if they claim otherwise, the Obama and Biden administrations’ withdrawal strategy rests on accommodating Iran and allowing the establishment of a pro-Iran regional order in the Arabian Gulf to fill the ensuing power vacuum. The United States has been retreating from the Middle East region since 2009 and China is the biggest beneficiary of Team Biden-Obama’s Iran-centric retrenchment strategy. It’s a strategy that has pushed America’s Arab allies in the Gulf towards Beijing as Arab states seek to diversify their strategic ties to address their security concerns, including their fear of Iran’s drone and missile strikes on targets in the Gulf and the broader Middle East region.

Saudi Arabia’s decision to mend its relationship with Iran is directly related to the Obama doctrine, which seeks to help establish an Iran-dominated order in the Middle East region. The doctrine falsely assumes that Iran is a rational actor and that Iran’s hegemonic demands must be met positively in order to achieve peace and stability in this restive region.

3. A blow to the Abraham accords
With President Biden in office, pursuing the Abraham accords is not a US Middle East policy priority, anymore. Yet, Iran and Saudi Arabia occupy a unique place in Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s foreign policy. During his election campaign in 2022, Netanyahu made blocking Iran’s access to nuclear bombs and establishing formal diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia his two top priorities.

Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that establishing diplomatic ties with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – a key Muslim state and the heartland of Islam – would be a diplomatic “quantum leap” and would end the Israeli-Arab conflict, irrespective of the Palestinian issue. With Iran- Saudi rapprochement underway, Netanyahu’s hope for achieving peace with Saudi Arabia may become harder, if not impossible, and the expansion of the Israeli-Arab peace initiative, better known as the “Abraham Accords”, could come to a standstill.

The Abraham Accords is one of the greatest US foreign policy achievements in recent decades and this key diplomatic success needs to be reproduced with US diplomatic leadership. Otherwise, China is going to dominate the region’s diplomatic arena.

No joke: The U.N. Human Rights Council chair just cut me off and stopped me from testifying after the Islamic Republic of Iran complained I was “attacking” them by exposing their role as a state sponsor of terrorism. Censorship from the world body mandated to protect free speech. pic.twitter.com/2Kqe3d4Jtn
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) March 29, 2023