Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, August 02, 2023

Guilt by Association: Case in Point, Farrakhan (Judean Rose)

Louis Farrakhan is a notorious antisemite. He really hates Jews. Ditto Roger Waters, and so many others. Like cockroaches, the antisemites never stop coming out of the woodwork. But how should we feel about those, like RFK Jr., who spend time with them?

Robert Kennedy Jr. met with me about a vaccine that is designed to affect Black males [VIDEO] http://t.co/vIBozDkOo4 pic.twitter.com/OKoFgNg9cj
— THE HONORABLE MINISTER LOUIS FARRAKHAN (@LouisFarrakhan) June 27, 2015

Let’s say there is an intersection of interests, as in the case of Louis Farrakhan and RFK Jr. Is it right that RFK Jr. look away from the vile antisemitism of Farrakhan because they have similar views on vaccination? And if you make common cause with an antisemite, does it make you one, too? Is it right, morally, that RFK Jr., collaborate with Farrakhan on the issue of vaccination?

Some say we should give RFK Jr. a pass because there must be a viable Democratic alternative to Joe Biden in the 2024 election. But the stench of antisemitism lingers around this “viable” alternative to Joe. During the Million Man March of October 2015, Nation of Islam Western Regional Representative Tony Muhammad read a letter from Louis Farrakhan:

In the greeting words of peace, Asalam Aleikum. Brothers and sisters, I'm here to bring to you some vital information that has happened to our community and it has not been brought to the attention of black people throughout America. Four months ago, Bobby Kennedy, the son of Robert Kennedy, met with me in Los Angeles to give me some shocking and revealing and, I mean, terrible information on what is going on at the Center[sic] for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. It has been brought to our attention that the senior lead scientist for the Center[sic] for Disease Control has admitted that the MMR vaccine and many of the vaccine shots have been genetically modified to attack black and Latino boys.

I don't think you heard me. We are living in a wicked time where we are dealing with a spiritual wickedness that is in high places and the pharmaceutical industry alone with the American Medical Association have found a way like Pharaoh did when it was time for the Children of Israel for them to make an exit.

Pharaoh said, “Let us kill all boy babies two and under.”

Now they are trying to force vaccines on baby boys, at least 80 shots before they are three years old.

Was it wrong that RFK Jr. went to, of all people, Louis Farrakhan to share information on vaccines? Farrakhan is an antisemite, but both Farrakhan and RFK Jr. are against vaccination. They share a common cause. What, if any, are the moral implications of associating with known antisemites because of the intersection of special interests such as vaccination mandates?

RFK Jr. clearly saw Farrakhan as the representative of the black people on the issue of vaccination. And since RFK Jr. has an especial interest in vaccines and vaccine mandates, his interests nicely dovetail with those of Farrakhan, who has repeatedly spun antisemitic conspiracy theories about vaccination:

According to the Free Beacon, RFK Jr. and Farrakhan are “longtime allies”:

The Kennedy-Farrakhan courtship began in 2015, when Kennedy visited the Nation of Islam leader at his home in Chicago to discuss the measles vaccine administered routinely to young kids. Farrakhan said in a social media post after the meeting that the vaccine was "designed" to harm black males. "Some of us are afraid, but Mr. Kennedy found his way to our door," Farrakhan has said.

Kennedy now has vocal support from Farrakhan, who has praised Adolf Hitler, compared Jews to "termites," and maintains a massive following through the Nation of Islam. Farrakhan has credited Kennedy with introducing him to the controversial and widely disputed theory that childhood measles vaccines are linked to autism. Kennedy has cosponsored events with the Nation of Islam and its leader, whom he has praised as a "truly great partner" in the "battle" to publicize the autism theory.

Nineteen percent of Democratic voters say they support Kennedy over President Joe Biden, according to a Fox News poll. The anti-vaccine activist's popularity among Democrats could cut against the party's efforts to portray the Republican base as anti-science bigots. While Biden is still the heavy favorite, Kennedy's surprisingly strong numbers show that a sizable chunk of Democratic voters are open to supporting a candidate who has pushed anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.

As the Free Beacon suggests, some say we need RFK Jr. as a viable alternative to Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination. Is this reason enough to support someone who makes common cause with antisemites? And for those who answer in the affirmative, do you tell yourselves (and others) that there is no proof that RFK Jr. is an antisemite?

08/02 Links Pt1: The 'Two-State Solution' is the elephant in the room; In Lebanon, Israel and America Are on Opposite Sides; Iran's Illicit Oil Exports Hit Five-Year High

From Ian:

David Singer: The 'Two-State Solution' is the elephant in the room

Israeli annexation of the 'West Bank' won’t happen under the Saudi Solution – but division of sovereignty in the 'West Bank' between Israel and Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine will.

In 2002 Friedman provided an intriguing insight into the role he played in conceiving the two-state solution:

“Earlier this month, I wrote a column suggesting that the 22 members of the Arab League, at their summit in Beirut on March 27 and 28, make a simple, clear-cut proposal to Israel to break the Israeli-Palestinian impasse: In return for a total withdrawal by Israel to the June 4, 1967, lines, and the establishment of a Palestinian state, the 22 members of the Arab League would offer Israel full diplomatic relations, normalized trade and security guarantees. Full withdrawal, in accord with U.N. Resolution 242, for full peace between Israel and the entire Arab world. Why not?”

Imagine Tom’s surprise when he broached his proposal during dinner with Saudi Arabia's then Crown Prince and de facto ruler - Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud:

“After I laid out this idea, the crown prince looked at me with mock astonishment and said, ''Have you broken into my desk?''

''No,'' I said, wondering what he was talking about.

''The reason I ask is that this is exactly the idea I had in mind -- full withdrawal from all the occupied territories, in accord with U.N. resolutions, including in Jerusalem, for full normalization of relations,'' he said. ''I have drafted a speech along those lines. My thinking was to deliver it before the Arab summit and try to mobilize the entire Arab world behind it. The speech is written, and it is in my desk.”

Thus was the Friedman-Abdullah two-state solution born.

The Obama-Biden administration unsuccessfully pushed this solution between 2011 and 2016 – bequeathing its implementation to the United Nations after instructing their UN Ambassador Samantha Powell to abstain – rather than veto – Security Council Resolution 2334 on 23 December 2016 as they were packing up and vacating the White House.

That Obama-Biden ploy has failed - after seven years of intense UN pressure to broker its implementation.

Biden, Friedman and the UN have never acknowledged the existence of the Saudi solution in the thirteen months since its publication.

They need to – for the Saudi solution has now become the key to a Saudi-Israel peace.

Biden's Saudi honey trap for Israel | Our Middle East

Are the recent efforts by the Biden administration for Saudi/Israeli normalization a pathway to peace or disaster for Israel?

In this episode of Our Middle East, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Dan Diker and JCPA analyst, Arab affairs expert, and veteran journalist Yoni Ben Menahem discuss talk of an American-initiated Saudi-Israeli peace and normalization deal after U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan was dispatched to Jeddah to speak with Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

They discuss
- the likely Saudi demands for the Palestinian state, withdrawal to the 67 lines and nuclear energy.
- the danger in both Biden and Netanyahu seeking to secure their legacies
- the complete misunderstanding of the Arab street by the Americans

‘The Middle East is a Powder Keg’: Israel’s UN Ambassador Warns of Hezbollah Provocations Along Lebanon Border

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan in a letter released Tuesday warned of potentially “disastrous” consequences stemming from Hezbollah’s provocations along the Blue Line separating Israel and Lebanon.

The letter to the UN Security Council and Secretary-General, dated 27 July, cites Hezbollah’s construction of military compounds along the de-facto border, as well as Hezbollah’s repeated attempts in recent months to infiltrate or sabotage Israel’s security barriers.

“The Middle East is a powder keg on the cusp of being ignited,” the letter says. “Tensions along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon are higher than they have been in years as a result of Hezbollah’s violent escalations, blatant violations of Security Council resolutions, and dangerous military advancements. If the Security Council does not condemn Hezbollah’s destabilizing activities and demand that Lebanon takes action against the illegal military buildup within its territories– or at the very least, allow [United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)] to be able to fully implement its mandate – the situation on the ground will continue to deteriorate and the consequences will be far-reaching and disastrous.”

While UNIFIL’s 10,000 peacekeepers are in theory mandated to “restore international peace and security” in South Lebanon and are authorized by the Security Council to “take all necessary necessary action…to ensure that [their] area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind,” the area has been a Hezbollah stronghold for decades, and the terror group operates with effective impunity from UNIFIL or the Lebanese government.

For months the group has been building observation and guard posts along the border under the guise of a supposed-environmental NGO called “Green Without Borders.”

“These are military outposts for all intents and purposes, established and maintained by Hezbollah terrorists and not innocent Lebanese environmentalists,” Erdan wrote in a separate letter in January.

Tony Badran: In Lebanon, Israel and America Are on Opposite Sides

Each time Hezbollah provokes, the U.S. reliably steps in to “mediate” between the terror group and Israel, with the goal of “stabilizing Lebanon.” Needless to say, the Israeli role is strictly to make concessions in the framework of a U.S.-brokered agreement, at the risk of displeasing its American patron. Hezbollah, meanwhile, knows that the structure of this Kabuki performance prohibits Israel from retaliating, making its provocations more or less risk-free—especially given the fact that the “Lebanese state” is a fiction.

In a speech marking the 17th anniversary of the 2006 war, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, explained exactly how the terror group’s dance with Team Obama-Biden and its emissaries works. Pointedly, his elucidation began with the maritime deal. The way Lebanon got everything it demanded, Nasrallah explained, was when “the resistance” threatened the Karish offshore platform, and when the official and popular supporting cast played their part. That’s when the Americans and Hochstein came and delivered the Israelis.

Having internalized that precedent, Hezbollah then decided it was time to press its advantage on land, where again, Nasrallah’s reading of the American posture had proven correct. The day before the terror leader’s speech, Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s special presidential coordinator for global infrastructure and energy security, who got the lame duck government of Yair Lapid to concede to all of Hezbollah’s demands in its last days in office, arrived in Israel to discuss tensions along the land border with Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s provocations on Israel’s northern border had begun months prior to Hochstein’s arrival. On June 21, Israeli media reported that Hezbollah operatives had entered Israeli territory several weeks earlier—the exact date was later said to have been April 8—and set up an outpost in the Mount Dov area, several meters inside Israel. Needless to say, this was months before the passage of Netanyahu’s judicial reform bill.

That Hezbollah’s actions took so long to surface in the Israeli press in part likely reflects the Israeli government’s reluctance to advertise its own weakness. Instead, the government vainly hoped that this sign of its impotence might be quietly resolved through diplomatic channels and UNIFIL. Israel filed a letter of complaint with the U.N. Security Council and then threatened to remove the tents by force after an unspecified deadline—a threat which, as more time passes, appears increasingly hollow.

Israel’s weak response to Hezbollah’s symbolic invasion of sovereign Israeli territory suggests a failure to recognize that Hezbollah’s cross-border encampment is, as Nasrallah explained, part of a systematic campaign. In turn, this failure appears to be embedded in an even larger refusal to comprehend America’s new posture in Lebanon. As a result, Israel is responding piecemeal to a coherent Hezbollah strategy aimed at forcing Israel to make additional concessions, this time on land, while using the new constraints forced on Israel by the new American posture to establish new operational dynamics at the border.

The oddity of this situation, then, is that both Israel and Hezbollah appear to be acting under the assumption that they have U.S. backing. In the case of Israel, however, this assumption is in part a mistake, and in part a bit of public posturing which has failed to convince their enemies to the north, who in fact know better.

The US embassy in Lebanon under Dorothy Shea is promoting and celebrating an LAF propaganda video with anti-Israel messaging pegged to the joint Hezbollah-LAF provocation at the border. Shea spearheaded a legally dubious scheme to make cash salary payments to the LAF/ISF in USD. https://t.co/4nhbCfwCVw pic.twitter.com/oOjF6VtXbu
— Tony Badran (@AcrossTheBay) August 1, 2023

A new review of my book "PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism" in AJL News

My book, "Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism" has continued to receive great reviews from both long-form reviewers and from Amazon reviews, where every single reviewer gave it five stars.

I just stumbled upon a short review published earlier this year by Shmuel Ben Gad in the Association of Jewish Libraries newsletter.

And again, the reviewer likes my book.

Elder of Ziyon. Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism. EoZPress,2022.365 pp. $19.95(9798985708431)PBK.

This is a selection of writings from the pro-Israel website “The Elder of Ziyon.” It is vigorous and straightforward in its defense of Zionism and Israel and not without humor. For example, after providing an extensive section of a paper by an anti-Israel academic, written in opaque postmodern prose, Elder of Ziyon writes, “Did you get that? Neither did anyone else.”

He covers a wide range of subjects, including, in part, the legal status of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, the relationship of anti-Zionism to antisemitism, the intellectual shallowness and dishonesty of many academic anti-Zionists, and the hostility to Israel of certain NGOs. He does not hesitate to call hatred hatred, and thinks that the hatred of Israel, the notion that Israel is uniquely or supremely wicked country, and Jews do not deserve to be equal to other nations in having self-determination in their homeland, is irrational and causes anti-Zionists to see the world in a distorted way.

This book is about a depressing subject but its strong, energetic defense of Israel is a tonic.

Shmuel Ben-Gad, Gelman Library, George Washington University, Washington,DC

Thanks, Shmuel!

And if you haven't bought the book yet - it is a tonic!

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!

Anti-Jewish hate crimes in NYC continues to dwarf all others

Here is a chart showing the categories of hate crimes in New York City for the first half of the year.

Out of 235 incidents, 108 were anti-Jewish. This is a little less than half but still much, much more than any other kind of bias.

In 2022, 43% of all hate crimes in New York City were against Jews.

I am sure that the NYPD takes antisemitic incidents seriously, but - this is a lot. And it indicates that the usual ways of fighting hate need to be customized for anti-Jewish hate. For example, the NYPD keeps track of the race of the offenders and the districts the crimes occur in - if there is a clear pattern, that could indicate a more specific plan for combating anti-Jewish hate rather than just using the same methods as for all other hate crimes. After all, Jews are often targeted for the perception of being privileged, unlike most other bias crimes.

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!

08/01 Links Pt2: The colourful Twitter history of Palestine; Deir Yassin: The ‘Massacre’ That Never Was; UNESCO to rule on ancient Jericho as Palestinian World Heritage site

From Ian:

David Collier: The colourful Twitter history of Palestine

Social media sites such as Twitter portray a wonderful history of a state called Palestine – but first let us quickly remember the truth.

The historical facts:
For the Islamic world, the area of 19th century Southern Syria was a sparsely populated forgotten backwater with rival clans and nomadic tribes presenting a hazardous obstacle for every trip. The weakening of the occupying power (the Ottoman Empire) and growing global trade – resurrected European interest. It was Christian travellers recognising this area as their ‘Holy Land’ that put an anglicised version of the name given to it by occupying Roman forces – ‘Palestine’ – firmly back on the map.

European Christian and Zionist investment increased opportunity, and immigrants (mostly Muslims from the collapsing Ottoman Empire) began to flood into the forgotten backwater. This time period culminated in ‘Palestine’ being used as the name for the British Mandate, awarded to Britain by the League of Nations to resurrect the Jewish homeland.

‘Palestine’ was never anything but a name of European imperial colonial conquest (Greek, Roman, Crusader and then British). Even the root derives from the ‘Philistines’ – European Invaders from the Aegean. This is why when Arabs bringing Islam had invaded and colonised the area they didn’t adopt it, and even local usage soon fell out of favour. ‘Palestine’ was not native to the land and had no meaning at all to Muslims. It remained just Christian terminology for the Holy Land – the Jewish ‘Land of Israel’. The anti-Zionist problem

This may all sound cold and heartless on the notion of a ‘Palestinian identity’ but it remains the historical truth.

None of this helps the anti-Israel crowd that is desperate to argue that Jews came and took over a prosperous land full of indigenous Palestinian people who had lived there as a nation for millennia. As Zionism rose – Muslim interest in the area simply rose to oppose it. They had no interest until the Jews sought to reclaim the land. The Christian world divided – with supersessionists seeing the rebirth of Israel as a direct threat to their own theology – while most Christians saw natural support for Zionism in their bibles. What had been a forgotten backwater was suddenly the most important thing in everyone’s heart.

Even the precious Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa (‘Haram al-Sharif’) built on the Jewish Temple Mount had been left to waste away. Don’t take it from me. This is from the Jordanian Royal website which explains that it was the Zionist ‘threat’ that made them wake up – and led to the 1922 restoration of these holy sites that turned them from decaying relics into the iconic images we all know so well today:

But the anti-Jewish movement still needed a banner to gather around and in time, Arab – Soviet anti-Zionist mythology created the ‘Palestinian’ in order to do battle with Israel. They then set about rewriting history, both by belittling Jewish ties to the Land of Israel and embedding a narrative of the indigenous Palestinian hero/victim.

The Twitter history of the Palestinians
When your truth is rooted in historicity, the rest is easy. You have nothing to fear, and your role is to educate those around you. With the anti-Zionists- the opposite is true. Education is the enemy – and so they rely on distortions, outliers, misinformation, fake news, and ignorance to help spread their ‘word’. The result is that an army of anti-Israel activists base their ‘truth’ on a mountain of nothing but lies.

This is easily shown by turning to social media. Here are some examples of how ignorant anti-Zionist history is. As each of these examples have been used 1000s of times (with many of them receiving millions of views) I thought I would present them here – along with the truth behind the image:

Deir Yassin: The ‘Massacre’ That Never Was

The Lingering Problem
Even though Jewish soldiers encountered between 70-80 combatants in the village, questions remain as to why so many casualties were civilians.

Some have argued this was the result of the warning mechanism not working properly. On the way to the village, the loudspeaker truck got stuck in a ditch, mostly out of earshot from the village, so Arab civilians were not properly warned that a battle was about to break out.

Expecting to face only combatants in a residential area, the Jewish soldiers – lacking traditional combat experience – carried out their original battle plan, which was to throw grenades into the houses that combatants were firing from before entering and clearing the houses.

Not expecting to find civilians still sheltering in place, they did not allow for that possibility.

The fight over the Zahran household during the battle best demonstrates the consequences of these tactics. During this fight, Muhmand Zahran, two of his sons, and his grandson, defended the property. The Jewish soldiers blindly threw grenades and shot into the house, killing 24 people.

Ultimately, it was flawed tactics rather than intent to murder that were responsible for the civilian deaths.

The Real Terrorist Attack
The battle over Deir Yassin was neither a terrorist attack nor a massacre. Deir Yassin represented a legitimate military objective for the Jewish soldiers in achieving their broader military objective of securing the road to Jerusalem. While planning the attack, the Jewish soldiers planned to mitigate civilian casualties, even at the expense of their own tactical advantage.

The loss of every civilian life is a tragedy. In the case of Deir Yassin, it was an avoidable tragedy had the military operation gone to plan. But the decades-long lie that the village is the site of a planned and deliberate massacre is just that – a lie.

Sadly, it is a lie that has had deadly consequences. On April 13, 1948, Arab militants killed over 70 medical workers and civilians in a revenge attack for Deir Yassin. Their objective was to kill as many unarmed civilians as possible.

Conclusion
Deir Yassin was a failure. But most importantly, it was a military failure. The pervasive and insidious narrative that a Jewish militia targeted the village and its inhabitants with a plot to commit unspeakable savagery is simply not supported by evidence.

UNESCO to rule on ancient Jericho as Palestinian World Heritage site

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee is expected to list the site of ancient Jericho, which is now an archaeological park located in the modern Palestinian city that still bears the biblical name, as being in the "state of Palestine."

The city is located in a section of the Jordan Valley, also known as Area A of the West Bank, which is under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority.

It is one of 53 natural and cultural sites the World Heritage Committee will be voting to include on its global list when it convenes this September in Saudi Arabia.

UNESCO has recognized Palestine as a state since 2011. It has since inscribed three other West Bank properties to it: the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2012; the ancient terraces of Battir in 2014; and Hebron’s Old Town, including the Tomb of the Patriarchs, in 2017.

The PA has filed requests for UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee to recognize 13 other sites during future meetings. They include Sebastia, the site of the former capital of ancient northern Israel; and the Qumran caves, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.

The World Heritage Committee has inscribed nine sites to Israel, the last of which was Maresha Caves in Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park in 2014.

The inscription of additional Israeli sites into the World Heritage Program has been complicated by political considerations. Israel's relations with UNESCO

Israel and the United States both halted their annual dues to UNESCO in 2011 to protest the organization’s recognition of Palestine as a state. Both countries lost voting rights in the organization as a result in 2013. They withdrew at the end of 2018 to protest the organization’s anti-Israel bias, a move that went into effect in 2019.

The US rejoined UNESCO this summer, and first lady Jill Biden traveled to the organization’s headquarters in Paris in July to celebrate America’s renewed ties with the organization.

Israel has not made any public statements about its intent to rejoin UNESCO. Its absence from the organization complicates any work on the potential inscription of further World Heritage Sites.

https://t.co/3hHgwYLQKW’s a lesson from Winston Churchill. pic.twitter.com/Fyz0xT6mpH
— Mo Delawn (@MoDellawn) July 30, 2023

Academia is used to launder every possible libel against Israel into acceptable-sounding social science. "Apartheid," "racism," genocide" - no matter what lies people make up against Israel, they are all supported by academic papers.

It is easy to lie in an academic paper. Peer review is next to worthless. There are enough sources to support the most insane theories as long as the authors pick and choose them, and ignore any counter-examples. Then, once published, these papers are used as source materials in the next set of papers, and no one checks to see if these materials were any good to begin with because they rely on the peer-review process of other journals. Using these methods, it is not difficult to create an edifice of well-sourced theories based on lies.

A paper was recently published in Cogent Arts and Humanities by Hanana Bamadhaj Omar and Mohd Irwan Syazli Said that asserts that Israel is inflicting "social death" on Palestinians. Wikipedia defines "social death" as "the condition of people not accepted as fully human by wider society. It refers to when someone is treated as if they are dead or non-existent. It is used by sociologists such as Orlando Patterson and Zygmunt Bauman, and historians of slavery and the Holocaust to describe the part played by governmental and social segregation in that process."

Rather than look at whether Israel is indeed guilty of this charge, the authors seek to expand the definition of "social death" to include Israel as the social murderer. They say this explicitly:

This article draws on the elaboration of social death theory and expand it to analyse the (attempted) social death Israeli regime is inflicting on Palestinian refugees.

Omar and Said freely admit that the paper takes what is a relatively new social science concept and seek to expand it in way that are far beyond its original form - just to damn Israel.

The authors take previous studies on how there is a component of social death in genocides - where (for example) the Nazis made the conscious decision not only to murder all Jews but also to destroy their culture and their relationships. They they twist this into saying that the effects of what Israel did to survive a genocidal attempt to wipe out the Jews in the region in 1948 on its Arab population was in fact the intent.

In the Palestinian context, we are contending that Palestinians are not entirely socially dead; however, they are, to a certain degree, are exposed to social death. The dispossession of millions of Palestinians in the past 73 years is an (attempt) to socially kill them. Quoting Edward Said (1986 p. 16), “identity- who we are, where we come from, what we are—is difficult to maintain in exile.”

Said's quote is only true when the exiles do not have a strong social identity to begin with. Jews, Kurds, Armenians, and Tibetans have all managed to maintain their national identities. One can look at the same set of evidence in this paper that supposedly proves Israel is attempting "social death" on Palestinians and instead argue that Palestinian identity was never that strong to begin with.

This Said quote exemplifies how academia rewards lies.

Science - when done properly - bases new theories on things that have been proven via controlled and reproduced experiments.

Social science, on the other hand, only has pretensions to being science. But in social science, the "researchers" can pick and choose which theories and evidence they like and discard anything they don't. They then pretend that the previous studies that they like are settled facts, and they use previous half-truths to build new lies.

This paper has all of that:

2.2. Social death and genocide? Unlatching a new portal to social death
Card looks at “genocide” from a sociological viewpoint, a stance that attempts to expand the legally bounded term of genocide. Interestingly exemplifying the Holocaust, Card contended that it was not only a program of mass murder but also an assault on Jewish social vitality. This article argues that the ongoing Nakba is not only a program of violent dispossession but an assault on Palestinian social vitality. Lendman (2010), in Israel’s Slow-Motion Genocide in Occupied Palestine, perhaps puts it best in illustrating this. Palestinians: dispossessed of their lands, chased out of their sanctuaries, turned into permanently temporary people. This state of being permanently temporary separates them from their families and community is a form of assault on Palestinians’ social vitality, therefore, an (attempt) to social death.

We start off with Holocaust inversion, comparing what Palestinians to Holocaust victims, which is antisemitic. They are doing this consciously with the word "interestingly" above.

Omar and Said then assert, with no citations, that the "nakba" is ongoing. This is an example of how social science rewards repeating lies that "everyone knows" without the slightest reluctance.

The authors cite Stephen Lendman, a recently deceased crazed right-wing conspiracy theorist who has no academic credentials. Lendman's blog includes "CIA Involved in Child Trafficking?", "Fake Biden Announces 2024 Re-selection Bid" and "The Scourge of US-Supported Ukrainian Nazis.

This is their source for a "slow motion genocide" of Palestinians!

The researchers are cognizant of social death being the centre of genocide (Card, 2003, 2010; Card & Marsoobian, 2007). However, she also noted that “social death is not necessarily genocide. But genocide is social death”, the same as we are conscious of the debate on using “genocide” to illustrate the violent Palestinian dispossession. Additionally, Card and Marsoobian (2007) point out that “genocidal acts are not always or necessarily homicidal” but achieve their intended effect by inflicting harm on the victim’s social vitality. Similarly, Lemkin (1944) notes genocide is not necessarily the immediate destruction of a nation. Destroying social relations on which a group’s identity and communal life are based can be genocidal (Lemkin as cited in Abed, 2007, p. 27). Culverwell (Citation2017) notes that while social death is unrecognised as an act of genocide under international law, it is essential to understand these actions’ impact on society as a whole. It is vital to note that this article will not ruminate on the genocide debate because it is not the focus of this research. There is a plethora of work on this, and among them are (Boyle, Citation2000; Doebbler, Citation2010; Lendman, Citation2010; Ophir, Citation2010; Pappé, Citation2006; Rashed et al., Citation2014) that the researchers find persuasive.

Their main source says that social death is not genocide. But the authors then twist that into saying that some people say that Israel practices genocide on Palestinians, and they agree, so social death is evidence of genocide. The entire purpose of this paragraph is to link Israel to genocide using cherry picked sources and an argument that violates basic logic.

Abed (Citation2007) responds and expands Card’s (Citation2003) social death in a manner we agree with. He introduced “territory bounded culture”, which is central to our argument where the forced removal of a population from their traditional lands eventuates social death (2007 p. 47). From our observation, Abed (Citation2007) and Patterson’s (Citation1982) work are interconnected. Patterson wrote: “slave is violently uprooted from his milieu and the process of social nullification constitutes the first external phase of enslavement” (1982 p. 38). The Palestinian case is a mixture of Patterson’s framework of social death; they are violently uprooted from their milieu by being dispossessed of their homes and lands. Many if not all cases of genocide involve forced displacement of populations, and many of these populations have cultures that are, in varying degrees, “territorially bounded” (Abed, Citation2007, p. 45). Nevertheless, Abed summarised Card’s argument perfectly.

Omar and Said are basing their entire thesis on making links that don't exist, that they feel must be right, and therefore they seek sources that seem to support them and ignore any counter-evidence.

In fact, they are quite aware of sources that disprove their own thesis - because they quote some.

[L]ooking at Palestinian identity, Siklawi (Citation2019) recognises Palestinian refugees’ identity in Lebanese camps faced a decline post-Lebanese civil war.

If their identity was strong before the Lebanese civil war in the 1980s and weakened after it, then what does Israel have to do with their "social death"?

Yet that is the entire thesis of the paper!

The rest of the paper is equally worthless. The methodology is a joke, where instead of directly asking a random sample of Palestinians some questions, the authors blame Covid-19 and instead choose a tiny number of pre-existing interviews to analyze to glean their social death status. (Ever hear of email? Telephones?)

To determine Israeli dismissive attitudes towards Palestinians, they rely exclusively on quotes from the right-wing Arutz Sheva, which represents a small percentage of Israeli Zionists and opinions.

It is obvious that the paper is not meant to research anything, but to support the authors' pre-existing biases. But it goes beyond that: the purpose of the paper is to build another component of the edifice of lies about Israel in modern academia. It is meant to be cited as a source for the next paper that will make further allegations, "extending" these concepts to further position Israel as uniquely evil and Palestinian Arabs as uniquely victimized.

The social science universe does not punish academics who subvert the field in this way. On the contrary, because the field has little rigor, it rewards 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!

08/01 Links Pt1: Six Israelis wounded in terror attack in Ma’ale Adumim; Hamas reveals new details of IDF soldier's kidnapping; Israeli Company Signs Deal with Saudi Firm on Renewable Energy

From Ian:

Ex-State Department Officials Admit They Were Wrong

On his way out the door, the retiring U.S. ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides, has belatedly acknowledged that he “screwed up” in one of his last major actions.

He’s just the latest in a growing line of U.S. diplomats who have admitted—when it was too late—that they made significant errors in their treatment of Israel. So why does anybody still listen to them when they offer advice on the Arab-Israeli conflict?

In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, Nides was asked about his outrageous tweet commenting on the June 20 massacre of four Israelis by Palestinian-Arab terrorists. The four victims were defenseless civilians in a restaurant; their “crime” was eating lunch while Jewish.

The tweet was outrageous on multiple levels. Nides equated the Arab slaughter of innocent civilians with Israel’s anti-terrorist operation in Jenin that week; he failed to acknowledge that the victims of the massacre were Jews or that the killers were Arabs; and he lumped Israeli victims and dead Jenin terrorists together, saying that both deserved prayers and mourning.

Nine days later, when it was too late to make a difference, Nides acknowledged to Israel Hayom: “I screwed up … it was a stupid thing to do.” Unfortunately, he then trotted out assorted excuses: “I had just returned from Los Angeles when I got word of the attack. I was shown a draft of a tweet, and I signed off on it.” Translation: “I was tired, somebody else wrote it, so it wasn’t totally my fault.” Not a very impressive apology.

Isn’t it remarkable how often this kind of thing happens to Israel?

Recall, for example, the infamous episode of Dennis Ross and the terror tunnels.

As a senior aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009, Ross pressured Israel to let Hamas bring concrete into Gaza. Here’s how Ross recalled it: “I argued with Israeli leaders and security officials, telling them they needed to allow more construction materials, including cement, into Gaza so that housing, schools and basic infrastructure could be built. They countered that Hamas would misuse it, and they were right.” That admission came six years too late.

The Uninvited Backbone of Israel's Anti-Reform Movement

In the war of words over Israel's judicial reform, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the disputants, the word "democracy" appears to have suffered a bit of a roughing-up.

"... Biden was wrong to intervene in the debate over Netanyahu's proposed judicial reforms.... otherwise, Israeli officials may start commenting on Hunter Biden's plea deal." – Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, Twitter, July 31, 2023.

So, the Biden Administration delivered an "either-or" threat: stop the judicial reform or break our special relationship. The break had actually already begun with President Barack Obama, who became quixotically committed to a policy to finance and enable Israel's self-declared arch-enemy -- "Death to Israel" should probably qualify one as an arch-enemy -- unlimited nuclear weapons, billions of dollars to manufacture them; ballistic missiles to deliver them, and loose change for Iran's mullahs to continue "exporting" their Revolution into Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and Latin America.

What it all comes down to is that one party seemingly decided that Obama's promise to radically transform America was too important to trust to the electorate.

Now Blinken and Biden are supposedly qualified to give Israel's coalition government a lecture on judicial probity and democracy?

MEMRI: Saudi Journalist: Israel Is A Fact And The Arabs Must Accept It; After Seven Decades Of Conflict And Losses, The Region Crucially Needs Peace And Stability

In her March 2, 2023 column in the Emirati daily Al-Ittihad, Saudi journalist Haila Al-Mashouh, who also writes for the Saudi daily 'Okaz, stated that the conflicts and crises that have afflicted the Middle East in the last decades, chief of them the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, have brought only disaster and losses to the peoples of the region, including the Palestinians. The world, she said, is currently facing multiple security, economic, humanitarian and other crises, and therefore it is essential to attain peace and security in the Middle East and to resolve the conflicts through dialogue, rather than by force of arms. She called to persist in the efforts to achieve peace in the region even if the chances are slim. She added that the state of Israel is a fact and called to accept this while also upholding the Palestinians' right to an independent state – for this will benefit all the peoples in the region.

"…The Middle East has experienced changes and crises throughout the years, some of which led to historic and geographical transformations in some of its countries… The Palestinian issue has been one of the [sources] of the greatest and most influential crises in the Arab region. It was a historical problem that caused one crisis after another, not only in Palestine but in the neighboring Arab countries, and its effects reached even the Arabian Gulf. Later it became a political issue of the entire Muslim [nation], which sparked many wars and upheavals. Some people think that [the flames of] these wars should be fanned, although they are pointless and although it is impossible to achieve peace and security through conflict and bloodshed…

"The upheavals and conflicts that have afflicted the Middle East for decades prove beyond any doubt that… security will not be permanent, stable and genuine unless it is based on morality and justice… and on understandings, far from any armed struggle. The world is currently dealing with security, economic, humanitarian, nutrition, health, climate and environmental crises. Therefore, it is very important that the Middle East be protected from conflicts and from the fanning of disputes, and that disputes be resolved by peaceful means, through dialogue mediated by influential countries that prioritize peace over promoting [various] interests. There is [also] need to widen alliances, out of commitment to the principles of peace and in accordance with the UN treaties and the objectives of global security and stability.

"The Arab region has seen changes that have taught us difficult lessons. [These changes] include the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; Iraq's [absence] from the regional and Arab balance of power; the threats posed by some neighboring countries in the region and their impact on the security of the Gulf and of its shipping lanes; the proxy wars against the countries of the [Saudi-led Arab] coalition [fighting] in Yemen; the terror attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia; the repercussions of the so-called Arab Spring and its horrible results, and the impact of the Covid pandemic, which is still affecting the Arab economies and the supply of food and healthcare in some Middle East countries.

"Security is not a luxury; it is required by the situation and changes in the world. Although the opportunities for peace in the region are dwindling, we must seize these opportunities in order to live in peace, stability and coexistence, while [finding] common ground as human beings, as part of the value of accepting the other and accepting reality.

"The state of Israel is a fact that must be dealt with wisely and prudently, while upholding the right of the Palestinian people [to live] in dignity, security and lasting peace in an independent state. The [Israeli-Arab] conflict, which has lasted over 70 years, has yielded nothing but destruction, considerable losses and insecurity. Peace and security are a right of the peoples of the region, and we must seek to realize and defend [this right], acting wisely rather than emotionally!"

From Sama News:

Today, Monday, President Mahmoud Abbas received a phone call from the head of the Lebanese Phalange Party, Sheikh Sami Gemayel.

The President discussed with Gemayel, during the phone call, the unfortunate events that took place in Ain El-Hilweh camp.

He stressed support for what the government and the army are doing in Lebanon in order to impose law and order.

The President stressed that the Palestinian presence in Lebanon is temporary until they return to the homes from which they were expelled according to international resolutions.

That last sentence is a coded message, saying that Abbas - as head of the PLO, and therefore ostensibly the leader of all Palestinians worldwide - would not ask Lebanon to give citizenship to Palestinians who have lived there, stateless, for 75 years.

Abbas has said this explicitly in the past, numerous times.

Which means that his official position is for Palestinians in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and other Arab countries should not become citizens of those countries - they must remain without any national protection until Israel is destroyed or somehow forced to commit suicide via "return" to destroy it as a Jewish state.

The cynicism of this position is breathtaking. The closest thing the Palestinians have to a leader wants to use his own people as pawns, with no national rights in the countries where generations have been born, lived and died.

The cynicism does not end there, though. Because in 2005, Mahmoud Abbas had a completely different position, as reported then in AFP:

DUBAI, 12 July 2005 — Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas told Arab countries hosting Palestinian refugees to give them citizenship, insisting such a move would not compromise their right of return.

“I call upon every Arab government wishing to give citizenship (to Palestinian refugees) to do so. What is wrong with that?” he said in an interview with Dubai Television late Sunday.

But the Palestinian Authority president insisted that obtaining citizenship in a host-country should not compromise the right to return to their homeland of which many Palestinian refugees dream.

“This does not mean resettlement (of refugees). A Palestinian would return to his homeland whenever he is allowed, whether he carried an Arab or non-Arab citizenship,” he said. “A fifth-generation Palestinian living in Chile also wishes to return when allowed ... It is an emotional matter, not related to citizenship,” he added.

The Palestinian leader, who visited Syria and Lebanon last week — both host to hundreds of thousands of refugees, slammed claims that the Arab League had banned naturalization of refugees as “mere excuses”. “There is no decision ... the Arab League only recommended (not to grant citizenship) but this was not a decision,” he said.

Once upon a time, Mahmoud Abbas asked Arab countries to naturalize Palestinian "guests." But only a couple of years later, he changed his position to being against them becoming citizens.

What caused the about-face?

Chances are, Lebanon and Syria and maybe also the Gulf countries that host hundreds of thousands of Palestinians told him to shut up. They don't want Palestinians to become citizens. And probably Hamas took advantage and portrayed Abbas as being weak on the mythical "right to return."

Whatever the reason, Abbas switched from acting as a real leader that tries to help his people into a corrupt leader who simply wants to abuse his people for his own political purposes.

Abbas was right in 2005. Citizenship has nothing to do with "return." Palestinian citizens of Jordan are given the clear message that they will lose citizenship if "return" would become an option. And for whatever bizarre reason, even though most of them are citizens of a state, they are still called "refugees" by the international community.

And Palestinians, when given the rare chance to become citizens of other countries, eagerly take that option. So those who say that Palestinians prefer statelessness to becoming citizens of their countries are simply liars.

Each stateless Palestinian adds an infinitesimal amount of pressure on Israel. That is the only reason for insisting that Palestinians remain stateless. Which proves that to Palestinian leaders, their own people's lives are worthless.

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!

07/31 Links Pt2: The Illegal Palestinian Settlements You've Never Heard Of; PA religious Antisemitism reaches new heights; Shielding Certain Antisemites

From Ian:

Declassified protocols indicate Golda Meir considered Palestinian statehood

Former prime minister Golda Meir considered the possibility of the formation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel three years after the Six Day War, protocols published by Haaretz on Monday show, shedding new light on the premier who famously said, “There’s no such thing as Palestinians.”

Last month, the Israel State Archives declassified top secret transcriptions of a meeting Meir held in October 1970 with senior ministers, including defense minister Moshe Dayan and education minister Yigal Allon, in which the possibility of a Palestinian state was discussed.

“It will be necessary to leave the Arabs of Judea and Samaria an option to earn self-determination at a later stage, if and when it suits us,” Meir said at the start of the meeting. “In other words, there will be another country [alongside Israel].”

Meir did say she viewed such a possibility as drastic. She also noted that she did not care what the name of the country would be.

The protocol shows that Meir considered potential political arrangements for a Palestinian state: as a state that is member to a confederation with Israel, Jordan, or both, or as a completely independent country. However, the prime minister seemed troubled by these scenarios, saying that such arrangements would be created in order to destroy Israel.

Interestingly, the meeting took place just weeks following “Black September,” the month-long conflict between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Jordanian kingdom that saw the PLO banished to Lebanon and brought to one of its historical low points. Nevertheless, Meir said that “if [PLO chief Yasser Arafat] becomes prime minister of Jordan, we will negotiate with him. Arafat as the head of a terrorist organization — no. But if he becomes head of a government that he’ll represent as a Palestinian, then fine.”

Meir, who throughout her career refused to recognize the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, also said at the meeting that she had become “open-minded on the issue, even though [my mind] closed right after the Six Day War, but I’m ready to reopen my mind and listen if there’s a hint of a hint of a hint of hope of there being a small state in Judea and Samaria, and maybe Gaza.”

The Illegal Palestinian Settlements You've Never Heard Of

This is Part 1 of a 10-part series exposing the underreported joint European and Palestinian program to bypass international law and establish a de facto Palestinian state on Israeli land.

For decades, members of the media, activist groups, academics, international organizations, NGOs and countless politicians have insisted that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are the primary obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

These settlements allegedly represent an illegal and inhumane “occupation,” and until they are dismantled and the territory handed over to a Palestinian state, there will be no resolution to the conflict.

Beyond these power broker narratives exists another dimension to the story that is deliberately neglected worldwide.

It is a far more labyrinthine and sinister tale — one of stunning hypocrisy, moral bankruptcy, quasi-legal bureaucracy and colossal abuse of international law that exposes the ideological motivations and bad-faith actors at the core of an Israeli-European alliance supposedly based on “shared democratic values.”

It begins with a little-known 2009 document and ends with the illicit Palestinian takeover of hundreds of thousands of dunams of internationally recognized Israeli land, with direct subsidization and encouragement from the European Union.

In 1993, in Oslo, Norway, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian terrorist-cum-statesman Yasser Arafat signed the first and only agreement achieved between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Brokered by the U.S. under President Bill Clinton and witnessed by the EU, a critical component of the treaty called Oslo II, also known as the Taba Agreement or the 1995 Interim Agreement, separated the West Bank into three jurisdictions and outlined the specific responsibilities and obligations of its administrators.

Area A would be exclusively controlled, both for civil and security matters, by the Palestinian Authority. Area B would be administered in all civil matters by the PA while the Israeli government would maintain peripheral security jurisdiction, and Area C would be solely administered by Israel.

In other words, Israel’s complete jurisdiction over Area C, which legally includes building permits, zoning, construction, law enforcement and planning, has been recognized by the Palestinian leadership and the world at large for almost three decades.

As stipulated in the agreement, only when direct negotiations determine the permanent fate of the territories occupied by Jordan until 1967 can the Oslo Accords be replaced. Until then, it is the law.

Unlike United Nations General Assembly resolutions, which are non-binding, the Oslo Accords are legally obligatory. Yet on Aug. 23, 2009, 14 years after the signing of Oslo, Salim Fayyad, then the prime minister of the PA, published a blueprint titled, “Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State,” in which the Oslo framework was officially abandoned and direct negotiations rejected. Instead, Fayyad explicitly called for the creation of a de-facto Palestinian state in Area C.

Elon Musk: "Come Back, Kanye West -- All Is Forgiven!" (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Well, maybe those are not the exact words that Elon Musk, head of Twitter -- now known as X -- used, but that seems to be the gist of what he said to West -- now known as Ye.

In December, Musk suspended West's Twitter account after the rapper tweeted a swastika interlinked with a Star of David. The head of Twitter called it "incitement to violence."

But that wasn't all that West did. JNS has a fuller list of West's antisemitic comments:

o October, CNN reported that several people connected to West said he was “fascinated by Adolf Hitler,” and wanted to name his 2018 album “Hitler.”

o  October, on Tucker Carlson's show then on Fox News, West claimed Trump’s Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner brokered the Abraham Accords solely in the interest of “making money.”
o  Soon afterward, he tweeted, “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE,” adding, “The funny thing is I actually can’t be antisemitic because black people are actually Jew [sic] also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”
o  In an interview with Chris Cuomo, West claimed there was a “Jewish underground media mafia” and his “death con 3″ remarks were prompted by “Jewish record labels” that not only “take control” of publishing but of the culture itself. “It’s like modern-day slavery,” he said.
o  In November, West took Holocaust denier and white supremacist Nick Fuentes to Mar-a-Lago to meet Trump. Fuentes has a history of denying the Holocaust, praising Hitler and making racist remarks about black Americans.
o  Weeks later, in an interview on “InfoWars” with Alex Jones, he said that “Hitler has a lot of redeeming qualities” and that he loves Nazis. He also repeatedly brought out a small net and “Yoo-hoo” chocolate milk to mock Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

So why did Musk do an about-face and allow West back on Twitter? After all, those who supported Musk's original decision to suspend West for his antisemitic incitement are as disappointed and angry as those who originally defended West's inciteful remarks on the basis of "free speech." Now neither side is likely to count Musk as being in their corner.

CNN quoted a report from The Wall Street Journal, that there will still be limits on the Twitter account. Going forward, West will be unable to monetize his account -- no ads will be allowed to appear next to his tweets. According to CNN, "it’s not clear whether West submitted an appeal, or if something else prompted his account’s reactivation." Yet according to Haaretz, quoting from that same Wall Street Journal article:

X reinstated Ye's account after receiving reassurances that he wouldn't use the platform to share antisemitic or otherwise harmful language, the report said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Haaretz even claimed in their headline, "Musk Restores Kanye West's Account After Promise Not to Post Antisemitic Content Again." [emphasis added]

Even so, what about an apology? Kanye West has already demonstrated that his apologies lack regret and are worthless.

Back in October, when he was on Piers Morgan Uncensored, West did say:

I will say I’m sorry for the people that I hurt with the ‘death con’ [comments]. I feel like I caused hurt and confusion. And I’m sorry for the families of the people that had nothing to do with the trauma that I had been through, and that I used my platform where you say hurt people hurt people. I was hurt.

But this was after Morgan asked:

When you insult the Jewish people and say you’re going ‘death con 3’ on the Jewish people, that is as racist as anything you say you’ve been through. Racism is racism and you know that I think. Don’t you?

And West replied:

Absolutely not.

West continued:

Yeah, obviously, that’s why I said it. Yes, I fought fire with fire. I’m not here to get hosed down. It’s a different type of freedom fighter.

By way of comparison, in 2009, Kanye West embarrassed Taylor Swift on the stage of the MTV Video Music Awards. Then, 4 years after having apologized, West claimed that he regretted the apology and only made it because he felt pressured.

So again, why would Musk allow West back on Twitter?

CNN may be hinting at a possible reason in the headline to their article:

Elon Musk reactivates Kanye West’s Twitter account following X rebrand [emphasis added]

Has Musk discovered that allowing hate speech can be a good business decision? Consider: according to CNN

Twitter’s Violent Speech Policy prohibits inciting and glorifying violence, wishing harm on other people, and threatening others. But it makes some exceptions, including for “figures of speech, satire, or artistic expression when the context is expressing a viewpoint rather than instigating actionable violence or harm.”

We've already seen how unreliable Universities are when it comes to preserving free speech.
What can we really expect if the flip side -- hate speech -- becomes good business?

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!

07/31 Links Pt1: Jpost: Israel-Saudi normalization may be well worth the price; Palestinian 'Unity' To Destroy Israel; Indian police thwart attack on Mumbai Chabad house

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Israel-Saudi normalization may be well worth the price

According to Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who is considered close to Biden, among the elements involved in a Saudi-Israeli deal are an official Israeli promise not to annex the West Bank; Israeli commitments not to establish any more settlements, expand the boundaries of existing ones, or legalize illegal outposts; and the transfer of some Palestinian-populated territory in Area C of the West Bank to Palestinian Authority control.

According to Friedman, Riyadh is seeking a NATO-like mutual security treaty that would obligate the US to come to its defense if the kingdom is attacked; a civilian nuclear program monitored and backed by the US; and the ability to purchase more advanced weaponry from Washington such as missile defense systems that could be used by the Saudis to counter Iran’s missile arsenal.

In exchange, the US wants the Saudis to offer a large aid package to Palestinian institutions in the West Bank, significantly roll back their growing relationship with China, and help bring an end to the civil war in Yemen, according to Friedman, who stressed that such a deal could take months to negotiate and is still “a long shot, at best.”

On the domestic Israeli front, Friedman speculated that Netanyahu could be forced to abandon the far-right members in his cabinet who would oppose these terms and instead align himself with centrist political forces in the opposition.

Netanyahu, for his part, has come out strongly in favor of normalization with Saudi Arabia, calling it one of the top priorities of his government. In an interview with Sky News in early June, for example, Netanyahu called a Saudi-Israeli deal “a quantum leap forward” that would change history.

Describing Saudi Arabia as the most influential country both in the Arab and Muslim worlds, Netanyahu said, “It would fashion, I think, the possibility of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. And I think that would also help us solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

Pursuing a deal with Saudi Arabia would allow the prime minister to focus on his stated policy agenda and his pledge to expand the Abraham Accords, rather than being bogged down by the debate over his government’s contentious judicial reform.

While Israel’s decision makers would need to seriously weigh the implications of any potential concessions, if normalization with Saudi Arabia means putting the controversial judicial reform on the back burner due to political and diplomatic constraints, that may be a price well worth paying.

Can Netanyahu and Biden buy a ticket to ride on an Israeli-Saudi peace line?

Biden has little choice here if he is legacy shopping in the Middle East. Former US president Donald Trump touted his ability to make the “Deal of the Century” by finalizing a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, only to leave office having failed to do so.

The Biden administration has mostly shelved his peace map, the international community never adopted it, and the Palestinians outright rejected it.

Time, however, has clarified the sustaining power of Trump’s footprint in the peace process through the Abraham Accords, which he brokered. The agreement of four Arab countries to normalize ties with Israel, despite the absence of Israeli-Palestinian peace, breathed life into Netanyahu’s long-held belief that Israel must first forge a relationship with Arab states before finalizing an arrangement with the Palestinians.

Now, it’s the only game in town. If Biden wants a win in the Middle East prior to the 2024 elections, he has to purchase a ticket on the train whose tracks lead to Riyadh, assuming he has congressional backing.

The possibility of a win here, particularly as Iran and China seek to strengthen their ties with Saudi Arabia, far outweighs any concerns about Israeli democracy, particularly when Saudi Arabia falls far behind the Jewish state on that score. It would also give Biden’s re-election campaign a boost, though his tenure in power is not necessarily dependent on it.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, can’t afford to walk away from a Saudi deal, which would for him be one of his crowning achievements and one which he has long sought.

Depending on the demands of such an agreement, however, he also might not be able to finalize the deal. This is particularly true if Netanyahu is asked to meet some of the gestures to the Palestinians laid out in Friedman’s article, such as promising never to apply sovereignty to West Bank settlements.

He can agree to an additional delay, but he would lose his coalition were he to make such a pledge.

The trick here will be to find a gesture to the Palestinians that Netanyahu can meet while keeping his coalition intact, given its many members who dismiss the idea of Palestinian statehood and want to annex all of Area C of the West Bank.

The possibility of a deal, therefore, appears so slim that Channel 11 on Sunday night floated the idea of a two-phased Israeli-Saudi process, in which the two countries would have low-level diplomatic ties without full-fledged normalization.

Or Netanyahu could switch gears. This is particularly true now that he has secured passage of legislation that narrows the court’s ability to tackle governmental corruption by eliminating the reasonableness clause.

Netanyahu could, Friedman speculated, use the possibility of a Saudi deal to swap out the more extreme elements of his coalition with more moderate ones.

Moderate opposition politicians opposed to joining Netanyahu might sing a different tune once an agreement is actually on the table.

It is nice to speculate about how a Saudi peace deal might also put a monkey wrench in Israel’s judicial reform process. But if Netanyahu is lucky, he won’t have to buy a ticket on this train. Washington will purchase one for him, and all he’ll have to do is go along for the ride.

Saudi peace raises pressure for Israeli concessions to Palestinians

As the US intensifies its efforts to bring about peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia, pressure for Jerusalem to make concessions to the Palestinians has also grown in recent days.

Israeli-Saudi normalization has long been conditional on some kind of tangible progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front. As The Jerusalem Post has reported in recent months, Riyadh is looking for a greater concession than Jerusalem made in conjunction with the 2020 Abraham Accords, when Israel agreed to drop its plan to apply sovereignty to West Bank settlements and normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates.

The Saudis are looking for concrete steps toward Palestinian statehood. Merely a commitment not to annex settlements for the next four years would not suffice for the prominent Gulf state, Israel Hayom reported multiple diplomatic sources as saying on Monday.

The Biden administration has also been pushing Israel to do more for the Palestinians. This is in order to gain domestic support for its normalization push, an American diplomatic source said, confirming reporting on Kan.

The elements that the Saudis seek from the US in the framework of such a deal, such as weapons sales, a mutual defense treaty, a civilian nuclear program, and economic benefits, would be a tough sell to Democrats, who have spoken out on human rights issues in the kingdom, especially after the murder of US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Washington is also pushing for the deal to be completed by the end of 2023, in order to avoid a prolonged fight in Congress about the benefits for the Saudis during an election year.