Ehud Barak is a central figure in the protest movement against judicial reform. If you have been following the media, you may get the impression that although he is adamantly against Netanyahu and judicial reform, he is merely providing commentary and interpreting events. The reality is the opposite. Do not be deceived by his age or because he is a former prime minister and supposed elder statesman. At 81 years old, Barak is one of the main architects behind the current mass demonstrations. Yet, his involvement goes deeper. Barak is not only orchestrating today’s mass demonstrations, he has been integral in forming the anti-Bibi movement over the past seven years.
Recently, a chilling video of a Zoom conversation was circulated in which Barak describes a scenario of how he will return to power. He mentions that he has a friend, a historian, who told to him that he will become Prime Minister again when there are “bodies floating in the Yarkon river” of Jews murdered in a civil war. Barak immediately said that this should never happen. Yet, that he would mention such a grotesque idea, a truly horrifying scenario is disturbing. Moreover, this comment was made to a forum whose whole raison d’être is to get rid of Netanyahu and explore ideas on how to implement such a plan. Perhaps this was a slip of the tongue, or maybe it was said by someone whose purpose in orchestrating these protests is about his own return to power.
Nonetheless, the Zoom conversation video containing the “bodies in the Yarkon river” comment actually occurred in 2020 during the Corona pandemic, years before judicial reform became a legislative issue. Meaning, the notion that it is specifically judicial reform that is bothering Barak, or the people he is guiding, is bogus. And the fact that Barak was having conversations with those who raised the idea of mass civil disobedience only serves to reinforce Barak’s role in guiding these protests.
Barak's words in the 2020 video sure sounds like a blueprint for the protests happening today, especially using the word "democracy" as a slogan.
But he had been saying the same thing since 2016:
These are Barak’s words at the Herzliya conference, pay attention to the recurring motifs that he still talks about today:
“We have been led for more than a year by a prime minister and a government that is weak, limp and all talk, even according to senior members of its coalition, deceitful and extremist, that fails repeatedly, in guaranteeing security, undermining the fabric of democracy in Israel, failing in managing diplomatic relations with the United States and in stabilizing Israel’s position in the world… Here, I call on the government to come to its senses and immediately get back on track. If you don’t do that, we will all have to get up from our comfortable and less comfortable seats – and overthrow it, through a popular protest and through the voter’s ballot – before it’s too late.”
These are the components of Ehud Barak’s second political comeback: de-legitimization of the government, a deep animus towards Bibi and therefore the slogan ‘anything-but-Bibi’, and mass demonstrations.
Bigman's article goes on to bring other evidence to bolster this thesis.
Could this be true?
I am reading a pre-release edition of "(In)sighrs: Thirty Year of Peacemaking in the Oslo Process" by Gidi Grinstein. Grinstein was the secretary and youngest member of the Israeli delegation at Camp David in 2000 and his book is an account of the negotiations at the time. He worked for the Barak government during his premiership and famously used the Heimlich maneuver when Barak was choking at Camp David.
Grinstein loves Ehud Barak. He was "blown away" by Barak's speeches. He describes him as "the smartest man in the room" who manages to break down complex problems into a "matrix" of small tasks. He describes Barak's political brilliance in building a coalition as well as in his ambitious attempts to accomplish three things in a short time period - a peace deal with Syria, withdrawal from Lebanon whether negotiated or unilateral, and then peace with the PLO, all before Clinton would leave office.
But, whether Grinstein realizes it or not, Barak comes off as a jerk in this book. His "matrix" of things to be done were all in his head and he wouldn't share his strategy or plans with anyone. On the contrary, Barak would instruct his PLO negotiating team to continue their work even as he sabotaged their progress because he wanted to work on the other tracks first. Grinstein admits this: chief negotiator Dr. Oded Eran was a serious expert who led the team, but he was a "pawn in Barak's masterplan" whose hands were politically tied by Barak, and Barak then built his own secret negotiating team, completely leaving Eran out of the loop.
This was hardly the only example where Barak would throw people under the bus because he thought he was the only one brilliant enough to see the big picture - and to maintain his power. There was no chain of command in Barak's government, and the only possible result in such a system is chaos. Grinstein himself admits that one day Barak asked him to leak information to the New York Times, bypassing his boss, and leaving him in an uncomfortable position. Official positions were circumvented by Barak's personal backchannels. No one knew their real roles. Everyone working for Barak was a chess piece for his ambition, not a human being. Barak comes off as a paranoid, power-mad Machiavellian far more than the wise peacemaker Grinstein tries to position him as.
The theory that Ehud Barak is the force behind the protests today in a bid to regain power, when he cannot hope to do so by democratic means, is entirely consistent with the Ehud Barak described in a book that adores him.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
It is 107 pages of tendentious and one-sided arguments all intended to declare Israeli actions since 1967 to be illegal. There are counterarguments to each of their arguments - but they don't let the readers know that.
However, the entire basis of the paper is bogus. Turn to page 18, which declares its "methodology.":
The study takes it as a starting point that the Palestinian territory – i.e., the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip – was occupied by Israel in 1967, in the course of an international armed conflict.
Setting aside Gaza for now, the question is - when did that territory become "Palestinian?"
Looking at newspaper articles in the years after the Six Day War, the West Bank was usually described as "occupied Jordan."
Here are two articles from 1972, the first about how militant Arabs threatened fellow Arabs running for office in the first elections in the West Bank after the war:
When, exactly, did the territory turn from "occupied Jordan" into "occupied Palestinian territory"?
It never happened. The world just went along with Palestinian propaganda and eventually believed it.
The question gets starker when we realize that Jordan's annexation of the West Bank in 1949 was illegal, and almost no nations recognized it. It was never legally Jordanian territory.
So the West Bank was never "occupied Jordan." It was part of the British Mandate of Palestine, the same mandate that promised the land to be the Jewish state. Not a Palestinian homeland - only a Jewish homeland.
This is international law, that has never been abrogated. Israel has a superior legal right to Judea and Samaria than anyone else. Israel's characterization of the territory as "disputed" was probably a mistake - it should have always claimed it all. But "disputed" is accurate, "occupied" is not.
Which is why the Mandate is never mentioned, and the "methodology" deliberately omits it, pretending that the territory is "occupied Palestinian territory" without ever saying when, legally, it became "Palestinian."
The paper spends a lot of time on the argument that the Mandate system provided a "sacred trust" for the rights of self-determination of the peoples in the territories. But as the Palestine Mandate document above shows, only the Jewish people were given that right under the Palestine Mandate. And the reason is as simple as it is unpalatable to the UN's legal "experts" - in 1920, no one considered that there existed an Arab "Palestinian people." The Arabs of Palestine who were speaking of nationalism wanted to become part of Syria, their interest in an independent state only arose (with very few exceptions) after the West drew the borders of British Mandate Palestine and unity with Syria was no longer an option.
To apply the League of Nations Mandate language to apply to the self determination of a people who didn't exist as a people at the time - who didn't even consider themselves a people - is the height of deception.
The next part of the "methodology" is even more absurd:n"The study also takes it as a starting point that Israel continues to occupy the Gaza Strip."
Before Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, no legal expert had ever said that an occupation is possible without soldiers physically on the ground controlling the territory.
For example, see the definition in the 1972 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms:
Military occupiers are obligated, under international law, to set up a court system, to ensure that cities are governed and continue to run, to set up an entire bureaucracy to run the territory. That is impossible without "boots on the ground," the informal definition of occupation for over a hundred years.
Israel does not control Gaza. It cannot stop rockets or mortars, weapons manufacturing or military exercises. Israel cannot create a military court system - which is required under the rules of occupation. It cannot arrest anyone.
The second sentence makes it quite clear that Area A in the West Bank is not "occupied" even if one accepts that somehow the West Bank is "Palestinian territory."
As with all other legal analyses when it comes to Israel, this paper was intended from the outset to determine that Israel's actions and "occupation" are illegal. It set the ground rules to ensure that pesky arguments like the League of Nations Mandate or the accepted definitions of occupation pre-2005 not even be brought up. (When JFK blockaded Cuba, did the US "occupy" Cuba?)
This isn't international law. It is twisting international law against only one state - coincidentally, the only Jewish state.
And that is only the beginning of the problems with this document. But since the methodology itself is based on lies, that ensures that the rest of the document built on this foundation of lies is invalid as well.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
A secret cabinet meeting was held on August 30, 1993, 30 years ago to the date. You can read the protocol here. It included Rabin, Peres, several Labor ministers, Shulamit Aloni and Yossi Sarid from Meretz, which had peaked in the 1992 election, with 12 MKs. It also included a gifted newcomer from a religious Sephardi party: Aryeh Deri.
Deri later recalled: “At 6 PM, I received a message that there was a government meeting at 8 PM and that I should come if I wanted to see the Oslo agreements, which no one knew then what they were.”
According to Haim Ramon, who held the Health Services portfolio in Rabin’s government, not only the citizens of Israel were shocked, but also the army. “This agreement was made behind the army’s back,” said Ramon. “Military personnel were not involved in this agreement, unlike their involvement in all the agreements until then and since. They got to read the agreement almost at the same time the ministers did.”
Deri recalled, “Ehud Barak, who was the Chief of Staff at the time, sat next to me and during the entire meeting was telling me quietly that the agreement was dangerous, that there are holes in it bigger than Swiss cheese, and that it would harm the security of the state.”
Some of Barak’s vehement objections are omitted from the protocol as “top secret,” to be released for publication in 90 years. That’s 60 years today… Comments made by Binyamin “Fuad” Ben-Eliezer, who was Housing Minister in Rabin’s government, but had served as the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, were also censored for 90 years.
Barak’s comments that were not removed included an astute observation of just how difficult it would be for the IDF to prevent the rise of a terrorist infrastructure in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip should the PLO’s cooperation not be as enthusiastic as Rabin was expecting it to be.
“When we have information about wanted persons in Jabaliya or about the preparation for an attack taking place inside one of the refugee camps, it won’t be easy to take effective action against it,” Chief of Staff Barak told the meeting. “There’s always a danger that the field ranks in the Palestinian police will leak or be infiltrated with sources from among the perpetrators of the attack.”
It’s amusing that the people who shot him down during the meeting, namely the folks from Meretz, would later become his biggest partners in his attempt to bring down the Netanyahu government using sabotage and street violence.
Rabin opened the meeting by saying this is not a simple agreement, representing one of two alternatives his government was facing: withdrawal from the “Syrian” territories in the Golan, or the “West Bank.” Of the two, the “Palestinian” option was more likely, especially since the Clinton White House had taken it up with vigor, to the point where the Americans had become the go-between for both sides.
Rabin said he also supported the “Palestinian” option because the Syrians were demanding a complete withdrawal, whereas the PLO would settle for a partial return of “occupied” lands. Rabin made clear that he saw no security value in the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. As far as he was concerned, they were political ventures, and so their viability had to be measured based on their current political value, which included their full or partial removal.
As far as Rabin was concerned, it all came down to PLO Chairman Arafat’s ability to deliver security within the Palestinian Authority, especially his ability to control Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Foreign Minister Peres then shared his surprise that the PLO did not insist on uprooting the settlements. Having to attempt that would have presented an impossible situation, morally and physically. He suggested that in that context, it was for the better that the peace talks with Syria had not been concluded, because the Syrians would have demanded a return of everything, and then the “Palestinians” would have insisted on the same demand.
Rabin told the cabinet that in his eyes, the first test of the Accords would be if the PLO could control Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Rabin additionally noted that "the rise of Hamas in particular and radical Islam in general in the Arab world is a problem. I think we are seeing this rise among the Palestinians as well. I believe that, in most of the elections in the territories today, Hamas is rising."
When asked if there was an assessment of what would happen in the elections for the Palestinian National Council, Rabin responded "I have no way of knowing, because the problem is who will threaten more, who will be with guns near the polling stations, and who will count the votes."
"Basically, for me, Gaza is a case test for the ability of those who support peace and support the PLO to deal with Hamas. Will it go in this direction or in other directions - I estimate, it mainly in this direction, but there is no certainty. There is a good chance," said Rabin. "But the IDF exists. There is a closure on Gaza from all directions, no one can enter or leave without our consent, not from the sea, not from the Egyptian border, not from the territory of Israel."
The prime minister admitted that the main worrying point of the deal is that it included a lot of commitments from the Israeli side, but very few commitments from the Palestinian side. Rabin added that the Palestinians were formulating some kind of statement that they would stop violent actions, but added that the exact formulation remained unclear.
Then foreign minister Shimon Peres stressed that the deal needed to succeed both politically and economically and explained that he and Rabin had asked European and American institutions to begin heavily investing in Palestinians in the territories.
Peres warned, "there is a possibility that the whole PLO business will fall apart and there will be a kind of Hamas-like Iran here."
"We also need to be careful. There is no certainty that they will last, with all the rebellions, with all the begging, with all the pressures and all the things that exist. I say this is a very serious matter. I simply do not see an alternative in the Arab street, with all the shortcomings there are, that is better than the current coalition that exists."
Peres stressed that the Israeli negotiating team had not given up an inch of territory. "We did not remove a single settlement, we preserved the unity of Jerusalem, we ensured Israel's security."
Pogrund has offered nothing in the way of actual evidence that Israel has become – or is becoming – an apartheid state, and he’s provided no concrete examples of what has changed in the country since 2017, when he stated unequivocally that “South African apartheid rigidly enforced racial laws. Israel is not remotely comparable“.
So, what has changed in the past six years?
First, a few radically anti-Israel NGOs published legally, factually and politically flawed reports accusing Israel of apartheid – ideologically motivated conclusions in search of evidence that, in effect, argued that Zionism, by its very nature, is racist. These ‘reports’ have served to embolden those who reject Israel’s right to exist within any borders, and have given succor to mainstream ‘journalists‘ who have never hidden their visceral animosity towards the Jewish state.
The other change relates to the contentious debates both in Israel and the diaspora concerning Israel’s new government. But, without minimising the legitimate concerns about judicial reform and the presence of two extremists in the coalition, by the standard that Pogrund himself set for such a debate, there’s been no move towards anything resembling an apartheid reality.
Israel is still a multi-ethnic, multi-racial democracy that’s, by far, the most progressive nation in in the Middle East; where its Arab minority has the right to vote and enjoys full citizenship; where the rights of the media and individual free expression are protected; where Arabs and Muslims serve in every sector of society, including in the Knesset and in the nation’s highest court; and where – as Pogrund himself showed – no codified racial segregation of any kind exists.
However, despite the fact that the apartheid charge is easily undermined with minimal critical scrutiny, we know with something approaching metaphysical certainty that media outlets like the Guardian will continue to wield the smear amidst their ongoing campaign of maligning Israel and its diaspora Jewish supporters.
There are those who falsely claim that travel in Israel is restricted for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. But that is not the reality.
Judea and Samaria contains close to 2,500 km. of roads for intercity traffic – and travel between communities – of which 1,600 km. are located in Area C.
Arabs of Judea and Samaria can use all the roads, including those in Area C, apart from those that provide access inside Jewish communities and security zones controlled by the IDF, which comprises only 3% of the area.
Adversely, Israelis are permitted to drive in Area C, but entry into Area A constitutes a criminal offense. It therefore follows that almost 35% of the region’s roads are off limits for Jewish Israeli (meaning Jewish) traffic.
The ban on Israeli traffic can be construed as racist, seeing that an equal ban is not enforced when it comes to Israeli Arab citizens. In fact, their entry is encouraged by state authorities in order to strengthen the economy of the cities under Palestinian Authority rule.
To use a personal example: Route 57 extends from my community of Avnei Hefetz to Elon Moreh. It passes through the city of Shechem and skirts by Joseph’s Tomb. For security reasons, travel on this road is prohibited for Jews, and I have to take a long detour to Elon Moreh via Route 60, which adds a lot of travel time until I reach my destination.
The same applies to residents of Gush Dolev and Talmonim, in the Mateh Binyamin district, who need to get to the Binyamin Regional Council offices. They have to detour through Jerusalem instead of traveling a direct route past the outskirts of Ramallah and through Beit El.
Bottom line: Travel restrictions apply primarily to the Jewish-Israeli demographic.
Vivek Ramaswamy is a chameleon. He said he’d cut aid to
Israel, then retracted the statement when it proved unpopular. This waffling on
an issue near and dear to the hearts of 58%
of American Jews leaves at least some of them scratching their heads and
wondering: Is Vivek Ramaswamy good or bad for the Jews?
For some it’s enough to know that right out the gate,
Ramaswamy is talking Jews and money, a subject that never bodes well for the
Jews. The presidential hopeful staked out his position moreover, in a discussion
with Russell Brand on Rumble. Brand has been known to feature anti-Israel Jews and
celebrities in his videos. He once gave a platform to Hungarian Holocaust Survivor
Dr. Gabor Maté, who used the opportunity to rain
vitriolic untruths about Israel upon his listeners for a full 18 minutes, describing
the most vicious—and fictitious—Israeli war crimes. In one whopper among the many,
Maté asserts that the Israeli expression “mowing
the lawn” refers to mowing down the innocent people of Gaza.
In actuality, the expression “mowing
the lawn” refers to the need for the regular elimination of terror cells and
rocket launchers in order to protect the innocent people of Israel. Israeli
civilians have been the target of hundreds of thousands of rocket attacks emanating
from Gaza. The IDF specifically chooses to manage the situation in Gaza, rather
than carpet-bomb the place, in order to avoid civilian casualties, there.
In his introduction, Brand gave the Israel-hating Maté, whom he calls a “modern-day shaman” an impassioned and
sympathetic introduction:
“[Maté] had
this to say about the situation in Israel now. It’s one of the most beautiful,
profound, and effective things I’ve ever seen anybody say about this conflict,
and I fail to see how anybody could . . . I think anyone who sees it will be
deeply moved by Gabor Maté’s wisdom and
truth.”
The sympathetic platform that served the anti-Israel Maté is
the same platform Ramaswamy chose for airing his views on ending U.S. aid to Israel,
at the very start of his presidential campaign. According to a report in the
JC, in his interview with Brand, Ramaswamy implied that Israel receives
special treatment by the United States:
A US presidential candidate has said that Israel should not
be receiving more aid than its neighbours and promised to cut back US funding
to the Jewish state.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a long-shot Republican candidate for the
president, said during an interview with Russell Brand on the right-wing social
network Rumble that any additional funding Israel receives currently would be
redundant. He said: “Come 2028, that additional aid won’t be necessary in order
to still have the kind of stability that we’d actually have in the Middle East
by having Israel more integrated in with its partners,”
While Ramaswamy admitted that the close relationship between
the US and Israel had benefited both countries, he added: "There’s no
North Star commitment to any one country, other than the United States of
America.”
Twelve days later, Ramaswamy reversed himself. From the Free
Beacon:
Facing backlash for his proposal to halt U.S. funding to the
Jewish state by 2028, Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign now says he does not support
cutting military funding to Israel unless the country "tells the U.S. that
it no longer needs the aid."
The fact-check section on Ramaswamy’s website was updated
Monday to say that he "won’t cut aid to Israel until Israel tells
the U.S. that it no longer needs the aid."
"That’s what Vivek actually said, so don’t believe the
opponents’ lies that he wants to cut aid to Israel—which makes zero sense as a
foreign policy priority any time in the foreseeable future," said
Ramaswamy’s campaign.
The statement is a reversal from the candidate’s promise
earlier this month that "come 2028, that additional aid won’t be
necessary." It is also the clearest sign yet that he supports continuing
the funding, which accounts for roughly $3 billion annually and which Israel
primarily spends on the U.S. defense industry.
The shift comes as Ramaswamy has come under fire from
pro-Israel leaders and his Republican primary opponent Nikki Haley, who said during last week's debate that Ramaswamy was
"completely wrong to call for ending America's special bond with
Israel."
Ramaswamy hit back at Haley, a fellow Indian-American, in
the campaign statement, writing "Keep lying, Nimarata Randhawa."
Haley’s maiden name was Randhawa prior to her marriage to Michael Haley in
1996. Her first name is "Nimarata," although she goes by her middle
name "Nikki."
His campaign said he would "also partner with Israel to
ensure that Iran never acquires nuclear capabilities." He described
Israel’s current affiliation with the United States as a "client
relationship" and said his policies would turn it into a "true
friendship."
Ramaswamy’s conflicting answers on aid to Israel have irked both
supporters and opponents of the Jewish state.
Aside from Ramaswamy’s flip-flop on Israel, there are other
troubling factors for Jews to consider in assessing the potential threat of a
Vivek Ramaswamy in the White House. Ramaswamy boasts that he was a “key member”
of Jewish leadership society Shabtai, during his time at Yale Law School. Originally
called “Eliezer” and then “Chai Society,” Shabtai is both secret
and exclusive (emphasis added):
Meet Eliezer, the secret Yale society that's hiding in plain
sight. The "secret" lies in the private networking and intimate
bonding among a cohesive, self-selecting, truly diverse membership. A list of
who belongs to Eliezer exists, but the contents are strictly off the record.
Everything is word of mouth and by invitation only, not to exclude but to
include the most interesting Yalies from over the walls of Yale's various
courtyards: college, graduate schools and faculty.
Founded in the fall of 1996 by Rabbi Shmully Hecht, Ben
Karp, Cory Booker and Michael Alexander as an intellectual salon and Jewish
leadership society, the group that started out as a social club for would-be
and current leaders of the Yale community has blossomed into an organization recognized
the world over, yet with a decidedly secular twist. "There was no question
that Eliezer was a Jewish association," says New York Times critic
at large Edward Rothstein, a member of the society, "but also no question
that along with its elements of religious observance and allusion, the aura was
nonsectarian intellectual."
It's not just a "secular twist" when so many members of this Jewish society, including Ramaswamy, are not Jewish. But even among the Jewish participants, Shabtai’s “truly diverse membership” is just that. There is respected rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, and truth-seeking,
antisemitism-fighting Bari Weiss. But then there are the other Shabtai
participants, who, like Maté, feel
compelled to lie and spew hate about Israel, for example William Schabas, Norman
Finkelstein, Jeremy Ben-Ami, Richard Blumenthal, and Peter Beinart. The roster
of antisemitic participants in this “Jewish leadership society” is long and distressing,
and because of Shabtai’s veil of secrecy, we have no way to gauge the extent of
interactions between members.
Then again, Ramaswamy’s Shabtai membership may just help us to
clarify and further refine our original question: Would it be good or bad or
the Jews to have a U.S. president who hangs out with the likes of Peter Beinart
and William Schabas—or even one who nods his head at the things they say? What
impact might these Shabtai participants have had on Ramaswamy in determining
his stance on U.S. aid to Israel?
On the other hand, many staunch supporters of Israel have
reservations about continuing to take America’s money. For one thing, if Israel
were to stop accepting U.S. aid, no one could rightfully say that Jews control
America’s the purse strings. Of course, haters like Gabor Maté would say it
anyway, and continue to lie through their teeth about Israel.
Also, U.S. aid represents only a small fraction of Israel’s
defense budget. Many say Israel can do without that money. “Israel clearly could survive without U.S. assistance, which
constitutes just 3 percent of its state budget today and less than 1 percent of
its GDP, a fraction of its value when it began," says Charles Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser writing for the left-wing fifth-column-rag Haaretz.
Michael Oren, formerly Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., cites other figures to show that American aid is less important to Israel today than it once was “Back in 1985, American aid represented nearly one-half of Israel’s defense budget. Today, it accounts for only 19%.”
Another issue to consider in being for or against American military aid for Israel, is that while antisemites demonize
Israel for “sponging” off of America, the truth is that America is the main beneficiary
of U.S. aid to Israel. More from Oren (emphasis added):
Though now taken for granted, American defense aid for
Israel began belatedly and grew in fits and starts. Throughout its first two
decades, while assisting Israel economically, the United States refused to sell
Israel any arms, much less aid it militarily. A breakthrough occurred during
the Kennedy administration, which sold Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel,
followed by President Lyndon Johnson, who allowed it to purchase Patton tanks
and Skyhawk aircraft. Even then, Israel fought the 1967 Six-Day War with French
weaponry—AMX tanks and Dassault Mystère fighters, plus some American army
surplus—but in the process proved its worth as a potent Cold War ally. The
result was an inchoate U.S.-Israel strategic alliance that burgeoned during
Israel’s War of Attrition (1967-1970) with Soviet-backed Egypt and then in the
Yom Kippur War of 1973. In Operation Nickel Grass, the United States
replenished Israel’s battlefield losses with some 55,000 tons of military
equipment.
The material was paid for, not donated. Outright
military aid to Israel would only be offered in 1979, after the Camp David
Accords with Egypt, when President Carter earmarked roughly $3 billion for
Israel. The grant, though, was spread out over several years and used to
reimburse Israel for the airbases it evacuated in Sinai. Not until the
mid-1980s, in the Reagan years, did Israel receive an average of $1.8 billion
per year, increased by the Clinton administration to $2.4 billion. In large
measure, the money offset the phasing-out of American economic grants to Israel
as well as the massive sale of American arms to Arab countries. Still, the
amount grew to just over $3 billion in 2008 with the start of President George
W. Bush’s 10-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert. In addition to the MOU annuity, Israel also sought “plus
ups”—congressional grants for missile defense and other one-time expenditures,
amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. In time, this would make Israel
the largest single recipient of American military aid since World War II, a
total of more than $150 billion.
But that number is also misleading. The aid comes in the
form of foreign military funding (FMF) designed to facilitate the foreign
military sales (FMS) of American military equipment. This means that nearly
three-quarters of the aid is spent in the United States, as a subsidy for the
domestic arms industry, creating tens of thousands of jobs. Thanks to that
money, the Israel Defense Forces have become the world’s most American-equipped
army, with the largest fleets of F-16 and F-35 jets outside of the United
States. For companies such as General Dynamics and Lockheed-Martin, there can
be no better advertisement for their fighters than their use by Israel’s famed
air force. And while Israel’s critics in the United States often claim that
it receives the greatest amount of American aid, in fact Germany, Japan, and
South Korea get many times more. Their allotments, though, are not
characterized as aid but as items in the U.S. defense budget.
Another former ambassador, Yoram
Ettinger, says that U.S. aid to Israel is an investment:
The U.S. does not give foreign aid to Israel, the U.S. makes
an annual investment in Israel, one that provides the American
taxpayer a return on investment of several hundred percent . . .
. . . While Israel is a grateful recipient of several
hundred U.S. military systems, it also serves as a battle-tested, cost-effective
laboratory for the U.S. defense and aerospace industries, which employ—directly
and indirectly—3.5 million Americans. Moreover, the Israel Defense Forces serve
as a laboratory for the U.S. military itself, which enhances U.S. performance
on the battlefield.
By serving as such a laboratory, Israel enhances the
economy, national security and homeland security of the United States.
For example, the Israeli Air Force flies the U.S. company
Lockheed-Martin’s F-16 and F-35 combat aircraft. This provides both
Lockheed-Martin and the U.S. Air Force with invaluable information on
operations, maintenance and repairs.
This information is then used to manufacture a multitude of upgrades for
next-generation aircraft.
The F-16 itself has been improved by several hundred
Israeli-driven upgrades, including to the cockpit, fire control, wings and fuel
tanks. This has spared Lockheed-Martin 10-20 years of research and
development—which would have cost billions of dollars. It also enhances the
company’s global competitiveness, increases its multi-billion-dollar exports
and expands its employment base. Similar advantages are enjoyed by Boeing, the
manufacturer of the F-15, which is also flown and upgraded by the Israeli Air
Force.
Indeed, Israel is the Triple-A store for Lockheed-Martin,
Boeing, Raytheon, G.D., Northrop Grumman, L3Harris Technologies, G.E., Oshkosh,
Honeywell and many other U.S. defense and aerospace companies. This enhances
the image of these companies abroad and multiplies their export markets,
because other countries assume that if Israel—with its unique national security
challenges—uses these companies’ products, they must be of high quality.
And of course there’s the matter of allies keeping tabs on
each other and also the sharing intelligence. Says Ettinger, “[The] benefits
[of U.S. aid to Israel] extend to the realm of intelligence. According to a
former head of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, Gen. George Keegan, the U.S. would
have to establish five CIAs in order to procure the intelligence provided by
Israel. The annual budget of the CIA is around $15 billion.”
Even those Israelis who feel that Israel would be better off
not taking any more U.S. aid, admit that there is a difference between want and
need. They may not want the aid, and may resent what people say about Israel
taking that aid. But that aid is a reflection of U.S. Israel relations, a
tangible representation of a firm alliance between these two countries.
American
politicians who want to cut aid, are generally not well-disposed to maintaining
a collegial relationship with Israel. They prefer to withhold aid to keep Israel in line, or use it as a cudgel with which they can bludgeon Israel and make it behave. As Michael Oren writes, “Asked during the
2020 presidential race whether they would use American aid as leverage to pry
diplomatic concessions from Israel, Democratic candidates Elizabeth Warren,
Bernie Sanders, Beto O’Rouke, and Pete Buttigieg all replied ‘yes.’ Asked by
Israeli journalist Zvika Klein why young American Jews protest against Israel
rather than Iran or Syria, Peter Beinart explained, ‘As Americans, we don’t
provide $3 billion in military aid to Iran or Syria … without us, Israel
couldn’t do everything it does.’”
Ramaswamy calls Israel a “client state” unable to
stand on its own feet without the beneficence of the American people. That doesn’t
sound as though he has an informed or realistic opinion about U.S. aid to Israel. Rather,
it sounds as though he looks down his nose at Israel. He's patronizing.
In his desire to cut off the money pipeline to Israel, Vivek
Ramaswamy is no different and certainly no better than the above-referenced Dems, radicals, and self-hating Jew-hating Jews. The difference is that Ramaswamy
has now hedged his bets and couched his comments by putting the onus on
Israel to end the aid, as per the per the quote from his website, “He ‘won’t
cut aid to Israel until Israel tells the U.S. that it no longer needs the aid.’"
Does this mean that as president, Ramaswamy would strong-arm
Israel to forfeit the aid until the Jewish State cries “Uncle?” In light of the benefits
America accrues from the aid it “gives” to Israel, the idea is repugnant. Israel
is not America’s whipping boy.
Ramaswamy gives the impression of being a wet-behind-the-ears smart-aleck upstart. He
has been rude to Nikki Haley, and refers to U.S. ally Israel as a “client state.” Vivek has little--read no--chance
of becoming the Republican nominee. Vivek Ramaswamy can however,
still do damage to perceptions of Israel, and more generally, to the Jewish
people.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
After the clashed between Palestinain Authority and terrorist forces in Tulkarm this morning, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - which are associate with Fatah - issued what appears to be an unprecedented, direct challenge to their supposed leader, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the PA who is the head of the Fatah party.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah movement, ...said in a statement published on its Telegram channel:
"Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades calls on the leaders of the Fatah movement and the brigades in the regions, cities and villages to announce clearly and explicitly their rejection of the treacherous practices against our heroes, to reactivate all military groups, and to hold accountable those involved in betraying the commandments of our martyrs and prisoners.
"We have always called on the authority to stop the arresting and pursuing the resistance fighters, and we affirmed our clear commitment not to deviate from the compass and not to pay attention to the treacherous acts of some of the leaders of the authority, and we called for reform.
"Any project that shackles the resistance is treachery. Our project is confrontation with the occupation in a long-term manner until it is defeated."
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades issued a decision in its statement that it prevents the entry of the authority and its devices into the Tulkarm camp, "and that the answer will be bullets, and the entry of the devices will be dealt with as we deal with the occupation."
They are effectively annexing the Tulkarm camp from the Palestinian Authority and barring entry of the PA security forces.
That is a direct and real challenge to the PA - from Fatah itself.
Your move, Abbas.
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First, Jerusalem has been the capital city of Israel for more than 3,000 years, and the place of the Temple has been the heart of the Jewish people since the days of David and Solomon, 1,600 years before Islam came into the world.
Any renunciation of full Jewish sovereignty over the site of the Temple is interpreted in the Muslim world as a Jewish renunciation of the very existence of the Jewish religion, something that undercuts the reason for the existence of the State of Israel. Would it occur to Muslims to give up full Muslim sovereignty over the Kaaba complex in Mecca?
Second, Israel made many mistakes regarding the Temple Mount. The first mistake was when Moshe Dayan handed over the administration of the site to the Jerusalem Wakf Islamic religious trust in 1967, with an understanding that they would not object to his illegal archaeological activities.
The second mistake was giving the Jordanian kingdom its status on the Temple Mount in 1994, on the assumption that the Jordanian king would keep the PLO and Hamas away from the compound.
Over the years, it became clear that not only did he, and then his son, not keep the Palestinian Authority away from the Temple Mount, the king reached official agreements that gave the PLO an official status. Israel did nothing to stop this and today the Palestinian Authority is also involved in what is happening on the Temple Mount and in Jerusalem.
Third, the Temple Mount is a focus of subversive anti-Israeli activity by Turkey. A Saudi presence could cause conflicts between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and negatively affect Israel’s relations with Turkey. Israel must remove any Turkish influence from the mountain.
Fourth, the Temple Mount is the focus of attention for extremist organizations such as Hizb al-Tahrir (the Islamic Liberation Party), Hamas, and the northern and southern factions of the Islamic movement, among others. What they all have in common is their burning hatred for the Saudi royal family. Any clash between Saudi Arabia and these organizations could ignite the flames of conflict, and the blame would fall on Israel.
Fifth, it is possible that today there are understandings between the Israeli government and the Saudi crown prince, but there is no assurance that these understandings will survive the test of time. In the future, there may be changes in relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia that will lead to tensions between the two countries. A Saudi presence on the Temple Mount will only worsen the situation.
Sixth, if Saudi Arabia receives an official status on the Temple Mount, it could be blackmailed by Iran to allow Shi’ite activity in Jerusalem under its protection. Even if there is a clause in the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel that prohibits such a thing, Israel will not violate its peace agreement with Saudi Arabia even if the Saudis are forced to violate this clause under Iranian pressure.
Lastly, Wahhabi Saudi Arabia may try to lower the centrality of Jerusalem in the contemporary Islamic discourse, since according to Islamic sources the original al-Aqsa Mosque, the one mentioned in the Quran (17:1), is located in Saudi Arabia near the village of Juarana, around 30 km. northeast of Mecca.
Any such attempt by the Saudis may arouse the wrath of all the parties mentioned above, and the blame for bringing them into the sensitive equation will be placed squarely on Israel.
In an article titled "Saudi Arabia and Israel – Normalization or No Normalization?," published July 20, 2023 on the Saudi website Elpah, Emirati political analyst Salem Al-Ketbi reviewed Saudi Arabia's considerations in advancing towards normalization with Israel, as he perceives them. Saudi Arabia, he wrote, which sees itself as a regional superpower, is interested in relations with Israel, since it realizes that such relations can benefit it and serve its interests. However, it is proceeding very cautiously in order to avoid any harm to its special religious standing in the Islamic world, and in order to keep countries and organizations that exploit the Palestinian cause from using the issue of normalization as fuel for incitement against Saudi Arabia.
The following are translated excerpts from Al-Ketbi's article:[1]
"Discussing the issue of official diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel, namely normalization, requires a deep understanding of Saudi Arabia's position and its overall strategic considerations in this context, which is very sensitive as far as it is concerned. Saudi Arabia's approach to Israel is not the same as that of its fellow Arab and Muslim countries. Saudi Arabia has special religious standing and prestige, since [Mecca and Medina, which are] the spiritual and religious center for some two billion Muslims [worldwide], are in its territory. It is vital to consider all the implications and consequences [of this special standing], especially since there are some who will use any issue to harm Saudi Arabia, and one of the sensitive issues [that can be used this way] is that of the relations with Israel and everything they entail: all the sentiments, the historical sediments, and the political exploitation of the issue by various elements, both countries and organizations, that use it to realize their interests and goals.
"The current Saudi leadership has a different strategic approach to the present and the future, and has an ambitious plan to catapult Saudi Arabia forward and give it the position it deserves on the world map in the 21st century. Therefore, [this leadership] does not readily limit the debate on any idea or proposal. This explains the significant shift that has occurred in the Saudi attitude towards Israel in the recent period. Suffice it to mention that Israeli planes have been given permission to fly through Saudi airspace… If we also consider the historic and famous statement made by Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman in 2022 – that Suadi Arabia does not regard Israel as an enemy[2] – we realize the magnitude of the change in Saudi Arabia's general strategic approach and position.
Saudi-Israeli normalization is a crucial factor in the considerations of the administration of [U.S.] President [Joe] Biden and in his bid to realign the elements in the Middle East. But Saudi Arabia has a different approach, based on its own interests as an active regional power. Accordingly, its outlook on normalization depends on [its ability] to ensure the realization of its geostrategic approach, which does not regard Saudi Arabia as part of any coalition or axis, and does not limit its options in forming partnerships with all the international powers active in the global arena – [an arena] that is in a process of [re]forming itself, based on the balance in the Ukraine war. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia's most pressing strategic need in the near future is to cement its security and stability and guarantee a regional environment conducive to promoting the goals of [its] Vision 2030 [plan]. The upshot of all this is that the ball is currently in the court of Washington, which apparently has not yet realized the magnitude of the change that has occurred in the rules of play vis-à-vis its Saudi ally… and that a new approach is needed in light of this change.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday met with top US diplomatic officials to encourage progress in widening the normalization wave with Sunni countries, like Saudi Arabia, but also emphasizing the need to maintain Israeli qualitative military superiority.
Gallant met with US National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, and US ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
The defense minister thanked McGurk for his continuous efforts to advance normalization with Arab countries in the region, which is a form of code for the Saudis, Washington, and Jerusalem's current top normalization target.
Maintaining Israel's qualitative military advantage usually refers to having more advanced aircraft, defensive systems, and advantages with any unconventional weapons, such as nuclear weapons (which Israel reportedly has), and which the Saudis and others are seeking to receive from the US in normalization negotiations.
Currently, only Israel has F-35 aircraft, but Riyadh also wants advanced aircraft. Previously, the US was due to sell F-35 aircraft to the UAE, though for reasons unrelated to Israel, that transaction has been indefinitely frozen.
Most notably, the Saudis have demanded a nuclear reactor and the ability to enrich uranium locally for solely civilian purposes.
While Riyadh has promised not to move beyond such civilian purposes, there are mixed views within the Jewish state about the Saudis receiving such a capability, which could conceivably later be converted to a military nuclear program.
Generally, the idea is that though Israel is small in territory and in its standing army, it can use higher quality weapons systems to deter its enemies from many kinds of broad attacks.
Iraqi Shi'ite Militia Leader (allied with Iran) Qais Al-Khazali: "The Devil is not a theoretical enemy. He has a party that abides by his orders. As will be shown, this party of the Devil is led by the Jews.
"The Jews are the soldiers who serve the Devil – this is the Jewish lobby that controls the decision-making, the media, the economy, the dollar, the weapons trade, and so on. This is no longer a conspiracy theory. This has become clear.
"it was the Jews – the Jewish lobby – that murdered the fathers and forefathers of the Prophet Muhammad. This point does not require further proof, right? Secondly, it was the Jewish lobby that assassinated the Prophet Muhammad. You can check it out to see that I am right. Thirdly, I say – and Allah willing, I will prove – that it was the Jewish lobby that murdered Ali bin Abu Taleb.
"Fourthly, I say – and Allah willing, I will prove – that it was the Jewish lobby who was behind the murder of all the Imams.
"Regardless of who was the actual perpetrator... The Jewish lobby is the reason for the occultation of the Hidden Imam. It is the Jewish lobby that is searching for the Hidden Imam, and they might do anything in order to murder him."
I found this highly amusing article in a Jordanian site. The author, Rashid Abdul Rahman Al-Najab, has been reading the works of the late Libyan thinker Al-Sadiq Al-Nihum - who was known as a satirist - and apparently took seriously one of his satirical pieces making fun of Arab conspiracy theories. This is wild:
The global capitalist banking system began five thousand years ago at the hands of goldsmiths in Egypt, when most of the Jews' interest there turned to the banking trade and project financing. The Egyptian banks, which were controlled by the Jews, financed around the year 2400 BC the wars of the Pharaohs.
...When the Hebrews were expelled from Egypt, in the thirteenth century BC during the reign of King Ramesses II, under the influence of the hatred that had generated in the past, and not as history shows it as an escape of an enslaved people seeking freedom, the Hebrew banking capital created the idea of “the chosen people” and "The Promised Land", and the Hebrews wrote the constitution of the modern capitalist state in the arid Sinai. It is a constitution based on reducing the authority of the king, distributing administrative organs among twelve Israeli tribes and ensuring the legitimacy of usury, and even making usury a religious duty to lend to foreigners and protect banks, at a time when it was forbidden Their constitution charged usury among the Jews themselves and urged the liquidation of their debts by general discharge once every seven years.
In the era of King Solomon, in the tenth century B.C., the Jews were managing the entire economy of the Middle East, and they did not hesitate to finance suspicious projects to achieve quick profit, such as financing bars, gambling clubs, equipping pirates, and so on, and this reached an extent that made Christ enter the temple and expel money changers and usurers from its area.
Al Najab certainly doesn't present these absurd facts as satire, although he seems to know that some of them don't quite add up. He says that while the historic facts might not be exactly true, they point to the truth.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
The Political Commissioner General and the official spokesperson for the security establishment, Major General Talal Dweikat, said today, Wednesday, that the security services removed dangerous materials and barriers from inside the Tulkarem camp.
Dweikat added, in a telephone conversation with WAFA, that the Palestinian security forces had received several complaints from institutions and individuals in Tulkarm governorate, about the presence of dangerous materials and barriers in front of children's schools and on the roads inside the Tulkarm camp. Accordingly, the security services moved and removed them, to prevent any risks that might arise. about its existence.
He pointed out that after the security force finished its mission, some armed youths opened fire in front of the governorate building, which necessitated the intervention of the security forces to take the necessary measures and measures to control the security situation and prevent any manifestations that threaten civil peace in Tulkarm governorate.
"Dangerous materials" appears to be a euphemism for explosives - IEDs that terrorists bury in the road, that are meant to slow down Israeli forces when they conduct arrests and raids. We already know that these IEDs are a danger to children - even the UN reluctantly admits this. (Update: Other media confirm explosives near schools.)
It appears that the PA, perhaps for the first time and ahead of the beginning of the school year, decided that IEDs and iron barriers in front of schools is already a step too far when it puts children at risk.
And the terrorists were not happy about their hard work of risking the lives of their neighbors to be able to possibly damage an Israeli vehicle being removed, so they naturally started shooting at the PA forces.
Hamas media says that the PA used bulldozers to remove the barricades.
.This video shows some of the tear gas, and apparently one older man - a father of a "martyr" so he may have been one of the protesters - was injured.
Will "human rights groups" side with the terrorists in this case? The PA did what Israel does - employed bulldozers and shot tear gas to quell a violent demonstration, and possibly used live fire. NGOs usually adopt the narrative that the PA is almost as bloodthirsty as the IDF.
On the other hand it is hard for them to say that the PA should allow IEDs and barricades to be placed in the middle of public areas and near schools. Amnesty and HRW have never, to my knowledge, berated the local armed groups for putting their own people at risk, and they are loathe to start a new complicating narrative that might indirectly exonerate the IDF for its own similar raids.
So chances are that they will remain silent, and the dead Palestinian bystander will not be mentioned at all.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
It really is quite absurd to see today's Muslims insist that there was no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and that somehow Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock were always there. Especially when one of the Arabic names of Jerusalem is "Bayt al-Muqqadas" - which comes straight from "Beit HaMikdash," the Hebrew name for the Holy Temple.
I've previously mentioned a 15th century work by Jalal-addín that goes into detail about Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.
But if you want an earlier Muslim historian, we have al-Masudi - a 10th century Arab historian and geographer who has been called "Herodotus of the Arabs."
Al-Masudi's works are quoted in the 1890 work by Guy Le Strange, who translated a number of medieval Arab historians and geographers in "Palestine Under the Moslems."
Al Masudi clearly admits that Al Aqsa is on the site of Solomon's Temple:
Every literate Muslim knew this quite well - until the 20th century, when hate of Jews reached a level high enough to see Muslims and Arabs deny their own most famous and best historians.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
It seems like each day brings a new wrinkle in the oldest hatred. The antisemites are innovating, finding novel ways to fuel enmity against Israel and the Jewish people. The latest is a rehabilitation of the Soviet anti-Zionist playbook in the form of “Critical Zionist Studies.”
The newly created Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism “aims to support the delinking of the study of Zionism from Jewish Studies, and to reclaim academia and public discourse for the study of Zionism as a political, ideological, and racial and gendered knowledge project, intersecting with Palestine and decolonial studies, critical terrorism studies, settler colonial studies, and related scholarship and activism.”
The Institute is holding two events this coming October, one at the Resource Center for Nonviolence/UC Santa Cruz Center for Racial Justice and the other at New York University Law School. These events are a brazen effort to create and legitimize a new field called “Critical Zionist Studies” in universities across the country. Left unchecked, Critical Zionist Studies could be coming to a campus near you.
It would be difficult to imagine another area of study dedicated specifically to deconstructing a national liberation movement. Critical Kurdish Nationalism Studies? Critical Palestinian Nationalism Study? You get the point. Only Zionism is on the scholarly chopping block.
At root is an American academy in the throes of an illiberal ideology, with the backing of Middle Eastern money, that treats America, Israel and the West as colonialists and oppressors. And if we can’t stop the problem at its root we can expect more and more of these assaults on the Jewish people in the years ahead.
This is not the first time that Critical Zionist Studies has reared its ugly head. Wilson Center scholar and emigre from the FSU, Izabella Tabarovsky, describes the emergence of a field called “Zionology” in the late 1960s in the USSR. In the wake of the 1967 Six Day war, the Soviets were distressed that Israel handily defeated their Arab allies, and that Soviet Jews, inspired by Israel’s victory, were increasingly identifying with the Jewish state.
One area where Human Rights Watch has been active regarding Israel is its campaign to protect critics of the Jewish state from accusations of anti-Semitism.
Last week, HRW co-signed an open letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations, calling on him to reject the working definition of anti-Semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA), which has won the support of 39 countries including the United States and most of Europe.
In particular, the open letter objected to the IHRA contention that one form of anti-Semitism is “applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”
One can see why Human Rights Watch perceived this benchmark as one that may put it on the wrong side of the anti-Semitism debate.
The letter suggested to the secretary general that he consider an alternate definition, according to which “paying disproportionate attention to Israel and treating Israel differently than other countries is not prima facie proof of anti-Semitism.”
(Try substituting “Jews” for “Israel” and “people” for “countries” and see how that sounds.)
The tragedy of Human Rights Watch is that there is a desperate need for objective reporting on human rights across the globe.
What do you think? Post a comment.
In many of the 90 countries where it operates, the organization lives up to that standard.
Still in her first month on the job, Hassan could steer the organization in a better direction if she is willing to take justified criticism to heart — not that it seems likely. (h/t Max Mendelbaum)
In the face of rising global antisemitism, many nations have endorsed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Yet, paradoxically, several of these very countries are also financially supporting NGOs that contest this definition.
NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based think tank, conducted a recent study that casts a spotlight on this contradiction.
Since its introduction in May 2016, the IHRA’s definition has gained broad acceptance. By July 2023, it was adopted by 40 governments and numerous intergovernmental organizations, marking it as a foundational policy in the fight against antisemitism. However, these endorsements come with a twist. NGO Monitor’s data reveals that a significant number of these countries are also funding NGOs that resist the IHRA framework.
Countries including Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and even the European Union – all known champions of human rights – seem to be playing both sides according to the study’s findings.
These countries have paradoxically been backing organizations that are said to “engage in and promote blatant antisemitism as per the IHRA’s definition,” it reads.
Beyond financial support, these NGOs have been found to propagate antisemitic narratives and often dismiss antisemitism as a non-issue of human rights.
The study emphasizes, for instance, how some of these NGOs endorse views contrary to the IHRA, such as denying “the Jewish people their right to self-determination, suggesting the very existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
For some, self-preservation comes first
Delving into the reasons for such opposition, the study suggests that these NGOs are not merely driven by ideological differences, but have self-preservation in mind. With the IHRA’s definition gaining traction, many of their activities, especially those against Israel, risk being tagged as antisemitic.
NGO Monitor’s new visual exposes the widespread and coordinated NGO campaign against the #IHRA definition of antisemitism.
Our analysis of 345 NGOs and 45 campaigns revealed that: 👉52% of campaigns were directed at preventing gov’ts and intergovernmental institutions (like… pic.twitter.com/aOM96I44L6
As the publicity increases for the new "Golda" movie, and anti-Israel activists are freaking out over the possibility that people might watch it and learn that Israel isn't wholly evil, let's revisit the quote that the haters consider the most damning and racist from Golda Meir.
Wikipedia traces Golda Meir's supposedly bigoted quote denying that there were a Palestinian people.
1969: "There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist."
Fact check: True. The quote is often butchered, but her words are precise: There was no independent Palestinian people in a Palestinian state. It was considered "southern Syria" by the Arabs and Westerners included Transjordan in "Palestine" which usually meant Biblical Israel and Judah. While there were isolated exceptions, Palestinian Arabs did not consider themselves a "Palestinian people," by and large, until the 1960s.
1970: "When were Palestinians born? What was all of this area before the First World War when Britain got the Mandate over Palestine? What was Palestine, then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqian border. East and West Bank was Palestine. I am a Palestinian, from 1921 [to] 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport. There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians, There were Jews and Arabs....I don't say there are no Palestinians, but I say there is no such thing as a distinct Palestinian people."
Fact check: Mostly true. I would argue that by 1970 there was an emergent "Palestinian people" that had been formed by decades of Arab mistreatment of and marginalization of Palestinian Arabs - and the Arab League decisions to maintain their stateless status until Israel is destroyed.
What she didn't say is that the creation of a Palestinian people was specifically to deny the legitimacy of the Jewish state and ultimately meant as a weapon to destroy Israel. Their Arab "brethren" (and their own leaders) did everything they could to destroy Israel, and when they couldn't do it militarily, they decided that they could appeal to the Western proclivity to root for the underdog. Before 1967, Israel was the clear underdog, so they needed to create a Palestinian people who could make Israel look like the bully and the tiny, stateless Palestinian people as the hapless victims.
Meir's comments were in the context of that deliberate re-framing of history, as she witnessed this change in the meaning of the word "Palestinian" and the emergence of the new phrase "Palestinian people" to refer to Arabs.
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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Amnesty-UK tweeted, ""According to the UN, more than 100 incidents of settler violence a month have been reported against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank this year."
I am in no way condoning violence by anyone.
But there is a Palestinian organization, Maata, that eagerly counts cases of Palestinian violence - which it calls "resistance operations."
During the month of July, the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem recorded an escalation in various forms of resistance operations, including shooting operations, armed clashes, and effective run-over and stabbing operations, which led to the killing of (2) Israelis, and the wounding of (50) soldiers and settlers with various injuries, bringing the occupation death toll to rise.
The total number of operations that were monitored during the month, according to the Palestine Information Center - Maati - was 1132 acts of resistance, including 97 shootings and armed clashes with the occupation forces....
The popular anti-occupation activities also continued, and the number of demonstrations and marches reached 49 demonstrations, 334 stone-throwing operations, 413 direct confrontations with the occupation forces, 14 Molotov cocktail-throwing operations, and 117 attacks response operations.against settlers across the West Bank.
Yes, according to Palestinian reports, there are more Palestinian attacks on settlers than settler attacks on Palestinians!
But to the BBC and Amnesty, only attacks by Jews are worthy of being reported.
During the first half of the year, Maata counted 6,704 "resistance actions" which Maata called "a remarkable and qualitative escalation in the forms of popular and armed resistance." That's not 100 attacks a month - it is 1,100 attacks a month. They claim over 400 attacks of incendiary devices including IEDs, Molotov cocktails and fireworks, and hey say they destroyed 175 Israeli vehicles.
They might be exaggerating. But that is part of the point: they are so proud of attacking Jews that they want to make the militantsappear as effective as they can. To them, these are heroes.
Israelis do not consider settlers who attack Arabs for no reason to be heroes.
Where are the BBC stories about these statistics? Where are the Amnesty memes condemning them?
They are non-existent, and they will remain that way. Because there can only be one set of victims in this conflict, and Jews can never be counted among them.
This is bias. Not that this bothers the BBC and Amnesty in the least..
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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
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Elder of Ziyon
