Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, September 28, 2023

At the @NYTimes, things that are normal for every other country become nefarious when Israel does them

In a long New York Times Magazine profile of Benjamin Netanyahu by Ruth Margalit, we see this:

Admirers credit Netanyahu with “changing the paradigm” around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Boaz Bismuth, a Likud lawmaker, told me. Netanyahu did so by effectively bypassing the Palestinians and signing normalization agreements with other Arab countries in the region. But those agreements, known as the Abraham Accords, are the diplomatic end result of an arms deal in which Israel would provide nearly all signatories with licenses to its powerful cybersurveillance technology Pegasus, as an investigation in this magazine revealed last year. “He made use of knowledge and technologies to get closer to dictators,” a former senior defense official told me.

According to this article, the Abraham Accords are just a cover for a cyber-arms deal that enriched a private Israeli firm.

This is an insane perspective. Even though written by a Tel Aviv based Jewish writer, it plays into classic antisemitic tropes. After all, she is saying that the most consequential peace deal in the region in four decades is really about Jewish greed and disregard for human rights.

The Abraham Accords deal resulted in the US selling $23 billion of arms to the UAE. Can you imagine the New York Times claiming that the US only brokered the deal our of greed to enrich US defense contractors?

Every negotiation involves give and take in an attempt to find results that benefit both parties. The Obama-brokered Iran nuclear deal gave Iran the ability to refine uranium after a time period in exchange for short-term pause (that they ignored anyway) If there is a Saudi peace agreement, the US would be giving the Saudis access to nuclear technology which is just as dual-use as spyware is, but on a quite larger scale. The downsides in both cases are merely nuclear weapons in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists facilitated by the US.

And every Western, democratic country makes compromises to their own human rights standards in order to maintain relationships with countries whose own human rights records are less than stellar.

But only for Israel are negotiations viewed through such a bizarre lens of how Israeli greed and disregard for human rights is what drives its desire to reach peace agreements with other Middle Eastern countries - countries that all happen to be repressive Muslim and Arab dictatorships to begin with.

And there are more articles in the media against Israel for allowing cyberweapons to be sold than against the regimes that abuse them.

Pegasus is a tool, like a hammer. It has legitimate uses but it also can be abused to attack dissidents, just like bullets or surveillance drones. The New York Times, though, seems to regard spyware as an exclusively Israeli, magical tool. As I noted earlier this week, when similar spyware tools to Pegasus were misused by Greece and Egypt, the New York Times didn't mention that newly blacklisted spyware developers came out of Greece, Hungary, Ireland and North Macedonia - but highlighted that two of them were headed by a former Israeli general.

The hypocrisy doesn't end there. When Israel does put restrictions on dual-use items to be transferred - meaning, when it stops items at the Gaza border that could be used to build missiles and other weapons aimed at Israeli civilians - Israel is blamed by the NYT for unfairly hurting Palestinians for no good reason.

There are no limits to the double standards Israel is subjected to by the New York Times.

(h/t Yisrael Medad)

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Writing in Alaraby, Hulmi al-Asmar writes that normalization maybe isn't so bad - that perhaps if Arab nations act nicely to Israel, Israel will implode from infighting since it is dependent on aggression.

Setting aside his main argument, al-Asmar gives a brief description of how Arab leaders have used the Palestinian issue for their own benefit, and how they have actually hurt the Palestinians with this cynical pretense.

For years, official Arab discourse used to murmur a heavy [Palestinian] "nationalist" sentiment, to the effect that "Palestine is the Arabs' top issue." From this slogan, a series of canned phrases emerged that affirmed standing by the Palestinian people and calling for their victory. Preachers filled the space with resonant speech in forums all over the world, and printed millions of pages with them. Books, poems, and commentaries were written about it, and they pulled their voices and roared their throats with enthusiastic songs. Millions of statements, and thousands of conferences and summits were also held, all of which threatened the enemy, or at least “confirmed its position in support of the Palestinian people, and their right to establish their independent state and defeat the occupation.” More than that, under the heading of “confronting the Zionist threat,” billions were spent on arming their armies, while morsels of bread were withheld from the mouths of the hungry, in preparation for the decisive battle with the “enemy” to build what they called “Arab national security,” and for that purpose legislation, emergency laws, and martial law were enacted. How can it not, when the nation is in a state of war and on constant alert? Therefore, there is no time for the luxury of “democracy,” nor for the “mockery” of elections, social justice, and other rights. This is not the time (!), as the nation is passing through a “delicate circumstance” and a “turning point.” It is a "dangerous time in history" and a "sensitive stage" that requires not paying attention to these "trivialities", and focusing effort on confronting "the enemy's plans" aimed at tearing apart the Arab ranks, and undermining "national dignity and nationalism!", etc., to the end of this series of great lies that may have passed on the minds of the "masses"... So what was the result?

Israel is expanding and strengthening every day, while Palestine is withering, and its nakba has been “Arabized” and reproduced. It was not limited to the Palestinian people, but the Arab regime produced other versions and more and revised versions of the Arab catastrophes, so that almost every Arab country has its own nakba.

This is stuff we've been saying for many years. It is rare indeed to see these words in Arabic:

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Video: "The Dark Side of Roger Waters"

The Campaign Against Antisemitism has released a film called "The Dark Side of Roger Waters," featuring interviews with Jews whom he has worked closely with who say that Waters is (at least functionally) an antisemite.

It is well worth watching.

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09/27 Links Pt2: Benny Morris: Avi Shlaim’s Fantasy Land; My first encounter with Jews changed my life; Roger Waters sang ‘f***ing Jew’ song, claims former producer

From Ian:

Benny Morris: Avi Shlaim’s Fantasy Land

It all sounds pretty convincing (if repetitive), but this historical documentation is inconclusive at best. One apparent error in Shlaim’s narrative stands out. In trying to pin Israel’s colors to the bombings, he writes that Binnet in 1954 was “in charge” of a subsequent (proven) Israeli sabotage operation using a cell of local Egyptian Jews, in which U.S. cultural centers and other targets in Cairo and Alexandria were bombed with the purpose of causing bad blood between Egypt and the West (the episode known in Israel as essek habish—the unfortunate business). The cell was caught and its members were jailed or executed. Binnet was also picked up and committed suicide. The problem with Shlaim’s account is that Binnet was apparently not involved in the sabotage operation in Egypt. He was an independent spy. The bombing was organized and run by someone else but Binnet was picked up incidentally due to a compartmentalization failure.

“Having lived as a young child in an Arab country, I was aware of the possibility of peaceful Arab-Jewish coexistence … My Iraqi background thus helped me, as I grew up, to develop a more nuanced view, based on empathy for all parties locked into this tragic conflict,” writes Shlaim. Unfortunately, he continues, the idea of a two-state peace settlement, based on partitioning Palestine, is dead. Shlaim attributes this death solely to Israel and Israeli policies, particularly the settlement enterprise, which, over the past 50 years, has planted more than half a million Jews, some of them messianic fanatics, in the midst of the 3 million-strong Palestinian Arab population of the West Bank. Israel has, and will likely have in the future, neither the will nor the power to uproot the settlers.

I agree with Shlaim that the two-state solution model is dead. What he fails to mention is the initial and even more compelling cause of the death of the two-state solution: Palestinian Arab rejectionism. The Palestinians have displayed remarkable consistency in rejecting the two-state solution: They said “no” to the Peel Commission partition proposal in 1937 (which awarded the Arabs 70% of Palestine) when Haj Amin al-Husseini ruled the roost; they said “no” to the U.N. General Assembly’s partition resolution of November 1947 (which proposed Palestinian statehood on 45% of the land); PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat said “no” to the partition proposals of the year 2000 (the “Clinton Parameters”) that awarded the Palestinians a state on 21%-22% of Palestine; and current Palestinian Authority “President” Mahmoud Abbas failed to respond (i.e., said “no”) to Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert’s partition proposals, which were akin to Clinton’s, in 2007-08.

The fundamentalist wing of the Palestinian national movement, Hamas, which won the Palestinian elections in 2006 and is still the most popular Palestinian party, rejects out of hand any talk of partition. It aims, so says its charter, clearly, to eradicate Israel and replace it with a Sharia-ruled state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. And while the Palestinian Authority, dominated by the Fatah party, occasionally pays lip service to the two-state idea, it, too, covets all of Palestine (why else insist on the refugees’ “right of return,” which, if realized, would create an Arab majority?). Partition is not on the Palestinian agenda today, if it ever really was.

So what does Shlaim propose? A one-state solution—a democratic binational state, ruled jointly by Palestine’s Arabs and Jews. The problem is that neither Palestine’s Arabs nor its Jews support this unworkable idea, especially given the 120-year history of war, terrorism, and repression. For a model of this kind of solution, Israelis, Palestinians, and helpful foreign interlocutors need look no further than the internally fractured Lebanese state on Israel’s northern border, which is dominated by Hezbollah. There is too much blood, and bad blood, between the two peoples, not to mention abysmal religious, cultural, and social differences—and yes, racism, on both sides—to produce a version of Belgium on the Mediterranean.

Shlaim’s idyllic vision, based on the social and economic mingling of upper crust Arabs and Jews in Baghdad during a brief period of time in the 1930s, is not a precedent or pointer to anything. My prediction? Were a one-state solution ever tried, it would collapse in anarchy and drown in rivers of blood, compared to which today’s violence is a mere trickle.

Three Worlds is very readable, like everything that Shlaim writes. A good editor would have deleted its innumerable repetitions—and he or she may also have caught some of its outlandish factual errors: “seven Arab armies invaded” Palestine in 1948 (in fact, it was four); “at the end of 1948” Israel’s population was “650,000 of whom 150,000 were Arabs,” (in fact, there were 700,000 Jews and somewhat more than 100,000 Arabs), to give just a few examples.

Early on in Three Worlds, Shlaim recalls that his “elders’” viewed Israel, before the family left Iraq, as “a small, faraway country of which we knew little.” The words echo the appeaser Neville Chamberlain’s dismissive designation during the 1938 Munich crisis of Czechoslovakia, which he was about to sell down the river, as “a far-away country … [inhabited by] people of whom we know nothing.” Is it possible that subconsciously Shlaim is here signaling his desire, or what he assumes is or will be the West’s desire, to sell Israel down the river?

Karys Rhea: Will Israel's Right-Wing Government Address the Existential Threat of Illegal Palestinian Settlements?

This is Part 9 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.

There has thus far been little political will in Israel to counter illegal Palestinian construction in Area C of the West Bank.

For the same reasons it allows illegal weapons to proliferate throughout Arab Israeli communities and Bedouins to establish encampments in the Negev, Israel’s government does not give definitive enforceable orders to its Civil Administration (COGAT) — it wants to avoid negative press or a more violent confrontation with the Palestinians in the future.

Israeli officials thus approach the problem with local Band-Aid solutions rather than a full-frontal assault.

“They are not treating this as a war, and it is a war. It’s actually more dangerous than other wars,” says Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, founder of the Israeli organization HaBirthonistim. “At the moment, the Palestinians are winning this war. In 20 or 30 years, this will be an existential threat. We need to wake up.”

Dr. Yishai Spivak, an investigative researcher with the Israeli nonprofit Ad Kan, concurs, adding that there are two kinds of wars that Israel is fighting with the Palestinians.

One is the terror war, in which Palestinians use physical violence to harm citizens of the state of Israel. The other is the non-violent or civilian war, in which Palestinians attempt to delegitimize Israel via various channels, such as the United Nations, social media or the global BDS movement.

Another reason Israeli leadership fails to treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves is that its ministers are generally in power for a short time and may be dismissed within their party in short order. For the one to two years they generally serve, they are primarily concerned with building their reputation, desperate to be internationally accepted.

Put simply, the political system bolsters the bureaucrats. And they know that to tackle a problem of this nature and magnitude, they would have to take extreme actions against the European Union, Palestinian Authority and COGAT.

With the painful, precarious status Israel has on the geopolitical landscape, it is unlikely that any foreseeable coalition will set the precedent and shift the paradigm.

Even Jewish settler leaders have failed to respond to this as an existential threat. In Efrat, for example, when Israelis complain to their mayor about the illegal Arab structures popping up around their neighborhoods, the most he will do, if anything, is make a phone call to COGAT, and then quickly forget about the matter.

The essence of the Palestinian heritage

In order to set the record straight and enable the president of the Palestinian Authority to deal with the" glorious" heritage of his invented people, UNESCO members must be presented with the sites where representatives of the "Palestinians" imprinted their heritage.

A rich bloody heritage in which those Arabs, who call themselves "Palestinians" in recent generations, are proud and boasting, above every platform, in every textbook and "consciousness engineering device".

Among the sites worth noting is a section of the Israeli national water carrier project that was blown up as part of Fatah's first terrorist attack on January 1st 1965 (before the six day war and the liberation or "occupation" of the Judea, Samaria, the Jordan valley and east Jerusalem- all known as the "West Bank"); Suicidal terror attacks in Moment Cafe and Sbarro Restaurant in Jerusalem, Matza Restaurant in Haifa; Horrific massacres at Ma'alot School in the Galilei, Park Hotel in Netanya during Passover eve, Dolphinarium night club and Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv, Beit Lid bus stations and other sites saturated with Israeli blood. This is the heritage of the Arabs, who in recent generations have called themselves Palestinians, between whom and historical heritage sites there is a deep chasm greater than the Syrian-African rift, in which ancient Jericho is located.

After various Attempts made by Israeli elements to prevent UNESCOs political declaration, which were unsuccessful despite sincere efforts made on the part of the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Heritage and others, Israel and its allies are required to approach UNESCO with a query and criticism on its side, regarding the manner in which the puzzling decision was made. How did the organization's decision contribute to the promotion of peace, security, cooperation and other slogans as stated in its stated goal: "To contribute to peace and security by promoting international cooperation in the fields of education, science and culture, with the aim of instilling throughout the world a sense of respect for the values of justice, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms declared in the UN Declaration?"

The State of Israel is also required to make a decision preserving its own heritage sites that have not yet been officially declared as such, with all that this entails, such as the Altar of Joshua on Mount Ebel. In the absence of such a decision now, after UNESCO granted legitimacy to the Palestinian Authority, there is a danger of destruction on the sites, or the danger of expropriation and appropriation of the invented" Palestinian heritage,"as was done at Tel Aroma in Samaria, (a Hasmonaean era fortress) where the Palestinian flag proudly flies.

An Israeli Zionist government should act like one by applying the Israeli sovereignty according to its historic right, on every important heritage site within the boundaries of the Promised Land. Regardless to what any invented entity thinks, whether they are the Narnians from Narnia, Ozon's from the Land of Oz or "Palestinians".

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

After nine months of refusing to extend an invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to visit the White House, Joe Biden—or his handlers—deemed that a sufficiently long enough period of time had elapsed that said invitation could now be extended. Bibi had been punished and put in his place, the anti-Israel elements of the party appeased. Still, nobody said that Joe had to be nice to the Israeli PM. So as Bibi waxed lyrical about their 40-year acquaintance, and while the cameras were rolling, Biden leered at those in attendance and crossed himself. Slowly and with deliberation.

BREAKING: Meeting on the sidelines of the @UN in New York, @POTUS -- at the outset of remarks by Israeli Prime Minister @netanyahu as the two sat before the U.S. and Israeli flags -- oddly performed the sign of the cross, a ritual Christian gesture. Mr. Biden read from notecards;… pic.twitter.com/MmwQHICVAk
— James Rosen (@JamesRosenTV) September 20, 2023

The press didn’t write about it, with the notable exception of the indefatigable Hunter Biden laptop-reporting New York Post:

President Biden unexpectedly crossed himself Wednesday during a one-on-one meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in Midtown.

The 80-year-old Roman Catholic president made the conspicuous hand gesture — touching his forehead, stomach and left and right breast area with his right hand — as the Jewish leader began speaking.

“We’ve been friends for, I’ve checked it, over 40 years,” Netanyahu said, prompting Biden to make the sign of the cross in a possible joke about his own age.

However, the president did not explain his action and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This was not the first time that Joe Biden made the sign of the cross as an apparent snub or sign of disrespect. He crossed himself while saying Donald Trump’s name as he stumped for Gavin Newsom in 2021. He did it again while ridiculing Marjorie Taylor Greene at an event in Virginia Beach.

President Biden calls out Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) for yelling “Liar!” during the State of the Union and then proceeds to ✝️ himself. pic.twitter.com/8MlMC4WIA0
— The Recount (@therecount) February 28, 2023

How are we supposed to understand Joe Biden’s repeated, cynical use of a religious symbol, an expression of Christian faith? What does it mean in the context of a landmark meeting with the prime minister of the Jewish State? It depends on how you're feeling about Joe these days.

Some think it was insensitive of the president, a stupid move, to cross himself in front of a Jewish leader. Others think that his making the sign of the cross against a Jewish person was just one more manifestation of a riddled brain in a state of advanced decay. Both these things are likely true, but miss the mark by omitting the malign nature of the president’s gesture, meant as a pointed sign of disrespect to someone he really, really does not like.

Was the gesture deliberately antisemitic? That would certainly be a valid conclusion. The sign of the cross has traditionally been used to ward off evil. Biden jokingly uses the symbol to demean public figures he dislikes by equating them with evil. When he therefore makes the sign of the cross in relation to the democratically-elected leader of the one Jewish State, it is not a stretch to understand this as a statement: “Netanyahu the Jew is evil.”

The sign of the cross as a protection against evil is something most of us are familiar with from movies and TV shows, where characters are always waving silver crosses at vampires. But do Christians really believe that the sign of the cross wards off evil? Does Joe Biden?

While perusing materials relating to Christian dogma is not really my thing, especially during the High Holiday season, I found the following, attributed to St. John Chrysostom, 4th-century Preacher and Patriarch of Constantinople, so . . . probably legit:

Never leave your house without making the sign of the cross. It will be to you a staff, a weapon, an impregnable fortress. Neither man nor demon will dare to attack you, seeing you covered with such powerful armor. Let this sign teach you that you are a soldier, ready to combat against the demons, and ready to fight for the crown of justice. Are you ignorant of what the cross has done? It has vanquished death, destroyed sin, emptied hell, dethroned Satan, and restored the universe. Would you then doubt its power?

As a Jew, I don’t believe any of that, like not even a little bit, not even to the very tip of the tip of my pinky. But when Joe Biden makes the sign of the cross, he does so to smear and ridicule those he dislikes by suggesting, perhaps only half-jokingly, that they are evil. This offends me not only on behalf of my PM, my country, and my people, but also on behalf of those who do see the cross as a symbol of their faith. Because when Joe Biden makes the sign of the cross, in the eyes of his co-religionists, he does so not out of belief, but out of disrespect. From a Catholic perspective, he blasphemes.

Of course no one would accuse Joe Biden of being a good Catholic. Joe’s in bad odor with the Church because of his stance on abortion. Famously, Joe Biden was denied communion at a church in South Carolina. But this use of a religious symbol is vulgar and offensive by any human standard no matter your religion, especially in light of the fact that the one misusing the symbol is the leader of the free world.

No matter the Democrat scandal of the day, it’s always tempting to say that if Trump did it, the media would be all over it like white on rice; meanwhile when Biden does it, crickets. Robert Spencer points this out along with the fact that Biden did not make the sign of the cross when meeting Mahmoud Abbas:

To put into perspective how odd this is, imagine if Trump had made the sign of the cross as he was meeting with Netanyahu. There would have been a new round of “Trump is an antisemite” articles in the establishment media. The ADL would have issued another in their long series of furious denunciations of the Bad Orange Man. The gesture would have been portrayed as a recrudescence of the bad old days of blood libels and false accusations against the Jews that culminated in the Holocaust. When Biden does it, on the other hand, no one sees it.

Whatever it was, Biden certainly didn’t make the sign of the cross when he met with his friend Mahmoud Abbas.

I have yet to hear a response or comment from Netanyahu on Biden making the sign of the cross, during their meeting. That’s as it should be. Perhaps in time, Netanyahu will find a way to make his feelings known, but likely only for those who have the ability read between the lines. This 2015 Jeffrey Goldberg piece from the Atlantic, Netanyahu Dodges the Cross does the trick for me:

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is fond of recalling Vice President Joe Biden's suggestion that he nail himself to a very large cross.

It was 2011, and they were in Jerusalem, in Netanyahu's office. Biden was encouraging the prime minister to make a bold leap for peace, and not to waste time on half-measures. "My father always said, 'Don't crucify yourself on a small cross,'" Biden said. Netanyahu laughed. Only Joe Biden, he would tell people later, would travel to Jerusalem to encourage a Jewish prime minister to crucify himself.

What was Netanyahu telling those he regaled with this story? My take is this: Joe Biden told Benjamin Netanyahu to kill himself. And the then vice president traveled all the way to Jerusalem to do so.

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Today, Felesteen and other Palestinian sites reported:

Moaz Agbariya, a researcher specializing in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque affairs, reported that there are 45 tunnels connected to each other that threaten the foundations of the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and the homes of Jerusalemites in the occupied city of Jerusalem .

Agbariya stated in a statement to the Felesteen newspaper that the majority of the tunnels are based on the foundations of Al-Aqsa Mosque from the western side, and there is a section of them on the southern side, and a tunnel on the northern side.

He pointed out that there is a tunnel that only Jews are allowed to enter, and it is located under Al-Aqsa Mosque, in addition to four tunnels that were established in the Roman era and restored during the era of the Ayyubid state, and they are designated for the exit of rainwater from the Blessed Mosque, and no one is allowed to enter them except cleaning workers after obtaining a permit from the occupation police.

Wow! A tunnel under the Temple Mount that only Jews re allowed to enter? And only one of 45? Sign me up!

Especially since no one has dug a tunnel under the Temple Mount (except the Waqf) for well over a hundred years!

He explained that the occupation's attempts to falsify the history of the city of Jerusalem and prove its alleged right to it do not stop, by digging tunnels, seizing and hiding everything that indicates authentic Islamic history.

In an earlier interview, he claimed that a new tunnel Israel was excavating had Islamic markings and phrases that the Israelis are destroying. That is of course absurd, since you can see lots of Muslim sites in the Old City that are preserved by Israel.

Palestinians have claimed for at least 12 years that Israel is building "Biblical gardens" on top of the Bab al-Rahma cemetery adjacent to the Temple Mount. Somehow, nothing has happened.

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

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09/27 Links Pt1: Israeli Cabinet member receives warm welcome in Riyadh; Israel officially in US visa waiver program; Israel foils Iran terror plot to 'assassinate' Ben-Gvir

From Ian:

Israeli Cabinet member receives warm welcome in Riyadh

An Israeli delegation led by Tourism Minister Haim Katz received a warm, public welcome in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday during the opening session of a U.N. World Tourism Organization gathering.

“There is a delegation here in the country for the first time. I hope they were received well. Welcome,” Saudi Tourism Minister Ahmed Al Khateeb told state representatives gathered at the Four Seasons Hotel in Riyadh for the annual U.N. World Tourism Day celebrations.

“Everyone in this room understands that tourism is the bridge between people and between cultures,” added Al Khateeb.

Katz landed in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, becoming the first Israeli Cabinet member to lead a public delegation to the Gulf kingdom.

“Partnership in tourism issues has the potential to bring hearts together and economic prosperity,” he said in a statement released by his office. “I will work to advance cooperation, tourism and the foreign relations of Israel.”

This week’s trip comes on the background of growing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia as the two work toward a normalization deal. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) said last week that peace with the Jewish state is “getting closer every day.”

Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke openly on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly debate in New York about a coming agreement.

Earlier this month, an Israeli diplomatic delegation arrived for the first time in Saudi Arabia, for a meeting of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi is scheduled to fly to Riyadh next week for a congress organized by the Universal Postal Union.

Limited Liability Podcast: Lahav Harkov

Special episode: Rich and Jarrod are joined by Jewish Insider senior political correspondent Lahav Harkov for a conversation on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s numerous high-level meetings during his weeklong trip to the U.S., as well as Saudi normalization and artificial intelligence.

Gil Troy: US Jews, don't block Israeli-Saudi normalization

Last week frustrated those of us in the Silenced Majority seeking a judicial reform compromise and Saudi normalization, let alone a more normative – and representative – coalition. By exporting their protest to America, the anti-Bibi forces self-destructively strengthened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s resolve and helped him by outraging his already inflamed base. It’s hard to know what projecting a sign onto the UN saying “Don’t believe Crime Minister Netanyahu” did beyond delighting Israel’s genuine enemies, and making the protesters feel good about themselves.

As those futile antics dominated the headlines, far more damaging was the Israel Policy Forum letter to President Joe Biden, signed by 80 American Jewish community leaders – including some cherished friends of mine.

Despite claiming to support a “normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” they added obstacles by insisting that Biden first pander to the Palestinians. They proposed “halting Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and increasing territorial sovereignty for Palestinians, while simultaneously holding the Palestinian Authority accountable to reforms and strengthening its financial stability.”

The letter was so stuck in the Oslo-blinded 1990s, they should have faxed it. The Abraham Accords – which most American Jews have not celebrated sufficiently, because Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu facilitated them – broke the Palestinians’ decades’-long stranglehold on any peace progress. Other countries finally decided to let Palestinian leaders keep pursuing Israel’s destruction alone, without preventing the region from progressing – and Iran’s enemies from uniting.

The bottom-up excitement, with cultural, economic, and tourist exchanges cementing Israel’s new diplomatic ties, should have taught these American Jews to stop demanding concessions for a terrorism-addicted, dictatorial, Palestinian Authority.

Even many Israelis critical of Netanyahu agree that Iran poses the greatest threat to Israel. This letter ignores how Saudi Arabian normalization will benefit America (aka Big Satan) and Israel (Little Satan). It will upset the Iranian mullahs, the Chinese authoritarians, and Putin’s Russian thugs. Thwarting those evil forces is far more important than once again fruitlessly indulging overindulged Palestinians.

Upsetting Iran, China, Russia more important than indulging Palestinians
This letter neglects Oslo’s multiple misfires. It reeks of the naivete of one signer, Martin Indyk. He recently tweeted after Mahmoud Abbas’s latest Jew-hating tirade: “How could someone who has treated me as a personal friend for three decades at the same time harbor such hateful views of my people?”

How could someone who has claimed to be a Middle East expert for three decades harbor such delusional views about his people’s most lethal enemies? Did he only now notice Palestinian – and Abbasian – antisemitism and anti-Zionism?

The central obstacle to peace with the Palestinians is not “Israeli settlement expansion.” Nor will the Palestinian problem be “solved” by lavishing more land or money on the Palestinians. Palestinian leaders – and Palestinian political culture – must first accept Israel’s existence as a Jewish state and end terrorism.

Pompeo: Two-state solution blocks Saudi-Israel peace deal

It could be "impossible" to establish a Saudi Arabia-Israel peace deal if a prerequisite is the Palestinians receiving or accepting a Palestinian state, according to former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Pompeo helped orchestrate the Abraham Accords under US President Donald Trump, which normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain. But he told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that "it is impossible to imagine a two-state solution with the current Palestinian leadership who is underwriting terrorism, taking money from Iran, paying citizens to kill Israelis.

"It is very difficult to imagine how one would strike a deal with the very leaders that have rejected every reasonable offer with which they have been presented."

Pompeo spoke to the Post the day after Saudi Arabia's first ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, Nayef al-Sudairi, visited Ramallah. During his visit, al-Sudairi emphasized that creating a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital would be a fundamental cornerstone in any prospective agreement with Israel.

"The Arab Peace Initiative is the central point of any upcoming agreement," al-Sudairi said.

Peace initiatives in the Middle East
Saudi Arabi's Arab Peace Initiative was initially ratified by the Arab League in 2002 and subsequently reaffirmed in 2007 and 2017. It requires a complete withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank and Golan Heights, establishing a Palestinian state with eastern Jerusalem as its capital and a "just settlement" of the Palestinian refugee crisis.

In speaking about normalization with Saudi Arabia at the United Nations General Assembly last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "We must not give the Palestinians a veto over new peace treaties with Arab states. The Palestinians could greatly benefit from a broader peace. They should be part of the process, but they should not have a veto over the process."

Ibrahim Abrash, a former minister of culture for the PA, writes in the Palestinian Sada News site another of the never ending antisemitic articles you can find there. It was copied and quoted in many other Arabic news sites.

The title is comparing Israel's policies to the Nazi Final Solution.

We are not about to dig up the history of the Jews in Europe and the world nor enter into a debate about the suffering and persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany during World War II from 1939-1945, but what caught our attention is a phenomenon that Ibn Khaldun had previously touched upon in his well-known introduction, which is that: “The conquered nations resemble the conquering nations,” and what psychologists later confirmed is that the victim imitates the executioner in terms of admiration for his strength and tyranny, which later pushes her, despite what she suffered at the hands of the executioner, to imitate his style of dealing with others, and she herself turns into an executioner who practices the same logic of superiority, tyranny, and types of torture with others who fall under their authority and rule.

This is what we see today in the way the Zionists, victims of the Holocaust, deal with the Palestinian people. In this context, we noticed the great similarity between the “Final Solution Plan” drawn up by the Nazis during World War II to get rid of the Jews in Germany and the “Decision Plan” drawn up by the Zionist right and extremist Smotrich to get rid of the Palestinians and end the conflict.

....The Holocaust, which the Zionists claim killed 6 million Jews, is one of the most important tools of the plan for the preferred description of the Jews for what they were exposed to in Germany, - although Western thinkers and researchers, including the Frenchman Roger Garaudy, refuted with documents and scientific analysis the validity of the number, as he said that the number of Jews in Germany at the beginning of the war was not 6 million: How did the Nazis kill 6 million and millions of people who were rescued remained inside Germany or fled from it to America, European countries and Palestine?

He starts off saying that the Holocaust happened, - and then quotes a famous Holocaust denier saying it didn't happen or was exaggerated.

So in one article, we have Holocaust denial, Holocaust trivialization and Holocaust inversion (saying Jews are the new Nazis.)

Every definition of antisemitism, even the ones drafted by defenders of Palestinian antisemitism, includes Holocaust denial as an example of antisemitism. Yet somehow these drafters of the "progressive" definition stay quiet when someone they support exhibits the very Holocaust denial that they jump to condemn with it comes from the Right.

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Yesterday, Saudi diplomat Nayef al-Sudairi arrived in Ramallah as the Saudi envoy to the Palestinian Authority.

He did all the things skittish Palestinians want to see as they get increasingly nervous about a Saudi-Israel normalization deal that leaves them behind.

The position is called "ambassador" implying that Palestine is a real country.

Al-Sudairi visited Yasir Arafat's grave and placed a wreath on his tomb. He also visited the Yasir Arafat Museum.

He told Abbas at the official ceremony "God willing, this visit will be the beginning of strengthening more relations in all fields.”

He tweeted, "From the beloved state of #Palestine #Land_of_Canaan, the most beautiful greetings, coupled with the love of my Lord #the_Custodian_of_the_Two_Holy_Mosques and His Highness Sir #the_Crown_Prince."

But all of this pomp and ceremony is geared towards what Palestinians love the most: symbolism. They crave relevance and respect and often confuse those with actual gains.

For over a decade now, Palestinians have done nothing to advance peace or to make the lives of their people any better, but they celebrate anything that gives them apparent legitimacy. The official Wafa news agency is filled with press releases of Abbas sending or receiving congratulatory messages with real countries.

The Saudis have turned into world class politicians. They have skillfully managed relations with both China and the US, and they are doing the same between Iran and Israel. They are working hard to include Israel into their vision of an integrated Middle East that they lead. Their US ambassador Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud described their vision last July:

Her country envisions Israel belonging to an “integrated Middle East”.

In line with Saudi Vision 2030, the diplomat said that Riyadh desires a “thriving Israel” and a “thriving Palestine”, adding that “Vision 2030 talks about a unified, integrated, thriving Middle East, and last I checked Israel was there…we want a thriving Red Sea economy”.

Princess Reema stressed that Saudi Arabia’s focus is on integration, not normalisation, with Israel. “We don’t say normalisation, we talk about an integrated Middle East, unified [as] a bloc like Europe, where we all have sovereign rights and sovereign states, but we have a shared and common interest,” asserted the Saudi ambassador.

“So that’s not normalisation. Normalisation is you’re sitting there, and I’m sitting here, and we kind of coexist, but separately. Integration means our people collaborate, our businesses collaborate, and our youth thrive.”

The Saudis are smartly offering intangibles to Israel, the US and Palestinians to gain in exchange real physical benefits - a civilian nuclear program that could become the basis of a military nuclear program if Iran builds a nuclear weapon, a mutual defense pact with the US, and access to top-level military and intelligence technology.

The pretense of embracing Palestinian nationhood is mostly lip service so the Palestinians don't try to blow up normalization with Israel. Normalization with Israel is a carrot to get the US to provide the green light for the arms and civilian nuclear program (which also requires Israel's approval.) Acting warmly with China and Iran gives incentive for the US and Israel to not want to be left behind. And ultimately, Saudi Arabia wants a Middle East where it is the leader and major beneficiary of all commercial, political and even religious decisions.

Israel has to think long and hard about the costs and benefits of normalization. It shouldn't only look at the intangibles, because many of the tangible benefits of peace are already there. Israel is already meeting with Saudis, it is probably already sharing intelligence with Saudis, it is probably already trading with Saudis via the UAE. Saudi Arabia won't veto the proposed rail line that would speed up trade with Europe via Haifa if a full peace deal is not signed.

In may ways, Israel's vision of the Middle East dovetails with Saudi Arabia's. It just shouldn't be seduced by symbolism, the way the Saudis are doing with the Palestinians.

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Palestinians force Tunisian Muslim woman out of Al Aqsa:"You walk with the Jews!"

Rabbi Yehuda Glick posted on his Facebook this photo and caption:

On the evening of Yom Kippur we prayed at the Temple Mount together.

Muslim Christian and Jew

We prayed for not one God that peace will come

About us and all mankind

May this place be a house of prayer for all nations.

In practically no time, the story spread and the woman - who is apparently Tunisian but traveling with a European passport - was refused entry to Al Aqsa when she tried to enter the site again on Tuesday.

In this video, a Palestinian man berates the Muslim woman woman who just wanted to pray. He tells her “Go outside, please. Oh, go outside. You walk with the Jews. You walk with Yehuda Glick. I never want to see you here again!"

The woman weakly protests but remains perfectly calm and while being berated.

Some angry Arabic sites identify her as Moroccan, which adds an extra layer of hate since Morocco had normalized relations with Israel.

The woman asked Glick to hide her face in his Facebook post, which he did. But it was too late; the original photo had already been published and spread.

Yet Glick's attempt to minimize the damage shows that he cares more about the welfare of this Muslim woman than Palestinian Muslims do.

Palestinians are cheering the man who forced a Muslim woman to leave the holy site.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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09/26 Links Pt2: 50 years ago, Israel was nearly destroyed; Jamaal Bowman Poses with Anti-Semitic CAIR Official; Uni of Cape Town hosts talk by Hezbollah spokesman

From Ian:

Isaac Herzog: The two main lessons of the Yom Kippur War

In his testimony before the Agranat Commission that investigated the Yom Kippur War, Col. Gabi Amir described the fateful and difficult hours of the fighting in the Sinai Peninsula as follows: The units “reported on the radios that the enemy was advancing and starting to attack us…I saw that at a distance of three to four kilometers from me, tanks and APCs were advancing, stopping, and shooting—and between them a huge amount of infantry. All of that was marching toward us, forward. It was a scene none of us had ever witnessed before. We got permission to withdraw. We received permission, but we did not retreat.”

Even 50 years after the Yom Kippur War, the reason the war ended as it did is clear to everyone. It was the bravery and resourcefulness of the commanders and fighters in the field that stood despite the failure of warning and deterrence that resulted in an existential threat to Israel; their dedication, courage, initiative, devotion and self-sacrifice; a sense shared by all of the responsibility for the nation and homeland.

It is thanks to them that the war in which Israel started out at a disadvantage ended with an impressive victory.

I was of bar mitzvah age when the war broke out, and since then, every year on the Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror, growing up in Tel Aviv’s Tzahala neighborhood, the names of the 11 heroes from the area who fell in the war echoed in my ears: neighbors and friends, the siblings of my best friends, my brother’s best friends. The war left its mark on an entire generation that suffered a fatal blow and experienced a great fracture. I do not know if the wounds sustained 50 years ago will ever heal.

The war taught us two major lessons that remain relevant even after half a century.

The first was best described by my father, the late sixth President Chaim Herzog, in his book “War of Atonement: The Inside Story of the Yom Kippur War.”

In it, he wrote that following Israel’s incredible victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, there was an atmosphere of “we were like dreamers” in society that led to the IDF ignoring its many weaknesses revealed during the conflict, including those pertaining to intelligence regarding the Arabs’ intentions, which turned out to be false.

The Yom Kippur War further reinforced the lesson that Israel needs to be prepared for any and all scenarios and work to produce quality, integrated and diverse intelligence while operating with humility and constant self-examination.

We learned not to ignore the signs of approaching war and bask in the euphoria of the achievements of the past, however great they may be. The world must know that Israel can protect itself by itself—in any way, at any time and in any place.

And there is a second, equally important lesson: not to ignore the signs of peace. In hindsight, it became clear that then-President of Egypt Anwar Sadat conveyed clear messages in the year leading up to the Yom Kippur War regarding his desire for a peace treaty. Unfortunately, just as the signs of war were ignored 50 years ago, so was the hand outstretched in peace.

And the peace that seemed impossible just a few years prior became a reality, largely thanks to Israel’s victory in the war.

Daniel Greenfield: 50 years ago, Israel was nearly destroyed

What has been happening in the last 50 years is a kind of slow-motion military and diplomatic Yom Kippur War, in which Israel gradually retreats from territories, relying on defensive positions that can’t hold up and diplomatic agreements that are worthless in the long run.

Even the Abraham Accords, widely hailed and hyped, that brought together Israel and some of America’s smaller Arab oil allies to oppose Iran’s growing power, were once again based on Israel abandoning domestic moves and initiatives to solidly lay claim to parts of the Jewish State.

Kissinger used to sneer that “Israel has no foreign policy, only a domestic policy.” Now Israel has no domestic policy, only a foreign policy. It has sacrificed its interests to a failed regional and nation-building strategy hatched in Washington, D.C., and premised on completely misguided assumptions about the Middle East, and how societies in this region work.

Fifty years after the Yom Kippur War, the generals and soldiers who had come out of the “kibbutz” outposts have resentfully been making way for new soldiers who come from the outposts of the “settlements.” Where the kibbutz was primarily a socialist experiment, the settlement is primarily a religious Zionist one. Its families raise nine children, not in communal creches, but in homes and around Shabbat tables.

Labor’s twin failures in the Yom Kippur War and the Oslo Accords destroyed its credibility. The majority of Israelis that it had been keeping down, Mizrahi refugees from the Muslim world, religious Jews, Holocaust survivors, Russian immigrants and settlers, helped put the conservative Zionist Likud in power and make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the country’s longest-serving leader, beating out David Ben-Gurion. The current violent leftist protests against the government’s judicial reform initiative are primarily an attack on a new Israeli majority that is not beholden to the failed leftist experiments of the past.

Despite all this, Israel’s military leadership draws on the same incestuous elite, which has yet to be tested in any major military conflict. If the Yom Kippur War were to play out again, there is little doubt that most of Israel’s new generation of soldiers would respond just as heroically, as they have through the smaller-scale conflicts against Islamic terrorists, but the generals remain a question mark. Unlike the old generals who took the initiative, Israel’s current generals, like America’s generals, are focused on averting wars and avoiding any escalation of existing conflicts.

American generals obsessed with avoiding conflict are covering for a state of military unreadiness. Israeli generals fearful of any conflict may be doing the same thing.

The Yom Kippur War showed that the “safer bet” of relying on defenses like the Iron Dome isn’t really safe at all. When your enemies outnumber you and their ruthlessness is endless, playing defense is not a survival option. Israel thrived when it attacked brilliantly and unexpectedly. Under the “technological genius” of defenses like the Iron Dome, Israelis in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are back to huddling in bomb shelters the way that they did during the old wars.

Ever since Israel was nearly destroyed in the Yom Kippur War because Golda and Dayan had put all their trust in Kissinger, proposals to take out Iran’s nuclear program have repeatedly come up against the objections of Washington, D.C. Similarly, any effort to seriously deal with Hamas fizzles out in the same way. Fifty years later, Israel still can’t allow itself to strike first.

And yet, just as in the Yom Kippur War, the hour may come when Israeli leaders have to decide whether to strike first without getting permission from D.C. or face the destruction of their nation.

Jonathan Tobin: Yom Kippur 50 years later: Rethinking Golda’s reputation

That Meir chose not to strike first and fully mobilize Israel’s army before the Egyptians and Syrians attacked for the sake of not alienating the United States was in complete contrast to her past stands in which she almost always disdained those, like her Foreign Minister Abba Eban, who were more worried about international opinion than Israel’s military advantage.

Still, it’s difficult to blame her for succumbing to American pressure at the beginning of the war, given Israel’s dependence on the United States for resupplying arms in the face of the Soviet Union’s full commitment to the Egyptians and Syrians. Lacking any expertise in military affairs, she was also completely dependent on the faltering Dayan and the rest of her advisers, like Military Intelligence Chief Gen. Eli Zeira, whom just about everyone agrees was the most culpable of them all.

Nor is it certain that an Israeli first strike just prior to the war would have worked since, as Israel’s military leaders soon realized, they hadn’t accounted for the ability of their foes to use Soviet missiles that, at least initially, neutralized the IDF’s edge in the air and on the ground with tanks that were equally vulnerable to the new technology. Yet once the Egyptians and Syrians had dissipated the advantage they gained from achieving near complete surprise, the Israelis were able to improvise solutions and eventually achieve military victories.

As the Nativ film and the Kaufman book both persuasively argue, despite mistakes, Meir deserves full credit for ably managing the relationship with a Nixon administration that was ambivalent about Israel as well as riding herd on generals who fought each other as much as the enemy. Meir’s telling Dayan to “forget about it”—in English, not Hebrew—when, seemingly unhinged, he suggested using Israel’s nuclear weapons, makes clear that it was the 75-year-old woman who was the toughest and most level-headed person in the cabinet room.

Even Kissinger, who, though no Zionist, was relatively sympathetic to Israel, was prepared to let the war start on the Arabs’ terms and end in such a way as to deny the Jewish state the complete victory its soldiers had earned. Kissinger’s equivocal role in the war is also a subject of unending debate. He may have facilitated and ensured Israel’s resupply of arms that were necessary to sustain its defense; however, he also ruthlessly exploited that dependence to achieve his own objectives. He made a crucial blunder of his own that rivals any of those made by either side in the fighting. Kissinger’s failure to use his rescuing of Egypt’s doomed Third Army in the last days of the war to force the Saudis to renounce the Arab oil boycott of the West that had a devastating impact on the lives of ordinary Americans.

But in remembering the Yom Kippur War, restoring Golda Meir’s image is far from the most important issue. The main lesson is rejecting overconfidence and the contempt for their enemies that convinced Israel’s leaders that a surprise attack was impossible. Equally as important is avoiding ever being put in a position again where Israel’s security is dependent on the sometimes dubious goodwill of other nations.

Fifty years later, Israel is in a far stronger position than it was on Yom Kippur 1973 for a great many reasons. Still, it continues to face pressure from friends as well as foes—like a potentially nuclear Iran. Meir had many shortcomings, and it’s unlikely that the generation that lived through that crisis will ever be persuaded to forgive her. But her successors would do well to emulate her cynicism about the world and the necessity for self-reliance. Though some dismiss her attitudes as relics of a bygone era of Tsarist oppression and the Holocaust, Meir’s relentless insistence on defending her country’s interests and, wherever possible, preferring tangible strategic assets to the sympathy of an international community that is just as unsympathetic to Israel today as it was a half-century ago makes just as much sense now as it did then.

The Caroline Glick Show: What the IDF still doesn't understand about the Yom Kippur War

Did the army ever really understand what happened on in the Yom Kippur War?
This week we marked the 50th anniversary of that watershed moment in Israel's history. The war’s hold on Israeli society remains as powerful as ever – indeed more powerful than ever. To discuss the way that the war impacted the men who fought it, and generations of IDF leaders since, Caroline’s guest on this week’s Caroline Glick Show was Maj. General (res.) Gershon Hacohen. They discuss
- how come some of the veterans of that war took a radical turn to the left
- how Israel has changed from 1973 until the present day and how it has not
- America's role in that fateful war and what it teaches about Israel's relationship with the US

New documentary follows Israeli who discovers family’s past as Egyptian spies

Daniel Ben-David grew up in what appeared to be a regular Jewish-Israeli family, albeit perhaps more secretive than most. They marked the High Holidays, celebrated weddings, bar mitzvahs and births, and lived typical Israeli lives.

But as an adult, Ben-David discovered that his roots weren’t Jewish or Israeli at all, but Palestinian-Egyptian. His family was forced to flee Egypt to the Jewish state after having spied on their home country for about seven years.

It sounds like a story out of a spy novel, but it is the reality for Ben-David, whose journey of discovery of his family history is at the center of a new Yes documentary, “The Spy Family.”

The film follows the story of the Shahin family: a Palestinian father, his Egyptian wife, and their three children who all served as agents for Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War.

Ben-David is the son of Yossi Ben-David, formerly Nabil Shahin, one of the three children. He grew up knowing his secretive father had come from Egypt, but little else.

“We grew up in a Jewish Israeli family in every way. We would do the official holidays, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot,” Daniel told Channel 12 news, in a report on the documentary aired Saturday. “The family was secretive. This is what they did all their life. It was very difficult to uncover this.”

Ibrahim Shahin, Nabil’s father and Ben-David’s grandfather, was a Jerusalem-born Palestinian whose family fled to Egypt following the 1948 establishment of Israel. There he met Inshirah, an Egyptian native, who became his wife. The couple had three children and were working in the city of el-Arish, in the Sinai Peninsula, when it was captured by Israel during the Six-Day War. Their three sons –Nabil (Ben-David’s father), Muhammad, and Adel — were in Cairo at the time.

At the same time, Micah Kobi was serving in Unit 504 of the Israel Defense Forces’ Intelligence Branch, which employs foreign agents for Israel. He came to el-Arish in search of agents, and began conducting interviews with the hundreds of Egyptians who remained in the occupied city.

There, he came upon Ibrahim Shahin.

“I see a person who smiles a huge smile,” Kobi told Channel 12. He asked Shahin if he would be willing to work for Israel. “He told me: I will help you with anything you want, I love Israel.”

Shahin and his wife were able to bring their children from Cairo, and all five undertook a training program at a secret apartment in the Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim. Shahin’s desire to include his children in the plot was controversial.

“I personally was against the need for children. I thought that children could complicate the network,” Kobi said.

But the decision was made. After completing their preparations, the family went back to Egypt, where the parents began forging connections with top officials, including security figures. At Unit 504, they were given the codename “The Sinyori Network.”

Israeli medics at the scene of a fatal Palestinian car crash in 2017

From The New York Review of Books:

Heading Toward a Second Nakba
David Shulman
Nathan Thrall argues that the accident in which Abed Salama’s son died was a predictable, even inevitable, outcome of the Israeli occupation in its quotidian forms.

On a stormy winter day in February 2012, a Palestinian bus carrying schoolchildren on an outing collided with an Israeli trailer truck on the notoriously dangerous Jaba‘ Road near the West Bank village of A-Ram, not far from Ramallah. The bus burst into flames; six young children and one teacher were killed and others were seriously injured. Among the dead was Milad, the five-year-old son of Abed Salama, from the town of Anata. Nathan Thrall has made the story of that accident and that family the thread that binds together A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, a penetrating, wide-ranging, heart-wrenching exploration of life in Palestine under Israeli occupation. I know of no other writing on Israel and Palestine that reaches this depth of perception and understanding.

There is indeed something emblematic about the accident. The Jaba‘ Road is entirely within Area C, the 62 percent of the occupied West Bank that is under full Israeli control, where today there are close to two hundred settlements and settler outposts. Because of the nightmarish maze of roads in the Ramallah area—some of them closed altogether to Palestinians, others blocked by army checkpoints to keep Palestinians without special permits from entering Israel—rescuers were slow in reaching the site of the accident. They were also slow in evacuating the injured, many of them badly burned, to hospitals in Ramallah or inside Israel. Fire trucks, army medics, and ambulances were only a mile or two away in nearby Jewish settlements but failed to arrive quickly. Israeli ambulances coming from Jerusalem were held up for critical minutes at the checkpoints. Moreover, Palestinian neighborhoods in the vicinity of the Separation Barrier had (and some still have) almost no emergency or police services. As one of the Palestinian rescuers at the site of the accident later formulated what had happened: “If it had been two Palestinian children throwing stones on the road, the army would have been there in no time. When Jews are in danger, Israel sends helicopters. But a burning bus full of Palestinian children….”

...No one wanted to kill those children along with one of their teachers. Israeli rescuers and soldiers who finally reached the accident site did their best to save the injured. But the central point of Thrall’s narrative is that this disaster, like today’s ongoing violence in the Palestinian territories in general, was a predictable, even inevitable, outcome of the occupation system in its quotidian forms. It is a regime of state terror whose raison d’être is the theft of Palestinian land and, whenever possible, the expulsion of its Palestinian owners. I have seen this system in operation over the course of the past twenty-odd years.

I did not read the book, and probably won't. But this review already shows the incredible bias and the desire by Thrall to bend any evidence towards his foregone conclusion.

First of all, the driver of the Israeli truck was an Arab.

An average of two to three Palestinian Arabs are killed every week in road accidents. In 2022, there were 144 fatalities in over 16,000 accidents.

Palestinians acknowledge the epidemic of car accidents, and when they are not speaking to Westerners they blame themselves, not Israel, for these deaths. Ten reasons for Palestinian car crashes are listed in this article:

1- Narrow roads

2- Drivers who ignore traffic laws and basic safety, tailgating, passing vehicles on the opposite side of the road.

3- Not maintaining their cars.

4- Using a mobile phone while driving .

5- Low traffic awareness .

6- Young people and teenagers driving vehicles .

7- Drivers showing off.

8- Buildings being built right up to the roads.

9- Drug users who park their cars on the roads away from home.

10- Vehicles from Israel, often that would not pass Israeli inspections, being sold or stolen and used.

Even in Israel, the majority of car accidents involve young Arab drivers.

But what about the supposed delay of help for Milad and the other children? Wasn't that Israel's fault?

It doesn't seem to be true. News reports from the time say:

Following the accident, Palestinian health minister Fathi Abu Mughli accused Israeli rescue services of failing to provide timely assistance, resulting in more casualties. Ma’ariv reported that eyewitness report contradict Abu Mughli’s claim.

Israeli and Palestinian rescue teams transferred at least 30 casualties to hospitals in Ramallah, Petah Tikva and Jerusalem, Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Israel Radio reported that it took rescue forces seven minutes to reach the scene of the accident.

Thrall believed the Palestinian health ministry, which has a track record of lying, over the Israeli authorities. Which tells you all you need to know about his interest in the facts.

In other accidents involving Arabs in Area C, Israeli and "settler" ambulances rush to the scene to help, indicating who is telling the truth..

Earlier this year a 12-year old Palestinian Arab boy in the West Bank was internally decapitated when he was hit by an Arab car, and doctors in Israel performed an extremely rare and delicate surgery to save his life.

A similar horrific accident as Milad's from 2017 where there was a 3-way collision between an armored Israeli bus, a Palestinian minibus and a Palestinian car saw a swarm of Magen David Adom ambulances and an IDF doctor on the scene within minutes trying to save lives.

In 2017, in another fatal West Bank car accident, a nine month old Arab baby survived while his father was killed and his mother unconscious. The baby refused to drink from a bottle so the Israeli Jewish nurse volunteered to breastfeed him. She put out a call on Facebook asking for other volunteers and Jewish women from as far away as Haifa wanted to help.

The "Jewish supremacy" and "racism" that Thrall takes as a given is an anti-Israel paranoid fantasy. Jews, even "settlers," help Palestinian Arabs in trouble, all the time.

In other words, the very basis of Nathan Thrall's book is built on lies. And that is how anti-Israel writers like Thrall and the reviewer work: not only will they only look at selected evidence that supports their thesis - they will twist counter-evidence to pretend it is evidence.

This supposed microcosm of Israeli evil is anything but. The only malicious actors in this little drama are Nathan Thrall and David Shulman.

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