Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 03, 2023

10/03 Links Pt1: What have the Palestinian Arabs ever done to deserve concessions?; A ‘Samuel Accord’ for Saudi Arabia and Israel; Saudi team cancels match in Iran over Soleimani bust

From Ian:

What have the Palestinian Arabs ever done to deserve concessions?

If any concessions are made to the Palestinian Arabs, and this must be a BIG IF, there must this time be a demand for reciprocal concessions and some substantial give from the them, which must be monitored and policed and, if broken in the slightest, will immediately be cancelled and withdrawn without any further negotiations. This will be and must be entirely at Israel’s discretion and applied. It is more than time to treat the Palestinians like adults and demand they act accordingly.

In short, a significant sword must be held over the Palestinian Arabs' heads with the Palestinian Arabs clearly understanding they have to comply and running in their usual cry baby routine to the United Nations, the International Criminal Court or any other world body will not help. If they break their commitments, they and the world will know about it.

It is time for the Palestinian Arabs to grow up. In all the years of fighting, terrorising, random murders and sabotaging Israel plus their “great” contribution of airline hijackings, what have they achieved? What have they built? Have they built a country in Gaza or in Area A? In reality they have built nothing. They have been spongers, parasites on the world and for various reasons, which includes anti-Semitism, Europe has endlessly financed them as has America.

As American administrations change and the Democrats take over, so laws are broken and ignored and huge funds are sent to the Palestinian Arabs, all of which have contributed enormously to Arafat dying a billionaire, Mahmoud Abbas becoming a multi-millionaire if not a billionaire with a palace in Ramallah. All the heads of Hamas et al are billionaires…. and their people continue to suffer and live in squalor and in poverty.

What is there for their male youth to do? They grow up with no other ambition than to become a terrorist. Their hormones and testosterone raging in a restrictive and backward tribal, religious and medieval culture. To the Western world the idea of being rewarded as a “martyr” with seventy two black eyed virgins is ridiculous and shows just how restricted, controlled and deprived their lives amongst their own are. Is Islamic paradise one continuous orgy? How pornographic and limited can they get?

Financing the Palestinian Arabs ad nauseum only achieves more terrorism. This has been going on far too long without any demands for civilised sensible results. What has happened to the concept of teaching a man to fish? The solution is to force the Palestinian Arabs into modernity. Force them to create and build a normal society on their own with a functioning economy and opportunity for all to make a decent living. It is beyond time they acquired themselves decent leadership and joined the civilised world.

Western youth are imbued with ambition to establish themselves, build businesses, careers, families etc. What have the Palestinian Arab youth to look forward to in their cultures, in their living areas, in Gaza? Nothing!..... Except the machoness, aggression and the madness of terrorism, joining Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PFLP, Lion’s Den and a myriad of sub-groups all increasingly armed, sponsored, used and abused by Iran. There is nothing except death in becoming a “martyr”, no matter how much brainwashing comes from the mullahs.

So we come back to our original question, what have the Palestinian Arabs ever done to deserve concessions? Have they shown the slightest reliable promise to do anything or create anything when their sole misguided ambition is to destroy Israel, chase the Jews into the sea and then what? Go on sponging off the Europeans and Americans whilst threatening them and hating them? And when they have through their stealth invasion of Europe destroyed and turned that continent into the hell holes they come from, what then?

Jonathan Tobin: Who lost the battle to stop Iran’s nuclear quest?

Kerry’s Iran collusion and Trump’s failure
Another possible scapegoat is former President Donald Trump.

Obama apologists do blame Trump for withdrawing from the JCPOA and attempting to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear quest with sanctions and threats. They say his decision torpedoed an imperfect but still working plan to stop Iran without a viable alternative in place. That’s mistaken because the Obama deal was a failure from the start and was going to have to be replaced sooner or later.

In the end, Trump failed during his four years in office to achieve a better Iran nuclear deal or to stop their efforts altogether. But the primary blame for that failure was not his. Had Iran believed that it had no alternative but to return to the negotiating table or to face complete isolation and economic ruin, Trump’s plan would, at the very least, have had a chance to succeed.

They didn’t believe that. The reason was that they were betting on Trump being defeated in 2020 and being replaced with a Democrat who would return to Obama’s strategy of appeasement/containment. Had Biden acknowledged while running for president that the JCPOA was a sham and made clear that he would stick with pressure to get a better deal that would end the threat rather than merely kick the can down the road, Iran might conceivably have been left with no choice but to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Instead, he promised more appeasement.

Even worse than that, former Secretary of State John Kerry met repeatedly with the Iranians in 2018 and advised them to ignore Trump’s moves and “maximum pressure” campaign. He assured them that if they merely sat tight and waited for 2021, they could have everything they wanted. They took his advice and that, as much as anything, is why Iran is now only 12 days away from a bomb.

Kerry’s collusion with Iran wasn’t merely ill-advised; his actions advising an enemy of the United States to thwart government policy was arguably one of the most disgraceful actions undertaken by an American in the history of the republic. That he got away with those actions, which are close to treasonous, and subsequently received the reward of another high office as Biden’s climate czar only makes it worse. While Americans spent three years being lied to by the media and the Democrats about Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia, it was Kerry’s open collusion with Iran that should have generated outrage rather than shrugs and yawns. The “echo chamber” that Obama staffers like Ben Rhodes created in the media ensured that Iranian appeasement stayed on track even after Trump won in 2016.

Obama’s bad deal
Kerry doesn’t stand alone as the man who is most responsible for ensuring that Iran became a threshold nuclear power. Former President Barack Obama came into office determined to realign American foreign policy away from traditional allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, and his Iran appeasement did just that. It did have the unintended consequence of bringing Israel together with the Arab states in a way that made the Abraham Accords possible. But in 2013, when Obama and Kerry began their initial secret negotiations with Iran, the international community had—thanks in part to Netanyahu’s warnings—endorsed tough sanctions. With American leadership, that could have brought Iran to its knees. Instead, the United States wound up being the ones begging Iran for a deal and abandoning sanctions.

It took 20 years of bad decisions to bring the world to the point where everyone must acknowledge that Iran has succeeded, and Israel and the West failed.

But Obama, Kerry and their foreign-policy team that embraced Iranian appeasement must bear the primary guilt for this appalling and dangerous situation. Honest histories of this debacle—assuming a future in which anti-Trump and anti-Netanyahu partisanship is no longer assumed from the academy and supposedly reputable historians—will judge them harshly. The consequences that will ensue from an Iran terrorist state that is only 12 days from a nuclear weapon are terrible, even unimaginable. In the years to follow, we will learn just how much their feckless policies, lies and collusion with Islamist murderers will cost the peoples of the Middle East and the rest of the world in blood and agony.

Caroline Glick: ‘We the People’ begin to speak

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his family packed their bags Monday night for their vacation on the Golan Heights.

The police also made their routine preparations. They set up a water cannon outside the hotel where the Netanyahus are staying to prevent leftist rioters from getting near the premier and his family.

On the face of things, the left’s insurrectionists are as strong as ever. They have unlimited funds to spend on their activities. They are guided by Israel’s most talented PR executives. They receive wall-to-wall support from 95% of Israeli media outlets. And, acting on orders from Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, the police are prohibited from enforcing the law against them.

The insurgents’ current target is religious Judaism and religious Jews.

On Sunday night, a group of leftist male bullies stormed a movie screening for ultra-Orthodox girls and women in Jerusalem to block them from watching a film without males in the room.

Haaretz reporter Yael Freidson cheered them on, writing on X/Twitter, “Neighborhood men appeared at a [film] screening that was organized for women and girls, and prevented the same-sex event from taking place. For those who didn’t understand from the events of recent weeks, the contract has been reopened.”

Freidson’s allusion to “the contract” relates to Israel’s social contract, which permits autonomy and use of public spaces for various religious and social sectors in Israel’s multicultural society. The leftist insurrection now demands that freedom of access be blocked for people who aren’t like them.

Freidson’s mention of “the contract” was also an allusion to a new political party. In August, the heads of Brothers in Arms, the insurgency’s habitually violent paramilitary force, formed a political party called “New Contract.” It will run candidates in the municipal elections scheduled for Oct. 31. The goal is to win enough seats on municipal councils to prevent mayors from forming governing coalitions or otherwise cooperating with religious parties and Likud.

At the State Department briefing yesterday, a reporter I don't recognize asked a question:

In light of UNRWA donors’ – that’s a UN agency – recent meetings at the UN, will the U.S. ask the UN to inspect and disarm UNRWA refugee camps that have become well-equipped arsenals? And I have a follow-up question.

The question and answer were a bit muddled, but it brings up a point that is rarely mentioned in the media.

All of the major Palestinian militias that have emerged over the past two years came from UNRWA "refugee" camps.

The IDF has not had to invade Jenin -but the Jenin camp. Not Nablus - but the Balata camp. Not Tulkarem - but the Nur Shams camp.

And in Lebanon, many have been killed from infighting in the Ein al-Hilweh camp.

UNRWA is not responsible for security in the camps. But the bigger question is, why do these camps exist to begin with?

There are no longer refugee camps in India and Pakistan from 14 million refugees in the 1940s. The displaced persons camps in Europe for the tens of millions of World War II refugees were closed in the 1950s.

Why do the 600,000 Palestinian refugees from 1948 still have camps?

And especially in areas under Palestinian control, why are there camps at all? It's been nearly 30 years since Oslo and Palestinian self-rule - why do they keep the camps instead of treating their own citizens equally?

Palestinians claim that they want to live in dignity. Where is the dignity of living in a cramped, crowded area ruled by masked terrorists who plant IEDs on every street corner?

Why aren't the Palestinians in the Jenin camp all moved to live in dignity in the rest of Jenin?

These camps, ostensibly to help Palestinians, end up prolonging Palestinian suffering. And what the media refuses to report is that this is a feature, not a bug. The camps provide the media with photo-ops to show Palestinian suffering - and blaming Israel for it, without the cameras widening their views beyond the two square miles of these real open-air prisons.

Here is what Jenin looks like outside the camp. It sure doesn't look like the Jenin we see in the media.

If you care about Palestinians, you should want to see these camps dismantled. If you care more about destroying Israel than helping Palestinians, then you want the camps to stay exactly where they are, forever, to provide a never-ending supply of angry young men to be the next generation of terrorists.

And not one nation on Earth is publicly demanding the first option.

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Mahmoud Abbas says that America, not Israel, occupies Palestine, and Israeli women are not allowed to demonstrate with men

Mahmoud Abbas has been saying bizarre things whenever he goes off script for years.

I even saw a columnist praise him for his UN speech for not deviating from the official written script too much, because every time he does he ends up saying something spectacularly stupid.

His antisemitism and hate come through clearly when he speaks extemporaneously. That's when he says things like rabbis call to poison Palestinian wells or that Jews own actions are the reason for the Holocaust.

This latest example isn't quite as egregious but it shows that Abbas is increasingly untethered from reality.

At the “Digital Life and Creativity” forum in Ramallah today, Abbas said, “When Israel says that it is celebrating its independence day, it has gained independence from whom? Who was occupying the State of Israel so that it celebrates the anniversary of its freedom from this occupation? This is a big lie.”

He then said that "America is the one occupying Palestine."

Abbas also claimed that Palestinian women have more human rights than those in Israel, seeming to believe that the mechitza in the Tel Aviv Yom Kippur incident means that Israel believes that "women are an impure gender and it is not permissible for them to walk with men in demonstrations."

Who knew?

He then said that the success of Palestinian women in universities is in contrast to how poorly women are treated in Israel.

As we have mentioned before, the Palestinian Authority has numerous laws discriminating against women, according to the UN:

And his concern for equal rights for women can be seen in his PLO meetings, whose Executive Committee does not have a single woman member.

It is hard to know whether this is senility of simply an extension of the lies that Palestinian leaders have been addicted to over their short history, but then again, what is the difference?

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This is from the official Palestinian Authority Wafa news agency. Not Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but the "moderate peace partners:"

Settlers desecrate the Ibrahimi Mosque and hold a concert inside it

Hundreds of settlers desecrated the Ibrahimi Mosque (Tomb of the Patriarchs) tonight and held a concert in its courtyards, under heavy protection by the Israeli occupation forces .

Our correspondent reported that hundreds of settlers organized a singing party, including Talmudic dances, inside the Ibrahimi Mosque, to celebrate the Jewish holidays, while the occupation forces imposed strict military measures in the vicinity of the Mosque and the Old Town of the city to secure these celebrations .

Our correspondent stated that the settlers stormed the sanctuary, accompanied by the occupation forces, brought in musical instruments and loudspeakers, and organized a singing concert in a flagrant violation of places of worship.

The director of the Hebron Waqf, Nidal Al-Jaabari, noted to Wafa that the occupation forces allowed their settlers to bring in musical instruments and loudspeakers in the context of imposing their complete control over the Ibrahimi Mosque and its surroundings, at a time when the Palestinians are not allowed to enter the sanctuary’s necessary supplies for maintenance and restoration....

Al-Jaabari considered that what the occupation is doing is a blatant violation of places of worship and the privacy of Muslims, which must be curbed with all force by arriving at the Sanctuary, and placing ambassadors, consuls, and all human rights and humanitarian associations in the world with a view to what is taking place inside and around it of blatant violations and attacks by force of arms .

Al-Jabari saw that the occupation wants, through continuous Judaization operations, including broadcasting images of settlers dancing inside and outside it with all comfort and reassurance...

As we've mentioned many times, there are ten days a year that the Tomb of the Patriarchs is exclusively Muslim and ten days when it is exclusively Jewish. Those days are published well in advance. Yet every time the site is under Jewish control, the Palestinian Authority reports this as if it is a brand new violation.

What about this concert?

If the Jews of Hebron wanted to hold a concert in the site it wouldn't be any different from concerts in any synagogue worldwide. They would have every right to do so. But in this case, the concert that is called a "flagrant violation of places of worship" was held outside, in a tent!

You can watch the entire 5 hour concert here:

The Palestinians want to send international human rights groups to be witness to Jews celebrating the holiday known as "the season of our rejoicing" by singing and dancing. The sight of happy Jews would presumably enrage them as much as it does Palestinians.

The Palestinian Authority officially says that not only do Jews have no rights to their second holiest spot - but they also have no rights to play music and dance outside that building!

In short, they don't want Jews to have any religious rights at all. It might be barely acceptable for Jews to pray quietly in small, dark synagogues away from where any Muslims might be irritated, but Jewish worshipers must not be seen, and Jewish celebrants must not be heard.

I tis the same energy as a Palestinian media outlet this morning saying that Jews praying at the Western Wall are "Hundreds of Israeli settlers break[ing] into the Al-Buraq wall." Jews have no rights, period.

That is the "freedom of religion" that the Palestinians would allow the Jews in their State of Palestine. Not that any Jews would be allowed to live in Hebron or the Old City of Jerusalem to begin with, of course.

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10/02 Links Pt2: Israel won the Yom Kippur War - there should be no debate; Asked if Roger Waters is antisemitic, Sharon Osbourne says: ‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’

From Ian:

Michael Doran: The Hidden Calculation Behind the Yom Kippur War

Controversy surrounds the issue to this day. Did administrative inefficiencies and logistical difficulties cause the delays in delivery? Or did someone actively scuttle it? Was that person Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, known to be unsympathetic to Israel? Or Kissinger? Or both? In 1976, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, who had been chief of U.S. naval operations at the time, published a memoir claiming that Kissinger sought “to bleed” Israel to make it more compliant. For Israelis of a certain age, memories of this accusation evoke strong emotions.

But the testimony of Zumwalt, who was running for Senate as a Democrat when he made the accusation, is unconvincing. Throughout the war, Nixon and Kissinger remained true to their strategy of pursuing a balance that favored Israel—slightly—while trying to avoid any precipitous moves that would spark a direct Soviet escalation.

By the end of the first week of the war, Nixon realized that Moscow was exploiting American restraint beyond what he could tolerate. Brezhnev had launched a massive operation to resupply the armies of Syria and Egypt, and it was obvious to Nixon that the Arab coalition had no intention of pursuing a ceasefire. These facts convinced him and Kissinger that, in keeping with their promises to Meir in 1970, they had no choice but to match any weapons system that the Soviets might introduce into the Middle East. It was necessary to demonstrate to the world that America would put its weapons into more capable hands—Israeli hands—come what may.

Nixon called Kissinger on October 14 to emphasize that the resupply must not only be effective, but massive. “We are going to get blamed just as much for three planes as for 300. . . . Henry, I have no patience with the view that we send in a couple of planes. My point is, . . . if . . . we are going to make a move, it’s going to cost us. . . . I don’t think it’s going to cost us a damn bit more to send in more.” Two hours later Nixon called back for an update. “If I contribute anything to [this] discussion, it is [this]: don’t fool around with three planes. . . . Just go gung-ho.”

And they did. A total of 550 U.S. transport planes flew to Israel over the next few weeks. At its peak, one plane landed every fifteen minutes. Within a few days, the U.S. effort had surpassed the Soviet airlift to Egypt and Syria. At the same time, the administration placed before Congress a $2.2 billion request for emergency loans and grants to Israel.

Nixon and Kissinger delivered on all previous commitments to the Jewish state, risking a confrontation with the Soviets. When the administration placed nuclear forces around the world on alert, critics accused Nixon of manufacturing the crisis to distract from Watergate. If anything, the opposite was true. Fear that the United States might look impotent due to the president’s political travails convinced Kissinger and everyone else around the president of the necessity of sending a signal of seriousness to Moscow.

In sum, Kissinger and a wounded Nixon were behaving according to their strategy, which called for demonstrating that the United States would not be cowed by Soviet moves and that regional powers, such as Egypt, could attain their aspirations only within the American camp.

To Israelis traumatized by the Yom Kippur War, and by the deaths of friends, comrades in arms, and family members, Kissinger’s view that Israel is an asset in a larger game is disturbingly Machiavellian. To this day, mention of the former secretary of state often stirs strident reactions. In the view of the Israeli left, the Yom Kippur War could have been avoided, if only Washington and Jerusalem had been more attentive to Sadat. Instead, the argument goes, the U.S. let him stew in his own juices when a territory-for-peace agreement was already available. Those who accept this view take Kissinger to task for the strategic relationship that he and Nixon developed with Meir and Rabin between 1970 and 1973. In the view of the right, meanwhile, Kissinger deliberately weakened Israel—bled it, according to Zumwalt—in order to create a balance of power with Egypt.

In truth, neither accusation is true. Kissinger was completely transparent about his intentions. At a press conference on October 12, 1973, he stated them up front: “After hostilities broke out, the United States set itself two principal objectives. One, to end the hostilities as quickly as possible. Secondly, to end the hostilities in such a manner that they would contribute to the promotion of a more permanent, more lasting solution in the Middle East.” In other words, he wanted to use the war as a tool to achieve an important American objective.

V. The Upside
This leads us to the final way in which 1973 was unlike 1967: it produced a significant political settlement. With the help of Kissinger, Jerusalem and Cairo concluded a disengagement-of-forces agreement in February 1974. It was the first direct peaceful engagement between countries after nearly a quarter of a century of hostilities. In the 50 years that have passed by since, not a single shot has been exchanged in anger between Egypt and Israel. One day, Kissinger will meet his maker, and the totality of his actions will be weighed in the balance. When that day comes, his behavior on the Day Atonement 1973 will give him much less to atone for than his critics assume.

One could, of course, arrive at a very different conclusion based on the evidence presented here. If you believe that Israel’s failure to preempt—or even to mobilize sooner—was the essential blunder of 1973, then it wasn’t Golda Meir or Israeli arrogance or the konseptzia or Ashraf Marwan that was at fault. It was Nixon and Kissinger, who restrained Israel, and thus caused the meḥdal. But such an interpretation is narrowminded in the extreme. It ignores, first, how much the failure to understand the Egyptian concept of operations was responsible for the traumatic Israeli losses in the first few days of the war. More importantly, it fails to see the significance of the strategic alliance that Nixon and Kissinger cemented with Israel. They might have restrained Israel, but in return for Jerusalem’s cooperation they provided it with the arms necessary to win the war, a security commitment that endures to this day, and a strategic alliance.

And that brings us to the most crucial fact about the Yom Kippur War: it was a joint Israeli and American victory, even if it was for Sadat a successful military operation of the kind that he had envisioned from the beginning. By simultaneously repulsing the Syrians and the Egyptians and going on to threaten Cairo and Damascus, even in the face of an overwhelming surprise attack, the IDF demonstrated that there was no way an Arab military coalition could defeat it by conventional means. Syria has remained Israel’s enemy, but it hasn’t dared to attack again. Egypt became an American and Israeli ally, and the relationship between the Jewish state and the United States emerged stronger than ever. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union’s best weapons proved to be no match for America’s.

It is true that there was no shortage of Israeli and American blunders in 1973, but there were Soviet and Egyptian blunders as well. The Jewish state may not have achieved a victory of biblical proportions as it had in 1967, but ultimately it achieved a more durable one. This was thanks to Golda Meir’s determination and the courage and resourcefulness of countless Israeli soldiers and officers, but also to Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, the greatest supporters of Israel that have ever run American foreign policy.

Mordechai Kedar: Israel won the Yom Kippur War - there should be no debate

A greater victory that the Six Day War in 1967
From a dry military point of view, and when you compare Israel’s situation at the beginning of the war to its end: among its army, leadership, and people, there is no escaping the conclusion that it was a huge victory. It could be argued that it was greater than the victory in the Six Day War in 1967 which took only a few hours to destroy the enemies’ planes.

The air forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, were vanquished leading the army’s path later in the war and allowing it to conquer Sinai, Judea, Samaria, and the Golan Heights, and all this in only six days.

The victory in the Yom Kippur War was the main factor that pushed the president of Egypt, Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, to seek peace with Israel.

Sadat realized that despite the fact that Israel had been caught by surprise, that Egypt had managed to cross the Suez Canal on the first day, and that Israel had to face two fronts acting in coordination, it was able to inflict a strong defeat on both the Egyptians and the Syrians, removing them from the territories they occupied at the beginning of the war – and eventually conquering additional territories far beyond.

President Anwar Sadat understood that Israel was invincible and all Arab attempts to conquer and destroy it, past and future, were doomed to failure.

Based on this conclusion, two years after the war he opened a series of secret talks with Israel and these talks led to a historic peace treaty signed in 1979.

This conclusion is still valid today and should be clearly understood. Only an Israeli victory can bring peace because in the Middle East peace is only accepted by those who see their enemies as invincible.

Yom Kippur War declassified: A look at the war like never before

“In the early afternoon of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, on October 6, 1973, alarm sirens interrupted the silence of the fast, and the signal was given for the start of the Yom Kippur War, which has become a national trauma in Israel’s history. Although the war ended with military victories, 2,656 soldiers were killed, hundreds were taken prisoner, and over 7,200 soldiers and civilians were wounded. The fighting and its results were unbearably difficult for a country that just a few months earlier had celebrated its 25th Independence Day.”

This is the introduction to the newly declassified material from the Israel State Archives that has been posted on its website in accordance with a government decision ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. It comprises some 3,500 files, including about 1,400 paper files, 1,000 photographs, 800 audio clips, 150 transcripts, and eight videos.

The Israel State Archives (www.archives.gov.il/en/), which is part of the Prime Minister’s Office, said it has been working for the past two and a half years on making the files that tell the story of the Yom Kippur War – on the front lines, on the home front, and in the government – accessible to the public. “For the first time, it is possible to use original documents in order to research and feel the drama and the emotions among the public, the IDF, and the leadership, comprehensively and directly,” it said. “Some of the material relays the events minute by minute and allows us to relive the feelings of those who were present at the events.” What has been declassified from the Yom Kippur War?

There are audio clips and photographs; transcripts and original files from government ministries and the military; diplomatic documents and testimonies; protocols of government and war cabinet meetings; high-level discussions and civil defense assessments; information on the home front; and much more.

This material, most of which was previously classified, has been checked and scanned, and cleared by the censor. It is now available as an archival collection of information on the war, beginning with decision-making by the country’s leadership in a time of uncertainty; the fighting on the various fronts; the Israeli home front; diplomatic contacts with Arab states; and mediation by the major powers until the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement.

The documents provide records of deliberations between then-prime minister Golda Meir and security chiefs in the days before Syria and Egypt launched a coordinated attack on October 6, 1973. A day before, Military Intelligence Directorate chief Eli Zeira (who turned 95 this year) signaled that the intelligence establishment did not have enough information on a planned attack by the Egyptians and the Syrians. “I must say, we don’t have sufficient proof that they don’t intend to attack,” he said. “We don’t have conclusive indications that they want to attack, but I can’t say based on knowledge that they aren’t preparing.”

Chief Archivist Ruti Abramovitz said the State Archives had endeavored to show “the 360-degree story of the war,” which affected every facet of life in Israel.

The Yom Kippur War ignited a survival instinct within a young Jewish nation that wasn't expecting conflict. Fifty years on, we ask: How did the trauma of this war and events like the Holocaust come into play? pic.twitter.com/3knMGPsaGp
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 2, 2023

Every year, Palestinian media and the Palestinian Authority claim that when Israel closes its crossings during Jewish holidays, it is just a "pretense" for hurting Palestinians and a racist decision.

But here is how they are reporting on Egypt closing the Rafah crossing with Gaza this week to celebrate the Yom Kippur War:

The Egyptian authorities decided to close the Rafah land crossing Thursday, October 5, 2023, on the occasion of the 6th of October anniversary among the Egyptian brothers.

The General Authority for Crossings and Borders said that Thursday, October 5, 2023 is an official holiday on the occasion of the 6th of October anniversary among our Egyptian brothers, and therefore the Rafah land and commercial crossings will be closed in both directions.

When Israel closes borders for the holidays, it is because they are racist haters of Palestinians. When Egypt or Jordan close their borders from Palestinians crossing on their own holidays, they are "brothers" whose decisions make perfect sense and who must be cooperated with.

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Latest EoZ memes and cartoons

It's been a few weeks since I last posted my latest graphics....

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10/02 Links Pt1: High-Level Iranian Spy Ring Busted in Washington; The International Court of Justice is being manipulated to find Israel guilty

From Ian:

Lee Smith: High-Level Iranian Spy Ring Busted in Washington

In response to a Tablet email requesting comment on Malley’s and Tabatabai’s role in an Iranian spy ring, a State Department spokesman wrote: “We have seen the Semafor article, which does not presume it was a ‘spy ring,’ and we reject that characterization. Rob Malley remains on leave and we have no further comment due to privacy considerations. The Biden-Harris administration appointed Ariane Tabatabai to serve various roles in the U.S. government because of her expertise on nuclear and other foreign policy issues.” The Defense Department did not respond by press time to Tablet’s email requesting comment on Ariane Tabatabai’s role in an Iranian spy ring.

Whether the IEI is best characterized as an Iranian “spy ring” or as a “regime-directed influence operation” is a semantic question that beggars the larger question of how any responsible U.S. security official in possession of Tabatabai’s correspondence could have cleared her to enter the State Department building or the Pentagon—let alone cleared her to work as a chief of staff in the Defense Department, with direct access to the most sensitive real-time details of U.S. special forces operations.

It seems likely that by the time of her appointment to the Pentagon’s special operations office, Tabatabai’s covert activities on behalf of the Iranian regime were well known in Biden administration and intelligence circles. “The hoops you have to jump through to get a bare-bones top secret clearance even without compartments or special access programs are enormous,” says Theroux. “They grill you on your foreign contacts. Contacts with any foreign government raise more red flags than Bernie Sanders’ honeymoon. Contacts with senior officials from enemy governments, classified as non-frat governments like Russia, China, Cuba, as well as Iran, are in a different category altogether—what would normally be totally disqualifying.”

There is also the fact that, as early as 2014, as Tablet has reported, the Obama administration was spying on Israeli officials and their contacts within the United States, including U.S. lawmakers and pro-Israel activists. The fact that U.S. intelligence services routinely disobeyed guidelines preventing them from unmasking the identities of U.S. persons recorded in transcripts of foreign intelligence intercepts has been exhaustively demonstrated in a long series of U.S. government reports, Congressional investigations, and other reporting. Since Zarif’s communications and the IRGC’s communications were also collected, U.S. officials would have known about the IEI—and about the names of those working on behalf of Iran, such as Vaez and Tabatabai.

Theroux suggests that a range of U.S. authorities would have likely known about Malley’s involvement with the IEI as well—and that Malley would have been well aware of what they knew. “When I was on the National Security Council, the National Security Agency would call to alert me when my name had popped up in a conversation among bad actors,” Theroux recalls.

The facts of Malley’s involvement with the IEI and its agents are likely to have been old news within the Biden administration; the impending publication of the IEI emails is likely the reason why Malley was put on leave in April and had his security clearances suspended. As news of emails and their impending publication circulated in Washington, the administration moved him to the sidelines before Republican officials had the chance to demand his head on a spike.

Why an Iranian operative is still at the Pentagon, especially in a job which gives her daily access to classified information that puts the country’s most sensitive military operations at risk, is another matter entirely. “The optimistic reading,” says Theroux, “is that they were watching her to see what she does and the FBI has her apartment all teched up. But to be an optimist you have to believe the FBI is clean, rather than see this as a huge counterintelligence failure. Though, of course, it’s not a failure if they were complicit.”

So far, however, the evidence points to a less optimistic reading: The Biden administration allowed Malley to push an Iranian agent into sensitive national security positions because she was best equipped to carry out the administration’s own policy—to appease a terror regime with American blood on its hands. Because the number of American officials who want to be responsible for protecting Iran’s nuclear weapons program is limited, the White House went outside the federal bureaucracy for someone who was well-connected to the regime, and would relish the job of advancing its interests—an Iranian spy.

Congress needs to demand the Biden White House make Malley and Tabatabai available to testify immediately. It must also press to interview the security officials who buried evidence of Tabatabai’s covert activities, putting her in a position to endanger the lives of American civilians and special forces operators. It’s time to find out why the interests—and now the personnel—of the Iranian “death to America” regime intersect so frequently with those of America’s own ruling party.

The International Court of Justice is being manipulated to find Israel guilty

Centuries of libels have resulted in a situation in which conclusions blaming Jews for misfortunes are readily drawn, and false allegations against them are credulously accepted. In modern times, prejudice against the Jewish people has been directed against Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.

This prejudice has been compounded by the successful exploitation of UN bodies by members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and their allies in developing countries to focus, to an utterly disproportionate extent, on criticism of Israel.

The questions asked of the ICJ presuppose that Israel is denying the Palestinian people their right to self-determination. But will the Court be told that according to a 2021 opinion poll by the Palestinian news agency SHFA, 93% of Jerusalem’s Arabs would prefer a continuation of Israeli rule of the united city? And will it be mentioned that the Palestinian leaders have not held a general election since 2006?

They complain that Israel has aimed at altering the demographic composition of Jerusalem. Will anyone observe that the Arab proportion of Jerusalem’s population has increased from 26% to 39% since 1967?

The current process calls to mind medieval disputations, in which there could only be one verdict, that the Jews are guilty. Now, like then, our representatives are faced with a difficult decision: should they try to dispute the masses of falsities, which might give more credibility to the phony process, or simply denounce it as a travesty?

In the security barrier case, Israel argued that the ICJ should not give an opinion and did not address the facts to any great extent. Its arguments were rejected.

But someone should tell the ICJ and the world that it has been presented with a pack of lies. If the Court endorses the false and distorted information, it will promote racist hostility and violence against Israel and Jewish people around the world and make peace more difficult to achieve.

Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Assembly - what he didn't say

He did not mention the word Hamas once. Yet up to half the Palestinian population lives in the Gaza Strip under the pernicious governance of the Hamas organization. How could the two-state solution – the concept of a sovereign Palestine living alongside a sovereign Israel – be a practical possibility when Hamas, and those Palestinians outside Gaza who subscribe to its philosophy, regard the whole area “from the river to the sea” (that is, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean) as Arab territory to which Israel has no right? The prime purpose of Hamas, its very raison d’être, is to eradicate Israel altogether and ensure that no Jews remain in the area.

The 2002 Arab Peace Plan, to which Saudi Arabia still subscribes, was conceived before Hamas was of any major significance, and well before it had seized control of Gaza and virtually kidnapped a great mass of the Palestinian people. Netanyahu did not ask the world why so little thought has been given to the practical hurdles on the path to achieving its much-advocated two-state solution.

Since Hamas would never be a signatory to such a deal, Gaza would be excluded from the arrangement. What sort of sovereign Palestine could it be, shorn of half the Palestinian population? In short, Netanyahu could have provided world opinion with some home truths, among them that the prerequisite to achieving a genuine two-state solution is the disempowerment of Hamas.

Another word that did not pass Netanyahu’s lips was “apartheid” – the charge used to tar Israel by bodies like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and a whole host of anti-Israel groups and individuals. He could have provided the world with a brief lesson on the total lack of ethnic, racial, or religious discrimination of any kind within the sovereign state of Israel – and demonstrated with facts and figures the increasingly successful integration of Israel’s Arab population into the social, political and judicial structure of the state.

On September 9, Milad Munther al-Rai was shot dead by Israeli forces in the Arroub camp, north of Hebron. He was throwing Molotov cocktails at the IDF troops.

According to Defense for Children International, he was 15 years old and shot for no reason. Others say he was 16.

Palestinian media were filled with articles about how Milad was just a child, with a "dewy" singing voice he inherited from his father and his love for playing football even though the camp had no fields.

While his body was wrapped with the Islamic Jihad flag, I didn't see any official report from the terror group claiming him as a member, perhaps because the propaganda value of him being regarded as an innocent child was much higher than portraying him as a heroic fighter.

But three weeks later, when Islamic Jihad is publishing its accomplishments for the month, Milad Munther al-Rai has now transformed into that mujahid.

In a press release listing its "accomplishments" during September, Islamic Jihad listed six members as mujahadeen martyrs during that month including Milad:

Martyr mujahideen Milad Munther al-Ra’i (16 years old) from Al-Aroub camp in the city of Hebron was killed during confrontations with the occupation forces on September 9th.

Yet even today, there is not a word of condemnation from "human rights groups" about Palestinian groups recruiting child soldiers, a violation of international law, despite proof that many child soldiers have been killed this year alone.

Because they don't want to dilute their consistent anti-Israel messaging by saying anything bad about terrorists.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Ahmed Al-Jarallah, owner and editor-in-chief of Kuwait's Al Seyassah newspaper as well as a couple of other newspapers. . For years he has advocated that the Arab world make peace with Israel. It appears that Palestinians have tried to assassinate him twice, once in 1985 when he was shot six times and also in 2003 when a letter bomb was sent to his office.

Last week he wrote another blistering attack on Palestinians and advised Saudi leader Mohammed bin-Salman to pursue his own interests and ignore those of Palestinians.

The Palestinian issue is no longer an Arab issue after the signing of the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel. Rather, it has become an Israeli-Palestinian affair, and therefore necessity requires everyone to look at their reality and their interests, and not cling to slogans, which are mere pipe dreams.

Let us put it bluntly: The peoples of the Gulf Cooperation Council no longer accept putting the interests of the Palestinians before their affairs. The GCC members have suffered from financial and political blackmail, and delayed our own development, for the sake of the slogan “liberating Palestine.”...We are not at all concerned with what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, because it has become a source of political investment for the highest bidder, and an Iranian-Israeli game played by Palestinian hands. This is why the leaders of Gaza kiss the hands of the Iranian guide - he has become their benefactor, in return they take advantage of the aid provided by the Arab Gulf states to build and own palaces in Monaco and other European cities, and they spend huge sums of money on gambling tables. Because they are convinced that “your uncle’s money doesn’t matter to you.” [A Gulf expression that people freely spend money that is not theirs]

Today Israel has become a fait accompli, supported by European countries and the West, with weapons and money, and its leaders had a clear plan, which was to recover the land of their ancestors, as they claimed, while the people of the land were abandoned when they were displaced to the diaspora, and slept for decades on promises to return within a month or two, and today that promise is 75 years old, and generations were born in the diaspora who do not know Palestine except through slogans and songs.

On the other hand, the rest of the PLO's leaders have become wealthy people who live like kings, and their children have become businessmen, and they have their own projects, and their weddings cost millions, all of it from Arab, especially Gulf, donations, while we received nothing but insults and threats in return.

The late (Kuwaiti leader) Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad, may God have mercy on him, was also the top supporter of Arafat and the Palestinians, and they were employed in Kuwaiti departments, as if they were Kuwaitis. So what was Arafat’s reaction when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait?
On that day, he demanded that Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad be arrested and forced to sign a confession to relinquish rule of Kuwait. He incited that “the road to Jerusalem passes through Kuwait,” and his organizations wreaked havoc on earth, including murder and heinous crimes against Kuwaitis.

Since 1967, Palestinian organizations have devoted themselves to terrorizing Arabs, killing many of them, hijacking planes, and practicing terrorism under the slogan of “reminding the world of the issue.” Some Arab leaders also exploited it for their own ends...In Iraq, the young King Faisal and the leaders of the state were also brandished with the same slogan. Instead of pointing the gun at the Israelis, it turned to Jordan and Lebanon, and they killed tens of thousands of people.

What have we gotten from the “cause” other than the calamities? Iran has come to rule four Arab capitals, and it has been helped in this by those investing in Arab blood under the slogan of the “Palestinian Cause,” who shed blood in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, and practiced terrorism against the Gulf states, starting with the assassination of UAE Foreign Minister Saif Ghobash to the Beirut port bombing.

We have received nothing but bad news from the “cause,” and to this day there are those who invest in it for personal gain. Therefore, we must approach matters in the right way, and see how the inimitable Arab leader, the late Anwar Sadat, understood the dimensions of this situation, and worked to liberate Sinai, the Suez Canal, Sharm El-Sheikh and Taba, without war, but through negotiations. Because the whole world supports Israel, as a result of the childish terrorist acts committed by the Palestinians themselves.

Prince Mohammed bin Salman, you have nothing more to do than look at the Palestinian groups, and to whom each of them sold the slogan “Liberating Palestine,” and what benefits their leaders are getting, to know that these people have forgotten their country for decades, and have other goals, and to realize that the world will not wait, and the Palestinian factions, which have reached 20, live on political blackmail. Those who do not submit to them are assassinated, their image is distorted, or they are insulted. At the same time, they live a comfortable life in Israeli cities, and they have their own companies in Israel.

While we were chanting for Palestine, they were planning to kill us, and while we were diverting our own money to them, they were spending it on sabotaging our country, and they declared “Allahu Akbar” every time Saddam Hussein fired a missile at Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Prince bin Salman, listen to the Friday preachers in Gaza and the West Bank, and the insults hurled at the House of Saud, your father, you personally, and all the peoples of the Gulf.

Israel did not commit ten percent of the crimes committed by Palestinian organizations against us, which is why we say on behalf of most of the Arab Gulf peoples: Be wise and trust in Allah.

Notice that there is nothing pro-Israel in this essay - just anti-Palestinian.

(h/t TMoran via Yoel)

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Islamic Jihad's Palestine Today has a column by Palestinian editor and writer Khaled Sadiq lamenting that the Saudis have turned their back on Islam - and on traditional Muslim antisemitism.

Saudi openness transcends all boundaries and drifts toward the Jews

The Saudi openness in many areas is drifting like a huge torrent. There are no barriers to it, and it transcends all borders. ....

In the Friday sermon delivered by the imam and preacher of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, in which he discussed the duty of dealing well with the Jews, and how the Messenger Muhammad (may God’s prayers and peace be upon him) was kind to his Jewish neighbor.

Then came the fatwa of the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh, that fighting or killing Israelis in the precincts of Al-Aqsa Mosque is not permissible according to Islamic law, and that the Hamas movement is a “terrorist” movement that wants evil for the people of Palestine, and that the demonstrations that began in many Arab and Islamic countries were in support of Al-Aqsa and the Gaza Strip are merely demagogic actions with no good and no hope.

Saudi Arabia ended the era of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice [the "Morality Police" - EoZ] ....Then the artistic openness came after the creation of a body they called the Entertainment Authority, and it was headed by one of those close to the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who entrusted it to Turki Al-Sheikh, who began holding singing and dancing concerts in the Kingdom, and called the dance concerts “Halal Disco,” and called for the freedom of Saudi women. [The "Halal nightclub" was shut down its first night - EoZ.]

And using new means to promote this culture, such as opening cinemas, theaters, and opera houses. The “Culture Authority” will play a major role in this, focusing on instilling new concepts in society, and starting from a young age, until a generation emerges different from the previous generation.

As for the present time, the state must benefit from the skills of graduates of American and European universities in whom it has invested millions of dollars abroad to promote education in its new face, and its concepts derived from abroad, and not from the teachings of the great Islam. It is a real coup aimed at removing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from its origins, history and traditions. Derived from the teachings of Islamic Sharia, and the goal behind all of this is to achieve change in political positions, shift the Kingdom’s policy towards “Israel”, accept it, coexist with it, establish alliances between them, and common relations based on mutual interests, and create an alliance led by “Israel” to protect the Arab countries.

Over the years, certainly since 9/11, there has been great Western interest in Islamic fundamentalism. But for some reason, Palestinian Islamist organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad have never been placed in the same fundamentalist bucket as Iran, the Saudis, Al Qaeda and ISIS. Their aim at destroying Israel was always considered more understandable and legitimate, even when their own theology has been indistinguishable from those of fundamentalist groups in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Here we are seeing a Palestinian media outlet condemning the Saudis of being too modern, too accepting, not misogynist and not antisemitic enough.

And as always, this will be ignored or contextualized by Western 'experts" who agree with the Palestinian Islamist groups that the morality of their desire to destroy Israel outweighs their desire to wipe out Jews or to keep their people (and especially their women) enslaved under fundamentalist Islamist rules.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

10/01 Links: The Palestinian Authority admits there’s no ‘Israeli occupation’; Newsweek Ignores Arafat’s Terrorism, Excuses Abbas’ Antisemitism

From Ian:

The Palestinian Authority admits there’s no ‘Israeli occupation’

The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Arabs ended 30 years ago. Don’t take my word for it. Just ask the Palestinian Authority.

The PA recently submitted a request to UNESCO to recognize the city of Jericho as a “Palestinian heritage site.” In its description of the history of the region, the PA’s request refers to “the time of Israeli Occupation (1967-1994).” Thus, the PA has acknowledged, in writing, that Israel’s occupation there ended in 1994.

The same phrase appears in another PA-UN document. In 2008, the PA asked the United Nations to help improve its tax-collecting policies. After a two-year study, the PA’s Finance Ministry and the United Nations Development Program published a report titled “Diagnostic Study of Property Tax in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The report surveyed the history of tax collection in the area, so it was forced to acknowledge the changes between the years that Israel occupied Palestinian Arab cities and the years after the occupation ended. Thus, on page 49, we find Section 6.1, which is titled “Taxes in the occupied Palestinian territory – Israeli Occupation (1967-1994).”

(Thanks to the noted legal scholar Eugene Kontorovich and the “Elder of Ziyyon” blog for finding these documents.)

Why does this matter? Because there is an entire cottage industry of pundits, politicians, and advocacy groups whose agenda depends upon claiming that there is an “Israeli occupation.”

They need to be able to point an accusing finger at Israel, in order to justify their demand for Palestinian statehood. They need to be able to portray Israel as an oppressor in order to excuse Palestinian Arab violence. They need to pretend Israel still occupies the Palestinians, in order to make it seem as if Israel is to blame for their lack of elections and civil rights.

Of course, anybody who visits any city in the PA-governed territories, can see with their own eyes that there are no Israeli soldiers. No Israeli military governor. No Israeli military administration. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin withdrew them all, three decades ago.

New Zealand’s Labour Government to Recognize a Palestinian State after October 14 Elections

Justice for Palestine and Alternative Jewish Voices on Sunday reported with considerable glee an announcement by New Zealand’s ruling Labour Party that if it is re-elected on October 14, it would recognize the State of Palestine by inviting the Head of the General Delegation of Palestine to present his credentials as an Ambassador to New Zealand.

Labour gained 50% of the vote in the 2020 election, increasing its presence in the House of Representatives to 65 seats, and marking the first time that a party has won enough seats to govern alone since 1996. It was a landslide victory, with Labour winning “virtually every single electorate,” gaining the support of centrist swing voters. On January 19, 2023, PM Jacinda Ardern announced her resignation as party leader and prime minister, and Chris Hipkins replaced her on January 22.

As of the October 17, 2020 elections, Labor has 65 seats in parliament, or 50.01% of the votes, the National Party has 33 seats (25.58%), ACT with 10 seats (7.58%), the Greens 10 seats (7.86%), and the Maori Party has 2 seats (1.17%).

Only two weeks later, on February 6, PM Hipkins met with the Head of the General Delegation of Palestine to Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific, Izzat Salah Abdulhadi.

Last Wednesday, PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi met with New Zealand Representative to Palestine Barney Riley as well as Abdulhadi at the PLO Headquarters in Ramallah. According to WAFA, they discussed, naturally, “the rapid escalation of Israel’s flagrant violations of international law and conventions.”

New Zealand would be joining 139 UN member states, out of 193, who already recognize Palestine as a state, even though it does not exist. In reality, in parts of Judea and Samaria there is an autonomy under the control of the Palestinian Authority, which was established following the Oslo Accords of 1994, while in the Gaza Strip Hamas has been in control since June 2007, after it forcibly removed the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority claims sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip but in practice, it lacks many political powers. Over the past 30 years, the PA depended on Israel for significant parts of its budget, including tax and customs collections. There is cooperation between the PA security forces and the Israeli security apparatus, but it is fragile and inconsistent.

In September 2014, Israel and New Zealand clashed after New Zealand had assigned an ambassador to Israel and to the Palestinian Authority. Israel did not allow Ambassador Jonathan Curr to present his credentials, saying that would violate Israel’s “well-known policy” of not receiving diplomats who are also received by the PA. New Zealand ended the conflict by appointing separate diplomats to Israel and the PA.

Revealed: Hundreds of millions of shekels added to Israeli aid to Palestinians

Israel has recently slashed the gasoline tax it had been collecting from the Palestinian Authority by 50% as well as taken other measures to ease the financial situation in Ramallah, Israel Hayom has learned. The 1994 economic accords between Israel and the Palestinians stipulate a 3% rate but Israel has recently decided to collect only half the amount, at 1.5%, as shown in a recent document signed by the IDF Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories office several days ago. This will save some NIS 80 million ($20 million) for the PA on an annual basis.

Other measures that Israel has taken to help the Palestinians financially since the start of 2023 add up to some NIS 270 million ($70 million). This includes more transfers of taxes collected on behalf of the PA, amounting to a major upgrade compared to about half a million shekels only three years ago. This, despite many of the goods ostensibly being sent to the PA never making it there because of a fraudulent ploy by importers.

Other financial measures have totaled some NIS 350 million ($90 million) since the new government has been sworn in.

The Biden administration has been pressuring Israel to increase the aid to the Palestinians' economy, saying that the PA is on the verge of collapse. But the Israeli willingness to play along despite PA leader Mahmoud Abbas continuing to pay terrorists has outraged some US congress members, with some saying that the president's increase of aid to the Palestinians runs against US law (and specifically the Taylor Force Act, which prohibits funding to the Palestinians so long as the "pay-for-slay" policy continues).

Israel Hayom has also learned that as part of the efforts to bolster normalization with Saudi Arabia, the US has placed immense pressure on Israel to make it take "steps toward bolstering the PA," which include letting Riyadh send funds to Ramallah. However, there are ways being explored to ensure these do not make it to terrorists' hands.

09/29 Links Pt2: Sukkot is the time to set aside our differences and make progress; Pompeo tops list of Israel’s Christian allies

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Sukkot is the time to set aside our differences and make progress

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks called Sukkot the festival of insecurity. Sukkot, he argued, is a metaphor for the Jewish condition not only during the 40 years of wandering in the desert but also the almost 2,000 years of exile and dispersion.

“I have often argued that faith is not certainty: faith is the courage to live with uncertainty,” Rabbi Sacks explained. “I find that faith today in the people and the State of Israel. It is astonishing to me how Israelis have been able to live with an almost constant threat of war and terror since the state was born, and not give way to fear.”

He quoted the Rashbam, Rashi’s grandson, as saying that Sukkot exists to remind us of our humble origins so that we never fall into the complacency of taking freedom, the Land of Israel, and the blessings it yields, for granted.

“Today’s Israel is a living embodiment of what it is to exist in a state of insecurity and still rejoice,” Sacks stated succinctly. “And that is Sukkot’s message to the world.”

The 21st century, he predicted, will one day be seen by historians as the Age of Insecurity. “We, as Jews, are the world’s experts in insecurity, having lived with it for millennia,” he wrote. “And the supreme response to insecurity is Sukkot, when we leave behind the safety of our houses and sit in sukkot mamash (literally), in huts exposed to the elements. To be able to do so and still say, this is zeman simchatenu, our festival of joy, is the supreme achievement of faith, the ultimate antidote to fear.”

Faith is the ability to rejoice in the midst of instability and change, traveling through the wilderness of time toward an unknown destination, Sacks concluded.

This year, when both Israel and the Diaspora are so deeply divided, it is incumbent upon us to set aside our differences and come together on Sukkot to celebrate the 75 years of our independence as well as our resilience as a people and replenish our faith for the future.

Chag Sameach (Happy Holiday)!

A Sukkot Guide for the Perplexed, 2023

Ahead of Sukkot, which begins on Friday, here are some interesting facts about the holiday:

1. Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, derives its name from the first stop of the Exodus — the town of Sukkot — as documented in Exodus 13:20-22 and Numbers 33:3-5. Sukkot was also the name of Jacob’s first stop west of the Jordan River, upon returning to the Land of Israel from his 20 years of work for Laban in Aram (Genesis 33:17).

2. Sukkot is a Jewish national liberation holiday, commemorating the Biblical Exodus, and the transition of the Jewish people from bondage in Egypt to liberty. It also celebrates the ongoing Jewish in-gathering in the Land of Israel. The Exodus from Egypt inspired the US Founding Fathers and also the abolitionist movement.

3. The construction of the Holy Tabernacle, during the Exodus, was launched on the first day of Sukkot (full moon).

4. Sukkot underscores the gradual transition from the spiritual state-of-mind during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to the mundane of the rest of the year, and from religious tenets of Judaism to the formation of the national, historic and geographical Jewish identity.

5. The seven days of Sukkot — a holiday celebrated in the seventh Jewish month, Tishrei — are dedicated to seven supreme guests-in-spirit and notable care-takers: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and David. They were endowed with faith, reality-based-optimism, humility, magnanimity, principle-driven leadership, compassion, tenacity in the face of daunting odds, and the mentality of peace-through-strength.

6. Sukkot features the following four species (Leviticus 23:39-41): one citron (representing King David, the author of Psalms), one palm branch (representing Joseph), three myrtle branches (representing the three Patriarchs), and two willow branches (representing Moses and Aharon, the role models of humility), which are bonded together, representing unity-through-diversity and strength-through-unity.

Helen Mirren attends UK premiere screening of Golda

Dame Helen Mirren has attended the UK premiere of Golda ahead of it's release in cinemas.

The actress, 78, plays Israel’s first female prime minister Golda Meir in the biopic, which is released on October 6.

The biopic is set during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Egyptian and Syrian forces launched an attack on Israel on the High Holy Day.

It examines the decisions the politician made during the height of the 19-day war, which saw 2,656 Israeli soldiers killed.

In an interview in Israel in July, Dame Helen described preparing for the role of playing Meir by reading her autobiography and watching footage of the former Israeli PM.

The actor added she “didn’t know a lot about Meir” but recalled “the feeling of triumph and satisfaction" that a woman had been elected to lead Israel for the first time.

Dame Helen's casting as Meir has reignited a debate about whether or nor non-Jewish actors should take on Jewish roles.

Commenting on the subject, the veteran performer, who is not Jewish, has said she does "believe it is a discussion that has to be had" and that questions about her playing Meir were "utterly legitimate."

Dame Helen has portrayed Jewish characters in the past, including in the 2023 war drama White Bird, in which she played a woman who survived Nazi-occupied France as a youngster with the help of a non-Jewish boy from her school and his family who sheltered her.

In the 2015 film Woman in Gold, she starred as Maria Altmann, a Jewish refugee living in California who fought the Austrian government to reclaim a painting of her aunt by famed Austrian painter Gustav Klimt.

Speaking of her Meir role, she added: “Golda Meir was a formidable, intransigent and powerful leader.

“It is a great challenge to portray her at the most difficult moment of her extraordinary life. I only hope I do her justice!”

Crushing the Zionist movie #Golda, QUNTS will release YASSER, the true story of an impoverished boy, born on the tough streets of Cairo, Southern Palestine. At 6, Yasser escaped Zionist jail in French Guinea, swimming back to Jaffa where he single-handedly freed Palestine.

✌🏾🇵🇸 https://t.co/5z37HYl1XK pic.twitter.com/WopvdMvKIv
— Qunts News Network (@QuntsNews) September 28, 2023