Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, October 05, 2018

10/05 Links Pt1: Sykes-Picot 2018: The EU and Khan al-Ahmar; Glick: Trump Speech at U.N. Restored U.S. Leadership; France's Schizophrenic Iran Policy

From Ian:

Gerald Steinberg: Goliath vs David: The 2018 Version - Is there anything Israel can do to avoid losing soft-power wars?

Israeli government officials and military leaders thought they were well prepared for the first round of Gaza’s “Return March” along the border, at least compared to previous confrontations with Palestinians over the past two decades. The scenario was understood in advance – indeed, Hamas leaders made no secret of their plan to stage a series of such mass confrontations, using thousands of Palestinians, including women and children, as camouflage for attacking soldiers and infiltrating terrorists into Israel. On this basis, the Foreign Ministry and other branches sent diplomats and journalists analyses, telling them not to be fooled by this cynical ploy, and the IDF practiced responses to breaches of the border that would prevent or minimize civilian deaths.

But, to understate the reality, even in the initial skirmish the results of these preparations were less than satisfactory – Israel’s image took a beating, with another round of condemnations and “war crimes” allegations. The headlines in media platforms and the accompanying photos again portrayed Israel as the Goliath in the drama, with the Palestinians in their standard role as the innocent victims. The pictures – featured on the front pages of many mainstream newspapers and leading the video news feeds – reinforced this slogan. The New York Times lead (before the number of dead reached 16) screamed “Israeli Military Kills 8 in Confrontations on Gaza Border.”

In later versions of the news stories, the detailed evidence which clearly linked at least 10 of the 16 dead to terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad was cited, usually briefly. This part of the reporting took the standard “he said, she said” format, as if Hamas and Israel were on parallel footings.

However, as always, the greatest damage was from the visuals of death and suffering that are deemed necessary to grab readers and for use as “click bait” on social media. These images, perhaps staged (a process known as Pallywood), all featuring Palestinian “victims” and without any Israeli parallels, gave editors their headlines in what is otherwise yet another predictable round of the ancient and immovable conflict.

Following the flood of images and headlines, politicians and foreign policy officials, particularly in Europe, recycled the standard condemnations of Israel for using “excess force,” and called, as always, for “independent investigations.” The solemn statement from Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign minister (her title is High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, among other jobs), mourned the loss of life, while failing to even mention Hamas or terrorism.

Gerald Steinberg: Sykes-Picot 2018: The EU and Khan al-Ahmar

Today, European politicians, diplomats, and NGOs are busy drawing new borders for what they imagine to be a "solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are currently focusing their attention on the tiny encampment of Khan al-Ahmar, situated strategically just outside Jerusalem on the four-lane highway that connects Israel's capital to the Dead Sea and the Jordan River.

For three decades, Israel has rejected all the efforts to turn Khan al-Ahmar into a Palestinian outpost along the strategic highway near Jerusalem. As 20 years of Israeli court rulings have confirmed, the law clearly prohibits anyone - Palestinians, Bedouin and Europeans - from squatting on land that is not theirs and starting to build.

The Oslo accords declared Area C, where Khan al-Ahmar is located, to be under full Israeli control. Yet the Europeans have dotted Area C with EU flags hoisted above one-room pre-fabricated huts which, to add to the emotional impact, are usually declared to be schools. Destroying a school is ideal for accusing Israel of human rights violations, and Khan al-Ahmar's European school is featured in the current campaign of solidarity visits by European diplomats and UN officials.

As part of this campaign, Palestinian NGOs funded primarily by European governments have spent millions of euros from European taxpayers to churn out urgent statements, reports, and social media posts declaring the plan to resettle the residents of Khan al-Ahmar to be a "war crime."

Caroline Glick: Trump Speech at U.N. Restored U.S. Leadership

In the tumult of the circus surrounding Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, little attention was paid to President Donald Trump’s speech last week before the United Nations.

This is a shame, because his address last week was arguably the most significant foreign policy address any U.S. president has delivered since the end of the Cold War.

Many of Trump’s critics insist his view of the world rejects the liberal world order America has led and defended since the end of World War II. But that assessment misconstrues Trump’s world view. Indeed, that ignores it.

Trump’s critics cannot see his world view because they are convinced the universe of foreign policy is but a narrow linear spectrum that veers between isolationism and globalism.

Trump, who has been a peripatetic foreign policy practitioner since his early days in office, is manifestly not an isolationist. He does not believe the U.S. can walk away from the world. He is deeply engaged with the world.

His argument with the globalists is not about whether the U.S. should be engaged with the world. His dispute with globalists and globalism revolves around the form U.S. involvement should take and what the proper goal of that involvement should be.

The four post-Cold War presidents who preceded him in office — George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — differed on many things. But they shared the basic globalist view that U.S. foreign policy should be undertaken to advance ideological goals not directly related to U.S. national interests. They all agreed with the basic proposition that the U.S. should carry out its foreign policy under the aegis of international or transnational governing structures, which they perceived as somehow more credible than unilateral action or action undertaken in informal cooperation with likeminded governments.

The saying goes: “The dead tell no tales” but that’s not exactly true. The dead speak to us from beyond the grave but they do so in silent symbols that we, those who are full of life and sometimes full of arrogance, can choose to ignore.

Haifa’s cemetery is full. It’s in a beautiful location, overlooking the sea. One could say it’s wasted on its residents but maybe the scenery provides comfort to those who come to pay their respects to deceased relatives and friends. In general, I find it an unpleasant place. It’s packed with graves, so much so that it is difficult to walk between them. Moreover, most of the headstones provide very little information about the people they are supposed to be memorializing.

I think graves should give you a hint, a glimpse into the life of the person buried there. Something about knowing nothing about their stories bothers me.

There is however another cemetery in Haifa, one that is older and very different.

This was the first Jewish cemetery of Haifa, presumably founded in the late 1850 and used until 1940. There are several mausoleums in the cemetery (which is unusual for Jewish cemeteries), including one for Shmuel Pevsner, one of the founders of Haifa’s Hadar HaCarmel neighborhood.

We know the names of some of the people buried because they have streets and institutions in Haifa named after them – but once they weren’t streets, they were real people who now lie here, mostly forgotten.

Why isn’t this a national heritage site? How come the schools of Haifa don’t bring children here, to learn about the history of their city?

Possibly it is because of the stories the dead tell that their voices are avoided…

We’re told that Haifa is a mixed Arab and Jewish city, a symbol of coexistence, that it always was. That makes this a little hard to explain:

A mass grave for Jews murdered in the riots of 1929. Jewish burial is very specific, careful and done with great reverence. Tradition forbids letting the dead lie unburied overnight, it is imperative to bury them on the day of death. It would seem that the existence of a mass grave is indicative of the number of people murdered on the same day and the difficulty in providing them a proper burial.

The quote on the standing stone is from Ezekiel (16:6) and tells volumes about the spirit of the people who had to bury their friends and relatives in this way:

“וָאֶעֱבֹר עָלַיִךְ וָאֶרְאֵךְ מִתְבּוֹסֶסֶת בְּדָמָיִךְ וָאֹמַר לָךְ בְּדָמַיִךְ חֲיִי וָאֹמַר לָךְ בְּדָמַיִךְ חֲיִי”.

“As I passed over you and saw you weltering in your own blood, I said to you, as you lay thus in your blood, in your blood LIVE”

The graves nearby are also of victims of the riots. This one tells the story of Esther Rivka Katz: “Wicked people made her death come faster than it should have. She was a saint and victim of the riots. May God grant rest to her soul”

I have to use Google to verify the Gregorian equivalent of Hebrew dates. Modern headstones usually use both the Hebrew and Gregorian dates but the Jews of Israel, living Jewish lives in their ancestral homeland, before the reestablishment of the Jewish State, were different.

Haifa is promoted as a place to become familiar with the charm of Arab culture. Jewish influence on the city is treated as something non-existent, insignificant or as foreign.

I didn’t specifically look for the grave of Leon Stein, found it by chance. It was covered in leaves but the words I could see piqued my curiosity.

His grave is not silent, it simply needs someone willing to listen.

It says:

Engineer
Leon Stein
Pioneer of the metal industry in Israel

Made aliyah in 1886,
Died in 1926, in the 63^rd year of his life.

I’ve never seen a grave that gives the title Engineer like other graves might place the title Cohen-Tzedek, indicating someone who comes from the lineage of priests who would have served at the ancient Jewish Temple.

Who was this man? Born in 1864 in Poland, he followed in the footsteps of his older brother and made aliyah as a grown man of 23. Many of the other residents of the cemetery didn’t live longer than that (albeit many of the young deaths were those murdered in the riots).

Leon went to France and bought metal working equipment and in 1888 he opened a small metal works shop to address the needs of the growing community. Slowly his business grew and he upgraded the technology of the equipment used from hand run, to running on a steam engine and then on a kerosene engine – the first in Israel. From fixing metal equipment, he advanced to producing agricultural equipment.

At the time agricultural development was difficult because there was no pump strong enough to produce large amounts of clean water. Leon Stein, in collaboration with Abba Neeman, invented a pump that increased water production from 5-6 m²an hour (powered by beast of burden) to 100 m²an hour (running on kerosene).

As a result, within 14 years, the agricultural cultivation in Israel increased threefold!

Stein's factory continued to grow, manufacturing equipment for flour mills, ice-making machines, iron gates and more. The number of employees rose from 40 in 1905 to 125 in 1907 and 150 in 1909. The plant was spread over several plots and a branch was also established in Petah Tikva. The factory's technicians went to all parts of the country to assist in assembling engines.

They exported products to Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan and Egypt.

How times have changed.

The stories of the dead tell of proud Jews, living Jewish lives in their ancestral homeland, long before the Declaration of Independence. Their stubbornness is written in stone, their murderous Arab neighbors would not move them from the land. Lying in their own blood, burying family and friends, they took upon themselves the commandment to LIVE. And all the while they were developing the land (and any of the neighboring countries who also wanted to progress), bringing modern technology and equipment that would help build the country we have today.

There is a deliberate movement to undermine Jewish connection to the land, delegitimize, minimize and dismiss Jewish history. It’s not just in the ravings of BDSers it’s an insidious poison that has penetrated, quietly in many different variations into Israel – often in what is not said, what is not taught, not emphasized.

The dead lie quietly. Those who want to, who find it politically expedient to do so, can ignore their voices or attempt to drown them out with other stories. The dead do not impose themselves on the living, it is up to us to remember, inquire and pay attention.

The truth of their lives, their history, our history, is etched in stone for anyone willing to see.

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Gaza terrorists use "I ❤ You" balloons

An AFP article on Gaza terrorists who are sending incendiary balloons as well as sound bombs to Israel includes this photo:

Aw, isn't that sweet?

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Just another terror parade in Gaza City encouraging kids to become martyrs

Yesterday, Islamic Jihad held a parade in Gaza City.

Thousands of Gazans came to participate and cheer them on, bringing their children.

We don't see too many articles about these Palestinians. Because talking about them does not further the narrative that the media wants people to think about Gazans.

Terror isn't tolerated by Palestinians. It is celebrated. And it is taught to their kids.

(The question marks on the rockets are meant to say that their type and range is a secret.)

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10/04 Links Pt2: Landes: Netzarim Junction and the Birth of Fake News; Murdered American-Israeli Reminds Us That Jews No Longer Go Quietly Away; Merkel says Palestinians must accept Israel as Jewish state

From Ian:

Richard Landes: Netzarim Junction and the Birth of Fake News

One of the most shocking and transformative experiences occurred to me in late October 2003, when I got to see the original raw footage that a Palestinian cameraman had shot three years earlier at Netzarim Junction on Sept. 30, 2000. It was a peek through the lens of Talal Abu Rahma, the Palestinian cameraman who had filmed what journalists later depicted as a day of riots that killed many in the Gaza Strip, including the 12-year-old boy, Muhammad al Durah.

Charles Enderlin, chief correspondent of France2, aired the footage as news with his cameraman’s narrative: an innocent Palestinian boy, targeted by the IDF, gunned down while his father pleaded with the Israelis to stop shooting. It became an instant global sensation, enraging the Muslim world and provoking angry protests where Western progressives and militant Muslims joined to equate Israel to the Nazis. Ironically, for the first time since the Holocaust, “Death to Jews” was heard in the capitals of Europe. From that point on, for many, Israel was to blame for all violence, a pariah state.

Even had the child died in a crossfire, blaming his death on deliberate Israeli action made it a classic blood libel: A gentile boy dies; the Jews are accused of plotting the murder; violent mobs, invoking the dead martyr, attack the Jews. In Europe, the attacks the al Durah libel incited were mostly on Jewish property. In the Middle East, a new round of suicide bombers, “revenging the blood of Muhammad al Durah” targeted Israeli children to the approval of 80% of the Palestinian public. It was, in fact, the first postmodern blood libel. The first blood libel announced by a Jew (Enderlin), spread by the modern mainstream news media (MSNM), and carried in cyberspace to a global audience. It was the first wildly successful piece of “fake news” of the 21st century, and, as an icon of hatred, it did untold damage.

But it gets worse. Not only did the evidence show that the Israelis could not have fired the shots that hit the boy and his father, but everything about the footage suggests the scene was staged. There was no blood on the wall or ground and footage never shown to the public appeared to show the boy moving after being declared dead. I set out to explore this staged hypothesis, first raised by Nahum Shahaf, and exposed to the Anglophone public by James Fallows in 2003.

Fathom 21 | ‘Understanding the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa is the key to understanding the whole Middle East conflict’: an interview with Lyn Julius

Earlier this year Fathom’s Grant Goldberg interviewed Lyn Julius about her new book, Uprooted, which documents 3,000 years of Jewish civilisation in the Arab world and explains how and why that civilisation vanished in a single generation in the middle of the 20th century. Julius describes what brought Nazi Germany, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem into an alliance and how this impacted Jews in the Middle East and the formation of the State of Israel. Download a PDF version here.

Grant Goldberg: What prompted you to write the book?

Lyn Julius: I have a strong connection to the region. My parents arrived in Britain in 1950 as Iraqi-Jewish refugees, and throughout my childhood I was very conscious of the connection with Iraq, mainly because I still had family there. Conditions deteriorated for the remaining 3,000 Jews of Iraq after the 1967 Six-Day War and Israel’s defeat of the Arab countries. Saddam Hussein embarked on a reign of terror, executing nine Jews in Liberation Square in Baghdad. My grandparents were still in Iraq as well as various aunts and cousins and all were desperate to leave. The community’s telephones were cut off, their jobs were lost and their university entry blocked. Their very lives were in danger – some 50 Jews were arrested and never seen again.

I honestly think that understanding the Jews of the Middle East is the key to understanding the whole Middle East conflict. The way the Jews have been treated in Arab countries points to a major dysfunction in Arab society: the inability to tolerate anyone who is different from the mainstream, whether non-Sunni Muslims or minority non-Muslims.

I’ve been very involved in Harif, the UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, which I founded 13 years ago. As well as organising events to raise awareness of the history and culture of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, I’ve been blogging and writing. Eventually, I realised I had accumulated enough material for a book.

Also, there has not been much written about Mizrahi Jews, certainly not in English.[i] The most mainstream work was In Ishmael’s House by Sir Martin Gilbert, published in 2010. Most of the research on the subject has been done by historians writing in French, such as Georges Bensoussan, Nathan Weinstock, Shmuel Trigano, Bat Y’eor and Paul Fenton, who, despite his English origins, is a professor at the Sorbonne. David Litman also wrote about Jews from Morocco. I hoped my book would make the essence of their work accessible to English readers.

Widow of legendary spy Eli Cohen begs Syria to return his remains

The widow of famed Israeli spy Eli Cohen, who was executed in Syria 53 years ago, issued a public plea to Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday to return her husband's remains to Israel for burial.

Nadia Cohen was speaking at the first International Multidisciplinary Conference on the Treatment of War Injuries at the Galilee Medical Center in northern Israel.

"Release Eli, release his bones," Cohen said, addressing her plea to Assad.

"When my mother-in-law died, I wept and said she had not been able to see her son laid to rest.

"Forgive, extend your hand, and give us the grave … so we can be at peace, and he [Eli] will feel that he is in his own land," she said.

Cohen thanked the conference organizers for giving her a platform, saying that some 18 years ago she had tried to persuade the Assad regime to release her husband's remains.

"I corresponded with Bashar … and we sent pictures of my children, my grandchildren, so he would take pity and soften his heart about releasing the body. I was happy when he wrote that it would happen 'when the time was right.' Even those two words were a comfort," Cohen said.

Accumulated Dog Poo On Jerusalem Streets Becomes Sentient, Leads Mayoral Race (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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: Credit Deror via Wikimedia Commons

Jerusalem, October 4 - A cohesion of canine fecal matter sat so long on the pavement of Israel's capital city that it has evolved a consciousness and communication skills, according to a spokesman, and now holds the front-runner position in a hotly-contested election campaign to succeed Nir Barkat at the head of the municipality.

P. Tabaat, the representative, told an assemblage of reporters Thursday that the chunk of doggy-doo sat at the intersection of Shabbazi and Lod Streets in the Nachlaot neighborhood long enough for its constituent microorganism population to develop into colonies, which, over the eons it sat uncollected, grew into a unified organism with more to recommend it than any of the humans campaigning for the mayoralty, and, seeing the opportunity to improve the city, launched its own election bid. Elections are scheduled for the 30th of this month.

Tabaat cited several polls showing the excrement in the lead over previous front-runner Moshe Leon, with 47% of those surveyed choosing the feces over the career politician, who polled at 29%. Likud candidate Zeev Elkin polled a distant third at 12%.

"It's an obvious choice to an clear-headed citizen," explained Tabaat. "A turd that's known the grittiness of the city's streets has much more resonance with the day-to-day struggles of Jerusalemites than any politico, especially the polished, groomed personalities of the mainstream parties. Also, a campaign being run by a piece of actual, physiological crap is shaping up to be the cleanest campaign Israel has ever seen. I know that doesn't say much, though."

Leon's and Elkin's staffs found themselves scrambling this week to explain and address the gap, which one Wednesday poll saw widening further. "It's tough to compete," acknowledged Leon campaign director Asla Authaus. "Even with the endorsement of the Haredim, which would normally prove key to victory, our candidate can barely crack the 30% mark. We're in some deep, uh, trouble."

Elkin spokeswoman Beth Hakisseh indicated that if polling continues to show the coprolite in the lead, the Netanyahu protege would consider pulling out of the race. "Not much sense in asking for humiliation on election day at the hand of a living piece of digestive waste," she acknowledged.

Even if the kaki fails to win, predict analysts, it will upend accepted wisdom about municipal elections in Israel, Jerusalem in particular. "A strong showing such as the one we're seeing really threatens the established power brokers," noted local journalist Bea Yuv. "You can tell they're producing more of the leading candidate each time they look at the polls."

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

When I was a teenager in the 1950s, I was a science fiction nut. I would load myself down with books and short story anthologies from the library and even spend actual money on pulp magazines. There were a few writers that I adored and others that I hated. I didn’t like anything that had philosophical pretensions or plot uncertainties. I liked science that could be believed with only minimal suspension of belief, action, and writing that offered insight into individual and social human behavior, even when it was attributed to aliens. And there was one SF novel that I read when it came out in 1957 that absolutely knocked my socks off: Eric Frank Russell’s Wasp. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that I’ve recalled and thought about its content ever since, although for a long time I’d forgotten the name of the book or the author.

Russell (1905-1978) was a British writer, who during the war was either a lowly RAF radio operator or a super-secret military intelligence operative, depending on whom you ask. One way or the other, he well understood the potential of the combination of psychological warfare and carefully calibrated and targeted violence, as a way to leverage a very small investment in resources to hamstring an enemy with a large and powerful military, to soften it up and facilitate its defeat by a less powerful opponent.

The wasp that inspired the title was the small creature who flies into a moving vehicle and by stinging the driver causes a wreck in which several much larger and more powerful creatures are killed. The novel is set during a war between interstellar civilizations, one based on Earth and another in the Sirian system. An earthling named James Mowry who had grown up on a planet in the Sirian Empire and knew its language and culture, was trained, equipped and disguised to function as a saboteur, and planted on an enemy planet.

Mowry acted with great ingenuity to create a phony anti-war organization (the Sirian Freedom Party) and to give the impression that it was large and widespread (today this is called “astroturfing”). He did things like placing stickers with subversive slogans on the windows of stores and public buildings; the stickers were made with a corrosive ink such that even when they were scraped off the slogan would be etched into the glass, which created suspicions that the owners of the windows might be sympathetic to the organization. He paid thugs to assassinate a member of the secret police and mailed threats to numerous other officers, causing the agency to devote a great deal of resources into trying to track down the “members” of this group. At the same time, some of the general public bought into the antiwar, anti-regime message, and as a result the society was racked by uncertainty and division (is this starting to sound familiar?)

The planet Mowry was on was mostly water, and a large fleet of merchant ships was essential to its economy. Mowry released a fleet of tiny drone submarines which had no offensive capability, but appeared on radar as the periscope of a larger sub. He then exploded a mine on a ship to give the impression that it had been attacked by a submarine, causing the Sirians to think there was a large force of armed subs threatening their fleets, and requiring them to devote much energy to searching for something that didn’t exist.

Through various simple, cheap, extremely clever and effective actions, Mowry caused the authorities to divert large forces from the war effort, ultimately making it possible for a much weaker invading force to prevail.

In a very interesting thesis submitted to the US Naval Postgraduate School this year, Andrew J. Fox cites Wasp as a “prescient” account of doctrine, strategy, and tactics for an insurgency. He compares Mowry’s tactics to those of the relatively small PLO in the 1960s and 70s, when Arafat gained influence and, paradoxically, legitimacy, for his cause by attacking an essential transport network (airline hijackings) and by a high-profile murder (the Israeli athletes in Munich).

Fox notes that the Internet makes the kind of operations launched by Mowry even easier and cheaper. After all, he had to mail his threats to secret police officers! Fox is primarily interested in the potential for new strategies of terrorism and asymmetric warfare to arise, utilizing modern technology in novel ways. But I am struck by the potential that exists for psychological warfare in Mowry’s techniques – or rather, by the clear evidence that we, Israel and the West, are being actively targeted by Wasp-like tactics today.

Think about the consternation provoked by the tiny – in active members – organizations Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now. They claim many supporters, but are there more than a few dozens of active members? I strongly doubt it. Think about the political damage done in Israel by the left-wing NGOs that are paid by European governments to stir up trouble in the territories, to flood our legal system with complaints from Palestinians, to impeach the IDF, to spread demonizing and delegitimizing propaganda – the list is endless. And what does it cost them? A few million Euros a year, far less than it would cost to attack us with tanks or planes.

But there is no reason that such techniques can only be used by weak states and non-state actors. I would not be surprised to find out that Israel had released several “wasps” of its own against Iran and Hezbollah.

All of the above is out in the open. But there is another kind of subversion that is more subtle. This is the use of automated technology to leverage social media in order to create dissatisfaction and social division in society, to exacerbate existing divisions, and to create new ones. Some Democrats in America claim that Russian “bots,” stolen emails, and other ways of manipulating opinion through social media, tilted the election in the direction of Donald Trump. I doubt this, but there is documented evidence that fake Russian social media accounts pushed extremist points of view, both on the right and the left, apparently in order to increase social conflict by aggravating existing racial, cultural and class tensions.

This kind of psychological assault is highly dangerous. Like Mowry’s stickers the object is to turn various subgroups of the population against each other and to make them suspicious of each other’s loyalty. Extremists on both the progressive and conservative side push messages of distrust, for the government, the police, the military, business, the media, the educational system, and of course racial and religious groups. The ultimate goal is to split the country into quarreling pieces that will be easier to defeat than a unified nation.

Wasp was a great read. Mowry’s resourcefulness and humor were entertaining, and Russell’s understanding of the weaknesses of bureaucracies was instructive. I enjoyed watching the unsympathetic Sirian Empire lose a planet thanks to one clever man. But today, in the age of rampant terrorism and asymmetric warfare, when the “good guys” are on the other side from the Mowrys, Wasp is more of a warning than entertainment.

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10/04 Links Pt1: Ben Shapiro: Support of Israel in U.S; Ron Prosor: Why didn’t we stop funding UNRWA years ago?; Israeli minister: We can defeat Russian S-300 air shield in Syria

From Ian:

Ben Shapiro: Support of Israel in U.S.

There’s a trendy view these days that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has committed the grave sin of turning support of Israel partisan. This is the view of many on the Democratic left, who seem perturbed at Netanyahu’s close relationship with President Donald Trump. “Netanyahu refuses to even pretend that he cares what liberal American Jews think or feel about Israel,” sneers Eric Alterman of The Nation.

But what, precisely, is Netanyahu supposed to do in the face of the left’s gradual move against Israel over the past two decades? Alterman, for all his sneering, is a harsh anti-Israel critic — he says that Israel is either practicing apartheid today or on the verge of doing so, and has endorsed the idea behind boycott, divestment, and sanctions of Israel on the international stage. Can that be attributed to Netanyahu?

The left’s anti-Israel move has been brewing for decades. Republicans have been somewhat more pro-Israel than Democrats since the Six-Day War — Israel’s victory in that war led to an onslaught of Soviet propaganda against the Jewish state as the Soviets attempted to consolidate the support of Muslim states. Still, until 2001, the two parties remained largely pro-Israel; in 2001, 38 percent of Democrats supported Israel against the Palestinians, with 50 percent of Republicans doing so.

Then 9/11 hit. Suddenly Republican support for Israel began to climb and Democratic support for Israel began to drop. That drop was exacerbated by the advent of former President Barack Obama’s administration, which took the line that Israel’s failure to achieve peace with the Palestinians lay at the heart of broader conflicts in the region. The American left began to parrot the line of the European left that Israel’s intransigence represented the root of imperialistic Western power politics.

Ron Prosor: Why didn’t we stop funding UNRWA years ago?

When the State Department announced that the US would stop funding UNRWA, many believed it to be an ill-considered move. Some argued that it would increase the chance for another round of violence, destroy the United States’s position as an honest broker, and create a humanitarian disaster.

Nothing could be further from the truth. One comprehensive look at UNRWA’s record over the years should leave anyone with only one question: how in the world was this not done many years ago?

The United Nations Relief Works Agency was established in 1949 for the exclusive benefit of Palestinian refugees. Its core mandate was to assist and house those Palestinian refugees displaced in the war. Sadly, it has done neither of those, and in an epic way.

How do we know? Because the numbers don’t lie.

Since 1948, despite wars with neighboring countries and internal flare-ups, there has not been one single event that has left “new” displaced refugees. Yet, during these 70 years, the number of refugees under UNRWAs auspices ballooned from 700,000 to almost 5.5 million. This phenomenon of a growing, rather than decreasing, number of refugees is of course a farce. Over 50 percent of the so-called refugees found homes across the globe many years ago, and would not be considered refugees by any other standard other than that of UNRWA. UNRWA has made little progress toward “ending” the refugee status of the other 50%.

Most people are not aware of it, but the UN actually discriminates between types of refugees. Next to the UNRWA Palestinian refugees, there are all other 30 million refugees in the world, UNHCR refugees. While the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been working overtime over the past decade due to the Syrian civil war, UNRWA operates with a budget that is four times larger — $246 per person annually. The contrast in numbers is quite astonishing. While UNRWA only treats 5.3 million people, it has 30,000 employees, three times as large than UNHCR, which treats a population that is more than 10 times larger.

These international UNRWA managers knowingly employ teachers who praise Hitler & preach anti-Semitism & terrorism. I sent @matzschmale our info & he denied everything. Now they are literally running to Israel—from their own Gaza employees—to save their own lives. EU funds this. pic.twitter.com/u27zsbAJ34
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 2, 2018

Following Defunding, UNRWA to Spend $100 Million on Trump Piñatas (satire)

The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an organization established to provide essential services to Palestinian refugees, has responded to US budget cuts by ordering 10 million Donald Trump piñatas, for the refugees to take out their anger on the American president.

The agency, which has been criticized for wasting money by perpetuating refugee status across generations, is holding an emergency fundraise for the $100 million needed to buy the piñatas.

“Throughout the Middle East and beyond, Palestinian refugees face dire conditions due to President Trump’s decision to end funding for UNRWA,” said UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krähenbühl. “Without these piñatas, the refugees will have no outlet to express their anger.”

As of press time, US Congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio Cortez had demanded the US raise taxes to send 10 million piñatas to the Philippines.

Yes, real academic papers on Israel are just as crazy as hoax papers

I mentioned yesterday the hoax paper scandal where nonsense is accepted by what the hoaxers called "grievance study" academia and how anti-Israel "scholarship" uses the same illogic that the fake papers used.

Here's an example, from Settler Colonial Studies, by Esther Alloun (a self-described "Arab Jew") where the author is upset that Israeli animal rights activists don't relate their activities to "occupation" the way that Palestinian Arab animal rights activists properly do. The abstract:

This article examines the contemporary animal rights movement in Palestine–Israel and compares Jewish Israeli activism to Palestinian activism to illuminate the ways in which the settler colonial context shapes animal politics. The article argues that human–animal relationships constitute a significant dimension through which settler colonialism is expressed, engaged with, and resisted. As such, drawing on ethnographic material, it explores how different approaches to animal activism can obscure or reveal the racial and colonial relations they are bound up with. It considers how Jewish Israelis frame animal rights in non-intersectional ways, as a simple, single-issue movement that can be abstracted from human politics and power relations, while the Palestinian Animal League in the occupied West Bank weaves animal activism with the decolonial struggle for Palestinian self-determination in an intersectional spirit. The article hence suggests that, to a great extent, animal politics follows the patterns set up by the settler colonial regime, with the type of advocacy on behalf of animals being shaped by the sides taken within the settler state. Instances that trouble and complicate this settler/native binary are explored as well as the possibilities of coalitional politics.

What exactly animal rights has to do with "settler colonialism" is not really spelled out, but intersectional theory says it is so therefore it is.

The author is clearly frustrated that liberal Israeli animal activists are acting out their settler colonialist instincts by not including the Palestinians in their lives:

Activists embody a single-optic perspective by not acknowledging that their love and care for animals is made possible by the colonial politics (the ‘right and left issues’) they live in. The affective register of love and care is used to distance oneself from politics (a point I return to in the final section), and activists repeatedly argue that human and animal issues ‘are not the same’ and that ‘you need to separate the struggles!’ (interview with Maya, 14 February 2017). Jewish activists also justify their single optic through a universalising discourse pitted against the local human problems occurring in the region, which are trivialised as a result. Again, this does not make their feelings or concerns any less genuine, but any acknowledgment on their behalf of a multi-optic account of the problem would significantly complicate their picture of animal activism.
The single optic of Israeli animal activism, its depoliticised and selective focus, makes sense in light of the settler colonial logic at work in Palestine–Israel. Indeed, this non-intersectional approach echoes the particular modalities of Zionist settler colonialism through which animal politics operate in this context. Importantly and as Mark Rifkin posits, the settler colonial logic produces durable ‘tendencies’, ‘orientations’ and ‘momentum’ rather than ‘determining effects’. Lorenzo Veracini argues that settler colonialism works towards its self-supersession and covers its trace. Wolfe points out that it is especially the case in Israel because of the ‘ideology of return’, i.e. the idea that Jews are returning to Zion (Jerusalem), a land that they already owned. In such perspective, Jewish Israelis do not see ‘Zionism as colonialism’, and the notion of return is used to naturalise their claims to territory and the erasure and replacement of the Palestinian natives. This sets the scene for a very unreconstructed and unacknowledged form of settler colonialism.....

As such, settlers do not necessarily perceive everyday enactments and re-enactments of Zionist settler sovereignty as political or deliberate moves. Consequently, by excluding Palestinians or politics from animal rights advocacy, Jewish activists become one more point of ‘resonance’ (to use Marcelo Svirsky’s expression) of the Zionist logic, but they do not perceive this exclusion as political. Instead, it is an expression of ‘settler common sense’, and part of the ‘ordinary, non-reflexive conditions of possibility’of living in Palestine–Israel, which translates into the exclusion of Palestinians from a shared moral horizon and understanding of justice.

Notice what the author is doing. She defines Zionism as a colonialist project as a given, and therefore all Jewish Zionists are colonialists. Their not discussing their crimes of colonialsm in every context of their lives is proof of their evil.

The Palestine Animal League, on the other hand, looks at things in the correct intersectional manner:

Jewish Israeli animal advocates primarily adopt a single-optic vision that severs animal rights from its context, whereas PAL advocates a multi-optic intersectional approach that links animal and human rights.

PAL’s director also drew on the idea of intersectionality to explain how animal advocacy cannot be viewed through a selective mono lens of animals only:

Many of the projects that we are doing, we are intersectional, we work with the humans and we work with the animals in the same project, and we don’t distinguish between the rights […] rights is rights, for the humans, for kids, for women, for men, anti-occupation, against occupation, for animal rights, rights is rights, this is what it means, this is the first step. (5 February 2017)

The a priori insistence that intersectional theory applies to animal rights makes Jewish Zionists guilty of every possible crime against all rights, human and animal, if they believe that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people. The paper falls just short of claiming that Israeli Jewish animal rights activists are "animalwashing" the "occupation."

This is nothing less than academically approved antisemitism.

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The reporter's "State of Palestine" question is more important than Bolton's answer

By now many have seen this clip of National Security Adviser John Bolton answering a reporter's question about his referring to the "so-called State of Palestine:"

Reporter: Ambassador, you just addressed Palestine and said it was a 'so-called state.' Is that language productive in achieving the president's...?

Bolton: It's accurate. It's not a state.

Reporter: But the president recommitted to, as you know, the President in New York City recommitted to his goal of achieving a a two-state solution."

Bolton: That's right.

Reporter: So is using that sort of language productive in his goal?

Bolton: Yeah, sure, of course! It's not a state now. It does not meet the customary international law test of statehood. It doesn't control defined boundaries. It doesn't fulfill normal functions of government. There are a whole host of reasons why it's not a state. It could become a state, as the president said, but that requires diplomatic negotiations with Israel and others. Calling it the so-called state of Palestine defines exactly what it has been, a position that the United States government has pursued uniformly since 1988 when the Palestinian authority declared itself to be the State of Palestine. We don't recognize it as the State of Palestine, we have consistently across Democratic and Republican administrations opposed the admission of Palestine to the United Nations as a state because it's not a state.

Bolton's answer is terrific and accurate (according to most but not all legal scholars.)

What this exchange shows, though, is how far the media has gone beyond reporting facts into only reporting what they think should be the truth. The reporter isn't disputing the facts; she is seemingly offended that Bolton stating a fact is not being "productive" towards a two state solution.

The thinking that the reporter has, along with many others and most nations in the UN, is that one should only mention what you want to be true, not what is actually true. The Palestinians pretend they have a state, so it is in the world's interests to go along with that pretense, which will somehow make it true.

And if you don't go along with their fantasy, then....what? That unstated question underlies a lot of how people look at the Middle East. Jews can handle facts, but Arabs...well, we have to protect them from the facts.

Their feelings would be hurt. They might walk away from peace talks that they have already walked away from. They will be more likely to resort to terror. We must go along with their fantasies if we want to make progress.

But there can be no progress nor productivity based on lies. Treating a group of wanna-be national leaders like children is not the way to get them to the table. On the contrary, it teaches them that they will be rewarded for acting like children.

Facts still matter. It is a shame that a field like journalism has forgotten that.

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From Haaretz:

There may be some relief in store for the electricity shortage in the Gaza Strip. Under an agreement drawn up in recent weeks, Qatar will finance the purchase of fuel for Gaza’s power plant.

The arrangement, which is supposed to go into effect in the coming days, will allow a significant increase in the supply of power to Gaza residents. Israel hopes that this development, which should provide an immediate improvement to residents’ daily lives, will reduce the risk of a military confrontation with Hamas.

Gaza now gets around four hours of electricity a day. The Qatari aid, estimated to be tens of millions of dollars, aims to raise the average to eight hours a day.

As Haaretz reported last week, talks on this issue have been taking place over the past few months under the UN envoy to the region, Nickolay Mladenov. Qatar was represented by its envoy to Israel and the territories, Mohammed al-Amedi. The Israeli official most involved was National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat. The breakthrough was reached at the conference of countries that donate to the Palestinians, which took place last week in New York alongside the UN General Assembly sessions.

Here's the part that Western media is so reluctant to report:

Previous talks had raised the possibility of increasing the electricity supply from Israel by upgrading the power line from Israel to Gaza, but this proposal met with difficulties because the Palestinian Authority objected. Understandings reached in the past regarding electricity were linked to legal and financial commitments by the PA. But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has refused moves to improve the electricity supply in Gaza unless there is progress in the PA-Hamas reconciliation talks.

Israel needs to negotiate with its enemy Qatar to provide electricity to Palestinians in Gaza, against the wishes of Palestinians in Ramallah. The Qatari fuel would be pumped directly from Israel into Gaza.

If it could, Israel would provide more electricity directly to Gaza but it is limited by existing agreements with Abbas.

These two facts by themselves shows that Israel cares more about the welfare of ordinary Palestinians than their own leaders do.

It is a stunning indictment of Palestinian leadership. But the media and world diplomats won't say anything negative about "peacemaker" Mahmoud Abbas, so this story gets buried along with the many others that show that Palestinian leaders don't care about their own people except as cannon fodder and political pawns.

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10/03 Links Pt2: Evelyn Gordon: ICC’s anti-Israel bias shows America is right to shun it; Bolton: Palestine ‘Is Not a State’; 'Blonde washing' terrorism

From Ian:

Evelyn Gordon: ICC’s anti-Israel bias shows America is right to shun it

In a public speech earlier this month, the American national-security adviser John Bolton sharply criticized the International Criminal Court (ICC) and threatened retaliation should it try to prosecute the U.S. or Israel. As Evelyn Gordon notes, multiple complaints against Israel have been submitted to the court, and its judges have twice failed to respect basic principles of impartiality with regard to those complaints. In one instance, the pre-trial chamber—tasked with determining whether charges filed by the prosecutor are sufficient to necessitate a trial—rejected the prosecutor’s own decision that Israel’s actions didn’t justify prosecution. And the court made an even more outrageous move in July:

Without waiting for [the ICC’s prosecutor Fatou] Bensouda to conclude any of her other Israel-related probes (the Palestinian Authority inundates her with complaints), the pre-trial chamber ordered the court’s registry to establish “a system of public information and outreach activities for the benefit of the victims and affected communities in the situation in Palestine,” open an “informative page” on the court’s website exclusively for Palestinians, and report to the chamber on these operations every three months with the goal of creating a “continuous system of interaction between the Court and victims, residing within or outside of Palestine.”

Bensouda has yet to conclude that any crime even occurred, much less that the court has jurisdiction over it (which is far from self-evident). Moreover, the judges have yet to see any evidence in the cases at issue. Yet by declaring the Palestinians to be victims to whom the court must reach out, they have effectively announced that they’re already convinced both that crimes have occurred and that they’re within the court’s jurisdiction. And if the judges have decided all this without even bothering to review any evidence, how could they possibly be trusted to evaluate the evidence fairly should Bensouda actually file charges?

Moreover, by twice sending Bensouda clear signals that they want her to indict Israel, the judges have undermined her credibility as an independent prosecutor. If she ever does file such charges, will it be because she truly considers them justified or only because it’s easier to placate the judges above her than to keep defying them?

Thus the court’s track record on Israel alone provides ample justification for Bolton’s broadside against it. Indeed, it ought to concern many countries since a court that’s biased against one country can’t be trusted to eschew bias against others. . . . And by refusing to overlook that uncomfortable fact—by refusing to grant a travesty of justice the honor due the real thing—America is upholding its highest ideals.

Bolton: Palestine ‘Is Not a State’

National Security Adviser John Bolton clarified for a reporter on Wednesday that Palestine is "not a state" when asked why he referred to it as a "so-called state."

"You just addressed Palestine and said it is a so-called state. Is that language productive?" a reporter asked, prompting Bolton to say his comment was "accurate" and that "it is not a state."

The reporter referenced President Donald Trump's support for a two-state solution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict last week and asked whether Bolton's language is productive in helping him achieve his goals.

"Yeah, sure. Of course. It's not a state now. It does not meet the customary international law test of statehood. It doesn't control defined boundaries. It doesn't fulfill the normal functions of government. There's a whole host of reasons why it's not a state," Bolton said. "It could become a state as the president said, but that requires diplomatic negotiations with Israel and others, so calling it the so-called state of Palestine defines exactly what it has been."

Bolton said the "so-called state of Palestine" description reflects a "position the United States government has pursued uniformly since 1988 when the Palestinian Authority declared itself to be the State of Palestine."

"We don't recognize it as the State of Palestine, we have consistently across Democratic and Republican administrations opposed the admission of Palestine to the United Nations as a state because it's not a state," Bolton said.

UNRWA recently announced it would fire some 100 Gazan Arab employees due to budget cuts. This resulted in massive protests held Monday, unbeknownst to Jewish Israelis, who were celebrating Simchat Torah, a short distance away. The protests must have been bad, for they struck abject terror in the hearts of all the lovely dedicated European souls who administrate UNRWA from within Gaza. We know this because the Israeli government was forced to step in and evacuate ten of them.

These international UNRWA managers knowingly employ teachers who praise Hitler & preach anti-Semitism & terrorism. I sent @matzschmale our info & he denied everything. Now they are literally running to Israel—from their own Gaza employees—to save their own lives. EU funds this. pic.twitter.com/u27zsbAJ34
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 2, 2018

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) issued an official statement, confirming the evacuation of UNRWA officials:

"A number of foreign UNRWA employees have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip to Israel. This is due to the tensions as a result of the financial crisis UNRWA is facing and subsequent concern for the safety of its foreign staff.

“The Hamas terrorist organization did not protect the agency's staff from the violence directed against them,” read the statement from Israeli officials.

Imagine that: 10 senior international UN employees begging to be rescued by the country that body has condemned more times than North Korea, Syria, and Iran combined! And specifically, from the UN agency that provides antisemitic schoolbooks to the children of Gaza, inciting them to violence against Israeli Jews.

And for more info on Matthias Schmale, chief of UNRWA's international staff in Gaza who are now fleeing to Israel—to save their lives after being threatened by their own Gaza employees—see thread: https://t.co/tUGrsgp3d3 @matzschmale
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 2, 2018

What are we to make of all this?

@Palestine_UN @COLRICHARDKEMP @epavard @haaretzcom Well, Well, look at this... @UNRWA running to Israel for help, imagine that...
— BrooklynBorn (@evanparke) October 2, 2018

The main takeaway seems to be that no matter what you give them, no matter how much land, money, and freedom they have, the Arabs can’t properly run a state of their own. You can analyze the reasons until the cows come home, but the fact remains: given all the tools of statehood, they have failed to create an independent state. Independent, that is, from Israel.

Israel always has to step in and rescue them from themselves. Or alternatively, to rescue the international workers sent to help them. It’s just pathetic.

The 2005 Expulsion of the Jews from Gaza (A/K/A Disengagement) was a chance for the Arabs to show they could build a state, given land, some infrastructure, a budget, and a government. It was a chance for them to show they didn’t need to depend on Israel for aid, jobs, or medical care. Alas, the Arabs ran true to type, destroying the greenhouses left them by the Jews, using the monies they receive to support pay to slay schemes and swollen government salaries, and as in Judea and Samaria, electing to be governed by terrorists.

Meantime, they protest in the tens of thousands, demanding to be let into Israel, the state they say should not exist, the state they continue to try to destroy, the state they should have no need of, with all that was provided them by Israel and by the world.

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