Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, January 10, 2020

01/10 Links Pt1: Glick: Donald Trump and the mythmakers; American Self-Criticism Borders on Narcissism; My despair at those who weep for Quassem Soleimani

From Ian:

Caroline B. Glick: Donald Trump and the mythmakers

If Trump's reality-based policies succeed, he will dismantle their foreign policy legacy. All their protestations of wisdom, all their fancy resumes and titles as former senior officials will lose their allure and market value.

Since Pompeo's statement regarding the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria related to an issue which, while critical, is less in the headlines today than it was under Obama, aside from a few peremptory condemnations, the foreign policy aristocrats ignored it. As they saw it, once they return to power and start working with an Israeli government led by someone other than Benjamin Netanyahu, the anti-Israel phony narrative will be restored to its rightful place as the foundation of US policy.

The Iran story is different. Days before the drone strike that killed him, Soleimani tried to re-enact the 1979 "student" takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran with "protesters" in Baghdad. But this time it didn't work. And Soleimani paid with his life for his failure. Iran's half-hearted, failed missile attack against US forces in Iraq showed that the Iranian regime is terrified of Trump and their reversal of fortune.

Trump's policies expose the mendacity and rank insanity of his predecessors’ policies towards Iran and Israel. Since Obama's policies were particularly radical, divorced from reality and devastating, Trump has reasonably singled them out for particular rebuke and condemnation. Among other things, reasonably, Trump said the missiles Iran shot at US forces in Iraq were paid for by the 150 billion dollars in sanctions relief and 1.8 billion dollars in cash that flowed to the coffers of the IRGC through the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Rather than keep quiet as their signature policy was exposed as a strategic disaster, Obama administration officials and their supporters in Congress and the media went into very public paroxysms of rage. Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser and chief propagandist, who sold the nuclear deal to a credulous and eager media, said Trump's move would lead to war. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the US strike against Soleimani was "disproportionate," hinting it was a war crime to kill the terrorist who had just ordered the seizure of a US Embassy. She scheduled a Congressional session to curb Trump's power to confront Iranian aggression and nuclear proliferation.

On cue, a group of psychiatrists wrote an open letter to Congress insisting that Trump is crazy and must be restrained. (The same group has written several nearly identical letters since Trump took office.)

To protect and preserve their 40-year old delusion-based policy, Trump's domestic opponents are effectively supporting the Iranian regime against the United States. And as they see it, they have no choice. They are in a race against time. The more successful Trump's reality-based policies towards Iran on the one hand and Israel on the other are, the harder it will be for the foreign policy establishment to restore their delusion-based policies when he leaves power. Given the stakes, we can assume that their attempts to clip Trump's wings and debase him will increase in intensity, churlishness and irrationality as time goes by and as his successes mount.

Flags L-R, via @PhillipSmyth + @abubakrbashir4:

1. Iran
2. IRGC
3. IRGC Aerospace
4. Hizbollah (Lebanon)
5. Houthis (Yemen)
6. Hashd al Sha'abi (Iraq)
7. Hamas (Gaza)
8. Fatemiyoun (Afghanistan)
9. Zainabiyoun (Pakistan) pic.twitter.com/cYm9krGciV
— Raf Sanchez (@rafsanchez) January 9, 2020

American Self-Criticism Borders on Narcissism

Those who said there will be war may not have realized there already was war. This doesn’t mean killing Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was good. It almost certainly wasn’t. Iran quickly retaliated by targeting two American military bases in Iraq and may find new ways to escalate, but Iran had already been escalating. The regime of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, with its Iranian patrons, led by Soleimani, has been waging a brutal assault on Syrians for more than eight years. War, in short, has been happening—costing hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians their lives—since long before Donald Trump ordered the drone strike against Soleimani.

In the aftermath of the strike, critics of the Trump administration’s foreign policy, particularly on the left, have described the move as one more rash American intervention that’s sure to further destabilize the region. Yet this formulation gives U.S. policy, for all its flaws, too much credit. Not everything is America’s fault; others are sometimes to blame; and no one, not even the weaker parties, are devoid of agency or freed of responsibility. The burden of de-escalation does not fall entirely on the United States; Iran, too, can choose to de-escalate.

There is also the problem of Trump himself. Because killing Soleimani was very much his decision—reflecting the impulsiveness and disarray a decision by him implies—it seems fair to assume that one’s view of the president will affect how one interprets the fallout from Soleimani’s killing. Correcting for subconscious bias isn’t easy, but at the very least, observers should be aware of the Trump effect.

Middle East experts, and particularly those from the region, have tended to be less alarmist than most other commentators. These experts are likely to be less fixated on Trump himself and less likely to put the United States at the center of their analysis. And they are more likely to be aware of the sheer scale of brutality, mass murder, and sectarian cleansing that Soleimani helped orchestrate. Soleimani wasn’t just another bad guy. He was one of the region’s worst. (Yet another humanitarian catastrophe has been unfolding in Syria, but it has garnered little attention. The Assad regime, with crucial military support from Iran and Russia, has been bombing Idlib province. More than 200,000 Syrians have already fled, and hundreds of thousands more could be forced from their homes.)

It is not an overstatement to say that Qassem Soleimani “haunted” the Arab world. As Kim Ghattas wrote here in The Atlantic, “Soleimani was so central to almost every regional event in the past two decades that even people who hate him can’t believe he could die.” It is a rich irony that as Democrats portrayed the strike as one of the worst foreign-policy blunders of the Trump presidency, a significant number of Syrians and Iraqis rejoiced—one of the very few times they have reacted positively to something, anything, that the United States has done. Their interests, of course, are not the same as Americans’, but there should at the very least be an effort to understand why they might have celebrated.

It would be outrageous if:

🇸🇦 Israel launched a "Mecca Force" to conquer Arabia
🇮🇹 Turkey launched a "Vatican Force" to conquer Italy
🇮🇳 France launched a "Sapta Puri Force" to conquer India

But the world's ok with:

🇮🇱 Iran trying to conquer Israel with their "Jerusalem Force"
— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) January 10, 2020

My despair at those who weep for Quassem Soleimani

A few hours into the new year, pro-Assad forces targeted a school in southern Idlib with a cluster bomb. The bombing took place at 11am when it was clear the school would have been busy. Five children were killed. Two of those who died were just six years old; the oldest child victim was only thirteen. Four adults were also killed. I will forever be haunted by the faces of Yahya and Hour, the innocent six-year-olds who were amongst the child victims who attended – and died at – the school run by the organisation I work for.

This isn’t the first time one of our schools has been destroyed. In fact, six of our schools have been hit in as many months in Syria. Make no mistake: this is a clear co-ordinated bombing campaign against children.

Yet with the Syrian civil war entering its ninth year, the reaction to these dreadful, evil crimes is muted. Instead, the outrage appears to be directed elsewhere.

Two days after the New Year’s Day attack in Syria, Iran’s Quassem Soleimani was killed by a US airstrike near Baghdad airport. Many of my friends were furious. But why?

Were they concerned about the impact it would have on the region? No, they had never heard the name Soleimani until news of his death broke.

They knew little of his influence in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and further afield. Instead, quite simply, they were furious because his death resulted from a decision made by Donald Trump. Trump is bad and therefore this was bad, the logic seemed to be. Few paid heed to the crimes against humanity Soleimani is accused of. Soon, many of my Facebook friends had turned into foreign policy experts queuing up to predict that “WWIII” was inevitable. It was all Trump’s fault, they said. In the aftermath of Iran’s retaliation against US airbases, this fervour has only increased.

When Iranian proxies say "Damn the Jews," they must only mean "Zionists"

The amount of slack that the anti-Israel Left is willing to give Iran is stunning sometimes.

Reading their tweets, they (initially) said that they didn't believe that Iran had shot down the Ukraine Airlines plane because everything the US says is a lie - but not a word about Iranian claims that they killed 80 US servicemen in the missile strike, a lie so obvious that no one wants to even talk about it any more.

Iran doesn't kill any Americans out of fear of a major response, and they say Iran wisely wanted to avoid any casualties (that they claim they did.)

As I recently mentioned, official Iranian media publishes, in English, official antisemitism, even from white supremacists - and no reaction from the people who claim to care most about bigotry.

And Iran's proxies include the Houthis, whose very logo is explicitly antisemitic:

Translated:

When you define all antisemitism to be "white nationalism," then you become blind - and complicit - with all other kinds of antisemitism.

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Today, among much pomp, Egypt is opening the restored Eliyahu Hanavi synagogue in Alexandria that fell into disrepair.

The Egyptian government spent some $4 million for the restoration.

No Israeli officials are allowed at today's ceremony, although supposedly they will be allowed to hold a separate ceremony later this year. (Odds are it will be mysteriously canceled for some very valid sounding reason.)

Alexandria once had some 40,000 Jews. Now it has virtually none.

Egyptian archaeologist Dr. Zahi Hawass, who used to be minister for antiquities affairs, said that he is very happy with the work of the restoration of the synagogue in Alexandria, adding that when he took over the responsibility of that department in 2002 Egyptian synagogues were neglected and very damaged "but we repaired them because they are part of the history of this country."

He said that Egyptian Jews are part of the Egyptians, just like the Egyptian Christians and Egyptian Muslims, and stressed that the Jewish temples in Egypt must be preserved, and the Jews' heritage and civilization must be preserved because it is part of the Egyptians who lived there.

What Hawass doesn't mention is how he reacted to the news that some Jews had actually celebrated and worshipped at the re-opening of the Rambam synagogue in Cairo in 2010. He said then that the synagogue will not be handed over to the Jewish community in Egypt in any way, that no Jew will be allowed to pray there, nor will he allow any Israeli to pray there.

For Egypt, the money spent on synagogue restoration is to make Egypt look like a multicultural country and to attract tourists. But to actually allow Jews to pray in these once-bustling synagogues? Not a chance.

Eliyahu Hanavi looks beautiful. It has a rich history back to the 13th century, rebuilt in the 19th. But it is a museum, not a synagogue.

And Egypt likes it that way.

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"Moderate" Erekat and Ashrawi tell the EU that paying terrorists is the right thing to do. EU tries to accommodate them.

In 2019, the European Union in 2019 set out rules which obligate Palestinian organizations that receive aid to ensure that no beneficiaries of their projects or programs are affiliated with groups listed on the European Union’s terrorist organizations list.

That list includes these terror groups, all of which have been proud of their terror acts:

Abu Nidal Organization (Fatah)
al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (Fatah)
Al Qassam Brigades (Hamas)
Hamas
Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command

It seems like a reasonable request not to allow EU finds to be redirected to EU-recognized terror groups, right?

Well, Palestinian NGOs freaked out, saying that if there are strings attached to the funding, they'd rather go without. Because to them, giving aid to these groups is righteous. The Palestinian argument is, essentially, we don't distinguish between terrorists and non-terrorists, so asking that the money not be given to terrorists is a form of discrimination.

Really, that's their argument.

And this argument is not only from Hamas and Islamic Jihad and NGOs that fund thm. No, the government of the "State of Palestine" is openly saying that terror groups should get funding like anyone else.

Saeb Erekat objected to the EU:

In an official letter to European Union Minister for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, Erekat said the new funding conditions that are binding to all the contracting parties to the European Union raise concern among Palestinian NGOs, especially civil society organizations that serve the Palestinian public without discrimination and in line with international legal standards.

He pointed out that among the organizations included in the EU blacklist are Palestinian political parties, which means that the conditions are aimed at disrupting Palestinian political and civil activity, which places a new burden on Palestinian institutions.

“These restrictions directly affect the Palestinian rights under international law, and in particular the right to self-determination. They are not in line with the European Union’s commitment to a two-state solution, peace and stability in the region,” Erekat said.

Can you believe that he says this garbage with a straight face? Terrorists are legitimate political parties? Banning paying terrorists is bad for peace????

Hanan Ashrawi wrote a similar letter to Josep Borrell, saying:

...These unfair conditions will hinder actors in Palestinian society from performing their duty towards our people, which is contrary to Palestinian laws and international standards.

While we affirm our respect for the European Union's efforts to combat terrorism and extremism and consider them a common interest, we stress here that the European Union must respect the obligations of Palestinian civil society and work in accordance with Palestinian law and the interests of our people.

The most bizarre thing is that the EU wants to give its money away to these corrupt and pro-terror actors so much that they are negotiating over this deal. This story goes into detail:

The EU spokesperson’s office asserted to The Media Line that the new clauses aren’t really new, as they’re consistent with EU policy since 2001 to avoid financing groups classified as terrorist organizations. “We don’t have a single name of a Palestinian persona, but only movements and armed wings. We are not asking them [the NGOs] to recognize any [Palestinian] political party as a terrorist group, but [only] to refrain from funding them in any way.”

In addition, the spokesperson’s office explained that what the EU is asking for is in line with Palestinian law, which prevents civil society organizations from funding any political party.

“We [including acting European Union Representative Thomas Nicholson] met in December with representatives of Palestinian civil society institutions and discussed their reservations regarding the new funding terms.” The office added, “The EU is waiting for a response on their position in light of the clarifications we have made, in order for the European-Palestinian partnership to continue, especially in areas threatened by Israeli actions.”

It is a surreal world we live in where the PLO can say "we don't want your money unless we are free to spend it on terror groups" and the EU responds with "No, let's work something out so we can both be happy."

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01/09 Links Pt2: The ICC and the Orwellian denial of Jewish presence in Israel; 'Pompeo drove a stake into a vampire by discarding Hansell memo'; To Stop Hateful Attacks On Jews, Oppose The Ideology Behind Them

From Ian:

The ICC and the Orwellian denial of Jewish presence in Israel

This leads to the question of determining who was the first occupant, and implying that historical Jewish presence must be denied and further that, as a corollary, Palestinians need to prove that they were the first occupants. The consequence of this narrative is that anything “Jewish” is erased from the history of the country. For example, recently, Palestinian academics denied archeological evidence of Jews in Israel, part of a narrative to portray Jews as recent “invaders.” More generally, this creates an impossible historical conundrum, since the presence of an Arab population emerged as a notable community in the territory of Israel after the Muslim conquests of the 7th century and that, thereafter, this population always cohabited with the remaining Jewish and Christian communities after those conquests.

More specifically, the aspect of this broad narrative relating to the inherent illegality of Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, implies a certain view of the history of the past century. One could even say that this narrative requires a sort of Orwellian rewriting of the past, to erase key moments that fit uneasily with such a narrative. Indeed, it requires a writing out the recognition of a Jewish right to self-determination that followed the 1917 Balfour Declaration. It ignores the conditions under which Judea and Samaria – as well as Gaza – were occupied respectively by Jordan and Egypt from 1947 to 1967. It ignores the circumstances of the 1967 Six Day War when Israel took control of this territory in a defensive war. It ignores the negotiated terms of the Oslo Agreements in relation to the distribution of authority in Judea and Samaria and the lack of final status of both borders and territories. The wide-sweeping argument of illegality per se also ignores the diverse nature of each individual presence in these territories, in terms of where it is, how it came into existence, what legal authority applies to it, etc.

As in a courtroom, the issue comes down to the identification of competing narratives before the international community acting as a Judge. Each side is therefore faced with the choice of which narrative from which to choose. Some narratives can be reconciled; others cannot. The fact remains that taking the position that settlements are illegal as such, serves a war-like narrative that denies any legitimacy to Jewish presence in the entire territory of Israel, as exemplified by numerous declarations, including a recent declaration by a Fatah official that “Palestinian people will not relinquish a grain of soil from the land of historical Palestine from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River.”

The December 20, 2019, announcement by the ICC Prosecutor that she is ready to open a formal investigation regarding “settlement-related activities” at its core, will undoubtedly be seen as a first narrative victory for those challenging Jewish presence in Israel. This can only be countered if another narrative is presented – not just in public discourse – but at the ICC itself, which provides genuine procedural opportunities for participation in the judicial debate, as we noted in an editorial last September.

'Pompeo drove a stake into a vampire by discarding Hansell memo'

Besides the practical issue of the ICC, multiple lawyers and officials stressed the importance of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement that the settlements are not inherently illegal.

George Mason University law professor and Kohelet legal director Eugene Kontorovich said Pompeo had killed a 1978 US legal memorandum declaring the settlements illegal so completely that it was like driving a stake through the heart of a vampire and burying it deep in the ground.
He reviewed arguments that try to frame the settlements as illegal, saying they were exposed as political by the bizarre “scope of illegality” that they try to use as a tool against Israel.

Kontorovich noted that the Fourth Geneva Convention often cited as the basis for viewing the settlements as illegal is meant to apply only in a time of war, not for more than 50 years and to every house ever built in an area where no one was living but which happens to be generally disputed.

Likewise, former Foreign Ministry director-general and current Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs president Dore Gold said it was “obscene” that the Geneva Convention discussion of the Nazis’ forced deportation of Jews to death camps was now being used against Jews who wish to build homes in their ancestral homeland.

The settlements started as an Israeli security measure to prevent invasions, and UN Security Council Resolution 242 explicitly authorized Israel to remain in control of portions of the disputed West Bank land, Gold said.

Historical 'Jewish presence' key to Israel's territorial claims, US envoy says

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman reiterated on Wednesday that the Trump administration did not consider Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria as illegal per se, while also noting Israel's ancient ties to the land.

"Judea and Samaria – the name Judea says it all – is territory that historically had an important Jewish presence," Friedman said at a conference in Jerusalem organized by the Kohelet Policy Forum, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Israel's sovereignty and strength as a Jewish democracy.

"As they say, it is the biblical heartland of Israel. It includes Hebron, where Abraham purchased a burial cave for his wife Sarah; Shiloh, where the tabernacle rested for 369 years before the Temple was built by King Solomon in Jerusalem; Beth El, where Jacob had his dream of the ladder ascending to heaven; Kasr al-Yahud, where Joshua led the Israelite nation into the Promised Land and John the Baptist baptized Jesus, and so many other famous locations.

"After the Ottoman Empire fell, Judea and Samaria, along with the rest of what was then referred to as Palestine, became subject to a British Trust which was subject to the Balfour Declaration, the terms of the San Remo Conference, and the League of Nations Mandate. In simple terms, the British were obliged to facilitate settlement of the Jewish people in this land. That's not to say that Jewish settlement was exclusive, that no one else had the right to live there. But Jews certainly did," he stressed, noting that during the 1967 Six-Day War Israel "recovers Judea and Samaria from Jordan" after it had been under Jordanian occupation for 19 years, after "almost no one recognized its [Jordan's] rights to the territory."

David Singer: Israel’s Next Election Must Focus on Judea and Samaria – not Bibi

Should another election deadlock occur for the third time in twelve months – the proposals presented by the respective parties for Judea and Samaria can be the basis for negotiations to form a Government of National Unity.

There will be critics who claim that Israel should not reveal its cards before negotiations actually begin with Arab interlocutors – that by doing so Israel will stymie itself from demanding more of Judea and Samaria.

All proposals should therefore include a rider that the area proposed is the minimum area of Judea and Samaria willing to be accepted in future negotiations and may be increased should changed circumstances to those now prevailing exist when negotiations are undertaken.

Political parties not prepared to inform voters of their proposals can expect to be given the thumbs down by the Israeli electorate. Those who are open and frank in presenting their proposals should find themselves rewarded by the electorate.

Politicians need to resist the temptation to focus their major attention on preventing Bibi – Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister – from becoming Israel’s next Prime Minister as he personally grapples with three indictments laid against him by Attorney General Mandelblit.

Israel’s national interest must incontrovertibly prevail.

Crunch time for Judea and Samaria has arrived – 100 years after reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine was first proposed internationally at the 1920 San Remo Conference.

Realising that 100 year old dream should be Israel’s paramount objective.

Summing up Soleimani

Anyone who tries to explain the events of the past week without understanding the honor/shame culture is getting it wrong.

Iran has always been an explicit and avowed enemy of the US since the Islamic Revolution. Over the last two decades, it has sought to become a regional and even a world superpower.

It has used proxies and terror to achieve its aims because it knows that a direct challenge to the US would be disastrous. But it has been testing the boundaries, as we have seen over the past year.

The proxies give Iran (im)plausible deniability, but the fiction works for both Iran and its enemies, neither of which are interested in a new war. Iran has used its proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen very effectively.

Anyone who thinks that the killing of Soleimani is going to make Iran change either its goals or its methods because of its desire for revenge or saving face doesn't understand the honor/shame mentality.

Iran needed to "avenge" Soleimani. It had to do it with a direct attack on the US. That is the only way it could restore "honor." But on the other hand Iran is rational and it knew that killing a single American would be an escalation that the US could not let go.

Therefore, whether with backchannel communication or not, Iran calibrated a response that would not kill Americans but that it could trumpet to its people as a crushing blow to the Great Satan, restoring honor.

People who say that Iran isn't done with its response, and that Iran will also hit the US (or Israel) with its proxies, don't understand that a proxy attack is valueless as a means to regain honor. By definition, honor accrues to the people who do the act, not the ones who tell them to do it. Iran cannot claim credit for a Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad rocket attack because by doing that it destroys the fiction of those parties being independent. If a proxy hits the US (or Israel) and Iran claims responsibility, as honor/shame would demand, then the US or Israel can publicly say that they will hit Iran back directly since the pretense is gone.

Iran is not going to risk that.

There is no increased risk to Israel or the US at this time beyond what Iran has been steadily doing for years. Not only that, but Iran has been significantly weakened by the combination of the loss of its main strategist, the effects of sanctions and the simmering unrest of its own people.

By any measure, Iran is in far worse shape today than it was a week ago. It has no more cards to play than it did beforehand, and the US is no longer viewed as a paper tiger that can't do anything (as Khamenei tweeted a couple of says before the attack.)

The hit on Soleimani is an unqualified victory for the US and the free world.

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Police Baffled At Zero Murders Amid Jerusalem Gentrification (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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: Credit: Footballkickit via Wikimedia Commons

Jerusalem, January 13 - The historic neighborhood of Nachlaot in the center of this city has seen numerous demographic shifts in its decades-long transition from slum to hipster, yet despite the phenomenon as the obvious root cause of stabbing and shooting attacks in New York and New Jersey, law enforcement officials expressed puzzlement this week at the mysterious lack of such crimes here.

Police officials scratched their collective heads at a meeting this week with residents, where they admitted they simply cannot account for the absence of violent murders sparked by the neighborhood's gentrification. Moriah District Deputy Chief Dam Yehudi-Hefker informed attendees that the axiomatic link between rising real estate prices and the murder of Jews appears not to affect Nachlaot's development, a fact that defies predictions.

"Everyone discussing Monsey and Jersey City knows gentrification is the real problem," he stated, referring to stabbing and shooting attacks on Orthodox Jews that left three dead and many more injured. "All the social activists made that clear. It couldn't be just antisemitism; that would be absurd. With that in mind we've been looking at the crime statistics for Nachlaot, and for other Jerusalem neighborhoods in the throes of gentrification, and we're not seeing the violence that the phenomenon produces in the New York area. We're flummoxed."

The current neighborhood of Nachlaot evolved from walled-in settlements outside the Old City beginning in the 1870's, as overcrowding, disease, and other urban ailments drove residents and Jewish philanthropists to seek solutions that provided relief. In the many decades since, the separate walled communities grew together into a larger amalgam, but for most of its existence Nachlaot remained a bastion of low-income families living barely over subsistence level. Influxes of immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries that expelled them during the State of Israel's infancy added to the mix. The low rent and dilapidated apartments also attracted students and foreign workers on a limited budget, further diversifying the polity. But beginning in the 1990's, wealthier buyers and developers identified the immense potential of Nachlaot's location smack dab in the middle of the city, a five-minute walk from the bustling downtown, just as the second or third generation of longtime residents began to seek more spacious neighborhoods, or other places in Israel entirely, to raise their own families. Nevertheless, not a single stabbing or shooting - or murder of any sort, police report - has accompanied this trend, and both police and experts remain baffled.

"Maybe the law of averages will catch up," mused a municipal official. "There is certainly no shortage of folks not too far east of here who would enjoy enthusiastic participation in an effort to bring the stabbing and shooting statistics in line with what's expected."

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01/09 Links Pt1: Noah Rothman: Has Iran Blinked?; Yes, Obama Helped Fund the Iranian Regime; Mourning Soleimani, from Hollywood to the Campus; NYT Reporter: In Iran, Soleimani’s Death Is Like MLK’s Death in America

From Ian:

Noah Rothman: Has Iran Blinked?

On Tuesday night, that response came in the form of a barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles launched from Iran at U.S. targets inside Iraq. But the volley produced no casualties—a conspicuous outcome given Iran’s capabilities. Their targets did not include some of the positions where the U.S. forces were concentrated in the largest numbers and excluded some likelier targets closer to the Iranian border. In the wake of the strike, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif talked about Iran’s retaliatory response in the past tense, telegraphing a desire to deescalate. Donald Trump’s refusal to respond to the Iranian volley indicates that Washington got the message.

It would be premature to suggest that the crisis is over, but it is possible that a worst-case scenario has been averted. For American policymakers, the most pressing threat posed by Iran is its capacity to execute deniable attacks against soft targets and civilians in theaters far removed from the Middle East. That threat will persist, but the prospect of direct and conventional conflict between the United States and Iran has dissipated for now. If Iran returns to a strategy of unconventional and asymmetric attacks against the U.S. and its allies, it would be a reversion to the status quo ante that has prevailed for the better part of the last 40 years. That’s hardly ideal, but it would represent a dramatic retreat from Iran’s strategy of taking direct (or implausibly deniable) action against U.S. and allied assets, personnel, and interests.

On Wednesday, commentators and media figures praised Iran’s restraint and suggested Tehran had provided the president with a way to deescalate the conflict if he so chose, but this is a myopic and unfair assessment of how the Trump White House managed this crisis. This administration didn’t accidentally stumble its way into a textbook strategy for defusing a cascading spiral of violence against a revisionist adversary. It’s too soon to say if Iran is once again deterred, but there is reason to be cautiously optimistic. If there is any credit to be doled out at this early stage, it’s the Trump administration, not the Mullahs, who deserve it.

Ben Shapiro: Trump’s Iran Policy Isn’t the Problem. Barack Obama’s Was.

This is a deliberate misreading of history designed to absolve the Obama administration of its Iran policy debacle. The administration pursued a policy of strengthening Iran economically — and did so while openly acknowledging that Iran would use that newly gained economic strength to pursue terrorism and ballistic missile testing. In speaking of the sanctions relief given to Iran, then-Secretary of State John Kerry explained in January 2016, “I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists.”

That’s precisely what happened. In March 2016, then-U.S. Central Command nominee Army Gen. Joseph Votel said that Iran had become “more aggressive” since the advent of the nuclear deal. Indeed, Iran has built up Hezbollah in Lebanon, propped up Bashar Assad in Syria, increased its presence in Iraq and bolstered its war in Yemen. In the past few months, Iran and its proxies have attacked shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, Saudi oil facilities, an American drone and an American embassy, among other targets. All of this occurred while the Trump administration did little or nothing in response.

Then Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani. Suddenly, we have been informed by dishonest Democrats and their media allies, Iran has gone rogue.

Nonsense. Iran has been rogue for decades. The Iran deal was simply an attempt to whistle past the graveyard with the terror regime — to pay it off long enough so that President Barack Obama could declare the problem handled. This was, after all, the Obama strategy in Crimea and Syria: Declare a red line; run away from it; pretend that pusillanimous inaction is bravery and deterrence provocation.

Trump thought differently. Now Iran has come face to face with the prospect that actions have consequences — and those consequences don’t involve pallets of cash being shipped over to fund terror organizations that span the globe.

Ben Shapiro: Iran Loses Its Showdown With Trump

At this point, it behooves the administration to allow Iran to save face. No Americans were killed; the base was not American. What’s more, the Iranians will seek the last word in this latest exchange — which means that unless the United States is truly willing to go to war, we ought to let the Iranians save face with this tepid response.

The truth is that Iran came off poorly in this exchange. That’s not just because a ballistic missile attack that fails to damage American assets looks pitiful. It’s because Iran just undercut its entire case in Iraq. In the aftermath of Soleimani’s killing, the left-wing press, Democrats, and isolationist right in the United States were blaming Trump for escalating the Iranian situation; that take will not hold water after this latest response.

Meanwhile, Shiites in the Iraqi parliament were militating in favor of pushing America out of Iraq, suggesting that Trump had participated in aggression in Iraq by killing an Iranian terrorist there — but now Iran is responsible for firing on Iraqis in Iraq directly. Iran has also put itself in position for further diplomatic isolation from its erstwhile friends in Europe, who were already moving earlier today toward re-establishing sanctions thanks to Iran’s statements about restarting its nuclear program.

None of this is likely to raise sympathy for Iran at a time when they were attempting to shift blame for the current confrontation onto Trump. No matter how unpopular Trump is on the world stage, he isn’t bombing Iraqi soldiers or threatening military action against Western allies.

Iran did what it had to do to demonstrate that it wasn’t going to let Soleimani’s death pass without response. But Iran has demonstrated that at the center of its foreign policy lies the same rot at which the Obama administration winked and nodded — and that they were perfectly happy to fire ballistic missiles, perhaps paid for with Obama-era cash and allowed by the Iran nuclear deal, at Iraqis and Americans.

White House: Iran's Campaign of Terror Will No Longer Be Tolerated

President Trump said Wednesday: "No Americans were harmed in last night's attack by the Iranian regime. We suffered no casualties, all of our soldiers are safe, and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases....Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned....No American or Iraqi lives were lost because of the precautions taken, the dispersal of forces, and an early warning system that worked very well."

"For far too long...nations have tolerated Iran's destructive and destabilizing behavior in the Middle East and beyond. Those days are over. Iran has been the leading sponsor of terrorism, and their pursuit of nuclear weapons threatens the civilized world. We will never let that happen."

"The civilized world must send a clear and unified message to the Iranian regime: Your campaign of terror, murder, mayhem will not be tolerated any longer."

Hamas leader barred from front row of Soleimani's funeral, causing gossip

Since Qassem Soleimani's timely death, Hamas has been scrambling to ensure that they continue to get weapons and money from Iran as they did before. Hamas publicized its mourner's tent in Gaza and issued press releases mourning their great benefactor.

Hamas' relationship with Iran has always been rocky, though. It refused to fully back Iran in Syria and has shown itself to be closer to Turkey than Iran, backing Turkey's occupation of parts of northern Syria against Iranian wishes.

Palestinian media has been showing this photo of Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh at Soleimani's funeral, showing that he was not allowed to be in the front row as the VIPs were.

There were also (probably false) rumors that Haniyeh snarkily complained that Soleimani's Quds Force, named for Jerusalem, fought in Syria to Iraq and Lebanon and even Yemen but never did a thing to fight Israel. (I've seen other Palestinians make that point but Haniyeh is a bit too smart to say that out loud.)

Islamic Jihad leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah, a much more reliable ally of Tehran, also rushed to attend the funeral. I can't see where he was placed.

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How many anti-Zionist activists does it take to change a lightbulb? That's not funny!

PreOccupied Territory, one of my wonderful columnists, wrote a satirical article on his site that started off this way:

Antisemitism Only Counts From Whitesby Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Truah Rabbis

New York, December 18 – Too many people have misunderstood my online reaction to the murder of Orthodox Jews in Jersey City last weekend, in which I attempted to distinguish between that attack, with its economic context, and others perpetrated by real, white-supremacist antisemites. That tweet prompted numerous accusations that I seek to downplay or deny antisemitism when ethnic minorities display it. To the contrary: I define antisemitism ontologically as a product of white supremacy, making antisemitism by others – Black Hebrew Israelites, Muslims, whoever – impossible.

Following that definition – which you cannot deny or face accusations of oppressing me, a card-carrying intersectional progressive – the killers in Jersey City committed murder, yes, but not an antisemitic hate crime. This holds true despite the emergence afterwards of evidence that they belonged to a cult that preaches hate and violence against Jews, with rhetoric that echoes the likes of David Duke and Louis Farrakhan. Once we understand that the term “antisemitism” applies only to white-on-Jew violence, we realize other terminology must come into play. My suggestions include “economic protest” and “anti-gentrification crusade,” but others are welcome to weigh in with theirs.

Like any good satire site, sometimes PT gets too close to the truth. A major YouTube channel, Akkad Daily, highlighted the article, starting off as if it was serious but making clear that it was satire to his large and appreciative audience.

Jacobs objected to the article on PT's website (that currently features a headline "Jews Selfishly Hogging Limelight By Getting Killed") as making people think it really was written by her. (As far as I know, she didn't describe exactly where her opinions diverge from the article itself, if at all.)

After her complaint, PT graciously added a disclaimer at the end of the article:

Editor’s note: certain unnamed people are worried that a satirical article might be taken seriously, possibly because it is eerily close to their actual opinion. They even wrote to us to request, very politely, that we remove the article, the subject of which is a public figure. For those people, we very politely stress that the article as written is not to be taken literally.

Any person with an IQ of above 35 would understand that when he says it is a "satirical article" that this means that this is a, um, satirical article.

But that wasn't explicit enough to the humorless anti-Israel Left.

Jacobs went to lawyer Michael Sfard, who represents anti-Zionist groups in Israeli courts, who then wrote a letter to PreOccupied Territory demanding a huge bold letter disclaimer on every page of his site, and all others, and I think to pay for a billboard in every major intersection in Jerusalem and New York to make sure that everyone knows that Jacobs did not in fact write this:

Subject: our client Rabbi Jill Jacobs
Warning before initiation of legal proceedings

Dear sir:
1. On 18 December an article entitled “Antisemitism Only Counts From Whites” (hereinafter: the article) was published on the site PreOccupied Territory (hereinafter: the site), which is under your ownership, management, and editorship. The article was written, ostensibly, by my client – Rabbi Jill Jacobs, director of the organization Truah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.
2. The article contained opinions and statements attributed to my client that she has never expressed, that she does not hold, and that have the potential to denigrate her, embarrass her, and make her a target for hatred and insults.
3. The article was shared numerous times on the Internet, with no clarification whatsoever that it is fake or satirical, causing many people to mistake it for a genuine article my client wrote. Moreover, on none of the site’s various pages does there appear any statement that the site is satire. The various articles are presented as factual, and in such a manner that a reasonable person would not suspect it of being other than an authentic opinion piece by my client.
4. It must be clarified that the attribution of the statements in the article to my client – which originate only in the imagination of the writer – qualifies as libel under Sec. 1 of the Libel Prohibition Law of 1965....

6. It must be made clear that the addition of this comment cannot repair the damage already caused, and that continues to be caused, to my client. The comment as published (as quoted above) is unclear and not unequivocal or explicit enough that my client is not the article’s author, and has not given her consent for its publication. Additionally, the note does not appear on the home page of the “Opinion” section of the site, where a link appears to the article ostensibly by my client.
7. Therefore, before and in light of damage to my client as a result of the aforementioned article, and to minimize any future damage that continues to accrue and grow, you are required to take the following steps:
a. Fix the article by adding an explicit note that my client did not write it, nor participated in the composition of the satirical piece, and place it at the top pf the article in bold typeface.
b. Add an identical clarification to that described in the previous paragraph to any link on the site to the article, including the Home and Opinion main pages.

We better not tell Mr. Sfard about this PreOccupied Territory article that he attributed to HRW's Omar Shakir:

This is the usual reaction we are all so familiar with from the Left that pretends to be liberal: Censorship for opinions they find distasteful.

The only distasteful opinions are those of people like Rabbi Jacobs, for whom antisemitism is a political football to use against those whose opinions she doesn't like, and who will simply not discuss any kind of antisemitism that doesn't fit her left-wing, intersectional view of blaming everything on Zionists and the Right. Her only real objection is that PreOccupied Territory wrote something that is uncomfortably close to the truth, and she doesn't want people to know it.

Well, more people do now.

UPDATE: Jacobs is not as bad as I had characterized her on antisemitism. Her friends are.

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There was a tiny celebration in Khan Younis, Gaza on Wednesday of Iran's missile strike against an American airbase, where people walked on and then burned paper American and Israeli flags.

The person in the red cap in the photo above guy gave out sweets:

He wore a T-shirt that says "New York."

And a Superman baseball cap.

Superman, of course, traditionally stood for "Truth, Justice and the American Way" - and was created by two Jewish guys.

For wanting to see America destroyed, they sure seem to love America.

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01/08 Links Pt2: Netanyahu: I won’t let settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan; Pres. Trump: No Lives Lost; Iran ‘Appears To Be Standing Down’; Court Upholds Anti-BDS Law in State of Arizona

From Ian:

Netanyahu: I won’t let settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan

Settlements will not be evacuated in any peace plan while Benjamin Netanyahu is prime minister, he vowed on Wednesday amid talk that the Trump administration may present its peace plan within weeks.

“I will not let any settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan. This idea of ethnic cleansing...It won’t happen,” Netanyahu said at the Kohelet Forum’s conference on the US decision that settlements are not illegal.

His remarks came as diplomatic sources say the Trump administration is strongly considering releasing its plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians in the coming weeks, before the March 2 Knesset election.

“There is a window of opportunity. It opened, but it could close,” Netanyahu added, warning of “weak leadership” that will “hit rewind,” in an apparent reference to his election rival Blue and White leader Benny Gantz.

Netanyahu expounded on Jewish rights to live in Judea and Samaria, pointing to its anchoring in legal documents from the San Remo Conference and the League of Nations.

“There was no West Bank separate from the rest of the land. It was seen as the heart of the land. We never lost our right to live in Judea and Samaria. The only thing we lost temporarily was the ability to exercise the right,” Netanyahu explained.

PM Netanyahu: "Israel is Completely Beside the United States"

Israel's caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised US President Donald Trump for authorizing the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the powerful commander of Iran's Quds force. In his speech at a summit in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Soleimani was behind deaths of "countless" innocents and sowed "fear, and misery, and anguish" -- and was planning to do even worse.

Pompeo 'disavows' Carter-era anti-settlement policy

The US rejects a 1978 memo determining that Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday in a video statement to the Kohelet Forum’s conference on his settlement policy.

Pompeo said the US is “disavowing the deeply flawed" the Carter-era memorandum, written by then-State Department Legal Adviser Herbert Hansell, which called all Israeli settlements beyond the 1949 armistice lines to be illegal.

This goes a step further than Pompeo’s statement in November that the US “no longer recognize Israeli settlements as per se inconsistent with international law.”

“It’s important to speak the truth that the facts lead us to, and that is what we have done,” Pompeo said in his video message. “We are recognizing that settlements do not inherently violate international law.”

As such, he added, the US is returning to a more “balanced” policy, “advancing the cause of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Kohelet Forum said: “For decades, the obscure Carter-era memo was used as justification for anti-Israel policies...Secretary Pompeo’s statement makes clear the US’s wholesale rejection of the legal theory that holds that international law restricts Israeli Jews from moving into areas from which Jordan had ethnically cleansed them in 1949.”

Celebrating “Pompeo Doctrine” on legality of Israeli settlements with Psagot ⁦@SecPompeo⁩ wine at ⁦@KoheletForum⁩ conference, with ⁦@IsraeliPM⁩ ⁦@USAmbIsrael⁩ ⁦@AmbDermer⁩. pic.twitter.com/RhdxPNRcic
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) January 8, 2020

Bennett: Area C of West Bank belongs to us, we’re waging a battle for it

Israel is waging a “real battle” against the Palestinians for control of Area C of the West Bank, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said on Wednesday, as he declared “officially" that the territory belongs to Israel.

“Our objective is that within a short amount of time, and we will work for it, we will apply [Israeli] sovereignty to all of Area C, not just the settlements, not just this bloc or another,” Bennett told the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem.

Bennett, who heads the New Right party, added that he intended to make that demand part of his coalition agreement to enter the new government after the elections.

The second goal, Bennett said, was to ensure through the promotion of settlement construction to ensure that within a decade a million Jews will live in Judea and Samaria.

In the interim, Bennett said, “We are embarking on a real and immediate battle for the future of the Land of Israel and the future of Area C. It started a month ago and I am announcing it here today.”

Sarah Halimi’s murderer will not stand trial because he was deemed too high on marijuana to be responsible for his actions. Kobili Traore, age 29, beat Halimi, age 65, for an hour. The neighbors could hear her screaming as Traore beat her. They could also hear him screaming abuse at her. “Shut your mouth,” he screamed. “Allahu Akbar.”

And then, as he threw her out the window, “I killed the Shaitan!”

Shaitan, in case you were wondering, is Arabic for Satan.

This all happened on April 4, 2017. Three days later, Prosecutor François Molins said the “act” would not be considered an antisemitic murder. It took five more months for Molins to officially declare the murder an antisemitic crime, perhaps because enough people made enough noise that he simply had no choice.

And now, two years later, the murderer is getting off scot-free.

Do we buy the idea that marijuana made him do it—made Traore violent?

No. We don’t. Not only because marijuana is more likely to make a person eat a lot of Doritos and crash on the sofa than to cause a person to toss a nice older woman out a window. But because it’s France. La Monde didn’t publish the story until June 23, almost three months later. That was around the same time the family of Sarah Halimi lodged a complaint because the police weren’t doing anything. They weren’t bothering to investigate the murder. Which is probably why the murder was not declared antisemitic until the outcry of the public became too loud for the courts to ignore.

So no. We totally don’t buy that Traore was just way stoned when he did what he did and only needs a spot of rehab. We, the Jewish public, know that Traore murdered Sarah Halimi because antisemitism is endemic to his culture, to people from Muslim countries. Traore beat Halimi and threw her out a window because to him, Jews aren’t even people.

They are the Shaitan.

Of course it’s not that there’s no evidence that marijuana can’t make a person violent. We can Google the science as well as the next person. There’s the 2016 study that shows changes in brain function for habitual users which suggests a correlation between violent offenders and marijuana use. And there’s the 2017 study that shows an increase in violent behavior in former mental patients who smoke pot.

But we don’t much care about any of that or give credit to the significance of these studies. We’re not buying that Traore had a “delirious episode.” What we really think is that smoking pot gave Traore the chemical courage he needed to finally off that nice Jewish lady who had always been so kind to him. Traore needed to get way buzzed in order to obscure Sarah Halimi’s humanity. So he could do what he needed to do, raised as he was in a milieu that sees the Jews as the devil in disguise, the Shaitan. Satan.

Because without a few hits of strong marijuana, she was just that nice neighborhood lady with the beautiful shy smile, a mother and grandmother, a doctor. Sober, she was impossible to kill. But with a buzz on? It made it infinitely easier for Traore to do what he’d always been taught to do.

Kill the Jews.

Well, all’s well that ends well. Traore smoked up, got really baked, tossed that Jew Shaitan out the window, and won’t even have to serve time. Because France understands these things. France gets how a poor Muslim immigrant might need to blow off a bit of steam here and there.

Which is why, two years before Traore murdered Halimi, Farid Haddouche, a Muslim with no previous history of mental illness, was deemed unfit to stand trial after stabbing Jews in Marseille. And why Abel Amastaibou, another Muslim with no prior history of mental illness, was also deemed unfit to stand trial for the stabbing death of Sebastian Selam in 2003. Amastaibou told his mom he was “going to heaven,” so his intention to become a shahid, a Muslim martyr, was crystal clear. France, however, protects its immigrants and Muslim citizens. Not so the Jews.

The Jews will complain about the unfair ruling in the case of Sarah Halimi, but then, they always do. And when they see that this is the end of the story, they’ll have to quiet down. Because there’s nowhere else to go with this. The appeal was turned down. And the media has already moved on to something else.

Only the most stubborn Jews will persist in remembering that gentle smile, and the way Sarah Halimi, a doctor, took the time to mentor Kobili Traore, the man who got away with her murder. No one else will care enough to wonder at a court that says a few hits on a bong makes a person not liable for his actions.

Especially not in the land of Dieudonné.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Israel should not be in the spot it is in, without a government and heading for a third election within 12 months, an election that – if you can believe the polls – will turn out as inconclusive as the previous two.

At the same time that we see the usual stupid political ads with the stupid music in the background and hear the stupid remarks of the various political figures interviewed on the radio and TV, we watch PM Netanyahu fighting for his political life (and possibly his freedom) over the most technical of technicalities.

Bibi asked the Knesset to grant him immunity from prosecution, which, if he got it, would protect him until after the election. But in order to do that, his request has to be ruled on by the Knesset House Committee. If they turn it down, he loses. If they approve it, then the full Knesset votes on it.

But because the Knesset was dissolved in preparation for the election, there is no such committee. This suits Bibi because until there is a decision on immunity his trial on the indictments against him cannot be scheduled. And since the House Committee will be selected in proportion to the seats held by the various parties, it is highly doubtful that there would be a majority in favor of immunity. Bibi would like there to be no committee until after the election, which he believes he would win. Then he could ask for immunity from a friendlier Knesset.

The speaker of the Knesset, Yuli Edelstein, a Likudnik, would like to help him by delaying as long as possible. But the legal advisor to the Knesset has said that it is possible to create a committee now. And if that happens, the House Committee will be created by the Arrangements Committee, which is chaired by a member of the Opposition. The House Committee will then (almost certainly) deny immunity, the indictments can be sent to the court, and a trial can be scheduled. It could even begin before the election.

Yesterday the news was full of reports of threats of legal action by the fiercely pro-Bibi Justice Minister, Amir Ohana, against the Knesset’s legal advisor. The details aren’t important. This is what we’ve come to.

I’ve said countless times that Bibi is the most qualified individual to be Prime Minister. The leading opposition party, Blue and White, is a collection of mediocrities who hate each other. The whole is far less than the sum of its parts, which are not all that much by themselves. Although it seems that a right-wing government can’t be created without the Haredi (“ultra-Orthodox”) parties, a center-left one would require the Arab parties. And while a majority of the Arab citizens of Israel are probably loyal to the state, their representatives in the Knesset are not. The law requires that a member of the Knesset must not oppose the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, and if the law had been adhered to, they would not have been permitted to serve.

In any event, a government by the mediocrities of Blue and White supported by the votes of the Arabs in the Knesset would be a disaster, open to Arab blackmail. There were serious efforts made to form a unity government including both Blue and White and Likud, but each side refused: Blue and White would not accept Bibi being PM while under indictment, even for a few months, and probably wasn’t prepared to join a government including the Haredim. And Bibi insisted on the inclusion of his whole 55-seat bloc, because that would be his only chance for immunity. It is hard to imagine such a government being functional anyway; they would have to override laws to create additional positions for cabinet ministers in order to pay off all of the demands of the parties. My mental image is of baby birds screaming with their beaks wide open.

A right-wing government would be most likely to take advantage of the Trump Administration’s pro-Israel positions on issues like the annexation of the Jordan valley, which I believe to be necessary for the defense of Israel, and the extension of Israeli law to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, which is essential to maintain their legitimacy. The medium-term objective must be to establish defensible borders. I don’t believe that the parties to the left of the Likud can be depended on to do these things.

Could there be a right-wing government without Bibi? Possibly there could be, but Bibi ensured that the Likud, at least, would remain pure by trouncing his challenger, Gideon Sa’ar, in the primary election. I think polls indicated that Bibi would do better in the general election than Sa’ar, but that is before Sa’ar had a chance to campaign to the general public. Sa’ar is smart, honest, and ideologically right-wing, although he lacks Bibi’s charisma. He also has a wife who is not an embarrassment.

And now I want to come to the point: I’ve had it with Bibi. Yes, they persecuted him unfairly – especially by way of media leaks – but he and his greedy wife asked for it. Yes, the police acted improperly, especially in the pressure placed on Nir Hefetz to become a state’s witness. Yes, the country does not reward its leaders as it should, but accepting hundreds of thousands of shekels worth of cigars, champagne, and jewelry from foreigners with interests in Israel? The very pettiness of the crime is part of the problem.*

Bibi ought to be honored for all that he did for the country, for being one of its greatest Prime Ministers, but not at the cost of allowing an incompetent and dangerously comprised opposition to take over. There should have been an orderly transfer of leadership in the Likud to someone like Sa’ar; but instead, Bibi will fight until the end, and damn the consequences. He should have been given a deal in which he was exonerated in return for retiring. Even if this couldn’t be – and he certainly didn’t seek it – he should have retired. The state is more important than any one man, as Menachem Begin would have understood. Unfortunately, it’s too late for this.

Our electoral system is seriously flawed. What happened should not be possible. The system must be changed. Some think it would be best for the state to adopt a real constitution. But given the distribution of power and the divisions between the various groups in the country, I can’t imagine such a thing coming about, or, if it did, that it would be a good thing. Changes, if any, will be piecemeal and ad-hoc, because that’s how we roll in the Jewish and democratic state of Israel.

Meanwhile, we will go through another infuriating election campaign with all of its expense and distractions. And we can’t even be sure it will be the last in this series.

Please, may Hashem give us, at last, an unequivocal decision! And somehow, a right-wing government.

___________
* The other charges against him are much more complicated, and include the idea that positive media coverage can be a quid pro quo for bribery, something which is not at all clear, especially if the transaction was only talked about and not consummated

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01/08 Links Pt1: Col Kemp: Barbarous Iran is the real Great Satan, but the morally bankrupt Left is incapable of admitting it; NYTs Iran Coverage: ‘Mind-Boggling,’ ‘Impossible To Parody’

From Ian:

Col. Richard Kemp: Barbarous Iran is the real Great Satan, but the morally bankrupt Left is incapable of admitting it

Fortunately our prime minister and foreign secretary have not fallen into the trap of taking Tehran’s side. They recognise that Iran is as great a threat to the UK, sometimes branded by Tehran as the ‘little Satan’.

Soleimani’s Quds Force directed the killing of dozens of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, alongside over 1,000 Americans. In 2015 Soleimani’s proxies set up a bomb factory with three tons of explosive materials in north London. Elsewhere in Europe, a Quds Force organised bombing attack in France was prevented in 2018 and two Dutch citizens were assassinated in Holland in 2015 and 2017.

Khamenei has said he will no longer adhere to the nuclear deal with the P5+1. Despite European leaders’ determination to cling to President Obama’s agreement, they know Tehran has been duping them since it was first put in place. In any case this flawed deal would have allowed Iran to legitimately develop material for nuclear weapons in a few years, threatening the whole world.

Rather than unintentionally encouraging Khamenei’s plans for violent retribution, European political leaders should be working towards the downfall of his vicious dictatorship or at least coercing him towards moderation. Already under severe threat from within, the regime has been seriously weakened by the killing of Soleimani which exposed to their own people Iranian vulnerability in the face of superior American power. EU governments should condemn Iran and its violent actions everywhere and support President Trump in re-imposing sanctions. No matter how bitter a pill for them, it is the right course for the decent people of Iran and the safety of others across the Middle East.

According to Sir Keir Starmer, current favourite to replace Corbyn: ‘We need to engage, not isolate Iran.’ He is precisely wrong, presumably unaware that decades of engagement and appeasement have led only to greater violence, never one inch closer to peace. The Government should ignore him and prepare to back America with diplomatic and military action if this situation escalates, making it clear to Tehran that they will do so.

Caroline Glick: Qassem Soleimani is dead. Who's next?

Political commentator, journalist and author Caroline Glick joins Eve Harow to explain – with her trademark directness – the huge importance and ramifications of the US killing of arch terrorist Qassem Soleimani.

A tremendous destabilizing force who was responsible for the murder of thousands in and out of the Middle East, this act has created an opportunity for regime change in Iran.

Caroline shares her opinion on the players in the region and how American strength is critical to ensure security for good people around the globe.

Iraq, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Europe, Egypt - get ready for an hour-long primer on the maelstrom surrounding little, stable Israel.

Lee Smith: Iran and America Are Suddenly Both Naked

By taking decisive action against Soleimani, Trump showed that Iran’s power is an illusion generated by D.C.’s willingness to look the other way

U.S. officials even had scholarly support to rationalize their failure to hold Iran accountable. During the 1990s, Middle East experts promoted a thesis holding that the clerical regime in fact had little to do with Hezbollah. According to the “Lebanonization” thesis, Hezbollah was a homegrown resistance movement that came into being as a local response to Israel’s 1982 occupation of Lebanon. In fact, as Tablet colleague Tony Badran has written, Hezbollah was seeded in Lebanon in the mid-’70s by “Iranian revolutionary factions opposed to the shah.” U.S. policymakers preferred the fiction that Hezbollah was a homegrown product because it supported both their emotional needs and their policy goals: The West had earned the righteous anger of the natives, and there was nothing to be done except atone by way of offering human sacrifices.

In 1996, Iran’s proxy in Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah al-Hijaz, bombed the Khobar Towers, killing 19 U.S. Air Force personnel. The Clinton administration’s hopes for rapprochement with Tehran under the leadership of so-called reformist President Mohammad Khatami required the U.S. to pretend Iran was not responsible.

Between 2003 and 2011, according to a State Department assessment, Iran and its Shiite allies were responsible for killing more than 600 U.S. servicemen in Iraq. The body count doesn’t include the U.S. servicemen killed by the Sunni fighters ushered from Damascus international airport to the Iraqi border by Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, Iran’s chief Arab ally. Yet George W. Bush reportedly passed up opportunities to kill Soleimani, deciding against opening a third front against Iranian terrorists that might endanger his doomed “Freedom Agenda.”

There was even less of a chance Obama would kill Soleimani, though his administration reportedly had him in the crosshairs, too. Soleimani was the key to the JCPOA, Obama’s crowning foreign policy achievement. He admired Soleimani, a hard man who got things done. Rather than stop the Quds Force commander, Obama told Arab allies that “they need to take a page out of the playbook of the Quds Force.”

The former president’s conviction was simply the result of what American officials had been saying since 1979. Therefore, Obama counted on Soleimani’s ability to control the ground in Syria and help America stabilize the region. Yet only weeks after Obama diplomats and Iran agreed to the JCPOA in July 2015, Soleimani was in Moscow petitioning Vladimir Putin for assistance in Syria. In spite of the billions of dollars in sanctions relief that Obama had granted Iran, and the $1.7 billion in cash the U.S. shipped directly to the IRGC, the Quds Force and the Shiite international were on the verge of losing the war to rebels in pick-up trucks.

Six U.S. administrations were complicit in turning Iran into a regional power. In that context, the Obama administration’s decision to flood Iranian war chests with cash and recognize its right to build a nuclear bomb was the logical culmination of the rot eating away at the Beltway for four decades. It was perhaps to be expected that an outsider who often doesn’t know when to keep quiet, and can’t stay off Twitter, would be the one to sing out like the boy in the fairy tale. It’s true, the emperor has no clothes. The rules have changed but that doesn’t mean the Iranians won’t be looking for revenge.