Monday, August 17, 2020

08/17 Links Pt1: Netanyahu: UAE deal based on strength, will yield ‘true peace’ with Palestinians; President Rivlin invites UAE crown prince to Jerusalem

From Ian:
Netanyahu: UAE deal based on strength, will yield ‘true peace’ with Palestinians
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expects more Arab countries to normalize their ties with Israel after last week’s agreement with the United Arab Emirates, and that the process will eventually also drive peace with the Palestinians.

In a video statement posted to his Facebook page Sunday, Netanyahu heralded what he described as a new doctrine of a strong Israel that would seek peace with Arab nations rather than conditioning ties on first ending the conflict with the Palestinians by withdrawing from territory.

“This historic change will also advance peace with the Arab world and, in the end, peace, true peace, monitored, secure, with the Palestinians as well,” Netanyahu said.

The agreement reached with the UAE, the first peace deal with an Arab state for 26 years, is unlike those with Egypt and Jordan, the other two Arab states to have formal ties with Israel, he said.

“It is different from those that preceded it in that it is based on two principles ‘Peace for peace,’ and ‘peace through strength’,” Netanyahu said. “Under this doctrine, Israel is not required to withdraw from any territory and together the two countries openly reap the fruits of a full peace: Investments, trade, tourism, health, agriculture, environmental protection and in many other fields, including defense of course,” he said.

“This peace was not achieved because Israel weakened itself by withdrawing to the 1967 lines,” he said. “It was achieved because Israel strengthened itself by cultivating a free economy, and military and technological strength, and by combining these two strengths to achieve unprecedented international influence.”

The new doctrine, he said, is “in complete contradiction to the perception, until a few days ago, that no Arab country will agree to make formal and open peace with Israel before an end is achieved for the conflict with the Palestinians.”
President Rivlin invites UAE crown prince to Jerusalem
President Reuven Rivlin extended an official invitation to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohamed bin Zayed to Jerusalem in a letter sent on Monday.

Rivlin lauded the prince for a courageous, visionary, ground-breaking move, which the president anticipated will have far-reaching results that will affect the region as a whole.

"I am full of hope that the agreement being drawn up between our countries will help build and strengthen the trust between us and the nations of the region," Rivlin wrote. "Trust will promote understanding between all of us, will march our region forward and will bring economic welfare and provide prosperity and stability to residents of the Middle East."

Rivlin wrote that he had no doubt that future generations would value the manner in which two courageous leaders have renewed the dialogue for peace.


Ashkenazi and Oman FM agree to work towards normalization
Israel and Oman are holding a dialogue aiming to have official diplomatic ties, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and Oman's minister of state for foreign affairs Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah agreed to keep in contact, strengthen ties between their countries and to “promote the normalization process in the Middle East.”Bin Abdullah affirmed Oman's support "to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East and the need to resume the peace process negotiations and to fulfill the legitimate demands of the Palestinian people to establish their independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital," the ministry said.

Ashkenazi said that he appreciates Oman’s commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East.

Following the conversation, Ashkenazi wrote on twitter that he and bin Abdullah “discussed recent developments in the region, the normalization agreement with the UAE and the need to strengthen ties between the countries.”

Bin Abdullah also spoke to Jibril Rajoub, secretary general of the central committee of the Palestinian Fatah group.

  • Monday, August 17, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

“I’m not antisemitic, I’m just against everything Israel (and only Israel) does”

A person who calls himself a comedian, Matt Lieb, tweeted:

lieb1

 

Allow me to expand his tweet, because it applies to all self-righteous Israel-hating hypocrites:

“I’m merely against colonialism, except for Muslim colonialism that made the Middle East what it is today.

“I’m merely against apartheid, except I have no problem with Lebanon or Syria or Jordan or every Arab country discriminating against their own Palestinian residents.

“I’m merely against racism, except for the slavery that happens in Arab and Muslim countries today.

“I’m merely against Islamophobia, except when Muslims are oppressed in China or Myanmar.

“I’m merely against antisemitism, but damned if I will say a word against Roger Waters or Ilhan Omar or Professor Griff or Mahmoud Abbas.

“I’m merely against occupation, even though I have no clue about any real occupation by Turkey or Morocco or Russia.

“I’m merely against ethnic cleansing, which occurs daily all over the world in places I never tweet about.

“I’m merely against bulldozing of Palestinian homes, even though it is perfectly legal and exactly the same as enforcing zoning laws around the world. (Atlantic City bulldozed lots of homes to create room for casinos, but I want to perform there, so it is OK.)

“I’m merely against ethnoreligious states even though I have no problem with dozens of states that declare themselves to be Arab or Muslim or Hindu or Christian – just the Jewish one.

That’s the hypocrisy part. This is not to mention that Israel isn’t guilty of any of these  - it is not a colonialist state, it is not guilty of apartheid, it is not racist any more than any other state, it is more tolerant of Muslims than any non-Muslim state Lieb can name, it is not an occupier (this is the only one he can make a case about but it is not true,) it is not guilty of ethnic cleansing by any definition.

This is what passes for intellectual critique, when it is lazy ignorance. It shows that Lieb as well as many of his fellow Jewish antizionists going along with the crowd while pretending to be “edgy” and “brave.” And by singling out Israel and only Israel for critiques that they don’t give a damn about anywhere else, they are engaging in antisemitism – no matter how much they protest that they light Chanukah candles once in a while for a holiday about Jews fighting for the only land that they insist must be Judenrein.

  • Monday, August 17, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Much of Palestinian policy has been based on the myth of Arab and Muslim unity

The fallout from the UAE/Israel announcement of normalizing relations continues to come, and it has shaken up long standing assumptions about the Middle East and the Muslim world.

Palestinian foreign policy has been largely based on the myth of Arab and Muslim states’ unity in supporting whatever they demand about Israel. Yet that unity has been only on paper for well over a decade. Already back in 2010, the Arab League pledged a half billion dollars to the Palestinians to “defend Jerusalem,” whatever that means, and they didn’t pay a dime.

Smart leaders would have noticed that their Arab brethren’s support was paper thin and would plan accordingly for how to deal with the day that the Arab rhetorical support would follow their monetary support. But Mahmoud Abbas is not a smart man – great at seizing and consolidating power, not too bright at seeing the trends that have been staring at him in the face.

pakrally

Instead, Palestinian leaders and their media would pump up stories about support from Islamic extremist groups in Pakistan or trade unions in Jordan and pretend that this meant that there was universal consensus on Arab and Muslim support for their cause. They didn’t make the simple realization that if Arab and Muslim nations refused to invest money in the Palestinian cause it is because they no longer saw that cause as their own.

Arab media love to quote the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion, saying that the Jewish plan to dominate the world includes fracturing Arab unity.  What we saw over this past week will be looked upon as proof of this plan. But it is nothing so nefarious: it is simply Arab and Muslim nations acting in their own self-interest rather than subsume themselves under a unified position. The same thing has been happening in the EU: nationalism is ascendant.

Most Arab nations have not made a statement one way or another about the UAE deal. Egypt, Oman and Bahrain support it, Libya and Yemen oppose, Jordan and Qatar issued cautious statements and the rest of the Arab world has been silent. What we certainly have not seen is the chorus of automatic anti-Israel statements that the PLO could have orchestrated only a year ago.

The larger group of Muslim states have been similarly divergent in their opinions. Mauritania’s statement of support for the agreement is perhaps more explicit in explaining why: it said that “the United Arab Emirates possesses absolute sovereignty and complete independence in conducting its relations and assessing its positions in accordance with its national interests, the interests of Arabs and Muslims and their just causes.”

In other words, members of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation are unhappy at being told what positions to take by these organizations. They want to act in their own self-interest, not based on what Palestinians have been telling these organizations to parrot.

The Palestinian stranglehold on the pan-Arab and pan-Islamic organizations has been so seemingly strong that Saeb Erakat arrogantly called on the Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, to issue a statement condemning the Emirati-Israeli agreement or to resign from his post. His hubris is telling – it is one thing to demand the condemnation of Israel which costs members of the Arab league nothing, it is another to demand the condemnation of a major Arab member. The PLO is so ossified in its ways that it continues to treat the Arab League and the OIC as its own personal platform. His threats just marginalize the PLO even further.

As it is, the PLO demand for an emergency Arab League meeting has so far gone nowhere and the organization has not commented on the UAE-Israel agreement, which has not gone unnoticed in the Arab world.

The UAE has forced into the open what observers have recognized for years: there is no Arab or Muslim unity. The Arab and Muslim world  used the Palestine issue to give the impression of such unity because it was the only thing they could agree on. The PLO took full advantage of this and took virtual control of these groups to make it appear to be a leader of the Arab world. But behind the scenes, Arabs were sick of Palestinian rejectionism and refusal to accept a state offered by Israel, and it was only a matter of time before some Arab states realized that aligning with Israel is a better idea than being led by the nose by the Palestinian leadership.

The Palestinian reaction is one of horror at the realization that their position as the ones who set the agenda has been toppled. The support and silence of most of the Arab and Muslim world towards the UAE/Israel agreement has shattered their confidence and destroyed their strategy, yet they have no other because they were too overconfident to create one.

  • Monday, August 17, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Imagine if Gulf countries would accept Palestinians as citizens

Arab_Gulf_States_english

If the UAE, Bahrain, Oman and other potential Arab peace partners of Israel would allow Palestinians to become citizens, it would be an even bigger political earthquake than those countries normalizing relations with Israel.

Right now there are 150,000 Palestinian workers in the UAE and about 250,000 in Saudi Arabia, along with at least another 100,000 in other Gulf countries. These countries have huge outside worker populations.

Palestinians are desirable workers. They work harder than Gulf Arabs and are generally better educated. Many of them know Hebrew which will make them more important as Gulf countries slowly normalize with Israel.

If the UAE and Saudi Arabia would announce that they would accept Palestinians as citizens, motivated Palestinians from the territories would move there, as well as many more from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. It would help the Gulf countries’ economies and it would help Palestinians who want to live in s stable Arab land where they can raise their families.

Perhaps most importantly, it would puncture the myth that somehow purposefully keeping Palestinians in a stateless limbo for over seven decades is for their own good.

Once Palestinians are shown to be happy, productive members of the Gulf states, other countries that deny them citizenship like Egypt, Syria and Lebanon would be shown to be mistreating them not out of solidarity but out of bigotry.

The “Palestinian right of return” which has no basis in international law would be exposed as a means of using Palestinians as cannon fodder.

And the Middle East would be that much closer to real peace.

Let’s hope that this is part of the negotiations.

Sunday, August 16, 2020

  • Sunday, August 16, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Now the entire Arab world can import Israeli goods through the UAE

Globes points out:

Israel's normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will give Israeli business an official, stable bridge to the entire Arab world, particularly the other Gulf states, with Saudi Arabia, which was in on the secret all along the way, at their head. The opportunities that have been opened up in the Arab markets for Israeli firms are huge, and could dramatically boost Israel's exports, to the UAE, and via them to other Arab countries.

A prominent businessperson, formerly a senior officer in the security forces, told "Globes" that although there were substantial ties with the UAE beforehand, this agreement puts everything above board, and lends legitimacy to buying from Israel for companies and governments throughout the Arab world, through UAE intermediaries. In one way or another, this happened before, but now "the sky is the limit".

A source in Saudi Arabia told "Globes" that the Arab world had a great deal to gain from Israel. This is a breakthrough. The Palestinian issue has not gone away and will continue to be an obstacle to some degree, but the road is open.

Existing ties were mostly beneath the surface, and came to light here and there, such as the collaboration of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. and Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) (TASE: ARSP.B1) (IAI) with Group 42 in the UAE, medical technology companies working on solutions to the coronavirus pandemic. This agreement was reported two months ago.

The new normalization agreement will bring to light a wide range of economic and technological collaborations that has existed for years.

This is a huge blow for BDS - and they are reacting with hysteria..

bds uae

08/16 Links: Qanta Ahmed: Israel-UAE agreement will likely lead more Arab nations to recognize Jewish state; MSNBC, CNN mostly ignore Trump's major Israel-UAE peace deal during prime time

From Ian:
Jared Kushner: The historic deal between Israel and the UAE shows Trump’s strategy is paying off
When President Trump took office, the Middle East was in a state of extreme turmoil, even by the low standards of a region long plagued by danger and violence. Islamic State terrorists controlled an area in Iraq and Syria approximately the size of Ohio. The peace process between Israel and the Arab world had stalled. Iran was spreading instability through proxy fighters in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

It was to this region that President Trump took his first trip abroad as president. In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the president laid out his vision for a more peaceful, secure and prosperous Middle East. He described to the leaders of dozens of Arab and Muslim countries a region with vast potential, held hostage by extremism and the conflicts of the past.

President Trump recognized that, to tap this potential, the region required a strategic realignment. In the new Middle East, nations must chart their course based on shared interests and common values, not old hatreds and rivalries. The president also recognized that building this future would require altering a U.S. policy that for far too long had accepted these historic animosities and even nurtured them.

That’s why instead of rewarding America’s enemies, we pledged to draw our partners closer. Rather than lecturing America’s friends, we committed to taking forceful action against the evils of extremism and terror. Finally, we resolved to pursue these goals grounded in the realities of today, not the ghosts of the past.

Three-and-a-half years later, this strategic realignment continues to pay off. The Islamic State caliphate has been destroyed, its brutal leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killed. Iran remains a pariah state but is more constrained than ever before. And thanks to the courageous leaders of Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the Middle East this week took a great step toward a future in which people of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds can live together in the spirit of cooperation and peace.

Ultimately, it is up to the people of the Middle East to decide the future they want for their children. The United States cannot and should not choose for them. But the remarkable progress over the past several years is clear evidence that the people of the Middle East are finally on a path to a very bright future. And today, more than ever, they can count on the United States’ support every step of the way.

Anwar Gargash: UAE minister of state for foreign affairs: The UAE's landmark deal with Israel is a step towards achieving a two-state solution
Since Israel’s inception, Arab nations have taken the position of refusing to recognise it because its establishment took place at the expense of Arab inhabitants of that land. But as the world has witnessed, this stance has yet to achieve any concrete progress or benefits for the Palestinian people. Indeed, over the years, several Arab states have realised that making peace with Israel, and ensuring that our Israeli neighbours feel secure in the region, is the best way to guarantee the rights of the Palestinian people, while also bringing benefits for the region as a whole. The UAE is now joining their number.

But this is not an entirely new step. The UAE and Israel have worked together before, most recently in the fight against Covid-19. We are a country that constantly looks towards the future. We recently launched the Arab world’s first mission to Mars. We have demonstrated an exemplary response to the ongoing pandemic. In light of this philosophy, we see peace and dialogue as the means to achieve a safer and stronger Middle East.

But this new agreement will by no means preclude our support of the Palestinian cause in line with the Arab consensus. There will be no embassy in Jerusalem until Jerusalem is also the capital of the future Palestinian state. We will continue to steadfastly defend the Palestinian right to statehood and dignity. And indeed, any and all progress on the matter must derive from direct dialogue between Palestine and Israel themselves. But this new deal will allow us to push ever harder for such an outcome.

We in the UAE are proud of this progress and look forward to the achievement of a more secure future for the Palestinian people, to the growth of our new partnership with Israel, and to the betterment of the region as a whole.
Qanta Ahmed: Israel-UAE agreement will likely lead more Arab nations to recognize Jewish state
Much credit for the Israel-UAE agreement and the earlier Israeli-Palestinian peace plan goes to Jared Kushner, President Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law. He and other U.S. officials have worked hard to establish personal friendships with Muslim leaders across the Middle East, which leads me to conclude that the agreement announced Thursday will be followed by the establishment of relations between Israel and more of its neighbors.

It is no surprise that the seven-member federation of the United Arab Emirates — now under the leadership of the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and commander in chief of the UAE’s formidable armed forces, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed — has become the first Muslim nation to normalize relations with Israel since Egypt and Jordan did so. His courage and long-term vision means Israel and the UAE will now have embassies in each other’s capitals.

Muslims will be able to fly directly from the UAE to Israel to pray at the third-holiest site of Islam –- the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Israelis will be able to visit, work and trade with the UAE — one of the most intensely forward-thinking regions in the world. They will be able to admire the remarkable Shaykh Bin Zayed Mosque, peruse the astonishing art the region has amassed and see the world’s preeminent Falcon hospital — a personal favorite of mine, as a physician.

Israelis and residents of the UAE will also be able to get to meet and know each other on a personal basis, establishing both friendships and professional relationships. The UAE is home to some of the most educated and empowered Muslim women in the region, including Maj. Mariam Al Mansouri the UAE’s first female fighter pilot, who led the first airstrike her country launched against ISIS. I’m sure she would get along well with Israeli military women I know.

All of us who are friends of peace between Israel and the Arab and Muslim world should now hope that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia follows the path of his neighbor and ally the UAE in establishing normalized relations with Israel.

It is in the self-interest of all Muslim nations— including the 16 remaining Arab nations that continue the boycott of Israel — to at long last accept the fact that the modern state of Israel exists and is here to stay.

Crown Prince Mohammed of the UAE has long been a behind-the-scenes source of wisdom, guidance and strategic policymaking for Crown Prince Mohammed of Saudi Arabia, and both nations have worked together in an intensely difficult time.

The neighboring countries have together dealt with the rise of the ISIS terrorist group; the deepening hostilities and undeclared open conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran; the rise of the terrorist group and Iranian proxy Hezbollah; the Syrian civil war; and the dangerous threat they face from Iran itself.

Israel can be a natural ally to Arab nations against these threats. Let’s hope and pray that the announcement by President Trump establishing ties between Israel and the UAE is followed by more such agreements with Arab and Muslim nations. That would serve America’s best interests and the best interests of all the countries following the road to peace and cooperation.




  • Sunday, August 16, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Iran’s fear: Israel will act like expansionist Iran

This Tehran Times article shows the real fear that Iran has: that Israel will take over lands closer to Iran, just as Iran has taken over Syria and Lebanon and parts of Gaza to threaten Israel.

President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday condemned an agreement between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Zionist regime of Israel to normalize ties, warning Abu Dhabi that the agreement must never prepare the ground for the presence of the Zionist regime in the Persian Gulf region.

Noting that even until the present time the UAE has done a “great mistake and treasonous act”, Rouhani said, “We warn the Emirates that lest it (agreement) finds a place for the Zionist regime in the region… then it will be different and they will be treated differently,” Rouhani said while speaking at a meeting of the National Task Force for Fighting Coronavirus.

هل كانت السعودية مملكة يهودية ؟

 

Recent interest by Israel in the history of Jews of the Gulf, including the Himyar kingdom in what is now Yemen and parts of Saudi Arabia, has been fueling this – an article in Al Sharq this weekend makes it sound like Israel has only shown interest in this topic after the Israel/UAE agreement.

That same article refers to a recent conspiracy theory that a Saudi development initiative named NEOM is in fact a cover for Israel to recreate a fictional Hebrew Biblical kingdom of “Noam.”

This has been a theme in the Arab world – especially in Jordan where many are convinced that Israel is planning to make a Biblical claim on Petra.

But it is natural for Iran to be concerned with an Israeli presence on its doorstep – so much so that it has warned the UAE that an agreement with Israel would make it a legitimate military target.

  • Sunday, August 16, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Bombshell: Lebanese president leaves door open for peace with Israel

w460 (2)

 

From Naharnet:

President Michel Aoun seemed to leave the door open to eventual peace with Israel, in an interview with French news channel BFMTV.

Lebanon has technically been at war with neighboring Israel for decades, with tensions sporadically flaring in the border area in Lebanon's south, stronghold of Iran-backed Hizbullah.

Asked in an interview on BFMTV whether Lebanon would be prepared to make peace with Israel, Aoun responded: "That depends. We have problems with Israel, we have to resolve them first."

His statement came in the wake of an announcement Thursday that Israel would normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates, only the third Arab state to establish full diplomatic ties with Israel since its creation in 1948.

"It's an independent country," Aoun said of the UAE.

Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement has for years been politically allied with Hizbullah.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday of the Israel-UAE agreement that "it's a betrayal of Jerusalem and the Palestinian people. It's a knife in the back."

Lebanon and Syria have been the most anti-Israel Arab countries, and Lebanon has been among the most antisemitic countries in the world. Even allowing for a possibility of a peace agreement with Israel is a huge shift.

Aoun is not ideological – he will align with whomever will save his political career (as would many Lebanese politicians.) And of course Hezbollah will block any possible peace with Israel. The reason that Aoun’s statement is groundbreaking is because it indicates that he is seeing the Lebanese people angry at Hezbollah as a major culprit in the Beirut explosion and he is hedging his bets with any possible popular uprising against Hezbollah and Iran. 

More importantly, even this mild statement weakens Hezbollah. Hezbollah pretends that it needs its arms to defend Lebanon from an Israeli enemy – if Israel is not the enemy, Hezbollah loses its entire reason for existing.  The Lebanese have deep memories of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and the wounds will not heal soon, but they are living under Hezbollah’s and Iranian implicit threats today. They are seeing Hezbollah’s leader Nasrallah trying to blame Israel for the Beirut blast and they recognize it for what it is – an attempt to move attention away from Hezbollah’s responsibility for putting hundreds of thousands of dangerous weapons literally under Lebanese homes, mosques and churches.

If Hezbollah issues a blistering anti-Aoun statement, they risk losing a key ally and alienating many Lebanese even more. But it cannot ignore his words either. As of this writing, Hezbollah’s Al Manar news site has remained silent.

Practically speaking, what are the disputes between Israel and Lebanon today? Some very minor land  border disputes and some fairly important disputes over maritime borders where there are significant natural gas reserves. Israel would be very flexible on those issues in exchange for real peace.

And peace is the last thing that Hezbollah wants.

(Notably, a UAE businessman makes the case for peace between Lebanon and Israel in Haaretz.)

  • Sunday, August 16, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Iranian media OBSESSED with UAE/Israel deal

Saturday, August 15, 2020

08/15 Links: I grew up with anti-Semitism in the UAE. Peace with Israel is a dream come true; Iran, Turkey, Ben Rhodes, Tlaib united in criticism of UAE-Israel deal; Don’t Let Iran Blow Up the U.N. Security Council

From Ian:
Mujahed Kobbe (Siraj Hashmi's co-host): I grew up with anti-Semitism in the UAE. Peace with Israel is a dream come true.
Never in a million years did I believe there would be a deal in my lifetime where an Arab Gulf state would recognize the Jewish state. Watching the news this week of Israel and the United Arab Emirates normalizing relations was something of a dream come true.

From the age of eight until adulthood, I called the UAE home. It was a place I enjoyed most of my firsts: my first day of school, the first time I ditched school, my first kiss, my first chicken shawarma, crashing my first car.

It’s also where I had my first experience with anti-Semitism. Of course, I didn’t know what that actually was at the time.

Calling Israel and its Jewish inhabitants the enemy of Islam and God was as common as breathing while I was growing up. Anti-Semitism was in my home. It was in the school hallways and yard. You heard it at the café while having a hookah, enjoying a chicken shawarma and playing a hand of tarneeb.

At Friday prayers, a religious cleric at any given mosque was sure to make a comment about how Allah will one day destroy Israel from the map and all the yahoud that live in it so that our brothers may finally be free.

Believing in conspiracies like the idea that Israel was the true mastermind behind 9/11 or that Israel is funding ISIS was prevalent, mainstream, part of the culture. It was a hate taught and passed down through generations by people who had never once interacted with a Jew.

It’s so weird looking back at it now, trying to understand how it is that I had this hate in my heart for an entire group of people I had never met.

I myself didn’t meet a Jewish person until I was about 25 years old and traveling through New York. He also happened to be an Israeli.

I’m not going to lie: I was nervous when he first told me where he was from. I didn’t know how to feel about, if I was supposed to walk away, or punch him in the face.

But something came over me, a curiosity, a deep desire to know more about this person I was taught to just hate. We talked about a wide range of topics in the short time we spent together, but the one that interested me the most was Israel.

You could tell he loved his country; there was a glow about him when talking about his favorite bakery that he would go to on the marina, or how he enjoys his chicken shawarma with pickles and garlic paste — just the way I would eat it as a kid in the UAE.


Vivian Bercovici: A Dream of Peace Made Real
To say that Israel is reeling today is a cosmic understatement.

All of Israel–left, right, center–was dealt a knockout blow by the indefatigable Netanyahu on Thursday when the Oval Office announced on Thursday the agreement between Israel and the UAE to immediately formalize “full normalization” of diplomatic, economic and all relations.

The revelation was so surreal, in fact, that in this hopelessly gossipy nation, where everything leaks, nothing did. It was the equivalent of an atomic bomb. In terms of sheer force, not devastation. A good atomic bomb.

For the Emiratis to engage openly, fully, and proudly has left this nation stunned. In the best way. It was totally unexpected.

Perhaps it was best expressed in a tweet by former MK Einat Wilf, who wrote: “Israeli Jews are keenly aware of their minority status in an Arab and Islamic region and so yearn for peace with the Arab and Islamic world. The #UAE showed today yet again that when the Arab world comes to us with offers of genuine peace, they always find in us willing partners.”

Mired in an evergreen domestic political morass, PM Netanyahu, “the magician,” has clearly worked for years to pull off the impossible, as he was sliced and diced six ways to Sunday by local scandal and subterfuge.

“Full normalization.”

Peace, in the vernacular. With one of the most important, progressive, influential Middle Eastern countries, the UAE.

Israeli media reports that this agreement has been brokered by Jared Kushner, Mossad Chief Yossi Cohen, and others. But foremost, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, ruler of the UAE, has boldly led the Middle East into what will not just re-align the region’s geopolitics, but quite likely those of the world. And, in a flash, the notoriously aggressive Israeli media was rocked back on its heels, collective mouths agape, at the unsurpassed brilliance of Bibi.

If Shakespeare were alive, he would have to reinvent his canon, which has become the literary foundation of Western story-telling. With Bibi, there simply is no Act V–no denouement. We are stuck in Act III, where the hero is unstoppable. Where his brilliance and unsurpassed triumphs continue, mere human frailties notwithstanding.



Friday, August 14, 2020

08/14 Links Pt2: Caroline Glick: Harris, Omar and the party's great march leftward; NY Democratic Socialists asks City Council candidates to pledge no Israel visits

From Ian:
Caroline Glick: Harris, Omar and the party's great march leftward
Under the leadership of Obama White House alumni Jonathan Greenblatt, in recent years the ADL has tried to reinvent itself as a progressive group that focuses mainly on criticizing the other side of the political divide.

The ADL's fervent efforts to ingratiate itself among progressives places in stark relief the "Open Letter to the Progressive Community" signed by more than a hundred groups calling for ostracizing it. It shows that today's Democrat party is unwilling to accept Jews or politicians who are both progressive and pro-Jewish.

This brings us to Omar's primary victory. It wasn't particularly surprising that Omar won the poll. Her national profile has made her a lightning rod in national politics. While as a bigot she is justifiably hated by many, leftist donors and activists adore her and back her as an anti-Semite.

While predictable, three aspects of her win are particularly significant. First, the main difference between the Omar and the progressive black opponent she defeated is that unlike Omar, Antone Melton-Meaux isn't an anti-Semite. Rather than drawing praise from progressives for his lack of bigotry, Melton-Meaux was decried by progressive activists who accused him of being controlled by Jews.

The second significant aspect of Omar's win is that despite her open anti-Semitism, her reelection bid – and that of her anti-Semitic comrade Rashida Tlaib – was endorsed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi even donated $14,000 to Omar's campaign from her political PAC. Pelosi was long viewed as a friend to both American Jews and to Israel. The fact that she monetarily supported an out and out anti-Semite speaks volumes about the direction of the party.

The final significant aspect of Omar's win is that it was a testament to the rapidly growing power of the radical left in the Democrat party. Two years ago, four female radicals with harshly anti-Israel positions were elected as first-time lawmakers. The joined together, called themselves "The Squad" and proceeded to drain all the air out of the policy discourse in their party.

As the Squad members rose in power and prestige, moderate Democrats insisted their voice was out of synch with their actual power. To be sure, the moderates argued, the likes of Omar and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez have the loudest microphones, but they represent but a fraction of the party's Congressional delegation.

So far, Tlaib and Omar handily won their primaries and three new candidates with their same brand of radical, anti-Israel positions just won their primaries replacing moderate lawmakers who either retired or were defeated. These victories point to two things. First, the squad has already nearly doubled its numbers in one Congressional term, and two, they have become, without a doubt, the rising force – and with Pelosi's backing, the dominant force in the Democrat party.

In light of all of this, it is self-evident Omar's primary victory was far more significant than Biden's selection of Harris as his running mate. Biden and Harris, weather vanes both, will not lead their party. They will follow their party's grassroots and donors as they lead the Democrats every further along on their great march into the anti-Semitic leftist abyss.
NY Democratic Socialists asks City Council candidates to pledge no Israel visits
Lots of candidates for New York City Council are expected to seek an endorsement from the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter, a rising force in city politics, in next year’s elections.

To apply for the endorsement, the candidates will have to decide if they will pledge not to travel to Israel if elected.

According to a screenshot of a candidate questionnaire from the DSA posted to Twitter by local reporter Zack Fink, candidates are being asked to “pledge not to travel to Israel if elected to City Council in solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation.” (The party did not immediately confirm that it had distributed the survey.)

The group also asks candidates if they support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which is part of the New York City DSA chapter’s platform.

Some candidates declared their answers already on Twitter. “Easy: 1. No. 2. No,” Eric Dinowitz, a teacher (and son of a state Assemblyman) who is running for City Council in the Bronx, posted late Thursday.

The questionnaire comes after pro-BDS activists were vindicated this month when Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, who have voiced support for the BDS movement, both won their Democratic primaries. Both represent overwhelmingly Democratic districts where they are likely to be reelected to Congress. A third congressional candidate who has indicated support for the BDS movement, Cori Bush in Missouri, also defeated a longtime incumbent in her primary.

With 35 out of 51 city council seats up for election this year due to term limits as well as open elections for citywide offices like mayor and comptroller, citywide elections in New York City next year present a rare opportunity to reshape most of New York City’s government.

The DSA is considered to be a rising force in New York City after helping Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeat incumbent Joe Crowley in 2018. In this year’s Democratic primary, DSA member Jamaal Bowman defeated Eliot Engel, a longtime incumbent and champion of Israel. Far from pledging to boycott Israel, Bowman has indicated his backing, last week telling City & State, “I am in full support of Israel.”


Jonathan S. Tobin: Can a Jewish leader coexist with an anti-Semitic extremist?
As it turns out, it isn't Rodney Muhammad who is on the spot in the controversy about the NAACP and anti-Semitism. The people who should really be worried about the controversy engendered by Muhammad are the Jewish members of the national board of the NAACP, like Rabbi Jonah Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, who are being discredited by the organization's failure to draw a line in the sand about Jew-hatred.

Muhammad is the Philadelphia chapter president of the venerable civil-rights group who sparked controversy last month with a blatantly anti-Semitic Facebook post. The post combined pictures of African-American celebrities who had recently made anti-Semitic statements, and included the image of a Nazi-style caricature of a hook-nosed Jew above a fake quote from Voltaire that said: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." The obvious point was the false claim that powerful and sinister Jewish forces are working to suppress criticism of their fiendish hold on society by courageous but oppressed black people.

While Muhammad was bitterly criticized by various Jewish groups, as well as local politicians and public figures, he doesn't seem so concerned about his future as a public figure, even after such a gross display of prejudice. The national leadership of the NAACP was slow to issue a statement about the incident and when it did, its condemnation stopped well short of demanding Muhammad's resignation or his firing by the Philadelphia chapter.

As the African-American newspaper The Philadelphia Tribune reported, local black leaders such as Bishop J. Louis Felton, the first vice president of the Philadelphia chapter, said they had not received any instructions or guidance from the group's national office. Instead, the Tribune reported that NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson would be meeting with Muhammad, as well as local community and faith leaders, to "open a dialogue and continue the educational conversations." But the time for dialogue about this scandal is over. That statement could be reasonably interpreted as an indication that the national leadership has no interest in breaking with Muhammad, despite the fact that a state board could vote to The reluctance of the NAACP to take swift and decisive action is disappointing. Jews were active in the organization's founding. And there is a direct precedent in which the NAACP was faced with a similar situation in the not-too-distant past.

In August of 2000, Lee Alcorn, president of the group's Dallas chapter, sparked controversy by denouncing the selection of Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) as the Democratic candidate for vice president. Alcorn said he opposed Vice President Al Gore's running mate because "if we get a Jew person, then what I'm wondering is, I mean, what is this movement for, you know? … So I think we need to be very suspicious of any kind of partnerships between the Jews at that kind of level because we know that their interest primarily has to do with money and these kind of things."

NAACP president Kweisi Mfume responded immediately. He not only condemned Alcorn's remarks as "repulsive, anti-Semitic, anti-NAACP and anti-American," he also immediately suspended him from the organization.

  • Friday, August 14, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

International Union of Muslim Scholars say the Elders of Zion were behind the UAE-Israel agreement

38ed07732720168e0574ba8c99a7b4ef

 

The International Union of Muslim Scholars said that any agreement the UAE makes with Israel is “high treason.”

The group, which is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, has on its website a truly bizarre chronology of events that supposedly led to the agreement, and the Elders of Zion are the main people behind it. It is an allegory, but only barely.

Historians and news analysts agree that the beginning [of the events] was in 2011, the year of the Arab Spring, when the advisors of the "Elders of the Children of Israel" volunteered to convince the UAE that this Arab Spring is a real danger to them, and that any success for it is a nail in their coffins, and that this requires swift actions and a comprehensive confrontation, in order to eliminate this danger in its presence and uproot its roots and extensions.

The UAE said: We are a small country, and simple people, we sell our oil and protect our home. And our army is barely enough for us even inside the UAE, so how can we face this Arab Spring, these revolutionary peoples, and these deeply rooted movements?

The Elders of Zion said: You can trust us and rely on us, because we have enough expertise and capabilities, networks and plans, ideas and supporters. We only need funding, the battle requires huge and long-term financing.

The UAE said: This is entirely on us, so what is this money and wealth suitable for if we do not use it to protect ourselves and secure our judgment?

The Elders of Zion said: So we agree; Funding is upon you and the rest is upon us .. Thanks to Gulf money and Jewish genius, states, armies, parties, the press will be with us and at our disposal ... and everything we need.

The UAE said: Yes, this is excellent, but we have a special problem that preoccupies us. We want your help in solving or overcoming it, so that we can go comfortably facing our common enemy.

The Elders of Zion said:….You will become Little Israel, and we will be Greater Israel ...We will truly adopt you, and you will be safe under our care and protection.

The UAE said: This is great, but  adoption in Islam is not permissible, so how do we tell people?

The people of Zion said: We will not talk about our adoption of you. Rather, we will say: normalization with you ..

These people are crazy.

08/14 Links Pt1: Michael Oren: Stunning Israel-UAE deal upends the ‘rules’ about peace-making in Middle East; Norm Coleman: They told us the sky would fall if Trump stood by Israel. They were wrong.

From Ian:
Eli Lake: Why the UAE Chose to Normalize Relations With Israel
For the Gulf States in particular, normalization of ties with Israel has historically been tied to the full withdrawal of forces to the pre-1967 lines and recognition of a Palestinian State. These principles were affirmed almost two decades ago through something known as the Arab Peace Initiative. The UAE had previously endorsed that initiative. Now the UAE and Israel have agreed to sign agreements to establish reciprocal embassies in their countries without any agreement for Israel to remove its forces from the West Bank.

The UAE is not the first Arab country to formally recognize Israel. Egypt signed the Camp David Accords in 1979 in return for the Sinai, while Jordan signed its agreement in 1994 at the height of the Oslo Peace Process. It’s notable that the UAE has signed its agreement with Israel when there are no peace negotiations whatsoever.

And that is the most striking element of the normalization agreement. It reflects two realities of today’s Middle East: First, Israel and most Gulf states have been quietly cooperating for the past 20 years. The Israelis and the Emiratis in particular have shared intelligence and private diplomatic initiatives to roll back Iranian influence in the region.

The other important reality is that no one in the Middle East can say with a straight face that Israel is the source of the region’s instability. Experience is a cruel teacher. Israel had nothing to do with the collapse of the U.N.-recognized government in Yemen — the Iranian-supported Houthis did. Israel had nothing to do with the collapse of Syria — that was the fault of the country’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad. And Israel had nothing to do with the rise of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. In all of these cases, the regimes and groups most vocally opposed to Israel also served as the region’s chief arsonists.

This is something Arab leaders in the region understand better than many advocates for Palestinian sovereignty in the West. As Osama bin Laden once observed, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.” In assessing the region, the UAE’s leaders have seen one state thrive as its neighbors burned. They have chosen the strong horse.

Noah Rothman: There Is No Going Back
Indeed, even before the rise of The Squad and their allies, a contingent of progressive congressional Democrats sought to bar the disbursement of U.S. military aid to Israel under the guise that its treatment of Palestinians was “inconsistent with the values of the United States.” These lawmakers aren’t going out on a limb—they are responding to the demands of the Democratic base. In 2019, A Gallup survey found that, while most Americans maintained favorable views toward Israel, “liberal Democrats” had become more sympathetic toward Palestinians overall.

Joe Biden does not appear eager to cater to this wing of their party. He has said that he will preserve the U.S. embassy’s new home in Jerusalem. He would return to the Iran nuclear accords only if and when Iran is no longer in violation of its terms—an unlikely prospect. He has even praised, albeit obliquely, the work the Trump administration did to yield today’s achievement. “The UAE’s offer to publicly recognize the State of Israel is a welcome, brave, and badly-needed act of statesmanship,” Biden said in a statement. “A Biden-Harris Administration will seek to build on this progress and will challenge all the nations of the region to keep pace.”

Perhaps Joe Biden is friendlier to Israel than his party’s progressives, but these statements are not the product of an abiding affection for Israel. They are acknowledgments of the world as it is. There is no going back to the status quo circa 2015. The United States cannot abandon its strategic commitments to the region and its partners in pursuit of the fanciful idea that Iran will suddenly become a responsible actor, or that the Sunni states it is currently at war with by proxy will acquiesce to their own defeat. If he becomes America’s 46th president, Biden will have to govern—and preserving America’s interests in the Middle East involves maintaining its alliances and partnerships.

Biden’s left flank remains committed to the hidebound notion that Israel is the true obstacle to peace in the region, but the region itself has moved on. What seems to look like progress to progressives would, in fact, be regression.
Commentary Magazine Podcast: Living Through History
Hosted by Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, John Podhoretz, Noah Rothman

The historic announcement that Israel and the United Arab Emirates will pursue a peace accord reflects changing dynamics in the Middle East that the European and American left simply refuse to acknowledge. But there will be no turning the clock back.
Michael Oren: Stunning Israel-UAE deal upends the ‘rules’ about peace-making in Middle East
The impending peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is more than just a stunning diplomatic breakthrough. It represents a fundamental shift in the paradigm of peace-making.

For more than 50 years, that paradigm has been based on seemingly unassailable assumptions. The first of these was that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the core dispute in the Middle East. Resolve it, and peace would reign throughout the region. The premise was largely dispelled by the Arab Spring of 2011 and the subsequent civil wars in Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen. Still, a large body of decision-makers, especially from Europe and the United States, continued to regard a solution to Israel-Palestine as the panacea for many, if not most, of the Middle East’s ills. Then-secretary of state John Kerry’s intense shuttle diplomacy, which paralleled the massacre of half a million Syrians in 2012-14, proceeded precisely on this assumption.

The next assumption was that core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was settlement-building in Judea/Samaria, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Freeze it and the dispute would be easily mediated. This, theory, too, collapsed in the face of facts. Israel withdrew from Gaza, uprooting 21 settlements, in 2005, and then froze settlements for much of 2009-10. The conflict nevertheless continued and even worsened, but that did not prevent foreign policymakers from persisting in the belief that peace is incompatible with settlements.

And, in addition to ceasing construction in the territories, Israel was expected to give virtually all of them up. This was the third assumption — that peace with the Arab world could only be purchased with Israeli concessions of land. This belief is as old as Israel itself. The first Anglo-American peace plans — Alpha and Gamma — were predicated on Israeli concessions in the Negev and elsewhere. After 1967, the principle applied to areas captured by Israel in the Six Day War and, after the return of Sinai to Egypt in 1982, to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. The same secretary of state Kerry repeatedly warned Israel that failure to forfeit those areas would result in its total international isolation.

Yet another assumption held that “everyone knows what the final agreement looks like.” With minor modifications and territorial swaps, this meant that a Palestinian state would be created along the pre-1967 lines with a capital in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians would give up the so-called right of return for Palestinian refugees, agree to end the conflict with Israel and to cease all further claims, and to accept the formula of “two states for two peoples.” Israel, in turn, would remove dozens of settlements, redivide its capital, and outsource West Bank security either to the Palestinians or some international source. Of all the assumptions, this was the most divorced from reality. Not a single aspect of it was achievable. In fact, no one knew what final agreement looked like.
LIVE: Netanyahu Addresses Historic Israel-UAE 'Abraham Accord' Peace Deal


  • Friday, August 14, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Some hysterical reactions to the Israel/UAE agreement

From Wafa:

The republics of Iran and Turkey vehemently condemned today the UAE-Israeli deal on a full normalization of the relations between the two countries.

"The UAE, which is pursuing secret ambitions over a US plan that is stillborn, null and void, ignores the willpower of Palestine," said the Turkish Foreign Ministry in a statement.

The statement added, "The UAE administration has no authority to negotiate with Israel on behalf of Palestine without consent from its people and administration regarding vital matters."

"Neither history nor the collective conscience of the region will ever forget and forgive the hypocritical behaviour of the UAE, which is trying to depict the deal as a sacrifice for Palestine, when in reality it is a betrayal to the Palestinian cause for its own narrow interests."

Meanwhile, Iran called the deal a "stab in the back" of all Muslims, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

"The UAE government and other accompanying governments must accept responsibility for all the consequences of this action," Iranian Foreign Ministry said, describing the move as an act of "strategic stupidity from Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv that will undoubtedly strengthen the resistance axis in the region."

"The oppressed people of Palestine and all the free nations of the world will never forgive the normalizing of relations with the criminal Israeli occupation regime and the complicity in its crimes."

The Iranian Foreign Ministry described the deal as a "dagger that was unjustly struck by the UAE in the backs of the Palestinian people and all Muslims."

And:

In an official statement broadcast this night on Palestine TV by Nabil Abu Rudeinah, spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leadership considered this step as a "blow to the Arab Peace Initiative and the decisions of the Arab and Islamic summits, as well as an aggression against the Palestinian people."

"The Palestinian leadership rejects what the United Arab Emirates has done and considers it a betrayal of Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Palestinian cause. This deal is a de facto recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel," said the leadership, as it demanded the UAE to immediately withdraw from this "disgraceful" declaration.

The leadership also rejected any correlation between Israel's freezing of its illegal annexation plan and any normalization of relations with the UAE or any nations, warning the rest of the brotherly Arab countries against "bowing" to American pressure, against following in the footsteps of the UAE, and against free normalization with the Israeli occupation at the expense of Palestinian rights.

"Neither the Emirates nor any other party has the right to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian leadership shall allow nobody to interfere in the Palestinian affairs or decide on their behalf regarding their legitimate rights in their homeland," said the leadership.

The Palestinian leadership also affirmed that the Palestine Liberation Organization shall remain the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and that the Palestinian people are united behind their legitimate leadership, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas in the face of this brutal tripartite declaration.

In the Arab world, there is a direct correlation between the level of anger expressed and impotence.

  • Friday, August 14, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Remember the Arab boycott of Israel? It is still the official policy of the Arab League

las logo

 

This week was the 94th conference for the liaison officers of the regional offices of the Arab boycott of Israel that started before Israel was reborn.

The Arab League boycott of Israel has been in place since 1945, when the brand new organization said, “Products of Palestinian Jews are to be considered undesirable in Arab countries. They should be prohibited and refused as long as their production in Palestine might lead to the realization of Zionist political aims.”

Even though most Arab countries have stopped enforcing the boycott – the only exceptions now being Syria and Lebanon – the Central Boycott Office remains.

On Wednesday, that office held a videoconference with members of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which includes Iran.

The conference also expressed its appreciation for the progress and impact of the BDS movement “in confronting the occupation, settler colonialism and Israeli apartheid, in order to achieve freedom and justice in Palestine and enable the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination and establish their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

Meanwhile, Israel trades directly with the Arab world, officially and unofficially.

The Arab League is a living example of the Arab honor/shame mentality. It cannot officially accept that the world has changed since the days of the Arab oil embargo. Dismantling the Boycott Office would be an admission of “defeat.” And no one wants to show any cracks in Arab unity which would undermine the entire purpose of the Arab League. Since Syria prioritizes the BDS agenda, and no one opposes a paper committee that does nothing in reality, they continue to meet, twice a year, unwilling to say out loud that they are wasting their time.

  • Friday, August 14, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Former Palestinian negotiator: UAE deal will HELP Palestinians

Ghaith portrait

Ghaith al-Omari of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has had a number of positions in the Palestinian Authority, including Director of the International Relations Department in the Office of the Palestinian President and an advisor to Mahmoud Abbas. He was also an advisor to the PLO negotiating team from 1999-2001.

His analysis of what the Israel/UAE deal means for Palestinians is therefore most interesting.

Importantly, the UAE’s recognition of Israel also tests whether the Palestinian issue still resonates with the Arab street, especially the younger generation. While the UAE is not a democracy by any stretch of the imagination, its leaders, as is true throughout the Arab world, are sensitive to public opinion. Though this move will not be as popular with Emiratis as with Israelis, there are indications that Palestinian issue is no longer a high priority for the UAE public.

The historic willingness of Arab states to put the plight of the Palestinians in the center of their foreign policy has magnified the clout of the Palestinians and their struggle. But if the UAE can pull off this diplomatic 180, it will suggest that the Palestinian issue is losing its traditional resonance and is now incapable of mobilizing the masses. This could further weaken the Palestinians’ diplomatic hand.

The most immediate plus is the removal of annexation from the agenda.

But beyond this near-term advantage for the Palestinians, history has shown that Arab countries that have relations with Israel — namely, Egypt and Jordan — are more effective in advancing Palestinian interests. Partly, that’s because they hold direct conversations with Israel, which doesn’t want to lose its ties to these two neighbors. But that’s also because in Washington and in the wider international community, their formal relations with Israel lend them more credibility than countries that do not have that status and are seen as automatically criticizing the Jewish state. The UAE will be a valuable and effective addition to this grouping, particularly as it extends the Israeli-Arab dialogue to the strategically important Gulf.

The Arab-Israeli peace process has been mired for many years. This vacuum has led to the hardening of positions among Palestinians and Israelis, and many international and regional actors have given up on the prospect of any progress between the two sides. Indeed, the two-state solution — the idea that the conflict can be resolved through dividing the Holy Land between Israel and a Palestinian state — has been fast losing support. Annexation would have put an end to any prospects for progress, as it would have made a future Palestine unviable. This new development can create a window to begin shifting these dynamics.

I’m not so optimistic on Israel and the Palestinians reaching any sort of agreement, because the Palestinian position has been nothing but rejectionism and waiting for the international community to pressure Israel for it without compromising.

The dynamic is now different. If the PLO can no longer rely on the Arab world to reflexively support it, it has to recalibrate its strategy. At the moment it has no leader with the foresight or the courage to do that. However, a prerequisite for any sort of peace is Israeli security – and Israel’s psychological security is as important as its physical security. 

If Israel feels like it is a part of the Middle East, and that it is a true ally with the Arab world, and if it knows that its Arab friends want peace more than they want to see Israel disappear,  it will be more willing to take chances for peace.

If the Palestinians realize that their strategy of relying on a solid wall of Arab support has failed, they will face a stark choice of becoming a vassal of Iran and becoming a mini-Syria or Lebanon, or choosing to do what is best for their own people.

So far in their brief history, Palestinian leaders have consistently made the worst choices. I see no reason to think that is going to change. But this diplomatic lightning strike gives them the chance, at least, to wake up.

Thursday, August 13, 2020

  • Thursday, August 13, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon

Scorecard–who supports, opposes peace between Israel and Arabs?

 

Support peace Oppose peace On the fence
UAE/Israel/USA PLO Japan
Albania Hezbollah Jordan
Australia Houthis Luxembourg 1 2
Austria Iran Pakistan
Azerbaijan Libya Qatar
Bahrain Turkey South Africa
Brazil Yemen  
Canada    
China    
Croatia    
Cyprus   Human Rights Watch
Czech Republic IfNotNow Amnesty International
Egypt Jewish Voice for Peace  
Ethiopia Rashida Tlaib  
France CODEPINK  
Germany    
Greece    
India    
Kosovo    
Mauritania    

Moldova

    
Netherlands    
New Zealand    
North Macedonia    
Norway ... (barely)    
Oman    
Poland    
Romania    
Slovenia    
South Korea    
UK    
     
UN    
EU    
AIPAC    
J-Street, barely    
Peace Now    
     
     

 

Notice how the socialist Left has no problem aligning with the worst terrorists and terror supporters on the planet.

As of this writing on Thursday night I see no comment from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, the Arab League, Indonesia, Malaysia and many other counties.

If you see any other reactions please link to them in the comments and I will update this list.

(h/t Zvi)

08/13 Links Pt2: Ancient Muslim Texts Confirm the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem; Al-Jazeera Unmasked: Political Islam As A Media Arm Of The Qatari State; An Antisemitic ‘Peace’ Organization Strikes Again

From Ian:
JCPA: Ancient Muslim Texts Confirm the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem
The Palestinian Lie about Jerusalem Has Legs
“A lie,” according to the well-known saying, “has no legs,” but that does not mean lies do not need them.

The “Al-Aqsa is in danger” libel rests on a huge false leg that, in the end, will collapse. The lie would not have survived so long without it. Today, the Palestinians and many Muslims charge that Israel “seeks to destroy al-Aqsa” and build the Temple in its stead on a site where no Temple ever stood; that the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount is al-miza’um, that is, “supposed,” “fraudulent,” “invented,” or “imaginary;” that the Jews have no connection to the Temple Mount or, for that matter, to the Western Wall.

This is a libel on top of a libel, a double lie. The many Muslims who are convinced that al-Aqsa is in danger are now also convinced that “their” al-Aqsa stands on a place where “our” Temple never stood – the latter being nothing but a fabrication.

Some of the legitimacy that terrorism draws from the libel rests on that added lie. It is more legitimate to libel and murder Jews, so as “to protect the captive al-Aqsa and free it from the Jews who are plotting to destroy it,” if Israel and the Jews who “conspire to attack the site,” have only a false and concocted connection to it. Thus, the lie that undergirds the libel also bolsters the legitimacy to murder in its name. From the standpoint of the “Al-Aqsa is in danger” terrorists and their supporters, they do not murder only those who seek to wrest the Mount from their hands. As they see it, they are also murdering the falsifiers of history, who have no link to the site at all. They also want the Mount to be “liberated” psychologically so that their historical and religious narrative will prevail. This chapter (the appendix of the book) aims to refute this lie as well and to prove that it is nothing but a broken prop.

To grasp the magnitude of the lie, one must go far back on the path the Muslims themselves trod over the past 1,350 years, the path from which they have strayed only in recent times. Despite the misrepresentations and the sweeping denial that many Muslims now adopt regarding the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and to the Temple that stood there, they themselves were the ones who, up until the Six-Day War, identified the Mount – unequivocally – as the site of Solomon’s Temple and as the place where David said his Psalms. Furthermore, Solomon and David, as important prophets in Islam, are seen as the ones who laid the foundations on the Temple Mount for the building of the mosques there. Nevertheless, today, Muslim clerics and leaders remove the Jewish Temple from the Mount and “transfer” it to places like Mount Zion, Nablus, and even Yemen.

Moreover, many of the names and terms the Muslims have used over the years for the Temple Mount, particularly “Beit al-Maqdis,” which is a translation of the Hebrew name Beit haMikdash, derive from the Jewish designation for the site, where the two Muslim shrines were built around 1,350 years ago. Today, Muslims commonly use the name Beit al-Maqdis for Jerusalem, but in the ancient past, they used the name for the Temple Mount itself. The Jewish people and the State of Israel do not, of course, need the Muslim sources – which, for more than 1,350 years, have identified the Temple Mount as the site of the Temple – to prove their connection to the place. Given, however, the dispute on this issue and the resolutions hostile to Israel in the international arena, which espouse the new Muslim narrative, it is worth presenting the primary Muslim documentation and sources for the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and the Temple. Today, many Muslims erase this reliable documentation from memory. From such forgetfulness, the path is short to denial, and this gives rise to a lie. On this lie now rests the libel from which the “Al-Aqsa is in danger” terror derives its inspiration and legitimacy to murder Jews.
MEMRI: Al-Jazeera Unmasked: Political Islam As A Media Arm Of The Qatari State
Al-Jazeera Arabic channel's promotion of a very tangible and identifiable editorial line is patently obvious to anyone who has watched it over time. Being pro-Islamist (particularly in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood) and anti-West have been benchmarks of its programming and its news coverage from the beginning. That is not to say that these are the only causes the network has trumpeted through the years, but these have been the building blocks for everything else. Both Islamism and anti-West sentiment featured on the channel are often rife with antisemitism. Many strands of this Islamism embrace openly hostile attitudes regarding "the Other," a category that can include all sorts of people, from non-Muslims, to Middle East secularists to gays.

Al-Jazeera's basic affinity for Islamist groups spills over repeatedly over time into giving other groups along the Islamist spectrum, up to and including Al-Qaeda and ISIS – a sympathetic hearing beyond what its regional rivals at Al-Arabiyya and Sky News Arabia would ever do.

While Qatar has at times gone on the record to try to distance itself a bit from the network it created, over secondary issues such as the hiring of Qatari citizens,[58] it has demonstrated its constant support by spending hundreds of millions of dollars over more than two decades faithfully bankrolling a media outlet that has been remarkably consistent in its editorial line. This is eminently logical, given the channel's dogged support in hammering daily Qatari foreign policy points, from North Africa to Pakistan.

The fact that Al-Jazeera became, not surprisingly, one of the points of contention in the ongoing struggle between Qatar and its rivals in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that exploded in 2017, means that the network is here to stay. Al-Jazeera will remain what it has always been, even though it has lost some of its luster over the past three years. The network that has been so influential for so long has become a bit predictable, not just on Islamism but because of the relentless focus on the ongoing blood feud with Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Cairo.

Without radically transforming Al-Jazeera or its editorial line, Qatar has tried to hedge its bets by funding and creating Al-Araby Television out of London since 2015.[59] Al-Araby seeks to propagate a more secular, pan-Arab voice than Al-Jazeera, still nationalist and broadly aligned with overall Qatari foreign policy goals but without the well-worn Islamist baggage. The idea is akin to the creation of leftist/secular Palestinian liberation groups in addition to Islamist ones. If Al-Jazeera is in a way a vision of Hamas on TV, then Al-Araby is Qatar's version of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Different approach, same ultimate goal.

But historically, on issues that Qatar seems to care the most about – political Islam across the world, support for Hamas, for Erdogan's Turkey, and most importantly, for not criticizing Qatar, its rulers, and its policies – there is no daylight between Al-Jazeera and the government in Doha. That is the surest way of gauging the steadfast and enduring official connection between the goals of the network and the goals of the state of Qatar. The convergence of a documented state funding stream and a broad policy direction between the state and the broadcaster is indisputable.
Tel Aviv Municipality lit up with UAE, Israeli flags following deal
Following the announcement of a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the Tel Aviv Municipality was lit on Thursday evening with the colors of the UAE and Israeli flags.

Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's son, Yair Netanyahu, published a message on Twitter, referring to Huldai's decision to light up the municipality with the Lebanese flag following the devastating explosion that shook Lebanon a few days ago.

"If Ron Huldai doesn't light up the municipality building with the UAE flag tonight or tomorrow night, then you can understand just how much the Left cares about peace," Yair wrote.

Huldai, in turn, did decide to light up the building on Thursday evening with the UAE flag.

"I congratulate the prime minister for the double accomplishment of reaching peace with the United Arab Emirates and canceling the plan of annexation. Both actions are important for the security of the State of Israel," Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai said in a statement.

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