Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, May 01, 2022

NPR gushes over fan of terrorist Rasmea Odeh

NPR's All Things Considered has a worshipful interview with Reem Assil about her new cookbook, "Arabiyya: Recipes from the Life of an Arab in Diaspora."

During the interview, Assil laughingly says that Israel stole Palestinian culture and cuisine and land:

Well, you know, hummus existed long before the state of Israel was created in 1948, and so there is an intentional omission of Palestinian (laughter). And that invisibilizes me - you know? - the fact not just that Israeli hummus is the Trader Joe's hummus, the, you know, the Americanized versions of hummus...
And it feels - yeah. That sort of, you know, whether intentional or not intentional, devoiding food from its - cutting it off from its lineage and negating a whole people that enjoyed and subsisted off of that food for generations is really dangerous. You know, for Palestinians, we don't have much left. You know, we - you know, a lot of our lands have been taken from us. Our - you know, we've been cut off from our foodways. So our food is like the last frontier of, you know, marking our identity. And so it's really important for me as a chef here in this country to be able to talk about that food and have people question where the food comes from.... It's inherently political.

And that is the entire reason NPR devotes a segment to a first time cookbook author. Not because her food is so unique or noteworthy, but because it is ammunition against Israel.

And who is Reem?

We've discussed her before. Here is what her restaurant looks like:

Yes, that's a huge mural of terrorist Rasmea Odeh, murderer of two Jews.

NPR is praising a person whose hero is a terrorist.

Reem adds this ironic note:

When I created my restaurants, you know, seven years ago, I wanted anybody to walk into Reem's and feel at home, whether they knew anything about Arab food or not.

Except for Jews.

(h/t Irene)

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

05/01 Links: Ruthie Blum: Ramadan goes out with a bang; Can the United Nations Survive the War in Ukraine?; TIME Magazine comes out batting for Assad and Hezbolllah

From Ian:

Can the United Nations Survive the War in Ukraine?

As well as empathizing with the Ukrainians’ plight, Guterres also spoke plainly when in Moscow. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a violation of its territorial integrity and against the Charter of the United Nations,” he said, a rare example of a UN statement with no ambiguities at all. Standing alongside a frowning Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, Guterres offered another pithily worded summary of the problem: “We have not Ukrainian troops in the territory of the Russian Federation, but we have Russian troops in the territory of [Ukraine].”

As Guterres acknowledged in an interview with CNN, the United Nations is not in a position to bring peace to Ukraine; only Russia can do that, by withdrawing its troops. Encouragingly, neither did Guterres advocate endless rounds of meetings as hostilities become more entrenched on the ground, suggesting that the United Nations would only be able to play a peace-building role after the war had definitively ended. He said he had told Putin “the same things I say in New York … which means that the Russian invasion is against the charter of the United Nations, is a violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and that this war must end as quickly as possible.”

Yet it is hard to see where Guterres’s honest appraisal of Russia’s invasion and its impact on Ukraine and the world more broadly will lead. Russia isn’t any old aggressor, but a member of the UN Security Council armed with nuclear weapons that its leaders have invoked on more than one occasion in the last two months. The split within the world body between those states with liberal democratic orders (Israel being one of them) and states for whom the value of sovereignty lies in the principle of non-interference (thus enabling them to persecute their own populations without sanction) is the organization’s most enduring. If the response of democratic nations to the Russian invasion is to promote a rules-based world order — the success of which requires all governments to treat both their subject populations and their external borders with solemn respect — then it begs the question of how useful the United Nations can be as long as Moscow exercises a power of veto.

The United Nations won’t follow the example of the League of Nations by expelling Russia. But democratic member states can — and should — take all necessary measures to isolate Russia within its ranks and to expose it as the pariah state it is. Beyond that, the debate about how to establish a rules-based world order that actually works — a debate that also took place in 1919, 1945 and 1989 — is still hanging.

Kremlin-linked group: Israelis helping Ukraine evacuees are mercenaries

A Kremlin-linked Telegram channel claimed that 10 Israeli officials who worked on the Ukraine-Poland border are mercenaries, publishing their names and passport details.

The list, published on a channel called “River” on the encrypted messaging app, “can help Israel’s enemies, such as Iran intel,” journalist Yossi Melman, who first reported the story, tweeted.

The Israelis on the list included diplomats, consular employees and embassy security guards, among others who helped receive Israelis who fled Ukraine over its border with Poland after Russia invaded.

The Kremlin-linked group claimed they found the names on the computer of Vitaliy Kim, governor of the Mykolaiv Oblast in southern Ukraine, whose office was bombed by Russia in late March.

The Foreign Ministry declined to confirm or comment on the matter.

The only person on the list to comment publicly on the matter was Rishon Lezion Deputy Mayor Maksim Babitzky.

“It is not clear what happened, but it is clear that it is not worth going to Russia,” Babitzky told the Israeli Russian-language website Mig News.

Ruthie Blum: Ramadan goes out with a bang

This wasn't the kind of heroism that Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar had in mind when he hailed the attack, however. In a speech on Saturday morning to members of the Izzadin Kassam Brigades, he hailed Golev's killers for their deed, as well as those who committed similar deadly assaults throughout the month.

He then proceeded to call on all of Israel's Arab citizens to follow suit, telling them to get hold of weapons of any kind. "Those who don't have a rifle should get an ax or a knife," he urged.

He summed up his fiery oration by reassuring his audience that "to protect Al-Aqsa, we've already lined up 1,100 rockets" to fire on Israel, eliciting cheers of "Allahu akbar" ("God is great").

Lebanon-based Hezbollah, too, praised the bloodshed in Ariel, which came mere hours after Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah gave a televised address in which he incited Palestinians to step up their "lone-wolf" attacks that Israel is hard-pressed to thwart.

The beauty of such acts, he said, is that they don't involve a lot of planning or infrastructure. "All they require is an individual with a pistol or machine gun – or a knife from his kitchen."

What a lovely holiday message for Muslims about to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, with lots of food, festivities and gift-giving. Palestinians in Ramallah and Gaza are already gearing up for the occasion by baking sweets to distribute when the next Jews are gunned down or stabbed to death.

The Arab citizens of Israel who identify with them have been busy, as well, removing Israeli flags from poles along highways in the Galilee and replacing them with Palestinian ones. Like their counterparts in Iran, Gaza, Lebanon and the rest of the Middle East, they are preparing for Israel's seventy-fourth birthday this week by plotting its demise.

On Saturday, Ali Velshi of MSNBC narrated a segment about the evils of annexation. He started off by describing Russia's annexation of Crimea, and then went on to the US annexation of Hawaii, Saddam Hussein's attempted annexation of Kuwait and Morocco's annexation of Western Sahara.

But according to Velshi, the worst case of occupation and annexation in the world is clearly Israel.

In a screed that shows how superficial the "experts" on MSNBC are, Velshi selectively recounts history, and when necessary, he makes it up.

Which brings us, arguably, to the leading occupying force in the world. Israel. The map of the Palestinian Authority, sometimes described as Swiss cheese, has been carved up by Israel over the past century.

Israel is the "leading occupying force in the world?" Turkey's occupation of northern Syria is much larger than the West Bank, and it also occupied Northern Cyprus. Crimea is much larger. Nagorno-Karabakh, Sofulu, Barxudarlı, Yukhari Askipara, and Karki, and Artsvashen are all occupied by Armenia none of which Velshihas probably ever heard of.

Then he says Israel has been carving up Palestinian Authority land for a century? Given that the PA was created in the 1990s, that's a neat trick.

What Velshi is really saying is that the Jewish claim on the land is completely illegitimate and it is all Arab land. His interest in international law that he claims later in the segment dissipates when it comes to the San Remo Conference, the UN recognizing Israel or even the UN recommending partition.

So objective!

The State of Israel has forced the annexation of several Arab territories. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the Six Day War in 1967. It remains occupied by Israel to this day. Occupation is just a step towards annexation.

And how exactly did Jordan acquire this territory?

Velshi makes it sound like Israel illegally stole land from Jordan, when the world never recognized Jordan's truly illegal annexation of the West Bank in 1949. Instead of this textbook case of annexation, he extends his definition of "annexation" to include "occupation," and he doesn't even undertand that:

Israel actually did annex two thirds of the Golan from Syria during the Six Day War., passing a law extending Israeli law, jurisdiction, and administration to the area.

Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, not 1967. And Velshi implies that Israel's capture of the Golan was from an aggressive war on Israel's part, not Syrian aggression in 1967 and 1973. He fails to mention that capturing land in a defensive war was never considered illegal before Israel did it. He also doesn't mention that Syria liked to shoot at Israeli civilians from the high ground and this is unacceptable.

None of that is relevant in his zeal to paint Israel as a unique thief of land.

Not to mention that Velshi is strikingly supportive of a regime that kills its own people. How do you think Assad would treat the "traitors" and "spies" that live in the Golan now if Israel would give it up as he demands? Suddenly, human rights are not nearly as important as misapplying international law against the Jewish state.

...Since 1967, Israel and the Palestinians both assert rights in the West Bank. Leaving its status unresolved. Israel claims historical and religious rights to the West Bank, as the ancestral land of the Jewish people. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers now live on illegally occupied palestinian land in the West Bank.

See the sleight of hand here? At first (above), Israel occupied the land from Jordan. Then, both Israel and Palestinians claim rights to the land. Finally, Velshi declares it unambiguously Palestinian land - and also claims that the "occupation" is illegal, when occupation is emphatically not illegal under international law.

Palestinian families are constantly kicked out of their homes to make room for more Israeli settlements, often, under false pretenses and legal justifications.

This is a complete falsehood. No Israeli settlements are built on land where Palestinians have been "kicked out." (The only possible exception is Hebron, on properties that had been stolen from Jews in the 1920s and 1930s.) The Palestinians whose homes are demolished either built them illegally or they are families of terrorists. Say what you want about the circumstances, but Israel's Supreme Court rules on each and every one of these cases, and it has never been credibly accused of operating under false pretenses or accepting invalid legal justifications.

This is not only a smear job. It is riddled with basic errors and inaccuracies - all in one direction.

Which is par for the course for MSNBC.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Hamas' Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar delivered an hour-long speech yesterday in which he threatened to attack thousands of synagogues worldwide.

Referring to a large photo of Israeli police responding to riots and attacks in Al Aqsa Mosque staged behind him, Sinwar said, “Whoever makes the decision to allow this photo to be repeated, the violation of Al-Aqsa — he has decided to allow the violation of thousands of synagogues all across the world.”

He warned that this could happen if Israelis set foot in the Temple Mount on Israel's Independence Day or Jerusalem Day.

This year, Yom Ha'Atzmaut is celebrated this coming Thursday, May 5. Jerusalem Day is May 29.

So far, no human rights group has shown the slightest concern over the threat. Neither have so-called "experts" on antisemitism Linda Sarsour or Rashida Tlaib or Marc Lamont Hill or Peter Beinart, all who have participated in panels on the topic of antisemitism.

Absurdly, Sinwar also claimed that Hamas is not interested in making this into a religious war. That's really amusing from an organization whose founding documents are steeped in calls for jihad, who praise "martyrdom operations" and whose many obituaries are laced with imagery of paradise awaiting their mujahadin ("holy warriors.")

Notably, Hamas seems slightly embarrassed by this blatant Jew-hatred. While that part of the speech was highlighted in the Hamas-oriented Felesteen newspaper and the Al Qassam website, the Hamas.ps website didn't transcribe that part of the speech - and the Hamas English site didn't even mention the speech at all as of this writing.

But Hezbollah's Al Manar English news site made that part of the speech its headline:

When those who claim to human rights activists and who pretend to be dead-set against antisemitism pointedly ignore a direct threat against Jews worldwide by genocidal jihadists, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that they share the same goal as the jihadists do.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Let's examine the many ways Time magazine shows anti-Israel bias in this short piece in its latest print edition.

It first mentions Israel's reaction to rocket fire before mentioning the rocket fire itself, making it sound like the reaction is the real story and rockets aiming at Israeli citizens are no big deal and not worth such a huge reaction.

The print edition of the magazine included news from as late as April 26, but Israel re-opened the border on April 25, only a day later, so it was a very limited response. TIME doesn't mention this. Why not? Because it would detract from the "evil Israel" narrative.

The piece makes it sound like Israeli police initiated and escalated hostilities on the Temple Mount, when they were defending themselves from rocks and fireworks. The escalation was entirely from the pro-Hamas rioters on the Temple Mount. The police had no intention to escalate, and in fact delayed their response, but Time frames it as if the only party responsible for escalation is Israel.

This is false, inflammatory and irresponsible.

The short article calls the Temple Mount "The site of Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque." The Temples were there centuries before anyone heard of "Al Aqsa." Time swallows the Arab narrative and ignores Jewish history.

Time is linking the events at the Temple Mount with Gaza rocket attacks. The terrorists pretend that their shooting at Israeli civilians is a "response" to Israeli actions in Jerusalem, when Jerusalem is a flimsy excuse for them to pretend to be macho "defenders" of Al Aqsa. Time swallows and repeats the narrative as if it was true, and therefore justifies rocket fire as a reasonable response to the Israelis who are always the ones initiating crimes.

That is a hell of a lot of bias in two sentences.

It isn't a mistake. It shows that journalists have accepted a false narrative of Israeli aggression, done for no good reason.

They are feeding Palestinian violence with these lies because they let the Palestinians off the hook. When there is no negative repercussions for attacking Jews and Israelis in the mainstream media, what incentive do Palestinian rioters and terrorists have to stop?

None.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

04/30 Links: Security guard killed in Ariel terror attack named as Vyacheslav Golev; Mossad said to foil plot by Iran’s IRGC to assassinate Israeli diplomat in Turkey

From Ian:

Security guard killed in Ariel terror attack named as Vyacheslav Golev

The security guard killed in a terror shooting at the entrance to the West Bank settlement of Ariel on Friday night was identified as 23-year-old Vyacheslav Golev.

Golev was a former student at Ariel University. He had recently moved to live with his fiancée in the West Bank community. They were engaged just a few weeks before the attack.

He is survived by his parents and seven siblings who live in Beit Shemesh, and his fiancée who was stationed at the guard post during the attack.

Golev used his body to shield her from the hail of bullets, saving her life, according to military officials.

His fiancée, named as Victoria Fligelman from the southern city of Ashkelon, was not wounded in the attack

The Beit Shemesh municipality said it was embracing Golev’s family. “The security guard showed supreme heroism and saved the life of the security guard who worked with him,” Mayor Aliza Bloch said.

Mossad said to foil plot by Iran’s IRGC to assassinate Israeli diplomat in Turkey

The Mossad spy agency foiled a recent Iranian attempt to assassinate an Israeli diplomat working at the consulate in Istanbul, Hebrew-language media reported Saturday.

The outlets said a number of Israeli officials had confirmed earlier reporting of the plot by London-based Iran International, an Iranian opposition news outlet.

Iran International said that in addition to the Israeli worker at the consulate, an American general stationed in Germany and a journalist in France were also targeted in the plot.

According to the unsourced report, a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was arrested in an unnamed European country in connection with the planned attack. It was not clear precisely when the plot unfolded.

The suspect was said to have been a member of Unit 840 of the Quds Force, the branch of the IRGC tasked with carrying out overseas operations. He was said to also be connected to drug-smuggling networks.

According to the report, the suspect told investigators he had received $150,000 for the preparations for the assassinations, and would receive a further $1 million if he killed the three targets.

There was no official comment on the report from Turkey or Israel.

In February, it was reported that Mossad helped foil 12 plots to carry out terror attacks on Israelis in Turkey over the past two years, most of the plots linked to the Islamic State jihadist group.

Mossad agents interrogated IRGC member in Iran over assassination plot — reports

The Mossad spy agency arrested a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Iranian territory for his alleged involvement in an attempt to assassinate an Israeli diplomat in Turkey, Hebrew media reported Saturday.

The reports contradicted accounts of the arrest published earlier in the day, which said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member was detained in an unnamed European country for his connection with the planned attack against the diplomat working at the consulate in Istanbul.

According to the new reports, Mansour Rasouli, 52, admitted to Mossad agents during an interrogation at his home that he was sent to target the Israeli diplomat, as well as an American general stationed in Germany and a journalist in France.

An audio recording said to be of Rasouli was published by Israeli television networks, along with his picture. “We will assassinate these three for the Islamic Republic. They insisted this would be carried out,” a man’s voice is heard saying in the recording.

The TV reports provided no source for the audio recording.

Channel 12 news added, without citing a source, that the Shin Bet security agency — which generally operates within Israel — also participated in the arrest in Iran.

04/29 Links Pt2: Mark Regev: Why the Left went from being pro-Israel, Zionism to opposing them; Time for anti-Israel human rights NGOs to change their tune

From Ian:

Mark Regev: Why the Left went from being pro-Israel, Zionism to opposing them

This Sunday, socialists across the globe will be proudly waving red flags at May Day parades to mark International Workers’ Day.

Once widely celebrated by labor, social democratic and socialist parties worldwide (including extensively in Israel), today May Day is primarily associated with the regime-sponsored events in authoritarian socialist countries and with the familiar radical left demonstrations across the West and the Global South.

This year in cities from Johannesburg to Toronto, and from Dhaka to Athens, protesters will be advocating revolutionary change, a world liberated from the capitalist system “that puts profits before people.” Overwhelmingly, May Day 2022 marchers will also self-identify as staunch enemies of the Jewish state.

This anti-Israel hostility is not limited to strident criticism of Israel’s behavior but encompasses the repudiation of Zionism itself. Today’s militant socialists reject the legitimacy of the Jewish state, the very right of the Jews to national self-determination in their homeland.

Across the contemporary radical left, including Europe’s Mélenchonists, Podemitas, Corbynistas and Sinn Féiners, it is widely believed that the Jewish state should never have been established. They often erroneously view Israel as an illegitimate colonialist creation, a state founded on racist precepts and built on the dispossession of the land’s rightful Palestinian inhabitants.

Some remain stuck in a Marxist Cold War narrative that sees Israel as an imperialist outpost to ensure Western domination of the Middle East’s people and resources.

Sadly, today’s leftist anti-Zionism is not confined to the hard-core militants, but in its more presentable manifestations, is an all-too-fashionable liberal-progressive worldview.

Time for anti-Israel human rights NGOs to change their tune

NGOs have also played an influential role in lobbying the UN Human Rights Council to create a commission of inquiry to examine the charge of apartheid. The inquiry, set to convene in June, is made up of members with long-documented anti-Israel biases and extensive connections to politicized NGOs. The NGOs hope that UN involvement will create legal and political precedent for applying the "apartheid" label and reinforce NGO lobbying of the International Criminal Court to follow suit.

Most disturbingly, as shown in research by NGO Monitor, these campaigns are often financed by multiple European governments, including Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. Since 2014, 13 NGOs promoting the apartheid label have received $50 million through various European governmental programs, including six NGOs affiliated with Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that Israel designated as terror fronts in late 2021.

Delegitimization, antisemitic rhetoric and terror are all tools that have long been a part of the anti-Israel arsenal. Yet, they have failed miserably. Israel in 2022 is a diverse, thriving and prosperous society. In practical terms, the BDS movement has failed to gain significant traction outside of fringe political movements. And in contrast to tired narratives of international isolation, Israel continues to form new alliances and important regional partnerships that were unimaginable only a few short years ago.

Perhaps it is time for HRW, Amnesty and their ilk to recalibrate. The future of Israel will not be shaped in offices in New York or London. Rather, it is being written in forums such as last month's Negev Summit with signatories to the Abraham Accords; the corridors of Tel Aviv startups; and the Knesset, which houses the country's most diverse government to date, with Jews and Arabs working together to make Israel a better society for all.

Ahead of Israel's Independence Day, Israel's NGO detractors should reflect on whether their rhetoric is helping to facilitate a better future, or whether they are perpetuating a narrative that has long belonged to the past.

Human Rights Watch Executive Director Stepping Down, but Remaining Israel-Bashers Stand to Carry on Legacy

HonestReporting has documented HRW’s anti-Israel libels at length; it is an animosity that has culminated in the NGO releasing numerous flawed reports and articles that peddle unfounded accusations.

In July 2021, we deconstructed a 6,500-word report titled, “Gaza: Apparent War Crimes During May Fighting,” which ostensibly detailed an investigation into the actions of the Israel Defense Forces and Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist groups during last year’s conflict that allegedly “resulted in high numbers of civilian casualties and where there was no evident military target.”

We noted that a thorough examination of HRW’s claims revealed the entire foundation upon which the report was constructed used recycled allegations from other unnamed NGOs and The New York Times, and failed to present any concrete evidence to support its accusations.

In addition, we criticized the report’s exoneration of US-designated terrorist group Hamas of all responsibility for deaths that had occurred in Gaza, despite controlling the territory with an iron fist and the well-documented fact that it uses civilians as human shields.

In December 2021, HRW continued its assault on Israel’s legitimacy — this time targeting what it deemed “discriminatory” policing during the May hostilities in which Arab Israelis carried out what many described as “pogroms” against Jews and their property.

The wave of antisemitic violence in cities including Lod, Acre, Jaffa, and Haifa was followed by a handful of attacks by Jewish extremists, who were denounced by Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum.

Yet, according to data from the Fire and Rescue Services, Arab violence against Jews formed the vast majority of assaults.

HRW chose to ignore these salient facts in its 5,000-word analysis, “Israel: Abusive Policing in Lod During May Hostilities,” and instead relied entirely on controversial pro-Palestinian sources to conclude that police had “forcibly” dispersed “Palestinians protesting peacefully.”

This, as Hamas-encouraged riots saw Arab Israelis set fire to at least 10 synagogues, 112 Jewish-owned homes, and 849 cars in the space of just five days.

Outside of his work leading HRW and overseeing the production of its anti-Israel propaganda, Roth has demonstrated his personal enmity towards the Jewish state on numerous occasions.

An epitaph for IfNotNow

IfNotNow, the hate-Israel group that used to be able to grab headlines and not much else, had been in serious trouble for a while now.

We noted last October that the group sent out a mailing to its list, asking its own people why it should exist and trying to figure out what it should do next.

Yet a look at their website shows that they have been floundering for a while. They haven't issued a press release for over a year. Their blog hasn't been updated since August 2020. And they haven't updated their news section since 2019! Even Jewish Currents noted last year that the group was imploding.

On their Facebook page, to kick off 2022, they started a fundraiser to raise $40,000 for "leading our community to reject apartheid and embrace equality, dignity, and safety for all."

They did not get a single donation.

Today, anti-Israel group IfNotNow's co-founder quit the group. He says there is a new leadership team, but they are nowhere to be found in their webpage.

On that webpage, however, they have a section describing their "principles." One of their twelve principles is the vague, and vaguely egocentric, "We show up for ourselves." And within the description they say, "We acknowledge the existence of anti-Jewish oppression, in the world and in ourselves."

The have always recognized that they are antisemitic!

This is a fitting epitaph for the childish, full-of-themselves, antisemitic hate group.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

04/29 Links Pt1: Phillips: The betrayal over the Iranian bomb; Glick: No one to talk to in Washington; Airbrushing Jews out of Jerusalem

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The betrayal over the Iranian bomb

As a State Department report observed last week: “Serious concerns remained outstanding regarding possible undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran,” and noted that the Islamic Republic had “not fully cooperated with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which is trying to investigate possible secret nuclear activity at four sites around the country”.

Moreover, as Andrea Stricker and Anthony Ruggiero write for the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies: “The Biden administration has failed at each quarterly IAEA Board of Governors meeting to recommend that the body censure Iran for its restrictions on IAEA monitoring, non-cooperation with a separate IAEA investigation into Tehran’s undeclared nuclear activities, and flagrant nuclear escalations — the majority of which have occurred on the Biden administration’s watch”.

Now the Israelis are talking to the Biden team about a “Plan B” following the likely collapse of a deal. But the awful logic of the team’s approach is that the United States won’t move on from the 2015 agreement but will treat it as a kind of zombie deal—neither dead nor alive.

As Behnam Ben Taleblu of the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies told Benny Avni of The New York Sun, the more likely outcome is “a ‘plan C’: not announce that the talks have collapsed, but also not revert to pressure” on Iran.

The big lie about the Obama-Biden courtship of Iran is that this was intended to prevent it from getting the bomb. It wasn’t. It was to conceal what the United States had decided was inevitable — an Iranian nuclear weapon — because it intended to do nothing to stop it.

So does Israel have its own plan? We can only hope.

Caroline B. Glick: No one to talk to in Washington

In summary, both the content of the nuclear deal that Biden seeks to achieve and the administration's permissive responses to illicit Iranian nuclear and terror operations make clear that Biden's true object is to facilitate Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons and hegemonic power, even at the expense of US allies, strategic interests and national security.

This returns us to Tuesday's report that the Biden administration may be ready to pull the plug on nuclear negotiations and on achieving a new deal to limit Iran's nuclear operations. While it is clear that Biden's desired diplomatic end state is to get a new nuclear agreement with Iran that may extend Iran's nuclear breakout time from a few weeks to four to six months at the outside, it's possible that the administration may be willing to see Iran become a nuclear breakout state outside an agreement. While this is clearly not Biden's preferred outcome, Biden and his advisors may believe that it could be politically advantageous for them going into the midterm elections in November.

If Iran crosses the nuclear threshold outside the confines of a nuclear deal, Biden and his advisors may believe that they will be able to blame Trump for the outcome. Since taking office, despite the fact that Iran only began to significantly stepped up its nuclear operations after he was elected, and mainly since he entered office, Biden and his advisors have been insisting that Trump is responsible for Iran's actions. According to their reasoning, if the US had remained in the nuclear deal, Iran would not have begun breaching its commitments to restrain its nuclear behavior.

As for Israel, the Bennett-Lapid-Gantz government gives the impression that Israel's leaders think Biden's rhetoric is more important than his actual policies. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his partners like Biden's attacks against Trump because those attacks are aligned with their own attacks on former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Almost every day since forming their government last May, Bennett, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and their colleagues have insisted that had Netanyahu not proved to Trump that Iran was breaching the 2015 deal and that the Iranians had lied to the Americans about their intentions, Trump wouldn't have abandoned Obama's nuclear deal and Iran wouldn't be weeks from nuclear breakout.

Although reports of sabotage of Iranian nuclear and drone installations still pop up from time to time, the volume of reports has dropped precipitously since last May. Upon entering office, the Bennett-Lapid government promised the US total transparency in Israel's operations in Iran. The implication was that Bennett and Lapid were giving the administration veto power over Israel's operations.

With the precipitous drop in offensive activities against Iran's nuclear installations, the Iranians now feel free to expend less effort protecting their nuclear installations and more time using them to develop nuclear weapons.

Without effective inspections on Iran's nuclear and missile sites, it is hard to know just where Iran stands in terms of moving from breakout capacity to an actual nuclear arsenal. Israel estimates it will take Iran a year or two to move from where it ostensibly stands today on the brink of independent capacity to develop and deploy nuclear weapons to actually possessing deployable nuclear weapons.

Despite the uncertainly about when precisely Iran will become a nuclear power, what is absolutely certain is that so long as the Biden administration remains in power, Israel's leaders' faith in Washington endangers its existential interests.

MEMRI: Iran Speaks Bluntly – And We Should Listen Carefully

In an op-ed published in Hebrew on April 15, 2022 by the Israeli daily Haaretz,[1] MEMRI Iran Media Studies director Ayelet Savyon and Israeli Knesset Member Ze'ev B. Begin, formerly a Senior Fellow at MEMRI, discussed the recent surge in tough talk by the Iranian leadership , including open mention of Iran's view of nuclear weapons as an essential element of its national security.

The following is the English version of the op-ed.
As the talks between Iran and the countries that are party to the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal advance, clearer positions than ever are being voiced in Iran. In light of the U.S. demand for restrictions on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) activity in the Middle East as a condition for lifting the sanctions on Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is now presenting a rejectionist position.

In a March 10 speech to Iran's Assembly of Experts, he explained: "Imagine us having no involvement in the issues of the region, just so a certain superpower does not get upset, and so it will not engage in nit-picking against us. Our involvement in regional issues is our strategic depth. It is a means of strengthening the regime, and a form of military power. Why should we lose it, when we can and should have it?"[2]

In the same speech, Khamenei openly described Iran's development of nuclear capabilities as part of its "arms of power": "The nuclear issue is a scientific issue. It is about scientific progress and our future technology. Soon – it will not take long, just a few years – we will need the product of this nuclear energy, and in full scale.

"People are talking about [the need for] making concessions to America or to others in order to become immune to the sanctions. This means severing this arm of our policy and [giving up] this bargaining chip, so that, God forbid, they won't slap us with sanctions if we display toughness. I believe that these [compromises] are mistakes. If, over the years, the people who want to chop off some of those arms of power had been given permission to do so, our country would be facing great danger today."

Some in Iran have learned a lesson in this vein from the Russian attack on Ukraine. Iranian Passive Defense Organization head Gen. Gholamreza Jalali said on March 6: "One of [Ukraine's] mistakes was that although it is one of the world's nuclear powers, it transferred all its nuclear facilities and capabilities to Europe in exchange for European security and support." Iranian Majlis (parliament) member Mohammad Ka'ab Amir was even clearer; he said on February 26: "Ukraine is an example from which the supporters of the West and the East must learn. We must insist on the nuclear rights of the Iranian people, while preserving [our] national authority and honor, so Iran will be strong, with nuclear and military might."[3]

Palestinian and Iranian media filled with predictions of Israel's demise

It's Quds Day, so that means that there are lots of articles predicting Israel's imminent destruction.

Of course, these predictions have been coming regularly for decades.

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More photos of Palestinian destruction of priceless antiquities on the Temple Mount; Israel Antiquities Authority shrugs it off

Israel Hayom reports:

In a recent letter to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton, and Public Security Minister Omer Barlev, attorney and chairman of the Temple Mount Organizations Aviad Visoli claims that the destruction of antiquities on the Temple Mount was similar to the damage the Islamic State did to antiquities at Palmyra when they controlled the city during the Syrian war.

"What our people have seen following the riots on the Temple Mount on Friday and Saturday, April 15-16, 2022, was horrifying. The riots pulled out ancient stones, including sections of columns, and threw them around the Temple Mount," the letter reads.

"Hundreds of antiquities were thrown on the eastern path of the Temple Mount toward the Dome of the Rock, with the purpose of blocking the path to religious Jewish visitors who visit the Mount and circle the Dome of the Rock," it continues.

We've been discussing this since the riots began.

The newspaper shows some examples of the stones being moved and broken, many in an attempt to build roadblocks so Jews cannot walk around the perimeter of the site, especially along the eastern wall where many of the ancient artifacts are piled without protection.

Some of the stones on the eastern side were dumped there when the Waqf excavated the "Solomon's Stables" area underneath the Mount.

The Israel Antiquities Authority response is unbelievable:

Dr. Amit Re'em, the Jerusalem District archaeologist for the Israel Antiquities Authority, responded to Visoli's letter, saying the IAA was handling the issue. Re'em stressed that most of the rocks photographed were modern, and only a few were actually archaeological remnants.

Re'em wrote that it would only be able to conduct a full assessment of damage to Temple Mount antiquities after Ramadan and the recent spate of violence were over. He noted that the IAA was keeping tabs on the situation.

"Only a few"? So that makes it OK somehow?

And forgive me if I'm skeptical about the IAA keeping tabs on the situation, because it allowed the wholesale destruction and removal of 400 truckloads of material from the Temple Mount in the 1990s, the biggest archaeological crime in history.

If the IAA is so blasé about the destruction of the most important Jewish artifacts in the world, why should we expect UNESCO or other organizations to care?

This is a crime, happening right now. Palestinians are knowingly destroying Jewish and Christian archaeological treasures. The IAA should be in the forefront of enforcing Israeli laws in protecting this site, and instead it says that "the IAA and the Waqf were cooperating on archaeological matters."

We can see the fruits of this cooperation in the photos above.

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Haaretz reports:

Arab Israelis in West Bank real estate is another trend that began in recent years. In some sense, it is similar to real estate investments overseas that have also sprouted in Israel. A specific trend is investment by Israeli Arabs in Turkish real estate. With prices in Israel increasing wildly, it’s no wonder that Turkey or the West Bank are seen as good alternatives.

The price differentials are definitely alluring. A 100-square-meter apartment in an upscale Ramallah neighborhood could cost between 350,000 and 400,000 shekels (around $105,000-120,000). In Jericho, you can buy a 200-sqaure-meter villa with a 750-square-meter yard with a pool for one million shekels. In other cities, prices are even lower. An apartment in Nablus costing 150,000-200,000 shekels could be a reasonable solution for an Arab family from the Galilee whose son is studying medicine at al-Najah University in Nablus, especially since prices in the West Bank are on their way up.

The flow of Israeli Arabs students to campuses in the West Bank is another reason for buying real estate there. Some estimates put the number of Arab-Israeli students there at 9,000, 5,000 of them at the American University in Jenin, in which private residential buildings have been appearing in recent years, meant for renting out to students. Some apartments there have been purchased by Arab Israelis.

Here are Israeli citizens who are buying and renting properties in Palestinian territories.

No protests. No life imprisonment for the sellers. No talk about "Israeli settlers."

Because they aren't Jewish.

How much more evidence do you need to understand that Palestinians and their supporters are antisemitic? All their claims that they are merely against Israelis and not Jews are proven to be lies by their silence about Israeli Arabs buying, renting or opening businesses across the Green Line.

Moreover, the fact that Israeli Arabs live in the West Bank disproves the other absurd charge that Israel practices "apartheid" against Palestinians.

Let's pretend that one of these Israeli Arabs joins a riot and get arrested for throwing a firebomb. He would not get a trial in a military court but in an Israeli court - just like any other Israeli citizen. The laws that apply to him would be the laws of Israel.

Which proves that all the accusations of "racism" against Israel are lies.

This is why you don't hear much about the Israeli Arabs who have residences in Nablus, or in Ariel, or in French Hill or Beit Safafa - all across the Green Line. Because they destroy the narrative of Israel discriminating against Arabs. They disprove the claims that only Jews live in "settlements" or the lie that there are "Jewish-only roads."

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04/28 Links Pt2: Jordan's attitude towards Temple Mount is antisemitic and hypocritical; Gal Gadot shares grandfather's harrowing tale during Holocaust

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Growing Integration and Prosperity for Israeli Arabs at Risk from Forces that Crave Victory over Jews

Over the past few weeks there has been sustained rioting on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. From the al-Aqsa mosque, Arabs hurled stones, iron bars and petrol bombs on to Jews worshipping below at the Western Wall. This forced the Israeli police to enter the compound to restore order.

Israel's Arab citizens, who number around 1.9 million, 20% of the population, are different from Palestinian Arabs living in the disputed territories of the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, or Gaza. Among Israel's own Arab citizens there has been signs of increasing prosperity and integration in recent years. The Arab Israeli middle class is growing and the share of Arab students at Israeli colleges and universities has nearly doubled over the last 12 years. In 2020, more than 1,000 volunteered to serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), more than twice the number of previous years.

Yet in May 2021, when Israeli forces were at war with Hamas in Gaza, Arab Israelis rioted in Jaffa, Lod, Acre, Ramle and Haifa, where they had lived peacefully alongside their Jewish neighbors for decades. The mobs burnt synagogues and schools, stoned Jews in more than 5,000 attacks, and set homes and cars on fire. So among Israel's Arabs, both assimilation and radicalization have been simultaneously accelerating.

Jordan's attitude towards Temple Mount is antisemitic and hypocritical - analysis

Just a couple of weeks after Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh expressed enthusiasm for violence against Jews saying he “praises every Palestinian and Jordanian Islamic Wakf worker... who throws rocks at the pro-Zionists,” Amman submitted a paper to Washington to complain about Israel’s actions on the Temple Mount.

Jordan claimed Israel is violating the “historic status quo,” and seeks to have the Wakf take charge of visits by non-Muslims and have as big of a staff as it wants. It also does not like Israel using the term “freedom of worship” when referring to the site, because they view it as implying Jews may pray there.

It reeks of hypocrisy for Jordan to complain that Israel is violating the “historic status quo,” while at the same time asking to change that very same status quo in order to give the Wakf that it funds more control.

But beyond that very obvious oxymoron, there is the question of what the “historic status quo” means. The Hashemite dynasty has been the custodian of Jerusalem’s holy sites since 1924. The 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan says Israel committed to “respect the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem.” Is the entire Temple Mount a Muslim holy shrine, or just al-Aqsa?

Some reports say Jordan wants to go back to the status quo of the year 2000. Non-Muslims were free to visit the Temple Mount for most of 2000, however. Not many did, but they could. It was only after PLO chairman Yasser Arafat decided to use the Temple Mount visit by then-Likud MKs Ariel Sharon and (little-known fact) Reuven Rivlin as an excuse to launch the pre-planned Intifada in September 2000, that the site was closed to Jews.

Perhaps the most telling part of all when it comes to Jordan’s position is the complaint about Israel using the term “freedom of worship” because – God forbid! – those Jews might get the idea that they can pray. They might even think that they’re in charge of Jerusalem. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?

Israel will not discuss Temple Mount with Jordan after incitement – official

Israel will not hold discussions with Jordan about the status quo on the Temple Mount in the coming weeks in light of Amman’s incitement against Israel, a senior Israeli diplomatic official said on Thursday.

The official referred to Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh’s praise for Palestinians who physically attacked Israelis amid rioting on the Temple Mount, and spoke after Jordan submitted a paper to the US calling for Israel to relinquish control of the holy site.

Though Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with Jordanian King Abdullah II ahead of the Muslim month of Ramadan to try to lower tensions, Israel views Jordan as having been obstructive to the aim of bringing calm to Jerusalem in recent weeks, especially in light of Khasawneh’s remarks amid Palestinian rioting when Passover and Ramadan coincided.

As such, Israel does not plan to hold discussions about the Temple Mount with Jordan, the senior diplomatic source said, until a series of potential dates for Palestinian terrorist groups to incite violence in the coming weeks come to an end: the last Friday of Ramadan this week, Independence Day on May 5, Nakba Day on May 15, and Jerusalem Day on May 29.

“We’re not talking about anything other than getting through this time quietly and peacefully,” said the source, adding that Washington did not convey Amman’s demands to Jerusalem, and is trying to reduce tension over the Temple Mount. People gather around the Dome of the Rock, in the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City October 28, 2021 (credit: REUTERS/AMMAR AWAD) People gather around the Dome of the Rock, in the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City October 28, 2021 (credit: REUTERS/AMMAR AWAD)

Jordan told the US it demands that Israel respect the “historic status quo” at the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, on top of which al-Aqsa Mosque was built.

Among Jordan’s demands was that Israel end restrictions on the number of staff members from the Jerusalem Islamic Wakf, and put the Wakf in charge of all visits by non-Muslims.

Visits to the Temple Mount have grown more popular among Jews in recent years, with a record 4,625 Jews ascending the holy site during Passover. Jordan views the increased number of visitors as a violation of the status quo.

Arabs admired Nazi Germany - not in spite of genocide but because of it

Here are some newspaper clippings on how the Arab world supported Nazis after their defeat.

The Daily Times-News, Burlington NC, Thursday, August 28, 1958:

Edmonton Journal, Alberta, Canada, 22 Feb 1960:

The Jordanian English language daily, Jerusalem Times, published the following "Open Letter to Eichmann" on April 24, 1961:

Dear Eichmann,
1 address you in your glass cell to extend a word of sympathy in your present plight. German genius that has invented sputniks and missiles and all sorts of things has failed to inspire you to avert the disaster that has befallen you.
What a pity Eichmann that you allowed those swine to arrest you and stage their drama. But don't worry Eichmann it will in the end fall on their heads.
Listen Eichmann you are accused of dissimating (sic) six million of this breed. Whether this is correct or not it is not our object to debate this issue but what we like to say is this if you actually managed to liquidate six million of them and if the remaining six million have been instrumental in inflicting so much havoc and suffering on the Arabs and disgorging them from their homes we wonder what would have been the result if the dissimated (sic) six million would have been allowed to survive. It is likely that a similar drama would have been staged in another part of the Arab countries. So that by liquidating six millions you have minimized the extent of the calamity and conferred a real blessing on humanity. You can imagine dear Eichmann the feelings of the million or so of Arab refugees at this drama. . .

The object of this trial is simply to attract more tourists to the occupied section and to exploit it for fund raising and for skinning the rest of mankind.
But be brave Eichmann find solace in the fact that this trial will one day culminate in the liquidation of the remaining six million to avenge your blood and the manner in which you have been kidnapped and brought to trial by the very same people who tortured and ejected a million or so from their homes.

Similarly, from the same source:

In the Lebanese paper al-Anwar of June 9, 1960, there was a caricature showing Ben-Gurion and Eichmann shouting at each other. The text below the drawing is as follows:

Ben-Gurion: "You deserve the death penalty for killing six million Jews."
Eichmann: "There are many who argue that I deserve the death penalty for not finishing the job."

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Activist Documenting All Apartheid In Israel Exhausts Research In 12 Minutes, Seeks Suggestions For Stuff To Do Rest Of Month (PreOccupied Teritory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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floating in Dead Sea Tel Aviv, April 28 - The holder of a fellowship from a human-rights-monitoring NGO came to the Jewish State several days ago to conduct a comprehensive survey of the race-based discrimination and segregation policies that his organization insists the country maintains against the non-Jewish population within its borders, but has discovered that after recording every remotely credible manifestation of the phenomenon that he can identify, he still has twenty-nine days, twenty-three hours, and forty-eight minutes remaining in the thirty-day fact-gathering portion of the project, and has begun soliciting recommendations from locals and friends abroad regarding what sites, activities, or experiences to pursue with all that free time.

Grant Rider, 23, arrived in Israel last week on sponsored mission from Human Rights Watch and instructions from the latter to observe Israeli society, government, politics, law enforcement, and public policy, with a specific focus on each institution, law, or policy that features apartheid. Mr. Rider began his research as soon as his flight landed, attempting to discern whether passport control, customs, or other official functions at Ben-Gurion International Airport discriminated against incoming travelers by race - only to discover that the largely-automated processes involve none. His observational powers then turned to looking for apartheid in baggage claim, COVID testing, and transportation away from the airport, again with nothing to document. By the time Rider's formal research began two days later, following a brief recuperation from jetlag, he had conducted upwards of two dozen conversations with visitors, citizens, and residents of multiple races, none of whom could point him to apartheid.

"I know it's supposed to be rampant," the puzzled researcher acknowledged. "So I figured it should be easy to spot. But nope. I know a lot of activists like to go on about Israeli apartheid, but the only 'discrimination' I've been able to find is between citizens and non-citizens, which is what every country on Earth does. If it's race-based, I'm having a hard time seeing how two million Arabs with full citizenship and voting rights, welfare, healthcare, the whole package - how that represents apartheid. Palestinians are citizens of Palestine, or the Palestinian Authority, whatever you want to call it, so that's not race-based but citizenship-based, as I said. Is this one of those things where we change the long-established definition of a term so we can paint Israel as violating it, like we did with 'seller-colonialism,' 'ethnic cleansing,' and 'genocide'? Maybe I missed the e-mail, but my job here is done, and I have more than four weeks until I have to fly back and write up my findings. I hear the Dead Sea is good."

Rider explained that Human Rights Watch leadership reacted with dismay to the negligible tangible effect that the Amnesty International report labeling Israel and apartheid state earlier this year has had in the real world, other than undermining the credibility of human rights groups themselves. His assignment, therefore, aims to present what HRW hopes will produce an "objective" verdict that supports the Apartheid charge, and as such did not predicate his instructions on tendentious anti-Israel axioms, with results predictable to anyone outside the circle of mutually-parroting activists who populate the human rights industry.

"I'd like to go visit the Temple Mount, maybe," he suggested. "Only Muslims are allowed to pray there, which is the kind of apartheid I guess my bosses are OK with."

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