Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 08, 2015

Zivotofsky case reveals bizarre US policy towards Jerusalem

From JPost:

In a major blow to a 13-year-old effort to bolster Jerusalem's status under American law as an undisputed part of Israel, the US Supreme Court on Monday struck down as unconstitutional a Congressional law which authorized placing "Israel" on passports of Jerusalem-born Americans.

The 6-3 split ruling was also a victory for the administration of US President Barack Obama, which said the law unlawfully encroached on the president's power to set foreign policy and would, if enforced, undermine the US government's claim to be a neutral peacemaker in the Middle East.

Notice that the decision is not about US citizens born across the Green Line. It is about citizens born in any part of Jerusalem.

All of the bluster from the White House about how Israel shouldn't build in "east Jerusalem" covers for the fact that parts of US policy have never made a distinction between any parts of Jerusalem. The Green Line - that is disingenuously claimed to be an "internationally recognized border" - doesn't exist in Jerusalem, unless people want a further excuse to bash Israel.

This memo from the State Department in 1953 seems like it could be written today by the same department:

The United States regrets that the Israeli Government has seen fit to move its Foreign Office from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

We have made known our feelings on that subject to the Government of Israel on two prior occasions. It was done in July 1952 and again in March 1953, when our Ambassador, hearing rumors that this was in contemplation, called upon the Israeli Government and requested them not to transfer their Foreign Ministry to Jerusalem.

We feel that way because we believe that it would embarrass the United Nations, which has a primary responsibility for determining the future status of Jerusalem. You may recall that the presently standing U.N. resolution about Jerusalem contemplates that it should be to a large extent at least an international city. Also, we feel that this particular action by the Government of Israel at this particular time is inopportune in relation to the tensions which exist in the Near East, tensions which are rather extreme, and that this will add to rather than to relax any of these tensions.

The views that I express here are, we know, shared by a considerable number of other governments who have concern with the development of an atmosphere of peace and good will in that part of the world.

We have notified the Government of Israel that we do not intend to move our own Embassy to Jerusalem.

In 1962, the US wrote a memo explicitly discouraging nations from opening embassies in Jerusalem.

The results of a US policy that seems to be reliant on a UN resolution that was never implemented are often bizarre. For example, the Obama White House once went through its website to erase any mention of "Jerusalem, Israel." Yet US diplomats often make speeches in Jerusalem where they say they are happy to be "here in Israel."

President Obama said that he was "here in Israel" when speaking from Jerusalem a number of times on his most recent trip to Israel in March 2013: at the Prime Minister's residence, Yad Vashem and twice at the Jerusalem Convention Center.

The State Department spokesperson once went through a bizarre exercise in answering questions about whether Jerusalem is Israel's capital:

QUESTION: Yesterday there was a bit of a kerfuffle over an announcement that was made by the Department about the travel of your boss.MS. NULAND: Yes.QUESTION: Is it the State Department’s position that Jerusalem is not part of Israel?MS. NULAND: Well, you know that our position on Jerusalem has not changed. The first Media Note was issued in error without appropriate clearances. We reissued the note to make clear that Under Secretary – Acting Under Secretary for R, Kathy Stephens, will be traveling to Algiers, Doha, Amman, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem. With regard to our Jerusalem policy, it’s a permanent status issue; it’s got to be resolved through negotiations between the parties.QUESTION: Is it the view of the United States that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, notwithstanding the question about the Embassy, the location of the U.S. Embassy?MS. NULAND: We are not going to prejudge the outcome of those negotiations, including the final status of Jerusalem.QUESTION: Does that mean that you do not regard Jerusalem as the capital of Israel?MS. NULAND: Jerusalem is a permanent status issue; it’s got to be resolved through negotiations.QUESTION: That seems to suggest that you do not regard Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Is that correct or not?MS. NULAND: I have just spoken to this issue --QUESTION: No, no. But --MS. NULAND: -- and I have nothing further to say on it.QUESTION: You’ve spoken to the issue but didn’t answer the question, and I think there’s a lot of people out there who are interested in hearing a real answer and not saying – and not trying to duck and say that this has got to be resolved by negotiations between the two sides.MS. NULAND: That is our --QUESTION: What is the capital of Israel?MS. NULAND: Our policy with regard to Jerusalem is it has to be solved through negotiations. That’s all I have to say on this issue.QUESTION: What is the capital of Israel?MS. NULAND: Our Embassy, as you know, is located in Tel Aviv.QUESTION: So does that mean that you regard Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel?MS. NULAND: The issue on Jerusalem has to be settled through negotiations.Lalit, thank you....QUESTION: I just want to go back to – I want to clarify something.MS. NULAND: Yeah.QUESTION: Perhaps give you an out on your Jerusalem answer. Is it your position that all of Jerusalem is a final status issue or do you think – or is it just East Jerusalem?MS. NULAND: Matt, I don’t have anything further to what I said 17 times on that subject. Okay?QUESTION: All right. So hold on – so – I just want to make sure, you’re saying that all of Jerusalem, not just East Jerusalem, is a final status issue?MS. NULAND: Matt, I don’t have anything further on Jerusalem to what I’ve already said.Please.

As I have noted, though, no one is claiming that the status of Bethlehem is up to the UN or negotiations - even though Bethlehem was meant to be part of the "corpus separatum" that the UN envisioned Jerusalem to be a part of:

The US policy on Jerusalem is still in many ways stuck in 1947, and the idea that US recognizing any part of Jerusalem as part of Israel is detrimental to peace is a shameful legacy of the past 12 US administrations.

Hamas' Felesteen reports that the Hamas government in Gaza has busted an illegal black-market cement operation. They pretended that they did this for the most civic of reasons, to stop price manipulation.

In reality, Hamas wanted to eliminate the competition from its own black market in cement, that has allowed it to rebuild terror tunnels at a rate that is probably outpacing the reconstruction of houses.

What do you think will happen to the cement it seized?

In that same spirit of civic-mindedness, Hamas asked all Gazans to report on any illicit cement activity that they see.

06/08 Links Pt1: The case for Israel is rooted in more than security; '67 The longest ten minutes

From Ian:

The case for Israel is rooted in more than security

Noses went out of joint and knickers got in a twist when Israel’s new deputy foreign minister delivered her inaugural speech to the Jewish state’s diplomatic corps.
“We need to get back to the basic truth of our right to this land,” said Tzipi Hotovely, who is running the foreign ministry’s day-to-day operations, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu retains the title of foreign minister. The land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people, she declared, and their claim to it is as old as the Bible. “It’s important to say this” when making Israel’s case before the world, she said, and not to focus solely on Israel’s security interests. Of course security is a profound concern, Hotovely observed, but arguments grounded in justice, morality, and deep historical rights are stronger. She even quoted the medieval Jewish sage Rashi, who wrote that Genesis opens with God’s creation of the world to preempt any subsequent charge that the Jewish claim to the land was without merit.
Needless to say, Hotovely’s message was scorned on the left as primitive zealotry. “Her remarks raised eyebrows among many in the audience,” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. One diplomat said his colleagues “were in shock” at the suggestion that they should cite the Torah when advocating for Israel abroad.
Diplomacy is not Bible class. Yet why should Israel and its envoys shrink from making the fullest defense of Jewish rights in what was always the Jewish homeland? Though modern Zionism didn’t arise as a political movement until the 1800s, the land of Israel has always been at the core of Jews’ national consciousness. Even during 19 centuries of exile, Jewish life in Israel (renamed “Palestine” by the Romans) never ceased. In all those years, no other people ever claimed the land as their country, or built it into their own nation-state.
Jewish sovereignty wasn’t regained by downplaying the historical and religious bonds linking the Jews to the land. World leaders and opinion-makers didn’t regard those links with patronizing disdain; many found them intensely compelling.

History Matters: Remembering the Six-Day War

Mention the word “history” and it can trigger a roll of the eyes.
Add “Middle East” to the equation and folks might start running for the hills, unwilling to get caught up in the seemingly bottomless pit of details and disputes.
But without an understanding of what happened, it’s impossible to grasp where we are — and where we are has profound relevance for the region and the world.
Forty-eight years ago this week, the Six-Day War broke out.
While some wars fade into obscurity, this one remains as relevant today as in 1967. Many of its core issues remain unresolved and in the news.
Politicians, diplomats, and journalists continue to grapple with the consequences of that war, but rarely provide context. Yet without context, some critically important things may not make sense.
First, in June 1967, there was no state of Palestine. It didn’t exist and never had. Its creation, proposed by the UN in 1947, was rejected by the Arab world because it also meant the establishment of a Jewish state alongside.

Declassified documents reveal Israel feared Egyptian attack on Dimona nuclear reactor

One of Israel’s most worrisome concerns in the days preceding the 1967 Six Day War was that the Egyptian Air Force would attack the nuclear reactor in Dimona. This was revealed in the newly released and declassified secret documents of the IDF archives, to mark the 48th anniversary of that war, which began June 5.
The war broke out with the Israel Air Force’s surprise preemptive strike, which within three hours destroyed the entire Egyptian Air Force, sitting like ducks on the tarmacs of its airfields.
On June 2, the government’s security cabinet convened for a tense and dramatic meeting with the IDF General Staff. It was the first session to include Moshe Dayan as the new defense minister, appointed only a day before, after prime minister Levi Eshkol was forced due to public pressure to relinquish the defense post.
Eshkol’s decision to step down as defense minister was a result of a confusing speech that he delivered during a live radio broadcast in which he stuttered. The impression on the Israeli public, already under tremendous fear of another Holocaust, was overwhelming.

UAE to pay terrorist families in Gaza - thanks to Abbas' rival

Mohammed Dahlan, former Fatah strongman in Gaza and bitter rival of Mahmoud Abbas who is living in exile in Abu Dhabi, has announced that the UAE will pay the families of "martyrs" of Gaza from last year's war.

Dahlan said that the UAE's National Committee will pay a "martyr's bonus" approved by the UAE political leadership to pay the families $5,000 per family in the coming days.

Roughly half of those killed in Gaza were terrorists.

The story is more interesting for who announced it than for what he announced. ($10 million is chicken feed for the UAE.)

Dahlan is vying to be the successor to the aging Mahmoud Abbas, and he is living in luxury in Abu Dhabi plotting his return. As Newsweek reported recently:

No place in the Arab world could be more different from the Gaza Strip than Abu Dhabi. The affluent emirate on the Gulf has shimmering skyscrapers, a Grand Prix racetrack and its own Louvre. Yet Mohammed Dahlan, the 53-year-old Gaza native and exiled political leader, seems comfortable here. His home is a glossy mingling of marble and glass, with chandeliers hanging from high ceilings and framed paintings on the walls. On a sunny winter day recently, he worked in his garden dressed in jeans and soft loafers, then greeted me on his waterfront patio.

But for all its luxuriousness, Abu Dhabi is only temporary, Dahlan says—a staging area where he now plots his comeback. He’s lived in this city for four years, ever since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expelled him from the governing Fatah party and charged him with corruption and defamation. The rift between them cut short a political career that seemed brimming with promise. Over a 20-year period, Dahlan served as the powerful security chief of Gaza, an adviser to Yasser Arafat, a negotiator with Israel and Abbas’s minister of interior. Now he’s trying to succeed his rival and become the next president of Palestine. “I have a nice life here, but believe me, my heart is there,” he tells Newsweek. “If there’s an election tomorrow, I’ll go back.”

In his interview with Newsweek, Dahlan positioned himself as a counterweight to Hamas, one of the few political figures with enough clout and muscle to defeat the Islamists. He made clear that he was using money and political connections—two resources he seems to have in abundance—to regain relevance in the territory he left behind. “The Gazan people are victims of Hamas, the Israelis and Abbas,” he says. “They all talk about the suffering of the people, but none of them are doing anything.”

For the past year, Dahlan has been raising money in Gulf countries and distributing it to needy Gazans, in part through a charity run by his wife.

Dahlan also took credit for the partial opening of the Rafah crossing last week.

Interestingly, the Newsweek article notes that Dahlan took Serbian citizenship last year, an option that Arab countries do not offer for Palestinian "refugees."

An eye-opening report from the UN's IRIN news site, May 25:

Until November, it is alleged that Jordan routinely deported Syrian refugees who had broken the law back to Syria... Most Syrians are now sent to the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan instead. However, this is not the case for Palestinians, whose deportations do not appear to have been halted.

Jordan has denied entrance to Palestinian refugees living in Syria since January 2013, although this had already been the unofficial policy for months prior to the official announcement.

“They should stay in Syria until the end of the crisis,” Jordan’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour said in an interview at the time with the pan-Arab daily newspaper al-Hayat.

Many people fleeing Syria’s civil war have, however, been smuggled across the border, and Palestinians found to have entered the country illegally have been detained and are often deported back to Syria.

At least 42 Palestinians from Syria have been forcibly deported this year, in addition to 117 in 2014, according to sources familiar with the cases. Rights groups say those deported are at high risk of being arrested and tortured.

Here is the full quote from Jordan's Prime Minister:

Al-Hayat: But why are you preventing the Palestinian refugees fleeing from Syria from entering the kingdom, while knowing that they have Syrian travel documents?

Ensour: There are those who want to exempt Israel from the repercussions of displacing the Palestinians from their homes. Jordan is not a place to solve Israel’s problems. Jordan has made a clear and explicit sovereign decision to not allow the crossing to Jordan by our Palestinian brothers who hold Syrian documents. Receiving those brothers is a red line because that would be a prelude to another wave of displacement, which is what the Israeli government wants. Our Palestinian brothers in Syria have the right to go back to their country of origin. They should stay in Syria until the end of the crisis.

If we save their lives, we'd be doing what Israel wants us to do! Better to let them rot!

This is reminiscent of Mahmoud Abbas' own words saying that it is better for Palestinians to die in Syria rather than give up the mythical "right to return" to Israel.

The IRIN article shows that it is not only Jordan that turns its back on Syrian residents with Palestinian ancestry:

Palestinians from Syria are not allowed to register with the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, to receive aid, and many say they cannot contact other NGOs for fear of being discovered and stripped of their citizenship and deported. Many aid agencies will not work with them or represent them, making them particularly vulnerable to exploitation in the informal labour market.

Other Middle Eastern countries, including Lebanon, have also effectively banned Palestinians from Syria from entering.

There are literally hundred of NGOs operating in Israel and the territories, mostly funded by Europe, that are "pro-Palestinian." Yet almost none of these supposedly "pro-Palestinian" agencies take the slightest interest in the plight of Palestinians whose suffering cannot be blamed on Jews.

Now, why would that be?

(h/t Irene)

I've mentioned that a new Egyptian Ramadan TV series about Egyptian Jews in the 1950s, called "Jewish Quarter," is quite sympathetic to Egypt's vanished Jewish community.

The Times of Israel had a more detailed report on the series.

Egyptian soap operas, produced annually to entertain millions of Muslims breaking their fast during the holy month of Ramadan, have often been platforms for antisemitic and anti-Israeli vitriol.

The 2012 series “Naji Atallah’s Team,” starring veteran actor Adel Imam, depicted an Egyptian group’s attempt to rob a bank in deeply racist Israel. The 2002 historic show “Knight Without a Horse,” located in 1932 Egypt and based on the antisemitic canard “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” almost caused Israel to withdraw its ambassador from Cairo and sparked condemnation also from the US State Department.

But a new drama about the Jews of Egypt scheduled to air this Ramadan, come June 18, promises to be significantly different.

The plot of “Haret al-Yahood,” or The Jewish Quarter, unfolds in Cairo between two landmark events in 20th century Egyptian history: the 1952 Revolution — which replaced the ruling monarchy with the militaristic Free Officers Movement led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser — and the 1956 Suez Crisis, known in Israel as the Kadesh Operation and in Egypt as the Tripartite Aggression.

It depicts a love story between Ali, an Egyptian army officer played by Iyad Nassar, and Laila, a young Jewish woman, played by Mona Shalabi. As one might expect, the romance is marred by the rising wave of Egyptian nationalism and the social tensions brought about by the creation of Israel.

Menna Shalabi is now telling Egyptian media to please not think that she is a filthy Zionist:

Shalabi releaeed a statement that the series "Jewish Quarter" is not intended to "beautify the face of Israel."

She said that the series is meant to show the social and and political history of Egypt at a point in time, and said that to accuse her of beautifying the face of Israel is completely unacceptable.

She said there is a difference between the state of Israel "that adopts the idea of occupation" and the Jewish religion and Jews as human beings, as citizens have lived a long time in Egypt.

Shalabi pleaded for critics and the public not to rush to judgment on the work before its full release.

One doesn't have to read between the lines to see that she has been criticized in social media for the role and she is worried that she might be a target.

J-Street pretends to care about Israel advocacy on campus

I received this email from J-Street's Jeremy Ben Ami:

Sheldon Adelson, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and Christians United For Israel -- hardly a group representative of the American Jewish community -- spent this Saturday convening a secretive Las Vegas conclave to fight BDS. The problem: their approach is all wrong, and the impact for Israel advocacy on campus could be dire.

This wasn't just any strategy session: they invited 50 organizations that work on college campuses, ranging from the political center to the most extreme and Islamophobic. At the end of the day, the organizations got to compete for millions in funding. The donors have made clear that with all this money, they want to “assign roles” and “command and control” our community’s work on campus.

It's clear who is most likely to be the biggest loser in all this: not BDS, but Israel, and the students who know that the best way to be pro-Israel is to be anti-occupation and pro-peace.

There is more chutzpah in these three three short paragraphs than the proverbial son who killed his parents and asked for mercy because he was an orphan.

J-street is lecturing Zionist organizations on Israel advocacy? Really? When has J-Street ever said a pro-Israel word to "Students for Justice in Palestine"? when have they ever written a letter to professors who want to boycott Israel? I'm still waiting for a single tweet from Jeremy Ben Ami that defends Israel against the worse kind of antisemitic, anti-Israel propaganda.

J-Street characterizes a conference that has been widely reported in the media as "secretive." This coming from someone who tries to sweep the anti-Zionist opinions of his own board members under the rug. This comes from someone who pretends to be pro-Israel but cannot allow his organization to explicitly say that they support a Jewish state because that is way too right-wing for J-Street.

And, really, doesn't use of the word "secretive" suggest antisemitic stereotypes? The language doesn't bother them at all.

J-Street claims on the one habd to oppose BDS, but on the other they invite BDS champions like Mustafa Barghouti and Rebecca Vilkomerson to speak at their conferences.

So what in reality has J-Street done to combat BDS? Have they been vocal against the many divestment initiatives on campus? I have never heard them say a word in any of these public student debates on the topic - but they berate StandWithUs, who does a masterful job defending Israel and defeating these initiatives that J-Street seems to be de facto ambivalent about.

Well, J-street U has a "BDS Response Toolkit."

It is password-protected.

Who is "secretive?"

Time's 1967 essay way too pro-Israel to be written today

Here is the entire essay by Time magazine written in the aftermath of the Six Day War. While I disagree with some points, what is remarkable is that practically everything they wrote then applies today, but no mainstream media outlet would dare write such an essay now. It is a testament to how successful the anti-Israel libels have been in the past decades that these facts that are self-evident are now too controversial to say without being labeled a "Zionist."

Note that Time assumed that the borders of Israel almost certainly should not become the pre-1967 lines.

Note also that there is not one mention of "Palestinians." There is no distinction between Arabs from Jordan or the west bank (it was never capitalized then) or Gaza or Egypt. Isn't it amazing how they have managed to invent themselves as a people in such a short period of time?

ON FACING THE REALITY OF ISRAEL

FOR months and perhaps years, debate will rage about the borders of Israel and about how much (if any) of its conquered territory it has a right to keep. That debate, while important, is secondary. The real issue is not Israel's specific size or shape but its basic right to exist. Most of the world has accepted and acknowledged that right, but not the Arabs. After their disastrous defeat, the Arab leaders still proclaim that their ambition is to build up enough strength to eradicate the state of Israel some day, even if it takes generations. They sound a little like Russian Czar Peter the Great, who remarked that he would force the Swedes to defeat him until "they teach us how to beat them."

Whether the Arabs really mean it—in the Western, rational sense of meaning something—or whether they are merely caught up in a phantasmagoria of words, is beside the point. The Arabs have shown time and again that they are the prisoners of their hyperbole. Their refusal to accept Israel as a fact of life is at the bottom of the whole Middle Eastern conflict, of the war just concluded and of the diplomatic battles about to begin. If the Arabs recognized Israel, a territorial settlement would be relatively easy.

Do the Arabs have a case that goes beyond mere fanaticism? That question is linked to a series of other, deeper questions: What is a nation? What is a state? How does a people achieve the standing of nation or state?

The Ways to Nationhood

History, political science and even that elusive discipline, international law, are in substantial agreement on the answers. A nation is "a body of people who feel they are a nation," says Harvard Political Scientist Rupert Emerson. What is essential is "the sense of common identity, the sense of a singularly important national 'we' which is distinguished from all others who make up an alien 'they.' " In the long jostling of history, a group would stake out a territory and fight to defend its boundaries against any "theys." In short, a nation becomes a state when it has the power to occupy and hold a given amount of space and when other nations recognize this fact. This may not seem just or fair. It may smack too much of raw force and various doctrines of "the survival of the fittest" or "the territorial imperative" that have been used to justify force. Yet these basic conditions—identity, tradition, ability to stake out a territory, govern it and win recognition—are the only real criteria for sovereignty.

The rise and fall of nations is an endless process of territories being joined and rejoined in varying mosaics, of people displaced and resettled, of power expanding and contracting. A new nation may be established through conquest, as was England when the Normans defeated the Anglo-Saxons, who had in turn shaken off the Danes, who had in turn put down the Anglo-Saxons. The original population of France was subdued by the Romans, whose remnants were driven out by the Franks, who in turn established an empire that under Charlemagne embraced large parts of Germany and Italy. In most cases of nation building through conquest, sheer force is not enough: there must be emotional and psychological power at work that sooner or later legitimizes the seizure and leads to an amalgamation of conquerors and conquered. Otherwise, the process of conquest is reversed. This has happened countless times. A classic example: Netherlanders rebelled against the rule of Spain in the 17th century, and the Belgians in the 19th century rebelled against the rule of The Netherlands. The rebels, for their part, must be able to make their rebellion stick and have it recognized by the world.

New countries may be established through a combination of immigration and revolution, as in the U.S. and Latin America, where settlers cut loose from their colonial masters. The process may also occur through a kind of rebirth—a deliberate revival of an ancient state or civilization in a new form, often but not always accompanied by revolutionary war. Modern Greece fought for its independence from the Ottoman empire partly in the name of its ancient, glorious incarnation, and modern Germany struggled for national unity remembering its identity under the Holy Roman Empire.

The breakup of empires has always given rise to new states. After World War I, the Paris Peace Conference put together Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia from disparate (and still not fully united) remnants of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and independent Serbia. The collapse of the colonial empires after World War II brought about a rash of such arbitrary creations. Many ex-colonial countries had sovereignty conferred on them by their former masters under the U.N.'s aegis, without the often salutary experience of having to fight for their freedom. Such countries are apt to be based on arbitrary old colonial boundaries. They are either so small that they have no independent viability, as in the case of Chad or Dahomey or Upper Volta, or else so large and composed of such disparate tribes that they have no common sense of nationhood, as in the case of Nigeria.

In the creation of modern Israel, traces of most of these precedents can be found—conquest, war of liberation, immigration, rebirth, international action—although no really close parallel exists. Judaism is a unique mixture of race, nationality and religion. There is no other people that has been dispersed for so long from its original home, yet has maintained the memory of that home as a living reality.

The Homeland Plea

Almost every text and ritual of the Jewish faith recalls the land that the Biblical Israelites seized from the Canaanites and to which, according to Genesis, Abraham received the title deed from God. This religious tradition has maintained a sense of community among Jews scattered over the world since the Romans destroyed the Palestine Jewish community in A.D. 135. For centuries, Passover and Yom Kippur services have ended with "Next year in Jerusalem!" And the Psalmist sang:

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget its cunning.

The Arabs, too, have deep roots in Palestine and an undeniable moral claim: therein lies the tragedy of the situation. They seized the country in the wave of conquest launched by the successors of Mohammed in the 7th century after Christ, and later wrested it back from the Christian Crusaders. Arabs have lived in Palestine for 1,300 years, and until recently made up the vast majority of the population. To Arabs, the Israelis are newcomers who in a generation or two wrested the land away from them. For the Moslems, too, Palestine has sacred connotations: tradition holds that the Prophet visited Heaven by ascending a ladder of light from the spot that is now marked by the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

The Jews' religious, emotional and historic claim to Palestine as their homeland is probably stronger than the Arabs', but by itself the homeland plea can never be sufficient. In countless other cases, that plea and its underlying impulse have dissipated themselves. If it were not so, confusion would be considerable: the Celts could claim England; the Ainus, Japan; and the American Indians, the U.S.

The Jewish claim to modern Palestine is more realistically based; it derives from the territorial mandate that the British received from the League of Nations after the collapse of Turkey in World War I and later passed on to the U.N. That mandate incorporated the Balfour Declaration, promising the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. Most of the Arab states now contesting Israel's claim did not exist themselves at the time, but a few Arab leaders agreed to the Balfour Declaration (whose meaning may or may not have been clear to them). The majority of Arabs probably disagreed.

The fact is that in 1947 the U.N. proposed partition of Palestine between Arabs and Jews. The Arabs objected to the plan; the Jews accepted. In 1948, Israel proclaimed itself a state, and the world so recognized it. Karl Deutsch, professor of political science at Yale, compares the establishment of Israel to an act of "eminent domain," carried out by the world community.

The Arabs immediately attacked the new state and were decisively beaten back. In another day, the war would probably have continued until one side sued for peace, thus settling the matter at least for a time. But the U.N., with the best of intentions, halted the war long before Israel could expand its territory to the boundaries that its real strength could command. The U.N.-negotiated armistice lines of 1949 reflected an unreal balance of power. Says Harvard Government Professor Nadav Safran: "The Arab-Israeli conflict was the first international conflict in which the notion of 'no-war, no-peace' got established. Had the big powers not interposed their protection—thus taking pressure off the Arabs in 1949—peace would have been concluded, and people would probably be talking today about the natural affinity of Semites, instead of their mysterious obstinacy."

For nearly 20 years Israel has existed as a nation, its status so confirmed by its membership in the U.N. as well as by its own plain ability to function. The fact that it has done so with outside help is hardly the point. Most countries today require outside help to survive, including most of those lined up against Israel diplomatically. In fact, many have demonstrated less of a right than Israel, by the usual criteria, to be considered sovereign states.

If Israel's right to exist must be conceded, what of its right to keep some of its recent territorial conquests for the sake of security? On that point, Israel is more vulnerable. Yet its claim follows logically from the fact of its existence and from Arab belligerence. As Yale Law Professor Myres McDougal puts it: "Under the U.N. Charter, a nation is not supposed to acquire territory by force. But the Charter doesn't require a country to be a sitting duck."

Israel's argument that it acted in self-defense is based not only on the fact that the Egyptian blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba was generally considered an act of war. It is also based on the Arabs' two-decade record of demanding and working for the extermination of Israel, contrary to U.N. resolutions. Whether Israel needed to go quite so far as it did in self-defense is a question that may agitate some international lawyers—but hardly any military men. The U.N. lines, the Israelis can argue, are not a permanent frontier, hence they have the right to adjust their boundaries to ensure their security in the absence of a peace treaty.

The Need for Protection

If the Arabs were to agree to negotiate a peace with Israel, thereby acknowledging its existence, the situation would be changed immediately. The case for Israel's retaining its conquered territory would be sharply diminished, if not wiped out. Compensation of all kinds to the Arabs, including a settlement of the bitter refugee problem, would become possible.

How long can the Arabs hold out against negotiating a peace, and thus against the fact of Israel? Perhaps longer than most Westerners can imagine. Too much of Islam is an arrested culture that has never undergone a true political revolution or a religious reformation that could move it into the modern world. What divides the Arabs from Israel is not merely tradition or religion—for centuries past, Jews were far more tolerantly treated by Arabs than by Christians—but a culture gap. Israel, which in size constitutes less than 0.2% of the Arab lands, is hated by the Arabs in part because it is a successful, modern, Western state. It stands for all the things the Arabs resent, and yet want. If and when the Arabs manage to enter the Western-style 20th century, they may be able to defeat Israel; more significantly, they may then no longer feel the need to do so.

The sad persistence of the Arab attitude is perhaps the strongest argument for Israel's need to protect itself. Since the U.N. has shown its inability to protect them, Israelis argue that they can give up the real estate they deem essential to their security only if the Arabs agree to peace—and to reality,

06/07 Links: Netanyahu chides world over silence after Gaza rockets; UNRWA’s birthday

From Ian:

JCPA: Anti-Semitism is the Motivation for the BDS Campaign Whose Goal is to Delegitimize Israel

Israel is rightly alarmed at the escalating scale of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign. BDS constitutes a concrete threat to the future of Israel’s economic, academic, cultural, sports and political standing. BDS is not only a well-organized and structured global operation that aims to push for Israel to withdraw from territories, but a campaign of well-oiled lies, of dangerous international dimension.
Of course it is legitimate to criticize the policies of a government, but the BDS movement goes far beyond legitimate criticism, and in essence calls for the dismantling of the Jewish state. How to fight against anti-Semitism when incitement to hatred of Israel and Jews is rapidly spread by globalization and social media?
While the Arab boycott against the Jewish state is not new– it began at the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, but it was organized then by the Arab League due to the territorial dispute with the nascent state. Since 2005, however, it has taken an unprecedented turn with the creation of the BDS movement.
Despite huge investment and effort, BDS has so far not scored any significant economic and trade sanctions against Israel, because governments are fiercely opposed to it.
The question is whether the spread of BDS and increasing public pressure will encourage leaders of the international community to change their firm opposition to the detriment of Israel.
Any fair-minded person must contemplate why the BDS movement is focused on the Jewish state, while massacres continue all over the Middle East and are almost completely ignored. A real theater of the absurd!

IsraellyCool: Answering The Olive Tree Destruction Libel

Every year in Israel we get a rash of news reports about Jews (or more likely “settlers”) cutting down “Palestinian” olive trees. The reports usually hint that thousands of trees were destroyed in a few minutes, usually over night and without anyone capturing this act on a cell phone video, of course. Because when it’s soldiers and little girls there are thousands of cameras; when it’s mythical acts of Jewish vandalism there are none.
As I was walking through Park Hayarkon in Tel Aviv on Friday morning I came across two park employees cutting off a very small dead stump from a healthy young tree. Here’s the video.
It takes these two almost a minute to cut off a very small dead stump. They then clean off the shoots around the base leaving the healthy tree. That’s how you care for olive trees. Also notice how much work it is with a large chainsaw to cut even the smallest limb from an olive tree. Olive tree wood is very hard: cutting down mature olive trees is an extremely difficult task. This stump was around 20cm in diameter. Mature trees can be more than a meter across!

Bassem Eid: Calling for an awakening of conscience: Palestinians are real people

Whenever they are told that their actions hurt the Palestinians far more than they hurt Israel, “pro-Palestinian” activists plug their ears and start shouting “la la la la, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you”, then they go back to their mantra about the Israelis having stolen land and needing to be punished and being all-around evil people and so on. It would be funny if it were not real.
It is appalling but somewhat expected (given over 67 years of violence against Israel) that some Zionists would dehumanize Palestinians, but it is quite a tragedy that “pro-Palestinian” activists are even worse offenders. The compulsive and fanatical nature of anti-Zionism is the problem. It prevents its adherents from seeing the trees while they obsess about a forest that mostly exists in their imaginations. The hateful nature of anti-Zionism burns everything around it, and the Palestinians are its main victims.
We therefore call for an awakening of conscience among the ranks of those who call themselves pro-Palestinian. If they truly are pro-Palestinian, and not simply anti-Israel, then we expect them to strongly condemn Hamas terrorism and Fatah corruption which are the main causes of Palestinian suffering, rather than demonize Israel while ignoring the consequences of that demonization on the lives of real Palestinians.

Let's get something straight, shall we? Barack Obama, whatever else anyone might wish to say about the man, is not Jewish.

Obama is not Jewish, nor is he Muslim, nor is he Rosicrucian, nor Buddhist, nor a follower of the ancient faith of the Jains.

It is reported that former senior White House adviser, David Axelrod, claims that Obama said, "I think that I am the closest thing to a Jew who’s ever sat in this office." According to the Times of Israel, the White House is proving itself a little uncomfortable with this quote and is refusing to affirm its authenticity.

Times of Israel staff notes:

The White House on Tuesday partly endorsed comments attributed to US President Barack Obama by a former top adviser, who told Israel’s Channel 2 that the president shares the “common bonds and commons values” of the Jewish community.

However, Spokesman Josh Earnest did not go so far as to confirm ex-Obama senior adviser David Axelrod’s recollection that the president said he considered himself “the closest thing to a Jew” who’s served in the Oval Office.

In wondering just what is behind this oft-repeated notion that Obama, while not technically Jewish, is, in fact, Jew-ish, Jeffrey Tobin over at Commentary has this to say:

But the idea that he somehow considers himself at least as, if not more, Jewish than the leaders of the Jewish state and its supporters is a remarkable insight into his thinking. The question is not so much whether to accept this bizarre formulation as it is to what would lead the president to come to such a mistaken conclusion. The only answer is that he, like some of his Jewish supporters, actually thinks Jewish identity is a function of modern American political liberalism rather than a faith or a people.

Tobin is surely exaggerating. While Obama likes to imply that his policies derive from his values and his values derive, at least in part, from the Jewish side of what they used to call "the Judeo-Christian tradition," I find it highly unlikely that he thinks of himself as more Jewish "than the leaders of the Jewish state and its supporters..."

However, this notion that to be a good Jew one must be something akin to a good Democrat, fighting for social justice in the spirit of Tikkun Olam, is so politically self-serving as to be laughable. The obvious implication of such nonsense is that unless Jewish Americans follow the Obama administration and the Democratic Party than they are not really being very good Jews.

Meanwhile President Obama, whom David M. Weinberg is calling "Rabbi Obama" in the pages of Israel Hayom, is yet again threatening to throw Israel to the wolves at the United Nations. Barack Obama may love the Jewish people with all of his heart. The very thought of Golda Meir may get him all weepy and, as he likes to remind us, the very values that he cherishes (whatever those might be, exactly) are the very values that we cherish. (Or perhaps that is not the case, at all.) But whatever is the case, one thing is certain:

Barack Obama is no friend to Israel.

According to The Telegraph:

Barack Obama has warned that America's veto in support of Israel at the UN is increasingly "difficult" because of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wavering stance on a Palestinian state.

Mr Obama said the lack of progress in peace efforts, and Mr Netanyahu's apparent about-turn on support for a two-state solution before and after the recent Israel elections, mean Israel is in danger of losing "credibility".

This is a sick game that the current American administration is playing with the lives and well-being of the Jewish people of Israel. From 1937, with the Peel Commission, to the present, Israelis, for the most part, having been willing to share our tiny bit of Jewish homeland. Yet no matter how often Jewish Israelis say "yes" they are always blamed for intransigence and however consistently the Palestinian-Arabs say "no" to a state for themselves in peace next to Israel, they are always rewarded with moral support and cold, hard cash.

Also, of course, Netanyahu was merely being honest when he claimed that there would not likely be a two-state solution during his tenure. How could it possibly be otherwise when the Palestinian-Arab governments are split between a genocidally-authoritarian theocratic regime in Gaza and a genocidally-authoritarian semi-secular regime in what some people insist upon calling the "West Bank," as both call for violence against Jews and and as the rest of the region is engulfed by the ongoing blood, fire, rapes and beheadings of the misnamed "Arab Spring."

Obama said:

"If, in fact, there's no prospect of an actual peace process, if nobody believes there's a peace process, then it becomes more difficult to argue with those who are concerned about settlement construction..."

The opposite is actually true. If there is no peace process then construction of Jewish townships in Judea and Samaria becomes less politically relevant, not more so. If the Palestinian-Arabs absolutely refuse to accept a state for themselves in peace next to the Jewish one, than why should Jews not be allowed to build housing for themselves on the land of our ancestors?

Every time administration officials whine about Jews daring to build housing for themselves in Judea, they justify the Arab anti-Semitism that resides at the very heart of the conflict. Were it not for that anti-Semitism no one would mind if Jews built housing for themselves in Judea and Samaria. The only reason that anyone objects is because Jews are Jews. So when Obama complains about "settlements" he is effectively agreeing with Mahmoud Abbas that any future "Palestinian" state must be Judenrein.

This is blatant anti-Jewish bigotry on its face, yet the Obama administration goes along with it and American Jews, largely, go along with Obama.

What we will likely see in the coming months is the ratcheting up of the BDS movement in the European capitals, with Barack Obama leading from behind in Washington. Obama need not come out personally in favor of the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel for him to send messages that amount to approval.

When Obama says, "The danger here is that Israel as a whole loses credibility. Already, the international community does not believe that Israel is serious about a two-state solution," he is sending distinct and relevant messages to the enemies of the Jewish people all around the world.

He is also sending a distinct and threatening message to the Jewish people, as a whole.

One obvious message is that Obama, himself, does not think that Israel has "credibility" (whatever exactly he means by that.)

Another obvious message is that he, himself, believes that Israel is not serious about a two-state solution and is, therefore, fair game.

And, finally, that is the real message. If Israel has no "credibility," and if Jewish Israelis do not really want a two-state solution, then it's open season.

Barack Obama may as well just have rung the dinner bell.

This is called leading from behind.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

NRG reports that the UNDOF (United Nations Disengagement Observer Force) is irritating the people of Katzrin because of its blatant disregard for local laws.

UNDOF has relocated from Damascus, Syria to the Israeli town of Katzrin in the Golan Heights because of security issues. While the townspeople welcomed the move, even urging the UNDOF to change the addresses on their business cards, they are not happy about how the international organization ignores even the basics of etiquette.

Throughout Katzrin, one can see UN vehicles parked on sidewalks and handicapped spots, flouting local laws.

The head of the town council said several letters had been sent to UNDOF asking them to address the issue, but no results so far. "Legally I can not do anything to them. I can not stop them, even if they do serious offenses. I just want them to respect the laws of the host country."

A later meeting with UN officials resulted in them promising to be more respectful of the locals, but so far nothing has happened.

Residents and officials started placing signs on offending vehicles.

The Foreign Ministry explained that according to the Vienna Convention, diplomatic officials serving in Israel are given immunity, but it also noted that the Convention clearly stipulates that they respect the local law.

It isn't as if Katzrin has a shortage of parking spots, or that the UN employees are handicapped. They could find adequate parking spots easily. They choose, instead, to act like neighborhood bullies. And an organization that accuses Israel of violating international law is effectively tells Israel that will ignore its own laws whenever it pleases.

UPDATE: UNDOF says that they will obey local laws and fine the wrongdoers.

(h/t Yenta Press, Bob Knot)

From AFP:

A top Iranian official, in an unusual declaration Saturday, said there remains no trust between Tehran and world powers and either side could yet abandon a nuclear deal after signing.

In comments that laid bare a paradox of long-running negotiations between Iran and the West, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said an agreement -- due by June 30 -- was nearing despite neither side trusting the other.

A final accord could rein in aspects of Iran's nuclear programme while allowing it to continue to enrich uranium in exchange for a lifting of sanctions, but breaches could see the deal being ripped up.

"Our basis is mistrust and this is the reality," Araghchi was quoted by state television as saying at the end of the latest round of talks in Vienna with the P5+1 group of nations that has been talking to Iran for almost two years.

"We don't trust the other side at all and they don't trust us either," Araghchi said, noting so-called "snapback" provisions would be as relevant to Iran as to the United States if measures are reneged on.

"Thus all the provisions in a deal... whenever each party feels the other side is violating the commitments, they can snap back and implement whatever existed before the agreement.

"We have taken every necessary measure so this would happen for us. Naturally, the other side will do the same for sanctions," he added.