If you read a history book or today’s newspaper, you will see certain kinds of conflicts that repeat themselves, time and again. There are economic conflicts, situations in which one group wants something – land or property – that another group has. And there are ethnic/religious/racial conflicts, conflicts based on the perception of members of a different group as an enemy, simply because they belong to that group.
Very often there is a conflict in which both kinds of motivations are mixed, but it seems to me that the ethnic part brings a special kind of viciousness and persistence that is not found in purely economic conflicts. A purely economic conflict can operate on a rational level, where benefits are weighed against costs, while an ethnic one can escalate through a kind of feedback mechanism so that even suicidal actions can seem justified if they hurt the enemy. And they can go on forever.
Sometimes the leaders of a group will encourage ethnic hatred in order to motivate their people to fight for primarily economic objectives. It’s an effective technique, but sometimes the inter-group hatred gets out of control and conflict continues long after the economic motive is gone.
Ethnic conflicts are found throughout history. I think of the Hebrews and Amalek, the Armenians and the Turks, and of course the Jews and the Arabs in the land of Israel. In fact, it seems to me that nothing is more characteristic of humans than inter-group suspicion, hatred, and aggression.
Human attempts to change this fundamental behavior have consistently failed. The South African reconciliation process was intended to short-circuit the continuation of conflict associated with the end of apartheid by rehabilitating the victims, exposing the abuses, and punishing or in some cases giving amnesty to the perpetrators. While it seemed to have had a certain degree of success, recent events suggest that racial animosity is welling up there again.
In the US, 50 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, the last major legislative achievement of the civil rights movement, feelings of animosity between blacks and whites are as strong or stronger than they were in 1968.
Need I add that antisemitism has reached levels throughout the world unmatched since the period prior to WWII? Or that conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims have broken out almost everywhere there is an interface between them?
It’s time to stop treating this kind of behavior as an aberration and to realize that ethnic, religious, and racial hatred and aggression is normal human behavior, probably biologically based. So how can we act to minimize the damage it does?
The liberal and social-democratic establishment in the world thinks it has a solution: it is to increase diversity; that is, to mix ethnic, religious, and racial groups in every possible environment so that the members of the various groups will get to know each other and understand that they are all humans. Once they understand each other (the theory says), animosity and mistrust will dissipate. At the same time, the economic status of all groups should be improved so that none will be worse off than the others. If people understand each other and don’t envy other groups, the argument goes, there will be no room for conflict.
Unfortunately, this same establishment has also been at pains to promulgate a world-view in which certain groups are defined as oppressed by other groups. They believe that “oppressed” groups should be compensated by being given special advantages over the “oppressors,” or even (as in South Africa) by being given property confiscated from “oppressors.” Naturally, any improvement in relations brought about by diversity is immediately overwhelmed by the resentment this creates – among both the “oppressed” and “oppressor” groups).
There’s a fundamental problem with diversity itself. In a diverse environment, each group tries to maximize its power and ownership of common resources. This expresses itself as political divisiveness along ethnic lines, the situation so familiar to us in the Middle East. These political groups then provide a focus for conflict. Thus the presence of Arab members in Israel’s Knesset doesn’t serve to improve relations between Jews and Arabs, but rather brings about political conflict as those representatives look for issues with which to set themselves apart from the Jewish Knesset members – and become even more extreme in order to distinguish themselves from the other Arabs.
Promoting diversity, in other words, increases tensions, which leads to conflict. But there is an opposite approach, which is to move in the opposite direction from diversity, and reduce conflict by separating antagonistic groups.
How does this apply to the situation of Israel and the Palestinians?
Ze’ev Jabotinsky understood the inescapability of ethnic conflict between Jews and Arabs. His solution was that the creation of a Jewish majority and the establishment of Jewish sovereignty should be carried out despite Arab opposition, by force if necessary. Once those things were obtained and it was clear to the Arabs that they would not be given up, it might become possible to reach a modus vivendi with them.
Meir Kahane also understood. But he believed that it was impossible for a sovereign Jewish state to contain a sizeable Arab minority and survive. According to Kahane, coexistence is not an option.
Both Jabotinsky and Kahane disagreed with the liberal conventional wisdom that diversity, dialogue, and economic improvements could end ethnic/religious/racial hatred. Recent history, in Israel and other places, has borne them out.
We must understand that we will never make the Palestinians like us, or even stop wanting to kill us. Understanding won’t help, and neither will generous aid. Separation from them is the best way to reduce conflict.
What that would mean in practice is a hard question. The Left wants us to chop off part of our homeland, find some unspecified magic solution to the security nightmare that this would create, and everything would be fine. Except there is no magic solution, and the nightmare would be a deadly reality.
Martin Sherman has suggested (Part I and Part II, also FAQ I and FAQ II) that we incentivize emigration of the Arabs from the territories to third countries, financially and otherwise. Perhaps the only truly rational answer, and one which would probably produce the least misery for everyone involved, Sherman’s ideas have not gotten any traction among decision-makers in Israel or the US, and certainly not among the Palestinians.
Why do they hate us? It doesn’t matter. It’s not worth arguing about who started it and who’s right or wrong, except as an academic exercise. What is important is that the conflict is not amenable to solutions that don’t involve one or the other party stepping aside. Let it be them.
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A few years ago, an awful new neighbor moved in next door. An ex-murderer, unreformed.
Life became a nightmare. He claimed we were on his land. We weren’t. There’d been a dispute before he arrived, but we’d actually conceded.
He vowed alternately to force us out of the neighborhood and to kill us. He told anyone who’d listen that we had no right to be here and that he hated us. Unbelievably, some of the other neighbors supported him.
There were fights at the fence. We were scared to go outside. Life became a nightmare.
He tried to get a gun. He had friends who we knew would give him one. He said that if we didn’t let him get the gun, he’d keep on harassing and attacking us.
So we said okay. We let him get the gun. He killed us.
That ridiculous story is essentially the tale of what’s going on between Hamas and Israel. Except for the last part. That’s not going to happen.
President Trump has challenged United Nations (UN) member States to put their money where their mouths are in a hard-hitting speech delivered by US Permanent Representative to the UN – Ambassador Nikki Haley – at a UN Security Council Open Debate on the Middle East on 24 July.
Following Trump’s dressing down of NATO – Haley attacked UN member States who are full of words but short on money when it comes to supporting the Palestinian Arabs.
Haley did not mince her words: Here at the UN, thousands of miles away from Palestinians who do have real needs, there is no end to the speeches on their behalf. Country after country claims solidarity with the Palestinian people. If those words were useful in the schools, the hospitals, and the streets of their communities, the Palestinian people would not be facing the desperate conditions we are discussing here today. Talk is cheap.
No group of countries is more generous with their words than the Palestinians’ Arab neighbors, and other OIC [Organisation of Islamic Cooperation – ed.]member states. But all of the words spoken here in New York do not feed, clothe, or educate a single Palestinian child. All they do is get the international community riled up.
Haley used members’ contributions to UNRWA to prove her case: Last year, Iran’s contribution to UNRWA was zero. Algeria’s contribution to UNRWA was zero. Tunisia’s contribution to UNRWA was zero.
Other countries did provide some funding. Pakistan gave $20,000. Egypt gave $20,000. Oman gave $668,000.
Haley did not spare non-Arab and non-Islamic countries from similar naming and shaming: Other countries talk a big game about the Palestinian cause. In 2017, China provided $350,000 to UNRWA. Russia provided two million dollars to UNWRA.
Haley contrasted America’s generosity: Last year … the United States gave 364 million dollars… And that’s on top of what the American people give annually to the Palestinians in bilateral assistance. That is another 300 million dollars just last year, and it averages to more than a quarter of a billion dollars every year since 1993.
The fighting between Israel and Hamas has not yet abated, but it’s possible that this round of conflict is coming to an end. Yet even if Israel succeeds in deterring Hamas from further attacks, writes Amos Yadlin, the result will be what he calls an “asymmetric strategic tie.”
Hamas has been able to erode the Israeli deterrence that was established since Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, to breach the calm that prevailed in [Israel’s] south, and to try to define new “equations” and rules of engagement. To be sure, Hamas did not plan the March of Return or the kite- and balloon-based arson attacks, but it found in them attractive tactics and turned them into two central operational efforts. . . .
Israel has undoubtedly scored impressive achievements: its borders were not breached and its citizens were not harmed. Hamas weapons factories, training camps, and storage facilities were wiped out by the air force. Yet Hamas still has a sense of achievement. It has once again put the Gaza issue—both its humanitarian and political aspects—on the international agenda, damaged Israel’s image, undermined the sense of security among the Israeli population in the communities near the Gaza border, and challenged Israeli sovereignty in the Gaza environs.
In order to break this ongoing tie, Israel must adopt a proactive rather than a reactive strategy. It must take an approach designed to change the reality and not sanctify the status quo. . . . [First], efforts can and must be made to promote more modest understandings, namely, a limited hudna [Arabic for a temporary truce]. A fundamental condition for such an arrangement is a total halt of terror from Gaza and the return of Israeli civilians and bodies of the fallen soldiers held by Hamas. . . .
The Fatah movement confirmed that Israel has prepared and has been implementing a plan to demolish Al-Aqsa Mosque through continuous excavations under Al-Aqsa Mosque and tampering with its foundations and weakening it to make it a matter of time.
Spokesman for the Fatah movement, Osama al-Qawasmi, said in a press statement that the fall of a stone two days ago from the Islamic Wall of Buraq is a dangerous indication of what is happening in Al-Aqsa mosque and its surroundings. "We declare and affirm that the space of Al-Aqsa Mosque, above and below ground, and Jews have no right to it. What they do in the courtyard daily and continuous excavations underground is a crime against all religions, a blatant violation of the Islamic religion, and the promotion and encouragement of extremism and blind religious fanaticism and malicious planning by the Government of Israel to destroy any possibility of coexistence in the region.
Al-Qawasmi stressed that all Jerusalem is a purely Arab Palestinian state and that there is no peace or stability without an end to its occupation by Israel.
I recall Islamic clerics routinely making the charge that Israel has plans to demolish Al Aqsa, but I do not remember Fatah - the political party headed by Mahmoud Abbas - ever saying this before 2018. But this is the second time I have seen that al-Qawasmi has made this absurd claim - a claim that is pure incitement for Muslims to "do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem" and al Aqsa as Mahmoud Abbas himself said shortly before the car and knife intifada of 2015.
Claiming that Jews are destroying Al Aqsa is a reliable way to get Palestinian Muslims to riot and attack Israeli Jews, and it has been since 1920. It cannot be regarded as anything other than hate speech and incitement.
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In the wake of Turkish leader Erdogan's insulting Israel for its nation state law, it is worth recalling some history.
Turkey pretends that it has always been tolerant to Jews, welcoming those fleeing from Spain in 1492. But its record id not quite as good as it pretends.
The world seems to have woken up after the events of the last five years and is asking what the real secularity of Turkey is like.
Nearly all of the “analysts” from Europe, but also from a part of the United States, unanimously attribute the “current” situation in Turkey, connected with the Turkish-Islamic ideology in relation to other kinds of religion, to Erdogan, which is a fatal mistake stemming from lack of knowledge of modern Turkish history. On top of that the ignorance is also caused by more than a half of a century of massive propaganda of the West regarding Turkey, but exclusively for the sake of the Turkish membership in Western political and military institutions.
It is impossible to believe that European and US experts really do not know much about the uncompromising and often inhumane attitude of Turkey towards their minorities of different confessions, which has been practiced since the establishing the Turkish “republic” up to the present. To understand the current Erdogan’s policy aimed against the transatlantic civilization, it is sufficient to have look at the modern history of the country and their discriminatory policy of persecution against non-Islamic, non-Turkish minorities.
So let’s take a short look at the modern history of “modern secular Turkey” and first of all the fate of the Jews in Turkey.
It will not be just one short article which cannot embrace all of the atrocities the Jews were exposed to in the “secular, democratic” Turkey, But I can assure you that you will not regret that you have read it.
The Period of Atatürk, chronologically:
May 10, 1934
The main ideologist of Turkish Islamists in Turkey of those days, dominated demonstratively by one party, one nation, one language, one religion and one leader, Cevat Rifat Atilhan. With the aim of attracting greater favour of Nazi Germany, he distributed the Hitlerian Crosses to all students of the University of Istanbul, he passed them out himself, together with his followers, and ordered all of the students to wear them. You should not forget that the University of Istanbul was the most important Turkish university of those days.
May 22, 1934
Some of the Jewish intellectuals were too naive. They wrote an official application addressed to the Turkish government asking to stop the hateful campaign against Turkish Jews, run by the pro-governmental or even governmental magazine “The National Revolution”.
May 25, 1934
The Jewish community in Turkey, in despair and fear of the coming pogroms, approached the Prime Minister Ismet Inönü himself and to the Minister of Interior Affairs Sükrü Kaya and appealed for protection provided by state authorities, against the attacks by crowds, goaded by mysterious forces… The appeal was never answered.
June 14, 1934
The Turkish government responded in a special way, by approving a shameful fascist law aimed especially against the Jews and their properties.
The law begins with a quotation: This law has been approved to make sure that one language is spoken in the country, there is one thought, one and identical feeling and consciousness, especially for the Islamic homeland, and therefore:
a) The areas where Turkish culture represents a minority are nationalized
b) All of the areas and regions, where representatives of Turkish culture could be relocated, are nationalized
c) All of the buildings, facilities, including houses and factories belonging to those who are not Mohammedan, are nationalized. They will serve for our health, culture, politics, army and civil guard.
Section 11 of the same law states:
“Those who do not speak Turkish as their mother tongue have no right to set up new neighbourhoods, new villages, new workplaces, artistic groups or societies, new schools, and they have no right to cede their trade, their professions or companies to their descendants, relatives or people of the same origin.”
June 21, 1934
The Turkish Government issued the Surname Act
All minorities living in Turkey were obliged to accept the Turkish surnames they were assigned etc. They were the Jews, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Roma, simply all of them. A new wave of forcing minorities to become Turks began and it continues until now. Just exceptionally, a member of such a minority succeeds in making the Turkish authorities to approve the change to the original surname. Well, in recent years some of them may have succeeded in claiming the original surnames back but it happened only due to bribes, but the ban is still in force. The order was not related just to peoples’ names but also to the names of mountains, rocks, streams, animals, plants or even flowers.
Immediately, after the law was passed, a lot of Jews dwelling in the European part of Turkey, i.e. near the borders with Greece and Bulgary, were relocated to the steppes of Central Anatolia, under the pretext of intelligence activities.
June 21, 1934
In the City of Dardanelles, where nearly 1500 Jews lived at that time, attacks were started against Jewish shops. “Unofficial” guards were standing in front of the shops and did not let citizens enter. They placed notices on Jewish house doors, with a threatening appeal saying that the people must leave the city immediately to avoid being murdered.
June 25, 1934
All of the Jews of Dardanelles and the city of Gelibol left the cities and they were allowed to take just personal belongings with them… On the same day, “purely by coincidence”, the city was visited by the Turkish President Atatürk, the Father of all Turks, accompanied by the Iranian Shah Riza Pehlevi… they came as conquerors. And they were greeted by applause and cheering by the fanaticized crowds…
One of the witnesses described the arrival of “the Father of the Turkish Nation” Atatürk, just on the fatal day when the Jewish residents were forced to leave the city, saying:
“… the crowd cheered at Atatürk’s arrival, shouting “May he live forever!” and Atatürk’s car stopped among the cheering crowds, he got out of the car, more self-confident than ever, his appearing put the crowd to the top of ecstasy. Atatürk enjoyed the feeling of being admired, as the person giving wealth to his pears, he walked among them, stopped for a while, and at that moment a citizen broke away and ran towards him. The guards tried to stop him but Atatürk, believing that the man is one of his admirers, ordered the guards to let him come and they had to obey.
The disillusioned citizen knelt down on the ground and raised both arms towards heaven, saying in despair,
“-My Pasha, for the God’s life, are they driving us out of our own city? Where are we to go? What shall we do, oh my God?”
Atatürk understood immediately who the man was and what he expected from him, nevertheless he asked him ironically and in a mocking way, “-Who are you?”
“-My Holy Pasha, I am a local Jew from Dardanelles, Avram Palto.”
“-And who is driving you out? The Government? The Laws? The Police? The Gendarmerie? Go ahead, tell me”!
The Jewish citizen of Dardanelles, who was to lose all his property on that day and to leave his own city, replied in despair,
“No, my Almighty Pasha, the people are driving us away!”
And Atatürk started laughing and then said with a strict look,
“Well, if they are the people, nothing can be done, if the people wished, they could drive away even myself,” and he returned to his car where there was his guest, the Shah of Iran.
June 29, 1934
The US Ambassador Robert P. Skinner reported to his Minister’s office in Washington saying, “all of the Jewish residents of Dardanelles, Silivri and the European parts of Turkey have been expelled to places outside their region, the Turkish Government keeps giving no respond to our inquiries regarding the exile, Turkey is probably also ready to send troops to the area.
The Jews were expelled from the Cities of Dardanelles and Silivri, on June 25, 1934. On June 28 the expulsion continued. They were being expelled from cities in the European part of Turkey, having high Jewish population, the cities Edirne, Keşan, Uzunköprü, Babaeski, Lüleburgaz and Kırıklareli (they are Turkish names for towns that used to be ancient in the past).
They had to leave some cities within 24 hours, somewhere within two days, and, exceptionally, in the case of Uzunkprü, they had three days available… They were leaving with personal belongings only and they left behind everything that many generations had built up, hoping that their lives, their existence would be tolerated in exchange for the superhuman devoted work…
The pogrom was described by Hayim Begar in his book of memories like this:
„Every time I walked home from school I was attacked and beaten up so much that I was bleeding. They greeted me, ‘Salam al, Jew!’ I greeted them in their manner, but they continued beating me and ’a box with nails’ used to be added…”
June 2, 1934
The hysterical crowd in the city of Edirne where the Jews used to live for centuries, attacked the Jewish shops, workshops, doctors’ offices and they beat up everyone they met. The ones who were rich and owned cars set for a journey immediately, in the direction to Istanbul, those who were less well-off walked towards the Greek or Bulgarian borders… And what about the ones who were not strong or courageous enough to leave the city? The bakeries stopped selling bread to them, they could not buy food even if they had money, they could not get water, and some of them tried to contact the authorities after all, but they were driven away and got a frightful advice to leave the city like the other had done…
The story of Rabi Kiriklareli is one of the scary, monstrous events that came down to our times.
The crowd, goaded by the state, motivated by robbing “wealthy Jews”, attacked all of the Jewish shops, including many doctors’ offices, and then even the house of the local Rabbi Moshe Finza. They stripped him naked, shaved him with a razor, tied him to a rope and walked with him around the square through the crazy crowd, whoever could beat him. In the meantime, a part of the state-controlled bandits raped his wife and daughter and stole everything the Rabbi had at home and they left him somewhere on the ground when he could not walk after all the beating. And they caught some Jewish girls in the streets and cut off their fingers to get gold rings. In the evening all of the 400 Jews that were still left there were sent to the station. They found out that there was a train with 16 carriages waiting for them since the morning to deport them to Istanbul. And the city was finally “clean”… Let me add the information that trains for Istanbul used to have only four carriages at that time but on that day there were 16 carriages and the train was even waiting from morning till late evening at the station…
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The Syrian Sukhoi had not entered the occupied Golan, a military analyst said on Wednesday, adding that Israel shot down the jet intentionally to give a chance to the ISIL terrorists to capture the pilot or breathe during the pause in the army's military operations for starting the rescue operations.
The Arabic-language website of Sputnik reported that the Syrian Sukhoi fighter jet that was downed by Israeli Air Defense Units' missiles on Tuesday never entered the Israeli-occupied Golan airspace.
The unnamed analyst further told the Arabic Sputnik that Israeli air defense intentionally shot down the Syrian jet East of the de-escalation line with Israel near the town of Saida, where ISIL is active in a bid to give ISIL terrorists a chance to capture the pilot to have an advantage for some negotiations with the Damascus government over ending the military operation in ISIL-held regions in Southwestern Dara'a.
For some reason, though, FARS is not reporting this other story published in Sputnik News:
The Russian Defense Ministry said that an Israeli counterattack on Wednesday on Daesh positions in Syria killed terrorists and destroyed rocket launchers.
The Russian ministry said that a strike on Israeli territory on Wednesday was made from Daesh* positions and that the response from Israel had hit terrorists' missile launchers in Quneitra.
The ministry also expressed gratitude to the Israeli Defense Forces for the counterattack.
"Russian armed forces’ command in Syria used the existing communication channels to thank the IDF leadership for killing terrorists and stopping a massive provocation," the ministry said in a statement.
The Russian military said the Daesh terror group tried on Wednesday evening to draw Israeli fire onto Syrian army positions by launching rockets into Israel.
"A precision strike by jets and IDF artillery operatively destroyed Daesh terrorists and their rocket launchers," the Russian ministry stated.
The Russian Defense Ministry goes way beyond Israeli claims in saying that Israel killed ISIS (Daesh) fighters and in saying that ISIS deliberately shot the rockets at Israel in order to make Israel attack Syrian positions.
This is so far out of the Iranian mythical narrative of a connection between ISIS and Israel that Iranian media cannot report the story, until perhaps it finds another "unnamed analyst" to deny the episode - which would implicitly impugn Russia's Defense Ministry.
I can hear the gnashing of teeth in Iranian newsrooms from here.
(h/t Yoel)
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Many major Western news outlets are accused—often correctly—of bias against Israel. Yet, this does not mean that their coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict can be described as “pro-Palestinian.” In fact, many in the media—and the policymakers and pundits that they influence—tend to ignore internal Palestinian issues when Israel can’t be blamed. And recent events prove it.
Since the beginning of June 2018, hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) have taken to the streets in protest of their government’s policies toward the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority, dominated by the Fatah movement, rules the West Bank. Under PA President and Fatah head Mahmoud Abbas, the authority has enacted punitive measures towards Gaza in an attempt to apply pressure on Hamas, Fatah’s rival that rules the Strip. Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group with a fiercely antisemitic ideology, has controlled Gaza since besting Fatah in a short but bloody civil war in 2007.
Abbas has attempted to regain control of the coastal enclave ever since.
Among other actions, the PA has cut salaries to its employees living in Gaza, suspended social assistance to hundreds of families residing there, forced the retirement of thousands of civil servants, and reinstated the collection of taxes from previously exempt Gazans. The PA also quit paying Israel for the electricity and fuel that it provides to the Strip—resulting in severe power shortages for Gazans.
For its part, the misery endured by the average Gazan—misery that is not shared by their leaders, many of who live in luxury in Qatar —is a frequent media topic. Many journalists, however, blame Israel’s security blockade for Gaza’s troubles, often failing to note that it exists only because Hamas expends international aid and resources on rockets and terror tunnels to attack the Jewish state.
On Saturday, the left-wing smear organization the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) attacked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for suggesting that some forms of Holocaust denial could be acceptable on Facebook. Tragically, the left-wing group did not mention a key source of Holocaust denial: anti-Israel sentiment, and anti-Semitism among Muslims. Instead, the SPLC expressed fear that Holocaust denial might hurt American Muslims.
While Nazis were the first to start crafting lies rejecting the reality of the Holocaust, Holocaust denial is most mainstream among Muslims in the Middle East. A 2014 survey by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that 63 percent of people in the Middle East and North Africa said the Holocaust was "a myth or an exaggeration. A full 65 percent said "Jews are responsible for most of the world's wars." A whopping 74 percent of those in the Middle East and North Africa harbored anti-Semitic views.
When asked directly about the Holocaust, 61 percent of Muslims under age 65 said it was a myth or an exaggeration, while Christians were consistently the least likely to deny the Holocaust (followed by Buddhists and non-religious people). Hindus also proved surprisingly likely to deny the Holocaust.
After preliminary notes about Nazis founding the practice — pushing "the deeply offensive lie that the Holocaust was a fraud concocted by Jews" — the SPLC noted that it monitors 10 active Holocaust denial groups in the U.S., four of which have a minor presence on Facebook. To its credit, the SPLC does have two pro-Palestinian groups on that list: two chapters of Der Yassin Remembered.
At the same time, after a brief mention of "the resurgence in antisemitism online," the SPLC went on to lament the plight of American Muslims — some of whom are spreading Holocaust denial in an effort to slander the State of Israel.
A recent Pew Research poll indicates an overwhelming divide between American Republicans and Democrats over perceptions of the importance of the US-Israel relationship.
The poll primarily dealt with comparing American and German perceptions of one another, but also touched tangentially on American perceptions of other countries.
According to the poll, 12% of Americans said that Israel was the “first or second most important partner for American foreign policy.” Israel tied in third place with Germany, also at 12%, coming behind China at 24% and chart topper Great Britain at 33%.
Dividing responses to the same question along party lines, the poll found that 24% of Republicans found Israel to be a top foreign policy partner out of eight countries listed, in second place behind Great Britain at 42% and ahead of China at 18%. Russia closed the list for Republicans, at 5%.
On the other hand, Israel did not make the eight-country list for Democrats, for whom Great Britain topped the list at 32%, China came in second at 26%, and Canada closed the list at 6%.
“Spray the suckers. Carpet bomb
the whole damn place,” someone is bound to say in every conversation regarding
the relentless terror emanating from Gaza toward Israel. After all, we’ve already
been
accused of carpet bombing Gaza. So why not actually do so?
I’ll tell you why. It’s too
brutal. It’s not like us. The thought of bombing innocent civilians is too
horrible to contemplate.
But it’s difficult to say that
out loud. It makes you look suspicious, or like you’re rooting for the wrong
side. So I stay quiet, or refrain from clicking “like” on Facebook comments
suggesting Israel carpet bomb Gaza. I let my non “like” express my lack of
approval for these sentiments.
Sometimes, I’ll ask the other party
to imagine what would happen to Israel were it to contemplate such a move. The
world outcry would be enormous. The response, of course, is that the outcry is
already enormous. Furthermore, say the wannabe carpet bombers, public sentiment
would blow over in no time, in accordance with the fast-changing news cycle.
My gut says otherwise. I think
the negative reaction would be huge: beyond anything we’ve seen thus far. Right
now, the photos of civilians who suffer at the hands of Israeli “aggression”
are faked or don’t show the truth. Imagine if the photos were true!
The negative public opinion
would be deafening. The remaining American Jews loyal to Israel would rent
their clothes, recant, and admit the JINOs had been right all along. The UN and
the EU would demand that justice be done at The Hague. Israelis would fear to
travel, branded as international criminals. And Israeli businesses? We’re
talking BDS on steroids.
And forget opinion. Carpet
bombing would ignite a conflagration, a World War III, God forbid, in which the
entire region gangs up on Israel in earnest. (Now if you’re a God-fearing Jew, this
is not necessarily a bad thing. The war to end all wars could bring Mashiach, the Messiah. Not that we can
go ahead and carpet bomb Gaza on the basis of the assumption that this is how
things will play out. That’s not how it works. But if things were to become bad
enough, some might take comfort in that idea.)
But when challenged on the idea
of carpet bombing Gaza, the inevitable question always follows, “Do you have a
better solution?”
Alternatively, folks will get
passionate and raise their voices, “How many soldiers and civilians have to die
before we get serious?” they will say. “How many crops must be burnt? How many animals
killed? And what of our ecosystem?”
These are questions for which
no one has answers, least of all this writer, who has a soldier son and
children and grandchildren in Netivot, in the South. This is the predicament in
which we find ourselves after the Expulsion, Ariel Sharon’s “Disengagement” plan.
Sharon threw the Jews out of their homes to take attention away from his sons’
legal issues. He made the 10,000
Jews he expelled from Gaza and Samaria the sacrificial lamb for his
personal woes. This is in spite of campaign promises in which he swore he would
never give Gaza away—despite citizens’ referendums in which the people
overwhelmingly voted against the move.
My belief is that Sharon is
roasting on a spit in Hell like a rotisserie chicken for the Expulsion and the
resulting situation in which we now find ourselves. It’s like a modern day Noah’s
Ark story, where the world that was created in Gaza in the wake of the Jews’
expulsion is just too ugly, too rotten with terror and evil to exist, and so it
must be destroyed in toto. Except that God promised He would never do that again:
would never destroy a world.
And so it is up to Israel, if
it is to be done at all.
But we simply can’t.
So we’re caught between a rock
and the hard place of innocent civilian pawns and public opinion. A purgatory,
if you will, to Sharon’s Hell.
The only thing we can do, for now, is come down much harder on those who threaten the embattled Jewish State. Let's hope that the IDF plans to do exactly that. Israel must stop playing chicken with Hamas. We need to throw some fear into the terrorists, in spite of the cost to civilians. We have to end the situation whereby Israel issues warnings as weak threats: "Stop starting fires and
shooting rockets or we'll wage war."
The warnings only signal Hamas to
slow down its terror activity just enough to make Israel stand down.
For a while.
Until it begins again.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Oh Felesteen, We Love You So, We Will Burn You Up So The Jews Can't Have You
By Hamas
If you love something, set it on fire.
Beloved Land, we would give our lives for you. And we do, all the time. The depth of our attachment to you runs so deep, so strong, that we will start numerous fires to prevent us from ever being able to develop and cultivate you when we eventually vanquish the Zionist usurper and repossess you.
Thus is love. No amount of water can extinguish our passion for you, Felesteen, land of our ancestors, at least our immediate ancestors and not the ones before them who came from Egypt, the Balkans, Arabia, and wherever, as our family surnames attest. The Zionists warned that if our flaming kites and balloons continue, farming those areas will soon be impossible - and that is a sacrifice we are willing to make for you, our beloved Motherland, for that is how powerful our love for you has always been.
Even when we Muslims and Arabs had control over you, whether the parts we think we lost in 1967 but never actually controlled in the first place, or the rest we controlled in the mythic past before the Zionists and their Western allies dispossessed us in the nonexistent time when Felesteen was free and ruled by its indigenous Arab inhabitants, we demonstrated our love in similar fashion. So devoted were we to you, love, that we denuded the land of its forests, knowing that one day, the evil rapist scum Zionists would attempt to take you over and make you theirs, and we could not allow you that fate, our Sweetness. Better you should remain desolate, or, failing that, burning. Because we love you so.
When the villainous usurper Zionist dogs began cultivating you and bringing forth from you crops in quantities and qualities we could never duplicate, we knew how much you must be suffering. We shall free you from the prison of their wicked acts of farming, through blood and fire! Mostly fire, though. We have to save the blood for other purposes.
Do you feel our love, Felesteen? Do you feel the hot passion that burns in our hearts and veins, as well as in your brush, orchards, nature reserves, forests, fields, and arable land? That is the affection, the attachment, the devotion to you, to us, that will never go out. Unless the Zionists keep putting out those fires, the infidels. They know nothing of what love for the land is, can you not see?
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Last week, President Donald Trump’s Middle East team signaled a shift in the administration’s policy for contending with Hamas-controlled Gaza — one no prior administration had the courage to make.
On July 19, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, his special representative for international negotiations Jason Greenblatt, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman published a joint op-ed in the Washington Post in which they made clear that they are walking away from their earlier efforts to rebuild Gaza’s economy as a means of advancing the prospects for a broader peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
(This columnist had argued for exactly that policy just two days before.)
Noting that the blame for Gaza’s humanitarian crisis rests squarely on the shoulders of the Hamas regime, the three wrote: International donors are conflicted: Should they try to help the people directly, at the certain risk of enriching terrorists, or withhold funding to Hamas and watch the people it is supposed to govern suffer? In the past, investments in badly needed infrastructure have been diverted for weapons and other malign uses, and even the projects that are built are often destroyed as a consequence of Hamas’ aggression. Until governance changes or Hamas recognizes the state of Israel, abides by previous diplomatic agreements and renounces violence, there is no good option.
Kushner, Greenblatt and Friedman acknowledged as well that “the international community also bears some blame.”
“More countries want to simply talk and condemn than are willing to confront reality, propose realistic solutions and write meaningful checks,” they wrote.
The President’s Middle East policy team concluded by noting that the time has come for the international community to base its policy towards Gaza on reality rather than platitudes. In their words, Hamas is the root cause of the endless rounds of war with Israel and the suffering of the people in Gaza.
“Hamas leadership is holding the Palestinians of Gaza captive,” they explained.
“This problem must be recognized and resolved or we will witness yet another disastrous cycle [of war].”
Israel
Trump's election has proved to be a gift to Israel.
Trump was the first American president to formally refer to Israel as an ally. He ended Obama's policy of moral equivocation between Israeli self-defense and Palestinian terrorism and refused to maintain the façade that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was a peaceful moderate. He also drastically cut U.S. aid to the Palestinians.
He has made it clear that the U.S. would not tolerate the Palestinian diversion of aid money to reward terrorists and their families.
The administration placed full blame on Hamas for the Gaza escalation of terror.
Envoy Nikki Haley aggressively defends Israel at the U.N. The U.S. also withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council, an organization dominated by anti-Israel tyrants and rogue states.
Despite howls of protest, Trump has fulfilled his electoral promise to move the U.S Embassy to Jerusalem.
Trump and Putin issued an unprecedented joint press statement following their recent meeting in which they explicitly proclaimed their commitment to "work together to ensure the security of Israel." Trump said, "I think that working with Israel is a great thing, and creating safety for Israel is something that both President Putin and I would like to see very much."
To sum up, Trump is clearly calling the shots and rearranging the existing global order.
For Israel, Trump has been like manna from heaven. That does not mean that we endorse all his actions, and we continue to squirm at his cruder outbursts.
Abbas' advisor on religious affairs said that the presence of Jewish Israeli MPs in Jerusalem and on the Temple Mount, "defiles" the Islamic holy sites and in particular the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rescinded his previous ban on Israeli Parliament members visiting the Temple Mount - which had been in place for nearly three years as a precaution against violence - and allowed them to visit once every three months.
According to PA Supreme Shari'ah Judge and Mahmoud Abbas' advisor on Religious and Islamic Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Netanyahu's decision is no less than a "war crime" and the presence of Jewish Israeli MPs at Islamic holy sites constitutes "defilement":
"The prime minister of the extremist right in the occupation state [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] has committed a complete war crime against the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, and particularly at the Al-Aqsa Mosque...
The prime minister of the occupation state is engaging in bullying, arrogance, and Zionist "ISIS-ism" against the members of our people and its holy sites, both in Jerusalem and Hebron, by giving relief, support, and protection to the break-in campaigns of the extremist Jews into the holy sanctuaries in Jerusalem and Hebron, to [the sanctuaries'] defilement, and to the attack on the Muslim worshippers, who have the right to manage their holy sites with complete freedom and without the interference of the tyrannical occupation authorities." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 5, 2018]
Al-Habbash further threatened that "a continuation of the crime mentality led by the occupation government will drag the entire region and the world into a religious war whose results will be disaster for everyone."
In a later statement, Al-Habbash repeated his antisemitic accusation, claiming that "the series of Israeli crimes against the holy sites has severely escalated due to occupation [Israeli] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to allow the Israeli Parliament members to invade the Al-Aqsa Mosque plazas and defile them." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 11, 2018]
He is quoting conductor Daniel Barenboim, who makes the same laughable claim. Here's what he says:
I gave a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in 2004 in which I spoke about the declaration of independence of the state of Israel. I called it “a source of inspiration to believe in ideals that transformed us from Jews to Israelis”.
I went on to say that this remarkable document had expressed the commitment that: “The state of Israel will devote itself to the development of this country for the benefit of all its people; it will be founded on the principles of freedom, justice and peace, guided by the visions of the prophets of Israel; it will grant full equal, social and political rights to all its citizens regardless of differences of religious faith, race or sex; it will ensure freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.”
The founding fathers of the state of Israel who signed the declaration in 1948 considered the principle of equality to be the bedrock of the society they were building. They also committed themselves “to pursue peace and good relations with all neighbouring states and people”.
Seventy years on, the Israeli government has just passed a law that replaces the principle of equality and universal values with nationalism and racism. This law states that only the Jewish people have a right to national self-determination in Israel.
The Declaration also refers to Israel as the Jewish State. It also only gives Jews the rights of self determination in Israel:
THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
The examples given by Barenboim where the Basic Law is supposedly racist are all in the declaration of independence that he praises.
Of course, Israel's other laws enshrine equality of all citizens. None of them are rescinded as a result of the Basic Law.
Barenboim is lying. Ken Roth is lying. The entire world cannot be bothered to actually read the texts before jumping on the bandwagon of calling the Jewish State racist.
I replied to Roth asking, "Ken, please name one specific thing the Basic Law denies Arab citizens of Israel that is allows Jewish citizens of Israel. Just one. Because I have yet to see anything. Please, enlighten us."
Of course he didn't answer. Because he can't. And neither can anyone else.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
The spokesman for international media for Fatah, Ziyad Khalil Abu Ziyad, issued a statement denouncing US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley.
He tried to insult her by saying she "proved very well in her recent statements that she is [really the] ambassador for the Israeli occupation state."
Abu Ziyad said that the US was trying to split the Arab world but that the Arabs haven't accepted the "deal of the century." He warned against listening to the Israeli analysis and its false and misleading statements, which act as a fifth column to strike unity in the Arab-Palestinian political situation.
The most telling part of Abu Ziyad's message, though, was his praise for Arab states - for refusing to give full rights to Palestinians!
He stressed that no Arab leader has agreed to settle the refugees, for 70 years.
This was a compliment!
The Arab League insisted back in the 1950s that every Arab be eligible for citizenship in every Arab state - except for Palestinians. A 1959 resolution, number 1547, confirmed earlier resolutions that Palestinians in Arab lands must retain their "nationality" as a principle. (Of course, they are denied becoming citizens of "Palestine" today.)
The so-called Palestinian National Liberation Movement headed by Mahmoud Abbas is praising Arab nations practicing apartheid against Palestinians.
Human Rights Watch is silent. Amnesty International is silent. Even though ordinary Palestinians have attempted to become full citizens of their host countries many times, in Lebanon, Egypt and elsewhere, their purported "leaders" have been dead-set against it, because they are afraid that happy Palestinians will no longer be Palestinian.
A Palestinian leader publicly praises Arab nations for discriminating against Palestinians - and no one thinks it is strange. Because the only reason for supporting this institutionalized discrimination is to use them as pawns to pressure Israel to accept them as "returnees" one day.
70 years of this apartheid is not only tacitly accepted by the world - it is actively supported. Because, after all, this is what UNRWA is all about: to maintain the fiction that Palestinians are refugees forever no matter how many generations they live with their loving Arab brethren.
The US even bringing up the topic is what is considered to be outrageous by the Palestinian leaders themselves.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
It's great to be with you. It is my true honor to have been asked to speak with you today. Before I say anything about what I do, I want to say a few words about what all of you do.
It's always a great thing when Americans use the power of their voice.
What's amazing about Christians United for Israel is not just the power of your voice. It's also the importance of the cause you have dedicated your voice to.
Israel needs friends.
We live in a world in which anti-Semitism is on the rise. In some parts of the world, Jewish communities are enduring hate speech, harassment, vandalism, and physical violence.
We live in a world in which terrorist groups and even some countries openly call for Israel's destruction.
Many other countries encourage or turn a blind eye to blatant discrimination against Israel.
Even here at home, there are some troubling signs. On many college campuses, the anti-Semitic BDS movement has become a trendy cause for students and professors who should know better.
Standing up against this global pressure campaign on Israel and the Jewish people goes to the heart of our friendship and the heart of America. And the tip of the spear is Christians United for Israel. What you are doing is so important. And may God bless you for it.
The United Nations is an interesting place. There are times when it can be a force for good.
We saw that last year, when the international community united against the North Korean nuclear weapons program, by passing massive sanctions that strangled their economy bringing them to the negotiating table.
The UN can also be an enormously frustrating and bizarre place. Nowhere is that more pronounced than in the truly awful way the UN has treated Israel for decades.
Last September, when Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke at the UN, he said that for too long, the "epicenter of global anti-Semitism was the UN itself." That's an amazing statement. But unfortunately, it's true.
The Prime Minister also said something else. After describing the revolution that is taking place in Israel's ties with individual nations around the world, Prime Minister Netanyahu said, "There are signs of positive change, even at the United Nations." He said, "That positive change is gathering force."
That is also true.
I'd like to describe some of those positive changes, and why they are happening.
Plain and simple, change comes with leadership and clarity from the United States.
That leadership and clarity was on full display when President Trump made the bold and right decision to move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem.
Jerusalem has historically been - is now - and will always be the capital of Israel.
That is not something that was created by the location of an embassy. That is not something that was created by an American decision.
America did not make Jerusalem Israel's capital. What President Trump did - to his great credit - was recognize a reality that American presidents had denied for too long.
Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. That's a fact. And President Trump had the courage to recognize that fact when others would not.
Now, I have to say, our embassy decision caused a bit of a stir at the United Nations.
In the United Nations Security Council, countries wasted no time in condemning the United States. They showed no mercy, but that gave me the great honor of casting my first American veto.
The next week, the Jerusalem issue was brought before the United Nations General Assembly - all 193 countries - in a direct attack condemning the United States.
We lost that vote. But to many people's surprise, 65 countries refused to go against us. In the long history of the UN's mistreatment of Israel, that was a record.
And we will never forget that vote. Like I said at the time, we were taking names.
President Trump and I are pushing to draw a closer connection between U.S. foreign aid and whether countries support U.S. interests at the UN - not just on the embassy, but on all U.S. interests. UN votes should not be the only factor in our foreign aid decisions. We have many interests that go beyond the UN. But they should be one factor, and we are determined to make that connection.
My second Security Council veto came just last month. But this time things turned out differently.
You have all seen the recent violence at the Gaza border. The people of Gaza live in miserable conditions. They deserve a much better life than what is imposed on them by Hamas.
We respect everyone's right to peacefully protest. But no one should be fooled about the role of Hamas. Many of the protesters in Gaza are anything but peaceful. If they were peaceful, there would be no burning tires, there would be no Molotov cocktails, there would be no flaming swastika kites flying into Israel burning thousands of acres of land.
And of course, if this was a peaceful movement, there would not be hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel.
Like any country would do, Israel has responded to the violence at its border. What is so stunning is the international reaction to all of this.
Think about it. If there were tens of thousands of people looking to attack your border fence, and you had a terrorist group providing guidance on how best to kill innocent civilians inside your country once the border fence was broken, what would you do? What would the United States do? What would any country do?
When I heard country after country in the UN Security Council hypocritically standing in judgment of Israel, I spoke out. What I said shocked the people at the UN; but I'll say it again, because it's the truth.
Israel has acted with more restraint than just about any other country would under those same conditions.
It's true. And yet, Israel is still condemned at the UN.
In the Security Council, a shamefully one-sided resolution was put forth condemning Israel's actions in Gaza and making absolutely no mention of Hamas. Not one mention of the terrorist group that uses the people of Gaza as human shields, and fires rockets into Israeli schools.
That was my second veto.
But when this nonsense was brought to the General Assembly, this time we had a different strategy. We went on the offensive and offered our own amendment that called out Hamas's terrorism.
Now that might not sound revolutionary, but consider that in the history of the UN General Assembly there has been over 600 resolutions on the Israel-Palestinian issue alone - and not one of them has ever mentioned Hamas. Not one in 600.
It's very important to me that we represent truths and reality at the UN, even if it makes other countries uncomfortable.
For the first time, we made each country say whether they thought Hamas had any responsibility for the violence.
For the first time, we named names and identified the real source of the conflict in Gaza. And to everyone's surprise, more countries voted with us than against us.
That sent shock waves through the General Assembly. Everyone was shocked. Let me tell you, it's a new day at the UN.
From now on, every country knows that the United States will not just block anti-Israel measures, we will shine a light on those who are responsible. There won't be any more free passes for those who bully Israel at the UN.
As this example shows, sometimes we are winning at the UN through persuasion.
But there are other times when we just have to say enough is enough.
That happened last year with the UN agency known as UNESCO. Among many other ridiculous things, UNESCO has the outrageous distinction of attempting to change ancient history.
UNESCO declared one of Judaism's holiest sites, The Tomb of the Patriarchs, as a Palestinian Heritage Site, in need of protection from Israel. That was enough. Ten months into this administration, the United States withdrew from UNESCO.
And then there's even more of an outrageous example of the so-called Human Rights Council.
This UN agency is supposed to be the world's foremost advocate of human rights. What it's actually become is a protector of dictators and a cesspool of political bias.
The corruption of the Human Rights Council goes way beyond Israel. Its membership includes the murderous dictatorships of Cuba, Congo, and China.
Human Rights Council reports have described the brutal regimes in Syria, Sudan, and Russia as - get this - "victims of Western sanctions."
Not only did the UN elect the regime of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro to the membership of the Human Rights Council, but the Council rolled out the red carpet for Maduro to address them in a special assembly. His propaganda speech was met with a standing ovation.
So we don't even need to talk about Israel to conclude that the Human Rights Council is a sham.
But we should talk about Israel, because Israel is a special case that proves the moral bankruptcy of the organization.
There is only one country in the world that has its own permanent Agenda Item at the Human Rights Council. It's not North Korea, Iran, or Syria - countries that enslave and torture their own people. It's the free country of Israel.
But it's even worse than that. Agenda Item Seven doesn't just single out Israel for consideration. Agenda Item Seven prejudges Israel's guilt.
It is a political weapon used against Israel regardless of the actions it takes. It is meant to condemn Israel's very existence as a human rights abuser. It is a moral abomination.
A little more than a year ago, I went to Geneva and told the Human Rights Council that we expected changes in order to justify America's continued participation.
We said we needed to change the makeup of the Council membership to keep the worst human rights abusers off, and we needed to not just reform, but fully eliminate Agenda Item Seven.
Dozens of countries told us they agreed with us. But they only told us that behind closed doors. They did not have the courage to call it out for what it was.
Well, we do have that courage. After more than a year of efforts to change the Human Rights Council, we saw the writing on the wall, and the United States withdrew.
Many friendly countries told us we should stay in the Human Rights Council because American participation was "the last shred of credibility the Council had."
But that's exactly why we should not be there. America will always be the world's leader in advocating human rights. But we will not do that in a place that makes a mockery of the very human rights ideals it is supposed to uphold.
That brings me to a larger point.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner and leading documenter of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel, said and wrote many profound things in his lifetime. One of those is the idea that "neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim." And that "silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
I keep that in mind as I battle away at the United Nations.
At the UN, some well-meaning countries are constantly in search of consensus.
They frequently invoke the principle of neutrality. At times, there is virtue in working together with other countries to form consensus. But that principle can be taken too far, and it often is.
The United States has no moral duty to be neutral between right and wrong. On the contrary, we have a moral duty to take sides, even when that means standing alone.
Being silent has never been something I was good at.
You might have seen, and it was mentioned earlier, that the top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat - bless his heart - recently had some advice for me. He told me I just needed to "shut up."
I responded by saying, Mr. Erekat, I will always be respectful, but I will not shut up.
I often get asked how I came to this place and to this worldview. I just believe what I believe. I have always been a person of deep faith.
No, I am not Jewish - even though that surprises some people. I was not raised as a Christian either. Twenty years ago, my faith journey brought me to Christianity, where I have found strength in my faith and trust in my heart.
But I'm also a person who is humble in her faith. I don't claim to have the wisdom to know what God has in store for me or for other people.
What I do know is that God has blessed America with greatness and with goodness.
And I know that in the dangerous world we live in, it is absolutely critical for America to stand up and have the backs of our friends, and to stand strong against those who would do us harm.
If the United Nations spent its time relentlessly and unfairly attacking Japan, or Australia, or the United Kingdom, I would stand up for them too. I would do that because they are America's friends and it's the right thing to do.
But that's not what happened. Eighteen months ago, I was given the assignment to represent America in a place that relentlessly attacks Israel. And I was sent there at a time when America had turned its back on Israel.
So it was my duty to defend Israel in what is often a dark place for one of America's best friends. I take that duty incredibly seriously and with great pride.
In one of my first meetings at the UN, I called on the Israeli Ambassador, Danny Danon. You can clap for Danny, he's a good one.
Just about one month before I arrived, the previous American Administration allowed a terrible resolution to pass. That resolution condemned Israel in the most outrageous way. It was a shameful day for America.
So when I arrived, I assured the Israeli Ambassador that on my watch that would never happen again. And I'm proud to say the opposite has happened.
In all that we're doing - whether it's the embassy decision, or UNESCO, or the Human Rights Council, or pushing for votes against Hamas, our approach on Israel is tied together by one major idea. The idea that runs through all of it is the simple concept that Israel must be treated like any other normal country.
We demand that Israel not be treated like some sort of temporary provisional entity or pariah.
It cannot be the case that only one country in the world doesn't get to choose its capital city.
It cannot be the case that the Human Rights Council has a standing agenda item for only one country.
It cannot be the case that only one set of refugees throughout the world is counted in a way that causes the number to grow literally forever.
It cannot be the case that in an organization with 193 countries, the United Nations spends half of its time attacking only one country.
We will not turn a blind eye to it.
Our demand for fairness for Israel is actually a demand for peace. The UN's bias against Israel has long undermined peace, by encouraging an illusion that Israel will go away.
Israel is not going to go away. When the world recognizes that, then peace becomes possible. It becomes possible because all sides will be dealing with realities, not fantasies.
Fantasies encourage absolutist demands. When realities are accepted, then compromise becomes possible.
When the reality of Israel's existence is accepted, both sides will become freed to achieve a durable peace.
With your help - and believe me, your help is critical - America will continue to stand with Israel. We will stand with Israel because Israel's cause is our cause. Israel's values are our values. Israel's fight is our fight.
We stand with Israel because we believe in right over wrong. We believe in freedom over tyranny.
Thank you so much for taking the time, thank you for caring. There is nothing better than when Americans use the power of their voices on behalf of good causes.
That's what Christians United for Israel is all about. I am so thankful for your fight. May God bless each and every one of you. Thank you.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
Weekend long read
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1) The INSS reports on a ‘Russian Influence Campaign Against Israel’.
“Since the October 7th massacre, Russia has stepped up its semi-covert
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Weekend long read
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1) The INSS reports on a ‘Russian Influence Campaign Against Israel’.
“Since the October 7th massacre, Russia has stepped up its semi-covert
disinformati...
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Thursday, July 26, 2018
Elder of Ziyon
