Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Book review: "Be Strong and of Good Courage," by Dennis Ross and David Makovsky

"Be Strong and of Good Courage," released in September, is a bit of a bait and switch.

It's subtitle, "How Israel's Most Important Leaders Shaped Its Destiny," makes it appear that the book is a biography of David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon centered on the key decisions they made that made them into leaders. Four of the five chapters are indeed focused on those leaders, edited in such a way that the same stories aren't repeated.

But the book is really about its fifth chapter, called "Israel's Fateful Choice." All the stories beforehand were curated to lead to this fifth chapter, where authors Dennis Ross and David Makovsky argue that Israel must do something bold - in their minds, in line with the fateful choices made by Israel's previous leaders - to avoid Israel becoming a binational state.

The major leadership choices that the authors concentrate on are Ben Gurion's decision to declare the State of Israel immediately upon the British leaving Palestine (it was not as obvious a decision as it appears in hindsight,) Begin's making peace with Egypt and ultimately giving up the entire Sinai for peace, Rabin's peace agreement with the PLO and Sharon's decision to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza. The Begin chapter includes fifty pages on the negotiations over the Sinai and less than one sentence on the bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq, which gives an idea of their definition of leadership.

The biography chapters are not bad, even if they are slanted towards the last chapter. For example, Ben Gurion is quoted by Sharon as saying that Israel could have taken the land to the Jordan (presumably in 1948) but decided not to because then the Jews would be a minority. But Ross/Makovsky would never quote Ben Gurion's words as an introduction to a book about Hebron written in 1970:

Don't forget: the beginnings of Israel's greatest king were in Hebron, the city to which came the first Hebrew about eight hundred years before King David, and we will make a great and awful mistake if we fail to settle Hebron, neighbor and predecessor of Jerusalem, with a large Jewish settlement, constantly growing and expanding, very soon. This will also be a blessing to the Arab neighbors. Hebron is worthy to be Jerusalem's sister.

It is difficult to imagine a more pro-settlement statement.

There are also some new insights, both from newly uncovered archives and from Ross' own direct experience. My favorite new piece of information is in a footnote:

This anecdote hints at so much: Arafat's pre-planning the intifada and having little interest in compromise at Camp David, the dangers of Israeli unilateral withdrawals and how they are perceived in the Arab world, how Arafat would think that he can gain more from violence than from negotiations, the fundamental importance of pride and honor in Arab politics. A book based on these insights would be a valuable one indeed.

The stories are all shaded towards Chapter Five, implying that real leaders would decide today to effectively withdraw to the route of the security barrier unilaterally in order to preserve Israel's Jewish majority. (For example, they quote Sharon as saying he had to withdraw from Gaza because he felt that any successor prime ministers would be politicians, not visionaries.)

Ross and Makovsky are not starry eyed J-Streeters. They know quite well what Israel's challenges are, and do not expect a Palestinian peace partner to emerge any time soon. They know that Israel must keep the Jordan Valley one way or another with the Jordan River as the only truly effective secure border for Israel. But they have blind spots as well, such as thinking that the US could pressure Europe to accept that Israel would keep the settlement blocs to the east of the security barrier, when Europe would do no such thing because it has spent twenty years saying that the "1967 lines" are the basis for any peace agreement - they have spent so much political capital on that "solution" that they cannot change course, especially when Palestinians would scream about a "land grab" and not look at it as Ross/Makovsky intend, that they have a path to a nation of their own.

Chapter 5 is clearly directed at one person, Benjamin Netanyahu. The authors do give him grudging respect for his skill in relations with Russia, his improvement in relations with Gulf states and in deterring Iran in Syria. But his allowing settlements to continue to grow (even if he has slowed that down significantly for most of his time in office) is his major sin, allowing Israel to drift towards an unsaid but implied apartheid. (To their credit, they do not count Gaza as being occupied by Israel in their demographic arguments.)

What is the real solution to the demographic problem? It is a difficult question to be sure, but their solution is just as flawed as the ones they attack from Israel's right. Most people agree - right and left- that Palestinians deserve to be treated well; that Israel can do things that can improve their lives and make a fresh view of what is needed for security and what is kept in place because of inertia. (Would allowing Palestinians to have 4G networking really hurt Israel's security? Such a move could jump start a Palestinian Internet economy where the location of the workers is not important.) My own modest addition to the ideas thrown around would be to take advantage of the better relationships with the Gulf countries and come up with incentives from the US or Israel or both to have them give true citizenship to Palestinians - the most educated and most industrious Arab population, who would improve the futures of those countries. This cold crack the Arab consensus that it is in the best interests of Palestinians to keep them stateless, forever.

I wish that Be Strong and of Good Courage was not quite as polemical as it is. A good biography of these four Israeli leaders would be worth reading on its own.

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Ammon News reports that opponents of the imminent deal where Israeli companies will sell natural gas to Jordan are engaging in a last-ditch effort to scuttle the deal.

The deal is worth $10 billion over 15 years.

The "Jordanian national campaign to drop the gas agreement with the Zionist entity" called for a vigil to be held at 6 PM on Thursday.

It issued a statement that there is only five weeks left before fuel starts to reach Jordan, saying that Israel can then threaten Jordan's energy supply any time it wants over the next 15 years.

Israel is not involved in the deal. Electronic Intifada tried to paper that little fact over by saying that the Israeli companies pay taxes to Israel and therefore the Jordanian money will indirectly go towards killing Palestinians or something like that.

The real lesson is that when Israel is an economic power, especially an energy power, it is difficult for its Arab neighbors to boycott it. In the end, every country acts in its own self-interest, and partnering with Israel is often in every country's self interest.

Israel's strong economy is a large contributor to Israel's security. This is something that Netanyahu grasped when he began his terms as prime minister and it will be a lasting legacy to him.

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11/23 Links: John Podhoretz: The Irony of Netanyahu’s Crisis; 106 Dem members decry W.H.’s stance on settlements; German neo-Nazi, Green Parties celebrate EU’s punitive branding of Israeli products

From Ian:

John Podhoretz: The Irony of Netanyahu’s Crisis

In a classic political Rorschach test, you can view these as horrible examples of deep corruption. But, generally speaking, many if not most people who do so have personal or ideological beefs against Netanyahu and see all this as the way to get him out of power. Or you can see them as an act of revenge against Netanyahu by one of the almost countless number of Israeli political figures who were once allied with him. That’s Bibi’s claim against attorney general Avichai Mandalblit, whose original appointment in 2015 by Netanyahu was viewed by anti-Bibi forces as the installation of an ally who would protect him from precisely the sort of thing that has now happened.

So the ironies abound. It’s more than merely conceivable that Netanyahu can beat these charges in a court of law, but can he defend himself and remain prime minister at the same time? The very idea of granting immunity from prosecution to an elected leader during his tenure is to prevent distractions of this sort—on the grounds that the country’s interest is more important. You can see how this might work at a time when Israel is girding itself for a possible two-front war against Iranian proxies.

Bibi would seem to be the best person to be at the helm at this moment. But statutorily, that might not be the case. Given that he has been unable to form a coalition—twice—he is effectively running a caretaker government. It’s far from clear what specific claim he has on the PM’s office given that fact—or that, given what has happened, he has an argument he needs protection from prosecution because he is the legitimately elected leader. The horrible fact is that Israel might need him more than ever, but it won’t be able to have him.

The Bibi Indictments

For more than two years, Israel has anticipated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may well be indicted on multiple counts of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust. That it has actually happened leaves the nation stunned. Respected by his enemies for his brilliance, tenacity, and political genius, and revered by his supporters, Netanyahu is cornered, angry, desperate. As might anyone be in his circumstances.

On Thursday evening, a very somber Avichai Mandelblit, Israel’s attorney general, spoke on national television, saying that this moment—the first time a sitting Israeli PM will be charged criminally —was not partisan. This very sad occasion, he intoned, must remind us of the duty to safeguard fundamental democratic institutions, founded on equality and accountability for all.

A former career military prosecutor and hand-picked cabinet secretary to Netanyahu from ‘13 to ‘16, Mandelblit was then appointed AG. His tenure has been marked by consistent and accelerating attacks by right-wing political interests, including Netanyahu, on the integrity of the justice system. Mandelblit and his staff have been anything but impetuous, moving glacially before getting to this point, very mindful of the grievous damage that an unsubstantiated prosecution might do to the state and the individual.

Then Bibi took to the airwaves. Shakespearean in his fury, he raged against the conspiracy of interests determined to ruin him and his family. “It is a coup,” he said, “of the justice system to topple his government.” He demanded that the investigators, whom he accused of bias, be investigated. He railed against the police and judiciary. They would not succeed, he warned, because he and his power bloc would not allow it. Condemnation of Bibi from his political adversaries was swift, but support from his allies was slower than usual in coming, a marked change from past political crises. By Friday morning, several of Bibi’s key political allies issued tepid statements affirming their belief in his innocence but saying little more.

Earlier this week, Blue and White Leader Benny Gantz conceded that he could not form a governing coalition. So now, in another first for Israel, all 120 elected MKs now have 21 days in which to attempt to do it somehow—a long shot that may, however, actually result in the unity government desired by the vast majority of Israelis.

David Horovitz: Asking us to side with him against state, Netanyahu harms his beloved Israel

Among Israelis and those who care about Israel, there should be no celebrating the attorney general’s announcement Thursday that Benjamin Netanyahu is to stand trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, an astute, intelligent and articulate leader who has repeatedly won the public’s trust at the ballot box and steered Israel through the past decade’s multi-threatening challenges in a dangerous, unpredictable Middle East.

But neither should there be any underestimating the gravity of the conclusion carefully drawn by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit — at the end of a protracted investigation, and after weighing a final effort by Netanyahu’s attorneys to dissuade him — that the prime minister must answer in court for his actions in the three graft cases against him.

The allegations that the prime minister criminally abused his office are “grave,” Mandelblit made clear in a 15-minute appearance Thursday evening at which he exuded a mixture of competence, responsibility, certainty about his decision, and sorrow about its consequences.

Since it was his firm conclusion that there was “a reasonable likelihood” Netanyahu would be convicted of the offenses, Mandelblit stressed, “it was my legal obligation to press charges — not a choice, but a requirement.” At the same time, he stressed, Netanyahu retains the presumption of innocence; it is the judges who will decide his fate.

Thursday’s announcement marks the first time in Israel’s history that criminal charges have been issued against a serving prime minister, but it does not automatically mark the end of the road for Netanyahu. He can seek immunity from prosecution via the Knesset — a process that could take months, given that Israeli politics is largely paralyzed in the wake of April’s and September’s deadlocked elections, and the Knesset House Committee that would consider an immunity request has not been selected and may not be functional for weeks or even months.

Al Jazeera and other outlets reported on Thursday:

The government of the Netherlands has stopped sending about $1.5m a year to the Palestinian Authority (PA) because of payments it makes to families of those killed, hurt, or imprisoned by Israel.

The Netherlands' decision came after a motion in parliament was pushed through on Wednesday by pro-Israeli groups who had lobbied the government for years to end its economic assistance to the PA.

The Dutch government's financial assistance paid the salaries of staff in the Palestinian justice ministry.

Israel accuses the Palestinian government of "supporting terrorists" because it provides financial assistance to the families of those jailed or killed by Israel.

"Although the talks with the Palestinian Authority were constructive about this, it did not lead to the desired result and, therefore, the Netherlands will no longer contribute to salaries in the justice sector," the Dutch government said in a statement.

The $1.5m represents only direct funding to the PA. The Netherlands still contributes millions of dollars - paid through European channels - in development assistance designed to help the Palestinian economy and refugees.

It appears that the $1.5 million is being redirected into other Palestinian institutions through european NGOs.

It is interesting that the Netherlands was paying the Justice Ministry. That ministry is perhaps the least transparent of all the PA's ministries - one cannot find any statistics or information on trials or number of people in Palestinian prison from their website. Specific trials are sometimes reported on in the press, but far less than in any free country. Perhaps part of the Netherlands' decision was from the realization that the PA Justice Ministry really just hides its own abuses of justice.

Another important decision out of the Netherlands this past week:

The Dutch parliament on Tuesday approved a motion pushing back against a European Court of Justice decision that ordered the labeling of Israeli goods made in West Bank settlements.

The motion, approved 82-68, calls on the government to object to the ruling, unless similar standards are applied to all disputed territories around the world. It deems the singling out of Israel in such regard unfair and discriminatory.

Israel has heavily criticized the the court’s ruling last week, calling it discriminatory and noting that there are more than 200 territorial disputes across the world, but that the European court had never ruled on any of them.

The Dutch vote, supported by Christian groups in parliament and backed by the governing coalition, does not compel the government to act and is largely symbolic. However, diplomatic officials told the Ynet news site that the strong support from the coalition indicated it would guide government policy to an extent.

Both of these moves are symbolic, but symbolism is extremely important in the Arab world. The EU consensus about supporting the PA is finally starting to break down.

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11/22 Links Pt2: Anti-Semitic Jeremy Corbyn Is Not a ‘Man of the People’; Israel Denial in the Academic World; Ontario Premier condemns anti-Israel protest; The Ethiopian Jews longed for Zion

From Ian:

Anti-Semitic Jeremy Corbyn Is Not a ‘Man of the People’

Last week, the reliably anti-Israel British newspaper the Guardian published a letter signed by 24 prominent citizens—some among them not otherwise known for friendship toward Jews or the Jewish state—stating that they could not vote for the Labor party on account of its leader’s anti-Semitism. Yet, writes Tamara Berens, the media in both the UK and elsewhere continue to portray the Labor leader, Jeremy Corbyn, as a “man of the people” rather than an unreconstructed Communist and to treat his hostility toward Jews as a matter for debate:

When it comes to anti-Semitism in the Labor party, the media have fallen for Corbyn’s deception. . . . Corbyn’s longstanding support for radical causes includes a penchant for Islamist anti-Semites. He invited members of Hamas and Hizballah to the British Parliament as “friends” and was paid perhaps as much as £20,000 (about $27,000 at the time) to appear on Iranian Press TV—the same network that was banned in the UK for its broadcast of a forced confession by a tortured Iranian journalist. In one appearance Corbyn mused that “the hand of Israel” was involved in a terror attack in Egypt.

Anti-Semitism has benefited Jeremy Corbyn politically. When he was unexpectedly elected leader of the Labor party in 2015, the media described an anti-Semitism “row” and “claims” surrounding him. This suggested that Corbyn’s association with anti-Semites was not factual but alleged. Labor’s grass-roots activists rallied around, defending Corbyn from these so-called allegations, and the conspiratorial anger toward his rivals, accused of stoking such “claims,” grew. The pro-Corbyn organization Momentum organized aggressive no-confidence votes against members of parliament who criticized him, including the former Labor Friends of Israel chair Joan Ryan.

Today, the party has been purged of almost all of its moderates and Corbyn’s ideology reigns supreme. The Jewish community in the UK is afraid for its future: a recent poll found that 47 percent of Jewish people in the UK would seriously consider emigrating if Corbyn came to power. Yet Labor continues to get away with anti-Semitism. For the British general election, the Labor party has selected multiple candidates with a history of anti-Semitism, including a union official who compared the state of Israel to a child abuser replicating the Holocaust.

New UK Labour manifesto calls to ban arms sales to Israel

The Labour Party has vowed to suspend at least some arms sales to Israel if it wins next month’s general elections in the United Kingdom.

The pledge was included in a section on human rights in the party’s election manifesto, which it released Thursday.

Labour will “immediately suspend the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen and to Israel for arms used in violation of the human rights of Palestinian civilians,” the manifesto stated. It was not immediately clear which weapons this pledge would affect.

The party also promised to “immediately” recognize a Palestinian state if it forms a government after the December 12 vote and said it supports a two-state solution that would see “a secure Israel alongside a secure and viable state of Palestine.”

Labour has called for halting arms sales to Israel at its annual conferences and party leader Jeremy Corbyn has previously vowed to swiftly recognize a Palestinian state if he becomes the British prime minister.

These things aren’t done by accident; there is a message for us. Today Corbyn launched his Marxist manifesto in Birmingham on the exact anniversary of the day his IRA friends bombed a Birmingham pub, the deadliest bombing in England between WW2 & 7/7, an act of his other friends. pic.twitter.com/vKI74deX3X
— Rɪᴄʜᴀʀᴅ Kᴇᴍᴘ ⋁ (@COLRICHARDKEMP) November 21, 2019

Corbyn on the IRA, Now and Thenhttps://t.co/vYBw5WamjR pic.twitter.com/CeVysy8x0H
— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) November 21, 2019

A forgotten massacre of Jews in Morocco, 1860

Wikipedia says

Tétouan has been home to a significant Sephardi Jewish community which immigrated from Spain after the Reconquista and the Spanish Inquisition. This Jewish Sephardi community spoke a form of Judaeo-Spanish known as Haketia.[40]

In 1790, a pogrom happened, started by Sultan Yazid. The mellah was pillaged and many women raped.[41] The Jews lived in a mellah, which is located inside the old medina.

I cannot find any account that corresponds to the horrors narrated in this article in The Occident, Thursday, April 05, 1860.

On February 6, 1860, Spanish soldiers who were then fighting in Morocco entered Tétouan, a town very close to the Straits of Gibraltar. Apparently the Sultan's soldiers got wind of an impending surrender and took the opportunity to attack the Jews of the city - stealing and breaking anything of value and raping the women, as happened 70 years earlier.

How many other such forgotten massacres occurred over the centuries in Arab countries that were supposedly so friendly to Jews?

It looks like the city recovered. The Muslims mostly fled the city leaving mostl Jews and Christians. Roughly half the population was Jewish in 1861. The first school of the Alliance Israélite Universelle was opened in Tetuan in 1862, just after the Spanish troops left the city.

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11/22 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Negotiation in a war of extermination is no solution but surrender; Caroline Glick: The reign of the prosecution; Trump must reject the myth of ‘occupied Palestine’

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Negotiation in a war of extermination is no solution but surrender

And bang on cue, in response to this latest U.S. attempt to get the Palestinians to accept they have no option but to negotiate, they have threatened more violence. Of course: their aim of destroying Israel is non-negotiable.

So the Palestinian Authority has announced it is considering “recommendations to strengthen…home front and the popular resistance,” and “demanded” that “the masses of the Palestinian people in the homeland and everywhere act in order to thwart the plot to eliminate the Palestinian cause.”

As Palestinian Media Watch has reported, at the recent Fatah Conference for Popular Resistance Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah deputy, Mahmoud al Aloul, explained that “resistance” is “constant and ongoing,” and that it ”shouldn’t be stopped or postponed” for the sake of “an agreement [or] negotiations.” Only combined with “resistance,” said al-Aloul, would negotiations with Israel be successful.

If President Trump really believes that he can pull off the “deal of the century” between Israel and the Palestinians, he is wrong. Pursuing a negotiated deal as the solution to a war of extermination is a category error.

Trump’s bold, pro-Israel acts in stating the settlements are not illegal, as well as both recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Israel’s annexation of the Golan, should not blind us to the wider and persistent mistake.

The only way to end the Arab war of extermination is to call out the Palestinians on their fundamental lies and to treat them not as statesmen-in-waiting but as international pariahs.

Only when the United States does that will we be able to say that truth and justice in the Middle East are finally being upheld.

Bret Stephens (NYTs):Israel's Settlements Are Not the Principal Obstacle to Peace with the Palestinians

When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there are a number of outmoded beliefs: That the conflict can be solved by returning to the status quo ante 1967. That peace between Israel and the Arab states hinges on delivering a Palestinian state. And that settlement construction is the principal obstacle to peace. This is all nonsense.

The pan-Arab campaign to "liberate" Palestine began two decades before Israel controlled an inch of Gaza or the West Bank. Relations with much of the Arab world have flourished in recent years, not on account of any progress on the Palestinian front, but because Arab states see Israel as a capable ally against an imperialist Iran.

As for settlements, Israel withdrew all of its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005. The result was more war, not less. It would be worse than useless to demand that Israelis repeat the experiment on a much larger scale.

As a matter of survival, Israel requires that a Palestinian state have neither the ambition nor the means to devote itself to Israel's destruction. The core problem with the past half-century of failed peacemaking efforts has been the facile assumption that meeting the need for two states would ultimately fulfill Israel's requirement for security. The lesson of experience has been the opposite.

The administration's ruling on settlements cleans out some of the cobwebs under which thinking about the conflict has moldered. Peace, if it comes, will not be the result of a legal argument over the Geneva Convention. It will happen when a new generation of Palestinian leaders dedicate themselves to building up the institutions of a decent state rather than attacking those of their neighbor.

Caroline B. Glick: The reign of the prosecution

After Mandelblit made his primetime announcement, Netanyahu pledged to fight for his freedom and for the restoration of Israeli democracy and the rule of law. In his speech Thursday night, he made an impassioned appeal to his “decent” political rivals to join him in this fight.

If any politicians doubt that Netanyahu’s struggle is their struggle, they should look no further than the prosecution’s announcement last week that it was opening a review, ahead of a criminal probe – of Gantz’s role in the so-called “Fifth Dimension Affair.” The Fifth Dimension was a start-up Gantz headed. Its sale for $14 million allegedly violated standard procedures.

Maybe Gantz did nothing wrong. But then, Netanyahu is being indicted for crimes that don’t actually exist. So it doesn’t matter. The message is clear. Every politician is at the mercy of the prosecutors. Fall out of line, and you will become a criminal suspect before you can say, “prosecutorial abuse.”

It’s certainly true that the left shares the prosecutors’ hatred of Netanyahu. Blue and White exists to destroy him. But all the leftist politicians – and Liberman – who are celebrating today need to understand that the Netanyahu they love to hate is their best friend and defender today. If Netanyahu is found guilty of crimes that were invented for the purpose of destroying him, then their goose will be cooked along with his.

Politicians may make us happy or sad, frustrated or infuriated. But today, in post-democratic Israel it hardly matters. Netanyahu called last night for an “investigation of the investigators.” Unless our elected officials join forces to heed his call, they – and the voters who elected them -- will never be relevant again.

Palestinian officials routinely lie, but some of the lies are so outrageous that they outshine the others.

Mahmoud Habbash, head of Palestinian sharia courts and religious affairs advisor to Mahmoud Abbas, spoke at some sort of interfaith conference in Oslo. He said that "The State of Palestine is a role model in all countries of the world for religious coexistence among the followers of the monotheistic religions."

Yes, you heard that right.Jews, Christians and Muslims live and work and socialize together in Palestine with no problems at all. The fact that there are no Jews and that the Christians have been fleeing is of no consequence - there is true coexistence.

Of course, the only source for religious strife in the region is Israel. "The continued Israeli occupation of the State of Palestine undermines all opportunities for coexistence among peoples and strikes human values with their killing, occupation, injustice, theft of land and the siege of Islamic and Christian holy sites in the State of Palestine and Jerusalem in particular which are incompatible with all values of justice, humanity and brotherhood among peoples," Habbash told the audience.

"This occupation affects the faith of more than one and a half billion Muslims and two billion Christians, more than three quarters of humanity," he said, showing that even arithmetic can be twisted in the service of Palestinian lies. (Combined, Christians and Muslims are about half of the world population.)

Habbash ended off by saying that "the Palestinian people, despite all the pain and injustice imposed on them by this brutal occupation, still adheres to the culture of religious and community coexistence between all its Islamic, Christian and Samaritan communities.All attempts by the occupation to sow discord among the followers of the monotheistic religions in the State of Palestine failed. It has been shattered on the rock of Palestinian national unity and a culture of coexistence and tolerance rooted among the Palestinian people for thousands of years and will remain so forever. "

Yes, that well-known historic tolerance of the Arabs of Palestine.

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This week, for the second week in a row, there will be no Friday protests at the Gaza fence.

Three reasons were given.

The first reason is that Hamas is afraid that Israel will violate the terms of the cease-fire and shoot demonstrators, prompting Islamic Jihad to respond and lead to a new confrontation. They claim Israel would provoke such a crisis to help Netanyahu stay in office.

The second reason given was to allow time to resolve differences between Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The third reason cited in the report is the Palestinians' desire to examine border areas for any leftover explosives after the recent fighting.

In fact, the organizing committee for the "March of Return" has been discussing whether to reduce the number of protests altogether, perhaps cutting them back to once a month or only in response to specific incidents, rather than on Fridays.

The world has certainly lost interest in the protests over the past 18 months and the real point of them was always public relations. In the beginning, Hamas encouraged young men to act recklessly hoping that they would be killed as they tried to cut through the fence. Later Hamas agreed to scale back the protests, apparently because of an Israeli targeted killing of a senior Hamas figure in May in response to hundreds of rockets.The newer, low profile protests did not generate the same kinds of headlines. It looks like the mini-war last week was enough to prompt Hamas to re-evaluate the protest strategy altogether.

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The news stories about Bernie Sanders' talking about Palestinians did not say the whole story:

Bernie Sanders got applause at a Democratic presidential debate when he said it not good enough to be pro-Israel, and called for treating Palestinians with dignity.

Sanders, a Vermont senator and among the front-runners in the race to garner the Democratic nomination, was one of several candidates asked Wednesday by MSNBC/Washington Post moderators whether they would take a tougher stance on Saudi Arabia, considering its human rights abuses.

All the candidates said they would be less conciliatory to Saudi Arabia, and Sanders, who is Jewish, volunteered that he would also be tougher on Israel.

“The same thing goes for Israel and the Palestinians,” Sanders said. “It is no longer good enough for us to be pro-Israel, I am pro-Israel, but we must treat the Palestinians with the dignity they deserve.”

When I read this, I thought it was no big deal. I also think the Palestinians should be treated with dignity. Who doesn't? But that "dignity" cannot be at the expense of Israel's security or Jewish rights. Allowing unlimited imports to Gaza that can include weapons or weapons parts would violate Israelis' right to life. Making Hebron Judenrein would violate Jews' rights of worship and access to their holy places. But no one is against dignity. Israel gives out tens of thousands of work permits to Palestinians to come into Israel every day.

Sanders' remarks, in context, were far worse than this. In fact, they were both clueless and dangerous.

When we rethink our American foreign policy, what we have got to know is that Saudi Arabia is not reliable ally. We have got to bring Iran and Saudi Arabia together, in a room, under American leadership, and say we are sick and tired of us spending huge amounts of money and human resources because of your conflicts.
And by the way, the same thing goes for Israel and the Palestinians. It is no longer good enough for us simply to be pro-Israel. I am pro-Israel. But we must treat the Palestinian people as well with the respect and dignity that they deserve. What is going on in Gaza right now, with youth unemployment at 70 or 80 percent, is unsustainable. So we need to be rethinking who our allies are around the world, work with the United Nations, and not continue to support brutal dictatorships.

Although the dignity line got applause, this was not Sanders' main point. He thinks that the US can treat the other nations of the world like unruly children and good parenting can solve intractable conflicts.

His plan is for the US to get Saudi Arabia and Iran in a room and tell them to fix their differences is so unbelievably naive as to make one wonder why anyone takes his foreign policy seriously. Does he know anything about their enmity? About the religious aspects of their conflict? About how much Sunnis and Shiites hate each other?

Beyond that, he is expressing an equivalence between how the US should treat Iran and Saudi Arabia. Both of them are brutal Islamist regimes, but only one of them has rallies and posters and speeches every day that say "Death to America." What possible logic is there to treat our allies - flawed as they are - the same as those who proudly declare themselves to be our enemies? The only thing worse would be to treat Iran as a partner and throw Saudi Arabia under the bus - which is what Obama did. If Democrats are rightfully upset at the US abandoning the Kurds, why do some want to do the same to the Gulf Arab states?

Sanders wants to do the same paternalistic negotiating idea with Israel and the Palestinians. Wonderful. Has he researched the reasons those talks didn't work out the last half dozen peace initiatives? Hint: it wasn't Israel that said no to peace.

But Sanders wants to stick with the exact same failed script, a script that has brought us absolutely nowhere. He thinks that US pressure, undoubtedly only against Israel, can bring peace.

Does he even have a clue that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are funded by Iran, and the latter now acts as an Iranian proxy? That no amount of negotiation with the Palestinian Authority will change that?

And, as I've mentioned before, Sanders does not seem to know much about Gaza either.

(His segue at the end is most concerning. It almost sounds like he is implying that treating Israel as an ally should be rethought, but he probably pivoted back to Saudi Arabia. Probably.)

Why is no one reporting on the sheer stupidity of Sanders' peace plan for Saudi Arabia and Iran?

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11/21 Links Pt2: Hen Mazzig: The Damage Done by Shouting Down Ideas; Netanyahu to stand trial for bribery, fraud; Wikipedia’s Anti-Israel Editors Unmasked; ADL survey: 25% of Europeans anti-Semitic

From Ian:

Hen Mazzig: The Damage Done by Shouting Down Ideas

For the past several years, I’ve traveled around the United States as an advocate, speaking about my family’s story of exile from Iraq and Tunisia and its journey home to Israel. I visit schools, temples, community centers, LGBTQ groups — you name it.

After each talk, listeners tell me that their knowledge about the Mizrahi community was limited before hearing me. Although Mizrahim make up 60% of Israel’s Jewish population today, even devoted Zionists entrenched in Israel’s policies know little about the largest demographic living there.

Leaving the story of Mizrahi Jews out of pro-Israel advocacy is a mistake. Jews from the Middle East and North Africa — and our story of survival — are the greatest threat to anti-Zionism. That’s why anti-Zionist groups are so intent on harassing and silencing us.

This proved particularly true recently when I was targeted by an anti-Semitic group of anti-Zionists at Vassar College. I was there to give a talk titled: “The Indigenous Jews of the Middle East: Forgotten Refugees.”

As soon as I arrived at the on-campus venue, I was greeted by protesters. As a staunch supporter of free speech, I invited them to join the talk and ask me the hard questions.

Instead of discussing their concerns with me, they decided to scream over me. One said she decided to oppose me telling my story because she’s a “white queer Jew.” Another claimed they were protesting me telling the story of Mizrahi refugees as a means of fighting white supremacy.

It’s ironic because I was there to speak about how my grandmother narrowly survived the Farhud, a catastrophic event in which the Iraqi government collaborated with Hitler’s white supremacist regime and killed around 280 Jews in two days. To put this in perspective, British newspaper The Guardian reported in August that more than 175 people have been killed worldwide by white nationalists in the past eight years.

Why Israel's Cause is a Progressive Cause - Mark Regev

Some erroneously say that Israel's cause can never be a progressive cause. Mark Regev, Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom, explains why, actually, Israel's cause is an inherently progressive cause.

Anti-Israel protesters shout 'Viva Intifada' in Toronto

Protesters affiliated with the Students Against Israeli Apartheid at York University (SAIA York) in Toronto on Wednesday evening demonstrated against Herut Canada's event at the campus featuring former IDF soldiers.

The protesters chanted “Viva, Viva Intifada” and “Free, Free Palestine.”

The IDF reservists spoke to students about Israel and their experiences in the army. The reservists' visit to the university sparked a “no killers on campus” campaign organized by anti-Israel student groups.

Flyers protesting the event now cover the walls of the campus, portraying a photoshopped image of an IDF soldier who appears to be strangling a child. Anti-Israel groups have vowed to disrupt the event and are circulating a number of chants students can use to derail the event, such as “From Toronto to Gaza, Globalize the Intifada!”

Students Against Israeli Apartheid at York University organized an event on Facebook urging people to show up on Wednesday evening and tell the university’s administration that “we will not tolerate war criminals on our campus.”

According to a statement from B’nai Brith Canada, officers of the Toronto Police Service and private security personnel were on hand to enable attendees to enter the event, despite the best efforts of protesters outside to block them.

Among the protesters present was Holocaust-denying newspaper editor Nazih Khatatba, who glorified a 2014 massacre at a Jerusalem synagogue and has described Judaism as a “terrorist religion.”

At one point, police were forced to intervene to prevent physical violence and injury.

Dozens of University of Toronto Faculty Call Out ‘Antisemitic BDS Movement,’ Urge Adoption of IHRA Definition

Dozens of University of Toronto faculty members urged President Meric Gertler on Tuesday to root out antisemitism on their campus, which they warned had worsened after a student union formally backed the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign.

The faculty call came after the university’s Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) said its Executive Committee may be reluctant to support a motion to bring kosher food to campus because the initiative was being spearheaded by a “pro-Israel” group — namely Hillel, the largest Jewish club on campus.

The GSU Executive Committee has since said it was “deeply sorry for the harm” caused by its response, which has been widely decried as antisemitic.

Professor of dentistry Howard Tenenbaum and 20 other faculty co-signers dismissed this apology as “tepid at best” in their letter, which was endorsed by 30 additional faculty members since its submission to Gertler on Tuesday morning, according to B’nai Brith Canada. The Jewish civil rights group was involved in organizing the letter.

“Since 2012, when the UTGSU endorsed the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and committed student funds to this discriminatory campaign through the formation of its BDS Committee — dedicated solely to the delegitimization of the world’s only Jewish State — the situation on campus for Jewish students has continuously worsened, culminating into this most recent episode,” the faculty warned.

The meaning of "occupied Palestine" has changed a lot at the UN

In 1992, the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted resolution 1992/4, entitled "Situation in occupied Palestine." Since then the Secretary General issues a report every year on what evil things Israel is allegedly doing in the territories.

But the phrase "occupied Palestine" goes much further back in the UN archives.

For example, in 1972, the Syrian representative said, "In that connexion, it would be relevant to draw attention to the war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Zionist Israeli forces in the occupied Arab territories, in occupied Palestine since 1947 and against the civilian population of the Arab States. "

The Palestinian representative in 1965 said, "Responsibility for the tragedy of the Palestine Arabs fell squarely on the Western Powers in general and on the United States in particular. They provided the artificial Zionist regime in occupied Palestine with political, financial, military and technical assistance. "

Here's an example from 1966 where the delegate from Sudan used the term - and went on to essentially threaten war to destroy Israel if the UN didn't do the bidding of Muslim nations.

In 1962, the Pakistani delegate said, "According to the most moderate estimates, the income from Arab property in occupied Palestine amounts to more than £47,500,000 a year..."

In these cases, "occupied Palestine" doesn't mean the territories Israel gained in 1967, but the areas under Jewish control since 1948.

Within the Arab world, the phrase "occupied Palestine" remained in its original meaning of "whatever territory is controlled by Jews" way after 1967. In 1981 the Al Quds Committee recommended in a document stored at the UN ,"To take the necessary measures to put an end to the Jewish exodus to occupied Palestine, since this is the main source of the Jewish manpower which is building Israel and creating the fait accompli of the settlement of the occupied Arab territories, and of occupied Palestine, first and foremost Al-Quds. These measures include making the necessary contacts with countries that permit the Jewish exodus or facilitate it through their territories with a view to ending this exodus and to encouraging the exodus of Jews from occupied Palestine to other countries."

So "occupied Palestine" has one meaning when the UN uses it and quite another when Muslims use it. It was more explicit before 1967 but even way after that date, all of Israel has been considered "occupied Palestine."

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.

Environmentalist Joins Hobo's 'The End Is Nigh' Procession (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Tel Aviv, November 21 - An activist worried that human-driven climate change will doom civilization and disrupt the planet's fragile ecosystems within twelve years has found a kindred spirit in a homeless man who spends much of his time pacing back and forth near a downtown street corner with a placard warning of the imminent demise of humanity.

Yona Kassander, 27, came upon a man two weeks ago known to locals as Efi, a street-dweller who most observers estimate has reached past the age of seventy, and whose chief pursuit involves warning passers by of the coming end of the world, both by means of signs declaring the apocalypse nigh and by yelling. Kassander found the man's message resonated with her ecological sensibilities, and in the time since has dedicated at least two hours per day to sitting, marching, holding signs, and chanting at others with her new friend about society's imminent collapse.

"I feel like I've crossed some important borders with this initiative," she gushed on her way to a yoga session following an afternoon with Efi. "Too often the movement to raise awareness and effect real change fails to engage the disempowered elements of society. It's gratifying to know that I've established this connection with someone far outside my socioeconomic stratum, with whom I have so little in common, but with whom I can partner on challenging to world to wake up and do something before we destroy our planet."

"Repent!" concurred Efi, waving a placard at a reporter. "Repent! Mend your ways! Doom is coming for all! Got any spare change?"

Pedestrians, commuters, cyclists and others in the vicinity remarked on the incongruity of the two different personalities demonstrating together. "Who?" wondered a software developer returning to work from lunch. "Oh. Huh. Well, you don't have to be homeless to be crazy, I guess."

"I don't know what that's all about," commented a delivery driver, "but I do know whatsername's favorite herbal infusion has to be delivered from the Far East, and it's not walking here itself, so I don't know whom she thinks she's kidding with that carbon emissions crap."

"It's coming," added Efi, wagging an admonishing finger at a group of tourists who kept their distance. "No one will escape! Not you in your fancy car, not you in your iPhone!"

The septuagenarian hobo expressed only confusion when asked how the current environmental and ecological crisis relates to his prophecies of doom.

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.

11/21 Links Pt1: Canada's support for UN Res. condemning Israel 'occupation' blasted as 'Faustian bargain'; Netherlands cuts aid to Palestinian Authority over terrorist salaries

From Ian:

Canada's support for UN resolution condemning Israel 'occupation' blasted as 'Faustian bargain'

Canada has reversed course and voted in favour of a United Nations resolution condemning Israel for its “occupation” of Palestinian Territories, prompting a backlash of anger from Jewish groups.

The move marks a further departure between the U.S. and Canada on their posture toward Israel and a potential reversal of long-standing Canadian foreign policy.

The Trudeau government on Tuesday supported a resolution put forward by “the state of Palestine”, North Korea, Zimbabwe and others that calls for a “just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement” to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and explicitly refers to contested lands between the two countries as “Occupied Palestinian Territories.” It also cites a 2004 International Court of Justice decision that said Israel’s construction of a protective wall in the West Bank “severely impedes the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”

The U.S. was among five countries that rejected the resolution, while Australia abstained. A total of 164 countries voted in favour, including the U.K., Germany and others.

The vote could mark a departure in Canadian foreign policy, which has been loosely aligned with the United States’ more pro-Israel stance since the early 2000s, when Paul Martin shifted his posture away from the previous government. The Conservatives under Stephen Harper then became an even more regular supporter of Israel.

Pro-Israel groups blasted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the vote on Tuesday, saying it was a betrayal of more than 10 years of staunch support for the country.

“Trudeau is trading Canada’s bedrock principles of fairness & equality for a UN Security Council seat,” Hillel Neuer, founding chairman of the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, said on Twitter. Neuer was referring to a bid by Canada to gain a UN Security Council seat next year. “By voting for a resolution co-sponsored by North Korea & Zimbabwe, he has entered a Faustian bargain with dictatorships that does not bode well for a free & democratic society.”

He said Canada had “joined the jackals” in a separate tweet.

The world once feared the Arab-Israel conflict could trigger a global war. Since then, Israel made peace with Egypt & Jordan. Today it seems many in the Arab world could make peace with Israel—but that Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Roth & EU diplomats who need to condemn Israel never would.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) November 21, 2019

2. Trudeau's motive was not what you claim. Why didn't you mention that Canada is lobbying for a seat on the Security Council and that—as Australia's PM Kevin Rudd tried to do ahead of the 2012 vote—Trudeau is trying to buy support by voting against Israel?https://t.co/GWpflJFm2D
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) November 21, 2019

Noah Pollak: Trump Endorses Controversial, Unprecedented Policy on Settlements Held by Previous Administrations

Liberal critics are condemning the announcement as unprecedented—but in fact the U.S. position that settlements are illegal under international law only dates to the final days of the Obama administration. The Trump administration is bringing U.S. policy in line with the positions held by successive Republican and Democratic administrations dating back to 1967, when Israel acquired the West Bank in the Six Day War.

It was only in late December 2016, after President Trump won the presidential election and weeks before Inauguration Day that the Obama administration supported a U.N. Security Council resolution declaring settlements a violation of international law. The move was widely condemned by pro-Israel groups and even many Democrats as a spiteful, abrupt, and illegitimate policy shift by an administration days before its departure from the White House.

In fact, during the Obama administration in 2011, U.N. ambassador Susan Rice vetoed a similar resolution declaring settlements illegal, consistent with longstanding U.S. policy to both reject their illegality and to block anti-Israel activism in the Security Council. Until the administration reversed itself in late 2016, it regularly referred to settlements as "illegitimate," but not illegal.

Before that, in 2004, the United States exchanged letters with the Israeli government explicitly endorsing Israel's retention of major West Bank settlement blocs in any peace deal with the Palestinians. As part of Israel's plan to withdraw from Gaza the next year, President Bush wrote to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that:

NGO Monitor: PodCast: Season 2, Episode 7: Human Rights Watch v. The State of Israel

On November 5, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected Human Rights Watch's demand that Israel renew “Israel/Palestine Director” Omar Shakir’s work visa- acknowledging his BDS activism. How did the court come to this decision? What was NGO Monitor’s role in the case? Join our host Yona Schiffmiller, Legal Expert Anne Herzberg, and Researcher Ariella Esterson as they explain this story.

Host: NGO Monitor Director of Research Yona Schiffmiller

Guests: NGO Monitor Legal Advisor Anne Herzberg and Harry C Wechsler Fellow Ariella Esterson

Whose International Law Is It, Anyway? (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Not surprisingly, the reaction to Trump's recognition of the legality of the Israeli settlements has led to one more uproar in opposition to his Middle East policy.

But in contrast to the reactions that are either in favor or against the decision, one of the more novel reactions was by Shmuel Rosner, that international law is just a bluff anyway; it doesn't really matter.
He bases this on Secretary of State Pompeo's own statement, that "the hard truth is that there will never be a judicial resolution to the conflict, and arguments about who is right and who is wrong as a matter of international law will not bring peace."

Rosner takes this one step further, that not only does international law have no practical meaning when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but more than that:

Inserting it into the conversation is a disruption. Inserting it into the conversation is a manipulation. It is a tactic aimed at presenting Israel as a pariah state, a state guilty of criminality.

You'd be hard-pressed to argue otherwise.

Social media is full of self-described experts on Israel and international law. They are always available to declare which (if not all) of Israel's actions are in violation of international law.

Either they merely claim this matter of factly.
Or they will claim this is the international consensus.

After the incident of the Mavi Marmara, the UN Security Council, whose members do not not have expertise in international law, declared Israel's blockade of Gaza illegal.

Then along came the Palmer Commission, which had the advantage of having members with expertise in international law:

A long-awaited United Nations review of Israel’s 2010 raid on a Turkish-based flotilla in which nine passengers were killed has found that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is both legal and appropriate. [emphasis added]

In another example, this week The New York Times generously offered to explain the legalities of Israeli settlements: Are West Bank Settlements Illegal? Who Decides?

Isabel Kershner gives the background:

Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and has occupied the territory ever since. The Fourth Geneva Convention, ratified by 192 nations in the aftermath of World War II, says that an occupying power “shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” The statute that established the International Criminal Court in 1998 classifies such transfers as war crimes, as well as any destruction or appropriation of property not justified by military necessity.

Israel argues that a Jewish presence has existed on the West Bank for thousands of years and was recognized by the League of Nations in 1922. Jordan’s rule over the territory, from 1948 to 1967, was never recognized by most of the world, so Israel also argues there was no legal sovereign power in the area and therefore the prohibition on transferring people from one state to the occupied territory of another does not apply.

The International Court of Justice rejected that argument in an advisory opinion in 2004, ruling that the settlements violated international law.

In a bait-and-switch, the article starts off talking about Jordan and its questionable rights to the West Bank and just a few paragraphs later is talking about "privately-owned Palestinian land" -- without ever addressing the question of how the Palestinian Arabs acquired sole rights over an area from which Jews were ethnically cleansed by Jordan in 1949.

The article references the argument that Israel violated the Fourth Geneva Convention according to which an occupying power "shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies" and volunteers that Israel's defense is "that a Jewish presence has existed on the West Bank for thousands of years and was recognized by the League of Nations in 1922."

There is no mention that the Fourth Geneva Convention is addressing the issue of forced deportations and transfers, something that is not applicable to Israelis who willingly move there on their own.

And the League of Nations did more than just recognize the Jewish presence, it was actually a recognition of legal Jewish legal rights to the land, which formed the basis of the Palestine Mandate similar to the mandates for Syria and Iraq, the goal being the administration of those areas until they had the ability to assume their independence.

This recognition of Jewish rights in then-Palestine was then verified at international conferences in San Remo, Sevres and Lausanne and had the force of international law.

The article, after assuming what Israel's argument should be, then knocks it down: "The International Court of Justice rejected that argument in an advisory opinion in 2004, ruling that the settlements violated international law."

Left unsaid is the fact that:

o As an advisory opinion, it has no legal weight, especially since Israel had no role in the proceedings and did not present its side
o The actual case before the court was the security fence. The court mentioned the legality of the settlements in response to the phrasing of the question brought before them -- without actually deliberating on the issue of the settlements
o One of the judges, Justice Kooijmans, wrote a separate opinion where he says specifically that under the circumstances:

The Court has refrained from taking a position with regard to territorial rights and the question of permanent status

This New York Times is not alone in playing this game of disinterested observer objectively presenting the facts.

This week the BBC agreeably reports

Palestinians have condemned a decision by the US to abandon its four-decades-old position that Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank are inconsistent with international law.

BBC Watch notes

Secretary Pompeo’s statement marks a return to the policy of US administrations between 1981 and December 2016. In other words, the “position” described by the BBC is three years old rather than “four-decades-old”.

If so, he has good company. The New York Times similarly claims this week:

The Trump administration declared on Monday that the United States does not consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank a violation of international law, reversing four decades of American policy and removing what has been an important barrier to annexation of Palestinian territory.

Ira Stoll points out that in 2017, a New York Times editorial claimed

“The United States, Israel’s strongest military supporter, has consistently held that settlement building in the occupied territories is illegal and detrimental to seeking a lasting peace.”

That was before the New York Times had to issue a correction:

The basis for the short-lived US position that the Israeli settlements are illegal is based on a memo, 4 pages long, written by Herbert Hansell, Jimmy Carter's legal adviser, in 1978.

Eugene Kontorovich this week faulted the memo for a number of reasons. But the biggest problem he found is that the memo by its own logic is irrelevant:

Even on its own terms, the memo’s conclusions no longer apply. Because occupation is part of the law of war, Hansell wrote, the state of occupation would end if Israel entered into a peace treaty with Jordan. In 1994 Jerusalem and Amman signed a full and unconditional peace treaty, but the State Department neglected to update the memo.

The attempts to cow Israel into submission with claims of international law recently went beyond words with the decision by the European Union's Court of Justice that Israeli products from the disputed areas must be labeled.
Rosner sees this no differently than other attempts at disruption, and he sees Pompeo's statement as a specific reaction to it:

Pompeo's declaration is a clear and immediate rebuff of this unwise decision by the court. Again, it is calling a bluff: this is not a judicial decision based on law, it is a political decision expressing Europe's opposition to settlement activity.

Whether resorting to fabricated accusations of illegality or to actual legal measures that have more bite, this is not really an issue of law.

It is politics.

Whether it is coming from social media, mainstream media, politicians or countries -- this is an evasion of the hard work of negotiation, relieving the Palestinian Authority of the need to come to the table and negotiate.

One can argue with the effect of recognizing the legality of the settlements on peace, but it does help put Israel on an equal footing with the Palestinian Arabs and suggest the need for the two sides to talk about "the West Bank" -- perhaps not everyone knows what peace will look like after all.

Maybe that is why some people are so angry.

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.