Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Newest Ramadan miniseries controversy: A Jewish character accused of "insulting Mohammed"

We've mentioned the Ramadan TV series "Umm Haroun" that has been causing so much controversy because it treats Jews in Arab countries as regular human beings.

A new outrage came from an incident in the latest episode.

A Kuwaiti Muslim and a Kuwaiti Jew who are brought before a British police officer - this is when Great Britain controlled Kuwait - who asks them, through a translator, about why they were fighting. The Muslim guy said that his son took the Jew's daughter, and the two ran away and got married. The British police officer then asks what's the problem, since they are from the same country. The Muslim then says that the Jew's lineage is not honorable enough because, well, he's a Jew.

To this the Jew replies with the part that is getting everyone upset. He says that the Muslim is not honorable enough for him, and adds that ever since Jews were defeated at Khaibar (by Mohammed,) Jews have been oppressed and wronged in the Muslim world.

So while no viewer ha a problem with a Muslim saying that Jews have a tainted lineage, they are upset at a Jew saying that Jews have been oppressed by Muslims. In addition, people are complaining that saying that Mohammed oppressed Jews is an insult to Mohammed himself, which is completely unacceptable.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Tracking another PLO lie: "957,000 refugees in 1948"

The Negotiations Affairs Department of the PLO tweeted this on Friday:

957,000? Where did they get that number from?

The only place that this number is mentioned was in an UNRWA report from 1950. Yet even then, in the chaos of trying to set up a new agency with thousands of people attempting to pretend to be refugees in order to get free food, UNRWA knew the number was wrong:

In May, the first month of its active life, the Agency, with more than 950,000 names on its refugee lists, attempted to cut ration distribution to 800,000, but so many debatable cases were brought forward and so much adverse discussion arose that it was decided that 860,000 rations were the minimum feasible to distribute unless the Agency was to leave itself open to grave criticism on humanitarian grounds....Although many fraudulent cases have been discovered, it is important to remember that the deductions are made from the names inherited from the Agency's predecessors.... It is regretted that, despite its earnest desire to do so, the Agency has to date been unable to remove many undeserving individuals from its relief rolls. It has no illusion about the unpopularity of its endeavours in that direction. It feels little hope that it will meet with any co-operation in its efforts toward the goal set. Conferring refugee status on non-refugees in the first instance has created a situation that cannot be ignored, but removing it exposes the Agency to unwarranted and unfair criticism from the misinformed public as well as fanatical opposition on the part of the undeserving recipient and his friends and supporters.

In the report for 1951, UNRWA went further:

One of the first tasks undertaken by the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East was to organize a census operation to determine who should and who should not receive relief. In spite of these efforts,... it is still not possible to give an absolute figure of the true number of refugees as understood by the working definition of "a person normally resident in Palestine who has lost his home and his livelihood as a result of the hostilities, and who is in need". ...A further difficulty is that, whereas all births are eagerly announced, the deaths wherever possible are passed over in silence, and as the birthrate is high in any case, a net addition of 30,000 names a year is made to the relief rolls. In spite of this, a considerable reduction has been achieved and many false and duplicate registrations weeded out. By June 1951, there were 876,000 persons registered on UNWRAPRNE relief rolls compared with 957,000 when the Agency took over.

But UNRWA admits even today that even this 876,000 number is wrong - today it says there were 750,000 refugees in 1950.

According to UNRWA's estimates from 1951 of births, if 30,000 new "refugees" were being born every year, in 1948 there would have only been 690,000.

This lower number is supported by an earlier UN report which said, in October 1950:

The estimate of the statistical expert, which the Committee believes to be as accurate as circumstances permit, indicates that the refugees from Israel- controlled territory amount to approximately 711,000. The fact that there is a higher number of relief recipients appears to be due among other things to duplication of ration cards, addition of persons who have been displaced from area other than Israel-held areas and of persons who, although not displaced, are destitute.

This number would support an estimate of about 650,000 in 1948 assuming 30,000 births a year.

At any rate, the PLO is lying, as usual. No one on the planet has ever claimed 957,000 refugees in 1948, and even UNRWA didn't claim that number in 1950 - just that this was the number of people who were listed on their rolls, many falsely.

And it is not only the PLO - the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has also quoted the bogus 957,000 number as fact.

The entire Palestinian leadership is a mythocracy.

05/19 Links Pt1: Israel: The Settlements Are Not Illegal; Caroline Glick: King Abdullah's empty threats; The Duma lesson; Lebanon’s Interwoven Fantasy Worlds All Lead to War With Israel

From Ian:

Israel: The Settlements Are Not Illegal

Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired (Art. 26.1) and that the exercise of these rights shall be free from discrimination of any kind (Art. 2). — UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007.

Among others, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Israel and Luxembourg voted in favor of the Declaration. Since 2007, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, who voted against, formally endorsed the Declaration in 2010. In their relations with Israel, these states cannot claim that the Declaration does not apply to Israeli Jews, since such position would amount to blatant racial discrimination.

[I]t cannot seriously be contended, as the EU, France, Britain, Russia, China and other states do, that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal and that annexation is contrary to international law. This position is political, not legal.

Article 80 of the United Nations Charter (1945) recognized the validity of existing rights that states and peoples acquired under the various mandates, including the British Mandate for Palestine (1922), and the rights of Jews to settle in the Land of Palestine (Judea-Samaria) by virtue of these instruments. (Pr. E. Rostow). These rights cannot be altered by the UN.

"Except as may be agreed upon in individual trusteeship agreements...nothing in this Charter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties." — Article 80, paragraph 1, UN Charter)

Does the Term “Annexation” Even Apply?

The territory that was to become British Mandatory Palestine was designated as a future Jewish National Home 100 years ago at the post-World War I San Remo Conference.
This history is pertinent to the debate that has emerged about Israel retaining parts of the West Bank this year in fulfillment of the U.S. peace plan.
This is commonly referred to as "annexation" and states have pointed out that they oppose the annexation of someone else's territory. But can you annex territory that has already been designated as yours?
The Turkish invasion of Cyprus was an act of aggression. The Russian invasion of Crimea was an act of aggression. Israel in the West Bank is an entirely different story. International law draws a distinction between unlawful territorial change by an aggressor and lawful territorial change in response to an act of aggression.
In addition to the designation of these territories as part of the Jewish national home, one must remember that the West Bank was captured by Israel in a war of self-defense in 1967. That makes all the difference.
It would be more correct not to use the term "annexation" but rather "the application of Israeli law to parts of the West Bank."

Caroline B. Glick: King Abdullah's empty threats

If Jordan abrogated the peace deal, Israeli water and gas transfers would obviously cease. And since Israel's sovereignty plan will be undertaken in the framework of the US peace plan, it is hard to imagine that US support for the kingdom would be unchanged in the event that Jordan abrogated its peace deal in retaliation for Israel's move.

All this is not to say that Israel's relations with Jordan are stable. Anti-Semitism is almost universal in Jordan. And support for the peace with Israel is non-existent. The Hashemite monarchy itself is deeply unpopular.

It is possible that one day, with his back to the wall, Abdullah will abrogate the treaty. It is equally possible that one day he will be overthrown and that the successor regime will abrogate the peace treaty with Israel.

Facing this state of affairs, Israel's proper response is not to set aside the sovereignty plan, which among other things, secures Israel's long border with Jordan by applying Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley. The proper response to Jordan's enormous hostility – a state of affairs that existed long before the sovereignty plan and the Trump plan were conceived – is to draw up detailed contingency plans for the day after the Hashemites are overthrown or the peace treaty is abrogated.

In his remarks at the Foreign Ministry, Ashkenazy rightly praised US-Israel relations. "The United States is Israel's closest ally and the State of Israel's most important friend," he said.

During his visit with President Donald Trump in the White House in January, according to a senior American official, Gantz committed himself to implementing the Trump peace plan, including the sovereignty plan.

To preserve US-Israel relations, Ashkenazy and Gantz need to uphold that commitment. Failure to do so is liable to undermine Israel's credibility as a stable ally among administration leaders and other friends of Israel in Washington.

Ashkenazy acknowledged that through his peace plan, President Trump, "presents us with a historic opportunity to shape Israel's future and its borders."

Israel mustn't permit King Abdullah, and his empty threats stand in its way to seizing that opportunity now.

Amb. Alan Baker: Can Jordan Revoke Its Peace Treaty with Israel?

It is highly unlikely that Jordan would want to take such a step, especially in light of the fact that a unilateral act by Israel of applying law or sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria, even if not favored by Jordan, would not constitute an act of aggression against Jordan’s sovereignty or territorial integrity and as such would not be grounds for revoking the treaty.

Since the issue of the status of Judea and Samaria is, in article 3, specifically excluded from the border delimitation provisions of their respective territory, Jordan cannot claim that unilateral application of law or sovereignty by Israel in such territories constitutes a violation of the peace treaty or grounds for its revocation.

Since the Israel-Jordan peace treaty determines such basic bilateral components of their relationship such as the delineation of the international border between them (article 3), bilateral security arrangements (article 4), full diplomatic and consular relations as well as normal economic and cultural relations (article 5), it would appear to be virtually impossible to regress backwards from peaceful to hostile relations, unless one side conducts an act of aggression against the other.

Some of the central components of the peace relationship represent interests that are vital to Jordan such as water allocations (article 6), economic relations (article 7), Jordan’s special historic role in Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem (article 9), freedom of navigation and access to ports (article 14), and civil aviation and rights of overflight, including Jordanian overflight of Israeli territory to reach points in Europe (article 15). To cancel or revoke such vital components would not serve the interests of Jordan and would undermine its very stability.

The parties agreed, in article 25, to fulfill in good faith their obligations without regard to action or inaction of any other party and independently of any other instrument inconsistent with the peace treaty.

Should Jordan wish to solve a dispute with Israel regarding the application or interpretation of the peace treaty, article 29 establishes a dispute settlement mechanism of negotiation, conciliation, or arbitration.

Peace Now US to feature liar Saeb Erekat in briefing call. Let the threats begin!

Americans for Peace Now is happy to welcome one of the most egregious liars on the planet to a conference call:

West Bank Annexation: The Palestinian Leadership’s Perspective - Briefing Call with Dr. Saeb Erekat

Friday May 22, 2020, 2:00 pm (Eastern Time)

An Israeli government decision to annex large parts of the West Bank would threaten the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations and the future of the Authority (PA). The PA has recently threatened to renounce all agreements with Israel if the Israeli government proceeds with its plan to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank. Some analysts predict that such an Israeli measure might cause the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. Some predict another eruption of violent protests in the West Bank.

What would annexation mean for Palestinians? How would their leadership react to such an Israeli step? Does Mahmoud Abbas’ PLO have a plan for reacting to annexation on the world stage? Would the Palestinian Authority’s security cooperation with Israel collapse? Would the PA collapse?

Addressing these and other questions would be veteran Palestinian diplomat Dr. Saeb Erekat, the Secretary General of the PLO’s Executive Committee, who for many years served as the Palestinian chief negotiator with Israel.

Erekat is not there to offer predictions or insights into the PLO reactions to any Israeli moves. He is there to threaten the world with lies about how the PLO will respond.

We know this because we've seen this play before. It wasn't that long ago that Erekat went before Western media to threaten the PLO's response to any possible move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem.

In 2016, Erekat said that the embassy move would be "sending this region to more chaos, lawlessness and extremism." When the media ignored that threat, he added that:

The PLO will immediately revoke its recognition of Israel

The prospect of a two-state solution will be over

Any hope of Israeli-Palestinian peace in the future will vanish

Erekat would immediately resign as the chief Palestinian negotiator

All American embassies in the Arab world would be forced to close by the infuriated Arabs

These weren't predictions nor promises. These are threats.

Guaranteed, Erekat will repeat these threats now, even though not one of them came true last time as a result of the embassy move. (The two state solution was killed by the PLO many years ago.)

Erekat still heads the Negotiations Affairs Department. The Palestinian Authority still cooperates with Israel. The Arab world shrugged off the embassy move.

This time, the PLO is using the same tactics, and is also enrolling Jordan and the EU to pressure the US and Israel with more threats. Americans for Peace Now doesn't want Erekat to tell them the truth either - they want him to give them ammunition to go to members of Congress with confident predictions backed up by a high-ranking liar.

The Washington Post reports that a major cyberattack on Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port terminal appears to have originated in Israel, in retaliation for cyberattack traced to Iran on Israel's water distribution networks last month.

That April 24 attack was not successful but Israel's presumed response was to send an unmistakable message to Iran - don't even try to get into a cyberwar with Israel unless you want to have your entire economy crippled.

The Shahid Rajaee port terminal is Iran's most important commercial port, handling nearly 150 million tons of cargo last year. Some 50,000 ships dock there every year. It is important not only for Iran's own imports and exports but also as a means to transport goods through Iran to points further east. It is also situated at a "Special Economic Zone" where it is easier for Iran to trade with other countries with less paperwork and foreign currency restrictions. The port is strategically located at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

The hack caused miles-long traffic jams on highways leading to the port, and there were still dozens of container ships waiting off the coast to dock days after the event.

Israel's presumed message was unmistakable: If Iran wants to launch a cyberattack on Israel, Israel has the ability to cripple Iran's economy without firing a single bullet. Iran has eight ports available to the world, and Israel could as easily shut all of them as one of them.

At a time when Iran's economy is already reeling from US sanctions and the coronavirus, it can ill afford to start a cyberwar with Israel.

In some ways, this message to Iran was starker than the hundreds of airstrikes Israel has hit Iranian targets with in Syria and elsewhere. While those strikes show Israel's unparalleled intelligence capabilities, this cyberattack hits much closer to home for Iran. Iranians might not care much about airstrikes a thousand miles from home but when critical goods cannot be imported it affects everyone.

The Washington Post characterized this as a tit-for-tat attack, but that is not what it was. It was a message that Iran would be foolish to even think about retaliating.

One more time: British Mandate Palestine has NOTHING to do with today's Palestinians

Issa Amro, the popular Palestinian protester who gets rapturously profiled in Western media, tweets:

Yes, he is using a British document from British Mandate Palestine to somehow pretend that it proves there was an independent Palestinian state.

We've demolished these arguments before, but...there's no shortage of material we haven't used yet.

Here's some Palestinian history for you:

"Restoring Palestine" means restoring the Jewish homeland.

Some Palestinian arts and crafts - with Yiddish, that ancient Palestinian language.

The SS Tel Aviv, under the very flag of Palestine!

Some everyday pictures of Palestinians with a famous Palestinian quote.

This one is interesting. The Jewish Brigade under the British in World War II had a band that gave this concert in 1945.

Somewhere out there is a video of the band playing, but I can no longer find it.

This is the only Palestinian culture that existed before 1948. It isn't politically correct to say so, but that doesn't make it less true.45

05/18 Links Pt2: Nakbacide - the failed genocidal war against the Jews; Moderna’s Israeli top medical officer: We’ve shown today that our vaccine works; One Professor’s Anti-Israel Fantasy

From Ian:

The Unlearned ‘Nakba’ Lesson About Compromise

The war that would decide the fate of the country began the morning after the UN’s adoption of the partition resolution. Local Arabs, as well as others who came from surrounding countries, began a campaign of terrorism, attacking isolated Jewish communities and besieging Jewish Jerusalem. Their goal was to drive out the Jews, hoping that once the armies of five neighboring countries invaded the country on May 15, 1948, they would do just that.

Of course, that’s not the way things worked out, and the embattled Jewish state won this fight for its life. And far from celebrating the demise of the Jews, approximately 700,000 Arabs fled their homes, either because they feared what would happen to them under Jewish rule or in a few cases because they were driven out.

Rather than being resettled in the surrounding Arab nations or elsewhere in the Muslim world, they were kept in place in refugee camps. The United Nations created a refugee agency to deal with them — UNRWA — distinct from the single agency that helped the many millions of other homeless peoples throughout the world so as to aid the effort to use them as a weapon against Israel’s legitimacy. Meanwhile, approximately 800,000 Jews fled or were forced to flee their homes in the Arab world and found new lives in Israel or the West.

The Palestinian Arabs could have compromised and gotten a state. But they refused to accept anything less than their maximal demands, and as the years went by, their options in terms of territory and support from the rest of the Arab world dwindled. Not even after Israel repeatedly offered the Palestinian Authority a state would they agree to end their century-old war.

At any point in this narrative, the Palestinians could have accepted one of the deals offered them. If so, there wouldn’t be any Jewish communities in the territories for Israel to seek to annex.

But even now, with their cause largely abandoned by much of the Arab world, they refused to negotiate with the administration of President Donald Trump over its “Peace to Prosperity” proposal that would also give them a state, albeit not as large a one as they could have gotten in 2000 or 2008, let alone 1948. And the official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority this week published a front-page article again vowing Israel’s destruction as a religious imperative.

The lesson of the nakba is not one of the world’s indifference, Israel’s alleged sins or even the suffering of the Palestinians. It is, instead, the folly of maximalism, in which by seeking everything, they consistently wind up with nothing. What will happen this year with the settlements is just more proof of the fact that if all you care about is preserving a victim status, the price of intransigence will continue to rise.

Nakbacide - the failed genocidal war against the Jews

Imagine if every year on the 7th of May, Germans held an annual commemoration of the defeat of the Nazi state, complete with Swastikas, anti-Semitic chants and slogans, and claims that the Volksdeutsche expelled from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were the real victims.

That's the spectacle that takes place every May as Muslims in Israel chant and riot to protest their unsuccessful genocide of the indigenous Jewish minority.

And the media sympathetically covers this repulsive spectacle of historical obliviousness, of a regional majority responsible for multiple genocides, dressing up as the victims because their invasion of Israel ended in a stalemate, rather than the intended genocidal purge of the Jews.

The revisionist Muslim history of Israel ethnically cleanses the thousands of years of history of the original Jewish inhabitants and a thousand years of persecution under Muslim rule.

It leaves out the massacres and atrocities carried out by the Muslim invaders against the Jewish inhabitants in the 20th century, including the Hebron Massacre, and the Nazi collaboration of their leader, the Mufti of Jerusalem. Instead it begins and ends with Deir Yassin and angry old women holding up oversized housekeys while reminiscing about the good times they had massacring Jews.

There are about as many Jewish refugees from the Muslim world, as there are Muslim refugees from Israel. The difference is that the Jewish refugees were a minority fleeing the violence of a brutal majority, while the Muslim refugees were a regional majority making a strategic withdrawal in response to calls from the leaders of invading Arab countries to pull out so they could kill the Jews.

"We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down," Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said had promised

There's your Nakba. Go wave your fake giant housekeys in Baghdad.

Moderna’s Israeli top medical officer: We’ve shown today that our vaccine works

The Israeli chief medical officer of US biotech firm Moderna said Monday that its experimental anti-COVID-19 vaccine “actually works,” after tests on a small number volunteers, and that it will start Phase 3 testing on thousands of people in July.

“We got the first results today… and today we are showing that it actually works… we are able to stimulate the immune system,” Dr. Tal Zaks said.

In an interview with Israeli television, Zaks said he was confident that, toward the end of the year, “we’ll be able to present first results that prove that our vaccine indeed prevents the disease.”

“By about the end of the year, the start of next year, there’s a reasonable likelihood that we’ll see this vaccine on the market, at least on the American market,” he said in the Channel 12 interview from Moderna’s headquarters in Massachusetts.

Zaks said the battle against COVID-19 marked the firm’s ninth bid to develop vaccines against viruses, “and we succeeded with the previous eight.” Thus, he said, “the degree of confidence within the company was always high” that it would succeed this time, too.

News of the company’s progress, revealed in a release earlier Monday, lifted shares of Moderna more than 22 percent, and helped drive the broader stock market higher.

The company said the vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, appeared to produce an immune response in eight people who received it, similar to that seen in people convalescing from the virus.

Zimbabwe is one of the worst violators of human rights today. Of course they love Iran and hate Israel.

I was scrolling through the large amount of anti-Israel propaganda being released this week by Iran for "Quds Day" when I came across a supposed "op-ed" in Zimbabwe's state-owned Herald newspaper.

The Herald is a joke, only including articles approved by Zimbabwe's authoritarian government. And that government brutally oppresses and often executes opponents, prohibits homosexuality, and defends China's treatment of Uighurs.

So, naturally, it published this op-ed from its Iranian embassy filled with the typical absurd lies of the Iranian regime.

Here it is, if you are unfamiliar with Iranian propaganda.

Imam Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, designated the last Friday of Ramadan as the day of Quds, presented to Muslims, freedmen and the oppressed of the world in this day and age.

Every year, on this day, the free people of the world march in support of the oppressed people of Palestine and condemn the crimes of the usurping Zionist regime.

The rallies are not limited to Islamic countries, and even in some non-Islamic countries that support Zionism, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, demonstrations are held on the occasion of Al-Quds Day.

Famous intellectuals like Gandhi, Mandela, Chomsky and even athletes and some Hollywood actors have always condemned the crimes of the Zionist regime.

The Zionist regime is no more than seven decades old and is the product of colonialism.

Contrary to the claims of the Zionists, who claim to be the original owners of the Holy Land, citing the rule of David and Solomon, historical evidence shows that the main inhabitants of the Occupied Territories were Arabs who entered Palestine from 2500 BC and ruled those lands for 1 500 years.

Quds Sharif has been declared the eternal capital of Israel since the Zionist occupation in 1967.

The Zionist occupiers, with the support of the world’s tyrants and colonialists, forced the Palestinians to leave their homes and lands in one of the largest forced migrations in history.

Quds is a symbol of the unity and determination of the free and oppressive people of the world amidst the Zionist military crimes and the arrogant supporters in Palestine and Gaza.

Quds Day is the day of resistance of the oppressed of the world against the arrogant and the day of the cry of oppression of a nation that with the blood of its children reveals the ugly face of the usurping Zionist regime.

This year’s Quds Day is more special than any other year, because it coincides with the day 700 000 Palestinians were evicted from their homes on the day of the tragedy, the Day of Nakbah.

Along with all the freedom fighters and peaceful people of the world, we can once again create the necessity and obligation of the oppressed Palestinians and the veil from the evil face of these Zionist usurpers.

Human rights is one of the concepts that Western countries, which today support Zionism, have essentially created and developed.

The crimes of the Zionists in the occupied territories and the Gaza Strip violate these laws.

In other words, the Zionists are also considered criminals within the framework of the laws enacted by their supporters.

The Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians, for example, has become like an apartheid system. Resolution 3379 of the UN General Assembly, adopted on November 10, 1975, also condemned the Zionist regime as a racist system.

The resolution was adopted in the 2 400th session with the participation of all members (72 positive votes, 35 negative votes and 32 abstentions.

Clarifying the international community’s mindset on human rights abuses during the years of occupation by the Zionist regime, including terrorism, the illegal construction of Jewish settlements, the construction of a racist retaining wall, and the lack of citizenship services such as drinking water and repelling urban waste to the Palestinians and violating the freedom of expression of Palestinian writers and artists seems essential.

The intellectual foundations of Zionism are so irrational, racist, and contrary to the principles of Judaism that even many Jews oppose it.

These Jews have also set up anti-Zionist movements in order to create a barrier to Zionist oppression in the occupied territories and elsewhere.

As a result of the exorbitant costs of propaganda and the Zionist media, many people around the world mistakenly consider these criminals to be oppressed who commit crimes in self-defence.

One way to correct this misconception is to explain the racist views of thinkers and prominent Zionist figures.

These people clearly consider themselves superior to other peoples of the world and give themselves the right not to be bothered by any crime to occupy Palestine.

The importance of Holy Quds is due to the fact that this holy land, the place of life and resurrection of the divine prophets, was the first qibla of Muslims and the place of the heavenly ascension of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), just as Jerusalem is of special religious importance to Christians.

The article was provided by the Embassy of Iran (Cultural Centre)

I especially like how they imply they have nothing against Judaism but implicitly deny any Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

From the British census of Palestine in 1922, which put the population of the Beersheba district at 75,254:

The Ottoman authorities in 1914 placed the tribal population of Beersheba at 55,000, and since that date there has been a migration of tribes from the Hejaz and Southern Transjordan into the Beersheba area mainly as a result of succession of adequate rainfalls and of pressure exerted by other tribes east of the River Jordan.

That is some 20,000 Arabs who came from southern Jordan and from the Hejaz area of Saudi Arabia to settle in Beersheba, increasing the population there by close to 40% in a few years.

People tend to forget that Arabs (especially the Bedouin represented here, but also other Arabs) never considered any national boundaries as being meaningful. They freely moved from one area to another. We’ve noted this before with a major influx of Arabs from the Hauran area of Syria in the early 1930s because of a drought:

Which was preceded by as many as a hundred thousand more illegal Arab immigrants in the late 1920s (with one arguing that the 1922 census

What do all of these people have in common?

They are all considered “Palestinians” today, and to have lived in Palestine for centuries beforehand.

In fact, a significant number of Arabs who lived in Palestine in 1948 were there for far less time than the 72 years since.

05/18 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: Israeli Sovereignty, Not Appeasement, Is the Key to Lasting Peace; 20 years after Lebanon pullout, Hezbollah is itching for another battle

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Israeli Sovereignty, Not Appeasement, Is the Key to Lasting Peace

In the coming months, Israel is expected to apply its civilian law and administration to the 30 percent of Judea and Samaria (or the "West Bank") that President Donald Trump's recently unveiled peace plan anticipates remaining with Israel after a final peace agreement.

One might expect that Israel's plan would be hailed for advancing peace and the equal rights of Israelis and Palestinians alike. But the more common response of many so-called experts has been to distort the facts and preemptively condemn Israel.

The distortions begin with the very words used to describe Israeli plans. Across platforms, "experts" fret over what they call "Israeli annexation."

As I explained in my 2014 book The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, Israel cannot "annex" any part of Judea and Samaria. Annexation is an act under which a state imposes its sovereignty over another state's territory.

The state of Israel has sovereign rights to Judea and Samaria by force of its declaration of independence issued 72 years ago, on May 14, 1948. With its declaration of independence, together with Britain's surrender of the Mandate it had been granted by the League of Nations to reconstitute the ancient Jewish national home, Israel became the one and only state that acquired sovereignty over all the Mandate's territory.

When Israel applies its civilian law, it will be exercising sovereign rights that it has held for decades.

The second problem with the discourse surrounding Israel's plan to apply its laws to these areas is that it ignores both why doing so is important for Israel and why President Trump included Israeli sovereignty in his peace plan in the first place.

From Israel's perspective, the plan is important because it will significantly improve the rule of law and the civil rights of residents of the areas. For the past 26 years, Israel has shared governance of the "West Bank" with an autonomous Palestinian Authority. Israel has governed its portion of the territory under military administration. Nearly half a million Israelis and more than 100,000 Palestinians reside in cities, towns and villages in Judea and Samaria governed by the Israel Defense Forces.

Israel's civilian legal code is far more liberal than the military laws that currently apply to the areas. The civil rights of area residents—Jews and Arabs alike—will be far better protected under Israeli law than they have been under Israeli military administrative law.

Baroness Deech: Why I support the Board’s decision not to comment on annexation

I support the decision that the Board of Deputies should make no statement on the proposed territorial annexation by Israel. My experience in and out of Parliament with people who hate Israel and also with anti-Semites is that they are very willing to associate all Jews in the UK with the actions of Israel. If Israel carries out an action of which they disapprove, they call on UK Jews to dissociate themselves from it. In their view, all Jews are considered "guilty" or responsible for Israel's unpopular actions.

Those who urge the Board to make a statement against annexation are playing into the hands of people who hate Israel and who hate Jews. Calling for a statement or, worse still, making one, gives credence to the notion that all Jews are responsible for Israel's unpopular actions and that all Jews can instruct the Israel government to change its policy.

By making no statement, the Board will make it clear that while Jews in the diaspora generally support Israel, they are not responsible for her actions, they are not citizens with a vote, they do not have the right or the power to change her policies, and that anti-Semitism is, as it always has been, hatred of Jews, not a reaction to the existence or the policies of Israel. We should not get involved in Israeli politics as if we were Israeli citizens.

David Singer: Jordan’s King Abdullah Tries to Torpedo Trump Peace Plan

Neither Trump nor Netanyahu has advocated a one-state solution.

The “Palestinian Authority” no longer exists – Mahmoud Abbas having changed its name to the “State of Palestine” by decree on 3 January 2013.

Maybe a massive conflict if Israel “annexed” the West Bank – but 30% – an area of 1697 km2 [square kilometres]?

The interviewer did not query Abdullah – but blithely continued:
DER SPIEGEL: You would suspend the peace treaty with Israel?
King Abdullah II: I don’t want to make threats and create a loggerheads atmosphere, but we are considering all options. We agree with many countries in Europe and the international community that the law of the strongest should not apply in the Middle East.

Empty posturing.

The Hashemites have controlled Jordan since 1920.

The PLO has controlled Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria since 2004 and allowed its hapless residents only one vote in 2006.

The law of the strongest is alive and kicking in the Middle East.

Abdullah faces Trump calling on him to fill the negotiating void left by the PLO jettisoning Trump’s plan – because:
Transjordan invaded Judea and Samaria in 1948 driving out every Jew living there
Transjordan and Judea and Samaria were merged into one territorial entity in 1950 and renamed “Jordan” whilst “Judea and Samaria” was renamed “West Bank”
“West Bank” Arab residents were granted Jordanian citizenship between 1950 and 1988
PLO made no claims to territorial sovereignty until Jordan lost Judea and Samaria to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day Wa
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The one-state solution is a desperate Abdullah ploy to remain uninvolved.

The realistic two-state solution – Jordan and Israel – is coming.

Palestinians attacking banks that aren't paying terrorists

Earlier this month, some Palestinian banks started closing the accounts that were being used to pay terrorists after Palestinian Media Watch started a letter writing campaign to them saying that they were opening themselves up to lawsuits by participating in what is known as "pay to slay."

Since then, these banks are being threatened and attacked.

Gunmen shot at the Cairo Amman Bank branch in Jenin on three separate occasions over the weekend. The first one shattered the front window of the bank.

Members of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement are said to have attacked other banks with bullets and Molotov cocktails in recent days.

Relatives of murderers are also being interviewed in Arab media complaining about how they are losing their income. The father of Ibrahim Bakri, who participated in an attack that killed 9 in Safed in 2002 along with his cousin, say that the Bank of Jordan closed his family's account which was getting funded by the Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinian Authority, funded by Europe, is paying terrorists. It's main political party is shooting at and bombing banks that aren't paying terrorists. Its media is sympathetic towards terrorists who suddenly are losing their blood salaries.

Let's give these guys a state.

How many times have the "experts" accurately predicted Palestinian violence? Hardly ever.

The headlines we see now are apocalyptic - and yet familiar.

In the beginning of April, Peace Now wrote, "[Any] Unilateral move could frustrate the Palestinian street and drag the area into another round of violence, as senior security officials have repeatedly warned."

Indeed, Haaretz had this headline this weekend:

How many times have we been warned about the threat of the "Palestinian street" exploding? Quite a few.

Earlier this year, from the Jerusalem Post:

Middle East Eye in 2017, warning of dire consequences from a US embassy move to Jerusalem:

Also in 2017, a warning about an impending holy war after clashes in the Temple Mount from a professor of global affairs:

In fact, predictions of an upcoming uprising are almost a cliché. Noga Tarnopolsky catalogued a bunch of them in 2014:

"For a while now I’ve wondered why there’s been no Third Intifada," New York Times columnist Tom Friedman mused, in a Feb. 4 column entitled "The Third Intifada."

In February 2013, a full year before Friedman, Amira Hass, the Palestinian affairs correspondent for Israel's daily Ha'aretz, published a column entitled "Why hasn't a third intifada broken out yet among the Palestinians?" (Despite ripe conditions, she posited, the answer was "a lack of faith" among Palestinians in their leadership.)

In September, Moussa abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, predicted on his Facebook page that "We are facing a political failure for the Palestinian Authority and the beginning of a new popular intifada against Israel."

In October, Al Jazeera wondered "Is a Third Intifada in the Offing?"

In November, at a moment of some frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US Secretary of State John Kerry fumed "I mean, does Israel want a third intifada?"

A few days later, the veteran Israeli Arab affairs specialist Shlomi Eldar published an analysis explaining why "Despite despair, no signs of third Palestinian intifada." (With memories still relatively fresh from the Second Intifada, in the first half of the 2000s, Eldar explained, it is not what Palestinians want.)

Then, in December 2013, when the third intifada had still failed to materialize, Hess published another column, a sort of primer telling readers "How the third intifada will start." (Any random act of violence against Palestinians could be the spark, she said.)

The arrival of 2014 didn't seem to change journalists’ minds.

In January, sources within the Palestinian Authority leaked to Israeli media an "internal document" foreseeing — yes — "a third intifada."

Academia got into the game, with Tel Aviv University posting an exhaustive but inconclusive inquiry that posed the question "Is a Third Intifada Brewing?"

Jump ahead to this week, and the crisis in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. The British magazine The Week described the situation in a column entitled — you guessed it — "Fears of third intifada as Middle East peace looks hopeless."

This is not to say that Palestinians aren't prone to violence. They are, which is why these predictions all seem to safe for "experts" to make. But no one predicted the "knife intifada" of 2015-16, for example, even after Mahmoud Abbas himself essentially called for it in September 2015 by saying that Palestinians must use any means necessary to "defend Jerusalem."

In fact, the occasional outbreaks of deadly violence by Palestinians are rarely predictable. They are essentially random. A small incident can seem to spark a significant flare-up while things that seem to be major rarely result in anything beyond threats.

But despite years of showing that the threats of violence by Palestinian leaders almost never actually result in violence, the "experts" consistently believe them. This is how Palestinian leaders try to use the fear of another intifada to get their own political goals met. This is a variant of a century-old Muslim model I called "The Diplomacy of Fear" back in 2006.

The corollary to these constant, dire predictions is that Arabs will not react violently if Israel or the West just does what they want. This is just as false as the predictions of a new intifada are. Arab violence is unpredictable as it is inevitable, but it has little correlation to Western actions, even though people who want to see a logical world will believe such correlation as causation after the fact. Exhibit One is the certainty that so many experts have that Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount caused the Second Intifada when that uprising had been planned for months beforehand. An excuse is not a cause.

Once one realizes that there is no correlation between the regular Arab threats of violence and actual violence, then it becomes apparent that the fear of such violence is not a rational reason to act in one's best self-interest. Violence will happen regardless, and for reasons that cannot be predicted. It will not be stopped by goodwill gestures just as it will not be started by Israel or the West doing things that Arabs warn against.

There are some serious people who have serious reasons against Israel applying sovereignty over parts of the territories. The debate is important and worthwhile. But history shows clearly that the Arab threats of violence is not a factor in this decision, and the sooner that these threats are discounted, the sooner the Arabs will stop using those threats as an alternative to actual negotiations.

Treating these threats of violence as if they are rational and not mafia-style attempts at extortion is a real obstacle to peace.