Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 24, 2020

Racism in the Arab world

19th-century engraving depicting an Arab slave-trading caravan transporting black African slaves across the Sahara. (Wikipedia)

In June, Yasmine El Geressi wrote an article in Majalla that is the best I’ve seen in describing Arab racism against Black people, a topic that Western “anti-racists” studiously ignore.

Excerpts:

Anti-blackness is deeply embedded within Arab countries and takes on many forms – from the horrific human trafficking of African migrants in Libya, to the expansion of colourism through the promotion of white beauty standards, to the colloquial use of the Arabic word for "slave", to daily microaggression. All this plays out against a backdrop of misguided and distasteful media messaging echoed within the Arab world where blackface is commonly used to wring cheap laughs from demeaning stereotypes and prejudices. Much too often, the conversation on anti-black racism has been met with denial and defensiveness. This culture of silence is symptomatic of a lack of awareness of the charged and complicated history of slavery, racism and the consequences of racial bigotry.

Arab social media users voiced their support for Black Americans and weighed in on the brutal crackdown on protesters in the US. Among them was Palestinian actress and film director Maryam Abu Khaled with a social media following of more than 200,000 people who slammed racism in the Arab world in a recent video posted on Instagram. In the video which quickly went viral, Abu Khaled, a black woman from Jenin, shared stories of everyday casual racism among Arabs, including hearing parents tell their children not to play in the sun for too long, otherwise they will "get sunburnt and start looking like Maryam”.

While news stories emerge almost daily in the US about police being called over black Americans doing nothing more than being black, Afifa Latifi, a Tunisian doctoral student in Africana Studies at Cornell University and co-founder of the Voices for Tunisian Black Women collective, told Majalla that although black people do not face the same amount of gratuitous violence against them in the Arab world, that does not mean that their experiences are better. “Beyond the microaggressions and virtual hate speech, there are various instances of violence that prove that we're not in a better off position,” she said.

“When you think of the predicament of black refugees, black migrant workers and the Kafala system as an example, the various incidents of police brutality in countries like Morocco, the multiple crimes committed against West African students in Tunisia and slavery in Mauritania which was only criminalized in 2007, it is hard to see a difference in experiences.”

“I find this unchecked verbal and non-verbal violence, impoverishment and marginalization of black people in the region, reminiscent of the social death that black Americans experience,” Ltifi said.

There are strictly enforced beauty standards in Arab countries that still favour fairer skin and straighter hair at the expense of diversity. One quick flick through a few Arabic TV channels can confirm that. These aesthetic standards translate into dangerous practices such as skin bleaching. In 2018, women in Egypt even began pouring chlorine in a bath to try to jumpstart the lightening process in a temporarily popular trend.

Most importantly, these aesthetic practices lay the foundation for an internalised social hierarchy rooted in colourism - the prejudice based on skin tone, usually with a marked preference for lighter-skinned people - and anti-Blackness which accepts dark-skinned people as being held to a lower standard.

The trauma caused by colourism is evident when it comes to marriage. “If one partner wants to bring a dark-skinned partner, there will be questions raised by the family. This is not unusual and it’s not limited to particular religious groups or particular minorities. It seems to be across the board. It’s not unusual in Morocco for an Amazigh to refuse the marriage of a dark-skinned African,” Dr Ali explains.

The irony here is disturbing. In a world where Muslims and Arabs have long been subjected to racism, too many Arabs have failed to consider how they treat minorities. “I see brown-skinned Arabs discriminate against dark-skinned Africans and I’ve actually said to them, if you were in Europe, your brown skin would be discriminated against. The inability to feel empathy has a lot to do with not having to experience what dark-skinned Africans or local Egyptians go through,” Dr Ali said.

This is for two reasons. One is that they don’t want to appear to look anti-Arab. But the main reason is that they want to make the Western world look uniquely racist and use the race issue as a means to gain political power.

They don’t really care about Black people because if they did, they would look at the issue of race worldwide and within their own political circles, not just against their political opponents.

Global anti-racism protests have sparked calls for Arab governments to abolish a system of sponsorship for migrant workers. About 23 million migrants, mostly from poor African and Asian countries, work in the Arab world under a system known as kafala that generally binds them to one employer, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation.

Labour rights campaigners in the region said those expressing support for protesters calling for an end to racism in the United States and elsewhere should look closer to home, where foreign workers faced exploitation and abuse under kafala. “These issues are very much systemic and ingrained in racist rhetoric and perceptions toward other nationalities in our own countries,” Salma Houerbi, a researcher at the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre advocacy group, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The anti-Kafala initiatives are increasingly garnering attention in Lebanon where the suicide last month of a maid from the Philippines highlighted the struggles of migrant women in the country where migrant domestic workers are dying at a rate of two per week.

Joey Ayoub, an independent Lebanese activist campaigning to abolish kafala, told Reuters that the system amounted to legitimised racism. “If we want to speak of black lives matter, we have to talk about the actual black lives that do not matter in Lebanon,” he said, referring to the protests that have roiled the United States for the past two weeks. “Even if the kafala system is abolished tomorrow, racism would still exist, but it at least would allow people who are themselves victims of racism much more say and autonomy in what they can do about it.”

While black slavery can seem like a peculiarly American institution, it is also a painful fact of history in the Middle East where countless East Africans were sold as slaves. It was primarily women and girls who were abducted into the Arabian slave trade, to then be turned into concubines. Historically, the absence of laws enshrining racial segregation (like those that existed in the US until the 20th century) enhances this sense of superiority that propagates the extraordinary wall of silence around this history across the region.

This culture of silence has helped to avoid challenging questions regarding the enduring legacies of slavery and anti-black racism in Arab societies that continue to affect social forms of life, and according to Professor Powell, has led to a popular outright denial that racist attitudes against black people exist within Arab societies. “My experience in the Arab world is that most people do not know the historical meanings behind the word “abeed” (slave), or they relegate the idea of racism to the United States, without seeing how it can exist amongst themselves, in their own countries,” she said.

There are a few reasons that Western “anti-racists” don’t ant to discuss Arab racism.

One is that they do not want to be accused of being anti-Arab.

They want to childishly divide the world into oppressors and oppressed, and therefore the “oppressed” Arabs get a pass on their own racism but the “oppressor” Jews are considered the worst racists of all.

But the main reason is that they don’t really care about racism at all, but in being able to hurl the epithet “racist” against their political enemies. Too many are addicted to the high of being self-righteous arbiters of morality against those they hate, and the hate that comes with the “woke” calling their opponents racists is the same as that of racists using racial slurs themselves. (An extreme example from yesterday had Jemele Hill saying that US racism was comparable to Nazi Germany – a manifestly stupid statement that fits well in the culture where the biggest insults get the most adulation.)

The people who suffer most from this Leftist self-righteousness are the actual victims of racism in the non-Western world, where in some places slavery still exists. Some 100 domestic workers die in Lebanon alone each year, many of them black, from suicide or from attempting to escape their abusive employers.

08/24 Links Pt1: President Trump is doing good in the Middle East. Why won't the Foreign Office support him?; A Second JCPOA Would Accelerate Nuclear Proliferation

From Ian:

Donald Trump is doing good in the Middle East. Why won't the Foreign Office support him?

President Trump has got it right on Israel – and the Foreign Office has got it badly wrong

The US has triggered a process at the UN to reinstate sanctions on Iran. France, Germany and the UK have opposed it. The UK also lobbied against America leaving the nuclear deal, and its response to the UAE peace deal was remarkable for its leaden orthodoxy, almost damning with faint praise. Dominic Raab welcomed the normalisation of relations along with Israel’s pledge not to annex land in the West Bank, adding, “there is no substitute for direct talks between the Palestinians and Israel, which is the only way to reach a two state solution and a lasting peace.” To repeat: “There is no substitute.”

Well, there is, and this is it. The UAE’s move has shown that Arab states can be persuaded to deal with Israel if they face a greater threat, namely Iran. So why, even when the Iran nuclear deal is dead, won’t Europe accept the new dynamic and follow Trump’s lead? The other curiosity, of course, is why Brexit Britain is falling in line with the Europeans at all, and why it sticks to outdated formulas on Israel like a parrot reciting the Nicean creed.

Lack of bandwidth is one answer: in the middle of Covid, the Government just can’t process events. Another is the Foreign Office’s prejudice against Israel, fuelled by guilt for the way we carved up the Middle East. As the foreign policy thinker Ed Husain points out, this is likely to get worse because the Department for International Development is about to be rolled into the Foreign Office, stuffing an already biased department with “Left-leaning” bureaucrats whose raison d’etre is to hand out cash as penance for British imperial history.

There is a third calculation: Trump is going to lose the election, putting the Democrats – and the State Department – back in charge. But even if this is correct, why not recognise that the Trump doctrine has brought real movement to Middle East politics, that the anti-Iranian coalition could be the basis for an Arab detente with Israel and that the Palestinian question could be settled on a new, more realistic basis?

Never mind what the Foreign Office feels comfortable with, let’s start by examining what Britain wants and needs in 2020. Several Arab states like and trust us and Israel is always ready to talk, so why not make ourselves indispensable to this process as the champions of engagement? The long-term destination remains peace and it would be an act of utter madness not to walk through that door just because Donald Trump was the one who opened it.

Richard Kemp: Appeasement: The European Sickness

Now, Britain and France seek to appease the three powers that most threaten the world today: Iran, China and Russia.

Both countries [Britain and France], as well as Germany and the EU itself, knew only too well that, rather than its stated purpose of denying Iran a route to nuclear weapons, the JCPOA in fact paved Iran's pathway — not just to acquiring nuclear capabilities, but doing so legitimately.

The re-imposed sanctions will then leave China, Russia and the European countries with tough choices about whether they observe them or take the damaging consequences to their own trade with the US.

And for what? Perhaps for the benefit of Russia and China, whose weapons sales to Iran will both bring financial benefit and extend their influence in the region at the expense of America and Europe.

If US snapback sanctions succeed, that can only hasten the end of the terrorist regime in Tehran. It will also boost confidence and security among the Arab countries, increasingly fearful of a nuclear-armed Iran

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Terminate the UN Interim Force in Lebanon

UNIFIL is now effectively another UN aid agency. The mission highlights its work with the local population and its delivery of assistance, as recently as the COVID-19 crisis, to municipalities often run by Hezbollah.

For the last three years, the U.S. has endeavored to address these failures by attempting to beef up UNIFIL's mandate. Predictably, this approach has failed. In the end, it's not only that the Russians and the Chinese—each of whom contributes troops to the force—have opposed changes to the mandate. It's also that the French, who contribute one of the larger contingents, are routinely threatened by pro-Hezbollah media. Moreover, the French are invested in the status quo for other reasons that have to do with their perceived diplomatic role and financial investment in Lebanon, as well as their broader regional agenda.

The Trump administration is now pushing for UNIFIL to operate without any restrictions, and to be able to inspect all sites, including so-called "private property." But U.S. officials reportedly are also looking to reduce the size of the force, and to shorten the mandate's extension period from one year to six months.

This is all very reasonable, given UNIFIL's track record. But if the Security Council members reject these modest requests, the administration is prepared to veto the renewal of the mandate altogether, leading to the dissolution of the force.

The main obstacle to the U.S. effort is France. Not only are the French opposed to a reduction in size, but they appear not to take seriously the U.S. threat to veto, believing it to be a mere bluff and a negotiating tactic. They are poised to oppose the U.S. changes, or to agree only to a watered-down compromise.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has floated recommendations for a "more agile and mobile" force, which would replace heavy infantry functions with "high-mobility light tactical vehicles and reconnaissance vehicles with improved monitoring capacity." However, Guterres' recommendations assume the continuity of deployment and, in fact, more investment in the force.

UN Peacekeeping Force in Lebanon “Slightly Concerned” that Violence Reflects Poorly on Them (satire)

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, also known as UNIFIL, is set to have its mandate renewed at the end of August. They are concerned, however, that the collapse of Lebanon over the last decade and the violence that Hezbollah has inflicted on the country, could reflect poorly on their ability to carry out their mission.

In a normal year their mandate would almost certainly be renewed given that “not being able to carry out their mission” is the unofficial slogan of UN peacekeeping forces. However, the devastating August 4 blast at Beirut’s port has brought further scrutiny to the country. Some UN officials have expressed concerned that a complete failure to keep the peace, disarm Hezbollah, or stop the group from attacking Israel might reflect poorly on their ability to carry out their mission to keep the peace, disarm Hezbollah, or stop the group from attacking Israel.

One officer with UNIFIL said that punishing peacekeepers, or any UN officials for that matter, for not fulfilling their role would be unprecedented. Further, “the UN has a long and proud tradition of failing at the most basic peacekeeping tasks like preventing violence, not spreading disease, and not raping people.”

This is the anniversary of the horrific 1929 attacks on Jews in Hebron.

As Wikipedia writes:

At about 8.30 am Saturday morning, the first attacks began to be launched against houses where Jews resided,^[17] after a crowd of Arabs armed with staves, axes and knives appeared in the streets. The first location to be attacked was a large Jewish house on the main road. Two young boys were immediately killed, and the mob entered the house and beat or stabbed the other occupants to death.

[Police superintendent Raymond] Cafferata appeared on the scene, gave orders to his constables to fire on the crowd and personally shot dead two of the attacking Arabs.^[17] While some dispersed, the rest managed to break through the pickets, shouting "on to the ghetto!" The requested reinforcements had not arrived in time. That later became the source of considerable acrimony.^[19]

According to a survivor, Aharon Reuven Bernzweig, "right after eight o'clock in the morning we heard screams. Arabs had begun breaking into Jewish homes. The screams pierced the heart of the heavens. We didn't know what to do…. They were going from door to door, slaughtering everyone who was inside. The screams and the moans were terrible. People were crying Help! Help! But what could we do?"

Soon after news of the first victim had spread, forty people assembled in the house of Eliezer Dan Slonim. Slonim, the son of the Rabbi of Hebron, was a member on the city council and a director of the Anglo-Palestine Bank. He had excellent relations with the British and the Arabs and those seeking refuge with him were confident they would come to no harm. When the mob approached his door, they offered to spare the Sephardi community if he would hand over all the Ashkenazi yeshiva students. He refused, saying "we are all one people," and he was shot dead along with his wife and 4-year-old son.^[36] From the contemporary Hebrew press it appears that the rioters targeted the Zionist community for their massacre. Four-fifths of the victims were Ashkenazi Jews, but some had deep roots in the town, yet a dozen Jews of eastern origin, Sephardim and Maghrebi, were also killed.^[35] Gershon Ben-Zion, for example, the Beit Hadassah Clinic pharmacist, a cripple who had served both Jews and Arabs for 4 decades, was killed together with his family: his daughter was raped and then murdered.^[19]

This wasn't about Zionism. People who lived in Hebron for generations - Ashkenaz and Sephardic - were slaughtered. It was pure Jew-hate. Anyone who pretends that Arabs are merely anti-Zionist are whitewashing and justifying antisemitism. And that means that they are condoning antisemitism when it is relabeled as anti-Zionism.

From Naharnet:

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday called for the removal of “all arms and explosives depots” from Lebanon’s residential areas, in the wake of the Beirut port blast that killed dozens, wounded thousands and devastated swathes of the capital.

“Let Lebanese authorities consider the Beirut port disaster an alarm bell and let them raid all arms and explosives depots and warehouses that exist illegally in the residential neighborhoods of cities, towns and villages,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon.

“Some Lebanese regions have turned into fields of explosives which we do not know when they will blow up or who will detonate them,” the patriarch warned.

“The presence of these depots represents a serious and dangerous threat to the lives of citizens, which do not belong to any person, group, party or organization,” al-Rahi went on to say.

He accordingly called on authorities to “removes these arms and explosives so that citizens can feel safe, at least inside their homes.”

This is clearly a swipe at Hezbollah, but without mentioning its name.

Al-Rahi has tentatively started obliquely criticizing Hezbollah over the past two months, even before the Beirut port explosion, after years of tacit albeit silent support.

He is still explicitly anti-Israel, though.

The Lebanese have been getting braver in their anti-Hezbollah stance, with effigies of Hassan Nasrallah openly being hung during protests – something Hezbollah would never have allowed in the past but it is too frightened to stop now.

31719542-8607361-Cardboard_cut_outs_of_Hezbollah_leader_Hassan_Nasrallah_and_Isra-a-15_1596909210041

Kuwaiti site: “Israel doesn’t want peace; it wants to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates”

This week’s “expert” is Fakhri Hashem Al-Sayed Ragab of Kuwait’s Al Qabas.

He writes:

Peace for the State of Israel basically contradicts its biggest goal, which is that its borders should be from the Euphrates to the Nile ..And if those that were forcibly planted in Palestine are working today vigorously and mainly to conclude peace agreements and normalize relations, then this is not for the purpose of the peoples of the region to live in peace, but rather to separate the east of the Arab world from its west in principle, and this has already happened and created a state of permanent tension, based on Western sympathy and support for them as an entity that protects their interests first.

It will also fulfill the hope of the West and other countries that the Jews of the world gather in a place far from Europe and elsewhere (specifically Palestine) in order to get rid of the arrogance and aggression that were associated with them as Jews, specifically the Zionists among them.

A major geo-political change has taken place and is rapidly developing in the interest of this entity [Israel.] As for the majority of the Arab people, we reap nothing but failures, humiliation and destructive wars. …While the Zionist state of Israel is controlling the computers of the world today, and they produce medicines for terminal diseases, researchers for them are infiltrating the borders of the countries of the world, they are serious in their quest to destroy us. As for us: it seems that we have nothing left but to raise our hands to applaud them.

This covered a lot of the Arab world’s opinion about Israel since the 1950s. But it takes a special kind of stupid to think Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan are compatible with a desire to expand from to the Nile to the Euphrates.

Some recent cartoons

08/23 Links: As We Search for a COVID Vaccine, Remembering Past National Unity and the Legacy of Jonas Salk; Erdogan hosts Hamas delegation with wanted terrorist

From Ian:

As We Search for a COVID Vaccine, Remembering Past National Unity and the Legacy of Jonas Salk

Each year in the 1940s and ’50s, more than 15,000 Americans were paralyzed by polio and thousands died. The disease reached its peak in the United States in 1952, leaving 3,145 Americans dead and some 21,269 paralyzed. As with the country and world at this time struggling to deal with another deadly virus — SARS-CoV-2, more commonly referred to as COVID-19 — methods to combat the contagion included quarantines, prevention efforts, and the race for a vaccine.

Decades ago, in a nation struggling to deal with the scourge that came each summer to prey on America’s children, a champion emerged in the form of Dr. Jonas Salk, a soft-spoken American Jewish scientist at the University of Pittsburgh who developed the first, and ultimately most effective, vaccine to eradicate polio, a disease that had plagued humanity for millennia. Known for his dedication, brilliance, and altruism, Salk and his work in the field became the stuff of legend. An official announcement of the vaccine’s safety and efficacy on April 12, 1955 catapulted him to international fame and enshrined him as a titan in the history of science and humankind.

It also made him a legend in the American and world Jewish communities.

Jewish Americans and others among Salk’s early vaccine volunteer subjects, one of his former lab workers, and his son Peter Salk, a doctor and part-time professor of infectious diseases at the University of Pittsburgh, spoke with JNS about their recollections of the man and scientist. They also shared their memories of the polio years, thoughts on similarities and differences between the polio and COVID-19 eras, and considered what lessons might be applied from that time to the current predicament in the United States and the world.

Many people who were infected with polio were asymptomatic and never became sick. Some developed mild, flu-like illness, usually with fever, sore throat, and achiness, and recovered. In other cases, however, the disease progressed to severe symptoms, including very bad muscle cramps, weakness, and paralysis within a week.

In the worst cases, polio resulted in death or lifelong paralysis inside an iron lung, a coffin-like respirator that took over breathing for an afflicted individual.

More than 500 Israelis have died from COVID-19 in July-August

Over 500 Israelis have died of COVID-19 since July 1, according to Health Ministry data, with the death toll since the start of the pandemic rising to 825 on Sunday.

The Health Ministry confirmed 2,212 new coronavirus cases throughout the weekend on Friday and Saturday. Having crossed the 100,000 mark on Friday, the official tally stood at 102,150 as of Sunday morning, with 22,022 active cases.

Of them, 408 were in serious condition, including 112 on ventilators. Another 186 were in moderate condition, and the rest had mild or no symptoms.

The ministry said 26,372 coronavirus test results returned Friday, of which 5.7 percent were positive, and 10,260 results came back Saturday, with 7% of them showing a positive result. Testing levels normally go down considerably during weekends.

The death toll increased by six since Saturday evening, reaching 825.

A ministry tally indicated that more than 500 Israelis have died during July and August, compared with 320 from March to June.

The Health Ministry said 9,367 new cases were confirmed last week, including 1,374 in Jerusalem, 494 in Bnei Brak, 372 in Modiin Illit, 342 in Ashdod and 267 in Tel Aviv. No infections were found in only in few towns and communities.

Top UK scientist warns COVID-19 likely won’t ever truly go away

A former chief scientific adviser to the British government has said COVID-19 will likely be around forever, and that regular vaccination will be needed to contain the coronavirus and prevent it from spreading.

“This is a virus that is going to be with us forever in some form or another, and almost certainly will require repeated vaccinations,” Sir Mark Walport told the BBC in an interview Saturday. “So, a bit like flu, people will need re-vaccination at regular intervals.”

Unlike diseases such as smallpox, “which could be eradicated by vaccination,” Walport said the novel coronavirus was more like influenza, requiring people around the globe to be inoculated “at regular intervals.”

Walport was not referring to the global pandemic continuing, but rather to the virus remaining a recurring problem even after the pandemic itself has been brought under control.

His comments came a day after WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s comments that the pandemic could be over in two years, noting the Spanish Flu lasted from 1918 to 1920.

Walport, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, stressed the global population is now much larger and that denser living conditions and increased travel allow the virus to spread more easily.

He also expressed concern over rising infection rates in Europe and elsewhere in the world, warning the pandemic could again get “out of control.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, speaks during a news conference on updates regarding the novel coronavirus, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, file)

In his comments Friday, Tedros sought to draw favorable comparisons with the notorious flu pandemic of 1918.

The Commander of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Muhammad Baqeri, said, "These days we are facing a great calamity, which was the UAE establishing relations with the occupation, and while all the free people of the world express hatred for relations and friendship with the occupation, one of Iran's neighbors comes to announce with all brazenness the establishment of relations with it."

Here is a list of the 30 “free” countries that do not recognize Israel:

Afghanistan

Algeria

Bahrain

Bangladesh

Bhutan

Brunei

Comoros

Cuba

Djibouti

Indonesia

Iran

Iraq

Kuwait

Lebanon

Libya

Malaysia

Mali

Mauritania

Morocco

Niger

North Korea

Pakistan

Qatar

Saudi Arabia

Somalia

Sudan

Syria

Tunisia

Venezuela

Yemen

This list lines up pretty well with the worst human rights abusers on Earth.

TheJC has an article by Colin Shindler of SOAS about his former student Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE’s UN Ambassador, going through her family history:

For Lana Nusseibeh, who was instrumental in bringing about the agreement, it was the end of a long road which started many years ago at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies when she took a newly instituted MA in Israeli Studies.

She was a brilliant student who wrote some wonderfully insightful and incisive essays on Zionism and Israeli history.

She deserved the distinction that was awarded to her.

…

The Nusseibeh clan have been in Jerusalem for over a millennium. Tradition has it that Saladin appointed the family “Guardian of the Holy Sepulchre Church” in 1192 and presented them with the keys.

Lana’s grandfather, Anwar Nusseibeh, was educated at Cambridge and was deeply involved in the Palestinian cause. An advocate of the parliamentary path, he opposed Nazism and the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries.

After 1948, when Jordan occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Anwar Nusseibeh held numerous posts in King Hussein’s government and was appointed ambassador to London in the 1960s. Following the Six-Day War, he supported King Hussein in his military conflict with Yasser Arafat and the PLO in September 1970.

His son, Sari Nusseibeh, a philosophy professor, was appointed the representative of the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem by Arafat in 2001. Opposing the Islamist suicide bombers during the al-Aqsa Intifada, he was a leading exponent of the Palestinian peace camp who worked with figures such as Moshe Amirav and Ami Ayalon in trying to forge a reconciliation between the two sides.

His other son, Zaki, — Lana’s father — trod a different path and left for the Gulf in 1968 where he became a trusted advisor to the rulers of the Emirates and was truly a builder of the powerhouse that it is today. An intellectual and a respected government minister, he has translated Arab poetry into English and promoted the cause of Arabic culture in the Gulf internationally.

He has the Encyclopaedia Judaica and many books on Jewish history in his extensive personal library, which I was able to peruse on a visit to Abu Dhabi last year.

Most Arab countries do not allow Palestinians to become citizens – ostensibly for their own good – following a series of Arab League resolutions including resolution 1547 and the 1965 Casablanca Protocol insisting that all Palestinian Arabs “retain their Palestinian nationality.”

How did Lana’s father Zaki become an Emirati citizen?

It turns out that the UAE, which was established in 1971 after the Casablanca Protocol, never had discriminatory laws against Palestinians becoming citizens the way other Arab countries do. According to Arab Migrant Communities in the GCC , “a number of Palestinians born in the UAE [have] attained UAE citizenship, and are not officially documented as Palestinians. These individuals were granted citizenship by decree or royal favour for making important contributions to the UAE."

Indeed, Zaki Nusseibeh became a citizen by direct royal decree – he acted as Sheikh Zayed’s personal interpreter before the Emirates was formed so he was offered immediate citizenship.

This led to his daughter becoming an integral part of the negotiations to normalize relations with Israel.

To be sure, the UAE does not easily welcome new citizens of any type. But its non-discrimination against Palestinians helped lead to an agreement with Israel.

It is truly ironic that the people who are against equal rights for Palestinians in the Middle East are the same people who are against Israel’s continued existence. Bigotry against Palestinians and Jews go hand in hand.

The socialist Left and Arabs who insist that they are acting for the best interests of Palestinians are the ones who are the most against peace, and they should be treated as the anti-peace reactionaries they are rather than as the liberal pacifists they pretend to be.

Gaza groups are proud of their war crimes. The world is silent. (UPDATE)

The Islamic Jihad news site Palestine Today has a photo essay of their “Jihad Barq” units that send incendiary balloons to Israel:

The headline of the piece translates to “The Jihad Barq Unit is preparing to turn Israeli settlements into a mass of fire."

They are explicit that their goal is the burning of communities and the target is Israeli civilians. Burning a community means killing the people there.

The purposeful burning of fields and forests is a war crime. The targeted burning of entire towns would be a crime against humanity.

Will any Palestinian group, or “peace” group, or human right group, condemn the explicit call for a crime against humanity by Palestinians?

Of course not. Palestinians aren’t expected to be moral human beings so their immorality is not newsworthy, let alone something to be condemned.

UPDATE: A statement from the Gaza terrorists, meant for Western consumption, said the balloons were "non-violent popular means."

08/22 Links: Surgical precision - The story behind Israel's targeted killings; Entire leadership of Britain's biggest Muslim charity QUITS in antisemitism row

From Ian:

Surgical precision - The story behind Israel's targeted killings

THE TARGETED killing of al-Ata was not that different from the many others the IDF has carried out over the past decade. It was characterized by meticulous planning meant to reduce collateral damage, precise intelligence and the utilization of advanced technology, aircraft and munitions.

But it also shows the results of an amazing journey the State of Israel has taken over the past 20 years, going from dropping one-ton bombs on apartment buildings in the Gaza Strip to take out a single terrorist, to firing a missile with amazing precision onto a bed, killing just the target and his wife and not injuring their five children sleeping in the next room.

Around the world, a story like this would not make headlines. Instead, the focus would be on the damage caused to Gaza and the death toll. People would ask why al-Ata’s wife had to die with him. They wouldn’t focus on the length of the mission, how much detail and effort went into its planning and how precise it was in execution.

This journey, though, is unique to Israel. Other Western countries fighting terrorists around the world rarely invest even a fraction of the effort Israel does to minimize collateral damage. Issachar recalled a large international air drill he had participated in a few years ago where he met pilots from Italy, Turkey and other countries. Almost all the pilots he met, he recalled, asked why Israel waits so long and invests so much.

“They are shooting at you,” the foreign pilots said. “You need to respond.”

The success Israel has met is the result of three key components – intelligence, technology and the values that make up the backbone of the IDF.“This is a Jewish value,” explained former IAF chief Eliezer Shkedi. “This is who we are.”

How did the IDF become one of the most lethal and precise militaries in the world? This article is the first in a series that will look at this evolution and try to piece together how it happened.

Pompeo, Kushner to visit Israel and Arab states as US pushes more peace deals

The Trump administration will send two top officials to the Middle East this week in a bid to capitalize on momentum from the historic agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to establish diplomatic relations.

Three diplomats say US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner plan to make separate, multiple-nation visits to the region in the coming days to push Arab-Israeli rapprochement in the aftermath of the Israel-UAE deal.

Pompeo is expected to depart on Sunday for Israel, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Sudan, according to the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the itinerary has not yet been finalized or publicly announced.

Kushner plans to leave later in the week for Israel, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, the diplomats said.

Kushner will be accompanied by Avi Berkowitz, Trump’s peace envoy, the Walla news site reported. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and Brian Hook, the US pointman on Iran, are also expected to join the trip.

The group will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz in Jerusalem, and with the de-facto ruler of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi, the report said.

Pompeo is expected to meet with the three leaders during his trip, as well as with Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi.

Israeli officials said Pompeo’s visit will focus on Israel’s agreement with the UAE, and the White House’s push to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran, according to Axios.

Israel-UAE Normalization Deal Said to Be ‘Judo-Inspired’

The International Judo Federation (IJF) and three Israeli judokas agree that the sport played a role in the historic normalization agreement announced by the Jewish state and the UAE last week.

IJF published a story on its website that celebrated the accord, saying, “What if we also told you that it is a judo-inspired agreement? Many would not believe us, although they should.”

“When we address the topic of the pioneers, those who encouraged this rapprochement, those who inspired and promoted an agreement that, at that time, seemed if not impossible, at least extremely complicated, it is necessary to talk about judo,” the IJF added.

In 2015 and 2017, Israeli judokas competed in the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam but were not permitted to showcase any national identification on their uniforms, and they were told that Israel’s anthem and flag would not be presented.

Twelve Israeli judokas brought home five medals from the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam in 2017 and they were all forced to compete under the banner of the IJF. When Israeli judoka Tal Flicker was awarded a gold medal, the IJF flag was raised, and he quietly sang “Hatikvah” to himself as the IJF’s anthem played in the background.

The IJF subsequently suspended the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam tournament in an effort to take a “firm and constructive stance in the fight against discrimination in sport.”

Tournament organizers then agreed to abide by the IJF rules and the tournament was reinstated.

In its story last week, the IJF recalled the sporting breakthrough between Israel and the UAE in October 2018 at the Abu Dhabi Glam Slam when Israeli judokas Sagi Muki and Peter Paltchik individually won gold medals, which led to the raising of the Israeli flag and the playing of “Hatikvah” for the first time in the history of the competition.

08/21 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Support for Black Lives Matter repeats a lethal error of history; EU spent €5m. promoting east Jerusalem as Palestine's capital in 2019

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Support for Black Lives Matter repeats a lethal error of history

In the 20th century, thousands of progressively minded people supported Soviet communism. Believing this ideology was the key to a better world, they refused to acknowledge the horrific abuses under Stalin when millions were brainwashed, murdered or starved to death.

Today’s progressives are behaving in similar fashion in response to another onslaught on civilized values, perpetrated in the name of an ideology with the same roots as Soviet communism. And just as in the last century, a dismaying number of its cheerleaders are Jews.

In both America and Britain, Jewish leaders and community groups overwhelmingly back Black Lives Matter. Since Jews have suffered from bigotry, discrimination and social alienation, they feel a duty to express solidarity with black people who they believe are experiencing similar difficulties.

But BLM, which took off after last May’s death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer, is not about promoting fairness and tolerance.

It is instead a nihilistic, violent, revolutionary movement committed to defunding the police as an incorrigibly racist institution, closing the prisons, destroying the family and overthrowing white capitalist society. What’s more, many of its leaders are white.

There’s no doubt that black people experience bigotry, and that there are racist police officers.

But a significant number of police officers are themselves black; most people who are killed in police custody are white; and most black people who are murdered are killed by other black people.

Moreover, BLM’s denunciation of white society as racist is itself a racist act since it categorizes an entire ethnic group as bad. Yet progressive people have bought into this malign agenda.

Europe’s failed (and forgotten) Gaza monitors – opinion

The 15-year anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza has been accompanied by a wave of painful personal and political memoirs, amid a difficult debate on the wisdom of Ariel Sharon’s sudden policy shift.

The latest round of “balloon terrorism” from Gaza that is torching the fields and trees of southern Israel, and the periodic rocket attacks, sending thousands of Israelis into shelters in the middle of the night, are reminders that the hoped-for quiet was an illusion.

Instead of using the withdrawal as an opportunity for economic development to lift the people of Gaza out of poverty, the Palestinian leaders have diverted international aid into cross-border attack tunnels and rocket brigades.

Largely forgotten in this historical reckoning is the European Union’s role in this process, and the failure of the EU to provide the guarantees they had pledged to fulfill in 2005.

After Israel’s withdrawal, the EUBAM (European Union Border Assistance Mission) was deployed at the Rafah crossing point between Gaza and Egypt. The mission consisted of some 60 police and customs officials “to help bring peace to the area,” ostensibly by monitoring traffic in order to deter smuggling of weapons into Gaza.

According to the agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, EUBAM would monitor the performance of the PA in operating the crossing and had the authority to order the re-examination of persons and goods that passed through the crossing if PA examinations proved unsatisfactory.

EU spent €5m. promoting east Jerusalem as Palestine's capital in 2019

The European Union spent close to €5.5million in 2019 on grants to NGOs dedicated to promoting Palestinian culture and preserving Palestinian identity in Jerusalem's Old City and surrounding areas, a report into EU spending in the region has revealed.

In late June, the Commission updated its financial transparency system, filing details of the grants handed to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in 2019. Analysis of that data by NGO-Monitor has revealed that out of 42 grants issued for projects in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, totaling €37.15 million in grant funds, seven of those, at a total value of €11.8 million were for projects focused on Jerusalem.

Among them was a grant of €1,184,538 handed jointly to PalVision, the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA) and ACT For Alternative Dispute Resolution And Studies "To contribute to preserving the Palestinian character and cultural heritage of east Jerusalem (EJ) by strengthening the Palestinian identity and enhancing the sense of belonging among Palestinians."

The objectives listed under the project are: "To protect Islamic and Christian Waqf religious and cultural heritage properties against Israeli violations and threats" and "To enhance Palestinians ability to identify and value their cultural heritage and have a good understanding of what can be done to protect their cultural heritage.”

Similarly, €2,086,757 was handed jointly to the Society of St. Yves; Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC); Land Research Center (LRC); Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC); and Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCPRJ) with the overall objective of supporting "the marginalized Palestinian communities of east Jerusalem, increase their resilience, prevent forcible transfer and reinforce the Palestinian identity of east Jerusalem."