Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 31, 2020

08/31 Links Pt2: Jonathan Tobin: Why they scrawl ‘Free Palestine’ on synagogues; Melanie Phillips: The free world's craven and hypocritical fifth column

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: Why they scrawl ‘Free Palestine’ on synagogues

The impulse to spray paint “Free Palestine” on Jewish sites is an injustice not just because it is vandalism, but also because the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has nothing to with a synagogue—and certainly not one on in the Midwestern United States. Blaming American Jews for the grievances that some may have against Israel, regardless of the merit or lack thereof of such complaints, is also a form of anti-Semitism.

Nevertheless, the connection between the BLM movement and anti-Israel sentiment is an undeniable fact. So it is hardly surprising that when demonstrators began marching through a residential neighborhood in Kenosha chanting and threatening people in the dead of night, one participant would choose to scrawl “Free Palestine” with a can of paint in the driveway of the Beth Hillel Temple.

Should such incidents influence American Jewish attitudes towards the BLM movement or impact black-Jewish relations?

No matter what is done by BLM marchers or said in the platform promulgated by the movement to support intersectional critiques of Israel and backing for BDS, there is nothing that will shake the overall Jewish commitment to the cause of social justice and equal rights. Despite well-founded concerns about the BLM movement itself, sympathy and support for efforts to fight to save black lives and to create a more just society will always have overwhelming Jewish support.

Still, Jewish groups can and must make clear to their African-American counterparts that they will not accept a situation in which anti-Zionist agitation, which is inherently anti-Semitic and often threatening to Jews, is tolerated—let alone encouraged. Where insults and threats happen, violence often follows, as we saw last year in the spate of anti-Semitic attacks on Orthodox Jews in the Greater New York area by African-Americans.

Yet just as concerns about racism do not justify violence or attacks on property, there should also be a clear understanding that acceptance of anti-Semitic lies about Israel or its American supporters cannot be tolerated. Those who allow themselves to be so taken up by the outrage propping up the BLM movement to rationalize or excuse vandalism like “Free Palestine” must realize that this undermines that cause. It also obligates Jews and those who claim to speak for them to stand against their efforts.

Melanie Phillips: The free world's craven and hypocritical fifth column

Even now, the British government is obsessed with meeting the Palestinians' demands; even now, it is perpetuating the falsehood that Israel is not legally entitled to apply its sovereignty to the disputed territories.

The prime minister, Boris Johnson, couched his tepid welcome for the United Arab Emirates' historic decision to normalize relations with Israel as a welcome for Israel's suspension of its sovereignty plan.

Raab reportedly came to Jerusalem to try to persuade Israel to drop this plan altogether. Quite apart from their malice and shamelessness, the Brits simply haven't grasped that the issue for the region is no longer the Palestinians (as if it ever was). It's now Iran.

It is fear of Iran that fueled the UAE deal. The Gulf states understand that they need Israel and the United States to neutralize the threat of Iranian regional hegemony. And they are deeply concerned that if Joe Biden becomes president, he will become Obama mark two, reinstating the JCPOA and again paving the way for an Iranian nuclear bomb with international approval.

Clearly, this concern is shared in Jerusalem, so much so that it's prompting some to wonder whether Israel will attack Iran before November's election.

Trump's resumed sanctions have weakened the regime. The assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the strategic genius of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps' Quds Force, was a blow from which it has not recovered. There also has been a series of unexplained explosions in Iran's sensitive weapons infrastructure.

So there's never been a more promising opportunity to deliver a decisive blow against the regime, preferably by reimposing draconian sanctions. But there's also never been such a dangerous time, with rising tensions and increasing Iran-backed attacks across both the Lebanese and Gaza borders – and with this wounded regime perhaps determined, if it believes it is indeed going down, to take Israel with it.

Such a time demands a unified resolve among those trying to stop this evil. And standing up against it are the United States, Israel, and the Gulf states.

But on the other side stand the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, supporting Russia and China in shoring up a regime that has waged a 40-year war against the West, intends to wipe Israel off the map, and is getting ever closer to possessing the nuclear weapons that it thinks will enable it to do so.

Britain, France, and Germany now risk becoming a shocking fifth column in the defense of the free world.

The End of the UAE Boycott Is a Blow to BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel suffered a major blow this weekend, when the UAE revoked its 1972 decree to boycott the State of Israel. Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, effectively tore up the decree as part of the nascent Abraham Accord signed with Israel.

Even though Israel has powered through the Arab boycott — becoming a regional economic superpower — the UAE’s symbolic move is a message in a bottle: we are open to Israel for business. The end of the boycott effectively implies normalization of trade and commerce between the two nations. UAE citizens, in other words, may soon find “Bamba” — an Israeli snack food — in their supermarkets.

This, of course, is an affront to the traditional mandate of most Arab nations since Israel’s inception, if not before. The Khartoum Resolution of 1967 set the stage for a steadfast political and economic boycott of Israel. It was at this summit, following Israel’s shocking victory in the Six-Day War, that the Arab League declared the now infamous “Three Nos”: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.

The boycott unified Arab states in the region and at the United Nations. Anti-Israel resolutions intensified and became the norm. But Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt in 1979 and then with Jordan in 1994 weakened the Arab alliance — and with it, its boycott. Still, there was no love lost between Israel and its new “friends.” It was a cold peace, and trade and commerce between them was minimal.

The boycott movement re-intensified with the failure of the Oslo Accords and the onset of Palestinian terrorism against the Jewish state.

Terror failed to bring down Israel. The Palestinian leadership turned to promoting an intensive defamation and boycott campaign in an attempt to criminalize Israel, called BDS. The campaign was linked to labeling Israel an “apartheid state,” and it falsely drew parallels with apartheid-era South Africa. Across the West, students on university campuses lobbied for BDS and tried deceiving the international community by calling Israel a racist state.

Anti-Israel meme: "Settlers deliberately running over sheep"

The Hamas-linked Palestinian Information Center "reports":

A Palestinian shepherd survived on Sunday evening when a Jewish settler rammed his car into a herd of sheep in an area near Yatta town in southern al-Khalil, south of the occupied West Bank.

The shepherd, Ayed al-Shawahin, said that a settler from the illegal settlement of Ma’on accelerated his car and tried to run him over along with his own sheep.

He added that two sheep died and at least 10 others suffered injuries in the vehicular attack.

Let's think about this for two seconds. A Jewish "settler" deliberately aiming his car at a bunch of sheep would severely damage the car - but he supposedly hates Palestinians so much that he is willing to pay the thousands of dollars of damage to his vehicle just to run over a few sheep?

It turns out this is this a popular meme that Palestinians have been making up.

The claim was made in May with a similar story of an Israeli "settler" deliberately running over sheep in a field.

I see also a claim from 2016 of a "settler" killing 25 sheep (!) with his car, a 2019 claim of killing 12 sheep and injuring 18 more, and B'Tselem parroted the claims without any verification last year.

Not one of these claims was accompanied with photos of the dead sheep, which is remarkable since everyone has a camera on their mobile phones.

There seems to be one exception: earlier this monthth is photo popped up on social media, also seemingly originating from the Palestinian Information Center Facebook account, with the claim that a Jew had deliberately run over these sheep.

It looks more like a bad traffic accident, and there is no evidence in the photo that this was caused by an Israeli. Oddly, this story did not seem to make it into any Palestinian media like the official Wafa news agency which parrots all the bizarre claims, which again makes this photo seem to be of an accident that was relabeled as a deliberate attack.

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Does the UAE/Israel agreement allow Jewish worship on the Temple Mount?

In Palestine reports:

Normalisation of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) could have significant impacts on the sensitive status of Al-Aqsa Mosque, a report by Israeli NGO Terrestrial Jerusalem has warned.

The report challenged the wording in reference to Al-Aqsa in a joint statement by US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, on 13 August.

The statement, which has been condemned by Palestinians across the political spectrum, says that “all Muslims who come in peace may visit and pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque, and Jerusalem’s other holy sites should remain open for peaceful worshippers of all faiths”.

After the 1967 war, Israel and Jordan, the custodian of Al-Haram al-Sharif compound, agreed that while Jews are allowed access to the site, they are not allowed to pray there.

That status quo has withstood many challenges since.

However, Terrestrial Jerusalem, an organisation that tracks developments in Jerusalem that could impact political processes or spark violence, argues that the terminology used in the joint statement is an intentional attempt to open up the Temple Mount for Jewish prayer and ultimately change the status quo.

“It is not too late to insist that this wording be removed and that there be a renewed commitment, unambiguous in its clarity, by both Israel and the United States to the traditional interpretation of the status quo, and specifically regarding Jewish prayer on the Mount,” the report said.

Al-Aqsa, the third-holiest site in Islam, is housed in the 14-hectare Al-Haram al-Sharif compound (Noble Sanctuary), known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

The joint statement, the report said, speaks of access to “Al-Aqsa Mosque,” rather than Al-Haram al-Sharif, and while Israel defines Al-Aqsa as the structure of the mosque, Muslims define it as the entire esplanade of Al-Haram al-Sharif.

“Consequently, according to Israel (and apparently to the United States), anything on the Mount that is not the structure of the mosque is defined as ‘one of Jerusalem’s other holy sites’, and open to prayer by all and open to prayer by all – including Jews.”

The NGO might be right - but for different reasons than they say.

The quoted sentence in the joint statement by the US, UAE and Israel is " As set forth in the Vision for Peace, all Muslims who come in peace may visit and pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque, and Jerusalem’s other holy sites should remain open for peaceful worshippers of all faiths."

There is nothing in that statement that says that Muslims cannot visit and pray throughout the entire Temple Mount complex, so there is nothing that the UAE would object to. Every Friday, especially during Ramadan, the entire Temple Mount is filled with over a hundred thousand Muslim worshippers outside the Al Aqsa mosque building. No one is advocating that this should change.

The reference to the Trump peace plan is what makes this statement interesting, though.

The Trump Vision for Peace seemingly contradicts itself, first saying that the status quo on the Temple Mount should remain but then saying that non-Muslims should be able to pray at the site:

Given this commendable record for more than half a century, as well as the extreme sensitivity regarding some of Jerusalem’s holy sites, we believe that this practice should remain, and that all of Jerusalem’s holy sites should be subject to the same governance regimes that exist today. In particular the status quo at the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif should continue uninterrupted.
Jerusalem’s holy sites should remain open and available for peaceful worshippers and tourists of all faiths. People of every faith should be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, in a manner that is fully respectful to their religion, taking into account the times of each religion’s prayers and holidays, as well as other religious factors.

Perhaps the Trump plan was not self-contradictory, because by the time it was written Jews had already been arranging ad-hoc prayers with a quorum for at least a year without incident and that could be considered part of the status quo that the Trump vision is referring to.

Terrestrial Jerusalem is unhappy that Jews are routinely praying on the Temple Mount without incident. That undermines its entire argument that allowing Jewish prayer will result in violence and riots, as well as their immoral position that Muslims threatening violence gives them veto power over Jewish rights.

Of course, to normal people, the idea of Jews praying on their holiest site while not disrupting the prayers of any Muslims should be considered quite fair and uncontroversial, even desirable. Terrestrial Jerusalem and its founder Daniel Seidemann are saying that Jews should not have basic human rights, rights that are part of international conventions. How sick is that?

Terrestrial Jerusalem's fear-mongering and insisting that Jews should never have the right to worship in their most sacred site - and that the antisemitic Waqf should have control of the entire Mount, meaning that Jews couldn't even visit - is proof that even Jewish groups have no problem with holding antisemitic positions under the mask of "peace."

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08/31 Links Pt1: Kushner: We Don't Seek to Isolate the Palestinians But We Won't Reward Bad Behavior; Netanyahu: Israel Is Holding Many More Secret Talks with Arab States on Normalizing Ties

From Ian:

Netanyahu: We have invited the UAE delegation to Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday evening that Israel invited the United Arab Emirates (UAE) delegation to Israel to be "welcomed on a red carpet, as well," following the arrival of the Israeli and US delegations in Abu Dhabi.

Israel will one day be recognized and make peace with the rest of the Middle East, Netanyahu said. "There are many things I cannot tell you, but I am sure you will find out in time," Netanyahu said, suggesting that Israel is currently in talks with other Arab states.

"I felt an immense pride," Netanyahu said after seeing the Israeli flags waving when the Israeli and US delegations landed in Abu Dhabi on Monday. "This is a new age in our history."

Netanyahu further spoke on the school year, which begins on Tuesday and has been a subject of much debate due to coronavirus regulations, and stated that a final decision on the operation of the school year will be reached by the end of the day.

Flight 971 from Israel to the #UAE has just landed at @AUH in #AbuDhabi 🇮🇱✈️🇦🇪 pic.twitter.com/q1GutmutC1
— Israel ישראל (@Israel) August 31, 2020

Israel-UAE flight lands safely in Abu Dhabi, F-35 talks to be held

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trusts US President Donald Trump not to endanger Israel’s security, White House Special Adviser Jared Kushner said on Monday, aboard the first-ever direct El Al flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu and the president will discuss that at some point,” Kushner said, when asked about the possible sale of F-35 stealth jets to the UAE, which is controversial in Israel.

Kushner said that Trump can be trusted to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge, but that the US also has a decades-long defense partnership with the UAE.

“I’m sure Mr. Netanyahu sees the opportunities coming from this relationship,” he added.

As for the first Israeli flight over Saudi Arabia, Kushner said the Saudis are “very gracious,” and that the flight is “a manifestation of what is possible in the Middle East.”

“We can take it as a sign,” Kushner said. “It’s an encouragement for this progress.”

Netanyahu radioed in a message to the plane while it was flying over Saudi Arabia.

Responding to questions as to which Middle Eastern countries may make peace with Israel next, Kushner chuckled, saying: “I know the people in Israel well, and when there’s an accomplishment, they say what’s next. I’m going to ask the Israeli people for just one day...let’s take a moment to celebrate.”

The Historic First Israel-UAE Flight, named the 'Peace Plane', Takes Off

Historic First Flight From Israel to UAE Lands in Abu Dhabi, Kushner Addresses Media

‘Join us’ in peace, Kushner urges region, as El Al flight brings Israelis to UAE

Stepping off the first ever direct Israeli flight to the United Arab Emirates on Monday afternoon, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner hailed the start of peace between Israel and the UAE and urged the rest of the region and the world to “join us.”

Kushner flew on an El Al plane as part of a joint US and Israeli delegation that also included US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and the head of Israel’s National Security Council Meir Ben-Shabbat. The flight, which saw the plane travel through Saudi Arabian airspace — another first — came in the wake of a US-brokered normalization of ties between Israel and the UAE, announced on August 13.

On the tarmac Kushner gave a short speech, thanking Mohammed bin Zayed, the UAE’s de facto ruler, as well as Saudi Arabia, for allowing the Israeli plane to fly over its airspace.

“Mohammed bin Zayed is truly leading the new Middle East,” he said. “The Middle East is filled with brilliant, industrious, tolerant and innovative people, and the future belongs to them,” he added. “I ask everyone today to join us in celebrating this peace, and to help us expand it throughout the region and the entire world.”

He quipped that officials onboard wanted the plane to fly faster so they could get to their destination sooner to celebrate the normalized ties. “While this peace is forged by its leaders it is overwhelmingly desired by its people,” he said.

Kushner slammed what he said were the few who oppose the Israel-UAE deal. “They exploit division to maintain power,” he said.

In response to a question from a reporter, Kushner said the US has done a lot to help the Palestinians reach peace, but they are not ready. “We can’t want peace more than they want peace,” he said. “When they are ready, the whole region is very excited to help lift them up and help move them forward. But they can’t be stuck in the past.”

Of Course Anti-Zionism is Antisemitic (American Zionism)

Once the exclusive domain of the far-right and far-left, the expression “anti-Zionism is not antisemitic” has crept into the mainstream. We hear it all the time on social media from athletes to politicians, from journalists to “influencers.” Most surprising is that the expression has even made its way into the vernacular of liberal, progressive Jews, going so far as to claim that not only is anti-Zionism not antisemitic, but “conflating Zionism and Judaism” is what’s really antisemitic, disregarding that Zionism is a core belief for the vast majority of Jews around the world. So, is anti-Zionism antisemitic, or isn’t it? Before we can answer that question, we need to define what antisemitic means and what anti-Zionism means, two concepts that are far more complex than they appear.

If you ask most people what antisemitic means, they would answer that it is the hatred of Jews, and they would be correct...if you were talking about a person doing the hating. A person can hate Jews. But when you are talking about an idea, hatred of Jews doesn’t make much sense. Ideas don’t hate, people hate. For example, if there was a law that Jews could not attend school, the law does not hate Jews. The law discriminates against Jews. So, when we talk about ideas, and anti-Zionism is an idea, antisemitic means “discriminatory against Jews.”

Antisemitic – Discriminatory against Jews.

The terms Zionism and anti-Zionism are much more difficult to define. Many people who claim to be anti-Zionist struggle just to explain what Zionism is. You will hear definitions that are all over the place. Nearly all of them are wrong, and many of them are downright offensive. To understand Zionism, let’s consider the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah or The Hope, which was inspired by a Jewish poem from the 19^th century titled Tikvatenu by Naftali Herz Imber and revised by Dr. Yehuda Leib Matmon-Cohen. Hatikvah proclaims that that the two-thousand-year hope of the Jewish people is “to be a free nation in our home,” with home meaning the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, the Land of Israel. That is the essence of Zionism. To put it more simply, it means the Jewish nation is afforded the same rights as any other similar nation of people, which includes a right to a home, just like Indians have a home, and Poles have a home and Arabs have many homes. Anti-Zionism denies that right to the Jewish nation and only the Jewish nation – to live as a free people in their nation state. Since the state of Israel already exists, it also means seeking the destruction of the nation state of the Jewish people while not seeking the destruction of any other nation state of any other people. When is the last time you heard a large section of the population lobby for the destruction of a country other than Israel – not a government but an entire country?

Anti-Zionism - denying the Jewish nation the same rights as any other similar nation of people

Even with those definitions, it can still be hard for some people to wrap their heads around how anti-Zionism is antisemitic. To better understand, let’s look at another instance where a group of people are denied a right not denied to a similar group of people – gay marriage. For a long time, the homosexual community was denied the right to marry (and in many places they still are) - a right granted to the heterosexual community. A person may oppose same sex marriage for any number of reasons, religion being the most common. The person may not hate gay people, but the idea is surely anti-gay. It’s hard to argue that not allowing gay people to marry when straight people are allowed to marry isn’t discriminatory against homosexuals. Ironically, the very same people that will argue anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitic will be the ones who shout loudest that denying same sex couples the right to marry for any reason is anti-gay.

You may be saying to yourself, “Wait a second, I hear liberal Jews all the time identify as anti-Zionist and say that anti-Zionism is not antisemitic. Gay people never opposed gay marriage.” That’s not true, actually. During the height of the gay marriage debate in the early 2010s, you could hear or read many stories of gay people who opposed gay marriage for one reason or another. Here are two examples: The Gay People against Gay Marriage and I’m Gay and I Oppose Same-Sex Marriage. It’s important to note that those in the gay community who oppose gay marriage don’t necessarily hate homosexuals (although they might), but there can be no doubt that their position on gay marriage discriminates against homosexuals and that opposition is anti-gay. In the same way, Jews who oppose Zionism and want to see the dissolution of the state of Israel don’t necessarily hate Jews (although they might), but there can be no doubt that opposing the right for Jews to have a state like all other similar nations of people is discriminatory against Jews and that position is antisemitic. The same rationale applies to all people who are anti-Zionist. The person may not hate Jews, but the idea is discriminatory against Jews and thus antisemitic (a large portion of people who identify as anti-Zionist also happen to be anti-Semites or at least hold antisemitic views which drives their anti-Zionism).

What about the argument that “conflating Zionism and Judaism” is antisemitic? First, let’s define Judaism. Judaism put simply is the religion of the Jewish people. It is not the religion of every single Jew, some Jews do not practice Judaism while others may be atheists, but rather the religion of the nation of Jews. It can also be called an ethnoreligion.

Judaism – the religion of the Jewish people.

Considering the definition of Zionism – the longing to be a free nation in the Jewish home – and Judaism – the religion of the Jewish people – it is hard to see how longing to be a free nation in the Jewish home in anyway discriminates against the religion of the Jews. It seems to be quite the opposite. In order for the Jewish people to be a free nation in their home it would imply that part of that freedom would include the ability to practice their religion openly and safely, something that has not been the case throughout Jewish history in nearly every land where they lived as a minority. Even when replacing Judaism for a Jew, an idea for a person, it is still hard to see how Jews longing to be a free nation in the Jewish home is hateful to any Jews or discriminatory against that Jew. No one is forcing them to live in that home. Is it because the home founded by Jews, made up of a majority of Jews, and who are able to live free of religious & ethnic persecution as Jews, uses the word “Jewish,” as in Jewish state, that they think discriminates against them? Is the website Christian Mingle anti-Christian? Because some Christians do not want to date other Christians does that mean the site is discriminating against them because the site uses the word Christian? Since they don’t see a need for Christian Mingle, and they themselves are Christian, does it mean the site has no right to exist? The answer to all those questions is clearly no. But would trying to shut down Christian Mingle for any of those reasons, while having no problem with JDate or BlackCupid or Muslima, be anti-Christian? Sure. So why is okay for so many people when they apply the same exact logic to Jews and Israel?

The argument that “by conflating Zionism and Jews you are causing antisemitism” really tells more about the people that “become” antisemitic than the relationship between Zionism and Jews. Notwithstanding the fact that the people who make that statement have to jump through many hoops and unquestioningly accept many far-fetched stories to feel that the policies of the state of Israel are irredeemable, even if they were true it would still be wrong to hate people that have nothing to do with those actions, other than sharing an ethnic background and feeling a connection to that land. And that response is not applied to any other people on the planet. It is exclusively reserved for Jews. People do not say “by conflating Iran and Iranian-Americans you are causing anti-Persian racism.” Have you heard of anti-Persian racism in America based on the actions of the Iranian government? Have you heard of anti-Persian racism in America at all? For a person to hate an Iranian because something the Iranian government did thousands of miles away, they would have had to hated Iranians before those actions. The actions become an excuse to justify their hatred. You don’t see that with Iranians, or any other people. You only see that with Jews. Has there ever been an anti-Israel protest that did not include antisemitism? Let’s look at an example were the actions of a distant government were the catalyst for creating hate for an ethnic group. Consider America during World War 2. After Pearl Harbor, discrimination against Japanese Americans increased, including against many people who were born in America and had no direct connection with Japan. Was conflating Japan and Japanese Americans what caused the racism? Of course not. Was the racism any more legitimate because of the actions of the Japanese government? Would anyone say that Japanese Americans caused the racism or brought it upon themselves by being proud of their Japanese heritage or even having a Japanese flag? Racism caused racism, nothing else. Conflating Zionism and Jews does not cause antisemitism. Antisemitism causes antisemitism.

So, is a person who is an anti-Zionist necessarily an anti-Semite? No, but they most likely are. Their anti-Zionism, however, of course is antisemitic.

Hatikvah (The Hope)

As long as in the heart within,

The Jewish soul yearns,

And toward the eastern edges, onward,

An eye gazes toward Zion.

Our hope is not yet lost,

The hope that is two thousand years old,

To be a free nation in our land,

The Land of Zion, Jerusalem.

When looking at classically antisemitic essays in Arabic news sites, Jordan has far more of them then all other Arab countries combined.

There is a fair amount of antisemitism in Iraqi media, and Algeria will publish some. Most Arab countries are sensitive to charges of antisemitism and will stick with writing about Israel and Zionism to avoid that accusation.

But the media in Jordan - a supposedly moderate, Western-oriented state at peace with Israel - is virulently antisemitic.

I gave an example only yesterday of a prolific Jordanian writer for several major newspapers publishing an article calling for the expulsion of nearly all the Jews in Israel. There is no fear from Jordanian writers of crossing the antisemitism line - no one outside myself and MEMRI bother to mention their hate.

Today's example comes from Abdul Hamid Al-Hamshari writing in JordanZad,

The article isn't too innovative; it claims that Freemasons are Zionists who are planning to take over the world.

It is in fact a sadistic movement whose main goals are to destroy religions and values, and to spread corruption in all its moral, economic and social aspects, through its multi-behavioral mafias, such as the human trafficking mafia and arms trafficking. Trafficking in doping and drugs, manipulating global stock exchanges through which it was able to destroy the economies of countries and bankrupt those who do not walk in their orbit and lead matters on the stage of world events, in order to serve the foundations of the global Zionist movement that seeks to destroy the international community and spread corruption in it and fuel conflict between nations and different countries, small and large. It plays its distinctive role in exploiting what is happening in the Arab region in terms of local and regional conflicts and foreign interference, such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Sudan, in preparation for the establishment of a Jewish government that controls the whole world according to well-drawn plans and programs that take into account secrecy and covenants.

Once again, I point out that the antisemitic article is not the real story. The real story is the absolute absence of any Jordanian writer, politician or pundit to call out these idiots as the bigots and ignoramuses they are. Millions of Jordanians have their minds poisoned by the world's oldest hatred and no one - even Western-educated Jordanians, such as the King himself - is at all bothered by this.

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The Mufti’s seminal antisemitic pamphlet

From “Islamic Antisemitism: Characteristics, Origins, and Current Effects” by

Matthias Küntzel in the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs:

A thirty-one-page booklet in Arabic entitled Islam and Jewry, published in Cairo on August 18, 1937, served as an effective propaganda tool. ¹¹ As far as we know, this publication is the first written evidence of Islamic antisemitism. In 1938, the Berlin-based publishing house Junker und Dünnhaupt released it under the title Islam–Judaism: Call of the Grand Mufti to the Islamic World in 1937, explicitly attributing that screed to al-Husseini for the first time. ¹² In subsequent editions released by the Nazis during World War II, the Mufti continued to be named as the author. Whether al-Husseini was in fact the sole initiator and author of this pamphlet remains an open question.

While classical Islamic literature treats Muhammad’s struggle with the Jews as a minor episode in the life of the Prophet, now “Muhammad’s conflict with the Jews [was being] portrayed as a central theme in his career and their enmity to him given a cosmic significance.” ¹³ The anti-Jewish verses of the Qur’an were generalized and considered valid for the twentieth century. Finally, for the first time, religious tropes were combined with elements of conspiracy theory. Since Muhammad’s days, according to Islam and Jewry, the Jews have constantly been trying to “destroy Muslims.” The brochure concludes:

[T]he verses from the Qur’an and hadith prove to you that the Jews have been the bitterest enemies of Islam and continue to try to destroy it. Do not believe them, they only know hypocrisy and cunning. Hold together, fight for the Islamic thought, fight for your religion and your existence! Do not rest until your land is free of the Jews. ¹⁴

Here, the Muslims are presented as eternal victims in order to legitimize new forms of aggression more reminiscent of the policies of the Nazis than the attitudes of the Prophet. In September 1937, days after its publication, the booklet reached a wide audience through its distribution at the National Arab Congress in Bludan, a health resort in Syria, fifty kilometers northwest of Damascus.

The Spread of Islamic Antisemitism

This first pan-Arab congress, held from September 8–10, 1937, was organized by al-Husseini. He also “provided the funds to rent the two largest hotels in Damascus and Bludan and grant a large number of penniless participants rooms without charge.” ¹⁵ No wonder, then, that the congress attracted 411 attendees, although only 250 were allowed into the hall of the Grand Hotel of Bludan, where the congress took place. The Mufti could not attend because he was in hiding in Jerusalem after a failed July 1937 attempt by the British authorities in Palestine to arrest him. ¹⁶ In October 1937, he fled to French-controlled Beirut. Nevertheless, the delegates named him honorary president of the assembly.

The congress was not a public event; even newspaper reporters were not allowed inside. However, Colonel Gilbert MacKereth, the British consul in Damascus at the time, arranged for a person in his confidence to attend. Based on the reports of the spy, MacKereth described the event as “a manifestation of Judeophobia.” He referred to “a startlingly inflammatory pamphlet entitled ‘The Jews and Islam,’ which was handed to each member of the congress on his arrival. It had been printed in Egypt.” Annex V of MacKereth’s memorandum, written by his confidante, bears the title “Description of a violently anti-Jewish Pamphlet printed in Cairo for the Palestine Defense Committee there, which was given to each of the persons attending the Bludan congress.” The summary of the pamphlet’s contents presented in an annex to the report leaves us with no doubt that he was referring to the Cairo publication of August 1937. ¹⁷

The Nazis viewed Islam and Jewry as an especially valuable tool. During the war, Berlin printed and disseminated this text nearly unchanged in several languages and editions. For example, there is proof that in 1942, the Spanish authorities confiscated some 1,500 copies of “a German propaganda pamphlet in the Arabic language called ‘Islam and the Jews’” that had been sent to the German consulate in Tangiers. According to the German Foreign Ministry, these brochures were to have been distributed “unobtrusively” in Spanish Morocco. “Unobtrusive” is the key word here. The Muslims would have laughed at an SS officer openly distributing an Arabic text pretending to speak in the name of Islam. But this was indeed what was happening. The Nazis disguised themselves as Muslims and falsified Islamic scripture so as to lend credibility to their murderous hatred of Jews.

The Spanish authorities responsible for Tangiers, however, frustrated this plan. They were of the opinion that “the distribution of such propaganda directed against the Jewish elements in Spanish Morocco could not be permitted” and had all copies confiscated and destroyed. ¹⁸ In 1943, another 10,000 copies of the same pamphlet were printed in Zagreb, capital of Germany’s Croatian satellite, this time in Serbo-Croatian (Islam I Zidovstvo), and distributed in Bosnia and Croatia. ¹⁹

Though the precise details of the pamphlet’s dissemination are unknown, Islam and Jewry might well be regarded as the forerunner to Sayyid Qutb’s notorious text Our Struggle with the Jews of the 1950s. David Motadel regards Islam and Jewry as “one of the most significant examples of this kind of religiously charged anti-Jewish propaganda dispersed among Muslims,” ²⁰ while historian Jeffrey Herf deems it “one of the founding texts of the Islamist tradition, one that defined the religion of Islam as a source of hatred of the Jews.” ²¹

The timing of the publication of Islam and Jewry, in August 1937, is also revealing. It proves that Islamic antisemitism took hold when the flight and expulsion of the Palestinian Arabs (1948) and Israeli rule over Gaza and the West Bank (1967) were still in the distant future. This fact alone contradicts the widespread assumption that Islamic antisemitism developed as a response to alleged Israeli misdeeds. It was not the behavior of the Zionists that prompted the publication of this hostile text, but rather the fact that a first attempt had been made in the summer of 1937 to agree on a two-state plan. Islam and Jewry accordingly culminates in the following call: “Do not tolerate the Partition Plan, for Palestine has been an Arab country for centuries and shall remain Arabic forever.” This pamphlet was intended to theologize the territorial conflict between Jews and Arabs in order to destroy the first important attempt at a compromise—which had initially been met with a degree of approval from some moderate Arabs.

The antisemitic Mufti of Jerusalem is, of course, an icon for Palestinians today. His influence remains.

08/30 Links: Netanyahu: Palestinians can’t ‘veto’ Israel-Arab peace; Why aren’t pro-peace voices celebrating the UAE-Israel deal?; Families of three murdered teenagers sue Hamas for over NIS 500m.

From Ian:

On eve of 1st UAE flight, PM claims Palestinians can’t ‘veto’ Israel-Arab peace

Israel’s normalization of ties with the United Arab Emirates will pave the way for treaties with more Arab countries since it has removed the “Palestinian veto” on peace between the Jewish state and the Arab world, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, as he hosted senior American officials who brokered the historic deal between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi.

Netanyahu spoke Sunday during a press conference alongside US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner and US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, a day before a US-Israeli delegation including Kushner is set to take the first-ever Israeli commercial flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi to put the Israeli-UAE normalization deal into practice.

Kushner echoed the assertion that other Arab and Muslim states would make peace with Israel and said that Trump, his father-in-law, was “writing a script for a new Middle East.”

The August 13 Israel-UAE diplomatic breakthrough “will pave the way for other countries to normalize their ties with Israel,” Netanyahu said. “I think for too long the Palestinians have had a veto on peace. Not only between Israel and the Palestinians but between Israel and the Arab world.”

“If we have to wait for the Palestinians, we would have to wait forever. No longer,” he said. The Palestinians, when they realize that their veto has dissipated, “will be hard pressed to remain outside the community of peace,” he added.

Palestinian leaders have sharply criticized the UAE for agreeing to normalize relations with Israel, calling the move despicable and a betrayal.

Recalling that Kushner had been ridiculed for suggesting this process could happen, Netanyahu said the critics have been proved “dead wrong.” “We know that reality has changed,” Netanyahu said, “because we have changed it.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, Jared Kushner, Robert C. O'Brien Address Media in Jerusalem

JCPA: The Agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates

For the first time, there is a “warm peace” between Israel and an Arab state, where both sides see the mutual advantage from their scientific, economic, cultural, and strategic cooperation.

In contrast, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians maintained “cold relations” with Israel that were meant to extract the maximum concessions from Israel while minimizing normalization with it.

With this diplomatic achievement, Israel is taking a huge step towards one of its long-term strategic goals – integration into the region.

The pragmatic Arab camp members feel that the radicals are weaker. Israel is perceived as a powerful country that dares to act against the extremists and will not change its position.

The agreement is a historic achievement for Israel, the UAE, the United States, and the pragmatic camp. It creates a potential for further achievements at the regional level and in the Palestinian context, as progress continues in the normalization process.

Boycotting Israel was never about Palestinians–it was about Jews

This weekend, the UAE announced that it will no longer adhere to the Arab League boycott of Israel.

AP reported:

Saturday's announcement formally eliminates a 1972 law on the UAE's books, since just after the Emirates's formation.

That law mirrored the widely held stance by Arab nations at that time that recognition of Israel would only come after the Palestinians had an independent state of their own.

NPR similarly reported:

The decree formally ends a 1972 law establishing a boycott, a common policy towards Israel in the Arab world for its treatment of Palestinians.

This is historical revisionism.

The original text of the 1945 Arab League boycott resolution stated:

Products of Palestinian Jews are to be considered undesirable in Arab countries. They should be prohibited and refused as long as their production in Palestine might lead to the realization of Zionist political aims.

The only use of the word “Palestinian” was referring to the Jews who were being boycotted!

When the boycott was announced, not one Arab stated that they were concerned with the rights of Arabs in Palestine. From the New York Times, December 4, 1945:

And when Arabs gathered in British Mandate Palestine to deepen the boycott, its antisemitic nature was made even more explicit (January 10, 1946):

The boycott was always a purely antisemitic idea, and it remains so. Which makes Hanan Ashrawi’s shocked reaction to the UAE move quite interesting:

Arabs still publicly demand the expulsion of Jews from Israel in major newspapers

Ad Dustour is a Jordanian newspaper that has been publishing since 1966. It is one of the top 100 websites in Jordan and strongly supports King Abdullah.

Yesterday, one of its columnists called for the expulsion of nearly all Jews who live in Israel.

Khaled Al-Zubaidi is the author of an article in Ad Dustour titled “They have no future in our region.” Guess who he is talking about? Zubaidi, who also writes for Ammon News and other Jordanian media, claims that before 1948, Jews and Arabs lived in peace in Palestine. This is a lie, of course – I recently documented the deadly attack and rapes of Arabs against Jews in Hebron in 1834, to give but one example.

He ends the article by saying that all Jews whose families arrived after modern Zionism was founded must be forcibly expelled.

It is certain that 72 years after the Nakba of Palestine, and despite the intensification of the oppression by the enemies, all the demographic, economic, and vital data affirm that the Zionist entity has no future in Palestine and the Arab region. Netanyahu’s place is in Poland or in Boston, from where he came, and all those that are similar to him know their natural place.

Those Jews who have lived among us for a long time have the same rights and obligations that we have, but the foreigner’s fate will be harsher than what they think, since they have no future in our region.

Notice that none of the Arabs who make this demand ever say the same about the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who moved to Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who are now considered “native.”

This is not an anomalous position in Jordan – this is mainstream thinking. It is assumed by in intelligentsia as well as the ordinary citizen that one day nearly all the Jews in Israel will be forced out, and that this is a moral imperative.

This call to ethnically cleanse Jews from the Middle East caused no outrage or protest from the Arab world. This public call for a massive violation of human rights is likewise being ignored by the “human rights” community and by those who claim that their opposition to Zionism is based on moral principles.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

An Arab anti-normalization cartoon that Zionists would love

At Al Araby, this cartoon is meant to be derogatory to the Arab world – but it is actually very nice.

Reading from right to left, it says “Previously…” showing an Arab saying NO to reconciliation, NO to recognition and NO to negotiation with Israel, mirroring the “Three Nos” Khartoum Arab League resolution from 1967.

The last frame shows the Arab has changed his tune, with the three instances of the Arabic word “La”, “no”, turned into a Star of David.

08/29 Links: Caroline B. Glick: The Israel-Sunni Arab bloc – the new sheriff; UAE formally abolishes Israel boycott law ahead of delegation’s arrival

From Ian:

Caroline B. Glick: The Israel-Sunni Arab bloc – the new sheriff

In Pompeo's shuttle diplomacy we see the enormity of the administration's achievement.

After the Cold War, Israeli leftists and anti-Israel foreign policy analysts in America claimed that with the superpower contest settled, Israel was no longer a strategic asset to America. The Israeli Left argued that to retain its relevance to America, Israel had to sue for peace with Yasser Arafat on his terms.

Arguably the saddest man in Jerusalem this week was British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab. Blind to the seismic shifts that have occurred, Raab arrived uninvited in Israel's capital, (which Britain still refuses to recognize) to mediate peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

After Britain exited the European Union following the Brexit vote, the Trump administration expected Britain would renew its special alliance with the US and ditch Brussels' anti-American and anti-Israel unified foreign policy. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson didn't get the memo.

Much to Washington's disappointment, the Johnson government has continued to act as a loyal member (or vassal) of the EU. The Johnson government opposes the administration's maximum pressure strategy for dealing with Iran, and even abstained from supporting the US at the Security Council last week.

The British Foreign Office, like the EU and the UN, reacted coldly to the news that Israel and the UAE are normalizing their relations, insisting that the Palestinians must not be ignored, the chimerical "two-state solution" must be upheld at all costs.

Raab met with Pompeo in Jerusalem. While the details of their meeting were not reported, Netanyahu made clear Israel's displeasure at Britain's pro-Iran policies and expressed no interest in Britain's offer to pressure Israel to make unreciprocated concessions to the Palestinians.

The Israeli-Sunni Arab bloc is a stabilizing force in the region because it is an organic alliance. It was not the product of superpower rivalry. It was borne out of common interests that are likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future. The existence of this bloc has enabled Washington rebuild its credibility as a superpower and an ally in the Middle East and advance its Iran policies with or without UN Security Council support.

If Trump is re-elected in November, this stabilizing bloc whose members stand against both Sunni and Shiite jihadists will expand and the circle of formal ties between Israel and the Gulf States will grow. If Trump loses, just as the bloc protected its members against the hostile Obama administration, so it is likely to survive and shield its members from the vagaries of a Biden administration.

UAE formally abolishes Israel boycott law ahead of delegation’s arrival

The president of the United Arab Emirates on Saturday issued a decree abolishing a law boycotting Israel and allowing trade and financial agreements between the two nations, two days before a delegation from Jerusalem was due to arrive in Abu Dhabi in the wake of August 13’s normalization agreement.

The state-run WAM news agency said the move formally ending the boycott came on the orders of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi and the Emirates’ leader.

WAM said the new decree allows Israelis and Israeli firms to do business in the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula. It also allows for the purchase and trade of Israeli goods.

“The decree of the new law comes within the UAE’s efforts to expand diplomatic and commercial cooperation with Israel,” WAM said. It lays out “a roadmap toward launching joint cooperation, leading to bilateral relations by stimulating economic growth and promoting technological innovation.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the move as “an important step in promoting prosperity and peace in the region.”

Already, some Israeli firms had signed deals with Emirati counterparts. But the repeal of the law widens the likelihood of other joint ventures, such as in aviation, banking, and finance.

The decree formally eliminates a 1972 law on the UAE’s books since just after the country’s formation. That law mirrored the widely held stance by Arab nations at that time that recognition of Israel would only come after the Palestinians had an independent state of their own.

Prime Minister Netanyahu:
"I welcome the decision of United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed to cancel the law on boycotting products from Israel and economic contacts with Israelis. This is an important step in promoting prosperity and peace in the region."
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) August 29, 2020

Israel to declare UAE a 'green state' - report

Israel is expected to declare the Untied Arab Emirates a "green state," meaning that Israelis who return from the country will not need to enter home isolation, according to Walla! News.

On Monday, an Israeli delegation led by Meir Ben Shabbat, Head of the National Security Council, will leave for the UAE.

El Al said to ask permission for Israel-UAE flight to cross Saudi airspace

El Al has reportedly asked Saudi Arabia to use its airspace when one of its planes on Monday makes the first-ever commercial passenger flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates, following the countries’ US-brokered agreement to normalize ties.

According to the Israeli news site Ynet on Saturday, the request was relayed on El Al’s behalf by way of the National Security Council and other unspecified mediators. The Saudis have yet to respond.

Earlier this week, The Times of Israel reported that the Foreign Ministry was conducting talks with Saudi Arabia about the flight potentially passing over Saudi airspace, but the matter wasn’t final, according to a source with knowledge of the talks.

On Friday, Israel listed the El Al flight taking off on Monday for Abu Dhabi on the Israel Airports Authority website.

It said the flight would be numbered LY971, a nod to the UAE’s international calling code number. A return flight to Ben Gurion International Airport on Tuesday will be numbered LY972, Israel’s international calling code.

Among those set to be on the flight are White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and several other senior Trump administration officials, who are scheduled to arrive in Israel over the weekend.