Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Sudan's thinking about normalizing relations with Israel

Sky News Arabia surveys Sudan's attitudes towards peace with Israel.

It notes that Khartoum was the warmest capital for the Jews in the Muslim world, bit that all changed in 1967 when it hosted the famous Three No's Conference. Only four years later it nationalized the properties of the Jews, forcing hundreds of them to emigrate in search of a new home, leaving behind families whose name was associated with industry, commerce and art.

In the past year there has been a heated debate about Sudan's relationship with Israel. The Sudanese were surprised when the head of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, met Bibi Netanyahu last February. Since then, the debate about the interests that Khartoum could gain from peace with Israel has been a hot topic, despite Sudan's pro-Palestinian position.

Journalist Al-Nur Hamad views the issue of relations with Israel as a breaking of the psychological barrier that has been preventing Sudan from dealing in a realistic way with Israel, as it has seen in Egypt, Jordan, the UAE and Bahrain. Establishing relationships is, for Hamad, "a major starting blow in the direction of restoring the lost Sudanese identity."

Hamad admits that "Israel has its transgressions, but some other countries have their transgressions, which if Sudan took it as a reason for hostility, then we would find ourselves with a long list of enemies."

While the Palestinian issue has been the focus of Sudanese attention for decades, the vast majority of the new generation of youth seemed indifferent to having a relationship with Israel, and some of them, such as Mahmoud, who is a second-year university student, did not even know the details of the Palestinian issue.

Mahmoud says that "the most important thing for me is for his country to establish foreign relations that achieve the interests that my generation of youth expects."

One of the remaining Jews in Sudan, Abu Bakr Mustafa Israel, was born in the 1990s. He expects peace to open new hopes for his generation of Sudanese Jews, and to restore to them the golden era that his ancestors had in different Sudanese cities, before things turned upside down.

Israel recounts part of his bitterness. He tells Sky News Arabia: “Despite the unique state of tolerance that characterizes the Sudanese society, political changes cast a negative shadow over the overall lives of the remaining Jews in Sudan. My father had to change his name in order to be able to join the Military Academy, and then became a senior officer in the Sudanese army before he retired and died later.

Israel hopes that peace will create a new reality for the future of its children, so that they do not have to change their names in order to enter a job, as their grandfather did before.

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Aiman Dean, known as Ramzi, was a member of Al-Qaeda who turned into an agent for Britain's MI6 and later an author.

He was recently interviewed by Russia's Sputnik where he discussed, among other things, the relationship between Al Qaeda and Hamas.

Arabs always ask why Al Qaeda never attacked Israel directly. The terror group always talks about liberating Al Aqsa and Palestine from the Jews, yet it never appeared to do anything to help.

According to Dean, the reason was because there was a secret agreement between Hamas and Al Qaeda. Hamas asked Al Qaeda not to do any attacks against Israel in exchange for terror training so Hamas terrorists could do the attacks themselves.

In the late 1990s Hamas sent a small number of operatives to Afghanistan to get trained in new sophisticated bomb-making techniques. According to Dean, all the suicide bombings by Hamas from 2000 to 2003 used Al Qaeda technology, where the explosive capacity of bomb belts were doubled and the triggers were changed from electronic, which was error-prone, to a more easily created manual trigger that would explode with only a light blow on the suicide belt.

Dean - almost defensively - added that Al Qaeda was in fact busy targeting Israelis and Jews outside Israel, listing the 2002 synagogue bombing in Ghriba, the 2004 Taba bombings, an attempted anti-aircraft missile attack against an Israeli plane that took off from Kenya that would have killed 300, and the bombing of two synagogues in Istanbul that killed over twenty.

The former terrorist added that the other reason Al Qaeda was not interested in directly attacking Israel and leaving that to Hamas was because "Al-Qaeda was preoccupied with the head of the snake, which is the United States of America."

Both Hamas and Al Qaeda have roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, so none of this is too surprising - except that the only evidence of direct links has been circumstantial up until now. In 2007, Osama Bin Laden cut his ideological support for Hamas and by 2009 Hamas was fighting with Al Qaeda elements in Gaza.

In the Sputnik interview, Dean was asked about what other nations and organizations Al Qaeda cooperated with besides Hamas. "The biggest relationship that existed was with Iran and I say it frankly. Then there was Qatar, and there were also relations with Sudan, and to some extent there was cooperation with Yemeni intelligence, and there was also a relationship to some extent with the Pakistani intelligence," he answered.

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Jewish Voice for Peace tweeted a Twitter thread claiming that the General Mills factory in Atarot "is displacing, exploiting & stifling Palestinians."

The "evidence" given for this is laughable, but Israel-haters don't care much about facts.

What follows is a litany of half truths and selective facts that have nothing to do with the General Mills Pillsbury factory.

Pillsbury opened in Atarot in 2002, just after Israel built its apartheid wall around the whole zone. The wall & its checkpoints, visible from the 160 businesses they encircle, are a constant reminder of how Atarot helps Israel dominate Palestinian lives, livelihoods & land.

The security barrier was build to stop Palestinian suicide bombings that was killing hundreds of Israelis a year, not to show Israel domination over Palestinian lives.

The Pillsbury factory also employs Palestinians, a fact General Mills leaned on in its PR statement after the UN determined that the factory’s operations violate international law. But Palestinian settlement workers endure exceptional exploitation, precarity & restrictions. Because the Atarot Industrial Zone ravaged & suppressed pre-existing Palestinian agriculture & small businesses, local Palestinian workers—often the immediate descendants of the rightful owners of the land—have no choice but to labor in factories like Pillsbury’s.

Palestinians' jobs can be grueling & unsafe—and, under Israel’s apartheid legal system, they often have fewer labor protections, lower wages & negligible benefits compared to Israelis in the same workplace. In an occupation-strangled economy, they accept this to survive.

50% of the Pillsbury plant's employees are Palestinian Arabs. And Palestinians who work in Israeli industrial zones generally make double the salary they could make in their own communities. It isn't like they have no choice - they eagerly choose to work for Israelis.

Are their jobs without worker protections? Israeli law says that they must be afforded the same protections as anyone else. It is true that some Israeli bosses take advantage of some Palestinian workers, but there is no evidence that General Mills does - in fact, General Mills Middle East was named one of the Best Places to Work in Asia.

The chasm between Palestinian & Israeli workers in Atarot has only widened during COVID-19. Ex: due to fear of checkpoint closures—and to union bust—a manager forced Palestinians to sleep in a trash-sorting plant in squalid & infectious conditions while Israelis went home.

I don't know how true that Haaretz article is, but it has nothing to do with General Mills.

Pillsbury increases Atarot’s heavy pollution, which exceeds “permissible levels” 2/3 of the year. Many Palestinian locals have respiratory issues from flour inhalation. One said “when they pour the flour [in outdoor mixers], the flour… overflow[s] into the house.”

Atarot's pollution problems from 2016 all came from cement manufacturers, not flour. Only this year the Ministry of Environmental Protection temporarily closed two factories in Atarot for air pollution - but not General Mills.

As far as the anecdote of Pillsbury flour spilling into houses, this is absurd. There are no houses adjacent to the factories. It was a typical statement that would not be checked by anti-Israel NGOs.

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09/21 Links Pt2: Eugene Kontorovich: International Law for Just One Nation; Thomas Friedman’s Folly; Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Zionist

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: International Law for Just One Nation

Like a drunk looking for his keys under the lamppost, the authors invariably attach great weight to every scrap of evidence in favor of their arguments, while discounting or entirely ignoring contrary evidence. Both authors, for example, give almost conclusive weight to the International Court of Justice’s Advisory 2004 opinion in the Wall case, where the Court opined that territory can be deemed “occupied” even if it had no prior sovereign. But the ICJ opinion was, as the authors are aware, “advisory,” and thus not legally binding. As a formal matter, the ICJ’s opinion deserves no more legal weight than the quality of its legal arguments. On this point, it made none, but rather cited the numerous U.N. resolutions that had said the same thing, all solely in the context of Israel.

In any case, the ICJ opinion was only issued in 2004, further discounting its value, for both legal and sociological reasons. Under basic principles of international law, the law that would govern Israel’s presence in the West Bank is the law as it was understood in 1967, not subsequent interpretations. Moreover, by 2004, and indeed, much earlier, the question of occupation of non-sovereign territory had become entirely synonymous with the question of Israel and the territories; it could hardly be treated as an abstract legal question. On the other hand, both authors entirely ignore the Cession of Vessels and Tugs for Navigation on the Danube case, which was decided before 1967, and would thus state the law as it was when Israel took control of the territories. That case held that the territory that was not under the sovereignty of any state could not become occupied. That means that the West Bank, which was not under any sovereignty when Israel ended Jordanian control, could not be deemed occupied. Dinstein’s failure to acknowledge this precedent, which goes contrary to his conclusions, is a particularly odd lapse given that he cites Danube Tugs as authority for other propositions of occupation law.

Yet even these authors, who largely track the conventional U.N. consensus on these matters, try to take seriously the fact that they are dealing with legal texts. Many readers will be surprised that both authors agree that the broad and undifferentiated treatment of Israeli settlers as “illegal” lacks any basis. In the commonplace understanding, any Jewish presence across the Green Line is ipso facto illegal. This is the view that animates groups such as Peace Now and Btselem, who condemn every individual Jewish-inhabited housing unit. But the authors note there is simply no colorable basis in Art. 49 for such a comprehensive ban: it does not prohibit the nationals of an occupying power from moving to or living in the territory. Rather, it regulates certain actions by occupying powers to move its population there. In particular, it requires acts of “transfer” by the occupying power, a term which the authors interpret sweepingly, but still excluding clearly private actions.

Thus, both authors agree that Israelis who purchase land in private transactions, or move to land they had prior title to, cannot conceivably fall within these prohibitions. Dinstein also points out that “so called ‘outposts’”–settlements established in the face of opposition by the Israeli government–would have to be considered legal under international law, precisely because they are illegal under Israeli law.

Yet neither book takes these points to their logical conclusion. They agree that “transfer” must refer to movements of people caused by official government action, but in practice they interpret causation in a “but for” way, rather than a more direct causation of the kind typically required by criminal prohibitions. That is, to say that “transfer” occurs when Israel makes it possible for its citizens to move to the West Bank, or does not discourage residence there relative to other places, is to interpret a ban on transfer as a requirement of discouragement, which appears nowhere in the convention.

Nonetheless, it is important to note the gap between the somewhat more limited version of the rule conceded by these authors and the absolute ban assumed by the international community and pro-Palestinian NGOs. It is an odd coincidence that the legal interpretation of the obscure Art. 49(6) adopted by so many happens to be entirely congruent with Palestinian political demands and negotiating positions.

Thomas Friedman’s Folly

Friedman, like his newspaper, routinely applied a double standard to Israel (that he imaginatively recast as a “unique double dimension”). He preposterously claimed that when Israel no longer was “judged by standards applied to no other country,” it meant that “something very essential in Israel’s character and the character of the Jewish people has died.” He declined to say what double standards revealed about journalistic integrity.

Returning to the United States as a Times columnist who could lacerate Israel at will, Friedman believed that there was “no hope for peace without a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank.” Yearning for a “total Israeli withdrawal” to pre-1967 lines, he warned that without a two-state solution, “Israel will be stuck with an apartheid-like, democracy-sapping, permanent occupation.” Echoing a trope favored by his colleague Anthony Lewis, he feared that “scary religious nationalist zealots” might lead Israel into the “dark corner” of a South African future of apartheid.

But Friedman’s dark fantasies about Israel unless it obeys his peace proposals reveal nothing more than his frustration that the Jewish state does not heed his advice for a return to its pre-1967 borders. That, of course, would heighten its vulnerability to new waves of Palestinian terrorism. He remains as he was as a Brandeis undergraduate: yearning for Palestinian statehood and furious at Israel for its determination to rebuild a state within its ancient Jewish homeland.

To be sure, Friedman is hardly alone at the New York Times. In an editorial (Sept. 17) celebrating the normalization of relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, the Times reiterated its hackneyed insistence that “a true Middle East peace deal” requires “an accommodation” (a two-state solution) with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. But even a cursory glance at the refusal of Palestinians under Yasser Arafat to accept a peace that would have given them the entire West Bank and Gaza for their own state would suggest otherwise. Thomas Friedman and the New York Times are a perfect match for the blame-Israel-first prize.

David Collier: Canadian research house EKOS spews a twisted anti-Israel survey

Ekos Research Associates is a social and economic research company in Canada run by Frank Graves. They have just put their name to some rather vicious anti-Israel propaganda. Lies, manipulation and EKOS

Long before anyone in the UK knew who I was, I put a comment under a Tony Greenstein blog pointing out a truly glaring factual error. Greenstein’s response was to delete my comment. This type of action speaks volumes and this event was part of my awakening into understanding the real danger these people pose. Who deliberately lies but those that set out to deceive?

Their need to spread lies is the key reason behind their refusal to engage or debate. It is why they block people like me on social media. We have nothing to fear from the truth – they most certainly do.

Which brings us to their methods. One of the more intelligent ways that they spread disinformation is through twisting surveys. They have long understood that if you ask the right question, you will get whatever answer it is you are looking for. A skill they have just put to good use in Canada. According to a recently published survey carried out by EKOS almost every Canadian thinks Israel should be investigated for war crimes:
84%? Almost nothing is ever as high as 84% and certainly not Canadian animosity towards Israel. We know this is not true – so here is how they did it. A story of how Ekos Research Associates put their name to anti-Israel propaganda. The bad, the nasty and the even worse

Ekos Research Associates were commissioned to conduct an online survey on Canadian attitudes towards Israel by three groups – Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV), and the United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine-Israel (UNJPPI).

UJPPI have a FB page with 184 ‘followers’. Their Twitter account has 132 ‘followers’. Their posts and tweets generally remain unsupported. Of their last 15 tweets, two received a single like, the other 13 got none. Their Facebook page is equally dormant. Their blog has numerous outrageous posts, even coming out in support of Linda Sarsour.

Today's Iranian antisemitism

The Tehran Times, which is the "voice of the Islamic revolution," has an article titled “'New world order pledged to Jews' 80 years ago."

The opening paragraph:

Most Zionist diplomacy takes place in secret, through corruption and blackmail (euphemistically called “lobbying”). But sometimes it is deemed appropriate that some statement be written down by some government representative in support of Zionism. The Goyim who write these statements may think them of little consequence, but Zionists know very well how to capitalize on them.

Yes, we have an antisemitic writer here. He gives credit to someone who had written a book called "Mein Side of the Story."

In case you are interested, the main part of the story is based on a forgotten 1940 letter written by Arthur Greenwood, member without portfolio in the British War Cabinet, who wrote to the Jews of the United States that when victory was achieved an effort would be made to create a new world order based on the ideals of "justice and peace." The letter was meaningless - after all, Great Britain did all it could to block a Jewish state - but the words "new world order" make some people go crazy.

Iranian English-language media is one of the few places you can see neo-Nazi literature accepted as normal journalism - and the only reason is that the Iranians and neo-Nazis share a hate of Israel.

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Hamas and Fatah plan to meet in Turkey to discuss - yet again - a unity agreement and having elections, according to reports.

The Secretary of the Central Committee of Fatah, Jibril Rajoub, confirmed that there is a desire to hold general elections soon.

The meeting between Rajoub, representing Fatah, and leaders of Hamas, would be aimed at discussing "joint leadership."

The last major joint meeting was held on September 3 in Beirut.

Rajoub did some remarkable spinning in statements to Palestine TV. Instead of admitting that the Palestinian cause is no longer of interest to much of the Arab world and that the Palestinian leadership can no longer set the agenda for the Arab world at large, he said that for the first time in its history the decisions of the Palestinian Authority have become independent and far from any regional influence or pressure, .

Rajoub claims that legislative elections will be held first, then the presidential elections, and after that the Palestinian National Council (the parliament of the Liberation Organization) will be formed according to agreed mechanisms, without indicating specific dates.

There have been plans for "unity" and elections for over a decade now, and they never pan out.

Palestinian legislative elections were last held in 2006, while the last presidential elections were held in 2005.

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09/21 Links Pt1: The irreligious West doesn't grasp the significance of the Israel peace deal; Israel to UN: Choose between supporting Iran and terror or Israel and peace

From Ian:

Ed Husain: The irreligious West doesn't grasp the significance of the Israel peace deal

When signing the Abraham Accord, the Emirati Foreign Minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, said “with the grace of God, sir” to President Trump. Then, speaking in Arabic, he addressed the Middle East from the White House in which he proclaimed the God of Abraham for love, compassion, hope and prosperity. The prophet Mohamed, a descendant of Abraham, honoured Jews and Christians as believers in the one God of Abraham. This common heritage moves the rug from under the feet of the extremists and the Iranian government. The Jews and Christians are peoples of the Middle East for they are the inheritors of Abraham, too.

The Quran confirms the Jews’ claim to Jerusalem, recognising Joseph, son of Isaac, and the twelve tribes of Israel, while claiming Abraham’s other son, Ishmael, as the ancient father of the Arabs. This deeper history and theology will be key to making the Jewish state acceptable to the world’s 1.8 billions Muslims. And when the radical Muslim mind can accept Jews and Israel, it can stop hating the West and modernity. Israel is therefore our first line of defence. Already, the absence of riots and mass protests in Jakarta, Karachi or Cairo suggests this Abrahamic narrative cannot be easily refuted.

Rather than chase Christians away, the UAE is constructing the Abrahamic Family House, a vast compound housing a church, synagogue and mosque. A new Jewish community is thriving in Abu Dhabi and Dubai with kosher restaurants and food on planes to make Jews feel at home again in the Arabian Gulf. Jordan and Egypt, who also have peace treaties with Israel, are now considering this new model of reclaiming God and Abraham.

For too long, Palestinians and many other Muslims have been fed the falsehood that Jews are outsiders and occupiers. British diplomats and politicians are yet to understand this new zeitgeist, or encourage other Muslim nations to sign up the Abraham Accord. Will they now change course?

Khaled Abu Toameh: Arabs: "Palestinians Repeat the Same Mistakes"

At this pace, Palestinians might wake up one morning to discover that they no longer have any friends in the Arab countries at all.

"The Palestinians failed to establish their state. They failed because they did not want to establish a state. Here I mean the political leaders, some of whom still insist on repeating revolutionary phrases. The establishment of a Palestinian state will be a burden on the Palestinian leaders and will prevent them from practicing corruption.... The Palestinian Authority is no longer suitable to represent the Palestinian people." — Iraqi writer Farouk Youssef, Al-Arabiya, September 19, 2020.

"Israel did not destroy Syria; Israel did not burn Libya; Israel did not displace the people of Egypt; Israel did not destroy Libya, and Israel did not tear up Lebanon. Before you Arabs blame Israel, take a look at yourselves in the mirror. The problem is in you." — UAE Islamic cleric Wassem Yousef, Twitter, September 16, 2020.

"Palestinian leaders failed to invest in opportunities. They failed to take strategic decisions and chose [instead] to forge an alliance with Iran." — Saudi writer Yusef al-Qabalan, Al-Riyadh, September 18, 2020.

The biggest losers, of course, are again the Palestinians -- who are quickly losing the sympathy of a growing number of Arabs.

The Second Intifada: A defining event that reshaped the nation

And the main lesson for Israelis from the Second Intifada, he said, “is that if you do not control the territory, you can’t fight terrorism.” The intensity and lethal nature of the Second Intifada could only happen, he argued, “because we did not control the territory.” Another key lesson the public took away from the rampaging violence, said Amidror, today a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, is that it “is impossible to trust the Palestinians.” Amidror noted that the intifada broke out “after we had an agreement with Arafat. This wasn’t the First Intifada, where there was nothing between us and the Palestinians beforehand. We were after the Oslo Accords when we let them back into the territory. This led to a dramatic loss of confidence in them.” Amidror said that a key operational lesson learned from the violence is that force is not the only way to deal with local uprisings, and that force – the “stick” – must be combined with “carrots” in the form of economic benefits and enhanced personal security. Amidror, who stressed that he is not a psychologist, said that what remains in the minds of Israelis two decades after the eruption of the Second Intifada is “the sense that in the final analysis our security has to be in our own hands,” and that this “cannot be compromised in any way.” Asked if this was not something obvious to most Israelis even beforehand, he replied: “We had illusions. Oslo was built on the premise that we could work with the Palestinians.” Amidror argued that this premise was embraced by the politicians who negotiated the Oslo Accords, but was never accepted by the security establishment or “professional echelon,” of which he was a part at the time in his role as head of Military Intelligence’s research division. “We said this won’t work, and the reality turned out to be even more difficult than we imagined.” As to the intifada’s long-term impact on the Palestinians, Amidror said they realize now that if they initiate violence against civilians, they will “pay a much heavier price than we will.” “I think they now understand that if they use violence we will respond in a much stronger way because our capabilities are so much greater, and that if they pass a certain line we will respond with great strength, so they need to keep things below that line,” he said. Amidror said the Palestinian Authority now also understands that the only guarantor keeping Hamas from taking over all the territories is Israel.

Last week, the Palestinian Ministry of Religious Affairs sent out instructions for what mosques should preach last Friday.

It's pure antisemitism.

While there was plenty against the "Zionist entity," they also explicitly said that dealings with Jews are forbidden.

Palestinian Media Watch translates it. Excerpts:

The danger of normalization

There is nothing that harms Palestine and its holy sites more than making an alliance with the Jews, being connected to them, and relying on them.
Normalization with the Zionist entity is high treason against Palestine, Jerusalem, the blood of the Martyrs, and the suffering of the prisoners.
Normalization with the Zionist entity is one of the expressions of sanctimoniousness and hypocrisy and accepting the oppressor and his tyranny.
Obedience to the Jews and being dragged after them will lead the nation to weakness, lawlessness, humiliation, and shame.
Concentrating all the energies to reject normalization and relations with the Zionist entity.

There's nothing like a little Arab infighting to reveal the ugly antisemitism behind the facade of "anti-Zionism."

Every. Single. Time.

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Saudi-owned Arab News gives "Shana Tova" greetings on its Twitter graphic

Arab News is close to the Saudi government and there have been times when journalists were dismissed from the newspaper when they wrote things that the government was unhappy with.

So when it makes a decision, that decision is essentially green-lighted by the ruling Saudi family.

Which makes these Twitter graphics that the Arab News used for several hours very interesting:

There are very few Jews in Saudi Arabia; this message was not for them.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz has been at odds with his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, over embracing the Jewish state, with the elder king wanting a Palestinian state first and the son wanting to establish relations with Israel more quickly.

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Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades announced that Khalil Muhammad Labad, 27, from the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip, was "martyred" Sunday, after the collapse of a "resistance tunnel."

The Brigades said in its statement: "We ask Allah Almighty to accept him and dwell with him in paradise, and to be patient and improve his family and loved ones. The blood of our martyrs will remain a beacon on the way to the liberation of Palestine and a fire that burns the occupiers until they are defeated from our land, God willing."

Pass the candy!

UPDATE: Another Hamas member, Khalil Labad, has died from his injuries in the same tunnel collapse. Allahu akbar!

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09/20 Links: Ruthie Blum: Trumping Palestinian lies and Tehran’s agenda; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, first Jewish woman on Supreme Court, dies at 87

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Trumping Palestinian lies and Tehran’s agenda

Moreover, in stark contrast to his predecessor, Barack Obama, Trump welcomed – rather than warned against – Israeli strikes on Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Syria. Meanwhile, his message to the Palestinians was that they could choose to remain in the Dark Ages or opt to embrace peace and prosperity. It was up to them, and no figure in Washington was going to beg. They’d never been treated this way by a world leader.

From the get-go, then, Abbas and his henchmen rejected all US contact, other than when stomping on or burning the American flag. While the anti-Trump European Union continued to assure them that they were right to feel oppressed by “evil occupier” Israel, the Arab League grew even more disinterested in their self-imposed plight than it already was.

In fact, it could barely muster up the energy to pay lip service to their “cause” anymore. In fairness, its members had and still have their own interests to safeguard. Trump, it turns out, has been tapping into these interests skillfully.

Additional evidence of this lies in the talks that he brokered between Belgrade and Pristina earlier this month, resulting in Serbia’s announcement that it would move its embassy to Jerusalem and a recognition of Israel by Muslim-majority Kosovo.

His claim on Tuesday, thus, that “at least five or six” other countries are soon to follow the UAE’s and Bahrain’s lead is utterly plausible. The upbeat attitude of Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and the hysterical reaction on the part of the Palestinians indicates that it’s practically a done deal.

PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, for example, called the signing of the Abraham Accords a “black day in the history of the Arab nation... added to the Palestinian calendar of pain.”

He also said that such “normalization with Israel is harmful to Arab dignity.”

Neither this sentiment nor the rocket barrages that were launched into Israel during the Emirati foreign minister’s speech – in Arabic, with a token reference to the Palestinians – could camouflage the reality on the ground in a shifting Middle East: The Palestinian jig, like the lie that Trump exposed about al-Aqsa, is up.

Jon Gabriel: Trump takes a step toward peace in the Middle East, and somehow, that's horrible?

Everyone said a deal was impossible

The glum reception to Mideast peace comes from a place of shock. For decades, foreign policy panjandrums on the right and left insisted these agreements were utterly impossible. First, the U.S. needed to solve the impasse between the Israelis and Palestinians, then perhaps peace could follow.

The corrupt leaders of the Palestinian Authority rejected proposal after proposal, but the U.S. learned nothing. Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry mocked anyone who thought otherwise.

“There will be no advanced and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace,” Kerry said at the Brookings Institute’s Saban Forum in 2016. “Everybody needs to understand that. That is a hard reality.”

Whether by wise counsel or gut instinct, Trump decided this was nonsense. He isolated Iran, strengthened ties with Saudi Arabia and the gulf states, and brought everyone to the negotiating table.

Within a few years, he proved Kerry, Rhodes and every other Foggy Bottom dilletante wrong. Somehow, Trump did the impossible

Moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem was supposed to light the Middle Eastern powder keg. As was pulling U.S. troops out of Kurdish-held regions of northeast Syria. As was the assassination of Qassim Suleimani, head of Iran’s murderous Quds Force.

Again and again, Trump keeps accomplishing things that foreign policy experts promised were impossible.

At the signing ceremony, Bahrani Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani said, “Today is a truly historic occasion. A moment for hope and opportunity.”

I don’t know if Abraham would be a Donald Trump fan. But he’s definitely smiling down on his sons today.

21see Presents: Israel, UAE and Bahrain sign historic Abraham Accords

On Tuesday, we took a camera out into the streets of Tel Aviv to find out what locals think about the historic Abraham Accords signed this week between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

The excitement was genuine. “There’s no why for peace,” said one Tel Avivian. “Peace in itself is the answer.”

“It’s a great start,” said another.

But a peace agreement… most agree that this is normalization of relations, rather than a peace deal. As one local asks: “How can you have peace, if you haven’t had war?”

Dominic Green: The thinking behind Pompeo’s Middle East mission

The Abraham Accords, Pompeo says, are the fruit of ‘years of hard work’ by the Trump administration, the Department of Defense, the State Department and teams from the White House. President Trump, he says, made it possible by flipping the received wisdom ‘on its head’.

‘That theory was, you had to solve the Palestinian problem before nations could recognize Israel. We’ve said, “No, we have to break the mould.” We need to move forward in a different direction.’ After the Obama administration’s tilt toward Iran, the Trump administration, Pompeo said, had assured Israel and the Gulf states that they have ‘a real partner in the United States’.

Reviving the Iran Deal, Pompeo warns, would be ‘the wrong policy’ and would endanger the US-brokered Israeli-Arab breakthrough: ‘I think all of that would be at risk.’

The UAE and Bahrain, he says, ‘realise it is in their shared interest to acknowledge Israel's right to exist and to have normal relationships, commercial relationships with them, security relationships with them... If the United States’ foreign policy were to return to where it was four years ago, I think there’s a real risk that this common threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran would undermine all the good work that has been done to date, that the normalisations won't continue.’

Shana tova! שנה טובה!

May this year be a year of happiness, prosperity, health, and peace.

I will not be online until at least Sunday night or Monday morning.

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09/18 Links Pt2: Remembering a Jewish Hero and Advocate for Black Americans; How Low Can Universities Go?; One Zoom employee saved High Holidays streaming for 300 US synagogues

From Ian:

Remembering a Jewish Hero and Advocate for Black Americans

As biographer Naomi Cohen showed, Jacob H. Schiff was the prime example during the era of mass immigration of a new “Americanized” style of Jewish leadership.

Schiff was born in 1847 in Frankfurt am Main into an illustrious rabbinic family. His father was a broker for the Rothschilds. Young Schiff defied his family by immigrating to the United States after the Civil War.

He joined the investment house of Kuhn, Loeb & Company, eventually marrying Solomon Loeb’s daughter. Before 1900, he built his banking house into a power on Wall Street.

Schiff was unique for his philanthropic and political zeal, which equaled his financial drive. A Reform Jew who never became a fan of political Zionism, he nevertheless led New York’s German-Jewish elite in outreach to new Jewish immigrants. His charitable endeavors included Montefiore Hospital, the Hebrew Free Loan Society, and Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement that had offshoots in African-American neighborhoods. He funded Hebrew Union College and the creation of the Jewish Theological Seminary, drawing the line at Jewish religious assimilation. He finessed whether or not Jews were a distinctive “race.”

But after 1900, his influence widened. He helped finance Japan during its 1905 war with Russia, despite official US neutrality. He broke with President Theodore Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, over a US-Russia commercial treaty. In the 1912 presidential election, he was friendly to both Roosevelt’s breakaway reform party and winning Democrat Woodrow Wilson, whom as president he lobbied to create the Federal Reserve banking system in 1913. But again, he demonstrated independence by criticizing the Wilson administration for segregating the Federal civil service.

Schiff was at his most controversial during World War I. He patriotically supported the US when it entered the war, but only after doing everything he could to undermine the Russian czarist regime. When the czar fell in 1917, he enthusiastically embraced the Kerensky regime. Then when Lenin toppled Kerensky, Schiff only reluctantly did business with the communist regime to protect Jews. Antisemites to this day slander Schiff as “the father of Russia’s Bolshevik revolution.”

Schiff late in life supported the Technion in Haifa without formally endorsing Jewish statehood. The Jewish masses showed their love for him at his 1920 funeral.

Communists for the Jewish State: British Communists and the Daily Worker in 1948

Lessons for Today

The purpose of this brief visit to 1948 is to highlight how left-wing ideological assumptions about Israel and Zionism need to be tempered with what Edward Said called the ‘gravity of history.’[50] Anti-Zionism is not an inevitable characteristic of the left. In the circles around Jeremy Corbyn and indeed the Morning Star, Israel is constructed as a ‘colonial’ project. Zionism is seen as reactionary and racist ideology. These positions are rooted within a political outlook which divides the world into the imperialist and the anti-imperialist camps. Israel is irredeemably in the former. Such a view is often embellished with references to Marxist theory. It is instructive therefore to consider a period when the communist left looked at Israel from quite the opposite perspective.[51]

It is also a cautionary tale as it reminds us that we have to be careful of assuming the right position is always adopted by our ideological soulmates and the wrong one by our ideological foes. The complexity of politics requires us to make the intellectual and moral effort to judge issues outside of pre-determined ideological attachments. As we have seen, a repressive Stalinist regime and its supporters took the right decision to support the creation of Israel. A reformist Labour government, on the other hand, took the wrong decision to oppose its existence.

We know that communist politics dramatically changed its line on the Jewish state, and we saw the rise of a visceral antisemitic anti-Zionism after 1967.[52] This development included the ‘Zionism is racism’[53] resolution at the United Nations. This has had a malign influence on the left,[54] which in Britain led to the Labour Party’s antisemitism crisis.

In 1948 it was the Soviet Union and the communist parties that played a critical role politically, diplomatically and militarily to ensure the creation of the Jewish state. British communists played a particularly important part in this given that Britain was the mandatory power in Palestine.[55] In June 1948 the Daily Worker reported, ‘as the British-armed Arab aggressors intensified their attack on the young State of Israel’[56] Willie Gallacher MP asked Prime Minister Attlee for assurance, ‘that the government would take no action and give no support to any action that would prejudice the new Jewish State.’[57] The paper noted that ‘in face of this straightforward question Mr. Attlee maintained a silence that can only be considered as sinister.’[58] This is a reminder that it was not just the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, who played a key role in trying to prevent the creation of Israel but it was also Attlee.

Many of those in the Labour Party who opposed Jeremy Corbyn leadership lionised Attlee. Corbyn has sided with Israel’s military opponents such as Hamas and Hezbollah and oversaw Labour antisemitism that caused Jewish members of the Labour Party great discomfort and discrimination while poisoning political discourse. However, he was never in a position to prevent Holocaust survivors from reaching safety, to arm states waging war against the Jewish state, or to refuse to support Israel’s UN membership. That was the role that Clement Attlee played. The record of the left’s relationship with Israel is a tangled one and remembering that Communists once stood up for the Jewish state is instructive.

One Zoom employee saved High Holidays streaming for 300 US synagogues

When Rosh Hashanah begins on Friday night, some 300 synagogues across North America streaming their High Holidays services via Zoom will be able to set it and forget it thanks largely to one man: Mitch Tarica.

Tarica is the streaming platform’s director of North American sales. He’s also a member of Temple Ner Tamid in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, and he was critical in getting Zoom to make a small but vital tweak to its software that temporarily stopped it from automatically ending a meeting after 24 hours.

That change was crucial to enabling hundreds of synagogues to stream their services on Zoom without running afoul of Jewish laws barring the use of technology on Shabbat and Jewish holidays. For synagogues that request it, Zoom will temporarily allow meetings to run as long as 72 hours, enabling synagogues to set up their stream prior to the start of Rosh Hashanah on Friday afternoon and have it run uninterrupted through Sunday night.

“Rabbi Heller had reached out to Rabbi [Brian] Schuldenfrei, who is my rabbi, and said, ‘Hey, word on the street is someone from Zoom is part of your congregation. We need some help for the High Holidays,’” Tarica told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview conducted, naturally, via Zoom.

Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 18, 2020
Presidential Message on Rosh Hashanah, 2020

The First Lady and I wish our Jewish brothers and sisters Shana Tova and hope the millions observing this sacred day in America and around the world have a blessed start to the High Holy Days.

As this 10-day period of celebration, devout prayer, reflection, and repentance commences, we are reminded of how important faith, family, and fellowship are to each of us. Particularly during these challenging times, the sense of peace and reassurance that comes with these observances has never been more important in helping us seek His wisdom and understanding as we continue to grow in our faith.

This year’s High Holy Days come with a sense of optimism for the people of Israel, as my Administration continues to make great strides in securing a more stable, prosperous, and peaceful Middle East region. Last month, we secured a historic agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel—the first between Israel and a major Arab country since 1994—that normalizes relations between the two countries, including the exchange of embassies and ambassadors, as well as enhanced cooperation in a broad range of fields including education, healthcare, trade, and security. And, just days after Bahrain reached a similar deal with Israel, we were proud to host the leaders of Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain at the White House earlier this week for the signing of these agreements and the Abraham Accords as a whole. As the High Holy Days begin, this momentous milestone in geopolitical relations is a reminder that we can create a coalition of nations that have shared goals of eliminating extremism and promoting security and prosperity, while also respecting religious freedom and building a more hopeful tomorrow for future generations.

Melania and I pray that He blesses all Jewish people throughout these High Holy Days. We hope that these 10 days provide those observing this special time a respite to build their faith and better experience the many blessings of the Almighty’s love and mercy.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

09/18 Links Pt1: Matthew Continetti: How Trump Changed the World; Melanie Phillips: The fundamental fracture Abraham Accords may begin to heal

From Ian:

Matthew Continetti: How Trump Changed the World

By establishing inescapable facts on the ground over the ceaseless objections of critics, President Trump overrides the often meaningless verbiage that constitutes international diplomacy and ends up changing the very terms of the foreign policy conversation. Nowhere has this dynamic been clearer than in U.S. relations with China.

Beginning with his surprise call to Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen in December 2016 and continuing through his resumption of U.S. Navy freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea the following year, his tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018, his and his administration's rhetorical barrage against China beginning in earnest in 2019, and culminating in his multiple actions against China this year, from limiting travel to canceling visas to forcing the sale of TikTok to tightening the vise on Huawei to selling an additional $7 billion in arms to Taiwan, Trump has reoriented America's approach to the People's Republic. No longer is China encouraged to be a "responsible stakeholder." It is recognized as a great-power competitor.

Resistance to this proper understanding of China's position in the international system remains strong. But it is unquestionably the case that both Republicans and Democrats are starting to see China more as a threat than a partner. And it is Donald Trump who is behind this clarification of vision. (Xi Jinping and the pandemic helped too.) Whatever a President Biden might do about China—and he seems far more interested in repairing our alliances in "Old Europe" than in tackling this paramount challenge of the 21st century—he would operate within the constraints Trump established and on the intellectual terrain Trump landscaped.

There is no greater measure of presidential significance than a chief executive's ability to transform not just his own but also the opposing party. When it comes to the Middle East and China, the Democrats are closer to Donald Trump today than they were at the outset of his term. That they find themselves in accordance with someone whom they despise is evidence of Trump's ability to realign politics at home and abroad. This is no small feat.

Some might say it's worthy of a prize.

Melanie Phillips: The fundamental fracture Abraham Accords may begin to heal

Of course, with conflict as long and intractable as the Arab war against Israel, cautious skepticism over any apparent breakthrough is only prudent. And the strategic necessity of this Arab-Israel alliance against Iran is obvious.

But it was the immensely touching visual images that told a deeper story. A photograph was posted on Twitter showing Jared Kushner, the president's senior adviser, handing a Torah scroll to King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman al-Khalifa of Bahrain to be used in a synagogue in the kingdom. Both men were looking reverentially at the scroll.

Scarcely less moving was the poignant image of the line of white-robed Emiratis all waving to the El Al jet departing with the Israeli and American delegation on the first direct return passenger flight between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi.

This is now a chance for the Arab and Muslim world to start showing the West that it can live alongside and with respect for other peoples. It's a chance for it to fundamentally recalibrate its dire association with violence and death. And it's also an opportunity for the Jewish people to reach out to the Muslim world and show that what it welcomes is a bond far greater than economic ties or strategic defense.

It's the bond of family.

Nor does the potential for good stop at Israel. Hatred of the Jews lies at the very core of the Islamist war against the West. Islamist ideologues have argued for almost a century that modernity threatens Islam and the Jews are behind modernity.

If the moderate Arab world now finally understands that Israel is not its enemy but its ally, this could begin to undermine the foundations of irrational and self-defeating hatred that has fueled the Islamist war against the West.

While intractable Islamic fanaticism will not just disappear, the Abraham Accords might give Arab and Muslim reformers wind in their sails to bring their culture into an accommodation with the rest of the world.

And Britain, Western Europe and the American left will be the last people on earth to realize this.

Biden Is No Friend of Israel; He’s an Adversary

Biden pledges to re-enter the Iran deal. Iran’s goal of annihilating the United States and Israel doesn’t seem to bother Biden.

How precious that Biden is offended about foreign election interference when it was Obama-Biden that meddled in Israel’s election, funneling U.S.-taxpayer dollars to organizations trying to defeat PM Netanyahu and then misleading Congress about it.

It was Obama-Biden that refused to oppose the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement, whose goal BDS co-founder admitted is to eliminate “any Zionist state like the one we speak about [in present-day Israel].” Even WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin (not exactly a friend of Republicans) succinctly titled her piece, “Obama Winks at BDS” and stated it well: “That the administration would in any way encourage BDS practitioners or suggest that some forms of BDS might not be so objectionable is as unprecedented as it is unsurprising. It is increasingly difficult for fair-minded people to deny the president’s [Obama] anti-Israel animus.” The same goes for Biden.

And, on its way out of the door, it was the Obama-Biden administration that betrayed Israel again in December 2016 by orchestrating the U.N. Resolution 2334 vote, falsely claiming the Old City of Jerusalem was “illegal” and “Occupied Palestinian territory.” And if that wasn’t bad enough, Obama-Biden actually instigated the humiliation of Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danon by having every other ambassador at the Security Council table stand and applaud the Resolution’s passage as Danon sat there. As Ambassador Haley said with respect to the U.N.’s bias against Israel, “what really broke my heart … was how much the Obama administration contributed to it.”

Biden’s abysmal Israel track record speaks for itself. The United States simply cannot relive this nightmare and neither can Israel.