Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

11/25 Links Pt1: 2020 brought us COVID-19, but it also brought a new Middle East; Can Biden Renew Foreign Aid to Palestinians While Still Adhering to Taylor Force Act?

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: 2020 brought us COVID-19, but it also brought a new Middle East

In Israel, too, media reviews of 2020 will surely not place it in a positive light, especially given the loss of nearly 3,000 lives to COVID-19 and the havoc that the pandemic has wrought on people’s livelihoods and the country’s economy. In addition, 2020 has proven to be yet another year of political dysfunction and instability.

But not all has been dismal. This year will also go down in Israeli history as the one when the Jewish state took enormous strides, via peace and normalization treaties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, to further break out of its long regional isolation.

For a few weeks back in September, it seemed to be raining peace agreements. And on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Neom, Saudi Arabia, with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

No, this was not the first time that senior Israeli and Saudi officials have met, nor did the meeting lead to any dramatic announcement regarding the establishment of formal ties. But that the meeting was leaked to the public – and it beggars belief that this would have happened without the consent of all the parties – sends important messages to various significant audiences.

The first audience is US president-elect Joe Biden. The message to Biden is simple: the Mideast table has been reset – including a spanking new Israel-UAE-Saudi place setting – that he and his new administration will need to take into account when re-assessing Washington’s Iran policy.

It is no coincidence that this meeting took place now, a few weeks before Biden is set to move into the Oval Office, just as it was no coincidence that the deals with the UAE and Bahrain were consummated just before the US elections.

Is there a new map emerging of countries in the Middle East, and India and Greece, a new system of partnerships, economic, diplomatic and security, shared regional views. I think so, and here's my map: pic.twitter.com/sI3UcRBXoN
— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) November 23, 2020

Dr. Sabah al-Binali: UAE and Israel: A partnership that can help the world

News of the Abraham Accords normalizing diplomatic relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel has been greeted with enthusiasm across Emirati society.

The positive attitude is being led from the top. One striking example is the website of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, which appears in Hebrew if you click on it from Israel. They are also running Hebrew promotions across social media and have announced that they will open an office in Israel.

Many business executives in the Gulf already have friends and even business relationships with their Israeli counterparts. Many of us have spent time studying or working in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, and established connections with Jewish and Israeli colleagues that in some cases go back decades.

The normalization of diplomatic relations now allows us to build commercial ties on existing social ties, and new ones are already flourishing.

The initial response to the Abraham Accords from Israel’s business community was to welcome the opportunity to access funds in the UAE and Bahrain for investment in Israeli startups. While that is certainly one facet of the new relationship, it is by no means the only one—nor the most significant.

While Israel has been building its Startup Nation in the western Middle East, the UAE has been developing its own high-tech sector over in the east.

Houda Nonoo: My first trip to Israel – when dream became reality

Last week, I had the honor and privilege of participating in a delegation led by Foreign Minister H.E. Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani’s to Israel – the first time Bahraini officials landed in Israel, flying on our national carrier, Gulf Air Flight number 972. While it was historic and memorable for all, it was particularly exciting for me as a Bahraini Jew.

This was my very first visit to Israel. As you may know, I was the first Jew to ever be appointed as an ambassador of Bahrain and the first woman to serve as Bahrain’s ambassador to the United States. During my five years serving in Washington, I made many new friends and was often asked if I had been to Israel. I always said, “Not yet.” In my heart, I hoped and prayed for the opportunity, but I was determined to wait for the moment when circumstances would allow such a visit. As a loyal and committed citizen of Bahrain, I naturally respected the reality of the situation. I could only dream. And hope. And wait. And dream some more. Last week, that dream became a reality.

I wish to thank His Majesty, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and His Royal Highness, Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, for their leadership, vision, and courage to lead our nation proudly and boldly into the future through the signing of the Abraham Accords. I, like my fellow Bahraini citizens, express our support and enthusiasm for the opportunity our leaders have seized and the promise it represents to build a better life with security and opportunity for all of us and for future generations still to come.

2020 has been a difficult year for all of us as we continue to battle the pandemic sweeping across the world. However, 2020 was also a historic one in a positive way. It’s when Bahrain, Israel and the United Arab Emirates decided to pave the path forward for a bold vision of the new Middle East. During this time, the world has shifted on its axis in a very positive way. Amid a world dealing with so many difficult issues, a pandemic, economic challenges, social unrest, the Middle East gives all of us a ray of hope.

Another brand new Palestinian "village"

The UN's OCHA-oPt tweeted that Israel demolished structures in Fasayil al Wusta.

As usual, it seems to be a new community, built specifically to be a land grab.

Here it is in 2004, 2011 and more recently:

The third image is from Bing Maps since they were more recent than Google's satellite image.

Note how many more structures there are, and also the three caravans added in the southwest.

While the town of Fasayil (to the south) has been there for a while, I can find no mention of Fasayil al Wusta anywhere before 2008 or so. (It was supposedly established in 1998.)

The UN and EU are very good at monitoring demolitions but they don't easily provide the data about the illegal building, which far outpaces the demolitions.

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Director of B'Tselem USA and co-founder of IfNotNow Simone Zimmerman tweeted (and Rabbi Andy Kahn agreed:)

These bigots attacking @RashidaTlaib, Reema Dodin, & others, might as well just come out & say it: they don't believe that Palestinians have the right to speak, to act, or really to exist in American public life, at all, as Palestinians. We should not normalize this in any way.

Is this true?

The list of Palestinians who have been in Congress is pretty short: John E. Sununu, Justin Amash and Rashida Tlaib.

The only one ever attacked as an antisemite is Rashida Tlaib.

Sununu's father is John H. Sununu, former governor of New Hampshire who originally objected to repealing the "Zionism is Racism" resolution at the UN, but he then changed his mind and supported the pro-Israel 1988 Republican platform. I don't recall any Jewish organizations campaigning against him for being a Palestinian.

I've never seen any Zioinst attack Justin Amash, even after he left the Republican Party.

That's two out of three Palestinian members of Congress that Jews and Zionists have no problem with, which is evidence that Zimmerman is a liar.

Clearly, the Zionists against Tlaib and Dodin are reacting to their statements, not to their heritage.

There are plenty of other decent Arab-American politicians that Zionists have supported: Donna Shalala and Darrell Issa come to mind.

Zimmerman is the bigot. She is not defending Palestinians - she is defending those who support destroying the Jewish state.

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Although Joe Biden says he will not move the US Embassy back to Tel Aviv, he will definitely erase other Trump moves - re-opening the PLO office, restoring funding UNRWA, and restoring the Iran deal.

But to pretend that the last four years were just a bad dream and act like it's 2016 would be a major mistake.

Even if Biden will re-open negotiations with Iran on the JCPOA, he must not look too eager. At the moment, Iran is acting as if it is holding all the cards because of Biden's promises, and this is a major mistake - it means that Biden has no negotiating room to try to improve the deal.

The fact is that Europe remained in the deal, and Iran tested the waters by starting to violate it, more and more, to see if Europe would do anything. They didn't. Iran learned a lesson - that the UK and France are spineless, and they think Biden will be as well.

Biden needs to get on the same page as those two countries and push back. Iran is now violating the JCPOA in multiple ways - the IAEA has lots of documentation. Iran needs to trade with Europe more than ever.

That is leverage.

Before the US lifts sanctions, it needs to work together with the Europeans to give a solid ultimatum - that (for example) the UK can invoke snapback unless Iran immediately stops its violations. Ballistic missiles and Iranian exports to terror groups must be on the table. If Biden caves on this, then Iran know it can push the US around for the next four years.

Similarly, Biden shouldn't abandon the Peace to Prosperity plan. Ehud Barak spoke about it in Haaretz yesterday: "When you look at it, many parts of Trump’s plan made sense, but were blocked from being really tested by our government. You have to look at the actual text of the Trump plan. I’m not talking about what the settlers probably heard during visits of the ambassador – but the text that Jared Kushner and his team put in the plan. It’s very close to what came before: holding talks on two states; realizing that you can’t impose anything on the Palestinians that they don’t want; and not imposing security compromises on Israel."

In other words, even Israeli doves agree that the Trump plan is a framework that the US can start with because it is the first plan that is realistic about Israel's security needs and that wouldn't ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of Jews - which has been the starting point of all the other "peace" plans.

I doubt that this will be a priority for Biden but he shouldn't let the Palestinians think they can turn the clock back without giving up on some of their "red lines." And they certainly shouldn't be allowed to act like bullies, making entitled "demands" from the US. Biden can learn a little from Trump about how to respond when another country or organization wants to push the US around.

While this is an oversimplification, before Trump, diplomats seemed more interested in smoothing ruffled feathers than hard negotiations. Donald Trump made it clear that if the US was going to give something, the other party will give something as well. And even though the old diplomats were aghast and swore up and down that this was a recipe for disaster, it achieved results. To be sure, there is something to be said about maintaining relationships. Trump could have learned something from old-school diplomacy - but professional US diplomats can learn a lot from studying Trump's dealmaking mentality.

Unfortunately, from articles they have written, it doesn't seem like they see any value in a mindset that helped bring about a sea change in the Middle East between Israel, Gulf countries and Sudan. They hate Trump so much as a person that they do not want to admit that he accomplished things they could never have done. There is no way that could have happened under the old rules.

We need to learn that lesson, not throw it away.

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11/24 Links Pt2: How Trump can expose biggest lie in Middle East: Palestinian ‘refugee’ myth; BDS Without Campus; Facebook Said It Would Ban Holocaust Deniers. Instead, Its Algorithm Provided a Network for Them

From Ian:

How Trump can expose biggest lie in Middle East: Palestinian ‘refugee’ myth

The outgoing Team Trump should issue an updated, unclassified report that provides a current estimate of the number of people receiving UNRWA assistance today who were personally displaced in 1948, aren’t residing within the borders of the Palestinian Authority and aren’t citizens or permanent residents of another country, such as Jordan.

This number should be easy to estimate by simply requesting figures from Israeli, Palestinian, UN, Jordanian and other Mideast officials. The public release of these figures could spark an international debate over UNRWA’s mandate. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should also announce an official US policy change that for purposes of future US funding and planning, Palestinian refugees are narrowly defined as people who were personally displaced from then-Palestine between 1948 and 1949 and aren’t currently citizens or permanent residents of the Palestinian Authority or any country.

Such a move would challenge the notion that UNRWA is a refugee agency and demonstrate how it instead has kept people in poverty. Unlike the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which has a mandate to resettle refugees, UNRWA has encouraged multiple generations of helpless people to remain erroneously identified as refugees.

The policy change would thus upend the mythology of a Palestinian “right of return” — making it clear that Israel determines who becomes Israeli citizens, not a UN agency. With all of this established, destitute Palestinians living in the West Bank might finally be encouraged to lead economically productive lives within a future Palestinian state.

The United States should not be alone in this effort. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are among the agency’s top contributors. As they look to a future of peaceful coexistence with Israel, they can influence UNRWA’s mandate and remove a significant historical hindrance to the peace process. American allies in Europe may also quietly seek to reduce UNRWA’s unending financial burden. They, too, may be persuaded to join a reform coalition.

UNRWA has done enough damage. It’s time for reform.

The Peace Illusion

It is not surprising that Israelis, including those, like Schwartz and Wilf, who want a two-state solution to the conflict, will not accept the putative right of return. What is surprising and dismaying is that Western governments, including that of the United States, have failed to recognize the centrality and pernicious character of this demand. How, then, should the Biden Administration approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict beginning in 2021?

First, it should follow the lead of the Trump Administration, which declined to continue to fund UNRWA, and seek to abolish that agency. In their concluding chapter, the authors of The War of Return offer some helpful suggestions for how to do so. Second, the new administration should make clear to the Palestinian authorities that the necessary condition for the continuation of an American-sponsored peace process is a clear, unambiguous, publicly and repeatedly stated renunciation of the right of return. By retaining their claim to this right, the Palestinians signal that they continue to pursue the destruction of Israel, in which case no settlement is possible.

Third, the Biden Administration should observe the diplomatic equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath in medicine: it should do no harm. Persisting in trying to broker an agreement while the Palestinians insist on a right of return does do harm. It encourages the Palestinians to believe, or at least to hope, that the American government does not oppose the elimination of Israel, which in turn gives them reason to continue to seek it. As long as they call for millions of people to be able to make themselves at home in a country that they have never seen, with the vast majority of whose citizens they do not share a common language, common aspirations, or common values, and whom they have been taught their whole lives to despise, nothing American diplomats can do will end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Under such circumstances that is precisely what the United States should do about that conflict: nothing.

Jonathan S. Tobin: The man Israel left behind and the damage left with him

What followed was a long-running shadow play in which many American Jews and Israelis portrayed Pollard as a martyr to anti-Semitism—something that only undermined the otherwise strong case for clemency for him and also hardened the desire of U.S. intelligence to keep him in prison in order to make an example of him. Eventually, he even became a bargaining chip in which his release was offered as an inducement to make Israel make territorial concessions in peace negotiations, though in the end, Netanyahu’s efforts to get President Bill Clinton to free him in this manner ultimately failed.

While the value of his spying and the damage he did to America remains a matter of debate, what isn’t in question is that this affair created unnecessary tension between the two allies that lasted for decades.

Just as bad was the shadow that his spying cast on the loyalty of every Jew working in the Pentagon. Indeed, U.S. authorities spent many years hounding Jewish personnel searching for another mythical Israeli spy, harming the careers of many Jews. It also fed into an anti-Semitic narrative that dovetailed with the “Israel Lobby” myth that portrayed the United States as being ruthlessly manipulated by Jews who were more loyal to Israel than to America.

It is only right that the ordeal of the spy, who paid far more dearly than he should have for his mistakes (Pollard served more time in prison than many murderers), is over. Let’s hope that after so much suffering, he finds some peace in Israel and will avoid doing anything that will fuel a revival of the controversy he engendered.

But it is just as important that his many supporters not misinterpret what happened to him as being solely a morality tale of a heroic Jew who was persecuted by anti-Semites for helping Israel. Both the hapless Pollard and his cynical Israeli handlers—none of whom were ever truly held accountable for their part in this fiasco—supplied ammunition to those anti-Semites who falsely claim that there is a contradiction between being an American patriot and having a deep concern for Israel. Sadly, that will remain Jonathan Pollard’s true legacy long after he has completed his journey to the Jewish state.

Netanyahu phones Pollard: ‘When are we going to see you here? We’re waiting’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday spoke by phone with Jonathan Pollard, telling the former US Navy analyst convicted of spying for Israel that the Jewish state is waiting for him to move here after his parole ended.

“When are we going to see you here? We’re waiting for you,” Netanyahu told Pollard, speaking in English.

Pollard’s reply, which caused Netanyahu to chuckle, could not be heard.

“You should feel comfortable and you should really feel at home,” the prime minister added.

He also promised to make sure Pollard’s wife Esther gets the cancer treatment she needs.

Communist "anti-Zionism" of the 1970s sounds a lot like today's - but it didn't hide its Jew hatred as well

Looking back at articles from the 1970s, when the Communist bloc was heavily into its "anti-Zionist" campaign, the news media saw how obvious it was that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

From UPI, January 19, 1971:

From syndicated columnists Evans and Novak, November 12, 1976, the reporting that Soviet anti-Zionism was virtually identical to the antisemitism in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion:

Even the New York Times news service recognized that leftist anti-Zionism was Jew-hatred. May 31, 1978:

Just like today, the socialist Left strenuously denied that they had any problem with Jews. But since these early attempts to pretend to be okay with Jews were so laughable, the Left has refined its message over the years to be less overtly antisemitic.

Even so, the origins and the underlying bigotry are the same today as they were then.

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The deliberate lie of conflating BDS/Anti-Zionism with "criticism of Israel"

There was a very telling tweet by the formerly prestigious ACLU in response to Mike Pompeo:

Pompeo is talking about boycotting Israel. The ACLU is answering about "criticizing Israel."

Boycotts aren't criticisms by any definition. They are actions.

We see this all the time. The IHRA's Working Definition of Antisemitism specifically excludes criticism of Israel similar to that of any other country as being antisemitic, yet virtually every article against that definition says that it calls criticism of Israel antisemitic.

These lies are deliberate. The liars know they are lying. They want to change the framing of the argument into something they can win, by pretending that Israel's supporters are saying something they never say.

Why do they do this? There's only one reason:

They are defending Leftist antisemitism.

They know that they cannot defend treating Israel with double standards, or delegitimizing Israel, or demonizing Israel, because it shows that they are hypocrites when they consistently find only Israel to be uniquely evil. They know that boycotting Israel is meant to tell the world that Israel is the only nation whose crimes make it worthy of boycotting.

The IHRA definition is the best definition there is, but they want to continue to call Zionism "racism" and to compare Israel to Nazis and to call a nation with 20% non-Jews with full rights an 'apartheid state." They know that if their criticisms of Israel were fair and accurate, the world would yawn - Israel does no worse, and significantly better, than most nations in war time.

So in order to defend the indefensible, they blatantly lie and say that this demonization, this only boycotting Jewish businesses and Jewish entertainers and Jewish speakers, this insane need to call Jews, and only Jews, Nazis, is merely "criticizing Israel."

They know they are lying. They refuse to respond when called out on it.

The tweet above is an explicit attempt to change the framework of the discussion away from what Pompeo said into an indefensible straw man.

One only does that when they know they have lost the argument.

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11/24 Links Pt1: Netanyahu, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize; What Saudi Arabia Is Thinking; Biden’s Cabinet: The Return of the Blob

From Ian:

Netanyahu, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Former First Minister of Northern Ireland Lord David Trimble has nominated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office.

Lord Trimble won the prize himself in 1998 for his efforts to find a solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland. As a Nobel laureate, his nomination of Netanyahu and Prince bin Zayed will lead the Norwegian Nobel Committee to discuss the issue.

The announcement comes less than a month after a ministerial delegation from the United Arab Emirates landed in Israel for the first-ever official visit from the Gulf state following the Sept. 15 signing of the US-brokered Abraham Accords with the UAE and Bahrain at the White House.

In a Nov. 20 letter to the Nobel Committee, Lord Trimble explained that he was nominating Netanyahu and bin Zayed “in recognition of their historic achievements in advancing peace in the Middle East.”

Noting that US President Donald Trump “has already been nominated for the prize for his contributions to this cause,” he said that therefore the Israeli and UAE leaders deserve the same recognition.

Does anyone still think moving the embassy to Jerusalem was a huge mistake that set back the cause of peace? Cause the Israeli PM apparently just met with the Saudi crown prince. I am guessing the US embassy didn’t come up.
— Eli Lake (@EliLake) November 23, 2020

Richard Goldberg: What Saudi Arabia Is Thinking

How long will Saudi Arabia spend on the edge of friendship with Israel? The Saudi Royal Court is old-fashioned when it comes to the Jewish state. In its official response to the Abraham Accords, the Saudi foreign ministry declared that the kingdom would not normalize relations with Israel until peace is achieved between Israel and the Palestinians on the basis of the Arab (i.e., Saudi) Peace Initiative of 2002.

While bin Salman may assess that radical extremism, Iran, and an oil-based economy are the primary long-term challenges facing Saudi Arabia, his advisers may fear that radical clerics in coordination with rivals within the royal family and foreign intelligence services (e.g., those of Qatar, Iran, or Turkey) would use normalization with Israel as the pretext for a coup or assassination. Indeed, the U.S. philanthropist Haim Saban recently claimed that bin Salman told him exactly that. Incrementalism is thus the preferred approach—opening Saudi airspace to Israeli commercial flights; inserting Israeli characters into Saudi television dramas; and signaling Riyadh’s approval of other Arab countries normalizing with Israel.

But will this incremental approach provide enough reason for a Biden administration to shield bin Salman from what the pro-Iran deal, anti-Saudi wing of the Democratic party will push forward in Congress? Media coverage of the Abraham Accords gives little to no credit to Saudi Arabia for its behind-the-scenes enablement of the other peace treaties. Bin Salman needs a formal agreement with Israel—or at least an institutionalized process for reaching an agreement—to complicate anti-Saudi initiatives in Washington.

This week’s reported meeting between bin Salman and Netanyahu may be a step in that direction. But more is needed—and soon. Within hours of learning about the bin Salman-Netanyahu meeting, President-elect Joe Biden announced that Antony Blinken would serve as his secretary of state. Last month, Blinken told Jewish Insider that a Biden administration would “undertake a strategic review of our bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia to make sure that it is truly advancing our interests and is consistent with our values.”

Ambassador Dennis Ross, a former Middle East peace envoy, has suggested a step-by-step approach that might appeal to bin Salman—that is, staged normalization in exchange for staged Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. Israel, however, may see the status-quo relationship with Saudi Arabia more favorably. Why give in to pressure to make concessions when other Gulf states have normalized in full and more Arab governments may follow?

The UAE wisely leveraged Arab fears of an Israeli sovereignty declaration in the West Bank to spin its normalization agreement as a win for the Palestinians, since the declaration never went forward. Is there something similar Netanyahu could offer to allow Saudi Arabia to claim an achievement toward Israeli-Palestinian peace?

Maybe a normalization agreement commits Israel to a peace process with the Palestinians based on both the Trump peace plan and Arab Peace Initiative. Maybe it recognizes the mutual importance of Jerusalem and guarantees Muslim access to holy sites. Framed correctly, it could offer Saudi Arabia something to tout not just in the Middle East but throughout the Muslim world—without forcing Netanyahu to make concessions his government would not allow.

Can creative and willing minds find something that works? Israel stands at the crossroads of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, and the ball is in the Royal Court.

Biden’s Cabinet: The Return of the Blob

We are indeed headed back to Obama-era “normalcy.”

As it happens, Pompeo wasn’t on conservative radio this week, but in the Saudi Arabian city of Neom with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and head of the Mossad to meet with officials, including Mohammed bin Salman. The normalization of relations between the Sunni Arab world and State of Israel is one of the biggest foreign-policy stories of the past two decades — almost entirely ignored by our media for partisan reasons.

Because while Blinken might have served under Bill Clinton, as staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as a principal in a global lobbying firm, and as a top adviser in the Obama administration, he’s never come in the vicinity of a genuine peace deal.

Not long ago, Blinken lectured, “Israel has never been — until now, unfortunately — a partisan political issue. And I think it’s very bad for the United States and for Israel that someone tries to turn it into one.” But who made Israel a partisan issue? The Trump administration, which moved the embassy to Jerusalem — fulfilling a promise that Obama and numerous other presidents had made but failed to keep — or internationalists like Blinken, who sided with the theocrats of Iran over the democratically elected leaders of the liberal Jewish State?

It wasn’t Pompeo who appeared at 2012 conferences put on by Israel-antagonists J Street to mollify the hard-Left. It was at that conference that Blinken argued no Middle East peace could be achieved without the Palestinians. That ossified position is back in vogue, but it is now entirely debunked by the facts on the ground.

It was also Blinken who had farcically claimed that “Israel has no better friend, no stronger defender than John Kerry,” even as every pro-Israel organization and the entire political establishment in Israel — left, right, and center — were strenuously disagreeing. Kerry, friend of the Iranian mullahs and the PLO, is Biden’s new “climate czar.” Let’s hope that he’ll be kept clear of any foreign-policy decisions. Blinken, on the other hand, promises to revive the Iran deal.

The Arab world has been in an uproar over a photo of Egyptian singer Mohamed Ramadan, who was photographed in Dubai embracing Israeli singer Omar Adam.

As usual when these things happen, the underlying antisemitism in much of the Arab world is on full display. Ramadan is being summoned for an investigation in Egypt by the Egyptian Theatrical Professions Syndicate. Ramadan himself has claimed that he had no idea who Adam was when he posed for the photo.

Egyptian Streets has an op-ed by Mirna Abdulaal justifying the anger by saying that everyone should follow the dictates of the BDS movement:

Art-washing, according to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, is the “use of culture to whitewash the occupation.” In other words, artists can be used to hide the crimes of the oppressor and justify the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians.

To put it simply, BDS argues that Israel can use culture as a form of ‘propaganda’ to ‘art-wash’ the crimes and oppression of the state.

“The cultural boycott of Israel is inspired by the South African anti-apartheid struggle,” says PACBI’s (the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) Stephanie Adam.

Art-washing essentially gives a false image of ‘normalcy’ against grave and heinous acts of repression.

But then, Abdulaal - who is Egyptian - strays from the BDS playbook:

HOW CAN WE CONTINUE SUPPORTING THE PALESTINIAN CAUSE?
First, we need to distinguish between social and cultural normalization as opposed to economic or political normalization. Political peace deals should not necessarily influence social and cultural issues, as this would undermine the conditions that the peace agreements rest upon – which is to end the occupation of Palestinian territories and violation of Palestinian’s rights.

BDS doesn't make any such distinction - it is against any interaction with Israel, both political and cultural (and especially economic, which is BDS' main point!)

Abdulaal, as a loyal Egyptian subject, cannot say she is against the Egyptian peace treaty with Israel, perhaps out of patriotism and perhaps out of fear. So she has to change BDS' rules to allow economic and political ties with Israel, but to discourage any cultural and social ties, which is pretty much what Egypt has been doing

She also encourages readers to visit the BDS site to see what local BDS groups there are in your country.

If you choose Egypt, it points to the BDSEgypt.com site - which is dead.

If you choose Jordan, you are directed to a site that hasn't been updated in three years.

Morocco's BDS site is likewise two years without an update.

It is harder to be a BDSer in most Arab countries than it is in Europe.

(h/t Mitchell B)

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Today, Hamas sources told Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar that it sent a message to Israel via Egypt that "things might get out of control as a result of the great pressure on the Strip," and that the rocket that was launched on Saturday night to Ashkelon was a warning shot.

Hamas is demanding more ventilators for Gaza, which has been hit badly by COVID-19 in recent weeks.

Gaza has only 100 beds equipped with ventilators, and they are now at 70% capacity.

Israel agreed this week to send 15 more ventilators, and the Palestinian Authority has shown little interest in sending any to Gaza. Israel doesn't block any international medical aid from reaching Gaza.

Hamas is not directly threatening to fire rockets at Israel, but it is saying that if things get worse, they won't be able to stop others from shooting rockets at Israel. This is a typical Hamas attempt to avoid responsibility (and Israeli retaliation) for rocket fire.

In April, Hamas' leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar similarly threatened Israel by saying if Gaza doesn't get enough respirators, "we will take them by force from Israel and stop the breathing of 6 million Israelis."

Israel has over 8 million citizens, roughly 6 million of whom are Jewish, so it was just another threat of genocide by Hamas that the world ignored.

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The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, formally known as the Ansar Allah movement, has threatened to develop and use missiles that can reach critical oil installations all over Saudi Arabia - and Eilat in Israel, as well.

A member of the Ansar Allah movement’s political bureau, Abd al-Wahhab al-Mahbashi, said in an interview with al-Mayadeen that Yemen is working on developing a cruise missile with a range to reach all Aramco oil sites in Saudi Arabia and will have a range to hit Eilat.

This is not an empty boast. On Sunday, a Houthi cruise missile accurately hit an oil facility in Jeddah, causing damage. That is 400 miles from the closest part of Yemen.

Eilat is about a thousand miles from Yemen. It is clear that the Houthis are using Iranian-designed (or Iranian-manufactured) missiles against Saudi Arabia.

The Quds-2 missile that hit Jeddah is probably related to the Iranian-designed Quds-1 missile that has hit oil facilities last year.

Beyond the worries about a new front against Israel, Iran almost certainly would like for Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad or Hamas to have these cruise missiles as well, which could accurately target any point in Israel from Gaza or Lebanon.

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New Biden deputy director, Reema Dodin, once justified Palestinian suicide bombings (UPDATES)

(See updates below)

From USA Today:

President-elect Joe Biden chose two staffers of top Democratic leaders in Congress to help his administration negotiate legislation, as he continues to fill out his White House staffing.

Reema Dodin and Shuwanza Goff were each named deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs.

Reema Dodin is of Palestinian Arab descent.

In 2002, during the height of the murderous Palestinian terror spree that was killing Jews daily, she spoke at a church in Lodi, CA:

It's a voice she said America is ignoring.

It's a voice she said the media are not publicizing.

It's the voice of the Palestinians, and Wednesday night, Reema Dodin, a Palestinian-American student from University of California, Berkeley, spoke to a group of Lodians about the conflict in Israel from the Palestinian perspective.

And Lodi listened.

... She described an Israel where Palestinians have lost hope and are getting desperate.

"The suicide bombers were the last resort of a desperate people," Dodin said.

Palestinians and their supporters used to routinely and openly justify the most heinous terror attacks, blowing up buses and pizza shops and discos. Then, when the Palestinian leadership decided that supporting blowing up Jews was a political liability, their supporters suddenly claimed to become anti-terror, too.

Here, however, Dodin is on the record as justifying terror attacks on Jews.

KeyWiki has more on her, claiming that Dodin has ties to the Council on American Islamic Relations and that she organized anti-Israel rallies at the University of California at Berkeley as a student. It didn't show any sources for those claims.

Dodin has recently made her Twitter account private, so one can only wonder what else she has said.

UPDATE: More from Dodin, quoted in the book "Muslim Mafia" but I couldn't find the original edition of the Berkeley newspaper:

UPDATE 2: Fox received a statement from the Biden transition team:

"Reema is the first to tell you she has grown from her youth in her approach to pushing for change, but her core values of fighting to expand opportunity to building a stronger middle class remain her driving force," a Biden-Harris transition official said in a statement to Fox News. "She harnessed her activism into action, becoming a well-respected and trusted leader in the U.S. Senate."

This is an amazing statement. The team is not saying that she regrets the statements, or has changed her mind. It just says she has "grown" and her enthusiasm in supporting terror attacks is now being directed into other areas.

That omission sure makes it sound like Dodin stands by her statements.

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11/23 Links Pt2: Yisrael Medad: Finally, Pollard is free; Joshua Washington: Black and Jewish communities stand together against hate; Starmer should purge Labour of the far-left

From Ian:

Yisrael Medad: Finally, Pollard is free - opinion

Twenty years later, writing for Ynet, Eitan Haber, Yitzhak Rabin’s speechwriter, wrote that right-wing politicians “turned Pollard’s cell into a pilgrimage site. They made political capital on his broken back and threw him to the dogs and to prison after using him.” If anything, it was left-wing politicians that stymied endeavors for his release.

The last significant success the lobby had was when then-interior minister Ehud Barak agreed to authorize the granting of Israeli citizenship to Pollard. The passport came a bit later from Haim Ramon who had replaced Barak.

IN 2011, I sat in a hotel room with Morris Pollard, Jay’s father. We went over the past decades of activities, and he shared with me his thoughts. He even left me with a copy of a summary he had with him of his thinking on the affair, on how it was handled and what the proper course should be.

Foremost in his mind were the incomprehensible attitude of American authorities toward his son; the suggested charge of “treason” that had been tossed out by the prosecutor; the in camera appeal to the judge; the prison treatment; and the less-than-forthcoming positions of certain Israeli officials. But he would not lessen his determination to work for his son’s release. Unfortunately, he died soon after. His son did not receive permission to attend the funeral.

Jonathan is free now. His burdens with his wife’s illness are great. He has much to make up for. I hope he will do that in Israel.

Professor Alan Dershowitz on Ex-Spy Jonathan Pollard

Five years after his release from prison: electronic handcuffs removed by Jonathan Pollard: "I am a free man" pic.twitter.com/9HdQvhqCUb
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) November 22, 2020

Former PM Olmert to 'Post': Don't let Pollard make aliyah, it'll anger Biden

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert criticized former agent Jonathan Pollard on Sunday, saying he should not be welcomed in Israel. Interviewed by Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Yaakov Katz at the Maariv newspaper’s business conference on Sunday, Olmert cautioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against holding a festive ceremony for Pollard when he moves to Israel soon.

“With all due respect, I would prefer that he not move to Israel,” Olmert said. “We don’t owe him anything. He was a spy who worked for a lot of money. He was not a ZiontistZionist volunteer who came and sacrificed his life. He was an American who loved Israel and worked for a lot of money, spying for Israel.”

Olmert said the information Pollard provided Israel helped the Jewish state but in retrospect did more harm than good.

“His spying was beneficial, but when taking a full account, the damage caused to Israel’s interests as a result of revealing his involvement was the harshest in the history of US-Israel relations,” Olmert said. “The danger of increasing this damage has not ended. If the prime minister will act like he does and have a festive welcoming ceremony for Pollard, we will pay a heavy price when there will soon be a new administration in America.”

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman also criticized Pollard on Sunday in an interview with KAN Radio.

“I recommend we celebrate less because of American public opinion,” Olmert said. “I suggest we lower our level of excitement, because it doesn’t help with the American defense system, which sees the Pollard affair as an unacceptable incident that violated acceptable codes between Israel and the US.”

Some Lebanese Muslims upset at Muslim who facilitated synagogue restoration

Beirut's Magen Avraham synagogue, located in the Wadi Abu Jamil neighborhood downtown, was damaged in the Beirut port explosion.

Philanthropist Richard Heykal rebuilt the synagogue, according to reports. It is really a beautiful building.

It had private opening for dignitaries, although it was not and is not planned to be open to the public, and there are not enough Jews in Beirut to have services there.

One of the people seen in one of the photos of the private opening was Basem Al-Hout, a Muslim who is the Mukhtar of the remaining Jewish community there. He keeps tracks of births, deaths, and marriages, and is pretty much responsible for the community.

And other Muslims are upset at his involvement in rebuilding the synagogue.

According to Al-Ankabout, members of the "Islamic Group" have been arguing about Magen Avraham and specifically Al Hour's role.

Sheikh Sami Al-Khatib of the group said, "the presence of the [Jewish community's] political official in Beirut at the opening ceremony, is neither natural nor acceptable."

Sheikh Hussein Atwi said, “This synagogue is an advanced base to the enemy in the heart of the capital. Otherwise, how do we explain the relentless US and Israeli efforts to restore it? What convincing argument is this that speaks of coexistence? ”

Sheikh Muhammad al-Hajj, of the Association of Palestinian Scholars Abroad, also objected: “We are not against the Jews in performing their rituals, but why today? How many Jews are there in Lebanon? This coincides with the demarcation of [maritime] borders and with political and economic pressures on Lebanon, while Lebanon still refuses to grant civil rights to Palestinian refugees."

The secretary general of the Islamic Group tried to calm things down, defending Al Hout and saying that supporting a synagogue has nothing to do with Israel.

And then the Islamists of his group started attacking him!

This is how deep antisemitism is in Lebanon.

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'The official Palestinian Wafa news agency reports:

President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, received this evening, Sunday, a phone call from the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa .

During the call, the King offered his condolences on the death of the great fighter, Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat.

In turn, the President offered condolences to King Hamad bin Isa, on the death of the Bahraini Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.

Here is how Bahrain's news agency wrote about this:

His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa held a phone call with Palestinian President, Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas.

President Abbas offered to HM the King condolences on the passing of His Royal Highness Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa, praying to Allah the Almighty to rest his soul in vast paradise.

HM the King also expressed condolences to President Abbas on the death of PLO Executive Committee Secretary-General Dr. Saeb Erekat.

They don't say who called whom, and they switch the order of the conversation to prioritize condolences over Khalifa first and then Erekat.

Erekat died on November 10.

Prince Khalifa died on November 11.

The phone call took place on November 22, an exceptionally long time after both deaths to offer condolences.

This looks a lot like a game of diplomatic chicken, with each leader wanting the other to call them first to offer condolences so they feel more powerful and force the other into a position of subservience. In this case, Abbas "won."

Here we have the stupidity of the honor/shame culture in full view.

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11/23 Links Pt1: Netanyahu meets Saudi crown prince MBS, Pompeo in Saudi Arabia; Pompeo made history; Israeli-Palestinian “security cooperation”—myth or reality?

From Ian:

Netanyahu meets Saudi crown prince MBS, Pompeo in Saudi Arabia

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad chief Yossi Cohen met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Neom, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, Israeli sources confirmed.

Netanyahu used a private plane belonging to businessman Udi Angel, which he has used for past diplomatic trips. The plane left Israel at 5 p.m. on Sunday and returned after midnight.
ABSOLUTELY rare Israeli flight direct to new Saudi mega-city Neom on Red Sea shore

It was Bibi's ex-fav bizjet t7-cpx. Back to Tel Aviv after 5 hours on ground pic.twitter.com/Ty9aedYbsK
— avi scharf (@avischarf) November 23, 2020
The Israeli and Saudi sides discussed Iran and normalization, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a Saudi source.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan denied the meeting took place on Twitter, saying only Saudi and American officials were present.

Yet Education Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed the meeting, calling it an “amazing achievement” and “a matter of great importance” in an interview with Army Radio.

The trip was kept tightly under wraps as it was planned for over a month, with Netanyahu not informing Defense Minister Benny Gantz or Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi before it took place.

Pompeo made history

Instead, Pompeo's visit and his statements were correctives to these errors of judgment in reporting and commentary. Facts still matter. Pompeo's visit reminds the International community of a truth that every Israeli government since 1967 have attempted to convey to the world, unsuccessfully: Psagot and Petach Tikvah share the same legitimacy. The secretary's visit marks the first time that a United States administration has formally recognized the equality of Jewish sovereignty.

This US recognition of collective Jewish human rights parallels the principle of secure Jewish collective life that every Israeli government has recognized since the Jewish people's reestablishment of sovereignty in 1948. The International community had formally recognized those same rights to Jewish Sovereignty in 1920 at the international San Remo Conference. The principal powers of the League of Nations formalized San Remo's declarative recognition in 1922 of the Right of the Jewish People to "reconstitute their National Home In Palestine". The League of Nations further called for "close (Jewish) settlement" establishing and unanimously approving the Mandate for Palestine, that anchored the Jewish collective human right to collective freedom and sovereignty and ultimately led to Israel's Declaration of Independence and policy of every Israeli government Since 1967, sanctioning rights to Jewish community building on both sides of the 1949 armistice lines on state land.

The United States' top diplomat apparently did his legal and diplomatic homework. Apparently, he and his advisers studied the abovementioned international legal documents. His visit to Israel's Psagot winery and his accompany condemnations of BDS and anti-Semitic product labeling, reminiscent of the World War II-era, break the "glass ceiling" regarding formal US recognition of Israel's legal rights to sovereignty. US and Israel's alignment on Israel's rights to sovereignty safeguards the most fundamental Jewish collective human right today. Unfortunately, the cynical discrediting of Secretary Pompeo's alignment with the policy of all Israeli governments since 1967 reflects the lack of understanding of its critics rather than the well-reasoned positions of the current US State Department.

MEMRI: Saudi Journalist In Message To Iran Following Normalization Agreements With Israel: Iran, Not Israel, Is The Enemy Of The Arabs, Destabilizes The Region

In a September 23, 2020 column titled "Message to Iran, in Light of the Peace with Israel," Saudi journalist 'Abdallah Zayed reacted to Iran's harsh attack on the normalization agreements between the UAE, Bahrain and Israel. [1] Iran, he wrote, is forgetting that it is the one whose bullying and terrorist behavior is destabilizing the region and who has become the enemy of the Arabs. He added that Iran spouts slogans of liberating Jerusalem, but in practice it does nothing to realize that goal and, moreover, continues to occupy many Arab countries while pursuing the goal of renewing its lost Persian empire.

The following are translated excerpts from his article:[2] "The wailing, weeping, pain and sorrow of the of the government officials of Iran and its proxies have been steadily growing since the UAE and Bahrain signed a peace agreement with Israel. The spokesman of Iran's foreign ministry keeps repeating terms like 'Arab nobility' and 'Islamic values,' while the Iranian government keeps forgetting its [own] actions in the region and [the fact that it has] crossed many red lines, which have turned it into a blatant enemy [of the Arabs].

"The Iranians are forgetting that it is they who are in a state of hostility and actual war with the countries of the region. Who is occupying the [UAE's] Persian Gulf islands?[3] Who tried to precipitate a coup in Bahrain? Who conspired against Kuwait by employing terror cells? Who are the ones firing their missiles into Saudi Arabia? Who are the ones who sent their mercenaries to [fight in] Syria? Who founded the militias in Iraq? Who founded a terrorist party in Lebanon [i.e., Hizbullah]? Who is cultivating the [Houthi] mercenaries in Yemen to stage a coup against the legitimate government? The truth is that the one who did all this is not Israel but Iran.

"No Israeli official has ever declared [with pride] that his country is occupying five Arab capitals.[4] Although Iran brandishes the slogan of resistance, although it has [a military force] called 'Qods [i.e., Jerusalem] Force'… and although it claims that its goal is to liberate Al-Aqsa, we have never seen the top Iranian officers [firing] a single bullet in retaliation for Israel's bombing of their bases in Syria. Israel sends planes and fires missiles, constantly bombs the [Iranians'] bases in different areas, yet Iran does not respond. When Russia intervened and ordered the Iranians to move their bases hundreds of kilometers away from the Israeli border, Iran did so, [despite] the intense humiliation.

"Doesn’t Iran claim that it now has a foothold in northern Israel, thanks to Hizbullah, which controls Lebanon, and also thanks to its presence in Syria?! Yet it hasn't liberated Al-Aqsa and Jerusalem, as it constantly calls [to do].

"The clear equation and the obvious [conclusion] is that Iran's real goal is to take over the Arab world and reestablish the obsolete Persian Empire in it. Simply put, that is the reason for the Iranian actions we are seeing on the ground. Is it Israel that is present [in Yemen], on Saudi Arabia's southern border? What does [Iran] want with Yemen? Is it Israel who is present north of Saudi Arabia, in Iraq? What does [Iran] want with Iraq? Is it Israel who is present east of Saudi Arabia, [in Bahrain]? What does [Iran] want with Bahrain?

Remember The Quartet? That was the group made up of the US, UN, EU and Russia in 2002 to push the Oslo process along during the second intifada when Palestinian terrorists were blowing up Jews in Israeli cities.

Besides creating a "roadmap" that went nowhere, it really hasn't done much.

The Quartet does issue reports every once in a while, including one as recently as last month that no one noticed. That report discusses the Palestinian refusal to cooperate with Israel:

There has been no notable progress in addressing outstanding fiscal files. The PA’s decision – in response to the threat of annexation and deductions to clearance revenues – to stop accepting the monthly revenues from the GoI, combined with reduced tax generation, reduced PA monthly revenue by 80 per cent. Resuming acceptance of monthly clearance revenue transfers as well as any accumulated sums to date will go some way to addressing this crisis. ...
In the security sector, the suspension of security cooperation limited the PA’s ability to enforce COVID related restrictions outside PA cities, particularly in rural areas, as well as its ability to monitor the flow of Palestinian labour crossing to and from Israel. It also hampered the PA’s ability to enforce rule of law in much of the West Bank. Resumption of security coordination that enables PA Security Forces to provide effective law enforcement to communities residing outside Area A is strongly encouraged.

Now that the PA walked back its refusal to deal with Israel, the Quarter apparently woke up to issue a statement of support for the Palestinians not acting like spoiled brats. I couldn't find the Quartet statement, but PLO leader Abbas praised the Quartet for complimenting him on resuming what should never have stopped.

The Palestinian Presidency welcomed the position issued by the International Quartet meeting, which confirmed that the Palestinian move to restore relations with the Israeli side creates the necessary conditions for building confidence and returning to direct negotiations on the basic issues related to the final status.

The presidency welcomed the positive evaluation of the Palestinian move by the Quartet representatives during their meeting, which included the Russian Federation, the United States of America, the United Nations and the European Union

The Quartet spends about $6 million annually. In the words of Palestinian officials in 2012, the Quartet is "useless, useless, useless."

But it is much easier to create bureaucracies to work on Oslo-era issues than it is to end them.

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On November 6, Hen Mazzig tweeted, "Trump’s ‘support’ for Israel was never a gift. He cared more about the way Christians viewed it, than the lives of American Jews, made Israel a partisan issue, and harmed public opinion towards Israel. Remember, Trump cares only about himself."

I wrote a post disagreeing, and proposing a test:

Assuming that he has lost the election, he is a lame duck president.

If he ignores Israel in his remaining weeks in office, then that would strongly indicate that Mazzig is right.

If he works to do more things that are good for Israel, then that would strongly indicate that Trump really is pro-Israel.

In Round 1, I said that reports that the Trump administration planned on pushing new rounds of sanctions up until he leaves office indicates that I am right. Mazzig responded that Trump didn't personally do this, saying all he was doing was playing golf. (He then retweeted the fake news that Trump unfollowed Netanyahu on Twitter.)

In Round 2, I noted a story that an American official stated that Trump would do all he can for Israel until the last minute. Mazzig dismissed that:

I'm fine with saying that the test is about actions, but if one wants to redefine everything good for Israel as really being good for himself - even after the election - then this test is meaningless, since it means that no matter what Trump or his administration do, some reason can be found to make it about Trump, real or imagined.

Since then we have round 3, 4 and 5, all of them courtesy of Mike Pompeo.

Round 3 was saying that the US would start to determine whether any organizations that are funded by the US are adhering to BDS with the intent of stopping aid to those organizations. Chances are very small that this will go past January 20. At the same time, Pompeo tweeted that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

Round 4 was Pompeo changing the labeling guidelines for goods imported from the territories to say "Made in Israel." This reflects reality of Israel's rule over those areas, whether one agrees with it or not; the labeling laws were embraced by Israel-haters.

Round 5 is today's bombshell news:

In the first visit of its kind, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Saudi Arabia on Sunday, where he met with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an Israeli official told Hebrew media on Monday.
Netanyahu was on the ground in Neom, a Red Sea city, for five hours for the first known high-level meeting between an Israeli and Saudi leader. He was accompanied by Mossad intelligence chief Yossi Cohen, according to the reports.

Clearly Pompeo was behind this meeting as well, and all parties knew this would be leaked, to send a message of things changing in the Middle East (as opposed to previous secret meetings with the Saudis.)

I imagine Hen can find excuses on these three as well, saying that this is all Pompeo and not Trump, that Pompeo is preparing for a 2024 campaign for President and this is all about that. But again, ultimately this is Trump's foreign policy; Pompeo cannot do this without Trump's go-ahead.

Is there an element of self-interest with Trump? Of course! And more so than with other presidents. Even so, everyone has multiple motives for anything that they do. Philanthropists have buildings named after them, does that negate the charity they give? Also, one would hope that US presidents would be pro-Israel because it is in America's interests, if they prioritize Israeli interests above their own nation's then they are not good leaders. Does that mean there was never a pro-Israel president?

Bottom line is that Israel is in better shape today than it was two weeks ago because of the Trump administration's recent decisions.

Plus, there is no way to look at these moves since the election without comparing them to Obama's throwing Israel under the bus when he was a lame duck in pushing the UN Security Council to pass an anti-Israel resolution. That revealed his true nature; Trump's actions (direct or indirect) since the election are a polar opposite.

I would say that in the two weeks since the election (and since the Lame Duck Test) the Trump administration did more for Israel than any President in their entire terms since Clinton, at least.

I trust my readers can make their own determinations as to whether this test has been a success or not.

And there are still almost two months to go.

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Turkey's Jewish community is frightened and dwindling

David Lepeska writes about Turkish Jewry in The National. Excerpts:

The plight of Turkey’s Jewish community underscores the deeply rooted, extremist Islamist nature of Turkey’s leader.

Jews have a long history in Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. When Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, the Ottoman Empire welcomed thousands of them. By 1500, Istanbul, the Ottoman capital, was more than 10 per cent Jewish.

Extremist terrorists killed 22 Jews in an Istanbul synagogue in 1986, unsettling the community. Yet by 2000, the 23,000 Jews who remained in Turkey felt largely at home. Many even identified as Turkish first, according to Dr Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, a Turkish-Jewish researcher at Tel Aviv University.

Things changed after Mr Erdogan took power. His political mentor was Necmettin Erbakan, head of the Islamist movement Milli Gorus, or National Vision. Erbakan drew from the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been anti-western and anti-Semitic since its founding nearly a century ago in Egypt. Mr Erdogan left to launch the AKP in 2001 and became prime minister two years later. In those early days, he served as the West’s poster child for Islamic democracy, pointing toward a “Turkish model” as he strengthened the rule of law to prepare for Turkey’s bid for accession to the EU.

Slowly, Mr Erdogan returned to his Islamist roots, highlighted by a series of political confrontations with Israel. During Israel’s 2006 war with Lebanon, Mr Erdogan began to criticise Israel heavily. In 2009, Mr Erdogan frequently clashed with Israel’s then president, Shimon Peres, and stormed out of that year’s World Economic Forum in Davos. Then, in 2010, came the Mavi Marmara affair: Israeli commandos boarded a humanitarian ship that sought to break Israel’s blockade over Gaza, and killed nine Turkish nationals as well as a Turkish-American.

Thousands of Turkish protesters attempted to overrun the Israeli consulate in Istanbul.

Jewish shops were boycotted. Turkey’s predominantly pro-government newspapers filled with anti-Semitic vitriol, and Turkish Jews started streaming for the exits. By 2012, just 17,000 of them remained.

“For Turkish Jews it was like a slap in their face,” Dr Yanarocak says.

Turkish Jews might have also seen it coming. Back in the 1970s, when Mr Erdogan was head of a National Vision youth group, he wrote and played the lead role in a theatre production about Islamists facing an evil, Jewish-led conspiracy.

Spain and Portugal have offered to grant citizenship to any proven descendants of Jews expelled in 1492. Dr Yanarocak says many of his Jewish friends in Turkey have applied for that programme so they have an escape hatch should the situation deteriorate further. Three years ago, his parents finally picked up and left Istanbul for Israel – one more step toward Turkey’s Jewish community acknowledging that its days are numbered.

In former US President Barack Obama’s hot-selling new memoir, he warns of Mr Erdogan’s “vocal sympathy for both the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas…[which] made Washington and Tel Aviv nervous”. Former Turkish parliamentarian Aykan Erdemir told an Israeli newspaper earlier this year that Mr Erdogan’s anti-Semitism would haunt Turkey at home and abroad long after he leaves office. “The hate and prejudice inculcated in the Turkish people for almost two decades will have lasting effects,” Mr Erdemir said.

It already has.

Earlier this month, Turkey's Miswak magazine published this antisemitic cartoon:

Two Jews, symbolized by the menorah on the mantel as well as the Masonic pyramid symbol, are discussing the US elections; the man on the left asks who will win and the one on the right responds "of course we will."

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Lebanese economy circling the drain as forensic accounting firm quits

From AP:

A New-York-based company contracted by the Lebanese government to conduct a forensic audit of the country's central bank has decided to pull out of the deal because it was not able to acquire requested information and documents, Lebanon's caretaker finance minister said Friday.

The announcement by Alvarez & Marsal deals a major blow to those hoping for accountability in a country mired in corruption and a crippling economic and financial crisis. It comes after Lebanon's central bank refused to provide the company with the needed documents, using the country's decades-old banking secrecy laws as a pretext.

Caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni told The Associated Press that Alvarez & Marsal, which was contracted in July, says the information it received so far isn't enough and that it doesn't expect to get more.

The country's current economic and financial crisis, the worst in its modern history, is rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement.

The outgoing government had been calling for a forensic audit into the central bank's accounts since March, after the country defaulted on paying back its massive debt for the first time earlier this year.

President Michel Aoun has been a strong supporter of a forensic audit but other politicians were strongly opposed to such a move, which could reveal parties that have been benefiting from corruption.

Al Jazeera adds a salient point:

Nasser Saidi, a former vice governor at the central bank, said the decision likely came down to considerations over A&M’s image.

“Incredibly, this company cares more about its own reputation than Lebanon cares about its reputation,” Saidi told Al Jazeera. “They are professionals, they wanted to do a professional job, they were prevented from doing so and now we’re back to square one.”

Lebanon hired Alvarez and Marsal because of an outcry after they first hired Kroll, which has offices in Israel - as do virtually all major accounting firms.

Which means that there are very few professional forensic accounting firms available to do what Lebanon needs to climb out of its crisis, even if they open up the books of their central bank.

No country will provide aid to Lebanon without this forensic accounting - unless it is a country that intends to take over Lebanon altogether.

Like Iran, which expects a financial windfall in the coming months.

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