Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 18, 2021

01/18 Links Pt1: Trump's Middle East solution will sink into oblivion; City of David recognized as 'testament' to US Judeo-Christian heritage

From Ian:

David Singer: Trump's Middle East solution will sink into oblivion

Trump’s Peace Plan was rejected by PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on 5 February 2020:
“They told me Trump wants to send me the deal of the century to read, I said I would not,” Abbas told the meeting of Arab League foreign ministers.

“Trump asked that I speak to him over the phone, so I said ‘no’, and that he wants to send me a letter, so I refused to receive it.”

On 9 February 2020 - US Ambassador to Israel – David Friedman – affirmed:
“The process [preparing a detailed map – ed] will not last very long, but we want to go through a process… We’re going to go through a mapping process to convert a map which is drawn of more than a million to one into something which really shows on the ground how the territory will be put together.

"It’s not unduly difficult, but it’s also not simple, because there are a lot of judgment calls. We don’t want to do this piecemeal …

"We want to do it once, holistically, in totality, and get it done right. We just want to get it done right. That’s not too much to ask. And that was the president’s message when he spoke about it the first time.”

On 15 February 2020 - the three US members of a joint US-Israel committee to join Israel’s three nominees in translating Trump’s conceptual plans into two defined territorial entities were announced (Mapping Committee).

Eleven months later the Mapping Committee’s map remains under tight wraps. No reasons have been given for the Committee’s failure to publish.

Failing to release the Mapping Committee’s detailed map before 20 January setting out defined borders to facilitate future Israel-PLO negotiations – should they ever be resumed - will see Trump’s two-state solution sink into political oblivion.

President Trump’s opportunity to finally end the 100 years-old unresolved Jewish-Arab conflict will then become just a footnote in history – joining the failed attempts of his Presidential predecessors.

Commentary Magazine Podcast: Trump’s Gift to Biden

Hosted by Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, John Podhoretz, Noah Rothman Bret Stephens, newly minted COMMENTARY contributing editor, joins the podcast today to discuss his blockbuster article, “Memo to President Biden: Please Don’t Mess Up the Abraham Accords.

”

US Special Envoy Aryeh Lightstone @lightstonea to #i24NEWS on Arab-Israeli normalization and the new Middle East:

'Peace does not belong to Republicans or Democrats, it is not an issue for Jews, Christians or Muslims, it is an issue for mankind.' pic.twitter.com/Kiw8GX9I2q
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) January 17, 2021

Col. Richard Kemp on 30th Anniversary of 1991 Gulf War

Survey of British antisemitism: Extreme antisemitism is down, subtle antisemitism is on the rise

The Antisemitism Barometer 2020, which was commissioned by the UK-based Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), was just released.

Some of the specific responses to the questions look absolutely frightening.

While those who agreed with the antisemitic statement that Jews have too much power in the media went down from the 2019 survey from 14% to 11%, those who disagree went down more - from a majority of 54% to a minority of 42%. That is a very bad trend.

A similar pattern is seen on this question of Jews chasing money:

The number of explicit antisemites went down, but the number who oppose the antisemitic statement went down even further - from 54% to 41%, a huge drop in one year.

Another example where the extremist antisemites are decreasing but the moderate antisemites are increasing:

The number who are comfortable around Zionists plummeted from an already-low 41% to 31%.

And again, when asked if Israel has the right to defend itself from those who want to destroy it - a question that would be so obviously true for every other nation on Earth, but for Israel, the British are worse than ambivalent:

Those who agree went down from 58% to only 50%.

Here's a question where a classic antisemitic trope is re-phrased as an anti-Zionist one:

Only 30% disagree that Zionists control the media - in the land of The Guardian and the BBC.

Perhaps the most shocking result is this one, where only 20% of Britons disagree that Israel treats Palestinians as Nazis treated Jews - an absolutely antisemitic statement:

They must have gotten this impression from the Zionist-controlled media.

In a year where antisemitism was a big topic in the UK with the Labour antisemitism scandal, it seems that fewer people are willing to express explicitly antisemitic feelings - but the number of people willing to openly counter antisemitic is plunging..

This does not bode well for British Jewry.

Dafna Meir H"YD

Dafna Meir worked as a nurse in the neurosurgery department of Soroka Medical Center in Beesheba. She was also a pre-marital counselor for brides. Dr. Ahmed Nasser, who worked alongside her at the hospital, described her as his "best friend" in the department, always helpful, encouraging everyone, treating all alike, whether Jewish or Arab. Dafna had been studying Arabic, telling Dr. Nasser that "we are neighbors and should speak the same language."

She had four children and two foster children. "She was a happy woman, joyful, optimistic, driven, responsible, loving," related a neighbor.

On January 17, 2016, Dafna was painting the front door to her home. Her eldest daughter, Renana, heard her scream. She ran to her aid, only to see a Palestinian terrorist stab her mother repeatedly. Dafna tried to fight off assailant, protecting the three children who were at home at the time. Renana screamed for help, and the terrorist fled.

Dafna was pronounced dead at the scene.

Her murderer was a 15 year old boy named Morad Bader Abdullah Adais who was caught the next day.

It is now five years later - and Morad Adais is very happy. Because his salary for being a murderer is doubling today.

According to the Palestinian Authority's sliding salary structure for terrorists and murderers, today Adais goes from being paid 2000 shekels a month to 4000.

The average Palestinian worker gets paid about 2500 shekels a month, which means that the now 20-year old Morad Adais makes significantly more money than Palestinians who have to work for a living, who have to pay for their own housing and food.

The Palestinian leaders say that these payments for terrorists are a sacred part of their budget.

To Palestinians, Morad Adais is a hero who deserves every penny of his lifetime award for repeatedly stabbing a mother who was guilty of the crime of being a Jew.

(h/t Maurice Hirsch)

Human Rights Watch belatedly jumped on the bandwagon claiming Israel is responsible for vaccinating Palestinians who are not under Israeli control.

As one might expect, HRW twists international law:

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which Israel ratified in 1991 and the State of Palestine acceded to in 2014, requires states to take steps necessary for the “prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases.”

That sure sounds like the Palestinians have the primary responsibility, doesn't it? But HRW adds:

The United Nations body responsible for monitoring this treaty has confirmed that Israel is obliged to respect this treaty in the occupied territory, and to protect the right to health and other rights of the population there.

What does this document say? This is the part HRW doesn't want you to read:

The Committee reminds the State party that it has positive and negative obligations with regard to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, depending on its level of control and the transfer of authority, that it should not raise any obstacle to the exercise of such rights in those fields where competence has been transferred to the Palestinian authorities and that any measures taken by the State party should ensure that the legislative and policy measures relating to the occupied territories taken by the State party as the occupying Power do not result in any permanent alteration in the political or legal status of the territories or have irreparable consequences for the people living there.

It says explicitly that in areas where the Palestinians have control, Israel cannot interfere with their governance without permission.

That means that Israel must not interfere with Palestinian vaccination plans - unless the Palestinian Authority asks.

Which is entirely consistent with the Geneva Conventions, with the Oslo Accords, and entirely inconsistent with what HRW is claiming!

HRW may have one point: it may be true that Israel is responsible for vaccinating the non-Israeli Palestinians in Area C, even though many of them are illegal squatters. Yet even then, it disgustingly accuses Israel of racism:

“Nothing can justify today’s reality in parts of the West Bank, where people on one side of the street are receiving vaccines, while those on the other do not, based on whether they’re Jewish or Palestinian,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “Everyone in the same territory should have equitable access to the vaccine, regardless of their ethnicity.”

This is slander. Israel is not distinguishing between Jews and Arabs. There are thousands of Arabs who live across the Green Line who get full access to Israeli services, including vaccinations.

Israel is distinguishing between citizens and non-citizens. Which is something every country on Earth does. If a nation doesn't take care of its own citizens ahead of others, it is failing in its most basic function.

The only people who really do distinguish between Jews and non-Jews are the critics of Israel like BDS and Human Rights Watch. Because, you see, they don't consider the Israeli Arabs who live across the Green Line to be "settlers."

Only Jews can be illegal settlers.

When Israel builds houses for Arabs in Jerusalem across the Green Line, Human Rights Watch is silent - even though Israeli Arabs will move there. They only complain when Jews move into those projects or neighborhoods.

When Israeli Arabs own businesses over the Green Line, their business names are not places on any "blacklists" of "illegal settler businesses." Only Jewish-owned ones are called illegal.

So when HRW accuses Israel of treating Jews better than Arabs, they are projecting their own bigotry onto Israel. Because they are the ones who say that Jews should be treated differently from non-Jews.

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My 2014 NGO spoof became (happily) true in 2020

In 2014, I made this graphic to show how far off the idea of peace was between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Muslim Voice for Peace:

We believe in two states for two peoples: Israel for the Jewish people and Palestine for the Palestinian Arab people

We believe that both sides must make compromises for peace

We believe that terrorism is always wrong

We desire a warm peace that includes cultural and trade relations to benefit both our peoples

We are willing to bring our message of true peace to everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike

Unfortunately, we don't exist.

The idea of Arabs actually believing these things - none of which are crazy ideas - was so far-fetched as to be ridiculous.

Then, in 2020, the UAE filled every single one of these bullet items! And it is much more impressive to have an entire nation believe these things than a small NGO.

(I'm not quite sure if Bahrain meets all of these criteria, although it is close. The jury is still out on Sudan and Morocco.)

I am very happy I can no longer make general statements about "Muslims" and "Arabs" not being interested in real peace with Israel.

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.

01/17 Links: As Israel-UAE Ties Deepen, BDS Advocates ‘Give Up’ on Efforts to Boycott Jewish State; Poll Finds 45% of UK Adults Hold Antisemitic Views

From Ian:

As Israel-UAE Ties Deepen, BDS Advocates ‘Give Up’ on Efforts to Boycott Jewish State

Amid expanding ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates following the Abraham Accords, a leading Palestinian BDS organization is giving up on efforts to boycott the Jewish state inside of the Arab Gulf country.

In a statement, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)—a member of the Palestinian BDS National Committee—announced that it would “exclude” those residing in the UAE from its call to ban UAE-Israeli economic and diplomatic partnerships.

“The PACBI takes into account the delicate situation of Arab subjects in Arab countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, ruled by tyrannical regimes that have become a hotbed of normalization and betrayal plans and projects in the region,” wrote the BDS group.

Previously, the PACBI had called on Emiratis to boycott several major UAE companies and institutions that had established ties with Israel, including the First Dhabi Bank, Emirates Policy Center and Dubai Expo.

The move by the BDS movement to drop its efforts to boycott Israel in the UAE comes as Arabs in countries that signed the Abraham Accords are showing increasingly positive attitudes towards the Jewish state.

A new report from Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs (MSA) found a substantial decrease in negative posts on Arab social media regarding normalization with Israel in the weeks after the agreements were signed.

According to the MSA, the decline in negative comments towards Israel and normalization was in part due to the public awareness campaigns carried out by the respective governments.

From Pompeo’s Twitter Account, an Understated Policy Statement

Mike Pompeo’s Twitter account has apparently tucked a notable policy statement into an otherwise unremarkable legacy-burnishing tweetstorm — and it has significant implications for U.S. support of Israel at the U.N.

The tweet was just one of the dozens that the secretary of state’s account has fired off every day since the start of 2021 to note his foreign-policy accomplishments as he nears the end of his tenure. It’s generally unremarkable stuff — some old pictures and graphics with snappy, occasionally stilted sloganeering (though more than a few Pompeo critics have seized on it as an opportunity to go after the top Trump official).

But Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noticed a decision that has otherwise gone unremarked upon: When @SecPompeo shared the 2018 press release announcing the U.S. decision to halt funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the post stated that “it’s estimated less than 200,000 Arabs diplaced in 1948 are still alive and most others are not refugees by any rational criteria.”

UNRWA serves Palestinian refugees exclusively — it says that there are 5.8 million of them in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Palestine — and it’s the only organization within the U.N. system that focuses on a specific set of refugees. (All other refugee groups are handled by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.) It’s a testament to the U.N.’s single-minded obsession with criticizing Israel, holding the Jewish state to a different standard.

But what actually makes someone a refugee? Many have disputed the 5 million number as a gross inflation that purposefully overstates the true refugee population in order to undermine Israel at the U.N. Goldberg, dissecting Pompeo’s statement, takes square aim at a longstanding myth:

UNRWA claims to serve millions of “Palestinian refugees.” These “refugees” are in some cases kept in poverty and hopelessness, told they are waiting for the day when they will return to their rightful homes within modern Israel (to end the Jewish majority of the state). Of course, most people served by UNRWA don’t meet basic criteria for refugee status. Most are either citizens of other countries or live within Palestinian territories. Most were not displaced by conflict. Yet @StateDept has promoted UNRWA’s fiction for decades – with taxpayer $.

So Long, Ambassador David Friedman, and Thanks for All the Fish*

Today we are taking our leave from US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. I must say that over the years I have met many ambassadors from many countries, including from the US, our great ally, but I can say that there was never a better ambassador than David Friedman in establishing the deep ties between Israel and the US, in correcting the diplomatic injustices that were created over the years in global diplomacy regarding Israel and in establishing the status of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and many other things some of which have yet to be told.

David, I do not know, when you were appointed ambassador, if you knew the mark you would leave behind, but today we all know it. We know that you were very active in bringing about the American recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, itself a correction of an injustice that is difficult to understand.

You not only did his but you acted quickly on the transfer of the American embassy to Jerusalem and on the fact that in American passports it will be written ‘Jerusalem – Israel.’

What could be simpler, what could be more just, than correcting this injustice? This nonsense was corrected after decades due to vigorous action by President Trump and with your encouragement and at your initiative. This is the first thing.

Richly deserved! No U.S. Ambassador in history has done more than @USAmbIsrael to support Israel & strengthen the U.S. - Israel alliance. From Jerusalem embassy, security cooperation and Abraham Accords, Amb. Friedman has played intricate role in every U.S. policy these 4 years! https://t.co/hnOA8Tw9rN
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 17, 2021

Six of the "martyrs"

January 7 was "Palestinian Martyrs Day."

According to the PLO, there have been 100,000 Palestinian "martyrs" since 1948.

Since less than 30 Palestinians were killed by Israelis in 2020, I looked at previous years' announcements of the holiday - and none of them gave a total number of those killed since 1948.

The 100,000 number was first mentioned this year, implying that this nice, round number was achieved in 2020.

It is completely made up.

Wikipedia lists the number of deaths of Palestinians in wars since 1948. Less than 30,000 were killed in conflicts with Israel.

A higher number were killed by other Arabs - mostly in the Lebanese civil war, but also thousands in Jordan in 1970 and (not listed there) thousands in Syria in its civil war. At least a thousand more were killed by fellow Palestinians as "collaborators," mostly during the first intifada.

The total doesn't approach 100,000, and most of the Palestinians "martyred" since 1948 were killed by their fellow Arabs!

It is just as much a lie as the "900,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel since 1967" lie.

Why do Palestinians lie with completely made-up statistics? Because no Western reporters or NGOs expose the lies, so the lies get rewarded.

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Al Bayan reports that Lebanon has no plans to vaccinate Palestinians who have lived there for over seven decades.

Lebanon has been signing agreements with various pharmaceutical companied to obtain vaccines for its population, starting in early February.

Yet they have not announced any plans on how these vaccines will be distributed in Lebanon's overcrowded Palestinian "refugee" camps, which have become even more crowded since the Syrian civil war forced many more people of Palestinian ancestry to move in.

Palestinians in Lebanon only have limited access to Lebanese health services, and rely on UNRWA for their health needs. But UNRWA is not stepping up.

Lebanese officials told Al Bayan that they expected international organizations to vaccinate the Palestinians. UNRWA issued a vague statement that they expect the World Health Organization and the Lebanese Health Ministry to work on the issue. The Lebanese Health Ministry hasn't announced any plans, seeming to think it will be UNRWA's problem.

No one is making any concrete plans on distribution of vaccines in the 12 UNRWA camps in Lebanon.

UNRWA closed its 28 health facilities in Lebanon on Thursday as the nation went on lockdown, causing great anger among Palestinians. They plan to re-open tomorrow.

Nearly 4000 Palestinians have tested positive for COVID-19 in Lebanon, and 145 Palestinians have died so far.

There has not been a single article in The Guardian or Reuters or CNN or the New York Times about this situation. No "human rights" NGOs are up in arms about this. No one is castigating Lebanon for not taking care of the people who live in Lebanon.

In fact, no one in the West has even bothered to ask the question of how Palestinians in Lebanon will be vaccinated.

When Israel can't be blamed, no one seems too interested in Palestinian welfare.

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Marc Lamont Hill, the self-proclaimed expert on antisemitism who has accused Jews of poisoning Palestinian wells, has co-written a new book that will be published next month:

Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics
A bold call for the American Left to extend their politics to the issues of Israel-Palestine, from a New York Times bestselling author and experts on U.S. policy in the region

In this major work of daring criticism and analysis, scholar and political commentator Marc Lamont Hill and Israel-Palestine expert Mitchell Plitnick spotlight how holding fast to one-sided and unwaveringly pro-Israel policies reflects the truth-bending grip of authoritarianism on both Israel and the United States. Except for Palestine deftly argues that progressives and liberals who oppose regressive policies on immigration, racial justice, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, and other issues must extend these core principles to the oppression of Palestinians.

Hill and Plitnick provide a timely and essential intervention by examining multiple dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conversation, including Israel's growing disdain for democracy, the effects of occupation on Palestine, the siege of Gaza, diminishing American funding for Palestinian relief, and the campaign to stigmatize any critique of Israeli occupation. Except for Palestine is a searing polemic and a cri de coeur for elected officials, activists, and everyday citizens alike to align their beliefs and politics with their values.

Really? There is an "exception" in progressive spaces where people don't criticize Israel?

Where are these places?

Not in the pages of The Nation, or The Guardian, or the New York Times. Not in the reports from Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International. Not on college campuses. Not on social media.

On the contrary - people who are Zionist are the ones who are cast out of "progressive" spaces. Jews are automatically suspect in those spaces and they must pass a purity test to be accepted.

The entire reason Zioness exists is because Zionists were being shunned and excluded from feminist spaces. Prominent feminist Phyllis Chesler has documented this antipathy to Israel among modern feminists in excruciating detail.

Because "progressives" pretend to be always on the side of the underdog, this book is meant to make anti-Zionists appear to be silenced and beaten down to be one of the victims, not one of the oppressors.

Even anti-Israel advocates know that the thesis of the book is ridiculous. Here is a quote from 2018:

“Palestinian rights are being integrated into the broader progressive agenda. It’s becoming almost standard that if you support single-payer health care and climate justice, you’ll support Palestinian rights,” said Rebecca Vilkomerson, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace.

The blurbs for the book come from a variety of the usual suspects whose voices in various media disprove the thesis:

Praise for Except for Palestine:
“For too long, many have championed the rights and liberties of oppressed peoples here and abroad, but remained silent on Palestinian freedom, or even worse, supported U.S. policies that render Palestinian humanity and suffering invisible. This clear and courageous book is a clarion call for moral integrity and political consistency.”
—Cornel West, Harvard University

“Hill and Plitnick deliver a thoughtful and incisive analysis of how progressive commitments to racial and social justice are undermined by the ‘Palestinian exception.’ Building the civil rights movement for the twenty-first century in America requires an international intersectionality that necessarily includes advocating for the rights and dignity of Palestinians and Israelis alike. Except for Palestine is timely and vital.”
—Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Michigan’s 13th Congressional District

“Except for Palestine calls on progressives to apply the same principles to Israel-Palestine that they apply to the U.S. It’s a simple, radical, and deeply important argument, which anyone who cherishes justice should not ignore.”
—Peter Beinart, author of The Crisis of Zionism

“Hill and Plitnick have produced a timely and powerful indictment of decades of U.S. policy exceptionalizing Israel at the expense of progressive values. Their thorough examination of American progressives’ intellectual and moral hypocrisy when it comes to defending Palestinians’ human rights, civil rights, and right to challenge Israeli occupation is a valuable resource.”
—Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace

“This book explores some of the most fundamental contradictions confronting liberal spaces in the U.S. and makes a powerful case for the progressive core values of humanity, justice, and dignity to finally include the Palestinian people.”
—Ahmad Abuznaid, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights

“Except for Palestine cogently explores the reasons for the silence of so many progressives and liberals when it comes to the unceasing violations of the rights of the Palestinian people. Hill and Plitnick dismantle one by one the arguments used to justify this shameful silence, and in doing so provide an eloquent, balanced, and hard-hitting analysis of why ending an egregious exception to accepted norms of justice and equality is so imperative.”
—Rashid Khalidi, author of Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East

Apparently, being subject to criticism is the same as being "silenced" to these people.

There are two major problems with this argument. One is that progressives, if they were consistent, would all be Zionist. The other is that progressives, if they were consistent, would be harsh critics of Palestinian nationalism as it exists today.

Progressives believe that peoples should have self-determination. There is indeed an Israel exception - the Jewish people alone among all other peoples are not judged to have that right. Moreover, Israel is the most progressive place in the Middle East, and in many ways it is more progressive than western European nations towards Muslims- look at French restrictions on burkinis, or Swiss restrictions on the call for prayer from mosques.

What would a Palestinian state look like? It would be anything but progressive. Palestinians, under their own rule, are intolerant of gays; they have many laws that penalize women. Polls show that Palestinians opinions on everything are regressive:

In literally every aspect, this book is based on lies - lies about Israel, lies about Palestinians, lies about the US, lies about the progressive movement.

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.

New member of Congress says Democrats would have done Abraham Accords sooner

New Congressional Representative Mondaire Jones, who replaced Rep. Nita Lowey, has some bizarre ideas about the Abraham Accords, in this interview with JNS:

Q: Are there any of U.S. President Donald Trump’s pro-Israel policies that you’ve agreed with—for example, the Abraham Accords?

A: I support the normalization of relations between Israel and its surrounding Arab nations. I think that we could’ve gotten to this point much sooner under a different president, such as Hillary Clinton or [U.S. President-elect] Joe Biden, and I think it is despite Trump’s efforts that we’ve been able to make progress in that regard.

Q: So you do not give the president credit for brokering the Abraham Accords?

A: Absolutely not. I think he has done more to harm the State of Israel than any president in modern history. His political approach to the region has been to inflame tensions between Arabs and Israelis.

Q: Who do you give credit for brokering the accords?

A: Oh, goodness. The diplomats who have been working in the State Department on a career basis, and, of course, both the Israeli government and leaders in the Arab world for finally coming together and making strides towards the peaceful environment that so many people have been hurting for many decades.

Jones is a staunch supporter of restoring the Iran deal and he also said, "I’ve been really distraught to see the assassination of Iran’s leading nuclear scientist [Mohsen Fakhrizadeh], and I’m hopeful that has not destroyed the conditions that will allow for us to seamlessly re-enter that agreement."

This guy does not sound too knowledgeable.

In this interview and others he positions himself as a friend to Israel but it sounds like his "friendship" is the kind that J-Street claims to have - which is not friendship at all except in name.

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.

01/16 Links: Memo to President Biden: Please Don’t Mess Up the Abraham Accords; Regional ramifications as Trump seeks to include Israel in CENTCOM

From Ian:

Bret Stephens: Memo to President Biden: Please Don’t Mess Up the Abraham Accords

Where does the creation of a Palestinian state rank on this list of American priorities? Not high, in the final analysis. There’s a shopworn argument that the failure to “solve” the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is a major reason for ideological extremism and jihadist terrorism. Yet to the extent that extremists and jihadis care about, and act upon, their Palestinian grievance, it’s to destroy Israel in its entirety, not to create a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish one. There is also an argument that a Palestinian state of some kind will be necessary to preserve Israel’s Jewish and democratic character. But even if one concedes the point, it’s an argument about Israeli interests, not American ones.

The upshot is that the infatuation so many U.S. policymakers have with Palestinian statehood has disserved American interests in myriad ways.

- It confuses a vital national interest with a political wish—in this case, the wish of American presidents like Bill Clinton and secretaries of state like John Kerry to be lauded as peacemakers.
- It wastes the White House’s political capital and diplomatic time.
- It perpetuates the damaging myth that the plight of the Palestinians is the gravest in the region—to the detriment of other Middle Eastern people, such as the Kurds, who have fared far worse at the hands of Turks, Iraqis, and Syrians alike.
- It perpetuates the false notion that a solution to the Palestinian issue would somehow solve everything else.
- It allows the Arab world to go on asking “Who did this to us?” rather than “What did we do wrong?”—thereby fostering a mindset of blame-avoidance, conspiracy thinking, and political prevarication.
- It plays into the propaganda of America’s radical enemies, led by Iran, that Israel’s behavior, rather than their own, is the chief source of turmoil and injustice in the region.
- It asks that this same ally, Israel, weaken its defenses and take the proverbial “risks for peace,” when what America most needs from Israel is a strong country that can defend itself, come to the aid of its neighbors, provide the U.S. with critical intelligence and tactical know-how, and serve as a bulwark against the region’s radicals.
- It puffs the vanity of Palestinian leaders and encourages them to pursue maximalist demands and reject every compromise, since it is only through the perpetuation of conflict that they remain relevant actors on the world stage. The paradox of the Palestinian issue is that the greater the public and diplomatic attention paid it, the harder it is to solve.
- It stands in the way of full normalization of ties between Israel and Arab states by tying normalization to demands that Israel cannot safely meet, such as relinquishing the Jordan River Valley or allowing the descendants of Arab refugees from 1948 to return to Israel.
- It feeds anti-Semitic stereotypes. As one French ambassador put it not long after 9/11, “All the current troubles in the world are because of that shitty little country, Israel. Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?”

In sum, not only did the Obama administration harm U.S. interests and values by overworking the Israeli-Palestinian issue, it harmed Israeli, Arab, and even Palestinian interests as well. Could the Trump administration do better?

To its credit—and to the pleasant surprise of some of its critics, including me—it did, in spades.

Biden Doesn’t Need a New Middle East Policy

As with the past eight U.S. presidents, much of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy was dominated by the broader Middle East. Despite talk of ending “forever wars” and pivoting to Asia, core national interests have repeatedly drawn the United States back to the region.

In many ways, Trump’s priorities in the Middle East differed little from those of his two predecessors: eliminating weapons of mass destruction, supporting U.S. partners, fighting terror, and facilitating the export of hydrocarbons. In other ways, however, his administration—in which I served as envoy for both Syria and the coalition to counter the Islamic State (also known as ISIS)—oversaw a notable paradigm shift in the U.S. approach to the region. Both U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama pursued transformational campaigns in the Middle East based on the erroneous belief that by burrowing politically and militarily into states there, the United States could address the underlying causes of Islamist terror and perpetual regional instability.

Although Trump’s real policy views were often difficult to divine, his administration took a different tack, with clear results. By keeping American aims limited, responding to imminent regional threats but otherwise working primarily through partners on the ground, Trump avoided the pitfalls encountered by his predecessors while still advancing American interests. For all the partisan rancor in debates about foreign policy today, this new paradigm should—and likely will—continue to define U.S. policy. It offers the best option for containing challenges in the Middle East and prioritizing geopolitical challenges elsewhere.

A NEW STRATEGY
Most new administrations issue a National Security Strategy and then quickly shelve it. But the 2017 document drafted by the White House offered a novel blueprint for U.S. policy in the Middle East and one that the Trump administration generally followed. Overall, the strategy called for shifting focus from so-called endless wars to great-power competition, primarily with China and Russia. For the Middle East, that first principle meant avoiding entanglement in local issues while still pushing back on near-peer and regional dangers. In practice, this amounted to containing Iran and Russia while smashing serious terrorist threats.

Biden Administration Tells Israel It Will Continue to Pursue Normalization With Arab Countries: Report

The incoming Biden administration has told Israel that it plans to continue pursuing normalization agreements with Arab countries, according to a report from journalist Barak Ravid in Walla News.

“I do not think it is possible to reverse the relations that have been established between Israel and the Arab states in recent months,” Israeli Foreign Ministry official Eliav Benjamin told Ravid. “We’re in touch with Biden’s staff and what we have heard is that they are in favor of the normalization process, and that they are willing to continue it and we will work with them on that.”

Brokered by the Trump administration, the Abraham Accords saw normalized relations between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan — the first such deals since the Jewish state’s peace accord with Jordan in 1994.

“Some are more prepared and some less prepared,” Benjamin also said. “I expect more countries to join — I do not know if it will be in weeks or months, but there will be more”

President-elect Joe Biden praised the agreements in a Sep. 2020 statement, as a candidate, saying, “I welcome the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain taking steps to normalize ties with Israel … It is good to see others in the Middle East recognizing Israel and even welcoming it as a partner.”

Report: Biden team already holding talks with Iran on US return to nuclear deal

Officials in the incoming Biden administration have already begun holding quiet talks with Iran on a return to the 2015 nuclear deal, and have updated Israel on those conversations, Channel 12 News reported Saturday.

The network gave no sourcing for the report, and no details on what was allegedly discussed.

US President-elect Joe Biden has indicated his desire to return to the accord, while Israel is pushing for any return to the deal to include fresh limitations on Iran’s ballistic missile program and support for terror and destabilization around the world.

On Wednesday, Walla News reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is assembling a team to strategize for the first talks with the Biden administration on Iran’s nuclear program.

The team will include officials representing national security elements, the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry, the military, the Mossad spy agency, and the Atomic Energy Commission, the report said, citing unnamed sources in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Netanyahu is considering appointing a senior official to head the team and to serve as an envoy in talks with the US on the Iranian nuclear program, the report said.

From Kitabat.com, an Iraqi news site that is also popular in Algeria:

The Noble Qur’an has shown that the Jews have many characteristics associated with them, and it is considered part of their deceitful methods and their intrigue in distorting the facts and their dealings with every prophet and messenger. ...And they kill the prophets, espionage, blocking the path of God, breaking promises and cruelty of hearts...Most of their events wreak havoc on humanity and their history is stained with blood and treachery.

The Jews say that cats on the island of Ozil when they feel near the end of time rush to a specific cemetery to die in it quietly, and other dogs on distant islands also swim The ocean to this cemetery without prior knowledge of it and it dies there just as it liked to die in the same way as cats, and this was published by the Egyptian newspaper Akhbar Al-Youm on 10/21/1971.

... The bitterness in the modern era is not different from what the Jews did in Palestine in 1948, of the extermination, displacement and slaughter of dozens of pregnant women and the slaughter of sheikhs in the Deir Yassin region. As for the series of their assassinations of nuclear scientists, their record of these criminal behavior continues, the last of which is the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist Fakhri Zadeh.

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