Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, February 20, 2021

02/20 Links: WFB Editorial: A Headlong Rush to Surrender; IAEA Found Uranium Traces at Two Sites Iran Barred it From; Vaccine prevents 98.9% of COVID deaths, Israel’s Health Ministry data shows

From Ian:

Washington Free Beacon Editors: A Headlong Rush to Surrender

The former defense secretary Robert Gates famously wrote that Joe Biden "has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades." If the early days of his presidency are any indication, Biden is determined to prove him right.

Out of the gate, the administration is demonstrating to the mullahs in Tehran that it so badly wants back into the flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that it is willing to ignore Iran's terror attacks on American citizens and soldiers.

Administration officials have been virtually silent about Monday's attack by an Iranian proxy on American forces in Iraq except to say that such behavior "will not be tolerated." In a sop to Tehran, the State Department declined to name the group that took credit for the attack, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, ostensibly because it would throw a wrench into their efforts to re-enter the Iran deal.

The Biden administration is doing more than demonstrating the hollowness of its tough talk. It is rewarding Iranian aggression with an olive branch: Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday told European foreign ministers that the United States was now ready to talk with Iran. According to the New York Times, the Iranians are not through playing hard to get and have offered no indication they will accept the offer. Why not let Biden twist for a few more days to see what further inducements the administration might offer and to savor the humiliation?

They will find a way to return to the Iran deal, to remove the sanctions on Iran even as it persists in terrorizing the region, and to torment Israel as payback for the real and perceived slights of the Obama years.

U.S. and European Government Leaders Slam ICC Investigation into Israel

The International Criminal Court's decision to initiate an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes threatens to undermine the body's judicial integrity and is driven by groups that seek to delegitimize the world's only Jewish state, according to a group of former senior government and military officials from the United States and Europe.

The ICC's recent decision to pursue charges against Israel represents an "unprecedented campaign of delegitimization against Israel waged by the enemies of the Jewish State and supported by numerous international institutions," according to a letter sent by these government officials on Friday to newly installed ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan. The Friends of Israel Initiative, an international coalition of former military and government officials that advocates on Israel's behalf, organized the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The Biden administration and Israel have already condemned the investigation, claiming the court has no jurisdiction to investigate the alleged crimes. Friday's letter by the Friends of Israel Initiative is the most coordinated public rejection of the investigation to date and is signed by several of the most prominent global leaders, including former U.S.-Iran envoy Elliott Abrams, former British Army commander Col. Richard Kemp, former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, former Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar, former Australian prime minister John Howard, and former president of Uruguay Luis Alberto Lacalle, as well as former foreign ministers of Canada, Italy, and the Netherlands, among others.

The former officials call on Khan to abandon the investigation, which was launched by ex-ICC chief Fatou Bensouda at the urging of many well-known anti-Israel groups, including some that are tied to terrorism. The former officials maintain that the court has no jurisdiction to prosecute Israel's alleged crimes and that Israel is under no obligation to comply with the investigation since it is not party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC.

"The request for an investigation was made by an entity [the Palestinian Authority] which is not a sovereign state within the terms of the Rome Statute, under which only sovereign states may delegate jurisdiction to the Court over their territory," the letter states. "In assigning itself jurisdiction, the ICC disregards and undermines the Oslo Accords, an internationally binding set of agreements that remain in force and continue to be recognized by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority."

Exclusive: IAEA Found Uranium Traces at Two Sites Iran Barred it From

The UN nuclear watchdog found uranium particles at two Iranian sites it inspected after months of stonewalling, diplomats say, and it is preparing to rebuke Tehran for failing to explain, possibly complicating US efforts to revive nuclear diplomacy.

The find and Iran’s response risk hurting efforts by the new US administration to restore Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, which President Joe Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump abandoned.

Although the sites where the material was found are believed to have been inactive for nearly two decades, opponents of the nuclear deal, such as Israel, say evidence of undeclared nuclear activities shows that Iran has not been acting in good faith.

Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Kazem Gharibabadi, declined to comment, as did the IAEA itself.

A senior Iranian official said: “We have nothing to hide. That is why we allowed the inspectors to visit those sites.”

Iran has set a deadline of next week for Biden to lift sanctions reimposed by Trump, or it will halt snap IAEA inspections under the deal, which lifted sanctions in return for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program. Next week is also when the IAEA is expected to issue a quarterly report on Iran’s nuclear activities.

Iranian media has nicely translated the Palestinian flood libel to English:

Mother of Terrorism: Zionist regime floods Palestinian farmlands in Gaza with Rainwater

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Not even an inch in Occupied Palestine isn’t subjected to the apartheid entity’s terrorism.

Large swaths of farmland in the besieged Gaza Strip have been flooded after “Israeli” officials deliberately emptied out nearby rainwater storages, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage to agricultural areas in the impoverished Palestinian enclave.

Farmers east of Zeitoun and Shajayeh districts of Gaza City told official Palestinian Wafa news agency that agricultural crops were completely destroyed on more than 500 dunmas [123.5 acres] of flooded land.

They argued that “Israeli” authorities open up the gates of nearby rainwater storages only a few days before harvest season, effectively flooding Gaza crops and causing a great deal of losses.

Meanwhile, a group of Palestinian non-governmental organizations has condemned the apartheid entity over flooding Palestinian-owned farmlands in the Gaza Strip.

“We hold the ‘Israeli’ regime fully responsible for the direct and indirect damage inflicted on Gaza and its residents” the group said in a statement.

The NGOs further stated “We call on the international community as well as humanitarian and human rights organizations to intervene immediately to prevent "Israeli" attacks on [Palestinian] farmers and their lands, to protect them and to ensure that the occupiers do not repeat their aggression.”

The Palestinian group also called for an international mechanism in order to compensate Gaza farmers, especially as agricultural products are the main food basket of people in the Strip.

The NGOs underscored that “Israeli” authorities intentionally open up the gates of dams and rainwater storages, damaging agricultural crops, infrastructure and various facilities in the Palestinian territory.

One of the people spreading the Iranian version of the ridiculous lie is Joe Catron, a BDS activist who writes for Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss.

02/19 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Christian Leaders Remain Silent as the Church Recycles Its Oldest Hatred; David Baddiel encounters SOAS professor excusing Palestinian Holocaust denial

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Christian Leaders Remain Silent as the Church Recycles Its Oldest Hatred

The WCC’s Zoom event was reported last week in the Algemeiner by Dexter Van Zile, the specialist in Christian affairs for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA) and who has long charted the conflation of Christian anti-Semitism with anti-Israel incitement.

In a subsequent article this week, Van Zile reports that the WCC has now tried to distance itself from Chikane’s remarks by claiming that he was from the African National Congress and therefore wasn’t speaking on behalf of the WCC when he made his comments.

He wrote that theologian Gerald McDermott expressed strong disagreement with Chikane’s statements and declared that he was “out of touch with the situation on the ground.”

In such circumstances, that would seem to be a considerable understatement. The situation on the church’s ground is that influential Christian organizations continue to pump out inflammatory falsehoods about Israel and Zionism which don’t just demonize and delegitimize Israel but draw upon the church’s own theology to demonize the Jewish people.

The most shocking aspect of this is that with just a handful of exceptions, the churches remain mute about it.

Church leaders usually flatly deny that Christian supersessionism has any contemporary resonance. Yet you don’t have to scratch very hard below the surface of the anti-Israel utterances by Western church leaders to pick up the supersessionist allusions.

It’s true that some of the most passionately pro-Israel people in the world today are Christians, in America and elsewhere. But these tend to be the biblically faithful. The obsessive animus against Israel and Zionism, along with its supersessionist underpinning, is mainly to be found among liberal Christians.

And their influence — through Christian NGOs and a wide range of other public and cultural institutions — is immense.

It’s not just that they influence other Christians. Even in relatively godless places like today’s Britain, the assumption that Christians stand for truth, justice and compassion means that even secular people tend to believe what they say. The pernicious falsehoods that such Christians pump out about Israel are therefore regarded as unchallengeably true.

Extreme as it was, Chikane’s diatribe on Zoom illustrated an even more unpalatable state of affairs — the silent acquiescence of church leaders in the contemporary mutation of Christianity’s own murderous history, and its virulent spread into the cultural arteries of the West.

Caroline Glick: One week in progressive America

Progressive America also targets American Jews through its Israel-anchored anti-Semitism. Anti-Zionism does not simply reject the moral basis for Israel's existence and support systemically discriminating against and eventually eliminating it. It also supports ostracizing American Jews who support Israel and barring them from expressing their views in public. That is the actual purpose of the BDS campaigns that at least two senior Biden administration officials – Maher Bitar and Reema Dodin – led in their student days.

Today, anti-Semitism is not a bar for advancement in progressive circles. To the contrary, it is an asset. Consider the big promotion that Cong. Ilhan "It's all about the Benjamins baby" Omar just received.

When Nancy Pelosi gave Omar a seat on the prestigious House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2019, the move provoked both anger and fear among many American Jews. They were angry because Omar, with her long record of anti-Jewish pronouncements would certainly use her position to advance her anti-Semitic positions. And they were scared because the fact that Pelosi appointed Omar over a loud chorus of objections was a sign of the power of progressive anti-Semites in the Democrat party.

When this week Pelosi appointed Omar chair of the subcommittee for Africa, global health and human rights. Outside a few conservative Jewish groups, the move met with no opposition. And there is a reason for that. Two years on, anti-Semitism is so ingrained in progressive circles that objecting to it is enough to get you tagged as a racist.

To drive this point home, last week the Jewish Democratic Council of America – the Jewish arm of the Democrat Party – hosted an online discussion of Biden's appointment of outspoken Israel haters and Palestinian terror supporters. Barack Obama's ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro was one of the participants. Shapiro insisted angrily that Jewish criticism of these officials is "racist." He added, "There is unfortunately this bias, this prejudice against Arab and Muslim Americans, particularly if they're working on issues related to the Middle East."

In other words, like objectivity and merit, in Work America, substantive criticism of others based on their actions and statements is now "racist." Fighting anti-Semitism is racist. Fighting hatred is racist. Fighting ignorance is racist.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. And scrutiny of the Democrats will likely make it difficult for them to maintain their Senate and House majorities in 2022. But the damage progressives are already causing to public health, to America's standing in the world, to American schoolchildren, and to American Jews will take more than one election to repair.

On BBC, David Baddiel encounters SOAS professor excusing Palestinian Holocaust denial

A broadcast last month on BBC 2 (“Confronting Holocaust Denial with David Baddiel’) included one extremely telling exchange we want to highlight. Baddiel is a British Jewish comedian and writer, who recently published a book on antisemitism.

At 33 minutes into the broadcast, Baddiel notes that, based on global polling, Holocaust denial (those who believe the Holocaust has been exaggerated or is entirely a myth) is extremely low in Europe, including the UK, with the percentage of people subscribing to such beliefs in the low single digits. The highest rate of denial is found, according to the data, in the Palestinian territories, where 82% of the population denies, to varying extents, the Holocaust.

Baddiel seeks to get answers for the extraordinary high rates of Holocaust denial amongst Palestinians, and visits SOAS professor Gilbert Achcar, who published a book titled ‘Arabs and the Holocaust’.

Here’s the exchange between Achcar and Baddeil:
Achcar: I don’t think you can generally, without some degree of… ..pathology, to be frank with you, be a Holocaust denier in Europe. But you can be perfectly sane, mentally, and be a Holocaust denier in the Middle East because of ignorance on the topic and therefore adherence to a view that says, well, the Israelis, the Zionists, have inflated the figures and all that, in order to blackmail Western governments. Whereas, imagine yourself in Gaza, if you are a Palestinian, and being pounded and having had all these wars waged by the Israeli state, killing thousands of people, destroying and all that. When you live there, Holocaust denial is an attitude. It’s not something that… It’s not a belief of people, it’s more a kind of provocative attitude. You are oppressing me every day, how can I hurt you? By denying..

Baddiel: A central part of your identity?

Achcar: Yeah.

02/19 Links Pt1: Biden Nominee for Top State Dept Post Contributed to Book About How ‘Israel Lobby’ Controls American Politics; New Gaza educational materials continue to promote violence

From Ian:

The Biden administration’s moral compass on Israel - opinion

It’s been less than a month since new US President Joe Biden has taken over the reins in the White House. And while it seems that Israel and the Middle East are currently not the administration’s top priority as the COVID-19 pandemic remains front and center, the initial hints of changes in policy when it comes to the Jewish state should not be ignored.

This past Thursday, State Department spokesman Ned Price, who serves under current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, was asked about reports that the JNF (KKL-JNF) was considering implementing a new policy to officially purchase private Arab land in Judea and Samaria in order to expand Jewish communities there.

It should be noted that according to an official KKL-JNF press statement, not much will change even if the organization makes things “official” since, “Throughout the years and till this very day, KKL-JNF has been operating in all parts of the land of Israel, including Judea and Samaria.”

Regardless, Price responded:
“We believe it is critical to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and that undercut efforts to advance a negotiated, two-state solution. And unilateral steps might include annexation of territory, settlement activity, demolitions, incitement to violence, the provision of compensation for individuals imprisoned for acts of terrorism... ”

It’s disappointing that the failed two-state solution approach might be revived, but perhaps even more disheartening is that Price called for refraining from “settlement activity” in the same breath as compensation for acts of terrorism.

In other words, in the new administration’s view, building kindergartens for Jewish children in Judea is just as big of a peace deterrent as the Palestinian Authority’s “Pay for Slay” program in which terrorists are incentivized and rewarded, along with their families, for murdering Israelis.

Biden Nominee for Top State Dept Post Contributed to Book About How ‘Israel Lobby’ Controls American Politics

President Joe Biden's nominee for a top State Department position played a key role in assembling a book on the nefarious influence of the "Israel lobby" while working for an organization that promoted claims about Jewish media control and dual loyalty to Israel.

As a staffer at the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Uzra Zeya compiled research for a book that argues that "the Israel lobby has subverted the American political process to take control of U.S. Middle East policy" by establishing a secret network of "dirty money" PACs that bribe and extort congressional candidates into taking pro-Israel positions. Zeya, a former U.S. diplomat who was nominated for undersecretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights, worked for the Washington Report and its publishing group, the American Educational Trust, in 1989 and 1990. The news outlet is staunchly anti-Israel and has published articles questioning the national loyalty of American Jews and opposing taxpayer funding to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Zeya's work for the Washington Report and American Educational Trust raises questions about her views on Israel and could become an obstacle during her confirmation hearings. Biden's recent hiring moves on foreign policy and conflicting statements from staffers have made it unclear how his administration plans to approach Israel policy issues. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki recently declined to denounce the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, contradicting statements condemning the movement from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Biden's nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the Washington Free Beacon recently reported. Biden also tapped anti-Israel activist Maher Bitar for a top intelligence post and is reportedly considering Matt Duss, an outspoken critic of Israel, for a State Department position.

Sean Durns, a research analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, called the Washington Report a "fringe organization" that has "published content with anti-Semitic themes," including claims that the Mossad was behind the JFK assassination and the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Organizations like the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs have a history of propagating fringe and sometimes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and I think it's absolutely fair for questions to be raised in any sort of potential hearings," said Durns.

David Singer: Action – not platitudes– is required from Jordan’s King Abdullah

Jordan’s King Abdullah continues to engage in platitudes – rather than concrete action - as he pontificates but does nothing to help resolve the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

Jordan – called Transjordan between 1922 and 1949:
- Comprises 78% of the territory of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine
- Is the key to resolving the long-running conflict.

Abdullah recently repeated one of his favourite mantras – insisting that peace should be:
"based on the two-state solution that guarantees the establishment of an independent, sovereign, and viable Palestinian state on the 4 June 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital, living in peace and security alongside Israel, in accordance with international law, recognized terms of reference, and the Arab Peace Initiative."

This solution could have been implemented at any time between 1948 and 1967 after Transjordan had conquered and occupied East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria (aka the 'West Bank' since 1950):

Driving out all the Jews living there and refusing to allow their return and
- Unifying those territories with Transjordan into a single territorial entity – renamed “Jordan”.
- That 19 years window of opportunity was squandered after Jordan lost those territories to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. That opportunity is not going to return – no matter how many times Abdullah continues to repeat it as the solution.

Abdullah also asserts:
“The Palestinian cause is central to Jordan, and we continue to stand alongside our Palestinian brethren with all our power and capabilities as they seek to gain their just and legitimate rights. We are constantly communicating and coordinating with them in this regard”

Talk is cheap – action is necessary.

Abdullah could with the stroke of a pen – preferably with Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) approval - restore Jordanian citizenship to his “Palestinian brethren” living in the West Bank – a status they enjoyed from 1950 until Jordan revoked their citizenship on 28 July 1988 under article 2 of the Jordan: Disengagement Regulations for the Year 1988:

Time for a new crop of "Apartheid?" posters

The annual "Israel Apartheid Weeks" are coming up on campuses, so it is time to yet again debunk them with example after example of people who reach prominent positions in Israel that would be impossible under real apartheid.

More lies in Marc Lamont Hill's book

Marc Lamont Hill last week whined:

I requested a reviewer's copy but for some reason he didn't want to send it to me.

Now a couple of chapters of the book are available on Google Books so I took up the challenge to see how accurate his book is.

Not surprisingly - not very.

Besides yesterday's article I wrote, I also tweeted some criticisms.

He claims Palestinians cannot build in areas under Israeli military control.

Area B is under Israeli military control yet the PA controls building permits. So Palestinians can expand houses in some 95% of the areas they live in.

Hill clearly read this post and didn't say a word. Later, someone quoted this and called him a liar; he asked "What was the lie?" and they pointed to my post - and he didn't answer.

Hill says Israel has not faced an existential military threat since 1973.

Iran seeks nuclear weapons - the JCPOA is predicated on that assumption. Israel would be its main target. Sounds like an existential threat to me.

He tried to answer that he used the word "challenge" and not "threat," and he admitted Israel faces threats. But as I responded, "Oh please. The paragraph begins with whether Israel faces an existential risk. The rest of the paragraph is designed to minimize that risk without explicitly denying it. Which is what you are doing in this tweet.....Iran poses an existential risk. You know it and tried to deflect."

The next example is particularly insidious:

This is a very good propaganda method. Hill pretends he is trying to prove a point, that Israeli Jews do not have to worry about a single state with a Palestinian majority, by quoting Israel-hater Ali Abunimah. But in the course of quoting him, he includes a purely antisemitic statement - that Israeli Jews are racist and fear "black and brown hordes." (In fact, more than half of Israelis are people of color - and a significant number of Israeli Jews are much darker than most Palestinians.)

Since the antisemitic statement isn't the point of the paragraph and Hill isn't saying the hate in his own voice, this is a very effective way for Hill to introduce a trope of Jews as white nationalist bigots while shielding himself from charges of antisemitism. (Of course, we know better.)

Marc Lamont Hill's main point is wrong as well. The history of Jews in Arab-majority countries is one of dhimmitude, second-class status and oppression. Abunimah is hardly the person to believe that things would be any different in a "Palestine."

One more short point: Hill claims, with no references, that the PLO's 1974 Ten Point Plan hinted their support for a two state solution.

Read it and let me know exactly where anyone can possibly get that impression, especially when it says things like "it is impossible for a permanent and just peace to be established in the area unless our Palestinian people recover from all their national rights and, first and foremost, their rights to return and to self-determination on the whole of the soil of their homeland" and "Once it is established, the Palestinian national authority will strive to achieve a union of the confrontation countries, with the aim of completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory."

Doesn't sound like there is much room for Israel in those paragraphs.

There is plenty more but they are more involved and, frankly, once it is proven that Hill is a liar, what benefit is there to prove it more times? He's a university professor and knows very well what the truth is and how to mislead people to think the opposite, as we have seen.

Hussain Abdul Hussain, not exactly a right wing Zionist, also found lots of problems in the book, and ended off with this withering paragraph:

Hill and Plitnick tried to explain “Palestine,” but instead ended up offering one radical Palestinian view. Perhaps if they were not aliens to the Middle East, they would have had a better understanding of the conflict, and of what Palestinians want. They would have also known that the Dome of the Rock is not a “place where, as recounted in the Quran, Muhammad ascended to heaven.” The Quran does not say Muhammad ascended anywhere. If Hill and Plitnick could not get the Quran right, what else on Israel and Palestine did they get wrong?

It's raining and snowing in Israel, which means that there are floods in Gaza. And whenever that happens, the Gaza authorities claim Israel is opening dams to cause the floods.

The Gaza agriculture ministry issued a statement blaming Israel for the flooding:

The spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture in Gaza, M. Adham Al-Bassiouni, said Thursday that hundreds of dunams of agricultural land east of Shejaiya, east of Gaza City, were flooded, as the Israeli occupation forces deliberately opened gates and water dams towards their lands.

Al-Bassiouni explained, to Palestine Today News Agency that in the early morning hours, the occupation forces opened the dams towards farmers' lands, which resulted in the submersion of hundreds of agricultural dunams, which led to the destruction of agricultural crops.

He indicated that due to the bad weather conditions, the ministry's crews were unable to go to the place, indicating that after the end of the depression, a special team will go to the place to determine the extent of the damage and to report on the repeated violations of the occupation against farmers.

Al-Bassiouni stressed that his ministry will communicate with human rights and international institutions to expose the systematic crimes of occupation.

The Palestinian NGO Network also issued a statement blaming Israel for opening the non-existent dams.

The agriculture ministry and Palestinian Red Crescent made similar charges during floods last month.

Which shows that Palestinian government, NGOs and medical professionals have no problem with lying. Yet these same officials are regularly quoted in Western media as if they are credible.

UPDATE: The official Palestinian Authority Wafa news agency is claiming this as well.

02/18 Links Pt2: NYPost Editorial: New hate-mongering scandals at UN agency that Biden means to send millions; Will Biden Take On the New Anti-Semitism?

From Ian:

NYPost Editorial: New hate-mongering scandals at UN agency that Biden means to send millions

President Biden, in his obsession with reversing every Trump policy, means to reinstate funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars a year for an agency that teaches Palestinian children to hate “the Enemy” Israel and believe “Jihad is the road of glory.”

UNRWA began producing its own educational material last year to aid at-home learning during the pandemic — and some of its content is more venomous than Palestinian Authority propaganda.

The Jerusalem-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education blew the lid off the scandalous teaching materials in November, revealing they glorified terrorism in the cause of destroying Israel. Canada and Australia opened investigations, but UNRWA claimed it had dealt with the matter internally and replaced the “inappropriate” material.

It didn’t. Though UNRWA blocked access to its material, IMPACT-se found it and released a report Wednesday showing the agency still teaches hate and intolerance to more than 320,000 Palestinian children.

A math problem asks students the number of martyrs from the first intifada. A grammar exercise includes the sentences “The Occupier commits all kinds of torture” and “We are an occupied people.” An Arabic-language lesson has kids write out a text read by a family member that says that “our Arab relatives have sadly recognized our Enemies and began interacting with them,” referring to the Abraham Accords, and insists one day “our Enemies will be banished, God willing, as failing losers.”

Castles in the Air? The American Return to the UN Human Rights Council

The Biden Administration has decided to bring the U.S. back into the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), first as an observer until the end of the year, and presumably as a member beginning in 2022. Secretary of State Blinken explained: "The best way to improve the Council, so it can achieve its potential, is through robust and principled U.S. leadership."

Yet the evidence provides little ground for optimism. In 2009, President Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, expressed similar hopes, which were quickly and decisively proven to be unfounded. As a Council member, the U.S. was unable to steer the UN framework into confronting, or even addressing, the horrendous human rights abuses in Syria, Venezuela, China and elsewhere.

In parallel, the anti-Israel demonization exceeded even the previously absurd levels. When the U.S. voted against the latest anti-Israel resolution, it made no difference in the outcome. And when U.S. raised objections after anti-Semitic slurs or the use of the term "Zionist entity" from an Iranian or Syrian official, nothing happened. The structure of the UNHRC is largely impervious to change, reflecting the built-in majority for autocrats and dictatorships.

Netanyahu mourns radio host Limbaugh as ‘a great friend of Israel’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mourned Thursday the death of the US conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh in a tweet from his official account.

“I send my heartfelt condolences to the family of Rush Limbaugh,” Netanyahu wrote.

Though Limbaugh was not focused on foreign policy, he was still staunchly pro-Israel, seeing the country as an ally against terrorism. Netanyahu said, “He was a great friend of Israel and he stood by us through thick and thin, always firm, never wavering.”

“We shall miss him dearly,” Netanyahu said.

In 2001, Limbaugh urged the George W. Bush administration to allow Israel to crush its enemies, citing America’s own suffering following the 9/11 attacks that year.

“Bush is right about ‘defeating’ the Taliban, al Qaeda and other terrorist networks,” Limbaugh wrote at the time. “It is, therefore, necessary that in the pursuit of real and lasting peace, Israel also be free to destroy its enemies — meaning the terrorists and, yes, their sponsors, who are at war with her, and that she do so before they obtain devastating weapons of mass destruction.”

Limbaugh died at the age of 70 Wednesday of lung cancer. He had announced the diagnosis in February 2020.

Zev Chafets, a Jewish biographer who earned rare access to Limbaugh for his 2010 book “An Army of One,” said Limbaugh’s outsize influence and his friendliness with Israel set an example for other talk radio conservatives.

Unflinchingly conservative, wildly partisan, bombastically self-promoting and larger than life, Limbaugh galvanized listeners for more than 30 years with his talent for vituperation and sarcasm.

Israel Apartheid Barrier Outed As Wall That Maimed Humpty Dumpty (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Humpty Dumpty Nabi Salih, February 18 - Activists have uncovered evidence that the series of wires, towers, concrete ramparts, and other obstacles that Israel credits with stopping Palestinian suicide bombers had a previous career marred by causing the fatal injury of a legendary egg-man.

Israel's security barrier, which pro-Palestinian human rights activists have named the "Apartheid Wall," all but squelched the incidences of suicide bombing during the Second Intifada during the first few years of the decade before last, saving an untold number of lives. Astute social media users, however, have discovered the barrier's sordid past, in which a notable philosopher met his end by falling - or being caused to fall in murky circumstances - from that same wall and could not be saved despite heroic efforts by royal servants both human and equine.

"This is the wall that killed Humpty Dumpty," revealed Human Rights Watch activist Omar Shakir. "Not only does it carve up the land and deny Palestinian farmers access to their fields, it has never faced justice for its rile in the demise of that famous advocate for Palestinian rhetoric, in which familiar terms such as 'Apartheid' are redefined to suit one's purposes." Mr. Shakir gestured with a copy of Lewis Carroll's 1971 book Alice Through the Looking Glass.

"The role of the wall in preventing attacks is disputed anyway," continued Shakir, echoing arguments that a changing political environment had made such operations less desirable among resistance groups, with the timing of the wall and other Israeli deterrent measures, as well as the near-total absence of such attempts in the fifteen years since, a coincidence. "Mr. Netanyahu, tear down this wall!" He also demanded the international community underwrite ongoing futile efforts to put the allegorical Mr. Dumpty back together along with idyllic pre-Israel Palestine.

Mr. Shakir declined to comment on whether this marked the first time a progressive activist had echoed Ronald Reagan.

Details remain sketchy of the walls involvement of the Humpty Dumpty Affair, which occurred some time before 1797, when the first documented mention of it occurs. In those early records no mention occurs of horses or king's men, but the wall features prominently as one of three major players in Mr. Dumpty's destruction: wall, gravity, and ground. The impact against the latter finalized the event; in accounts recorded later, mention of various other parties occurs, in the capacity of those attempting to remedy the situation. The most familiar account of the incident, in which royal horses and men play that role, dates to no later than the middle of the twentieth century, when the British were preparing to relinquish colonialist control of Palestine in favor of Zionists and stabbed peaceful Arabs in the back. Pro-Palestinian activists believe that rewrite represents a British effort to rehabilitate their image as racist colonialist Orientalist Islamophobes who are under Jewish control anyway.

Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick's book "Except for Palestine" was just published. It's thesis is that American progressives are concerned with liberal causes - except for Palestinians.

A small part of the book is available online, and the very first example of the supposed "Palestine exception" given is enough to show that Hill and Plitnick are not honest people.

"I don't care what they say. I don't care what the fake media says. That's an invasion of our country."

These words were uttered by President Donald Trump in advance of the fall 2018 midterm elections. Trump had taken to Twitter and the campaign trail to warn the nation of what he portrayed as a growing immigrant threat stemming from the southern U.S. border. In his remarks, the president not only referred to a caravan of immigrants coming from Central America as an "invasion," but suggested that the majority of the incoming refugees were criminals and terrorists.

Trump's harsh words were coupled with unprecedented action, as he deployed thousands of troops to the border. Although his words and actions sparked considerable outrage from voices across the political spectrum, the response to Trump was nearly universal among those Americans who politically identified as "progressives." As expected, American progressives expressed sympathy for those fleeing persecution, who were desperately pursuing a better life for themselves and their families.' Their response to Trump's draconian immigration views, as well as the policy proposals reflected and foreshadowed by those views, stood in stark contrast to another major announcement that the White House made just weeks earlier.

In the summer of that same year, the Trump administration decided to cut off funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the agency that provides emergency food, shelter, medication, supplies, and education to millions of Palestinian refugees living in the West Bank, Gaza, and camps in neighboring countries. As a result of this decision, fewer people would have access to proper schooling, health care, and basic life-saving services. This time, rather than outrage, progressives offered little more than silence or apparent indifference.

Of course, these two situations are not exactly the same. After all, the idea of Honduran and Guatemalan refugees heading slowly up to the U.S. border to seek asylum would be expected to cause anxieties, however racist, among nativist Americans. With regard to UNRWA, however, the goal was simply to meet the basic needs of a vulnerable population. And with a cost of around $200 million for that fiscal year, support for UNRWA was a drop in the ocean of the U.S. budget. American taxpayers would incur no other costs to substantially relieve the threat of starvation, lack of shelter, absence of education, and shortages of medicine to millions of refugees. For most people, but especially those who identify with liberal or progressive values, this should have been an easy call. Sadly, it was not.

That is the argument.

What Hill and Plitnick omit is that UNRWA has no right to exist. Its beneficiaries are not refugees according to any definition. The Palestinians it supports should be taken care of by their host countries. No other UN agency offers permanent medical aid, permanent housing and full education to millions of people.

Any Palestinian Arab who was displaced and ended up in Israel's boundaries after 1948 became citizens of Israel.

If there is a Palestine exception, it is symbolized by UNRWA in ways that are quite the opposite of what Hill and Plitnick intend to say. Only Palestinians are expected not to become citizens of their host countries. Only Palestinians are considered "refugees" for all generations, forever. Only Palestinians are expected to get free housing and education paid for by the world. Only Palestinians who are citizens of another state (Jordan) or who live in their own land are called "refugees."

And only Palestinians are taught by a UN agency to hate Jews in their classrooms.

Of course Hill and Plitnick don't want their readers to know about UNRWA's scandals and corruption. Of course they don't want to mention the hate taught to Palestinians daily. No, they just want to tell their audience that Palestinians are the only people who are not responsible for their own welfare and their own people, despite billions of dollars in aid over the decades. The only people who deserve unlimited funds that can be diverted to terror.

Only Palestinians have books written about them of this type. That is the real Palestine exception.

02/18 Links Pt1: Iran's Soleimani set up centers to monitor Jews for Zionism; Time for a Palestinian Reckoning; Gantz Responds to Hezbollah Threats, Says in Case of War ‘Lebanon Will Shake’

From Ian:

Iran's Soleimani set up centers to monitor Jews for Zionism - report

The Iranian regime Islamic scholar Ahmed Abedi declared in a bombshell report in early February on Noor TV that the late IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani created centers to spy on Jews in the Islamic Republic.

"Regarding the Jews in this country who spy for Israel, [Soleimani] established centers for monitoring the Zionist spies. He established many such centers,” said Abedi, according to a transcription of the Iranian Noor TV broadcast by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an independent, nonpartisan press-monitoring organization.

The US military killed Soleimani in a January 2020 drone attack. Soleimani was the commander of the Quds force for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The US government accused Soleimani of being the architect of the murders of over 600 Americans in the Middle East. There is estimated to be less than 10,000 Persian Jews in Iran. Iran has a population of nearly 83 million.

JCPA: “The Yemeni Maneuver” – Biden Administration Gives a Free Pass to Iran

Iran has an interest in continuing the fighting in Yemen, which, since the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces were sent to the country has not led to any substantial change in the situation on the ground. The Houthis continue to control most of the territory they have captured, including the important Red Sea port city of Al-Hudaydah and the capital Sanaa. Beyond testing various weapons, the fighting allows Iran to continuously exhaust and attrite Saudi Arabia, its sworn Sunni rival.

The U.S. decision to remove the Houthis from the terror list and halt some Saudi military aid used to attack Houthi targets in Yemen with U.S.-made precision-guided munitions plays into Iran’s hands at the sensitive timing of the possibility of the United States rejoining the nuclear agreement. The decision raises doubt about the seriousness of the United States’ policy statements to “expand and strengthen” the Iran deal to address the issues of ballistic missiles and Iran’s “destabilizing actions in country after country” – two key issues in which Iran “specializes” and which it “exports” Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

A Test for the Biden Administration in Iraq as Well
To illustrate the depth of Iran’s dilemma for American reintroduced policy in the region, pro-Iranian Iraqi Shi’ite militia linked to Hizbullah-Iraq – Saraya Awlia al-Dam – claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on the Erbil Airport and the adjacent U.S. military base on February 16, 2021. Fragments at the target indicate that 24 Fajr-1 (107 mm) Iranian made rockets were fired. The U.S. Secretary of State denounced the “outrageous attack”10 in which a civilian contractor was killed, and a U.S. service member and five more contractors have been injured. Secretary Blinken acknowledged that in the past, Shiite militias under Iran’s control carried out similar attacks in Iraq, “but for now it is too early to determine who is behind the attack” and that “the incident is under investigation.”11

It is possible that the action is another part of the pressure being exerted by Iran on the United States in the region, and it puts the American administration to its first serious test regarding its willingness to use force against Iran and its allies in the area, alongside its intention to return to the framework of the nuclear agreement.

JINSA PodCast: Crisis in Yemen: Analysis of an Ongoing Civil War

There’s an ongoing crisis in Yemen, financed and fueled by Iran. The Houthi movement, formed around Yemen’s Zaidi Shia Muslim minority, has seen an opening to try to take control of the country amidst the disorganized Hadi government. Why did the Trump Administration designate the Houthis to be a terrorist organization, and why did the Biden Administration reverse this policy? What does Yemen’s civil war have to do with the Iran nuclear deal? All of these questions—and more—are answered in this week’s episode. Erielle interviews Mohammed Alyahya, the current Editor-in-Chief of Al Arabiya in English.

The Tikvah Podcast: Shany Mor on What Makes America’s Peace Processors Tick

The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has in the last several decades sucked up more American attention, time, and resources than nearly any other conflict in the world. Presidents, cabinet secretaries, national-security officials, and diplomats have poured themselves into solving the problem. These resources have been expended not only because of how Americans perceived the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s strategic importance to the United States, but perhaps more so because it is a conflict that engages and symbolizes the way Americans see themselves acting in the world.

Despite that huge effort, Americans haven’t succeeded in bringing the Israelis and the Palestinians to any kind of settled arrangement. Furthermore, as the Israeli researcher Shany Mor wrote in this month’s essay in Mosaic, American policymakers seem insistent on returning to the same frameworks of analysis and strategy that have failed systematically time and again. Now Mor joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to explain what’s gone wrong, and to talk about why so many American peace processors think the way they do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Mohammed expelled Jewish Zionists from Medina because of their hypocrisy, deceit, miserliness and treachery"

Sudanese people have been far more ambivalent about peace with Israel than other recent Muslim nations, and their media has articles that are all over the place both pro and con.

This one is definitely con.

Al Intibaha is one of Sudan's most popular newspapers. It has an article by Nasr Madwan that starts off this way:

Hypocrisy, deceit, miserliness, treachery, and breach of vows are the characteristics of the Jewish Zionists, which caused Muhammad bin Abdullah, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, to expel them from Medina and swear by God that they will not share it with us Muslims.

He isn't antisemitic - he says that it was only the Jewish Zionists who Mohammed expelled from Medina!

Why are some of the disobedient who say that they are liberal and secular Muslims so eager to normalize relations with Israel with malice, cunning and deceiving the people?

...Why does this small group [of Sudanese leaders] invite the countries of the world to interfere in our affairs and blackmail us? The "international community" is the deceptive name of the terrorist Zionist society led by America that struck Japan with the atom bomb, then Vietnam with napalm, then Afghanistan with phosphorous, then Iraq and Syria with chemicals and dirty bombs... Hillary Clinton admitted that the US intelligence is the Antichrist at the end of time to kill all Muslims in the war of Armageddon to save the world from the Muslims and keep the Zionists alone happy on the earth. This is the belief in which the Rothschilds and their cohorts from the wealthy of America and the owners of large American companies have. ... America itself is the one that deports the poor of Europe to Palestine and convinces them that they are Jewish Zionists and that this is their land and they must live in it, and their living conditions improve and divide them into residents of first class Ashkenazim and second class Sephardim and Falasha blacks.

He goes on to say that the goal of forcing Sudan to make peace with Israel is to steal Sudanese natural resources (especially Port Sudan), and resources of the Arab world altogether, for the use of rich American Jews.

He also rails against the Israel/UAE plan to have UAE oil transported from Eilat to Ashdod and from there to Europe as a means to destroy the (Arab) Suez Canal. Eventually, Israel can build a pipeline through Saudi Arabia itself to make it even easier to transport oil to Europe, which would enrich the Jews at the expense of Arabs.

We believe that what is beneficial for us is the establishment of an Arab-Islamic coalition to confront the global Zionist alliance called the New World Order and the so-called international community, and we believe in the right of Islamic and Arab countries to possess weapons to deter the balance of weapons that Israel possesses.

These sorts of articles have become more rare in the Arab world since MEMRI and others have been shaming Arabs by publicizing their gross antisemitism. Sudan hasn't been shamed as much up until now, so this is a reminder of how many Arabs still think. People who claim that Arabs are only against Zionism and not Jews willfully ignore these facts and articles like this.

Traditional Arab antipathy towards Israel is because of antisemitism, not the other way around. And that goes for nearly all of the anti-Zionist rhetoric worldwide.

Palestinian vaccine hypocrisy continues

This week there was more of a circus when it came to COVID-19 vaccines to the Palestinians.

The Palestinians sent a truck with supposedly 1000 double-dose vaccines to the Beitunia crossing on Monday to go to Gaza. They didn't coordinate this with Israel and Israel didn't do anything.

So the Palestinians and the haters started the story that Israel was refusing to send vaccines to Gaza.

The Israeli government did indeed debate whether to allow the vaccines to enter Gaza, knowing that it would go to terrorists and knowing that Hamas still held Israelis and the bodies of soldiers. The haters spent all day Tuesday tweeting about how terrible it was that Gaza had to wait to get the vaccines.

But on Wednesday, Israel allowed the vaccines to go to Gaza. The delay was only a little more than a day.

Now that the vaccines are in Gaza, when will they be distributed?

According to Hamas officials, not until Sunday.

There were dozens of articles and hundreds of tweets complaining about a one day delay for vaccines to Gaza, but a four day delay to actually distribute them? No one says a word.

Because Israel cannot be blamed.

One would think that Gaza is the worst possible place to be for the coronavirus given the amount of media attention. Yet is has suffered only about 270 deaths per million, which is better than 64 countries. (The US is at 1460 deaths per million.)

Meanwhile, in another COVID-19 story that the Western media ignores, Palestinians in the West Bank are complaining about the favoritism surrounding who received the first shots distributed there. Besides the 200 doses that were sent over to Jordan seemingly to relatives of Palestinian officials, there were complaints that vaccines went to highly placed Palestinian officials, tribal leaders, clerics and media professionals ahead of health workers.

The "pro-Palestinian" crowd is curiously silent about this.

Another development today is that Israel announced it intends to vaccinate 120,000 Palestinian workers, which will also be twisted into something evil in about an hour or two.