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Friday, May 20, 2022
- Friday, May 20, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- Shireen Abu Akleh
- Friday, May 20, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- "pro-Palestinian", humor, Preoccupied
Ben-Gurion Airport, May 19 - The Ministry of Health eliminated the requirement this week for all incoming passengers to undergo swabbing for the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen, instead leaving the Ministry of Transportation to administer arrival policy without such considerations. The latter ministry has instead implemented an intelligence assessment test for all foreign visitors, an unintended consequence of which has been the reduction of "pro-Palestinian" activists to near zero among those permitted to stay, ministry sources indicate.
More than two years of COVID-mitigation policies have included on-again, off-again restrictions on air travel to and from Israel, with the most long-lasting policy in that respect involving a test upon landing to check for the presence of the specific coronavirus that causes the illness, with quarantine until negative results emerge. That policy ended as of this past Sunday, in acknowledgement of the diminished public health risk the disease now poses in a world where vaccines and post-infection immunity have rendered the continuation of various mitigation measures not worth the expense or effort. However, the Ministry of Transportation decided to impose a different test that incoming visitors must undergo, to measure each person's Intelligence Quotient, and have barred non-citizens who score noticeably lower than the global average. Ministry officials disclosed that while at first the policy aimed to filter out less-desirable tourists and visitors - lower intelligence correlates with lower economic power, for example - its most apparent unintended benefit has been the prevention of 99% of anti-Israel activists from entering the country and spreading their venom.
"We didn't actually expect this" admitted Minister of Transportation Merav Michaeli. "It was chiefly an economic and cultural move. We intended to leverage it in combination with other measures, and in conjunction with the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Ministry of Economic Development, and several governmental agencies and academic groups, toward attracting intelligent people and facilitating higher concentrations of those intelligent people from all over the world, in part by filtering out unintelligent people. Our own citizens we can't do anything about; heck, that's our voter base. But foreign passport holders are an easier group to handle that way. We just didn't expect it to be this easy to flag and neutralize those who act against our interests."
Tourism officials have voiced a more equivocal reaction, observing that certain sectors of the tourist economy that depend on predatory sales practices toward gullible foreigners will suffer under the new policy.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
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JPost Editorial: Israel is losing sovereignty over east Jerusalem
The reality of Israel today is that there are large swaths of its capital city that are too dangerous to step foot in if you’re Jewish. Even the police and municipal civil servants avoid going near them.Jordan fully determined to end Jewish prayer on Temple Mount
One might argue that there are plenty of high-profile cities around the world – from Chicago to Paris – that have neighborhoods and areas with huge crime and murder rates that many people would go out of their way to avoid.
But Israel prides itself on its “unified” capital, with every government and prime minister over the 55 years since the Six Day War vowing that Jerusalem will never be divided.
That unblinking belief that the eastern part of Jerusalem will never be up for negotiation might have something to do with Wednesday’s decision by the police to allow this year’s Jerusalem Day Flag March to enter the Old City through the Damascus Gate, after the route was blocked last year due to threats from Hamas that turned into Operation Guardian of the Walls.
The march, which should be a national, non-political event celebrating Israel’s victory in 1967 and the reunification of Jerusalem, has long since turned into a right-wing-fueled show of strength, aimed at boasting ownership over the city, even the Arab sections inside and outside the Old City.
Although the final decision on the march’s route will be made by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in consultation with the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), organizers of the march welcomed the police decision, saying, “There is nothing more suitable than a happy and unifying march, from the west of the city to the east, through the places that the IDF liberated 55 years ago, on the holiday of the capital of Israel.”
Statements like that don’t jibe with the images of riots, clashes and violence that have been plaguing that capital almost every day in recent weeks. Marches like those the organizers want to hold are nice ideas but they can’t exist in a vacuum. Israel has long ago forfeited sovereignty over parts of Jerusalem. A march through Damascus Gate won’t restore it.
Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have reached a new understanding with regard to the Temple Mount status quo. At the White House on Saturday, King Abdullah presented the conditions of this new understanding. The king accused Israel of gradually encroaching on the status quo, outlined several demands, and asked President Joe Biden for support.Ruthie Blum: Now is a bad time for Biden to visit Israel
Amman, which holds custodianship over Muslim and Christian sites around the Temple Mount, demands that Jerusalem cease Jewish prayer at the site, which began about five years ago. This is also the demand of the Ra'am Islamist party, or as its leader, Mansour Abbas put it: what is acceptable to Jordan is acceptable to us.
Abdullah had previously made the same demand from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who rejected it. The Prime Minister's Office adamantly denied this even happened, but sources involved in the matter confirm so.
Israel makes a point of not addressing these silent prayers formally, although the matter is a well-known secret that takes place on the eastern side of the Temple Mount, albeit without traditional Jewish prayer items such as tallit, tefillin, or siddur.
And yet, Israel is determined to safeguard this achievement – a sole one – in the face of a series of fundamental changes the Muslims have made to the status quo on the mountain over the years – having built several new mosques, limited the times and areas Jews are allowed to visit, at times denied Jews access to the site altogether, damaged archeological sites located there, and last but not least, held protests and fired rockets at Israel under the false pretext of "Al-Aqsa being under attack."
Bennett has a short, but tumultuous history when it comes to Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. The silent prayers began with the quiet consent of then-Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also approved it, although he would never admit it. He too was asked by Abdullah to stop Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount and rejected the Jordanian monarch.
When Bennet became prime minister, he had to face this reality, which he was unfamiliar with before, so he decided to go with the flow. He also studied the Temple Mount clause in Trump's "deal of the century," which was designed to ensure future freedom of prayer at the site, for both Jews and Muslims.
Unlike his predecessor, who kept quiet on the matter of Jewish prayer at the flashpoint site, Bennett announced shortly after taking office that freedom of worship would be maintained on the Temple Mount for all religions, including Jews. Jordan – unsurprisingly – was furious, and the US sided with the Hashemite Kingdom.
AS OF YET, Biden hasn’t commented on this travesty. Perhaps the press is too fearful of a gaffe on his part to request a reaction. In any case, Biden has been nervous from the get-go about the disproportionate power of and pressure from the loud-mouthed “progressives” in his party.
This is why he sucked up to Tlaib exactly a year ago, in the midst of Operation Guardian of the Walls, Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Intercepting him as he landed in Michigan to deliver a speech at the Ford Motor Co. truck plant in Dearborn, she dressed him down for expressing to then-Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “his firm support for Israel’s right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks, [and] welcomed efforts to address intercommunal violence and to bring calm to Jerusalem.”
He could have reminded her, however sheepishly, that his conversation with Netanyahu included a call for a ceasefire. Instead, he paid tribute to her during his talk at the Ford plant.
Flubbing her first name by referring to her three times has “Rashid,” he announced: “I want to say to you that I admire your intellect; I admire your passion; and I admire your concern for so many other people. And from my heart, I pray that your grandmom and family [in the Palestinian Authority] are well, and I promise I’m going to do everything to see that they are on the West Bank. You’re a fighter, and God thank you for being a fighter.”
THE IRONY is inescapable. Despite Biden’s many moves to reverse his predecessor’s policy of holding the Palestinian Authority accountable for its intransigence and “pay for slay” mechanism, as long as he so much as mentions that Israel is a US ally, he cannot appease the likes of Tlaib.
Nor will he be able to satisfy her quest for the “liberation of Palestine, from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea” – the wiping of the Jewish state off the map – by admonishing the Israeli government for plans to build some 4,000 housing units in the communities of Judea and Samaria.
If Biden thinks, for example, that she was happy with his State Department’s warning against settlement expansion, on the grounds that it “exacerbates tensions, undermines trust between the parties and deeply damages the prospects for a two-state solution,” he’s kidding himself.
Ditto for Bennett and Lapid. If they imagine that their approval of the construction of at least 1,000 additional Palestinian homes will be sufficient to allay White House concerns, they’re living in la-la land.
The rest of us grasp that it would be preferable for Israel if Biden canceled his trip.
- Friday, May 20, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- propaganda
Nimbus will now face a referendum of sorts among Google and Amazon shareholders, who next month will vote on a pair of resolutions that call for company-funded reviews of their participation in that project and others that might harm human rights. The filers of the Google resolution collectively own roughly $1.8 million in shares, according to Ed Feigen, a Google shareholder since 2014 and lead filer of the resolution.
$1.8 million sounds as impressive as "hundreds of signers." It is equally meaningless. Alphabet, Google's parent company, has a market capitalization of nearly $1.5 trillion. They represent 0.00013% of Alphabet shares. That is the equivalent ownership percentage as $10,000 of Gamestop stock.
That is not a "shareholder revolt."
The article describes exactly its own propaganda goals: "The proponents of the proposal are] also tapping into the specific anxieties of the Wall Street investor: What if bad press from Project Nimbus loses us money?" The entire article is meant to be that very bad press - a self-fulfilling prophecy, if anyone takes The Intercept seriously.
It's funny that even the anonymous Google workers they quote who signed the open letter say that there is next to no interest within Google on this initiative:
This engineer added that while they have found like-minded colleagues who are similarly disturbed by the prospect of their cloud technologies being used to fortify the Israeli occupation, employee activism against Nimbus is much diminished since the waves of worker-led protests against prior Google contracts like Project Maven and Dragonfly, the company’s planned custom-built Chinese search engine. “Right now we’re kind of in a slump,” they said. While past employee movements spurred heated discussions on internal chat forums, they said, “We haven’t had anything like that from Nimbus, which is really unfortunate.”
The anti-Israel propagandists are masters of exaggerating their most ineffective actions into sounding like major victories. We see this often with their trumpeting rallies that attract only a handful of people - but they manage to get some coverage.
They are very good at making their side appear much more powerful than it is. The propagandists are true experts at punching above their weight. But it wouldn't work if they didn't have media eager to help them along.
There is another layer that these propaganda experts use: the petitions themselves. I have never seen them actually present any of their petitions to any of their targets. The existence of the petitions are more important than the number of signatures, for two reasons: the petition itself is "news" to some extent, and the people who do sign up also get added to the mailing lists of the anti-Israel organizations and will then become recipients of more brainwashing materials.
They talk about "hasbara." Yet nobody on the pro-Israel side is doing anything close to this level of effort, sophistication and multi-layer advocacy, where even an initiative that is a complete failure can end up paying off in the future.
- Friday, May 20, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- Jenin, pallywood, Richard Landes, Shireen Abu Akleh
Underscoring the Palestinian penchant for inventing “news,” Rehov even manages to capture on film the manufacturing of a fictitious news story. On Jan. 25, 2003, he accompanies Palestinian journalist Ali Smoddi of the PA-controlled Jenin television station as he and his crew set out to interview a Palestinian man and his wife whose baby was just delivered by a doctor. In the car on the way there, Smoddi constructs a fictitious story in which the husband was forced to deliver the baby: “I want to emphasize certain elements. The husband has no experience in delivering and in spite of that he’s the one who delivers his wife. It’s the climax of all tragedy.” Smoddi then takes a call from the couple’s doctor, and asks: “You’re the one who delivered her? . . . No, don’t let them go.”At the hospital, Smoddi’s crew does several “takes” of the father’s account of the birth, each with a different spin. In one version, the father claims that the ambulance they intended to meet was held up at a checkpoint for 15 minutes, and he was forced to deliver his infant son in the car, as the ambulance had not arrived. In another telling, the father says: “The soldiers took me down to the ambulance to check my identification and my wife gave birth in the ambulance and went to the hospital.” In each account, Smoddi prompts the father and makes suggestions about the events. Smoddi then prompts the new mother: “The tank stops you while giving birth. You’re alone in the car, talk about your feelings.”
- Friday, May 20, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- drone, gaza, Iron Dome, Islamic Jihad, Israel, PIJ, propaganda, UAV
A few hours later, Islamic Jihad published photos of the areas around Gaza that they claim were taken by one of their drones.The Iron Dome missile defense system shot down a “suspicious” aircraft flying over the Gaza Strip on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said.According to the IDF, the device “was monitored throughout the entire incident” by the air force’s ground control. The military said the UAV did not enter Israeli airspace, adding that the interceptor missiles were fired at the device while it was over Gaza.
Thursday, May 19, 2022
Melanie Phillips: The Holocaust memorial laundry project
The Chief Rabbi and the rest of the Jewish leadership are falling over themselves to declare that the Labour party is once again an acceptable repository of the British Jewish vote. In their desperation to prove to themselves that there is no serious problem for Jews in Britain, these leaders have told themselves that siting the Holocaust memorial next to Parliament would send a message that the British state supports the Jewish people. This assumption speaks volumes for their troubling proclivity to stick their heads deep into the sand.Priti Patel slams BDS as 'racist', declares her 'unflinching and unequivocal' support of Israel
For in endorsing this flawed memorial to Jewish victimhood in the Shoah, the Jewish leadership is thereby sanitising deeply troubling attitudes by the British state to Jewish victims today.
Not only did Britain’s betrayal of its Mandate undertaking in the last century to settle Jews throughout Palestine, and its consequent appeasement of murderous Arabs determined to destroy the reborn Jewish homeland, create the century-old Arab and Muslim war of annihilation against Israel that continues to this day. The British state even now undermines Israel by insisting on a tendentious and misleading interpretation of the Geneva Conventions to maintain that Israel is in “illegal occupation” of “Palestinian” land.
Through this falsehood, the British state helps incite murderous hatred of Israel which foments hatred of Jews. Yet the Jewish leadership never campaigns against this lethal untruth. Nor does it ever draw attention to the prevalent antisemitism in the Muslim world which has done so much to promote antisemitism in the Labour party. Instead it demonises as “extremists” those who do call out these things.
What the Chief Rabbi should have told Starmer is this: that there can be no question of rapprochement with the Labour party unless and until the party as a whole stops demonising Israel and promoting a Palestinian cause which writes Jews out of their own national story; and until it stops supporting Palestinians who, day in, day out, write the Jews out of their own history and from whom pours an unstoppable torrent of rabid antisemitism complete with Nazi tropes.
Rabbi Mirvis said none of this. Instead, he has helped launder the Labour party. He has sucked up to a movement that remains consumed by a deranged hatred of Israel based upon thinly concealed antisemitism — while he himself has cold-shouldered those objecting to a project that risks doing more harm to the Jewish people than good.
It is beyond dismaying that Jewish leaders in Britain should be set upon a project which will so dishonour the Shoah and launder Britain’s shameful bigotry. Their support for the Victoria Tower Gardens memorial reveals a Jewish leadership that has lost its way.
Priti Patel has declared her “unflinching and unequivocal” support for Israel, describing her relationship to the country as “deeply personal” to her.NGO Monitor: After Ken Roth, Can Human Rights Watch Be Repaired?
Speaking at a Conservative Friends of Israel reception on Monday, the Home Secretary also said that she is “quite unapologetic” about the proscription of the Hamas terror group last year, saying that it was “not just the right thing to do, [it was] a moral imperative”.
Patel praised the Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, also in attendance, thanking her for “who you are and what you do” and for the “wider support” that Israel gives to the UK.
Speaking to an audience of 140 CFI supporters, including 50 parliamentarians, Patel spoke of the “shared values” between the UK and Israel, adding that “everything we have seen around the BDS movement is racist”.
She said that the UK and Israel have an “unwavering belief in freedom, democracy and security”, saying that they are “united in speaking out and standing up against racism and antisemitism”.
The Home Secretary expressed her concern that antisemitism has “infiltrated our politics, our political dialogue and discourse”, adding: “It is utterly appalling that antisemitism has been on the increase”.
These comments follow a report by Tel Aviv University last month that found that antisemitism was on the rise around the world in 2021, with the UK experiencing a significant rise compared to both 2020 and 2019.
Patel also expressed her “sympathies and condolences” to the families of the 19 Israelis murdered in the latest wave of terror attacks.
Roth also showed a strong animus towards Israel, repeatedly joining the shrill voices demanding an end to American support and repeating false accusations of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity.” HRW, in concert with Amnesty International and Palestinian groups, was central in reviving the Soviet-led effort to equate Zionism with South African apartheid. In 2001, HRW was among the leaders of the blatantly antisemitic NGO Forum of the UN Durban conference, ostensibly called to celebrate the end of South African apartheid. In responding to critics, including from within HRW, he declared that “Israeli racist practices are an appropriate topic.”
To support this agenda, Roth filled HRW’s Middle East and North Africa division with people who joined in disproportionately attacking Israel, with only token publications on Syria, Libya, Iran and other authoritarian regimes. Roth lobbied the UN Human Rights Council to create one-sided “investigations,” and pressed the International Criminal Court to adopt invented versions of international law to use against Israel, including a fictitious version of apartheid. He used the term “primitive” in the context of Jewish religion and tradition (2006), and blamed Jews for antisemitism. HRW’s April 2021 “report” claiming that Israel had “crossed the line into apartheid” is a reiteration of this 20-year campaign.
These activities were noted by Robert Bernstein, the founder of HRW, and although he had retired, was strongly opposed to the direction that Roth was taking the organization, specifically in demonizing Israel. (Full disclosure: I discussed these issues in meetings with Bernstein beginning in 2004.) In 2009, Bernstein took the unprecedented and painful step of denouncing HRW in a New York Times column and in a series of speeches, and many of HRW’s donors ended their support.
However, Roth is a very skilled fundraiser, and after getting $100 million from George Soros, he added other secret donors, such as a Saudi billionaire whose 2012 “contribution” (the existence of which was denied for many years) was only revealed in 2020.
Finding a qualified successor devoted to universal human rights who is not inherently hostile to the West and to Israel, and will not sell out to corrupt donors, is a major challenge. If successful, the difficult process of repairing the damage and restoring the credibility and universality of human rights principles envisioned by HRW’s founders can begin.
- Thursday, May 19, 2022
- Varda Meyers Epstein (Judean Rose)
- interview, Judean Rose, Opinion, Varda
Interview with Arnold Roth
President
Joe Biden met with King Abdullah of Jordan last week. We know what they
talked about and what they didn’t talk about because the White House issued a statement
outlining the points of discussion. Omitted from that statement is any mention
of the failure of Jordan to honor its extradition treaty with the United States.
Also missing from the White House statement is any mention of Ahlam
al Tamimi, a terrorist, or of the American citizens in whose murder she
played an instrumental role. Tamimi chose the venue for the massacre, a central
Jerusalem pizzeria; the time the massacre would take place, lunch hour, when
the restaurant was sure to be at peak capacity; and she drove the bomber to the
location she had chosen, ensuring that all would go as planned.
Among the 15 civilians murdered that day in 2001 were Shoshana
Greenbaum, a pregnant woman, and Malki Roth, a 15-year-old girl. Joe Biden would
have been careful to refrain from mentioning their names to Abdullah, because the
subject of extraditing Tamimi is a touchy one. Tamimi is popular in Jordan,
famous for murdering Jewish children.
Tamimi enjoys celebrity status in Jordan. Here she brags on Jordanian television about the Sbarro terror attack in which she played an instrumental role |
Tamimi was nonetheless the mastermind of a massacre of
United States citizens, and it is clear that this should be the sitting US
president’s first, and ultimate concern. That it is not Joe Biden’s first or
ultimate concern, is a grave thing to contemplate. It is wrong. But not the
only wrong.
Far worse, perhaps, is the fact that Tamimi is only living
free in Jordan as a celebrity, because a prime minister of Israel arranged for
her release to that country, directly from an Israeli prison. That prime
minister was Benjamin Netanyahu.
In his 1995 book, “Fighting Terrorism,” Netanyahu wrote that
prisoner exchanges were "a mistake that Israel made over and over
again." and that refusing to release jailed terrorists was "among the
most important policies that must be adopted in the face of terrorism."
The release of convicted terrorists before they have served their full sentences seems like an easy and tempting way of defusing blackmailed situations in which innocent people may lose their lives, but its utility is momentary at best," said Netanyahu. "Prisoner releases only embolden terrorists by giving them the feeling that even if they are caught, their punishment will be brief. Worse, by leading terrorists to think such demands are likely to be met, they encourage precisely the terrorist blackmail they are supposed to defuse.
Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL 17th District) |
The former Israeli prime minister broke with his own
philosophy to release 1,027 Arab terrorists for a
single Israeli captive, Gilad
Shalit, in 2011. Ahlam Tamimi was one of the terrorists released on that black,
black day, 11 years ago. Until now, the parents of Malki Roth, Arnold and
Frimet Roth, have fought to get American officials and the mainstream media to
take note of this travesty, and to act. Someone finally did, Rep.
Greg Steube (R-FL 17th District), who has introduced a bill to
limit US assistance to Jordan until the validity of 1995 extradition treaty
between the two countries, is recognized.
Arnold Roth took the time to update us on efforts to
extradite Tamimi from Jordan, and the much-appreciated active role Congressman
Steube has taken in seeking #justiceforMalki:
Varda
Epstein: Netanyahu broke with his own philosophy as outlined in his 1995 book, “Fighting
Terrorism,” to release 1,027 Arab terrorists for a single Israeli captive in
2011. What do you know about what went into that decision? Is it possible that
pressure was brought to bear on Netanyahu by the Obama Administration?
Arnold Roth: Netanyahu happens to have been in Melbourne, where
both Malki and I were born, on that awful August day in 2001 when the Sbarro massacre
happened and we lost a child. Friends who saw this happen say he was asked by
Australian journalists to comment on a terror outrage since one of the victims,
according to the reports just then coming in, was a Melbourne girl, a lovely,
smiley teenager of 15 – my daughter.
I was told that when he responded, the former prime minister of
Israel (who became prime minister once again eight years later) used the
expression “my heart goes out to them”. He followed that with some reference to
visiting us when he was back in Jerusalem. He of course didn’t visit us but the
expression “my heart goes out to them” is etched into my memory because it
happens to be one of the things he said when he addressed the nation in October
2011. The occasion was his announcing that he had a done a deal with Hamas to
free an Israeli soldier held hostage by them for five years, Gilad Shalit.
It's worth dwelling for a moment on the key paragraph of a
best-selling book from the 1990s entitled “Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies
Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists”. In the edition I am looking
at as I answer you, Varda, the one published by Farrar Straus Giroux* in 1995
at page 144, the acclaimed author writes:
“A government that seeks the defeat of
the terrorists must refuse to release convicted terrorists from prisons…
Releasing imprisoned terrorists emboldens them and their colleagues… By
nurturing the belief that their demands are likely to be met in the future, you
encourage terrorist blackmail of the very kind that you want to stop. Only the
most unrelenting refusal to ever give in to such blackmail can prevent this.”
The words of that last sentence ring powerfully for me. But
actually the whole quote makes solid sense. The person who wrote them is of
course the Israeli leader did the deal with Hamas that served as my daughter’s
murderer’s incomprehensible ticket to freedom.
“I keep wondering if he ever read it"
His name is Benjamin Netanyahu and I keep wondering if he ever
read it. It’s disappeared of course, from bookstores everywhere now, and for
good reason.
I don’t know what motivated him to transact a massive swap of
1,027 terrorists for a captive Israeli soldier, and to market it so heavily to
the Israeli public that freeing Shalit at any price (“any price” is the term I
remember being used freely when this was happening) had enormous support for a
while.
It was of course, like so many things in political life, bogus, a
lie wrapped around a tiny grain of truth. There are many, many things Israel
would never have done to free Shalit. This one just seemed affordable to the
shameless insiders who cooked it up.
Terrible acts of terror against Israelis were executed in the
years after the deal was done, executed by people who were in prison right up until
the day Shalit walked free, with many of them sentenced to stay there for the
rest of their lives, like Ahlam Tamimi.
“His wife pressed him to do it”
But they were freed by Israel and have gone on to lead
high-profile lives as terrorists. Yahya Sinwar, for instance, who took over the
leadership of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2017 and has much blood on his hands.
Netanyahu once said publicly that he did the Shalit deal because
his wife pressed him to do it. For some people, let’s say politicians for
example, that’s as good a reason as any. I would feel a little less hostile to
the man if he had ever taken the trouble to speak with us in the years he was
prime minister, a job he lost in 2021. But he never did. And in fact his office
remained locked and impervious for years to our efforts to appeal for Israeli
help in the Tamimi extradition. Or more accurately, to stop interfering with it. [Emphasis added, V.E.]
Netanyahu won’t get invited to any of my family’s future
celebrations. My heart doesn’t go out to him.
The Roth family at Malki's Bat Mitzvah |
Varda
Epstein: Considering the lack of any meaningful effort by successive US
administrations to extradite Ahlam Tamimi from Jordan for the murder of two US
citizens, is it possible that the US is bowing to pressure from Israel? What
rationale would there be for Israel to quash these efforts?
Arnold Roth: I assume there are multiple factors at work but, yes,
I have heard from sources in Washington that there is a view among government
insiders that Israel is fine with Tamimi being left alone in Jordan. Whether or
not it’s true, the consecutive US administrations of Obama, Trump and Biden
have all praised good king Abdullah in ways that are hard for ordinary people
to understand. There are compelling reasons why the US ought to be very wary of
giving him the moral and political and – which may surprise some people – financial
backing that he gets.
Abdullah wields significant power as the owner and operator of the
family business – the Hashemite Kingdom. In the past two decades, this has been
a profitable undertaking for its shareholders, not so much for its subjects.
Jordan may be a basket-case economically, hugely dependent on handouts and with
a population suffering from a badly-run economy. But this hasn’t prevented its
free-cash flow from serving as the way its king has quietly (until this was
exposed in a series of major global news investigations) and surreptitiously
become a real estate tycoon in the United States.
“I know there are analysts and think-tank mavens far better informed than me who say it’s best not to endanger his or Jordan’s stability. But those are sentiments of the kind that make sense when they come with no price.”
He owns a much real estate and multiple private aircraft. A
well-trained, lavishly equipped military force serves his needs. And since his
country is now officially designated (in Freedom House’s most recent global
survey) as unfree, it’s obvious he has little fear of his country’s media,
parliament or mobs. The evidence is he has excellent connections in the US with
powerful friends in Washington and a major US military presence based inside
his kingdom’s borders. Less well known is that he spends a fortune on US
lawyers and lobbyists.
I know there are analysts and think-tank mavens far better informed
than me who say it’s best not to endanger his or Jordan’s stability. But those are
sentiments of the kind that make sense when they come with no price.
But the reality is that the hypocrisy and double-talk comes at a
high price. Jordan flagrantly breaches its most important treaty with the US
and communicates to its people that it stands firmly with the fugitive bomber.
It has never paid a price for its embrace of terror. That’s no way for foreign
relations to be conducted. It gets noticed by others and in the end, especially
in bad neighborhoods like the one where Jordan operates, it comes back to bite
you. The way we think about Jordan is long overdue for a reality check.
@SecBlinken,
— Arnold Roth (@arnoldroth) May 15, 2022
My wife and I are parents of a US-national Jewish child. Like the reporter, she was killed in Israel. Unlike the reporter, the murderer is known: a Jordanian whom @KingAbdullahII's gov't shamefully keeps free. You ignore our letters but praise the king. Let's speak. pic.twitter.com/EOoGQ5YGMd
Varda
Epstein: How did Congressman Greg Steube become aware of your situation and the
refusal of the US government to get tough with Jordan regarding the existing
extradition treaty? Can you outline for us the steps Rep. Steube has taken to
bring some justice to this situation? Why now?
Arnold Roth: To his credit, Congressman Steube, a Republican from
Florida, has stepped up to the plate several times to press Jordan on this important
matter of justice.
Two years ago, the excellent people of EMET Endowment for Middle
East Truth led by Sarah Stern suggested that he be the key signatory on a letter from
Congress about Tamimi directed at Jordan’s then and current ambassador to
Washington. You might be interested to know the ambassador never bothered to respond.
Then in March 2022, Rep. Steube led ten Congressional colleagues
in another letter, this one addressing Secretary
of State Blinken That too has so far gone unanswered.
As to why now, that would be a good question to ask Steube’s
staff. I could imagine him watching with rising fury as Jordan shows ever
greater signs of developing into a totalitarian society, having an unfree media
culture, providing a safe environment for hateful ideologies, educating its
children to think antisemitically and all the while pocketing more foreign aid
from US taxpayers than almost any other country – while trampling a strategic
treaty with its largest and most important ally.
When you view it that way, the real question might be this: where does the over-the-top warm reception extended last week to King Abdullah by Congressional lawmakers and the President of the United States come from?
Varda Epstein: There has to be a sense of betrayal that Israel released your daughter’s murderer from prison, especially since you threw in your lot with the Jewish State by making Aliyah. Your wife is American. Does she feel a sense of betrayal as an American citizen at the lack of will to push for extradition? How does it feel to be doubly betrayed, so to speak?
Arnold Roth: That’s a hard question to answer. Not because I don’t
feel those things but because complaining of being betrayed doesn’t go down
well or get you far in the court of public opinion. People have a hard enough
time with their own problems.
So first about Israel. Yes, we have certainly been betrayed.
That’s the right word: we had rights and they were and are being cruelly
trampled and with no regard to what this does to our values as a society. Or to
people like us.
“Watching as the convicts walked triumphantly free”
In this, we are not alone. The same thing can be said by all
the other families who experienced the murder or maiming of loved ones by
terrorists who were sentenced to long prison terms by judges applying very
respectable judicial criteria and then watching as the convicts walked
triumphantly free.
That should never have happened. Those who argue differently need
to review what they think they know about justice and Jewish values.
But it’s clear to us that Israel as a nation didn’t betray us. It
was politicians. There’s much more I would want to say about that aspect but
not now. We remain as Zionist as the day we arrived in Israel, passionate and
proud to be raising our children and grandchildren in the Jewish homeland.
“Did the US betray us? No, and this is a good moment to say that we get gratifying support from wide parts of American society.”
I’m not an American. But Malki was and so are my wife and children.
Did the US betray us? No, and this is a good moment to say that we
get gratifying support from wide parts of American society. But as with Israel,
the politicians – except for those who have shown a distinct sense of morality
and honor – do what politicians do and hurt us in heartless ways.
From conversations with US government officials, we have the sense
– never said to us in this way – that there’s more interest in seeing Ahlam
Tamimi slip away and somehow disappear into the desert than in having her stand
trial in Washington.
This is not a partisan political thing; we are almost, though not
quite, as infuriated by how the GOP has pushed past the Jordan/Tamimi issue as
we are by the Democrats. Again, this isn’t about which side of the US divide you
stand on.
Much of America’s Jewish community leadership has been unhelpful
and cold. Having said that, it’s an exceptionally painful subject that I don’t
want to address here. At some point we will because there’s much we have
learned on this that we would have preferred never to know. And people ought to
know.
Here’s what I want to say about the US government. Other than at
the political leadership level, the Justice Department and the FBI have always
given us the sense of being with us and wanting the same result we want –
Tamimi in a federal court on trial for her terrorism and the deaths she caused.
We sincerely appreciate the hard work that has kept the pursuit of the Sbarro
bomber going all these years.
“He/she skipped the briefing.”
This is relevant to something that happened some weeks ago when
Frimet and I met with a significant US government figure (hereafter SUSGF). And
here’s the only part of it worth raising in today’s interview. We were told
ahead of time by our own sources that SUSGF was going to receive a briefing
before our sit-down from well-connected officials in Washington. But in
speaking with us for an hour or so, SUSGF volunteered half-way through that
he/she skipped the briefing. Hence our mild hope of getting some insight into
why we have been treated as pariahs for so long by the government of which our
murdered child was a national was misplaced. We learned nothing. The experience
was a waste of everyone’s time.
There’s no point in sharing my feelings about the governments of
the past. But here’s a thought about the current administration.
Speaking in July 2021 during the first of the three official
visits to the US made by King Abdullah in the past ten months, President Biden
called Jordan “loyal and decent friend… We’ve been hanging out together for a
long time. It’s good to have him back in the White House.”
“What’s decent about an ally shirking a treaty to appease popular bigotry?”
The same day those comments were reported in the New York Times, Frimet
and I wrote an open letter to President Biden. It was published prominently in
the Wall Street Journal:
The president, a grieving parent
himself, pledged during his inauguration speech to write “an American story of
decency and dignity.” Is anything more dignified than doing justice? What’s
decent about an ally shirking a treaty to appease popular bigotry?
That question is still on my mind. And again, no response has ever
come from the White House.
We also wrote a private letter to Secretary of State Blinken six
weeks earlier, in July 2021. He has never answered.
Jordan was first notified of its treaty obligation to extradite #AhlamTamimi in 2013. Terrorism charges issued that summer were sealed to allow Jordan time to comply - and unsealed 5 failed years later.
— Arnold Roth (@arnoldroth) May 18, 2022
Result: @KingAbdullahII harbors her in Jordan as he keeps coming to Wash DC. pic.twitter.com/YhngQWFSMf
Varda
Epstein: On March 20, 2017, the Jordanian Court of Cassation ruled the
extradition treaty invalid. Yet we know the US has requested extradition and
received fugitive terrorists from Jordan on multiple occasions. Why does Jordan
not honor the treaty in practice, if not by law, in the case of Tamimi?
Arnold Roth: Though Abdullah has given various explanations for why Jordan cannot extradite Tamimi, these have all been behind closed doors. He has never publicly addressed the issue. But we do know that Tamimi is a popular Jordanian folk hero.
Varda Epstein: Why do you think that your family was not forewarned before Tamimi was released in the Shalit Deal? Was it an oversight?
Arnold Roth: Not an oversight in any sense. In the eyes of the Israeli government, the need was urgent and the relevant officials had no intention of letting messy citizen actions get in the way. I also think some of them, at least, were aware of how morally and strategically wrong the Shalit Deal was in every respect. So why take chances? Rush it through and let history work out who was right and who wrong.
Murdered Israelis did not get to vote.
What's the story? The story is about a child of fifteen, my daughter. And about her murderer, a woman who has emerged as one of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan's most influential individuals. You could start here:
— Arnold Roth (@arnoldroth) May 18, 2022
"09-May-22: No more excuses, Jordan"https://t.co/f3jZBF8kTE pic.twitter.com/xWtSAIawKp
Varda
Epstein: We know that President Biden met with King Abdullah on Friday. Have
you had any information regarding the contents of their conversation? Do you
know if the subject of Tamimi’s extradition was raised?
Arnold Roth: America gives tremendous influence to its appointed
spokespersons. We have fought to see US justice done since 2012 – a decade. We
have come up against spokespersons in the White House and the State Department
several times and been deeply embittered by how that process works. With a
handful of notable exceptions, there’s no one in the ranks of the media who
attend those briefings who has the interest or skill to go head-to-head with
them.
So the last time, a year ago, that King Abdullah paid official
calls in Washington, the spokespersons in both the White House and the State
Department were asked by, as it happens, Associated Press journalists in each
place whether the Tamimi issue had come up. The answers they got are a disgrace
to the White House and the State Department. They were evasive, unclear and
essentially meaningless. There is a serious game being played by these US
government employees and it doesn’t get exposed often enough.
An official
readout was issued by the White House after President Biden’s tête-à-tête
with Abdullah this past Friday. Here’s what it says about Tamimi:
[The two heads of state] reaffirmed
the close and enduring nature of the friendship between the United States and
Jordan. Jordan is a critical ally and
force for stability in the Middle East, and the President confirmed unwavering
U.S. support for Jordan and His Majesty’s leadership. The leaders consulted on recent events in the
region and discussed urgent mechanisms to stem violence, calm rhetoric and
reduce tensions in Israel and the West Bank. The President affirmed his strong
support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and cited
the need to preserve the historic status quo at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple
Mount. The President also recognized the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s crucial
role as the custodian of Muslim holy places in Jerusalem. The leaders discussed
the political and economic benefits of further regional integration in
infrastructure, energy, water, and climate projects, with Jordan a critical hub
for such cooperation and investment.
They agreed to remain in regular touch and further enhance the historic
ties between our countries.
In other words, zero. [Emphasis
added. V.E.]
Jordan’s trampling of the 1995 treaty continues and America’s
chief executive is fine with it. That’s a showstopper in my opinion. And
completely at odds with what he declared in his inauguration speech.
Follow up: They didn't.
— This Ongoing War (@ThisOngoingWar) May 18, 2022
Sometimes injustice gets sharp editorial focus. Others, like our American Jewish child's murder, stay stuffed under the carpet for years with no sign the media ever noticed.
Except that this case happens to be about America's most wanted female fugitive. pic.twitter.com/sfnXXj2Aka
Varda
Epstein: Presumably Malki was also an Australian citizen? Australia appears to
have signed an extradition treaty with Jordan in 2017, but it is not yet enforced.
Can you tell us a bit about this? Why has the proposed extradition treaty not
yet been enforced? Are you in touch with authorities on this score? What
efforts are you making on the Australian front?
Arnold Roth: Not so. Yes, Malki was born in Australia. Australia
spent years negotiating an extradition treaty with Jordan but it pulled out of
the negotiations a year or two ago. Australia, for good historical reasons, has
warm relations with the Hashemite kingdom.
That's what brought me to write an op-ed in The Australian, five
years ago this week in fact. In it I called on then-prime minister Malcolm
Turnbull to in effect have a quiet word with his mate King Abdullah. Turnbull's
answer was a welcome one, but the follow up by others in his government was
not. The initiative ended up falling by the wayside.
For the past two years I made similar efforts with the current
Australian leadership via the prime minister's team and his foreign ministry -
with frustratingly disappointing outcomes. At this point, Frimet and I have
stopped knocking on their doors.
“Justice, Tamimi, Jordan cannot possibly be partisan issues. But there you are. It’s galling.”
Varda
Epstein: Is there any US official other than Rep. Steube who has taken an
interest in your plight? Is there something American citizens can do to get
their own representatives to act? What makes this a propitious time to press
for extradition?
Arnold Roth: There is a small handful of lawmakers who have
consistently given us their support. But rather than dwell on their identities,
the larger point is that we get far less support – almost none -- from the
Democrat side. Justice, Tamimi, Jordan cannot possibly be partisan issues. But
there you are. It’s galling.
Varda
Epstein: Has what happened affected you at the polls, and if so, how? Would
you, could you ever support the man who released Tamimi from an Israeli prison?
Arnold Roth: Well phrased. The Shalit Deal cured me of any
lingering confusion about politicians capable of doing what Netanyahu and the
many who followed him into the catastrophe did. I’m no zealot and am perfectly
aware that Bibi has a large following. I don’t preach against him but I have no
hesitation in sharing my views of the man and what in my opinion he represents.
Varda
Epstein: Let’s say your efforts are rewarded, that Tamimi is extradited to the
US and tried in an American court of law. Let’s imagine that she is found
guilty and punished. What would that mean for the world, for Jordan, and for
your family?
Arnold Roth: It will be an essential affirmation that terrorism is
outside the boundaries of what society can tolerate. The failure to adhere to
this principle is a catastrophe wherever it happens. And leaders who bring
catastrophes on their people ought to suffer rejection and marginalization.
Until that happens, it’s clear to us that in fighting for the
principle, we are the ones rejected and marginalized.
Thinking too of a long list of human rights, counter-terrorism/extremism and US Jewish organizations as well as activist lawmakers in the Congress who appear to have lost their voices/keyboards as the royal figure who keeps #AhlamTamimi safe in Jordan from the @FBI came and went. pic.twitter.com/Q69obvUhOI
— Arnold Roth (@arnoldroth) May 16, 2022
*Slightly different than the passage cited in my introduction to this interview, from Background: In book, PM warned not to release terrorists. I chose to include both excerpts for greater clarity of intent.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
|
- Thursday, May 19, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
What’s to become of the Palestinians? We need to talk about Khaybar.
What about the Palestinians’ friends in the west and elsewhere, who amplify all those same slurs? They do matter, but not because they can deliver Israel bound & gagged. They can’t. They matter because they bear a good share of responsibility for leading the Palestinians into the quicksand and keeping them there, prolonging everyone’s misery. By encouraging them to keep fighting a war they’ve long since lost and by adopting every malformed phantasm of Palestinian resentment, they’ve walked with them hand in hand. The difference of course, is that it’s the Palestinians that are paying the price. Israelis are often lectured that it’s the duty of a friend to put them straight when they are going wrong. Where was the tough love for the Palestinians?JPost Editorial: Israel cannot abandon the two state solution
When the army of the Prophet swept through the Khaybar oasis, hate put the spur to his horses and sharpened the edge on his swords, and set the relationship between Muslims and Jews for the next millennium and a half, but impotent hate only clarifies its target’s vision and hardens his resolve. The Palestinians can see that what power they have is trickling away, it’s obvious in their panicky response to the Abraham Accords and any other sign of Arab “betrayal”, and even their fury at the suggestion that UNRWA might outsource some of its activities to other agencies. Hate on top of powerlessness weakens their position, but in defeat they can’t give it up.
So what is the future for the Palestinians? Where does all this leave the two-state solution, first of all? It leaves it dead. Israel has been told endlessly that it mustn’t do certain things because they will destroy the prospects for two-states, but nobody thought to tell the Palestinians that they mustn’t hate for the same reason. People who want to will put the blame on Israel, but the end result will be the same: Nations don’t choose suicide willingly and while would-be murderers of Israel may be plenty their means are insufficient. Beyond that, predicting the future is for fools but there’s little sign that Palestinian dreams will come true. Israel has been getting stronger, not weaker. More and more Arab countries, quietly or in public, are deciding that they can’t subordinate their own interests to Palestinian ones forever. Even Arab-Israelis are gradually starting to integrate more, joining the economy and the army and embracing politics that aren’t zero-sum dead ends. If Israel responds thoughtfully those numbers will only grow. If the Arab world moves on without the Palestinians there’s little reason for Europe and America not to follow suit. Do the Palestinians understand their bind? I doubt it, but they can’t leave their cage by either possible exit and I can’t see how anyone else can get them out. I truly wish they could; I don’t enjoy their suffering and a perpetually bitter and hopeless Palestinian enclave is going to continue lashing out at Israel forever. But not all stories have happy endings.
In medicine there exists something known as a sequestrum. A piece of tissue dies and, instead of the usual process of breakdown and resorption, it mummifies in place. It has no future role in the surrounding body except as a source of inflammation and pain. Is that what the Palestinian people have to look forward to, to be a permanent, irreducible focus of inflammation and hurt in the Middle East? How do we spare them and the Israelis that?
POSTSCRIPT
This piece was written before the death of the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin, but if I’d started writing it today it would have come out exactly the same. From the shrieks of Murder! by everyone from Mahmoud Abbas to Rashida Tlaib to the right-on Susan Sarandon; from the forthright libels of Al Jazeera, the “news” source to which Abu Akleh lent her services for 25 years, to the more veiled insinuations of once-reputable outlets like the BBC and Associated Press, it’s the proof you didn’t need. The Palestinians demonstrate their enduring ability to bruise and blacken Israel, and they get … nowhere. It couldn’t be clearer that the PA, never mind Hamas, is not thinking about coexistence. For all their talk of fairness, justice and rights, the West’s thought leaders’ stampede toward verdict before trial shows again how flexible their principles are in service of their politics. In the process, they make any thinking Jew wonder what future there is for the diaspora. And so we go on, hate and pointless violence that serves only to take the Palestinians further from a future worth having. The pain they inflict and suffer has become their substitute.
Due to the loss of hope that there is a viable solution, some people on both the Israeli and the Palestinian sides are starting to believe that their side should be in control, while the other should be deported or eliminated.
It is true that it is not possible to make peace with the aging and intransigent Mahmoud Abbas, who barely controls the West Bank, and without Israel’s help would be toppled by Hamas that wishes to wipe out the State of Israel.
But one day, Abbas will depart from this world, and what then?
Does Israel want to maintain a situation in which millions of people live under the control of its military while being refused citizenship? Or does it want to make those people citizens and lose the Jewish majority?
For over a decade, Israel made great efforts to weaken the Palestinian Authority and to strengthen Hamas. At the same time, it allowed Hamas to develop military capabilities that could terrorize the country.
It is time for Israel to strengthen its ties with moderate Palestinians and keep cooperating with pragmatic Israeli-Arabs.
Having Ra’am in the coalition is a huge and historic step in that direction.
Its leader, Mansour Abbas, has said multiple times that he recognizes Israel as a Jewish State, and that “it will stay like this.”
It is time to start talking again about solutions to the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. Ignoring it does not serve Israel’s interests of remaining a Jewish and democratic state.