Love of the Land: January 2020

Friday, January 31, 2020

Calling the Palestinians’ bluff. That’s No Small Achievement. - by Melanie Phillips

The Trump plan won’t bring peace; however, it restores the truth and justice that are essential prerequisites of peace. Crushing the lethal and poisonous fantasies about Israel and the Jewish people, as well as taking a hard-headed approach to Palestinian intentions, it replaces illusions by reality. That’s no small achievement. Now it’s up to the rest of the world.

Melanie Phillips..
JNS.org..
31 January '20..

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East “deal of the century” offers the Palestinians a state. They have rejected it and threatened instead to ramp up violence against Israel.

No one can be surprised. They have rejected every offer of a state previously made to them in 1937, 1947, 2000, 2008 and 2014.

So is this latest deal anything more than Groundhog Day for the Middle East all over again? Yes, because this isn’t a deal. It’s an ultimatum.

Israel intends to enact its part in the plan unilaterally by declaring sovereignty over the Israeli settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley. The big change is that despite the subsequent crossed wires over timing, the United States will accept this.

That’s because this isn’t a “peace process” in which both sides must progress in tandem with each other—a process that gave the Palestinians an effective veto even while they continued to wage their war of extermination against Israel.

For the first time, here’s an American plan that puts the security of Israel first and foremost. It’s therefore the first time that the United States has unequivocally supported Israel’s future existence.

For if a country cannot defend itself against enemies sworn to liquidate it, that country can’t survive. Yet until now, even U.S. administrations supposedly sympathetic to Israel imposed upon it requirements that undermined its security and defense against attack.

Other supposed allies, such as Britain or the European Union, have also paid mere lip service to Israel while denying the validity of its claim to the disputed territories in Judea and Samaria. Yet its claim to these territories is legal many times over, both under international laws of self-defense and through the international community’s decision in the 1920s to designate the whole of Palestine as the homeland of the Jews alone.

By denying Israel’s right to all the land, Britain and the rest of the West have effectively undermined the Jews’ entitlement to any of it.

The Trump plan has now swept aside that appeasement of evil, started by the British in the 1930s, and which has been pursued by the American and Western foreign-policy establishment ever since.

(Continue to Full Column)

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Thursday, January 30, 2020

Long past time for the architects of Middle East failures to be quiet - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Longtime State Department peace processors who helped wreck the region under Clinton or Obama, and are now the first to criticize the Trump plan, lack credibility.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS,org..
30 January '20..

Disdain for President Donald Trump and the people who work in his administration runs deep in the media, as well as the foreign-policy establishment. At the core of this attitude is the current administration’s rejection of the conventional wisdom about diplomacy and the Middle East that governed American policy for decades.

Trump’s critics frame the debate about the administration as one that pits experts against amateurs. In this telling, Trump and his aides are a pack of bumbling ignoramuses. They are depicted as foolishly ignoring the advice of people who are more experienced and much smarter than they are, and thereby making already bad situations, such as the ongoing confrontation with Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, worse.

It’s true that Trump had no foreign-policy experience before becoming president. The team that he appointed to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian struggle was similarly lacking in diplomatic credentials. In particular, the trio of presidential adviser/son-in-law Jared Kushner, Middle East special envoy Jason Greenblatt and America’s ambassador to Israel David Friedman were essentially Trump’s real estate industry cronies rather than the sort of veteran policy wonks who would have been expected to fill such important slots in a more “normal” administration.

That’s why the critiques of Trump’s actions—his withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reimposition of sanctions on the regime, recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Jewish state’s right to the Golan, as well as his attempts to force the Palestinian Authority to cease funding terrorism—didn’t just elicit strong critiques from the ranks of those who had served in past administrations. The tone of the analyses that poured forth from liberal think tanks where alumni from the Clinton and Obama administrations, as well as some from the two Bush presidencies, now serve has been not so much harshly disapproving as dripping with contempt.

The same attitude is present in the commentary from establishment types about the Middle East peace plan that was rolled out this week in a White House ceremony. In an odd echo of the rage at Trump being heard from the leadership of the Palestinians, foreign-policy veterans have, for the most part, responded to the plan with a mixture of incredulousness, anger, predictions of doom and, most of all, with sneering condescension.

(Continue to Full Column)

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

President Trump’s critics shouldn’t encourage Palestinians to make another mistake (but they will) - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Contrary to the bad advice they’re getting from the Democrats and J Street, Palestinians need to accept that the U.S. plan is their best chance for statehood.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
28 January '20..

As far as those Americans who despise President Donald Trump, as well as many of those Jews and Israelis who feel the same way about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the ceremony unveiling a new U.S. peace plan for the Middle East was a sham.

With the Palestinians refusing to even talk to the administration—let alone negotiate with Israel about implementing the plan’s terms—chances of the “deal of the century” solving the conflict remain exactly zero. Trump’s opponents see his determination to recognize Israeli sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, as well as the green light his plan gives to annexation of West Bank settlements, as an outrage. And they dismiss his offer of statehood to the Palestinians—provided that they recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state and cease support for terrorism—as meaningless.

In essence, all those denouncing Trump’s terms are advising the Palestinians to stick to their refusal to talk until a new American president takes office.

Whatever you think about Trump, it is the worst possible advice anyone could give to the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what many Democrats are doing. The same is true of allegedly “pro-peace” Jewish groups like J Street. Rather than encouraging the Palestinians to start negotiating, the “experts” about the Mideast are applauding their decision to reject Trump’s proposal out of hand. Sadly, they are once again serving as enablers for a Palestinian Arab leadership that has, over the course of the last century, failed their people miserably as they pursued a futile war against Zionism.

(Continue to Full Column)

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Ready to R&R: Running Up To The Peace Process - by Shoshana Bryen

The PA appears to have mistaken America as an “honest broker” for America as a “neutral party.” Between Palestinians and Israelis, the United States is not, and should not, ever be “neutral.” With Israel we share goals, values, and history; with the Palestinians we do not.

Shoshana Bryen..
JewishPolicyCenter.org..
27 January '20..
Link: https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2020/01/27/running-up-to-the-peace-process/

We have to wait until President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan is unveiled to discuss it; those already discussing are likely to be wrong. But it is worth reviewing where Israelis, Palestinians, Arab states, and Americans have been — and why this time may be different.

The central flaw in the “Palestinian-Israeli peace process” has never been addressed. There has not been — and there is not now — a shared goal toward which Israelis and Palestinians can be induced to work. Instead, each side has three specific and irreconcilable objectives.

The Palestinians — both Hamas and Fatah — seek:

- An independent state without recognizing a legitimate and permanent state of Israel in any territory. Both factions are willing to accept a temporary agreement with Israel on the way to the fulfillment of the PLO Charter to which both are committed. (Reading the Charter will tell you what else they are committed to, and it isn’t a “two state solution.”)
- Sovereign control of East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.
- The right of entry for all remaining 1948–1949 Arab refugees from Britain’s Mandatory Palestine, as well s their descendants, to any place within pre-1967 Israel in which they or their antecedents claim to have lived.

Israel seeks three different things:

- Recognition of the legitimacy and permanence of Israel within finalized “secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force”: U.N. Resolution 242’s security promise to Israel.
- The capital of Israel in Jerusalem and Israeli protection for Jewish patrimony in the eastern part of Jerusalem.
- “End of conflict; end of claims.” After an agreement, the Palestinians will not be able to press additional claims against Israel for territory or other “rights.”

Beyond the issue of objectives, all previous “Palestinian-Israeli peace processes” were doomed because they operated as if the protagonists were on an island in the middle of the sea rather than in the middle of the Middle East. Until recently, the Palestinians counted on lip service, at a minimum — guns and money in better cases — from the so-called “Arab world” and a variety of African and Middle Eastern states. This broad, if shallow, support covered up the fact that the Palestinians were the weakest link in regional politics. It was impossible for Palestinian Authority (PA) strongman Mahmoud Abbas — let alone Hamas — to recognize the legitimacy of Jewish nationhood and accept a split, rump state squeezed between Jordan and Israel if the Arab states with the money and the guns didn’t go along.

Monday, January 27, 2020

Tweet and delete. Because the Palestinian Theory of Truth says you can. - by Victor Rosenthal

Not fully verified? Not certain? How about, “a dangerous lie and murderous incitement?” But at least she went this far. Rashida Tlaib simply deleted her retweet. The shameless Galloway left it up and even pinned it to the top of his Twitter account. Ashrawi and Tlaib are media veterans who fully understand how this plays. In case you don’t, let me lay it out:

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
26 January '20..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2020/01/tweet-and-delete/

Israel has experienced very heavy rains recently. Several people were killed when they were swept away by floods. In a particularly gruesome case, a young couple died of exposure after being trapped in a water-filled elevator in a basement parking garage. The emergency telephone system was not able to handle the volume of calls generated by the massive storm, and rescuers weren’t alerted until it was too late.

Last Friday afternoon, Qais Abu Ramila, an 8-year old Arab boy from eastern Jerusalem went missing. First responders and hundreds of Arab and Jewish volunteers searched for him until the next morning, when he was found dead, drowned in a deep pool of rainwater near his home.

Another tragedy. Possibly, as his parents said, the Jerusalem municipality should have filled in the pit. Often things aren’t done that should be, and the results are heartbreaking. One hopes lessons are learned.

But there was another side to the case of Abu Ramila, where lessons need to be learned but probably won’t be. Shortly after he disappeared, rumors started that he had been kidnapped by a group of “settlers.” Someone produced a security video that showed a boy being pulled along by the hand by an older man; but the boy’s father said that the child in the video was not his son. Nevertheless, despite a complete lack of evidence, the rumors spread. Some Arabs even tried to enter a nearby Jewish neighborhood in search of the “kidnappers.”

And then social media amplified the blood libel into an international event. Former Palestinian Authority official Hanan Ashrawi retweeted a fanciful tweet by “@RealSeifBitar” – possibly a fake account, presently nonexistent – which accused “a herd of violent #Israeli settlers” of assaulting the boy and throwing him into a well to die. She was followed by others, including professional (since he no longer has a job in the British Parliament) Jew-hater George Galloway, and, shockingly, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who retweeted Ashrawi.

When it became clear that the boy’s death was accidental, Ashrawi deleted her original tweet and tweeted a partial apology, saying “My apologies for retweeting something that’s not fully verified. It seems that the news of his being kidnapped is not certain.”

Not fully verified? Not certain? How about, “a dangerous lie and murderous incitement?” But at least she went this far. Rashida Tlaib simply deleted her retweet. The shameless Galloway left it up and even pinned it to the top of his Twitter account.

Ashrawi and Tlaib are media veterans who fully understand how this plays. In case you don’t, let me lay it out:

Sunday, January 26, 2020

In spite of various “peace processors”, Palestinian terrorists keep shattering their profile - by Stephen M. Flatow

Sometimes, the J Streeters get a little carried away with themselves. They seem to think that just because they are the subject of flattering feature stories in The New York Times or on CNN, it means that the winds of public opinion are blowing their way. But the meager support that the “teen terrorist” bill has garnered so far suggests otherwise.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
24 January '20..

The latest Palestinian Arab stabbings of Jews in Israel won’t get much attention since fortunately, nobody was killed. Attacks that don’t involve fatalities are considered by the international news media to be insignificant; editors call them “dog bites man” stories. But the circumstances of the attacks are, in fact, quite significant.

Near Hebron, a 17-year-old Palestinian Arab stabbed and wounded a Jewish passerby. In Jerusalem, a 50-year-old Palestinian Arab woman charged towards Israeli police officers, brandishing a knife.

A 50-year-old woman completely shatters the profile of the “typical” Palestinian Arab terrorist. Supposedly, terrorists are mostly single men in their 20s. A 50-year-old woman, quite possibly a mother with children still at home, is exactly the kind of person who gets less scrutiny from security guards because they don’t expect her to be a terrorist.

What does that tell us? That Palestinian Arab terrorists come in all ages and genders, all economic brackets and social circumstances. Time and again, Israeli Jews have been attacked by terrorists who are younger or older than the “typical” terrorist. Employed or unemployed. Single or with families.

Many self-anointed “experts” on the Middle East situation insist that poverty or unemployment is the root cause of Palestinian Arab terrorism. The terrorists are supposedly jobless young men who feel “hopeless” or “frustrated” at their economic prospects.

Thus, these “experts” say, the solution is to throw more money at the Palestinian Arabs or to let more of them cross into Israel. Not too long ago, former Obama “peace processor” David Makovsky was urging Israel to admit 100,000 workers from Gaza each day. How does that advice look in the wake of the mass violence perpetrated at the Gaza border over the past year? How many of those who were trying to burn down Israeli fields and murder Israeli soldiers should be admitted?

(Continue to Full Column)

Friday, January 24, 2020

An Open Letter to the Honorable Emmanuel Macron, President of France - by Dexter Van Zile

Why does France allow its sovereign territory in Jerusalem to be used as a staging ground for attacks on Jewish sovereignty in Israel?

Dexter Van Zile..
TOI Blog..
22 January '20..
Link: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/an-open-letter-to-emmanuel-macron-president-of-france/

To the Honorable Emmanuel Macron, President of France:

I just saw a video of your confrontation with the Israeli police at St. Anne’s Church in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was a brief vignette posted on Twitter, so I don’t know exactly what happened, but it looks like you were protecting the status of the church as sovereign French territory. It seems to be one of the goals you had for yourself before your current trip to Jerusalem.

I hope Israelis will reserve judgement about the confrontation. Like you said in the video, “Nobody has to provoke nobody.”

Words to live by!

I also hope the confrontation between you and the Israeli security officials doesn’t turn into a contretemps that gets distorted to make modern day Jews look like the folks who stoned St. Stephen all those years ago. Given that you praised Israeli security officials for protecting you while walking through the Old City, I don’t think it will.

But you never know. There’s a lot of demand for that sort of narrative these days and a lot of people in Jerusalem make a living meeting that demand. In fact, one person who has provided that sort of narrative, Yusef Daher, runs the Jerusalem Inter Church Center (JICC) whose office is located in St. Anne’s compound. While he’s there, Daher enjoys the protection of French sovereignty, which you so ardently defended.

In the past, Daher has portrayed legitimate Israeli security measures at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as a huge act of oppression against Christians worldwide. For example, Daher has unfairly portrayed Israeli efforts to prevent a stampede outside the church as an evil act against Christians in Jerusalem.

But I digress . . .

Let’s face it. The Old City is a stressful place to be. It is imbued with a lot of religious meaning and for the unprepared, Jerusalem can be a rough place to visit. Part of the shock is to see all these ordinary people, sovereign Jews especially, living out their daily lives in a city that is as central to the Western imagination and memory as Athens, Paris and Rome.

As a wise Christian friend of mine who lives in the Holy Land once told me, “People come to the Holy Land with a lot of baggage. When they get off the plane in Tel Aviv their baggage gets multiplied by a factor of 10,” he said. “And when they step into Jerusalem it gets multiplied by 100.”

Given that French sovereignty over St. Anne’s dates back to the 1800s, it’s likely the Israelis will have some sympathy for you. They know the importance of protecting sovereignty. If there is one group of people who know the dangers of losing sovereignty even better than the French, it’s the Israelis.

It’s interesting to note that that one of your predecessors, Jacques Chirac generated some controversy when he visited St. Anne’s in 1996. Apparently, St. Anne’s is a pretty neuralgic place for French Presidents.

Vraiment!

I don’t mean to add to your headaches, but given that you just defended French sovereignty over St. Anne’s in the Old City of Jerusalem, I feel compelled to ask you some questions about how France administers the property. The central issue is this: Why does France allow its sovereign territory in Jerusalem to be used by the JICC, which is led by Daher, as a staging ground for ideological and theological attacks on Jewish sovereignty in Israel?

If you pardon the expression, that doesn’t seem . . . kosher.

I raised this question with the folks in France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2018 and no one got back to me.

I even asked officials from the White Fathers, the Catholic religious order that operates St. Anne’s. They were pretty tight-lipped, but the one thing they did say is that St. Anne’s Monastery enjoys diplomatic protection, “just like an embassy.”

So, here is the relevant text of an email that I sent to the folks in France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an email sent, interestingly enough, on June 6, 2018:

I am currently writing an article about an organization called the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine/Israel (EAPPI). EAPPI is an institution of the World Council of Churches (WCC) that sends activists into Israel and the West Bank. The organization has come under increasing scrutiny and criticism from a number of institutions and commentators in Israel and elsewhere for its tendency to promote anti-Israel propaganda both in the Holy Land and in the home country of EAPPI activists.

EAPPI is closely affiliated with another WCC institution — the Jerusalem Interchurch Center — whose general secretary, a Palestinian Christian by the name of Yusef Daher, has posted ugly anti-Israel propaganda on his Facebook page.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Jordanian lawmakers' vote shows why Israel's defensible borders still matter - by Evelyn Gordon

Visceral hatred of Israel is common even in countries with which it has peace treaties. Not only does this hinder peacemaking, but it creates a real risk that treaties won’t survive an autocrat’s fall.

Evelyn Gordon..
JNS.org..
22 January '20..

If you want to understand the true obstacle to Mideast peace, look no further than the Jordanian parliament’s unanimous approval last week of a bill to ban natural-gas imports from Israel, just days after the gas began arriving.

Energy-poor Jordan needs a stable, affordable fuel supply, which the Israeli deal provides. When it was signed in 2016, the Jordanian government said it could save the country $500 million a year—almost 4 percent of Jordan’s 2019 budget and more than half its projected deficit for that year (the actual deficit was apparently higher). In short, the deal would let the kingdom redirect significant amounts of money to some of its other crying needs.

But that doesn’t interest Jordanian lawmakers. What they care about is that this is “the gas of the enemy,” to quote protesters against the deal.

They also don’t care that Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty 25 years ago. As last week’s vote made clear, every single Jordanian lawmaker still views Israel as an enemy with whom trade is anathema, even if Jordan itself would benefit greatly. That stance is wildly popular: Almost all Jordanians have an unfavorable view of Jews and similar views of the Jewish state.

Israel’s egregious efforts to accommodate Jordan’s anti-Israel sensibilities didn’t help, either. The gas comes from a field developed by an Israeli company, Delek, in partnership with an American one, Noble Energy. But to enable the deal to move forward, the partnership acceded to the Jordanian power company’s demand that no Israeli entity be party to the contract. Officially, therefore, the contract isn’t with Israel, but with Noble’s American marketing subsidiary.

The deal will most likely go ahead despite parliament’s objections because though King Abdullah is happy to let his lawmakers spout anti-Israel rhetoric, he rarely lets them interfere with anything that he considers an important Jordanian interest. And for now, despite the country’s growing unrest, Abdullah’s grip still seems firm.

But regardless of what happens to the gas deal, the vote shines a spotlight on two errors that have consistently undermined Western peacemaking efforts.

(Continue to Full Column)

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Like to know what the Palestinian “Prayer Intifada” is all about? (Hint: not about prayers) - by Yishai Fleisher

It’s time for Israel to reverse the misguided Dayan doctrine and send a clear message that Palestinian “liberation” of the Temple Mount and the Tomb of the Patriarchs will utterly fail.

Yishai Fleisher..
JNS.org..
21 January '20..

There’s a new Palestinian intifada in the works, one that specifically targets the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

Called the Great Fajr (Muslim pre-dawn prayer), it’s roused thousands of Palestinians to converge on the holy sites for Friday prayers—which also double as anti-Israel rallies. The large turnouts, despite the cold and rain, have surprised police in both Jerusalem and Hebron.

The Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh reports that the prayer demonstrations are being organized by both Hamas and Fatah. Last Friday, a third jihadist organization, called Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), an Islamic State-like pro-Caliphate movement, led Temple Mount worshippers in chants of “O coward settler, Aqsa [Mosque] won’t be humiliated” and “With blood and spirit, we will liberate Al-Aqsa.”

Palestinian leaders claim the protests are aimed at stemming the growing tide of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount and thwarting Israel’s decision to build a new Jewish neighborhood in Hebron.

But these are just excuses.

The truth is that the Palestinian national movement is deflated and is looking for a religious kick-start.

(Continue to Full Column)

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Before visiting Ramallah, a pit stop at Yad Vashem - by Prof. Shmuel Trigano

Europe turns a blind eye to Arab-Muslim anti-Semitism in the belief that the Arab world is not responsible for the Holocaust, and that Europe oppressed the Palestinians by contributing to the establishment of the Jewish state.

Prof. Shmuel Trigano..
Israel Hayom..
20 January '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/on-the-way-to-ramallah-a-pit-stop-at-yad-vashem/

What a strange idea it was for President Reuven Rivlin to invite European leaders to Yad Vashem to denounce the rejuvenation of anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe. Despite the political importance of the event, the entire endeavor reflects the degree to which Israelis are deluding themselves in relation to the Old Continent. The notion that the memory of the Holocaust needs to be refreshed in order to fight modern anti-Semitism is pointless, as Israel itself is now accused of turning the Holocaust and its memory into a tool with which to achieve its goals, while the anti-Zionists alter its "lesson" to benefit the Palestinian cause – by equating it to the Nakba (the Palestinian national "catastrophe" caused by Israel's creation).

It is a strategic mistake to view the anti-Semitism of our time as an extension of the anti-Semitism of 30 years ago. To be sure, it still exists among the classical far-right; but is blossoming primarily in the form of anti-Zionism within Muslim and far-left post-colonialist circles. The deeper problem is turning the "lessons of the Holocaust" into the moral basis for fighting anti-Semitism. As an explanation, it favors victimhood over the political: Jewish suffering is put on display as a call to end hatred, instead of presenting Israel's status as a sovereign country as a counterweight to the new anti-Zionistic anti-Semitism. When the justification for Israel's existence is predicated on the memory of victimhood, Europe can view the state as a type of humanitarian tent for Jews, and less as a sovereign country. Consequently, Israel is not permitted, in the eyes of Europe, to realize its legitimate right to self-defense. The moment the Israeli soldier ceases being the emaciated extermination camp survivor, he morphs into a monster in the eyes of the Europeans.

European recognition of Israel is based, therefore, on feelings of guilt toward the Jews – implying that the same guilt applies to the Palestinians. Europe turns a blind eye to Arab-Muslim anti-Semitism – which is the main source of modern anti-Semitism – in the belief that the Arab world is not responsible for the Holocaust, and that Europe oppressed the Palestinians by contributing to the establishment of the Jewish state. Isn't it only natural, therefore, that some of the participants of the Yad Vashem will visit Ramallah immediately after it ends? The reliance on the Holocaust in this regard means strengthening even further the myths that breed the new anti-Semitism – Nakba, occupation, original sin.

Monday, January 20, 2020

Keeping an eye out for Israel Derangement Syndrome - by Juliet Moses

IDS-sufferers see themselves as actors in a morality play in which Palestinians are simply props. It’s an orientalist, post-colonialist colonialism, that dictates how Palestinians must behave. They are only permitted agency through violence, and must otherwise be victims.

Juliet Moses..
Spectator Australia..
18 January '20..

I am not a psychiatrist, but I’ve observed a kind of psychosis in far-left activists of the West who claim to be progressives championing the Palestinian cause: Israel Derangement Syndrome, or IDS.

Sufferers of this insidious illness don’t rationally advocate for Palestinians and criticise Israeli policies, in the same way they’d criticise other states. They are doctrinaire cultists possessed of an unadulterated, unhinged hatred for Israel, which they see as a uniquely evil state that must be eradicated. Until then, it will be their all-consuming, defining cause; never mind the Uyghurs, Kurds or Iranian women. In indulging in the delusion that the end (of Israel) goal will eventually occur, they are complicit in perpetuating the conflict and emboldening the despotic regimes that act against the interests of the very people they purport to champion, the Palestinians.

Corbynism is the most recent prominent example of IDS. While we will no longer be bombarded with its leader’s sneering visage, the animosity towards Israel that its dogmatism exemplifies, replete with conspiracism and terrorist sympathising, is unlikely to fade. And it is rising across the Atlantic.

The hallmarks of this anti-Israeli posturing cult include such garb as ‘free Palestine’ t-shirts, keffiyehs, and snazzy accessories daubed with Palestinian flags. Their social media is flooded with memes and Electronic Intifada articles about evil Israel, and little else. They proudly quote token anti-Israel Jews like Noam Chomsky. In their special language ‘peace and justice’ is code for ‘end of Israel’ and ‘resistance’ is code for ‘terrorism’. And they think they’re clever, rhyming ‘resistance is justified’ with ‘apartheid’ and ‘genocide’ in their street mob chants.

(Continue to Full Article)

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Surprise? UNRWA nervous over Israel offering free education for Arab "refugees" in Jerusalem - by Elder of Ziyon

...Also, Israeli schools are unlikely to teach students that Israel will be destroyed by their fire and blood. Apparently, this is a problem for UNRWA.

Elder of Ziyon..
17 January '20..

We reported that Israel was pouring millions of dollars into building schools as alternatives to the UNRWA schools in Arab sections of Jerusalem that teach kids to support terror and aspire to be "martyrs."

UNRWA's new acting commissioner is not happy with Israel providing "refugee" children with a choice:

[Interim head of UNRWA] Christian Saunders said Israel was seeking to replace United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) services for Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem with those of its own.

He said UNRWA was feeling "the pressure in East Jerusalem in particular", saying that Israel was in the process of building schools and institutions "to compete" with the agency and stop it from operating there.

"The important thing to remember here is that UNRWA has a mandate from the [UN] General Assembly, from the rest of the world, the member states, to provide services to Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem," Saunders said.

The UNRWA mandate does not say that Palestinians cannot choose their own schools! For an agency with budgetary problems, UNRWA should welcome anything that eases its burden - if it was an objective agency tasked with helping Palestinian Arabs. But in fact it is a political organization dedicated to keeping the "refugee" problem festering forever so it can stay in business.

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Friday, January 17, 2020

Elections, the Palestinians and Europe's Not So Secret Agenda - by Khaled Abu Toameh

The European Union is said to be pressuring the Palestinians to hold long overdue presidential and parliamentary elections. It is not clear, however, how the Palestinians would hold new elections at a time when the PA and Hamas are busy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip locking up their political opponents.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
16 January '20

For many years, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and other Palestinian parties have been reporting on a daily basis about Palestinians who are arrested by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. These Palestinians are arrested on suspicion of involvement in anti-Israel security offences. There is nothing unusual about these arrests, which have been taking place for decades and are even publicly announced by the Israeli authorities.

While Israel apprehends Palestinians suspected of involvement in various anti-Israel activities, including terrorism, many other Palestinians are being arrested on almost a daily basis by the PA security forces in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. These arrests, however, are infrequently publicized by the PA and Hamas. Palestinians learn about the arrests by the PA and Hamas from social media postings or non-Palestinian news websites.

The PA and Hamas do not like to talk about the Palestinians targeted by their security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Why? Most of these Palestinians are arrested for their political affiliation and opinions, and not for violating the law or involvement in violence and terrorism.

Palestinian human rights organization and activists describe the detention of these Palestinians as "political arrests." That means that the Palestinians are being arrested by the PA and Hamas only for "politically motivated" reasons.

A recent report by the Human Rights Institutions Association (HRIA) revealed that in the past three months, the PA security forces have stepped up politically motivated arrests in the West Bank. The group noted that the arrests came despite PA President Mahmoud Abbas's initiative to hold new Palestinian general elections.

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Thursday, January 16, 2020

It’s not something trivial to know Bethlehem isn’t in a non-existent nation - by Jonathan S.Tobin

The game show “Jeopardy!” courted controversy when giving a clue to which there can be no definitive answer as long as the Palestinians reject peace.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
14 January '20..

There’s no escaping controversy any time that Israel or the Palestinians are mentioned. That’s a lesson the producers, writers and star of the long-running “Jeopardy!” television game show learned to their detriment this past week when a clue involving the location of the Church of the Nativity was used in an episode that aired on Jan. 10, though it was taped last fall.

In a category titled “Where’s That Church?” contestants were asked to identify the location of the house of worship that Christians believe to be the birthplace of Jesus. Katie Needle, a retail supervisor from Brooklyn, N.Y., and the show’s defending champion at the time, answered (in the form of a question, as the game’s rules require), “What is Palestine?” But to her surprise, longtime host Alex Trebek told her she was wrong. Another contestant named Jack Maguire countered, “What is Israel?” and won $200 for answering correctly.

The show then went to commercial break, and reportedly, after the producers and chief writer Billy Wisse huddled with Trebek, the question about the Church of the Nativity was eliminated. A new one was substituted, and the show went on with Needle ultimately defending her title. But when the show eventually aired, the deleted sequence mentioning Bethlehem was the one that viewers saw in a mistake that the show says it regrets.

It led to an avalanche of criticism against the game show, Trebek and Wisse (who is the son of Ruth Wisse, the distinguished Jewish scholar and eloquent advocate for Zionism) on social media from critics of Israel who saw it as an example of Zionist propaganda that sought to erase Palestine from the map.

Adding to the storm over the segment is the fact that Needle is actually a supporter of the Palestinian cause and has defended the anti-Semitic Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), while also criticizing Israel and proclaiming “Palestine should be free” on Twitter.

But while Alex Trebek won’t decide the fate of the Middle East, the correct answer to the question he posed isn’t a matter of trivia.

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Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Israel, settlement activity and the hypocrisy of Sarah Leah Whitson of @HRW - by Eugene Kontorovich

The acceptance of settlement activity by supporters of sanctions on Israel suggest they know that the international law they claim to enforce against the Jewish state is not international law at all.

Elder of Ziyon..
14 January '20..

Since this is behind The Wall Street Journal's paywall, here is the entire article:

Hypocritical attacks on Israel are common, but Sarah Leah Whitson takes them to a new level. As Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch, she is one of the sharpest critics of the Jewish state’s presence in the West Bank, promoting boycotts and international prosecution for the supposed crimes of occupation and settlement. Yet elsewhere Ms. Whitson strongly supports settlements in occupied territories—suggesting that she and her colleagues don’t take their own legal claims against Israel seriously.

The settlements Ms. Whitson supports are in Nagorno-Karabakh, an area that was within the borders of post-Soviet Azerbaijan until 1994, when Armenia occupied the region after a protracted war. Since then, the Armenian leadership in Yerevan has actively encouraged the movement of settlers into the area. Many Armenians regard Karabakh as their historic homeland. But the United Nations, international courts and the U.S. all consider it occupied Azeri territory.

Ms. Whitson, who is from an Armenian family, served as master of ceremonies at a 2018 fundraiser for the Armenian National Committee of America, a pro-settler charity that views Karabakh as an “integral part of the Armenian homeland.” Even as Ms. Whitson led Human Rights Watch’s campaign to boycott Israeli economic activity in the West Bank, she took to Twitter to promote Armenian wines, including from the occupied territories.

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Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Israel and the EU’s Misuse of Language for Diplomatic Advantage - by Barry Shaw

...many countries and leading institutions say that UNRWA have gone beyond their sell-by date decades ago. Why should this UN body maintain its existence in perpetuity when there is another UN refugee body whose role has been to implement the reduction of refugees globally Why must Palestinians, living under Palestinian rule, be nurtured into their fifth generation by the UN and EU?

Barry Shaw..
TOI Blogs..
13 January '20..

I have recently been offering a presentation on the Strategic and Diplomatic Challenges for Israel 2020.

In this presentation I include the linguistic trend, used by the international diplomatic community, away from Israel’s original territorial legitimacy through the term “disputed territory” and arriving into “occupied Palestinian land,” an incorrect, devious and dangerous change of language to suit a narrative.

And, lo and behold, this morning I read that the EU just changed their official definition of Judea & Samaria from “occupied or disputed lands” into a shorter, simplistic “occupied lands.” This fails to admit that Israel is occupying its legitimate land. On the contrary, it is part of the push to delegitimize Israel on its ancestral land in favor of an amorphous, undefined, “Palestinian” entity.

This is the new, contrived, anti-Israel definition of EU foreign policy under its new foreign official, Josep Borrell.

The bias against Israel has been a noticeable feature of EU foreign policy for several years, particularly emphasized under the foreign policy leadership of Federica Mogherini, a former Arafat groupie and disciple of Italian Communist, Massimo D’Alema. Mogherini rose through the rank of the Italian DS party, which emerged out of the Italian Communist Party. As such, her political dogma included sympathy for arch-terrorist, Yasser Arafat and a desire to reduce Israel’s legitimacy in order to create a balance favorable to a belligerent Palestinian ideology.

This EU formula continues to today.

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Sunday, January 12, 2020

Who would've thought? PA denounces Israel's seizure of "Pay-for-Slay" funds from Israeli Arab terrorists - by Maurice Hirsch, Adv.

The PA wants Israel to stand idly by and permit the PA to pay financial rewards to Israeli Arab terrorist prisoners who murdered other Israelis or otherwise participated in terrorism against Israel, and all under the pretext that the payments “provide their families with a living, a place to live, health, education, and so on.”

Maurice Hirsch, Adv...
Palestinian Media Watch..
07 January '20..

The reaction of the Palestinian Authority to the order of Israel’s Minister of Defense Naftali Bennett to seize the monies paid by the PA in salaries to Israeli Arab terrorist prisoners highlighted the false nature of the PA’s claims regarding its “Pay-for-Slay” policy. The decision of Minister Bennett to seize the funds followed the recommendation of Palestinian Media Watch days prior.

Condemning the order of Israel’s Minster of Defense to seize funds paid by the PA to eight Israeli Arab terrorists, Director of the Commission of Prisoners and Released Prisoners' Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr said that the “decision is blatant robbery and open theft” and repeated the claim that the salaries are welfare for the families. He also promised to continue paying the terrorists their monthly salaries:

“The salaries that the commission is paying the prisoners, independent of their place of residence, are allowances that provide their families with a living, a place to live, health, education, and so on, and we will not relinquish this obligation regardless of the extremist Israeli ways of thwarting them [the allowances], seizing them, or stealing them like highway robbers.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 26, 2019]

Friday, January 10, 2020

Hmm. Opposes Iran sanctions, but supports BDS against Israel? - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Another lesson about why anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism from Ilhan Omar.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
09 January '20..

The rising tide of Jew-hatred that is sweeping around the globe is no laughing matter. So the idea of having a vote to determine who is the “Antisemite of the Year” may strike some as more of a publicity stunt than a sober attempt to deal with the problem. But whatever one may think of such a dubious label or whether it treats the subject with the requisite seriousness, the point of the Internet vote in which thousands took part was to call attention to the plague of anti-Semitism and how it is being legitimized. More to the point, it turned out that within days of the announcement, the “winner” of the title justified the choice with a statement that helped illustrate the way anti-Zionism is just another form of anti-Semitism.

The effort was sponsored by StopAntisemitism.org, which also recently published “The New Anti-Semites,” an authoritative report on the way the BDS movement is steeped in hatred of Jews, as well as the way its left-wing supporters receive vocal support from the far-right. And the result of the poll was in keeping with that theme. Though she had steep competition from the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan, Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and white-supremacist Richard Spencer, the person who received the most votes was Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

In a year in which armed white supremacists have attacked synagogues killing and wounding Jews at prayer, and in which thugs have turned violent attacks on ultra-Orthodox Jews in the Greater New York area a near daily occurrence, does Omar deserve the title?

You can make a good argument that, like the other publicity hounds that make “the Squad” of left-wing members of Congress, especially Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Omar has been given far too much attention by the national press. Yet it’s hard to ignore a member of Congress with 1.8 million Twitter followers that spews anti-Semitic invective about Jews having dual loyalty and buying Congress to support Israel. Even harder to ignore is that fact that Omar and her allies were, despite their humble status on Capitol Hill as insignificant congressional freshmen, powerful enough to force House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to back off from efforts to censor Omar for her public anti-Semitism. And it can also be asserted that she and her colleagues have helped set the agenda for their party on issues like the Green New Deal, even if most House Democrats remain supportive of Israel rather than backers of BDS, as is the case with Omar and Tlaib.

Still, Omar deserves credit this week for illustrating not merely the hypocrisy of BDS, but how it treats Israel differently from other countries.

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Thursday, January 9, 2020

Why doesn’t the New York Times want people to know the truth about Pal. Islamic Jihad? - CAMERA.org

Why did New York Times editors scrub a reference to the West’s view of Islamic Jihad as a terror organization?

CAMERA..
08 January '20..
Link: https://www.camera.org/article/camera-video-why-is-ny-times-downplaying-islamic-jihad/

Why did they later cast the murderous group as “nettlesome” and “unruly,” as if describing a stray tuft of hair and not terrorists responsible for targeting innocent men, women, and children at malls and on buses?

Why do Times reporters feel comfortable noting that a tiny but racist Israeli political party is “anti-Arab,” but not that Islamic Jihad is “anti-Jewish”? Why do they frequently suggest Israeli building in the West Bank is a violation of international law, but generally avoid saying the same about Islamic Jihad’s indiscriminate rockets fired into Israeli towns? And why do they pretend Islamic Jihad opposes the “occupation,” and not… “Israel’s existence”?

Why doesn’t the New York Times want people to know the truth about Islamic Jihad?

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

A few of the discredited Mideast myths, that ‘Experts’ perpetuate again and again - by Stephen M. Flatow

For more than a century, people have been trying to pay the Palestinian Arabs to make peace with the Jews and pretend that some terrorist gangs were more “moderate” than other ones.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
07 January '20..

No matter how many times the think-tank “experts” are proven wrong in their predictions regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, they keep promoting the same old myths.

They must think that the public has a very short memory.

The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) last week unveiled its recommendations for Israeli policy in 2020. The men and women who make up its roster have impressive credentials in their fields.

Yet remarkably, they keep promoting policy positions that have been discredited again and again and again.

Myth #1: Palestinian Arab Terrorism is caused by poverty.

In 2020, “Palestinian disgruntlement will be mainly channeled into international diplomatic moves against Israel, not to violent unrest—unless the economic situation in the territories worsens,” according to the JISS.

Call it the “Barack Obama Theory of the Causes of Terrorism.” In an interview on CBS-TV’s “This Morning” on Dec. 4, 2015, then-President Obama explained his view of what causes terrorism: Climate change is straining natural resources around the world, and “when people are not able to make a living or take care of their families,” they become “desperate,” and “as human beings are placed under strain, then bad things happen.”

Many of the modern-day Zionist pioneers involved in rebuilding the Land of Israel in the late 1800s and early 1900s likewise believed that the Palestinian Arabs would drop their opposition to the Jews once they saw how much they would benefit from Jewish immigration.

Jobs. Running water. Electricity. Trains. They were followed by refrigerators, telephones, mail service and automobiles. Arabs from Syria, Egypt and across the Jordan River poured into the country and enjoyed better jobs, better homes and better food. But it didn’t stop them from hating Jews. In 1920, 1921, 1929, and continuously from 1936 to 1939, Palestinian Arabs shot, stabbed and bombed Jews throughout the country, even when it undermined their own economic well-being.

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