Fighting the narrative war: Occupation vs the ‘Abraham Accords’ - by Yishai Fleisher

Indeed, the UAE has every incentive to normalize relations with Israel—from the common danger of Iran to the interest in prosperity and progress. Hopefully, the Abraham Accords can start a cascade that will lead the Arab world out of the regressive Dark Ages of hate and into an embrace of Israel as an important member of the Semitic family and a fellow regional tribe. But it won’t be easy to let go of a thousand years of Muslim prejudice and 100 years of open war against Israel.

Yishai Fleisher..
JNS.org..
26 August '20..

One of the greatest successes of the “Abraham Accords”—the nascent diplomatic relations deal between the United Arab Emirates and Israel—is just the name itself.

The name implicitly indicates that the agreement is between descendants of the children of Abraham—Arabs and Jews—and for Israel, this is a crucial identification in its quest for normalization in the Middle East.

Occupation or ancient nation?

Having lost hope of military victory, anti-Israel forces are conducting a narrative war against Israel. They seek to erase the intellectual foundations of Zionism, which assert that Israel is the ancient home of the Jewish nation, who have had two commonwealths on this same land, and to which Jews have an unbroken historical and spiritual connection.

One of the main avenues of that attack, coming out of the Palestinian camp, has been the buzzword “occupation,” which has become the default association for the Jewish state on campuses, at international organizations and in left-leaning media. The sinister term “Israeli occupation” says all that the enemies of Israel want to say: that Israel is a white colonialist interloper in the Middle East, a European holdover, a foreigner grabbing Arab lands and an abuser of the human rights of the true indigenous people—the Arabs.

The occupation narrative machine has many arms. For example, using UNESCO, the United Nations body in charge of recognizing world heritage sites, the anti-Israel crowd has asserted that integral Jewish sites like Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron are actually Palestinian cities under—you guessed it—“occupation.” Any campus protest against Israel will feature the word “occupation” and most New York Times articles will throw in a jab like “Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem” etc.

Indeed, the classic Israeli narrative—that of an ancient people repatriating their land in a miraculous story of faith, tenacity and survival—has been replaced by the occupation-narrative which paints Israel as a greedy land thief and victimizer.

Forefather in faith

Political buzzwords surpass their literal meanings and signal value-laden political positions which divide between political camps. The word “occupation” is meant to convey the illegitimacy—and even the evil roots—of Israel. If you are anti-Israel, you will embrace this word and this narrative.

But what is the counter-word to “occupation”? How do you convey Israel’s deep history in the land and the Jewish people’s indigeneity to the Middle East? How do you invoke the flavor of ancient history without sounding like a Bible-thumping extremist? What word can bridge the Arab-Jewish divide?

The answer, which the new accords have found, is “Abraham.”

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With a dogma shattered, finally, embracing the Israelis on the other side - by Sara Al-Nuaimi

Our relationship with Israel is one of timeless harmony. My caring for Palestinians means urging to stop trying to destroy Israel and instead come to terms with it.

Sara Al-Nuaimi..
Guest Columnist/Israel Hayom..
24 August '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/finally-embracing-the-israelis-on-the-other-side/

It has always been my dream to visit Israel, the mystical, forbidden, and imaginative place. What would it feel like to enter a synagogue, to see a candle-lit menorah, to hear the psalms, to get inspired by a new language, to allow new words and new creative emotional experiences to take place? To sing, dance the horah, and celebrate with Israelis the remarkable turn of a new millennium?

As an Emirati woman, in the past, some would react with, "Are you okay? What's wrong with you?" Perhaps the oddest response I have received was, "Are you a Shiite?" (I am Sunni.) Thinking of all the positive aspects of Israel in a way disintegrated all the false beliefs pounded into society that limited my immersive being.

When Arabs deny the Holocaust, they in some way deny my own existence that upholds an identity that wants to be everything Arab, but also everything new, expanding, global, universal. There is an elated feeling of inspired hope, of love and freedom when parts of an old traditional construct start to melt away, yet there's also a safe deep current of satisfaction in knowing that Israel's narrative is also built on traditions like our own, and there's no more the fear of having to cut cords with our past in order to look ahead.

Our relationship with Israel is one of timeless harmony. The richness in knowing that we are larger than belief is the greatest richness in life. This is what acknowledging Israel means to me. Carrying a heart free of enmity is the most meaningful thing in life. I marvel at the possibilities and the consequences. If only I can stand right in front of an Israeli bakery right now and enjoy a freshly baked bagel.

This is an earthquake, a call to Israel’s Arab neighbors to look to the future rather than the past - by David Suissa

After UAE deal, will liberal Zionists stand on the right side of history?

David Suissa..
Israel Hayom/Jewish Journal..
19 August '20..

The forces of darkness in the Middle East are panicking. One of the most powerful Arab countries in the world has made peace with the dreaded Zionist enemy.

For these forces of darkness, anything that challenges the demonization of the Jewish state is a disaster. In order for these regimes to survive, Israel must remain the irredeemable sinner, the evil oppressor of Palestinians, the Jewish invader who took over holy Muslim land.

This dark view of Israel has long been the mother’s milk sustaining the dictators of the region, keeping attention away from their own corruption, incompetence and oppression of their people.

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The problem is that in the long run, any model based on lies and manufactured hatred is not sustainable. At some point, people wake up. People have to eat and make a living. People have to envision a better future.

This opens them up to other truths.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), in making a historic deal with Israel, woke up. In fact, they woke up a while ago. The difference is that now, they’re coming out. They’re not hiding it. They’re telling the world and the people of the region: Israel is not our enemy. Israel doesn’t want to invade us. Israel has a lot to offer.

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PM Netanyahu’s bold move - by Ruthie Blum

The Israeli right is wrong to see the prime minister’s deal with the UAE as a capitulation to foreign pressure. He is creating optimal conditions for the Jewish state’s road ahead.

Ruthie Blum..
JNS.org..
18 August '20..

Anyone wondering what had become of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ostensible July 1 target date to begin the process of extending sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria received an answer last Thursday.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement on Aug. 13 that Washington had brokered a peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates—and accompanying reports that the deal precluded “annexation of the West Bank”—put the question to rest.

Once it emerged that Netanyahu had been busy for the past few weeks negotiating the terms of the treaty with Trump and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, his sudden silence on sovereignty became clear. Ironically, the weekly protests outside of the Israeli premier’s official residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem included the chanting of slogans and waving of banners decrying his “annexation” plans.

The cessation of these plans—derived from the “Peace to Prosperity” vision that Trump unveiled at the White House on Jan. 28—have not assuaged the anti-Netanyahu camp, however. The demonstrators in the capital and elsewhere across the country have other bones of contention to keep their Woodstock-like festivals going.

What they consider to be the prime minister’s poor handling of the current so-called “second wave” of the coronavirus crisis is one such issue. Another is his heading of the government while under indictment for corruption. Calling him “crime minister,” they scream and shout that he should resign.

Never mind that they have been complaining about his reluctance to open the economy completely while gathering in massive numbers and huddling together, many without masks, as though Health Ministry warnings and regulations don’t apply to them.

Forget about the fact that Netanyahu not only was re-elected to head the Likud Party in a democratic primary, and that his remaining at the helm is the result of democratic Knesset elections and coalition-building.

Leave aside the fact that he, like every other Israeli citizen, is innocent until proven guilty. The loud crowds urging his ouster are angry at their lot and hold him responsible for it.

It is natural for an anxiety-ridden population with an uncertain financial future and bleak present to blame its leader. People all over the world are doing just that, accusing their governments of failing to prevent COVID-19 deaths on the one hand and of killing the economy on the other.

Netanyahu, thus, is in good company. But he possesses abilities that few of his counterpart heads of state can match. The deal that he reached with the UAE is but one example among many. His engaging in political clashes while managing a low-intensity conflict against Hamas in Gaza and launching repeated mini-strikes on Iranian facilities is another.

The two are connected, and not only because the Sunni Gulf states now see in Israel a staunch ally in their mutual battle against the mullah-led Shi’ite regime in Tehran, but due to Netanyahu’s knowledge that holding off on his promised sovereignty moves would arouse the ire of many of his supporters, without gaining him any brownie points from his detractors—at least not those on either side of the Israeli spectrum.

Indeed, none of the current protesters will stay home next weekend,

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Incredible Israel-UAE deal upends the ‘rules’ about peace-making in Middle East - by Michael Oren

For more than half of a century, the paradigm of Middle East peace-making has proven highly resistant to change. Yet even the fiercest advocates of that belief-system must recognize the seismic shift that will take place once the UAE-Israel treaty is signed. Some will no doubt insist on adhering to disproven assumptions. Those who care about peace will abandon them.

Michael Oren..
TOI Blog..
14 August '20..

The impending peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is more than just a stunning diplomatic breakthrough. It represents a fundamental shift in the paradigm of peace-making.

For more than 50 years, that paradigm has been based on seemingly unassailable assumptions. The first of these was that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the core dispute in the Middle East. Resolve it, and peace would reign throughout the region. The premise was largely dispelled by the Arab Spring of 2011 and the subsequent civil wars in Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen. Still, a large body of decision-makers, especially from Europe and the United States, continued to regard a solution to Israel-Palestine as the panacea for many, if not most, of the Middle East’s ills. Then-secretary of state John Kerry’s intense shuttle diplomacy, which paralleled the massacre of half a million Syrians in 2012-14, proceeded precisely on this assumption.

The next assumption was that core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was settlement-building in Judea/Samaria, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Freeze it and the dispute would be easily mediated. This, theory, too, collapsed in the face of facts. Israel withdrew from Gaza, uprooting 21 settlements, in 2005, and then froze settlements for much of 2009-10. The conflict nevertheless continued and even worsened, but that did not prevent foreign policymakers from persisting in the belief that peace is incompatible with settlements.

And, in addition to ceasing construction in the territories, Israel was expected to give virtually all of them up. This was the third assumption — that peace with the Arab world could only be purchased with Israeli concessions of land. This belief is as old as Israel itself. The first Anglo-American peace plans — Alpha and Gamma — were predicated on Israeli concessions in the Negev and elsewhere. After 1967, the principle applied to areas captured by Israel in the Six Day War and, after the return of Sinai to Egypt in 1982, to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. The same secretary of state Kerry repeatedly warned Israel that failure to forfeit those areas would result in its total international isolation.

Yet another assumption held that “everyone knows what the final agreement looks like.” With minor modifications and territorial swaps, this meant that a Palestinian state would be created along the pre-1967 lines with a capital in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians would give up the so-called right of return for Palestinian refugees, agree to end the conflict with Israel and to cease all further claims, and to accept the formula of “two states for two peoples.” Israel, in turn, would remove dozens of settlements, redivide its capital, and outsource West Bank security either to the Palestinians or some international source. Of all the assumptions, this was the most divorced from reality. Not a single aspect of it was achievable. In fact, no one knew what final agreement looked like.

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Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States and a member of Knesset, is the author of Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide(Random House, 2015).

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

Divorced from both the Israeli track record and Middle East reality - by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

The suggestion that the application of the Israeli law to the Jordan valley and parts of Judea and Samaria would severely undermine Israeli interests, jeopardize Israel’s peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt and Israel’s overall ties with Arab countries, is divorced from the Israeli track record and Middle East reality.

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger..
The Ettinger Report/Mida Magazine
https://bit.ly/2Z4nFW1..
03 July '20..

Israel’s track record

The resurgence of the Jewish State from the ashes of WW2 to global prominence, technologically, scientifically, medically, agriculturally, economically, diplomatically and militarily – despite systematic adverse global pressure and Arab wars and terrorism – has demonstrated that there are no free lunches for independent nations, especially in the Middle East.

For example, in 1948, Prime Minister Ben Gurion, Israel’s Founding Father, did no wait for a green light from the White House, in order to declare independence. He was aware that a declaration of independence would trigger a costly Arab military invasion. The CIA estimated that it could subject the Jewish people to “a second holocaust.” However, Ben Gurion concluded that achieving a supreme goal was preconditioned upon the willingness to pay a supreme cost. Indeed, the war against the Arab invasion consumed 1% (6,000) of the Jewish population (600,000). Fending off the Arab invasion, Israel expanded its borders by 30%, and did not retreat to the suicidal 1947 lines, despite brutal global (including US) pressure. The pressure on Israel dissipated, but Israel’s buttressed borders were preserved.

In 1967, Prime Minister Eshkol preempted a planned Egypt-Syria-Jordan joint offensive, in defiance of a strong red light from the White House (“Israel will not be alone unless it decides to go alone”), and despite prominent Israelis who preferred the venue of negotiation and mediation, and predicted a resounding Israeli defeat on the battlefield. Eshkol was aware that Israel’s existence, in the violently intolerant and unpredictable Middle East, required a firm posture of deterrence, which could entail heavy cost. In the aftermath of the war, Eshkol reunited Jerusalem and renewed Jewish presence beyond the 1949/67 indefensible Green Line, in spite of a very heavy US and global pressure. Consequently, while the pressure on Israel has subsided, the Jewish presence in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem has surged to 700,000 people.

In June 1981, Prime Minister Begin ordered the destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactor, notwithstanding the menacing red light from the White House and the opposition by the Mossad, the IDF Intelligence and additional Israeli defense authorities. The naysayers were certain that an Israeli attack had a very slim chance of success. They feared that this would trigger a global Islamic assault on Israel; it would produce a European boycott of Israel; would create an irreparable rift with the USA; and would doom Israel, economically and diplomatically. Begin decided that sparing Israel a traumatic nuclear assault justified even a traumatic cost. However, the pessimistic assessments crashed against the rocks of reality, while the Iraqi nuclear threat (to the region and the globe) was uprooted.

In December 1981, Begin applied Israeli law to the Golan Heights, disregarding the brutal US opposition, which included the suspension of a major US-Israel strategic accord and the supply of advanced military systems. While the heavy US sanctions were replaced by an unprecedented US-Israel strategic cooperation, the Golan Heights have become an integral part of the Jewish State.

The aforementioned Israeli Prime Ministers defied international pressure, and therefore were burdened with a short-term loss of global popularity. However, they earned long-term respect for their willingness to defy the odds at severe cost.

They realized that succumbing to pressure yields additional, and heavier, pressure.

Good Question. Why are Arab states rejecting the Palestinian cause? - by Ken Cohen

Arab leaders have moved on to deal with their real problems and opportunities today—most of which can be more easily addressed with an Israeli partner.

Ken Cohen..
JNS.org..
02 July '19..

Increasingly, Arab nations in the Middle East are distancing themselves from their Palestinian brothers. The half-century-old solidarity of Arab countries with the Palestinian cause has been diminished recently due to numerous factors.

One of the main factors has been the conduct of the Palestinian Authority and PLO. Add the recklessness and terrorist intransigence of the Hamas regime in Gaza, plus the realities of global economics and politics, and most Arab countries have decided that the creation of a Palestinian state can be back-burnered.

Another factor is the passing of pan-Arabism, a political and trans-national force in the twentieth century, advocated by bygone leaders such as Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Its passing has been helped along by the so-called Arab Spring, which forced Middle East regimes, from Tunisia to Iraq, to focus on national self-preservation.

Above all, however, is the quest of non-Arab, non-Sunni Iran to extend its brutal sphere of influence into the heart of the Arab world, which has necessitated a re-evaluation of Arab national priorities. Resolving the Palestinian issue is irrelevant to addressing this threat. In fact, because Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza (as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria) are in Iran’s pocket, any Palestinian progress at Israel’s expense would boost Iran’s penetration of the Middle East.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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When the interests of the United States and regional stability call for letting some relationships remain under wraps - by Jonathan Tobin

By trying to force Arab nations to go public with pressure on the Palestinians, the United States could undermine the struggle against Iran for the sake of a hopeless cause.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
13 February '19..

This week’s Warsaw summit was supposed to be about rallying the world against the threat that Iran poses to international peace. But given the complete lack of interest on the part of either America’s Western European allies or the Russians in reconsidering the disastrous nuclear deal that empowered and enriched Tehran, that was never going to work.

But the United States is also reportedly hoping to use the gathering to help set the stage for a renewed effort to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians that the administration has been preparing for the last two years. The problem with that approach is that Trump or presidential adviser/son-in-law Jared Kushner have grasped one element of the region that eluded their predecessors, though they still don’t understand the intractable nature of the conflict.

The conceit of the still secret Kushner plan, which will reportedly be formally rolled out after Israel’s April elections, is the notion that Arab nations are far more interested in resisting Iran than in any further tension with Israel. That basic assumption is correct, as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan and the rest of the Sunni world are sick to death of being dragged into a crisis by a Palestinian leadership that has no intention of ever making peace with Israel or accepting a two-state solution.

It is also true that, thanks to Iran, these same nations have found themselves in a far closer embrace with Israel than anyone would have expected a decade ago. The Obama administration’s policy of allowing Syria to descend into chaos, which was exploited by both Russia and Iran, threatened the security of the entire region. Even worse, Obama’s appeasement of Iran made the Arab states think that the United States was abandoning them.

At that point, under-the-table relations between most of the Arab world and Israel shifted to the point where most of these nations no longer even bothered to pretend that they were hostile to the Jewish state or cared much about the Palestinians.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Saeb Erekat calls Arab normalization with Israel a "stab in the back" for Palestinians. (Get used to it.) - by Elder of Ziyon

...The Arab League will talk a good game of support for Palestinian aspirations but in reality they are sick of the issue, sick of the Fatah/Hamas split and sick of the Palestinians refusing all Israeli initiatives for peace. They still cannot say this quite so publicly but op-eds in official Arab media are starting to change their tune from being gung-ho pro-Palestinian. Erekat better get used to being stabbed in the back.

Elder of Ziyon..
10 February '19..

Once again the Arab League met and offered platitudes of support for Palestinians.

The Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the PLO, Saeb Erekat, spoke there and railed against the normalization of relations between Arab nations and Israel.

Erekat said that the prerequisites for any relations with Israel are "when Israel withdraws from the occupied Arab territories and ends its occupation, including East Jerusalem, the occupied Arab Golan, the rest of Lebanese territory and solves the refugee issue."

Which is pretty much full Israeli surrender.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Surprise? Another predictive failure leaves Mideast ‘experts’ unchastened - by Evelyn Gordon

...After all, they’ve been wrong many times before. Just two years ago, after another round of unprecedented gestures, the “experts” similarly declared (wrongly) that the rapprochement had gone as far as it could without progress on the Palestinian track. So why are they convinced that this time, they’re right?

Evelyn Gordon..
Analysis from Israel..
08 November '18..
Link: http://evelyncgordon.com/another-predictive-failure-leaves-mideast-experts-unchastened/

Listening to “experts” on the Mideast has been positively embarrassing recently. They admit that the Arab world has just taken some dramatic steps toward normalization with Israel, and they admit that they had previously considered such steps inconceivable without Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. Yet in the same breath, they assert unequivocally that progress on the Palestinian track remains a prerequisite for further normalization. In other words, the failure of their previous predictions hasn’t dented their confidence in their predictive powers.

Mideast experts obviously aren’t alone in this. It’s a common failing among experts in many fields, and it has contributed significantly to “populist” disdain for expert opinion. But recent developments in the Mideast offer a particularly clear example of the problem.

One of the most significant of these developments was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Oman, an Arab country with which Israel has no official relations, on Oct. 26. Given that even Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel does have relations, often keep Netanyahu’s visits secret, the fact that Oman made the trip public, with several Omani newspapers reporting it, may be even more noteworthy than the fact that it took place.

The next day, at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah went even further, telling the Mideast security summit that “Israel is a state present in the region, and we all understand this. … Maybe it is time for Israel to be treated the same and also bear the same obligations.”

That same weekend, an international judo tournament took place in the United Arab Emirates. Although much has been made of the fact that Israeli judokas were allowed to compete under their own flag and anthem for the first time in the history of the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, that actually proves nothing except that the International Judo Federation finally developed a spine: After cravenly forcing Israeli athletes to complete under the federation’s flag and anthem at last year’s tournament, this year, it threatened to strip Abu Dhabi of hosting rights unless Israeli athletes were treated the same as athletes from other countries (the success of this tactic should be a lesson to other sporting associations that still kowtow to Arab states’ refusal to grant Israeli athletes equal rights).

BBC World Service radio framing of the Israeli PM’s Oman visit - by Hadar Sela

...As we see BBC audiences heard nothing whatsoever about Oman’s interests in inviting the Israeli prime minister for an official visit. Neither were they informed of additional developments in relations between Israel and Gulf states. Rather, BBC audiences were encouraged to view this story as part of a “narrative” promoted by Netanyahu in order to “marginalise the Palestinians”. Clearly that framing does not contribute to meeting the BBC’s remit of helping people fully understand this story.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
31 October '18..

On October 26th Israelis discovered that their prime minister (along with his wife and senior officials) had just returned from a secret visit to Oman.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a secret visit to the Gulf nation of Oman on Friday — the first by an Israeli leader in over two decades, and a sign of warming ties between the Jewish state and the Sunni Arab world.

On Friday afternoon, his office surprisingly announced that Netanyahu and his wife Sara had just returned from an “official diplomatic visit” to Muscat, during which they met with Sultan Qaboos bin Said. […]

The Netanyahus were invited to Oman by the sultan, who has been ruling the Gulf state since 1970, “after lengthy contacts between the two countries,” the statement said.

A joint statement issued by Jerusalem and Muscat said the two leaders discussed “ways to advance the peace process in the Middle East as well as several matters of joint interest regarding the achievement of peace and stability in the Middle East.”

Netanyahu and his wife were accompanied to Muscat by Mossad Director Yossi Cohen, National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, Foreign Ministry Director-General Yuval Rotem, the head of the Prime Minister’s staff, Yigal Horowitz, and the Prime Minister’s Military Secretary, Brig.-Gen. Avi Bluth.”

While that news did not receive any coverage whatsoever on the BBC’s English language website, it was reported in Arabic.

The evening edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour‘ on October 26th included a five-minute account of the story in which listeners heard a trip which had not been public knowledge until a few hours beforehand described as a “high-profile, very public visit by Netanyahu to Oman”.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Are there Arabs who actually like Israel? The answer is a resounding yes - by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Some are willing to talk in public, most are afraid to be identified, but a growing number of Arabs and Muslims see Israel as a country to be admired.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
Israel National News..
30 March '18..
Link: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21926
H/T Sally Zahav

Usually, I present my readers with a most depressing picture of the Arab and Muslim worlds. I find it unavoidable because the troubles tearing apart those two worlds are beyond description – the last seven years alone have witnessed hundreds of thousands of people killed, and millions of women, children and the elderly turned into homeless, destitute and suffering refugees. Despite the Middle East's enormous potential, its vast natural resources, panoramic vistas and unlimited opportunities, the entire region is in a state of pitiful collapse.

In the prevailing Middle Eastern discourse, the blame for all this chaos is placed squarely on the shoulders of one party – Israel, along with the colonialist regimes – mainly Britain and France – who brought the Jewish State into being.

Placing the blame only on Israel is easy to do, for several reasons:

a. It is easier for our neighbors to blame someone else for their terrible plight instead of taking a hard look at themselves in order to find the reasons for their suffering;

b. Israel, neither Arab or Islamic, is considered an outsider in the region to begin with;

c. Israel is the work of Satan, because Jews have no right to sovereignty and must be kept subjugated (with dhimmi status);

d. Israel gains the most from the surrounding chaos so it must have caused it to begin with, and

e. Israel is successful while its neighbors are abject failures and therefore consumed by jealousy.

This anti-Israel stance is the rule in many of the populations making up the Middle East, and includes heads of state, subjects, the intelligentsia and the ignorant, the religious and secular, elites and marginal persons, Muslims and members of other religions, Bedouin, villagers, rural folk and city dwellers.

It has become "bon ton" to talk negatively about Israel all over the Middle East, to the point where the Arabic word for normalization of relations with Israel has become a vulgar and negative word in Middle East discourse.

Over the last few years, however, a parallel conversation has emerged, one that is free of the conventional way of talking about Israel and that Is often dramatically different. It is hard to nail down those who participate in it, some are educated and secular, some are ordinary citizens, others members of the ruling class or the opposition, they include the religious and non-religious, Muslims and members of other faiths. The main thing they have in common is the ability to free themselves from accepted conventions and swim against the tide, willing to face criticism and to deal with it.

It is important to note that the social media available at just about everyone's fingertips are the main force allowing pro-Israel conversation to reach the wider public's eyes and ears. Means of mass communication cannot be controlled completely by a government or any other entity, so they provide a public platform for people who wish to think independently and are not bound by the conventions surrounding them.

Just what are they saying? (Note: My comments are in parentheses, M.K.)