Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, December 15, 2017

Palestinians get really upset when Arab leaders don't fall into line

When you live your entire life knowing that you have hundreds of millions of Arabs publicly supporting your every word, you tend to get a bit skittish when things start to fall apart.

Arab News (and many other services) reported yesterday:

The US administration is serious about getting a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, but its proposed plan is still being put together, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said.

“We believe the Trump administration is serious about bringing peace between Israelis and Arabs,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir, a former ambassador to the US, told France 24 television late on Wednesday.

“They were working on ideas and were consulting with all parties, including Saudi Arabia, and they are incorporating the views represented to them by everybody. They have said they would need a little bit of time to put it together to present it.”

This is not the narrative that the Palestinians want the world to think about the US and Trump.

Secretary-General of the Palestinian People's Party Bassam Salhi described the statements made by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubair on the work of the American administration on a "peace plan" as ridiculous.

Bassam al-Salhi expressed his strong rejection of the statements made by al-Jubayr, in which he claimed that there was "a serious American peace plan to be proposed by the Trump administration."

Salhi said in a press statement Friday that this position is absurd and contradicts the Palestinian, Arab, Islamic and even international positions, which clearly expressed their rejection of US policy and considered it to undermine the entire "peace process".

He stressed that the Palestinian position to end American care for the political process is serious, and the Arab countries are required to respect this position and that there is an effort to hold America accountable.

You see? All Arabs are required to parrot Palestinian talking points! Just like BDS claims that anyone who does anything with Israel is "violating" their own edicts.

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NGO tweets picture of Jews at Kotel as "Palestinian Christians and Muslims unite against Trump"

The "Institute of Middle East Understanding," which claims to be an independent organization meant to provide accurate information about the Middle East to journalists, published this tweet:

Of course, this is a photo of Jews flocking to the Kotel this past Sukkot.

The Reuters article referenced indeed had that photo as a slideshow of different aspects of Jerusalem, but only the IMEU implied that this photo shows actual protests.

The IMEU's Twitter feed is filled with anti-Israel vitriol and lies. One can only wonder at how many lazy journalists rely on this organization to poison their minds in order to avoid doing any research of their own.

(h/t Arnold R)

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10 unmentioned yet obvious facts about Jerusalem for clueless journalists and pundits

To all you editorial writers, self-professed Middle East exports, diplomats and others:

1. Trump's declaration did not destroy the peace process. Pretending it destroys the peace process destroys the peace process.

2. Trump's declaration did not recognize all of Jerusalem as Israeli.

3. Trump's declaration did not preclude Jerusalem also being a Palestinian capital one day. (I think it's a very bad idea, but he never even implied it.)

4. Trump's declaration didn't cause terror or violence. People who purposefully misinterpreted Trump's words incited violence and organized violent demonstrations.

5. The initial violence in the territories after the declaration was directly orchestrated by the Palestinian Authority. (It closed its schools to increase the number of demonstrators.) The riots weren't spontaneous.

6. Everyone agrees that Jerusalem within the Green Line is Israeli under international law. Israel can do there what any country can do. There was never a shred of legal support for Jerusalem to be considered an international city - because the Arabs rejected the 1947 UNGA resolution that proposed it.

7. No matter whether the world accepts it, Jerusalem is Israel's capital, because that's where its government is. A state can declare its capital; no outsider can change that. Trump merely stated the obvious.

8. The idea that Jerusalem must be accepted as the capital of a Palestinian state before it can be accepted as the capital of Israel is wholly arbitrary and purely anti-Israel. It pre-judges the outcome of negotiations, the exact charge falsely given to recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

9. Jerusalem has been universally accepted as the capital of the Jewish nation way before Israel was reborn and even before modern Zionism.

10. Earlier this year, Russia recognized pre-1967 Jerusalem as Israel's capital, today. There is no contradiction between that position and what Trump said. Yet there was no uproar over that recognition.

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Chanukah bonus video night 3: Hanukkah Nightly Stroll in Jerusalem's Old City

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12/14 Links Pt2: PM: Human rights defenders, or offenders; Palestinians should accept reality, act for peace

From Ian:

Human rights defenders, or offenders

Unfortunately, those prestigiously honored as human rights defenders by the international community have made a mockery of these universal values of human rights.

For example, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN’s health body, in October appointed Zimbabwe’s outgoing dictator Robert Mugabe as a “Goodwill Ambassador.” Mugabe’s apparent defense of human rights, including the universal right to health, comprises of leading an extremely violent regime, completely destroying Zimbabwe’s economy, and manipulating elections to maintain his dictatorial role. The ICC has even been urged to investigate Mugabe for crimes against humanity.

Another instance is Aung San Suu Kyi—the leader of Myanmar. Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and being affirmed by Hilary Clinton as having a role in giving the world “new hope” in the ability for countries to transition from dictatorship to democracy, Suu Kyi is currently the leader of a country committing human rights violations against the Rohingya population. She has also lied to the world about her regimes culpability in a humanitarian disaster that many are calling genocide.

Likewise, the UN’s “expert” on Israel Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk, who is also a Western University professor, proclaimed that Manal Tamimi, an individual who uses virulently antisemitic and violent rhetoric on her Twitter, is a “human rights defender.” It is difficult to understand how someone who posts tweets that call for violent uprisings and include cartoons that depict Jews as rats promote the UN’s universal values.

Finally, is Glamour Magazine’s inclusion of the “Women’s March Organizers” in its 2017 list of “Women of the Year.” However, one of the organizers, Linda Sarsour, overtly promotes particularistic human rights—for instance, arguing that feminism and Zionism are mutually exclusive. Sarsour, in direct opposition to broad international support of a two-state framework for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, supports a “one-state solution”—which would effectively lead to the demise of Israel and a denial of Jewish rights to sovereign equality. She is also an advocate for discriminatory BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns against Israel. The organizers of the Women’s March further damaged their credibility by publically supporting Rasmea Odeh—a convicted terrorist, responsible for the 1969 bombing of a supermarket in Israel that killed two students.

PM: Palestinians should accept reality, act for peace

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on the Palestinians to "accept the reality and act for peace and not for extremism," following U.S. President Donald Trump's official recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Responding to calls from Muslim leaders calling for east Jerusalem to be recognized as the capital of Palestine and condemning Trump's declaration, Netanyahu said Palestinians should "recognize another fact when it comes to Jerusalem: not just that it is the capital of Israel, we also preserve freedom of worship in Jerusalem for all religions, and we are the ones who preserve this safeguard in the Middle East, in a manner that no one else preserves it, and on which others have also failed, sometimes miserably.

"Therefore all of these declarations do not impress us. The truth will come out, and many countries will yet recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move their embassies."

Netanyahu made the statement at a Mossad intelligence agency event in Jerusalem.

Zionism and the changing global structure

There is nothing weirder than the gap between the American Jewish conversation about Israel, on the one hand, and the real day-to-day lives of Israelis on the other.

American Jews are re-litigating the twentieth century, while Israelis are living the twenty-first.

American Jews ask: will Israel make peace or live forever by the sword? Why does the occupation never end? Will antisemitism destroy us all? Do Jews have a right to every inch of the biblical lands? Will Netanyahu cause a break with American Jews? Will Israel’s democracy be ruined by demography? How will the tiny Jewish state survive against an ocean of enemies? These are questions Israelis have mostly stopped asking, and American Jews cannot understand why.

The answer is that everything has changed. The strategic, economic and cultural opportunities facing Israel have drowned out the existential threats. The old anxieties have been overrun by both Israel’s successes and failures.

Successes: it is now a vibrant and powerful country, and its power has changed the thinking of national governments not just in Europe but also across the Arab world. Today Israel has only one real strategic enemy – Iran, which has been the force behind all of Israel’s wars in the past decade-and-a-half.

Economically, the Jewish state has become a global leader in technology, from agriculture to autonomous vehicles. It has solved its two biggest problems of nature: water and energy. Culturally, it has become an exporter in everything from film to art to wine to architecture to electronic music.

Israelis now count their Nobel prizes the way Jews used to. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Muslim mayor of Nazareth stops Christian holiday celebrations because of "Trump." - Wait, what?

From Reuters:

Nazareth, the Israeli Arab city where Jesus is thought to have been raised, has canceled some Christmas celebrations in protest at U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, an official said.

Nazareth, the largest Arab town in Israel with a Muslim and Christian population of 76,000, is one of the Holy Land’s focal points of Christmas festivities.

“We have decided to cancel the traditional Christmas singing and dancing because we are in a time of dispute, because of what Trump has said about Jerusalem,” city spokesman Salem Sharara said.

Ali Salam, mayor of Bethlehem, is Muslim. He is deciding to curtail Christian celebrations to protest what the US did.

Who loses? The Christians, of course.

And they are not happy:

Interestingly, this anti-Trump mayor was a big fan of Trump's a year ago, claiming that Trump learned all his campaigning methods from him.

(h/t Yoel)

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Thirteen Conservative rabbinical students studying in Jerusalem wrote a letter in which they criticized the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. They wrote in part,

We, a group of rabbinical students of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary write from Jerusalem to express our deep concern and unease following the current US administration’s reckless decision to formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city outside the context of just and respectful negotiations for peace with Israel’s Palestinian neighbors. …

Though the president called for a continued hope for a two-state solution, he has done nothing to show honest dedication to advancing such a goal—or any lasting solution toward peace in the region. To validate this counterproductive move would be to normalize a political moment that continues to stretch itself far beyond the bounds of what is normal.

The Torah frames this entry into and possession of the land of Israel as contingent upon actions that are born of a collective memory of oppression. We recite our plight in Egypt, our generations of suffering, and our responsibility to all of God’s creations as guidelines for governance. As we reside in the ancient, holy, and beautiful land of Israel, we are commanded, year after year, to remember that we are but tenants of God’s eternal domain and have the crucial responsibility to uphold the dignity of every person who resides in our midst. As temporary and permanent residents of Jerusalem and as future rabbis, we expect the Jewish state to govern with this holy mandate of equality and humanity for all peoples in mind. We therefore envision a Judaism, a generation of American rabbinic leadership, and a State of Israel that heeds the cries of our Palestinian brothers and sisters who currently live with neither a path to citizenship nor self-determination.

My immediate thought was that students with such an obviously limited understanding of Jewish history, both ancient and recent, who aren’t cognizant of the reasons that there hasn’t been (and will not be) a “two-state solution,” and who hear the cries of their “Palestinian brothers and sisters” more loudly than those of their Jewish ones who are being stabbed on the street in the Jerusalem that they claim to love so much, should find another line of work than being rabbis.

However, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Recently a scroll dating to c. 165 BCE was uncovered by archaeologists sifting through rubble removed from illegal excavations by the waqf on the Temple Mount. Until the development of advanced computer imaging techniques, it was unreadable. But scientists at Bar-Ilan University in Jerusalem have recently announced that they have succeeded to decipher much of it. It sheds light on the controversies of the period, which it turns out were not so different from ours. Without further ado, I present some of the text, which I’ve translated into English:

We, students of the Hellenistic school of the priesthood of the Holy Temple write from Jerusalem to express our deep concern and unease following the Maccabee Administration’s reckless decision to cleanse and rededicate the Temple, without first holding just and respectful negotiations with our Greek neighbors.

Of course Yehuda Maccabee calls for a negotiated settlement with Antiochus, but he just went in and kicked the Greeks out, with no consideration for their humanity and right of self-determination. Would it have been so terrible to have a small altar to Zeus in one corner of the Temple? We have the obligation to uphold the dignity of every person who resides in our midst, even if it’s their custom to slaughter pigs on our altar.

As temporary and permanent residents of Jerusalem, we expect the Jewish state to govern with this holy mandate of equality and humanity for all peoples in mind. We therefore envision a Judaism and a State of Judah that heeds the cries of our Seleucid brothers and sisters who currently live without the ability to fulfill their religious obligations with pigs.

In addition, as everyone knows, the Maccabee program is impractical. Where, for instance, do they think are they going to get the oil to light the Menorah for eight days of sacrifices?

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12/14 Links Pt1: The Mainstream Media’s Misdirection on Jerusalem; Hamas: 30 Facts For 30 Years

From Ian:

Evelyn Gordon: The Mainstream Media’s Misdirection on Jerusalem

Mainstream media outlets like to complain about “fake news” emanating from sources other than themselves, but the mainstream media itself has taken fake news to new heights in its recent coverage of Jerusalem. Leading media outlets have asserted, inter alia, that Jews never cared about Jerusalem until a few decades ago, that Jews didn’t live in East Jerusalem before 1967, and that Jordan protected freedom of worship in the city.

Exhibit A is the New York Times’ mind-boggling backgrounder on Jerusalem, which “informs” readers that Jews didn’t really care about the city until “hard-line religious nationalism” came into vogue a few decades ago. To produce this flat-out lie, the reporters omit crucial facts, downplay those they can’t omit and rely heavily on Arabs–who have made a fetish of denying Jewish links to Jerusalem for decades–to tell their readers what Jews think (though, naturally, they also found some Jews to echo these claims). Thus, for instance, they paraphrase historian Issam Nasser as saying, “The early Israeli state was hesitant to focus too much on Jerusalem,” while Prof. Rashid Khalidi asserts that post-1967, “Jerusalem became the center of a cultlike devotion that had not really existed previously.”

To support this idea, the reporters omit almost any fact that might contradict it. Readers are never told, for instance, that Israel’s founding fathers–the ones who ostensibly had little interest in Jerusalem–fought some of the bloodiest battles of the War of Independence in an effort to save the city from its Arab besiegers.They even took the extraordinary step, after repeated failures to open the road to Jerusalem militarily, of building an entirely new road through very difficult terrain to relieve the siege.

Readers also aren’t told that Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, repeatedly stressed Jerusalem’s importance, declaring it “the heart of the State of Israel,” which “Israelis will give their lives” to keep, because for Israel, “there has always been and always will be one capital only.” And they’re certainly never told that the devotion to Jerusalem Khalidi deems of such recent vintage actually dates back 3,000 years, to the First Temple, and that throughout two millennia of exile, Jews prayed facing Jerusalem and begged God to restore them to their holy city.

But on the rare occasions when the reporters can’t omit an inconvenient fact, they shout, like the Wizard of Oz, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” Thus, the Times’ reporters do concede the pesky fact that Israel’s founding fathers–those same people who ostensibly didn’t care about Jerusalem–relocated Israel’s capital to the city the moment it was safe to do so, a few months after the war ended, and even codified this decision in legislation. But the information is hidden in a parenthetical aside: Jerusalem’s “western half became part of the new state of Israel (and its capital, under an Israeli law passed in 1950).”

Unfortunately, this backgrounder was no aberration. Just a few days later, a Times editorial asserted that “East Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967, but Israel has steadily built settlements there, placing some 200,000 of its citizens among the Arab population and complicating any possible peace agreement.” You’d never know from reading this that east Jerusalem was “exclusively Arab” in 1967 only because Jordan had ethnically cleansed every last Jew from the area 19 years earlier. Prior to this ethnic cleansing, Jews had not only lived there almost continuously for 3,000 years but constituted an absolute majority of the city’s residents for the past century. Still, one can understand the paper’s dilemma. It might be difficult to explain to readers why the Times, which normally condemns ethnic cleansing, suddenly condones it when the victims are Jews; much better to simply conceal the fact that it ever happened.

CAMERA: To the Editor: Re “Does Mr. Trump Want Mideast Peace?” (editorial, Dec. 6):

In making the case against President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, you say, “East Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967.” The language risks severely misleading readers, as it suggests that this ethnic “exclusivity” was an intrinsic and even desirable part of the area’s character before 1967.

But eastern Jerusalem was empty of Jews for a mere 19 years. When Jordan’s Arab Legion conquered the Old City, its Jewish Quarter and surrounding neighborhoods, it forced out every Jewish man, woman and child. Before that, Jews were a large and integral part of what is now called East Jerusalem, and at times were the majority population.

The situation between 1948 and 1967 was not the norm, but an aberrant blip on the timeline of Judaism’s holiest city and a result of ethnic cleansing.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Trump, Jerusalem, Arabs, Muslims

Arafat's followers know that if they succeed in moving Jerusalem outside the borders of Israel, a large number of Jews are going to lose all hope and leave Israel for the countries from which they or their parents came. This will mean the beginning of the end for the Zionist enterprise, because there is no Zionism without Zion. That's why they expend so much energy on Jerusalem, taking advantage of the fact that if most countries do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel, Jerusalem becomes the weak link in the chain holding Israel together.

Arafat attempted to frighten the Israeli with the slogan: "A million shaheeds will march on Jerusalem," meaning that millions are willing to jput their lives on the line in order to free the city from the clutches of the Zionists. This mantra has been internalized in Islamic society and can be heard at anti-Israel demonstrations all over the world.

In comes Trump and recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital city, giving the Palestinian nationalist narrative a hard blow and Israel a kind of insurance policy. This maddens all the Arabs who flourished on the dream of destroying Israel during the golden Oslo Agreement years, because it has now becme clear that a very powerful nation, the USA, does not see itself a partner in that dream and is even willing to act against it.

The Arabs , in general, and particularly the Palestiinians, can already picture the dominos falling. The Czech Republic, Hungary and other important states plan to move their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as Israel's capital. They noticed that in April of this year, eight months ago, even Russian President Vladimir Putin declared his recognition of Western Jerusalem as Israel's capital city. There was no outcry, verbal or otherwise, in response to Putin's declaration, for one simple reason: The Arabs are deathly afraid of Putin, after he made crystal clear to what lengths he is willing to go during the war in Syria, and they carefully refrain from reacting to his statements or decisions.

Conclusions:
For both religious and nationalistic reasons, the Arabs and Muslims are incapable of accepting Israel as the Jewish State.

The question we are forced to ask ourselves is whether we in Israel, Jews and Christians, are going to recognize the Muslim and Arab problem , but tell them in no uncertain terms that "Jerusalem belongs to the Jews and you are going to have to learn to live with it" or are going to give in to the Arab and Muslim dreamers who are incapable of accepting a reality in which the Jewish religions is alive and well.

Spot the difference between the neo-Nazis and the pro-Palestinians

The Huffington Post has an interesting article where they reveal details of the 17 page style guide to the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer.

It is more than a style guide - it is a mini-manifesto on how to do propaganda.

And the Jews are the main target:

This is antisemitism in its purest, most honest form. And it is refreshing to see it in black and white, and not hiding behind "lulz" (as the author of this piece likes to do) or behind intellectual pretenses (as the person who coined the word "anti-semitism" did.)

But is this naked desire to tie every world problem to Jews, by the extreme right, any different than the naked desire by the extreme Left to tie all the world's ills to Israel?

Leftist Israel haters and their Arab partners blame Israel for police brutality in the US, for the rise of ISIS, for US involvement in Iraq, for Palestinian men beating their wives, for raping Palestinian women and for not raping Palestinian women, for being the biggest violator of human rights and international law, for genocide, for flooding Gaza, for apartheid, for Iran's intransigence, for Arabs killing Arabs, for Palestinians killing Jews, for daily massacres of Palestinians, for "rape culture," for 9/11, for poisoning wells, for stealing organs, for murdering Princess Diana. And more.

Two two sides, the extreme Left and extreme Right, have a real commonality. Every world problem must be blamed on (Jews/Israel.)

Yet while neo-Nazi-type antisemitism is rightly denounced, there is far less concern over the "anti-Zionism" that is identical to what the neo-Nazis espouse.

Anti-Israelism is every bit as odious and sickening as antisemitism. Minimizing it as merely "criticism of Israel" is a way to mainstream and justify hate.

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Mahmoud Abbas, in his speech to the OIC, consistently insulted the United States and acted as if he is in a position to bully the US.

Abbas said "the United States has chosen to lose its eligibility as an intermediary and to have no role in the political (peace) process."

"In all our conferences and decisions, we have agreed that Jerusalem is a red line, and now we must translate all this into actions that force the United States to retreat from this crime and prevent other countries from taking similar steps.," Abbas said.

He added, "When the United States announced the closure of the PLO headquarters in Washington, we announced that we would not deal with the US consul. America must feel that any decision it takes is not easy and we can and will force it to pay the price."

Like a two-bit thug, Abbas then repeated his go-to threat: "If the State of Palestine does not have its capital in Jerusalem on the borders of June 4, 1967, there will be no peace in the region, the territories or the world, and they must choose [which it is going to be.]

What's wrong with this picture?

Last year, under the Obama administration, the Palestinian prime minister thanked the European countries for giving so much money to his government, but falsely claimed that the US didn't give them a dime. In fact, the
US gave $357 million to the PA, and $355 million more to UNRWA. The US is by far the biggest donor to the PA.

And the PA treats the US like dirt.

I can understand Obama genuflecting to such insults. But isn't Donald Trump supposed to be different?

People screamed that Netanyahu insulted the US by allowing plans for buildings in areas of Jerusalem that would be part of Israel in any conceivable peace plan when Joe Biden visited. But when Mahmoud Abbas is directly threatening the US, these supposed patriots are suddenly mute.

The US should inform Mahmoud Abbas that for every day they do not meet with Mike Pence starting with his visit this month, the amount of money they will receive next year will be reduced by $1 million.

Abbas acts like a bully because he thinks he has the Islamic world and much of Europe behind him. Let's see what happens when the US actually forces him to take some responsibility for his actions.

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Miss Universe Iraq's family forced to flee home because of death threats after selfie with Miss Universe Israel

Last month, a firestorm of criticism was directed to Miss Universe Iraq Sara Idan for posting this selfie of herself on Instagram with Miss Universe Israel Adar Gandelsman:

Arabs criticized Idan for posing with Adar, saying it was an insult to Palestinians and "unacceptable normalization with the Israelis."

Idan answered that she was not trying to offend anyone but was trying to spread a message of peace.

Idan was the first contestant from Iraq in the pageant in decades.

In a new interview on Israeli TV, Gandelsman says that Idan's parents were threatened, not only for the selfie but also because their daughter pose in a swimsuit, and that her family was forced to flee the country because of death threats. She says they remain good friends and are in touch every day.

At 2:18 of the video you can see the pair hamming it up on a selfie video.

(h/t Yoel)

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Chanukah bonus video night 2: Mayim Bialik

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