Elder of Ziyon 12/11 Links Pt2: Caroline Glick: The new Greeks; David Collier: Glasgow University publishes antisemitic conspiracy theory; Idan Raichel joins Andrea Bocelli in Dubai
While many American Jews were scared that Netanyahu's courageous challenge of Obama's central foreign policy would provoke anti-Semitism, in fact, it empowered many Americans to oppose the deal. Republicans rallied against it. Every Republican presidential candidate in 2016 pledged to abandon the deal, and President Donald Trump kept his promise.
By being a leader, Netanyahu also empowered the American Jewish community to defy Obama, even as he and his advisors channeled anti-Semitism by demonizing the deal's opponents as being in the pockets of nefarious donors and foreign interests.
AIPAC launched a major campaign to oppose the nuclear deal in Congress and tens of thousands of otherwise uninvolved American Jews attended demonstrations across the US to voice their opposition to the deal that paved the way for Iran to become a nuclear power.
Netanyahu explained that in dealing with leaders like Obama, with whom he had profound disagreements, "You seek compromise where you can, but you have to avoid compromise where you can't and you have to distinguish between the two and that's what I tried to do."
This lesson in leadership is perhaps the key message of our time. Like the Greeks of yesteryear, the progressive elites today insist that, to be accepted in polite society, Jews have to give up an essential part of their identity – and their civil rights. The Greeks demanded that the Jews give up the Torah. The progressives demand they give up their Jewish peoplehood. These are things that cannot be compromised, only fought, even when those demanding their forfeiture are Jews themselves.
Dan Senor, co-author of Start-Up Nation and host of the new "Post Corona" podcast, joins us today to talk about the electoral college and who intimidated whom (answer: Democrats sought to intimidate Trump electors in 2016) and how the transformative Abraham Accords might be derailed by a Biden administration just as Bibi Netanyahu finds himself in existential trouble as his trial is getting ready to begin. Give a listen.
Glasgow University is ranked as a top UK university. The University is a member of the Russell Group. It runs a platform called esharp which is an 'international online journal for postgraduate research.' The University is very proud of the outlet. It states that all the paper are 'double blind peer reviewed'. The university claims that the 'rigorous and constructive process is designed to enhance the worth of postgraduate and postdoctoral work.'
A paper on the 'Israel lobby' appeared in issue 25 volume 1 (June 2017). It was written by Jane Jackman, an academic product of the universities of Durham and Exeter. There isn't much to be found about Jackman online. She spoke at events in Exeter and SOAS and was an active member of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES). In 2017 Jackman was being supervised by Willaim Gallois at Exeter. Unsurprisingly, the conspiracy theorist and 'liar' Ilan Pappe was a co-supervisor.
There is almost no sign of public activity from Jackman on social media. There is an inactive Twitter account in her name, which only follows accounts linked to Israeli advocacy or the fight against antisemitism. Given her academic focus on the 'Israel lobby', it is a safe bet to assume it is hers. She did spend some considerable time commenting on blogs and articles, including mine.
Jackman's paper was titled 'Advocating Occupation: Outsourcing Zionist Propaganda in the UK'. The key thrust of the argument is that people like myself (I feature prominently) have been recruited by Israel to spread disinformation. I have studied the entire article. My key questions would be –
How did Glasgow University ever permit this to appear in their journal?How is it possible that this was peer reviewed?
The paper isn't just laden with conspiracy, antisemitism and errors – much of the time the reference material does not even support what the article is suggesting. The work is beyond shoddy. Jackman makes unsupportable outlandish statements, that are far more fitting for gutter press journalism such as the Independent than an academic journal. The paper frequently contradicts its own logic. This is in no way an academic piece of work. It should be hung on the walls at Glasgow university as a reminder of the shame that they ever allowed this to be published. The only justification for 'peer reviewers' to have accepted this piece is that they agreed with its content and wanted it published. The entire process is rife with heavy antisemitism. Who were the editors that sat around a table and accepted this submission?
Not in Kansas Anymore: Academic Freedom in Palestinian Universities, by Cary Nelson (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020)
It is fundamental and axiomatic on the international left, an unexamined article of faith, that the State of Israel suppresses the academic freedom of Palestinian students and faculty. Not in Kansas Anymore: Academic Freedom in Palestinian Universities, a new 180-page book by Cary Nelson sets out for the first time to ask what evidence supports this claim and determine whether or not it is true. The evidence gathered here shows that Palestinian students and faculty in fact do not have the protections they need to exercise freedom of speech; indeed they are coerced and threatened to conform. But it is not Israelis who do so.
An excerpt from the book is below:From 1978 to 1991, Professor Sari Nusseibeh taught philosophy at Birzeit University on the West Bank. He had studied at Oxford and received a doctorate in Islamic Philosophy from Harvard. In September 1987, at the end of a lecture on John Locke, he learned that a group of masked students armed with clubs were outside his classroom seeking "a traitor" — whom he shortly learned was himself. Keeping his colleagues at bay with knives, they beat him "with fists, clubs, a broken bottle, and penknives." Thanks to adrenaline, he was able to escape his attackers, though "my heart was pounding hard enough to pop my eardrums." His colleagues, now free to help, drove him to the hospital where his forehead wound was stitched up and his broken arm set. The reaction of the university and the public was essentially non-existent. He had been identified as a traitor for participating in discussions of Israeli-Palestinian possibilities for peace.
Nusseibeh's narrative is far from unique. When higher education institutions worldwide carry the name "college" or "university," we often assume that these institutions are roughly similar everywhere. It's true that an accounting or engineering course in one country will resemble courses in the same subject elsewhere. But a Religion course in a theocracy that imposes a state religion on its people will be different from a course of that same name in countries where religious and democratic freedoms prevail. Similarly, a course on Government or Politics in a dictatorship will not resemble comparably named courses elsewhere.
Nearly 3,000 years ago, after the destruction of Jerusalem's First Temple, the Jewish people were forced to disperse, with many ending up in Babylon, now modern-day Iraq. Throughout the years, the Jews of Iraq maintained their Jewish identity through culture and traditions, such as observing Shabbat and keeping kosher. They spoke Judeo-Arabic — a language that distinguished them from the broader community.
During the 12th century, Iraq was home to 40,000 Jews, with 10 yeshivot and 28 synagogues. Tolerance toward Jews afforded them freedom to exercise their religious beliefs and customs. More recently, in the early 1900s, Jews played a vital role in civic life; for example a third of the Baghdad Chambers of Commerce were Jewish. They also filled key roles in the Iraqi parliament, and many held important positions in wider society.
But when the Zionist movement first emerged in the 1930s and conflicts erupted, the tolerance toward Jews began to decline. In the year of Israel's independence (1948), the Iraqi authorities outlawed Zionism, making it a crime carrying a lengthy prison sentence. The Jews of Iraq faced more antisemitism along with rising anti-Zionism. Almost 120,000 of the 150,000 Jews in Iraq were airlifted to Israel between 1949 and 1951. Those left behind were soon unable to leave, as Iraq banned emigration to Israel.
However, despite the increasing restrictions, many led happy lives during these years. My mother recalls the prosperous periods during that era. Her family often spent weekends at the Jewish country club, embarked on many trips and spent Shabbats with friends and family in synagogue. She describes their early lives in Iraq as "luxurious."
In 1963, the restrictions took a turn for the worse, as Jews were banned from buying new properties and were forced to carry yellow identity cards wherever they went. The Jews also faced public hangings during that same decade. In 1967, after the Six-Day War, the well-being of the Jewish people in Iraq swiftly deteriorated: Jewish bank accounts were frozen, Jews were subjected to house arrest — even setting foot in the streets posed a danger. My mother recalls that Jews were even banned from using telephones. My uncles were arrested, thrown into jail and slashed with whips and electrical cords for no other reason than their Judaism.
The medical literature supports these widespread anecdotal references. Omar Haque and Adam Waytz (2012) discuss causes of dehumanization alluded to previously: empathetic erosion and moral disengagement in training and practice. There is also another that particularly rings true: dissimilarity between physician and patient. Dissimilarity "manifests in three primary ways. First is through dissimilarity in illness—patients, by their very nature of being ill, become less similar to one's prototypical concept of human. Second is the labeling of the patient as an illness, rather than as a person who has a particular illness.
Whatever the reason—dissimilarity or something more sinister—language alters perception, and perception affects our ethical calculus. For example, to build support for euthanasia of the disabled, Nazi filmmakers deliberately altered lighting on the faces of the disabled, to make them more "inhuman" in their appearance. Purposeful and dramatic dehumanization has the same ultimate outcome on our perception as slow, chronic dehumanization. Simple gestures—such as standing up against such language publicly when people dehumanize or showing personalistic leadership through examples of patience and even tenderness at the bedside—will do much to begin reversing this narrative.
Finally, a fifth lesson to be learned is that, as a physician, you must serve the patient exclusively—not some abstracted idea of "society." Physicians and health professionals in the Holocaust decided that the good of the racial state took precedence over the good of individual persons. "Nazi doctors hailed a move 'from the doctor of the individual to the doctor of the nation.'" The justification for the euthanasia program, in large part, was couched in economic terms—a cost-saving measure for society in a time of scarcity.
Today, we seem to be losing more of our commitment to the individual patient—for there are other "gods" in medicine. "Quality of life," "public health," or even "patient satisfaction" have become ends in themselves, not a means to an end. Physicians and mental health professionals in this century have (and continue to be) complicit in torture, in racial discrimination, and in capital punishment. In all of these examples, the physician obscures the value and dignity of the person for some other goal—some even laudable ones, perhaps (security, order, public health, etc.) Yet, the power of the "white coat" demands, if we are to fulfill our obligations of trust, that we do not serve the state (and its economic interests), nor the patient's family (however compassionate our motivations), nor any other "just cause" or goal, including our own.
The white coat derived its significance in the last century from the physician as laboratory scientist, surgeon, and hospital doctor—but ultimately, its power rests in its symbolic value of the physician as healer. As black's opposite, which often signified darkness and death, the white coat conveys the pull towards light, and life. This is not to ignore the controversies surrounding the white coat and its contemporary use, misuse, or disuse; it is only to point to a reality of the physician: that our profession was meant to always uphold the life and dignity of the human person, even if we could not preserve it.
In the summer of 1973, the junior senator from Delaware Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. visited Egypt and met with local officials – not the first tier ones: the highest-ranking among them were the country's Minister of Propaganda, alongside Hassanein Heikal, editor of the semi-official daily Al-Ahram.
Following his Cairo visit, Biden, who had just been elected the previous year, met in Israel with then Prime Minister Golda Meir and passed on the Egyptian disinformation. Biden told the Israeli prime minister that of all the Egyptian VIPs he had met, not one denied Israel's absolute military superiority, and they all reassured him that it would be impossible for Egypt to go to war against Israel now. We all know how that turned out.
This week, Israeli historian Yigal Kipnis told News 12 about that meeting, which probably did not have a serious impact on Israel's catastrophic decision-making regarding the possibility of an Egyptian attack in the Sinai a few months later. The meeting and its disinformation were probably another layer in the consensus of the Golda government that refused to recognize the imminence of war with Egypt.
"Golda did not need Biden to help her presume that the Egyptians would not go to war and that if they did then the result would be clear," Kipnis put things in proportion, adding that it is difficult to know how much Biden's report to Golda helped the Egyptian pre-war fraud scheme, if at all.
The report on the meeting that appears in Kipnis's book, "1973: The Road to War" (Just World Books, 2013) was sent to then Israel's ambassador to Washington Simcha Dinitz, most likely to be added to the senator's file. Dinitz, by the way, was a sworn Golda loyalist whose appointment had been forced by the PM on then Foreign Minister Abba Eban.
Kamala says Hanukkah is "a celebration of Tikkun Olam" ("repairing the world"). This is embarrassing universalist BS & the exact opposite of the Hanukkah story, in which religious-nationalists violently defeated Hellenizing universalists who sought to destroy their traditions. https://t.co/flwdVIIoS4
During his 2015 Palm Sunday Sermon, Dem. Raphael Warnock explicitly called Israel an "Apartheid" State, describing it as "a land of violence and bloodshed and occupation" and he referred to Israeli leaders as "clever politicians," and accusing them of being "racist and vicious." pic.twitter.com/jfdkOUzung
1⃣ We liberated Israel from foreign invaders 2⃣ We overcame the traitorous Jews who campaigned against Jewish sovereignty over Israel (kind of like your friends @IfNotNowOrg)
Anti-Israel Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib met with an audience of skeptics on Twitter when she posted greetings for the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah on Thursday night, with several respondents asking whether she was aware that the festival marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem during the Second Century CE.
"I'd like to wish my Jewish neighbors a Happy Hanukkah," Tlaib tweeted. "Hanukkah inspires me, especially during this difficult time. I hope we can all remember that even in the most unexpected moments, miracles can happen."
While Tlaib did not specify what aspect of Hanukkah she found inspirational, her critics on Twitter rushed to point out that the holiday was an affirmation of Jewish sovereignty over the historic Land of Israel.
Several respondents pointed out that in a separate Twitter post to mark the UN's International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on Nov. 27, Tlaib endorsed the anti-Zionist slogan "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," which advocates wiping Israel as an independent Jewish state from the map.
Just noting that the Hanukkah miracle to which she refers is the restoration of Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel.https://t.co/vcPjIpHaKf
A couple of final thoughts on the Kan series שעת נעילה or 'Valley of Tears,' which concluded this week. Firstly, I will admit to a certain parochial pride at seeing the bit of the army that is 'my' bit portrayed at the center of a moment of supreme national importance. IDF Northern Command, Division 36, the Armored Corps, the 188 Brigade, and the Golan Heights is exactly the part of the IDF that I know well and in the framework of which I served as a regular and then a reserve soldier for 18 years. In the asymmetrical and irregular conflicts which have been the main business of the IDF for the last 30 years, the armored forces are not the 'stars of the show' and the corps has suffered a corresponding loss in budgets, prestige and centrality. As a result, it has often seemed that the particular combat history depicted in this series had become the concern or property of a small number of citizens, among whom I include myself. Since I have always felt that the stand of the 7th and 188 brigades on the Golan in October 1973 has something of Thermopylae (and something, frankly, of Masada, at least in the 188's case) about it, it has been great to see it rising to this level of a kind of nationally acknowledged story, with certain even epic qualities.
A more important point, however, concerns certain absences in the story, which I find regrettable. I would not want to see a schmaltzy, syrupy type treatment of these events a la Spielberg, and it is indeed quite impossible that the Israeli culture or mentality would produce something of that kind. At the same time, it is frustrating once more to see the Israeli society and the military culture portrayed very clearly through a kind of post-Zionist and leftist lens. Not because I want to see nationalist propaganda on screen (I very much don't), but simply because this lens deliberately omits a salient element of the Israeli-Jewish experience that is very visible to anyone who speaks Hebrew and lives here – and that is the Jewish-traditional, and mobilized element based on a sense of Jewish national rights, Jewish tradition and the rightness of Israel's cause vis a vis the Arab-Muslim effort to destroy it. This, as everyone knows, is the belief-complex which stands at the center of Israeli Jewish society, which is reflected in its voting patterns, much of its cultural product and consumption, its levels of religious and traditional observance etc. This is the side of Israeli society which despite the renaissance of Israeli cinema and TV drama in recent years, rarely makes it to the screen, and even more rarely makes it to international audiences, but understanding of which is crucial to understanding the country and its decisions and directions.
A Financial Times article (Reading as resistance: the bookshops keeping free speech alive, Dec. 9) included profiles, by several contributors, of bookshops across the world – including one located in the Jaffa neighborhood of Tel Aviv. This section of the article, written by the Financial Times Jerusalem correspondent Mehul Srivastava, included the following sentences about the Yafa Book Store and Cafe:
The walls [of the bookshop] are lined with the work of authors despised by the Israeli rightwing. Noam Chomsky, the Jewish-American linguist who was barred from entering Israel in 2010, rubs shoulders with Ghassan Kanafani, the firebrand Palestinian leftist assassinated by Mossad in 1972.
However, in addition to being a "leftist" writer, Ghassan Kanafani was also a high-ranking member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Marxist-Leninist terror organisation responsible for hijackings, suicide bombings and the murder of Israel's tourism minister in 2001.
Kanafani was the right hand man to the group's leader George Habash and met with members of the Japanese Red Army who, in concert with the PFLP, murdered 26 people in the Lod Airport Massacre in 1972 – which is why, it's believed, he was assassinated by the Mossad.
We've complained to Financial Times editors about this egregious distortion.
Faced with the threat of a country that has long pledged to wipe Israel off the face of the map gaining access to the weapon that would enable it to carry out its stated ambition, one might understand Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reluctance over the United States' potential re-entry into the nuclear deal with Iran.
But in the eyes of Jackson Diehl, the Washington Post's deputy editorial page editor, Netanyahu's attempts at preventing a devastating war erupting in the Middle East constitute a "militant stand" against one of President-elect Joe Biden's core policy pledges.
In an opinion piece published December 6 entitled, "Netanyahu's reaction to Biden's victory is appalling", Diehl accuses the Israeli PM of "scorched-earth tactics", and describes his reaction to Biden's victory as having "outstripped even that of Vladimir Putin in its malevolent audacity."
Malevolent? For having the cheek to stand up for his country against an existential threat?!
Truly, a stunning inversion of reality.
The extent of the Iranian threat to Israel specifically, and the Middle East in general, is hard to overstate. Iran funds, trains, and provides weapons to Hezbollah, a large militia-cum-political party which has successfully embedded itself in the highest echelons of Lebanese government. In 2006, Hezbollah and Israel fought a month-long war that broke out after terrorists launched a cross-border raid into Israeli territory, in which two soldiers were kidnapped and three others killed. Hundreds of rockets were fired into Israel over the course of the war.
There are many forms of media bias. From the more extreme forms, such as invented quotes and "facts," to the more commonplace, such as lack of context, HonestReporting has seen it all. One form in particular is perhaps the most insidious: selective omission. And when longtime PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi tendered her resignation this week, much of the media was guilty of failing to mention Ashrawi's darker side.
The world's two biggest wire agency services, Associated Press (AP) and Reuters, are used as a news source by literally thousands of media outlets. In many instances, their stories are republished verbatim with no editing at all. So it's noteworthy that both these widely-respected sources totally neglected to mention Ashrawi's history of smearing and inciting against Israel, instead depicting her in glowing terms.
AP's story, titled "Veteran Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi resigns", characterizes Ashrawi as "a fluent English speaker who has been a prominent spokeswoman for the Palestinian cause in the global media for decades" who has participated in "numerous rounds of peace negotiations".
Ashrawi is depicted as a moderate, "a vocal critic of the 85-year-old Abbas' autocratic rule and reliance on a small inner circle of men in their 70s and 80s", and who believes it is "time for reforms in the PLO".
The Reuters report, "Senior PLO official Ashrawi resigns, calls for Palestinian political reforms", is written in a similar vein. That story quoted a statement issued by Ashrawi, in which she stated, "The Palestinian political system needs renewal and reinvigoration with the inclusion of youth, women and additional qualified professionals". The story goes on to describe her as a "champion of women's rights" and a "PLO spokeswoman… [who] articulated the Palestinian quest for statehood to the world."
All of this tells only a very partial picture of who Ashrawi really is.
So Sfard's determination that Israel is imposing apartheid on the West Bank is old news, just like the moribund annexation plan.
Also old is the falsehood that there are West Bank roads for Jews only. The canard has been long debunked, and multiple media outlets have corrected the point. While limited sections of West Bank roads are barred to Palestinian traffic, they are open to all Israelis, Jewish, Christian and Muslim alike. But Estrin nevertheless tries to salvage the discredited apartheid roads smear and even takes it to a new nadir, reporting:There's no law making this an Israeli-only road, but it's designed to skirt Palestinian villages. [Sfard] says the separation is a hallmark of apartheid.
Remarkably, by Sfard's expanded definition of apartheid, even this particular road, which is open to Palestinian traffic as well as Israeli traffic, qualifies.
Estrin and Sfard visit Arab Ramadin, a Bedouin village near Qaliqilya apparently meant to illustrate the apartheid label. Estrin reports:We make our way to the village of Arab Ramadin. Israeli officers have come here and asked villagers to pack up and leave. The Israeli lawyer thinks Israel wants the land to expand a nearby settlement.
Village leader Kasab Sha'ur claims: "They come here and promise us money and land somewhere else. There is daily pressure on people here to try to get us to leave."
Estrin continues:"He hands me the permit paper he has to show Israeli guards whenever he comes and goes."
A source from COGAT, Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, disputed NPR's claims about Arab Ramadin. Speaking to CAMERA, the COGAT official said most of the homes in Arab Ramadin are legally built and there is no threat of expulsion, no pressure to leave for these residents. A few individual buildings were built without permits, and therefore have demolition orders. He emphasized that evacuation orders are issued when buildings lack permits, and contrary to Sfard's speculation. have nothing to do with settlement expansion.
The MEMRI TV YouTube channel has passed the milestone of 40,000 followers since its launch in December 2017. The channel has also received over 12.5 million views during this time.
The channel's 40,021 subscribers view MEMRI TV clips as they are released. To date, the MEMRI TV YouTube channel has posted 1,814 clips and had 12,499,886 views; it reached the one-million views mark in November 2018 and 10-million views mark in June 2020.
Join over 500,000 daily subscribers of MEMRI content on social media – follow us now on YouTube for all the latest MEMRI TV clips by visiting the MEMRI TV Videos channel on YouTube and clicking on "Subscribe."
By subscribing to the MEMRI TV YouTube channel, you will see clips from the Middle East and beyond on reactions to the Abraham Accords, responses to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and translations from around the region to other current events.
Residents of Jersey City, New Jersey, paused on Thursday to commemorate the first anniversary of the deadly antisemitic gun attack that resulted in the deaths of a police officer and three individuals at a kosher market in the Greenville neighborhood.
"On today's somber one-year anniversary, it's with heavy hearts that we remember the four lives lost during an attack on the Jewish community and law enforcement in Jersey City," the New Jersey office of the Department for Homeland Security (DHS) tweeted. "There is #noplaceforhate in this state, and we will strive to keep New Jersey safe and secure for all."
On Dec. 10, 2019, the two shooters — David Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50 — murdered Jersey City Police Detective Joseph Seals, a father of five children, before driving their U-Haul van to a nearby kosher market, where they shot dead the owner, Mindy Ferencz, employee Douglas Rodriguez and customer Moshe Deutsch.
Investigators later revealed that the van driven by the pair had been packed with explosives, powerful enough to explode the length of five football fields, about 500 yards.
The target of Anderson and Graham — radical Black nationalists who were shot dead after a four-hour gun battle with police — was a Jewish religious school adjacent to the market, where 50 children were studying at the time of the attack. Antisemitic social media postings by the pair were also uncovered as investigators probed further into their backgrounds.
An initial reluctance by the New Jersey authorities to identify the atrocity as an antisemitic crime led to Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop highlighting this fundamental aspect in the hours that followed the attack.
Our former 'Antisemite of the Week' white supremacist John Angelo Gage is threatening physical violence trying to spin the word "shots" @TwitterSupport
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), in concert with the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), has published "Documenting Nazi Library Plunder in Occupied Belgium and Limited Postwar Retrieval," designed to educate people on the history of the Holocaust within Belgium.
The new publication features library collections looted by the Nazi regime during World War II, and will be available in digital form online for users to peruse.
"This new online publication represents years of knowledge that many thought were lost forever during the Holocaust in Belgium," said Gideon Taylor, WJRO chairman of operations and Claims Conference board of directors president. "This work, which was researched and investigated by experts in the field, will be a powerful resource for Holocaust survivors and their families, the Belgian Jewish community and researchers around the world."
The materials were stolen from targeted victims of the Holocaust some 75 years ago by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), who were organized by Adolf Hitler's ideological spokesman Alfred Rosenberg.
The ERR systematically identified and looted the private collections of individuals and institutions after Hitler's army invaded Belgium – all containing historical and cultural knowledge compiled by Jews, Masons, the political elite, liberal professors, labor and socialist victims over lifetimes.
The Claims Conference notes that from August 1940 to February 1943, the ERR seized over 150 libraries across Belgium – estimating to include 250,000-300,000 pieces of literature.
"Understanding where these books and cultural artifacts ended up not only offers a more accurate account of what happened, but also lays the beginning foundational work for individuals and organizations who seek to pursue possible claims in the future" added Taylor.
Police in Belgium are looking for four men who used a train's public address system to threaten a bombing of the vehicle near Antwerp unless Jewish passengers step off.
The passengers took control of the public address system on Wednesday afternoon between Antwerp and Mechelen, the city that Nazis and their collaborators used as an internment and dispatch station for Jews whom they sent to be murdered in Poland.
"Attention, attention," the men said in Flemish, "the cancer Jews need to leave the train now or we'll blow you all up," witnesses said.
Security personnel on the train failed to locate the perpetrators, according to Michael Freilich, a Belgian-Jewish lawmaker who has looked into and filed parliamentary questions about the incident to the Transportation Ministry.
Having pretty much ruined both Passover and the High Holidays season here in Israel, Covid-19 now has its sights set on Hanukkah, the usually wonderful family and oil-filled celebration marking the recapturing of the Second Temple by the Maccabees back in the second century BCE.
On Tuesday, Israel introduced a nighttime curfew over the whole holiday season (covering Christmas and the New Year as well), but the day after, the curfew was cancelled, with the threat of other possible measures instead. While we may not know here if we are coming or going, what we do know is that the week-long festival of Hanukkah is really not going to look much like itself.
There's going to be very few visits to relatives for candle lighting, no mass gift exchanges and no hordes of children spinning dreidels for chocolate coins.
And yet, Hanukkah is not called the Festival of Lights for nothing. Despite being celebrated very differently this year, it can still shine bright and alleviate the darkness that's surrounded us for much of this year. Here's how.
After one of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra's members tested positive for COVID-19, it seemed that the secretly planned Celebration of Peace Performance at Dubai's Opera on Tuesday was on the brink of cancellation. The evening's special guest, Andrea Bocelli, was already confirmed, and what was now missing was the Israeli side.
Then Idan Raichel, one of Israel's most internationally celebrated artists, stepped in, and within 48 hours, he managed to gather some of Israel's finest musicians to join him on the Dubai stage. "We organized the team in record speed and got on a flight" said Raichel. Among the artists joining him were Nasrin Kadri, Mark Kakon, Avi Wassa and Maya Avraham.
Hosted by the Israel Export Institute – in partnership with the Economy Ministry and Bank Hapoalim, and in coordination with Dubai Tourism – the event was attended by Israeli delegations that had participated in GITEX Technology Week, and coincided with the launch of three commercial flights from Israel to Dubai.
The evening emcee, Dubai Tourism's Aida Al Busaidy, spoke in Arabic, English and Hebrew, welcoming the Israeli guests to their "second home." Her remarks were met with a cheering applause, and the artistic program took off in what felt like another historic cultural milestone following the Abraham Accords.
Did this just happen. Stunning performance by Andrea Bocelli and Jewish composer Idan Raichel sharing a stage in Dubai for 'A Celebration of Peace' #lovindubai@DubaiOperapic.twitter.com/g4NKgCRAqu
Two menorahs owned by the late fashion icon and actress Elizabeth Taylor will be on display for Hanukkah at a gallery in New York and then auctioned in January.
The menorahs will be showcased at the J Greenstein Gallery in New York throughout the holiday season along with a menorah exhibition.
They were purchased at Taylor's estate sale and will be up from auction by J. Greenstein & Co., a boutique auction house that deals exclusively with antique Jewish ritual objects and art.
The taller sterling silver menorah is estimated to be valued between $7,000-$9,000 and was given to Taylor by her head of security, who brought it back from Israel for her as a gift.
The shorter silver metal Godinger menorah, together with a cobalt leaded glass Star of David, is estimated at between $15,000 – $20,000.
The "Cleopatra" star converted to Judaism in 1959 before marrying singer Eddie Fisher.
"The First Lady and I send our warmest greetings to the millions of Jewish people in the United States and around the world as they begin the celebration of Hanukkah."
So inspiring! In the place that sought to extinguish the flame of life for the Jewish people, the Ambassador of the State of #Israel lights the flame of hope! #Chanukah#Germanyhttps://t.co/Mfo0XQvP11
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Continuing our tradition of bringing you brand new Chanukah music videos each night of the holiday....
Plus, here is Azi Schwartz singing a number of Chanukah songs to different popular tunes.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Thursday's surprise announcement about Morocco agreeing to establish diplomatic relations with Israel was not a Hannukah miracle, as many Israeli politicians gushed when they lit their holiday candles, though the timing was indeed brightly appropriate. Rather, it had been a long time coming, as the North African kingdom has deep cultural and religious ties with the Jewish state, and had long been expected to join the current wave of Arab countries normalizing ties with Israel.
As opposed to Egypt and Jordan, which signed peace treaties with Israel decades ago, and in contrast to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, three Arab nations that normalized relations with Israel this year, Morocco and Israel have a profound and ancient Jewish connection, and the Moroccan Jewish community, though small, still thrives today.
Moroccan Jewry's origins date back 2,000 years, to the destruction of the Second Temple and exile. In the modern era, the community reached a high of some 250,000 in the early 1940s, when Sultan Mohammed V resisted Nazi pressure for their deportation. Numbers dwindled with the establishment of Israel, and today only some 2,000-3,000 Jews remain, but hundreds of thousands of Israelis are proud of their Moroccan origins. US President Donald Trump's senior envoy Jared Kushner on Thursday put that number at "over a million."
The mimouna party, which the community traditionally celebrates right after Passover ends, has become a fixture on the Israeli cultural calendar, with countless people barbequing in parks and politicians rushing to as many mimouna celebrations as possible, eating mufletot and other Jewish-Moroccan delicacies.
While Israeli tourists have begun discovering the Gulf only very recently, they have been flocking to Rabat, Marrakech, Casablanca, Tangiers and Fez via third countries for many years. Once the two countries establish diplomatic relations and open direct air-links, that number can be expected to increase dramatically.
Following the 1995 Oslo Accords, Morocco and Israel opened mutual "liaison offices," but they were closed a few years later after the Palestinian Second Intifada broke out in 2000.
Both Moroccan King Mohammed VI and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited the long and deep ties binding Morocco and Israel in their statements on the historic agreement.
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump is gambling here because President-elect Joe Biden is supposed to take office in a bit over a month. It's one thing for the US to push peace, because peace is always good, but recognizing Western Sahara will likely anger Team Biden, which is for preserving some of these international multilateral status quo issues.
The general feeling in the UAE and other states in the region, which have been watching peace deals closely, was that when Trump lost the election, many states would wait on peace. The theory was that had Trump won, then Oman, Qatar, Morocco and other states could follow suit. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised eyebrows when he went to Saudi Arabia in November and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi spoke via video at the Manama Dialogue Conference this year.
However, comments by Saudi Arabia's Turki al-Faisal, a key figure in the kingdom, were critical of Israel at the Manama conference. Was that due to daylight with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or due to a perceived slight by Ashkenazi? The crown prince of Saudi Arabia has appeared keen on warmer relations with Israel for years but has wanted something in return – and is cognizant of Riyadh's role in the region, the Saudi initiative, the Iranian threat, the changes in the US and also the position of his father, King Salman. These are complex webs of relations and realities that mean one change can lead to a domino effect that leads to peace with countries like Morocco.
These deals can be tenuous. Israel is supposed to send an agriculture delegation to Sudan, but it wonders if Israel and the US are serious. Abu Dhabi also wants Israel to take the Palestinian issue seriously. Morocco will still want more from Israel on the Palestinian issue and its civil society will pressure the government on this issue.
Nevertheless many things are happening in the region. US B-52s have flown to the region as part of a show of force to Iran. Tehran is building tunnels at its Natanz nuclear facility to hide centrifuges. The US is withdrawing from Somalia and the Senate has not blocked the F-35 sale to the UAE.
It's almost natural that breaking news from Morocco could mean one more deal before the US administration changes.
President Donald Trump's announcement that Israel and Morocco have agreed to normalize relations may have astounded the world, but the news comes as no surprise to the Jewish community in the north-African country.
"There was a lot of talk about this subject last year," says Kobi Yifrach, an Israeli who has lived in Morocco for the past five years and runs a local museum in Marrakesh.
"There used to be an Israeli Embassy here between 1995 and 2000, and even after that, the relationship between Israel and Morocco remained friendly. Time has finally come to build the relationship [between the two countries]. Until now, it was behind the scenes, and now it's time to bring it to the forefront, with pride and love.
"My Muslims friends have been calling me for hours to congratulate the Jewish community on the announcement," says Jacky Kadosh, leader of the Moroccan Jewish community. "We heard the news immediately after lighting the first Hanukkah candle. It's a Hanukkah miracle."
Ilan Hatuel, an Israeli businessman in Morocco who is close to André Azoulay, senior adviser to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, added that the news was accepted in Morocco with "great excitement."
"The royalty has preserved Jewish history in Morocco for over 500 years. We have worked very hard to reach this moment. From now on, there will be direct flights from Marrakesh to Casablanca and Rabat. The Jewish community is in the seventh heaven, and the Moroccans are very excited too," Hatuel said.
Orin Avraham, a local yeshiva student, also spoke of the joyful celebrations that followed the announcement. "The decision will lead to the strengthening of the Jewish community in Morocco." He added that there is no anti-Semitism in the country, saying that "everyone [in Morocco] says 'hello' to the Jews and loves them.
Unlike his predecessors, US President-elect Joe Biden is not entering office with plans to launch a major Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative.
There's no talk of reaching the "ultimate deal," as Donald Trump described it in 2016, and there's no intention to appoint a special envoy for the Middle East on his first day in office as Barack Obama did in 2009. No marathon peace negotiations like the ones led by Obama's secretary of state John Kerry in 2013 and 2014 and no Vision for Peace like the one unveiled by Trump and his son-in-law/adviser Jared Kushner in 2019 and 2020.
"This isn't 2009, it's not 2014 and it's not 2017. The parties are far from a place where they're ready to engage on negotiations or final status talks," Biden's nominee for secretary of state Tony Blinken told The Times of Israel days before the presidential election.
Blinken clarified that the incoming administration wouldn't forgo the issue altogether, "because ignoring Israel-Palestine won't make it go away."
But when shielded by assurances of anonymity, some Biden aides have been more willing to admit that Israel, and even the Middle East more broadly, is not going to receive the amount of attention that it has enjoyed during the tenures of recent presidents.
Peace with UAE 🇦🇪 Peace with Bahrain 🇧🇭 Peace with Sudan 🇸🇩 Peace with Morocco 🇲🇦
I will *never* get tired of watching this video from @JohnKerry!
His words raise questions about whether they are his own sentiments, or if they reflect the thinking in the Kremlin. And if they do reflect sentiments in Moscow, that is a source of much greater concern.
The Kremlin, it is important to keep in mind, is not monolithic. Just as in the US the White House has traditionally been more sympathetic to Israel and its concerns than the State Department, so too in the Kremlin, Putin is considered as more friendly toward Israel and understanding of its issues than elements within his defense and foreign ministries.
Much has understandably been said and written in Israel since the US presidential election last month and what a Joe Biden presidency will mean for Israel. Would the president-elect reverse Trump's policy on Israel and the Middle East? Will he rush headlong back into the Iranian nuclear deal?
The Russian ambassador's remarks make one wonder, however, whether the focus of concern over a possible change of policy should be Moscow, not Washington.
Russia, through its engagement in Syria – where it is essentially camped out on Israel's front porch – is now very much an active player in the Mideast. As such, coordination and understanding between Moscow and Jerusalem is critical in ensuring that Russia does not intercept Israeli planes or missiles reportedly hitting Iranian assets in Syria from time to time, and that there is no accidental clash between Israeli and Russian pilots in the skies above Damascus.
Netanyahu has rightly highlighted his relationship with Putin as one of his major foreign policy achievements, and the public has been led to believe that even if Israel and Russia do not see eye-to-eye on everything, there is a basic understanding in Russia of Israel's concerns and what it is up against.
The ambassador's words, however, seem to belie that sentiment. To put those concerns to rest, Viktorov, beyond saying that his words were taken out of context, should clarify that Moscow does not see Israel as the aggressor in the Mideast and the root cause of all the region's problems – bad misconceptions that are a reflection of stale thinking we hoped were a relic of a different era in ties between Moscow and Jerusalem.
The UN General Assembly targeted Israel on Thursday with seven different resolutions.
The language condemns Israel for "repressive measures" against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights and renews the mandates of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), as well as the United Nation's "special committee to investigate Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the Occupied Territories."
The seven resolutions were previously adopted on Nov. 4 by the UN General Assembly's Special Political and Decolonization Committee, known as the Fourth Committee.
The first resolution, adopted with 169 votes in favor, two against and seven abstentions, was about "expressing grave concern at the especially difficult situation of the Palestine refugees under occupation, including with regard to their safety, well-being and socioeconomic living conditions … ."
The second, adopted with 162 votes in favor, four against and nine abstentions, was about "calling upon Israel to ensure the expedited and unimpeded import of all necessary construction materials into the Gaza Strip and to reduce the burdensome cost of importation of Agency supplies … ."
The third, adopted with 160 votes in favor, five against and 12 abstentions, "reaffirms that the Palestine refugees are entitled to their property and to the income derived therefrom, in conformity with the principles of equity and justice … ."
Support has dropped slightly at the United Nations for a General Assembly resolution that referenced the most holy site in Judaism, the Temple Mount, as solely the Muslim site al-Haram al-Sharif.
Liberia changed its vote from absent, to "no," when the UNGA voted on the annual resolution in New York late Thursday afternoon.
This placed Liberia in a small group of ten countries, including Israel that opposed the text, which condemned Israeli practices against the Palestinians in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The other eight countries who opposed the measure, which passed 147-10, were: Australia, Canada, Guatemala, Hungary, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea and the United States.
In 2019 the resolution was approved by 157-9. This year there were 16 abstentions, compared to 13 last year, with Austria and the Czech Republic, Uruguay and Slovakia, changing their votes in Israel's favor from "yes" in support of the Palestinians, to "abstain." The other 14 countries that abstained were: Belarus, Cameron, Columbia, Haiti, Honduras, Kiribati, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda, Slovakia, Solomon Islands, Togo, Uruguay and Vanuatu.
Congress is weighing new disclosure laws to close a financial loophole that has been exploited by the United States' enemies to fund terrorist and trafficking operations.
The National Defense Authorization Act before the Senate includes a measure that would require shell companies to identify owners and store their names in a private database. Previously, rogue states and terrorists used lax disclosure requirements to circumvent U.S. sanctions, allowing Chinese, Russian, and terror-related entities to conduct transactions within the United States and with American dollars.
The U.S. financial system is regularly ranked among the largest tax havens in the world, allowing terrorists and regimes to bankroll extensive operations at the expense of American consumers. Adversaries such as Iran, China, Russia, Hezbollah, and trafficking organizations regularly use this to their advantage to move billions of dollars in U.S. markets. Scott Greytak, advocacy director of the nonprofit Transparency International, said that new registration laws would strike a direct blow against illicit finance.
"A lot of that money that is connected to and funding authoritarian regimes is parked in the United States," Greytak told the Washington Free Beacon. "This is something that hits every part of the economy, every part of American life."
As early as 2011, federal authorities discovered that Hezbollah employed used-car sales as a front to launder money for drug trafficking operations and terror financing. Chinese drug traffickers pumped the lethal synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States through shell companies, leading to millions of dollars in profit and the deaths of scores of Americans by drug overdose.
One by one, Israel is normalizing ties with Arab states at the same time as the vaccines set to help eradicate a pandemic that has ravaged our country and the world are set to arrive.
One person has successfully led both processes of peace and processes of war, efforts to contain the epidemic, and deflect attacks from the wolves and jackals who sought to undermine political stability in the country. That person is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As the number of Arab states forging official ties with Israel grows, so too does the pressure on Iran and the Palestinians. In the US, President Donald Trump's detractors seek to depict him as someone who mangled things for Washington in every international arena, but the very opposite is true. For 40 years, the US did not have one foreign policy achievement in the Middle East to speak of. Ever since Israel signed an accord with Egypt, we have seen nothing but failed and bloody moves on Washington's part.
Trump's predecessor former US President Barack Obama contributed to the chaos that continues to reign supreme in the region. He is responsible to a great extent for the Middle East's collapse and in particular the ongoing slaughter in Syria. US President-elect Joe Biden's pick for secretary of state Antony Blinken said himself that anyone who had a hand or foot in Syria needs to look in the mirror and admit they failed. Those words are directed first and foremost at Obama.
Israeli-Saudi normalization is an "inevitability," senior White House adviser Jared Kushner declared Thursday against the backdrop of Morocco's decision to forge full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state at the Trump administration's behest.
"Israel and Saudi Arabia coming together and having full normalization at this point is an inevitability, but the timeframe… is something that has to be worked out," Kushner told reporters in a briefing following Trump's announcement of the fourth Arab-Israel agreement in four months.
Kushner added that an Israeli-Saudi agreement would require "strong US leadership in the region."
"If you look at where we've come in last six months, the region has essentially gone from a solid to a liquid and it feels like there's a lot more fluidity," he said.
Also following the Moroccan announcement, a senior Israeli official told Kan news that an additional unnamed country could announce a normalization deal with Israel within days.
Meanwhile, an Israeli diplomatic source told Channel 12 that Jerusalem is in normalization talks with Muslim states in both Africa and Asia.
Morocco and the sovereignty it wishes to apply in Western Sahara are reminiscent of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And herein lay Morocco's tremendous diplomatic victory, because the international community doesn't recognize its sovereignty in Western Sahara – similar to the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria.
Rabat, however, was swayed by more than Washington's important and dramatic recognition of Morocco's sovereignty rights in Western Sahara. Morocco, whose economy is largely based on tourism, has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, but it will now receive generous economic aid from the US. King Mohammed VI was prudent enough to realize that president-elect Joe Biden's administration wouldn't offer anything close and that now was the time to take the leap and join the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan before the door slams shut.
The peace deals are received with mixed emotions
Full diplomatic relations with Israel should provide Morocco a broad range of Israeli know-how in the fields of technology, agriculture and drinking water – where Morocco is desperate for help – and this is even before mentioning the security and intelligence cooperation the countries' security services have secretly maintained for decades already (ever since the immigration of Moroccan Jews to Israel in the 1950s and the sinking of the Egoz immigrant ship). This cooperation is now expected to expand and flourish in light of the mutual security challenges both countries face.
Just as the Abraham Accords and the normalization treaty with Sudan were received with mixed feelings by their respective Arab publics, in Morocco, too, there are many who support peace with Israel but also more than a few who oppose it.
André Azoulay, a senior adviser to the Moroccan king, prominent member of the country's Jewish community, and a key architect of the peace agreement told Israel Hayom: "This is a dramatic and important initiative, the ramifications of which will lead other Arab and Muslim countries to normalize relations with Israel."
The city seems so natural as a destination for Israelis and Jews that it seems plausible Israelis will be part of the fabric of the UAE, and Dubai especially. From taxi cabs to the malls I heard Hebrew and saw men in kippot in a way that felt safe and welcoming more than most European countries are to Jewish men who wear a kippah or Star of David. The past exclusion has given way to a rapid embrace.
In retrospect this seems obvious. Not only should Israelis be welcomed in every country in the world, and should Jews be safe everywhere, but normalization is the basic aspect of engagement between countries; even hostile countries have relations. The Abraham Accords came about as a result of unique circumstances and pathbreaking vision by the UAE and Bahrain, as well as a push from the Trump administration.
Israel has always been open for these relations, and average Israelis want to play a greater role in the region and contribute to the success of places like the Gulf. Now it can happen. Credit is due to many people.
In the end, those who gain the most are average people and local businesses, from taxi drivers waiting in the queue at Dubai Mall, to the Sal restaurant at the Burj al-Arab, and the Shisha lounge at Ninive at the Emirates Towers; from hi-tech entrepreneurs to properties like Sobha Hartland, where Israelis can now consider a second home that offers them a unique, welcoming, safe place to enjoy all the Gulf has to offer. When you go to Dubai, you'll find a new world awaiting. Go with respect and to listen and enjoy.
Will the next normalization agreement be with a non-Arab Muslim country?
In September, British-Pakistani analyst Noor Dahri analyst told Israel Hayom that "Pakistan has never considered the Jewish state as its enemy but may establish conditional relations with it in the future, after the Arab agreements." Shortly after, one of the few remaining Jews in Pakistan, Fishel Khalid, from Karachi, told Israel Hayom in a rare interview: "I'm a Pakistani Zionist."
And on Thursday, a small group of Karachi residents held a rare demonstration calling on the Pakistani government to recognize Israel.
At the demonstration, which coincided with International Human Rights Day, the small group of Christian Pakistanis also asked their government to allow them to pilgrimage to Jerusalem, "as other Muslim countries have already done."
They expressed their anger that as citizens of Pakistan they are prohibited from visiting Israel.
"Ever since the establishment of Pakistan, no one has addressed the longstanding aspirations of the local Christians to pilgrimage to the great city [Jerusalem]," God's Peoples Fellowship of Pakistan, a Karachi-based Christian organization that seeks diplomatic ties with Israel, said in a statement. According to the group, "If [the Pakistani government] abolished the ban on YouTube, there's no reason not to abolish the prohibition on visiting Israel."
Realizing La Familia's racism was a strategic problem for his asset, Hogeg first confronted it by buying Nigerian midfielder Ali Mohamed, son of a Christian mother and Muslim father.
Now the riffraff will have to undergo a brain transplant. "It's as if my son would tell me he wants to marry a Muslim," said one of them on Radio 103, as if reading from one of Kahane's dusted Knesset bills.
Just how things will now develop between such fans and the club they adore remains to be seen. Hopefully, they will revise their views and rewrite their slogans.
For its part, this column today happily revises what it wrote in the past, not about racism, but about soccer ("Reform soccer," July 14, 2006). Back then, following a particularly dull World Cup, this writer argued that globalization deprived soccer of the national harmony and patriotic drive that fueled great teams like Italy of 1982, Brazil of 1970, England of 1966 or Hungary of 1954, squads whose players played in their homelands, and therefore knew each other well and played in majestic synchrony.
Now, with money buying and selling players and clubs like stocks and bonds, and with local clubs morphing into foreign legions, national soccer lost its glue, and all of soccer lost its flavor, went my argument.
Well, Beitar Jerusalem's purchase by an Arab shows this trends' other side – the dilution of nationalist vanity; the reminder that sports should be about sportsmanship and nationalism should be about harmony, not only between brethren, but also between nations.
Having inked the deal, Sheikh bin Khalifa said: "I am thrilled to be a partner in such a glorious club... in such a great city, the capital of Israel and one of the holiest cities in the world." We too are thrilled, Sheikh, welcome in our midst.
When the United Arab Emirates signed the Abraham Accords with Israel in September, there was much speculation about the popularity of the deal among Emirati citizens themselves. Now, a poll commissioned by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy documents the population's split view of the Abraham Accords—but with support growing, just since June of this year, for sport and business ties with Israelis.
Also in the news are reports of an imminent thaw in Saudi Arabia's intense feud with Qatar. And while there are no signs that the Emirati government is willing to follow suit, its public is supportive of such a move. The majority of Emiratis now support compromise to end the Emirati rift with Qatar, as is also the case for citizens of all involved parties polled. 59% of Emiratis agree that the way forward is for "both sides to compromise in order to reach an agreement," with little change since the question was last asked in June 2020. But these sentiments have moderated somewhat since the boycott began in 2017, when 46% agreed that "the GCC and Arab countries should boycott Qatar until it accepts their demands."
Public Split on Peace, Warming Fast Towards Business Ties with Israelis
When asked to give their opinion on the Abraham Accords, Emirati attitudes were evenly divided: 47% said the accords were positive while 49% saw them in a negative light. Of the seven countries polled, Emiratis and Bahrainis were unsurprisingly the most positive about their countries' normalization agreement. Emiratis were slightly more likely to be "strongly" in favor of the accords than their Bahraini counterparts, at 19% versus 15%.
The King of Morocco, Mohammed V, rejected their discriminatory laws and made a move to save his Jewish subjects…
Morocco's ruling monarch King Mohammad VI confirmed Thursday that the country intends to establish official relations with Israel for the first time in nearly twenty years, soon after US President Donald Trump announced the breakthrough.
At the same time, the king stressed his country's unshakeable commitment to the Palestinian cause and a two-state solution. His office said he spoke by phone Thursday evening with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, which has previously castigated the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan for announcing normalized relations with Israel in recent months, calling such moves acts of betrayal.
"[Morocco will] resume official bilateral contacts and diplomatic relations [with Israel] as soon as possible," King Mohammad said in a statement.
The statement followed an announacement by outgoing US President Donald Trump that Israel and Morocco had agreed to "full diplomatic relations a massive breakthrough for peace in the Middle East!"
In a separate but likely closely-tied statement, the US said it would recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, a former Spanish North African territory that has been the focus of a long-running dispute that has confounded international negotiators for decades.
"His Highness thanked President Trump for the frank and absolute support for the Moroccan Sahara. It is a position that enhances the strong strategic partnership between the two countries and elevates it to a true alliance that includes all fields," King Mohammad said.
News of an American-backed agreement for Israel and Morocco to normalize ties quickly made headlines around the world on Thursday evening. But viewers of official Palestinian Authority television heard nothing about it on the hour-long nightly news broadcast, as officials in Ramallah stayed mum on the story.
By contrast, the PA's main rivals, terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, lambasted Morocco's decision to normalize ties with Israel in a deal brokered by outgoing US President Donald Trump.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad both branded Morocco's decision to normalize ties with Israel — the fourth Arab state to do so in recent months — a "betrayal."
"Normalization by Morocco with the 'Israeli' occupation is a betrayal of Jerusalem and of Palestine," Islamic Jihad said. "We trust that the Morrocan people will utterly refuse this normalization."
"Hamas condemns the Moroccan-Zionist declaration of normalization of relations between them, in an odious move that is not befitting of Morocco, and does not express the brotherly Moroccan people who have stood and are still with Palestine, Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa in all circumstances and stations," Hamas said.
An adviser to Iran's parliamentary speaker said Friday that Morocco's decision to normalize relations with Israel was a "betrayal and a stab in the back" of the Palestinians.
"Morroco announcing normalizing relations with the fake entity occupying Jerusalem is a betrayal and a stab in the back of Palestinian resistance," tweeted Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, an adviser on international affairs and a former deputy foreign minister.
Amir-Abdollahian added that "the Zionist will not have a future in the region."
His comments marked a rare example of a country in the region opposing the agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump on Thursday. So far, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman have all praised the deal, while other governments — including the Palestinian Authority — have remained silent. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups in Gaza have vehemently opposed the announcement.
Among those that lauded the ties, Oman is the only one that does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. In recent months, Muscat has been rumored as a potential candidate for doing so and even sent its ambassador to the Abraham Accords signing ceremony at the White House in September. However, the country's leadership — like that in Saudi Arabia — has insisted that its commitment to Palestinian statehood is sacrosanct.
Nonetheless, Oman's foreign ministry issued a statement Thursday welcoming "US recognition of Western Sahara as part of Morocco and King Mohammed VI's announcement about normalization with Israel."
Muscat expressed hope that the latest agreement would "strengthen efforts toward a lasting and just peace in the Middle East."
Sarah Leah, I think you missed the bit where Ramallah has always supported Morocco's "illegal" claims to W.Sahara. What do you make of that? https://t.co/q9nrFLDEVi
Members of the International Energy Agency unanimously voted in favor of accepting Israel's request to join the organization, Thursday.
The process to have Israel join the independent agency began in December when Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz met with IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol at the UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid in December 2019. Later on, the Foreign Ministry and Israel's mission to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development enlisted in efforts to have Israel join the Paris-based group.
"In 2010, as finance minister, I brought the State of Israel in the most prestigious organization of developed nations – the OECD – and now, in 2020, I am proud to announce that Israel is taking another significant step on the path to becoming a fully-fledged member of the International Energy Agency. This reflects Israel's new status as a regional energy power, as a world leader in rapidly reducing and weaning ourselves off coal and fossil fuels in favor of natural gas and solar energy, to make it the world's second greatest producer of solar power. This [decision to accept Israel as a member of the IEA] is an expression of the world's faith in and recognition of the strength and innovation of the Israeli energy market."
Founded in 1974 to meet industrialized nations' energy needs following the 1973 oil crisis, the IEA is a leader in international energy discourse.
Watch as the people of Honduras give our delegation a send off as our mission comes to a close...
Our aid delegation worked to rehabilitate a village, give medical care, conduct damage assessments & create a plan for the people who were impacted by the hurricanes last month. pic.twitter.com/A8Qiobn9Nt
According to Palestinian Authority law, it is a criminal offence for Palestinians to sell land to Jews. The punishment for committing such an offence is life in prison with hard labor.
Fearing that even the draconian law is insufficient to prevent Palestinians who live in Jerusalem from selling their land to Jews, Fatah, headed by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, released a clear threat saying that Israel will not be able to prevent Fatah from reaching and punishing these people:
"Fatah will come out with full force against anyone who has sold their conscience and allows themselves to abandon their values, their religion, and their faith and to pursue money and the illegal transfer of their property to the settler associations that are active in Jerusalem…Regardless of which means of oppression are at its disposal, the occupation state [Israel] will not be able to prevent Fatah from reaching this handful [of people] who have prioritized money over the homeland."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 26, 2020]
The basis for the PA's prosecution of Palestinians for selling land to Jews is article 114 of the Jordanian Criminal Code (1960), which the PA has adopted. The original Jordanian provision stated that a person who attempts to sever any part of the Jordanian territory in order to annex it to a foreign state will be subject to at least five years of hard labor.
Palestinian Media Watch has reported that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in 2014 passed an amendment to the law - Government Decision with Legislative Effect (No. 20), 2014 - in which he raised the maximum sentence to life imprisonment with hard labor. Earlier this year, PMW exposed that PA had instructed its police force to "take the firmest steps" against anyone selling land to Jews.
Reactions in the Muslim world to the recent publication of the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo were very harsh, and included pointed criticism of France and its president Emmanuel Macron. The cartoons were denounced as an insult to the Prophet's honor and to the sentiments of Muslims that is not legitimate, including as part of France's commitment to the values of secularism, liberalism and freedom of speech.
Not even the beheading of the French teacher Samuel Paty by a Muslim refugee, after Paty showed the cartoons to his pupils as part of a discussion on freedom of speech quelled the Muslim outrage. The denunciation of the murder was accompanied by criticism of Paty for showing the cartoons to his pupils, and of French authorities for expressing support for the magazine's freedom of speech.
At first, the protests appeared to be led by the Islamist currents, whose influence in France Macron is trying to curb in his struggle against "Islamic separatism." Especially prominent were statements by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a patron of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), who said that Muslims in Europe are facing "a lynch campaign similar to that against Jews in Europe before World War II," and called Macron an Islamophobe who "needs mental treatment." Erdogan also called for a boycott of French products.[1] Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan also used strong language, accusing Macron of "attacking Islam,"[2] and former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad stated, in a tweet subsequently removed by Twitter, that "Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past."[3]
Unexpectedly, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, the most important religious establishment in Egypt and the entire Sunni world, joined in the criticism, but made conflicting statements. Despite denouncing Paty's murder, he explicitly encouraged martyrdom for the sake of the Prophet Muhammad, at an October 27, 2020 event marking the Prophet's birthday – thus implicitly justifying terrorism in response to the cartoon crisis. He called love for the Prophet the "personal duty" of every Muslim and said that Muslims must sacrifice their souls, their family, and all that is precious to them in order to defend him. He also quoted Quran 9:24, which states that the Muslims' love for Allah, Muhammad, and jihad must be greater than their love for their family and possessions.
Many Lebanese are demanding answers to role of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization in the port "massacre." They are also demanding an end to Iran's occupation of Lebanon.
Although the Lebanese government has set up a commission of inquiry into the port explosion, many Lebanese are wondering why the results have not been published yet. They are convinced that the Lebanese government is afraid to point the finger of blame at Hezbollah.
"Hezbollah trusts the judiciary it controls with its weapons." — Nizar Salloum, Lebanon, Twitter, December 7, 2020.
The UN is not going to provide relief or answers to the families of the victims of the Lebanon explosion because its members are busy passing resolutions day and night against Israel.
The only step left for the Lebanese is to revolt against the terrorist organization that has turned their country into a military and political base for the mullahs in Tehran.
An international court on Friday sentenced a fugitive Hezbollah member to life imprisonment for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and 21 other people.
Salim Ayyash, 57, was found guilty in absentia of murder and terrorism on August 18 by the Netherlands-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon over the suicide bombing that killed the Sunni billionaire politician and 21 others and injured 226.
Ayyash remains on the run, with Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Shiite Hezbollah movement, refusing to hand him over, alongside three other defendants who were eventually acquitted.
Mr. Ayyash participated in an act of terrorism that caused mass murder, "chief Judge David Re told the UN-backed court.
"In the circumstances, the trial chamber is satisfied that it should impose the maximum sentence for each of the five crimes of life imprisonment to be served concurrently."
Lebanese terror group Hezbollah on Friday criticized charges filed by a prosecutor against the caretaker prime minister and three former ministers over the massive explosion in Beirut's port, describing it as "political targeting."
The Iran-backed Shiite movement called on investigating judge Fadi Sawwan to reconsider his decision, saying it lacked legal and constitutional basis and that the four were being selectively charged.
Similar criticism was voiced by Lebanon's grand mufti, the top cleric for Sunni Muslims, and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, who said the charges against caretaker premier Hassan Diab targeted the office of the prime minister as a position and were a violation of the constitution. The prime minister in Lebanon must be a Sunni Muslim, according to the country's sectarian-based power-sharing system.
It was not clear what impact the criticism could have on Sawwan. In a surprise move, he filed charges against Diab and three former ministers on Thursday, accusing them of negligence that led to the death of hundreds of people.
The four are the most senior officials to be charged in the investigation and are set to be questioned as defendants next week by Sawwan.
The United States was reportedly set to announce sanctions against Turkey as early as Friday over the country's acquisition last year of S-400 air defense systems from Russia, likely worsening bilateral ties in the tail-end of US President Donald Trump's term.
The sanctions will target Turkey's Presidency of Defence Industries and its head, Ismail Demir, and will be "damaging but narrower than the severe scenarios some analysts have outlined," the Reuters news agency reported Thursday night, citing five unnamed sources, including three US officials.
The move would further batter Turkey's economy, which is already struggling with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and battling double-digit inflation. The report said the Turkish lira lost some 1.4 percent in anticipation of the sanctions.
The US contends that the S-400 missiles pose a threat to fellow NATO members. It has previously removed Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet program over the matter. However, it has also sought to avoid pushing Turkey even closer to Russia.
Trump has given his blessing for the sanctions, the report said, even though some of the sources noted that the decision ultimately wasn't entirely up to him.
Trump, who developed a working relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has long opposed sanctions against Turkey over the S-400 deal, the report said, even though officials internally recommended such measures as early as July 2019.
Pay attention, Washington. This is significant. In response to the poem that Erdogan recited yesterday, lamenting that the Turks of Iran are separated from Azerbaijan, Zarif states that Azerbaijan is part of Iran. A large number of Azerbaijanis living in NW Iran will disagree. https://t.co/NplMwgErd2
Turkish and Israeli support helped Azerbaijan achieve this victory -- which benefits the US enormously. How is it that these two allies of the US are playing significant roles in advancing US interests but the US itself is absent without leave, nowhere to be found? https://t.co/4hXn3R7Rpo
Alireza Zakani, Head of the Iranian Majles' Research Center: Iranian Majles Knowingly Passed Budgets Based on Inflated Projections of Oil Sales, to Deliver a "Serious Message" to U.S. pic.twitter.com/FFzAwvKQJB
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