Elder of Ziyon 01/01 Links Pt2: Caroline Glick: Pollard and the great Jewish divide; Israel zooms past 1 million vaccinations in sprint to vanquish pandemic
The rift between Israeli and American Jews is palpable almost everywhere you turn today. The most glaring disparity surrounds how they view President Donald Trump. The vast majority of Israelis adore Trump. The vast majority of American Jews despise him.
But Trump isn't the only thing or even the main thing that separates them. The main issue that separates Israelis from American Jews is the issue of exile. Israelis by and large hold to the traditional Jewish view that all Jewish communities outside of Israel are exile – or diaspora – communities. American Jews, by and large, believe that the exile exists in all Jewish communities outside Israel except in America. This disagreement is existential. It goes to the heart of what it means to be a Jew.
The divide between Israeli and American Jews is more apparent today than it was in the past but it has been around since the dawn of modern Zionism. But if one date marks the point it became an irreversible rift it was November 20, 1985, the day Jonathan Pollard was arrested outside Israel's embassy in Washington, DC.
From the day of his arrest, Pollard became both the symbol and to a degree, the cause of the divide. That divide was unmistakable on Wednesday morning when the news broke that in the middle of the previous night, Pollard and his wife Esther had landed in Israel.
Israelis celebrated the Pollards' arrival. Many wept watching the footage of Pollard kiss the ground on the tarmac.
In contrast, American Jews bristled both at the news and the happiness with which Israelis greeted Pollard's arrival.
From Iran to North Korea, from China to the Palestinians, rogue states, terrorist regimes and other aggressors have been able to continue their murderous, expansionist activities because they think that, however much the West may threaten them, it won't follow through.
So the Palestinians never believed the West meant it when it told them they had to accept the right of Israel to exist. Why should they have believed this, when until 2016 at least the West never stopped excusing, funding and incentivizing their aggression?
The one exception to this has been U.S. President Donald Trump, who called the Palestinians' manipulative bluff. Told by the rest of the West that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would provoke the Arab world to violence, he ignored this and moved it anyway.
Not only was there no such uprising, but now the Palestinians have been marginalized by an Arab world that's increasingly making its peace with Israel in a way that was previously unthinkable.
That's largely due in turn to Trump taking the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal and reimposing sanctions on the regime. He thus showed that, unlike former President Barack Obama or the British and the Europeans, when he said he intended to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, he really did mean it.
Now there are fears that President-elect Joe Biden may reactivate the Iran deal and start pumping money again into the regime's nefarious activities; or he may once again incentivize the Palestinians' agenda of destroying Israel; or he may allow China to walk all over him in its drive to dominate the West.
This is based on the fear that Biden may behave as the left always behave. They have no red lines of principle over stopping aggressors and protecting their victims. Instead, their doctrine of moral equivalence means that they make no such value judgments between aggressor and victim. Their red line is instead merely to keep negotiations and peace processes going. The result is that they excuse and empower aggressors just to keep them from walking out of the talks.
So when they claim to be against tyranny, racism and oppression, the world's tyrants, racists and oppressors know they don't mean what they say.
Britain now faces more battles with the E.U. The free world faces more battles with Iran, China, Russia, Islamic jihadists and other lethal foes. The Jews face their interminable battle against those who wish to destroy them.
What the Brexit deal reminds us is that hypocrites are dismissed with contempt as paper tigers; and that for freedom, justice and democracy to win against aggression, injustice and tyranny, the leaders of the free world must not pay mere lip-service to defending the former but actually mean what they say.
Lawmakers from 16 African countries participated in a two-day Zoom conference this week hosted by Israel Allies Caucus to discuss strengthening ties with Israel. Those who participated in the conference are chairmen or members of the Israel Allies Caucus in their respective countries.
Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin and Deputy Speaker of the Zambian National Assembly Mwimba Malama opened the conference with remarks. Levin thanked participants saying, "Your consistent daily efforts standing for Israel and for our common values is what ensures the strength of our ties and allows us to continue having a positive impact together."
Malama touched on the changes in Israel and Africa's relationship over time saying that the relationship has not always been strong which means that "it is therefore gratifying to note that in recent years, a number of sub-Saharan countries have re-established diplomatic relations with Israel."
Malama went on to say that "the State of Israel has made remarkable contributions to world development in general and Africa in particular. I have no doubt in my mind that as the Israel - Africa alliance continues to strengthen, the continent of Africa, and Zambia in particular, will greatly benefit in sectors such as agriculture, security, science and technology."
Israel's ambassador to Zambia, Gershon Kedar emphasized the number of African countries who vote against Israel in the UN despite the countries' support of Israel. "Israel has many good relations with individual African countries, but it is time to turn these bilateral relationships into a multilateral one by strengthening Israel's ties with Africa as a whole in international forums," said Kedar.
The University of California, Merced has launched an inquiry into the conduct of a teaching professor at its engineering school whose Twitter account featured a pattern of antisemitic posts.
Abbas Ghassemi''s tweets included a photo of a "Zionist brain" with labels such as "frontal money lobe," "Holocaust memory centre" and "world domination lobe." The same image can be found on the website Jew World Order, which peddles antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Ghassemi also tweeted about the U.S. government, media and banking all being controlled by Zionists and Israel on 10 separate occasions between October and December. He also frequently referred to the State of Israel as "IsraHell."
The account, launched in 2019, had tweeted over 2,220 times before it was deactivated.
"The opinions presented in this Twitter account do not represent UC Merced or the University of California," Chancellor Juan Sánchez Munoz wrote in a letter posted to the university's website Tuesday evening. "They were abhorrent and repugnant to us and to many of our colleagues and neighbors; they were harmful to our university, our students, and our years of work to build an inclusive and welcoming community.
"We have called upon the dean and department chair to work with the Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Personnel to conduct an inquiry into potential violations of our standards, the UC Faculty Code of Conduct or other policies of the university, to determine what consequences are appropriate," the letter stated.
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Gregg Camfield also signed the letter.
Although the Coronavirus pandemic was obviously the big story of 2020, the BBC News website gave considerable coverage to three other topics throughout the year.
In January almost 40% of the reporting appearing on the BBC News website's 'Middle East' page concerned the US administration's 'Peace to Prosperity' proposal and in February 47.6% of the items published concerned the same topic.
Our review of that coverage noted that: "Many of the reports promote talking points also evident (including before anyone at the BBC had actually read the proposal) in BBC radio and television coverage: - Description of the proposal as a "surrender document" for the Palestinians which does not meet their demands. - Presentation of the document as fully meeting Israeli demands. - Presentation of the timing of the launch of the document as being related to political and legal processes in the US and Israel. - Amplification of the talking points of the PLO and political NGOs, including the 'apartheid' trope. - Portrayal of the Palestinians as having no agency and predictions of 'inevitable' violence."
In May 20% of the Israel related reports published on the BBC News website's 'Middle East' page promoted pre-emptive framing of the theoretical application of Israeli civil law to parts of Area C. In June the percentage rose to 35.7% and in July 35.3% of the items appearing related to the same story.
Recruitment flyers for the Ku Klux Klan that also espoused false claims made by US President Donald Trump alleging fraud in November's election were found last weekend outside more than a dozen homes and businesses in a small Northern California town.
The flyers, which were discovered over the weekend in Tulelake, advertised the Loyal White Knights sect of the hate group. They were weighted down in rice-filled Ziploc bags and tossed into front yards, Police Chief Tony Ross said.
"This is the second time that it's occurred since I've been chief," Ross said Wednesday. "The last time was about 10 years ago. They threw 20, 25 of 'em into different yards in town."
The Loyal White Knights, a virulently racist and anti-Semitic group based in North Carolina, is "perhaps the most active Klan group in the United States," according to a 2016 report from the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism titled "Tattered Robes."
The flyers, first reported by the local newspaper, the Herald and News, said "The KKK Wants You!" with a picture of a hooded klansman pointing a la Uncle Sam. They advertised a weekly call-in talk show and the web address for the Loyal White Knights.
"The radical Left," the flyers read, "is giving Your hard earned money To countries and programs That are benefiting their Communist agenda instead Of Helping the American people Keep a roof over their heads."
A week after being acquitted of being involved in the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing in Buenos Aires, an Argentine car dealer tweeted about how Israel kills "kids in Palestine."
Carlos Telleldin had been accused of providing the van that would explode at the Jewish center, killing 85, and served 10 years in prison for his involvement. But in a second trial, a federal court decided "to acquit Carlos Alberto Telleldin for the facts that he was accused" without providing further explanation. Outraged Jewish Argentine institutions have vowed to appeal.
On Sunday, Telleldin wrote a cryptic tweet about his innocence.
"Some opt for fiction, others choose truth. The historical truth is reconstructed in courts for a sentence, and for the rest, I recommend reading E A poe," he wrote, referencing the writer Edgar Allan Poe.
A day later he added: "Read, inform yourself about ignorant people who want to teach us? They want to give us lessons about morality and kill kids in Palestine."
Israel was not involved in the AMIA bombing. Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group it funds, have been tied to the attack, which also injured hundreds.
"The future is already here," according to Prof. Masad Barhoumm, director-general of Galilee Medical Center, after a team of Israeli doctors from his medical center successfully completed the first-ever repair of a fracture in the floor of an eye socket using augmented reality (AR) and three-dimensional technology.
The surgery, which was performed on a 31-year-old resident of the Galilee, was led by Prof. Samer Srouji of Galilee Medical Center's Center for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in partnership with doctors from Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer.
The patient had been severely injured in his face, fracturing his left eye socket, resulting in double vision and impairing the aesthetics and symmetry of his eyes.
"The innovative technology utilizing a 3D printer and augmented reality resulted in both a particularly accurate execution of the operation, and a significant reduction in time," said Srouji.
To perform the surgery, the medical center designed a plate according to the patient's computerized tomography (CT) scan. The plate accurately reproduced the shape of the floor of the eye socket, according to the "projection" of the healthy side on the injured side, through use of software to build a three-dimensional model of his skull.
The plate was printed on titanium and prepared for insertion. To accurately position it under the patient's eye, doctors used AR.
For the Jewish community, 2020 has been historic, turbulent and revelatory. The year began with 25,000 people, Jews and non-Jews, marching across the Brooklyn Bridge to take a stand against antisemitism, and it seemed this could be a year of growing awareness of the fight against Jew hatred — a year of possibility during which America's political landscape could change.
Then COVID-19 hit and the community moved indoors. By April, most colleges and synagogues were closed. By June, Zoom had become a staple for most Jewish households. By September, some rabbis were doing High Holiday Services on Zoom, while others were praying alone in their homes.
In spite of everything, Jewish life continued. Here's what the year looked like in photos.
Israel has vaccinated 1 million people against COVID-19, more than a tenth of its population, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday, as the country's inoculation drive cemented its status as the world's most rapid thus far.
Netanyahu was on hand to mark what he said was the millionth Israeli to receive a vaccine, in the Arab town of Umm al-Fahm.
Netanyahu called it a moment of "great excitement."
"We are breaking all of the records. We brought millions of vaccines to the State of Israel," he said. We are ahead of the entire world… with our excellent HMOs."
Arabs make up around 20 percent of Israel's population and have been relatively slow to embrace the vaccination campaign, prompting Netanyahu to launch a series of visits to Arab localities, his first in years, in what is also seen by many as an attempt to score political points ahead of the March elections.
Netanyahu said that "it's important for me that the Arab public in Israel will get vaccinated quickly" as "it's saving lives." He delivered the same message at a vaccination center in Tira, another Arab town, on Thursday.
The Jewish state has so far greatly outpaced other countries, per capita, with 11.55% of the population inoculated, according to statistics from the Our World in Data website operated by Oxford University. Second place is held by Bahrain with 3.45%, followed by the UK with 1.39% (though the latter's data is a few days old). The US stands at 0.84%. The world average is 0.13%.
Israel is currently in its third nationwide lockdown to contain the outbreak. It has reported more than 426,000 cases and at least 3,338 deaths since the pandemic began.
Related: Small wonder: How Israel rolled up its sleeves and became vaccination nation
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said in a statement earlier Friday: "Yesterday we broke a new record and vaccinated 153,430 people. Today we'll pass one million."
Israel started vaccinating on December 20, with a focus on healthcare workers and then on those over 60 and at-risk sectors.
#BREAKING: #Israel has just vaccinated its 1 millionth person, with #Covid19 vaccination. That's over 10% of the population, far and away per capita more than any other country. pic.twitter.com/YP6rK9xT52
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.
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.
THE SECOND side of the triangle in the Middle East is Turkey and its allies. Ankara's ruling party is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood. It backs Hamas in Gaza and twice hosted senior Hamas terrorists this year. Reports indicate that Hamas plans attacks from Turkey, receives passports and support and uses Turkey as a cyber base for threats to Israel. While Turkey ended 2020 claiming it wants reconciliation with Israel after years of comparing the Jewish state to Nazi Germany, Ankara has consistently supported extremists and terrorists.
Turkey has other Islamist friends it recruited in Syria and in Libya. Turkey co-opted the Syrian rebellion and channeled it into a series of extremist groups it has sought to mobilize to fight Kurds and Armenians. In 2018 Turkey ethnically cleansed Afrin, a historically Kurdish area of Syria, then attacked Kurds in Serekaniye in October 2019. US officials worked with Turkey, hoping to undermine their own Pentagon's policies in Syria.
We know from recent interviews that US envoys admired Turkey's thuggish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and sought to outsource US policy to him. This caused Turkey to think it had a blank check to attack everyone in the region. It threatened Greece with a "flood" of refugees in February and March. It clashed with Syria and Russia in the Syrian city of Idlib. It sent extremist militias recruited from poor Syrian refugees to attack Kurds and Christians in the northeast Syrian towns of Ain Issa and Tel Tamr near the Turkish border. It sent Syrians to fight in Libya. It also threatened Greece using the excuse that it was seeking natural gas in the Mediterranean. Turkey wanted to thwart a planned Israel-Cyprus-Greece pipeline deal. In July and then in September Turkey prodded Azerbaijan to attack Armenians in Nagorna-Karabakh.
THE THIRD side of the Middle East alliance systems is the emerging Israel-UAE-Egypt-Jordan-Bahrain-Greece-Cyprus system of friendships. Israel made peace with Bahrain and the UAE in August and September in the momentous new Abraham Accords. With Saudi Arabia's approval, Morocco followed. Sudan also agreed to normalize ties with Israel.
In each case the US was key in supporting the new agreements: weapons deals for the UAE, an end of sanctions for Sudan, as well as recognition of Morocco's claims in Western Sahara came from Washington. The Trump administration poured efforts in its last year in office into this brave new world in the Middle East.
The burgeoning relationships offer massive economic potential for Israel and the Gulf. Seventy-thousand Israelis went to Dubai toward the end of the year. They were able to escape the COVID restrictions briefly, although by the end of December the lockdowns were back and Israelis were back home. A few stayed on in Dubai, awaiting the New Year's parties. They might have been able to look back to February when Turkey first found COVID among flights coming from Iran and recall just how much has changed since then.
Much has also stayed the same, in terms of Iran's and Turkey's policies seeking to exploit the lack of US leadership and drawdown of US forces – to fight over the scraps of what was once US hegemony in the Middle East.
With 2020 behind us and 2021 beginning, there is discussion of even more dominoes falling, and even more countries joining the Abraham Accords. Trump administration officials have said they're working to even make it happen in the next three weeks, before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
Mauritania, Oman and Indonesia are the names on Israeli and American officials' tongues these days, which makes sense, because Israel has or has had some level of ties with all of them.
Mauritania declared war on Israel in 1967, but the countries established diplomatic relations in 1999, which were suspended in the wake of Operation Cast Lead in 2009.
Former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin visited Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, and thousands of Israeli and Indonesian tourists visit each other's countries each year.
Netanyahu visited Oman in 2018, and Israel and Oman are part of the anti-Iran axis in the Middle East.
But the big hope is for Saudi Arabia. This is where Biden comes into play. Biden and his foreign policy advisers have spoken positively about the Abraham Accords, without commenting on the strings attached. At the same time, they have been very critical of Saudi Arabia's human rights record. If the Trump administration doesn't find a way to quickly make it worth Riyadh's while in the next few weeks, which seems unlikely, MBS and King Salman will probably wait to see what benefit they can exact from the Biden administration to go with peace with Israel. After all, the thought is, why shouldn't they get something out of the deal, as the UAE, Sudan and Morocco did?
At the same time, a very senior official told The Jerusalem Post that Riyadh is expected to get on board in 2021. Netanyahu and MBS met in the Saudi city of Neom weeks ago. Salman is still reticent on the matter, holding on to the Arab Peace Initiative, also known as the Saudi Initiative, which requires peace with the Palestinians before normalization with the Arab League.
Looking ahead at the unfolding new year, it seems likely that the Abraham Accords domino rally will continue, and it seems almost inevitable that it will feature the biggest coup of all, Saudi-Israel peace.
But if there's anything we learned from 2020, it is that January can be drastically different from December in ways we never expected.
Israel on Thursday joined the government of the United States in voting against the approval of the UN's budget for 2021, with both countries citing the global organization's institutionalized bias against the Jewish state as a key factor.
Only the US and Israel opposed the $3.2 billion budget, which normally passes by consensus, with 168 member states voting in favor.
In her statement to the General Assembly, US Ambassador Kelly Craft argued that for the sake of "accommodation of all viewpoints," the UN stood "poised to adopt a budget that reflects such an accommodation that extends a shameful legacy of hate, antisemitism, and anti-Israel bias."
"The United States rejects this effort and called for this vote to make clear that we stand by our principles, stand up for what is right, and never accept consensus for consensus' sake," Craft declared.
Craft pointed to a budget item for 2021 to fund a special event on the 20th anniversary of the UN's anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa, from which the US and Israel withdrew over objections of anti-Zionism.
"Twenty years on, there remains nothing about the Durban Declaration to celebrate or to endorse," Craft stated. "It is poisoned by antisemitism and anti-Israel bias. It encourages restrictions on the freedom of expression. It exists to divide and discriminate and runs contrary to the laudable goal of combating racism and racial discrimination."
Craft concluded by stressing that the US vote against the UN budget was a "constructive protest against inequities in the budget is a necessary part of the journey, a part of a journey that builds a better world and to strive for a United Nations that lifts humanity in the 21st Century."
In a separate statement, Israel's envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, similarly highlighted the Durban event.
The U.S. is & has been the largest & most reliable @UN partner, and that commitment will not change. We will also never support a Durban process that is designed to divide, not unite. U.S. taxpayer resources must be spent wisely, effectively, & in line with American interests.
A closer examination of Germany's voting patterns at the UN over the past several years, however, reveals a troubling double standard on a range of issues, especially on human rights, which the German government claims to be "a cornerstone" of its foreign policy.
The record shows that during its stint on the UN Security Council, Germany voted for dozens of resolutions — many of which smack of anti-Semitism — that singled out Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
Moreover, Germany turned a blind eye as multiple serial human rights abusers, including China, Libya, Mauritania, Sudan and Venezuela, among others, were elected to the UN Human Rights Council, the UN's highest human rights body.
In 2020, Germany voted 13 times to condemn Israel, but failed to introduce a single resolution on the human rights situation in Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Venezuela — or on 175 other countries, according to UN Watch, a Geneva-based, independent non-governmental watchdog group.
"While nearly all EU countries backed 13 out of 17 UNGA resolutions singling out Israel this year, they failed to introduce even one resolution for women's right [sic] activists jailed and tortured in Saudi Arabia, dissident artists arrested in Cuba, journalists thrown behind bars in Turkey, religious minorities attacked in Pakistan, and opposition members persecuted in Venezuela, where more than five million people have fled government repression, hunger and economic collapse." — UN Watch, December 16, 2020.
Germany pursued a similar policy of approving anti-Israel resolutions at the UN in 2018, 2017, and 2016, when Germany voted for an especially disgraceful UN resolution, co-sponsored by the Arab group of states and the Palestinian delegation, that singled out Israel as the world's only violator of "mental, physical and environmental health."
Austrian Ambassador posts innocent picture from Israel and the Palestinian bots unleash (see replies). Maybe they need some strudel or just a bit of winter sun! https://t.co/rml1EmclLu
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo named Aryeh Lightstone Special Envoy for Economic Normalization in the Middle East on Friday. Lightstone, who is also senior adviser to US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, has been instrumental in negotiating economic normalization deals between Abraham Accords countries since the first flight from Israel to Abu Dhabi in late August.
"It's been a unique honor to work for this administration and working with all our partners in the Abraham Accords countries," Lightstone said. "It has been an exciting challenge and puzzle and we've got a lot more work in front of us. I'm looking forward to doing it."
Friedman said that "since the initial breakthroughs that spawned the Abraham Accords, Aryeh has been instrumental in advancing the normalization process among Israel and its new peace partners. He is the right choice to continue those efforts as our special envoy." Earlier this year, Lightstone was named head of the Abraham Fund, a development fund meant to advance peace between Israel and Arab states, but the appointment was not made official. He has been on six first direct flights between Israel and Arab countries, led business delegations to Bahrain and from Bahrain to Israel, and has worked on 100 Abraham Accords deals.
The title of special envoy does not entail new responsibilities; rather, it is Pompeo's way of recognizing Lightstone's efforts in fostering economic normalization in recent months. It will expire in three weeks when US President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated.
Pompeo said that designating Lightstone as special envoy "will contribute to the speed and the efficiency of the normalization process and create momentum for the Abraham Accords.
It was a scene that just a few months ago would have been unthinkable. As Emiratis in flowing white robes and headdresses looked on, the Israeli bride and groom were hoisted on the shoulders of skullcap-wearing groomsmen and carried toward the dance floor, where dozens joined the throng swaying and singing in Hebrew.
Noemie Azerad and Simon David Benhamou didn't just throw a wedding bash in the middle of a pandemic that has shut down their country and ravaged the world. They were reveling in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which — like most of the Arab world — had been off-limits to Israeli passport holders for decades.
The pair was among tens of thousands of Israelis who flocked to the UAE in December after the two countries normalized ties in a breakthrough US-brokered deal.
Israel's latest virus-induced lockdown, which began earlier this week, temporarily cooled the travel fever. But Israelis with dashed vacation plans, now stuck at home, hope that vaccination campaigns will help contain the outbreak and make Dubai trips possible again soon.
The lure of Dubai, the UAE's skyscraper-studded commercial hub with sandy beaches and marbled malls, has already proven powerful. Scores of Israeli tourists, seeking revelry and relief from months of virus restrictions and undeterred by their government's warnings about possible Iranian attacks in the region, have celebrated weddings, bar mitzvahs and the eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah with large gatherings banned back home.
"I expected to feel really uncomfortable here," said 25-year-old Azerad, the Israeli bride, from the hotel ballroom, bathed in the glow of Dubai's glittering skyline. But all of her preferred wedding destinations announced tough restrictions on gatherings to check the spread of the virus. Dubai caps parties at 200.
US Jewish groups warmly welcomed Thursday's bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives to elevate the role of the State Department special envoy to combat antisemitism globally to ambassadorial level.
The New Year's Eve vote followed the passage of the legislation, first introduced in the House last year, through the Senate on Dec. 17.
Explaining the need to bolster US efforts to combat antisemitism, the resolution noted that since the State Department post was created by the George W. Bush Administration in 2004, "acts of antisemitism have been frequent and wide in scope, the perpetrators and variety of threats to Jewish communities and their institutions have proliferated, and in some countries antisemitic attacks have increased in frequency, scope, violence, and deadliness."
The resolution specified that the special envoy's post would now carry the title of ambassador. It also stressed that anyone appointed to the post "should be a person of recognized distinction in the field of combating antisemitism."
In a statement responding to Thursday's vote, the Washington, DC-based Orthodox Union (OU) said it was "very grateful" for the resolution.
"Sadly, we have seen a surge of antisemitic incense around the world in recent years," the OU commented. "With the passage of this legislation, the Senate is providing powerful new tools to the State Department to lead impactful international efforts to combat what has been aptly called 'the world's oldest form of hatred' and roll back the tide of anti-Jewish hate."
Separately, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CoP) applauded the "additional prominence and visibility" that an ambassador's rank gave to American efforts to counter antisemitism.
Supporting Trump's two-state-solution as espoused in Trump's Peace Plan is not inconsistent with supporting the "Palestinian cause".
Othmani is no supporter of the Morocco-Israel peace deal as he made clear in August:
"We refuse any normalisation with the Zionist entity because this emboldens it to go further in breaching the rights of the Palestinian people."
Othmani was clearly overuled by the King – as the pace of peace between Israel and Morocco quickens.
A three-person delegation landed in Israel this past Sunday to handle logistics ahead of reopening the Moroccan liaison office in Tel Aviv - which it has maintained for the past 20 years since Morocco cut official ties.
Israel had also retained its closed office in Morocco.
Last week White House Special Adviser Jared Kushner led an Israeli-US delegation to Morocco when both countries committed to reopening these offices within two weeks.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invited Morocco's King Mohammed VI to visit Israel – reportedly telling him – quoting from the film Casablanca.
"This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,"
It certainly will be if the King: - endorses Trump's Peace Plan, - calls on Abbas to begin negotiations with Israel on Trump's plan and - disassociates himself unreservedly from Othmani's inflammatory anti-Israel views
Trump's Peace Plan – with Morocco's backing – as a starting point for renewed negotiations, can help end the 100 years-old unresolved Arab-Jewish conflict.
The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday released a heap of statistics illustrating its activities over the past year, including the number of targets struck in Syria (about 50), fighter jet sorties flown (1,400) and calls answered by the Home Front Command's coronavirus information call center (1.4 million).
Despite the pandemic, the West Bank remained a significant source of concern for the IDF — on par with recent years — though there were some areas of improvement and some of regression. In 2020, the number of stabbings decreased by a third, from 12 in 2019 to nine. The number of shooting attacks, however, increased significantly, from 19 in 2019 to 31, though this was similar to the number of shootings in 2018 — 33 — and in 2017 — 34.
In total, the IDF said the West Bank saw 60 terror attacks in 2020, up from 51 in 2019, but down from 76 in 2018 and 75 in 2017.
In response to these attacks and as part of ongoing efforts against terror groups in the West Bank, the military conducted 2,277 arrests over the past year, a slight decrease from the previous years: 2,328 in 2019; 3,173 in 2018; and 3,627 in 2017.
Though not included in the statistics released by the military Thursday, the year 2020 also saw the lowest number of soldiers and civilians killed in war and terror attacks in the country's history. As of Thursday, three people — two civilians and one soldier — were killed in security-related attacks, including Esther Horgen, who was killed earlier this month in a brutal assault outside the northern West Bank settlement where she lived, Tal Menashe.
A top American Jewish umbrella group urged on Thursday the Palestinian Authority (PA) to end its financial support of terrorists and their families.
The statement by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations followed a Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) report that the PA planned to pay terrorists three months' salary in advance to circumvent a new Israeli law that was to come into effect on Thursday.
"Once again, we demand that the Palestinian Authority stop encouraging and incentivizing terror through its reprehensible pay-to-slay policies rewarding acts of terror against Israelis by financially compensating perpetrators and their families with so-called martyr payments," the statement said. "Palestinian leadership is going to extraordinary lengths to continue these payments, insisting on paying convicted terrorists a three month, lump sum 'salary' before the end of the year."
"The pay-to-slay scheme is an unconscionable insult to the memory of the many innocent victims of Palestinian terrorism from Israel, America, and around the world," it added. "The international community must recognize this as a barbaric and unacceptable practice that incentivizes terror and bloodshed. More countries are cutting aid to the PA to protest this abhorrent practice. The Palestinian Authority must discontinue these immoral payments immediately by abolishing its 'Martyrs Fund.'"
"Global attention must be drawn to the fact that this policy exists and persists, and we urge all who respect the dignity of human life to condemn it unequivocally," the Conference of Presidents implored.
A Palestinian man was in critical condition Friday after being shot at close range by Israeli forces during an operation to confiscate illegal Palestinian construction equipment in the West Bank's South Hebron Hills.
On Friday evening, the Israeli Defense Forces confirmed Palestinian reports that 24-year-old Haroun Abu Aram, a resident of the unrecognized village of al-Rakeez, had been hit by live fire.
In a video from the scene, Palestinians can be seen scuffling with Israeli soldiers in an attempt to take back a generator apparently confiscated by the troops. After the brawl escalates, a gunshot rings out off-camera. When the camera turns back towards the scene, Abu Aram is lying on the ground, apparently having been shot. It was not immediately clear what led to the shooting.
A spokesperson for the Israeli army described the scuffle as "a violent incident in which violence was directed at Israeli forces by a number of Palestinians."
"The Israel Defense Forces acknowledges that a Palestinian was shot with live fire during the incident. The incident is being looked into," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson further asserted that the shooting was preceded by "massive stone-throwing" by a crowd of over 150 Palestinians against Israeli troops. While far from uncommon at West Bank Palestinian demonstrations, no stone-throwing could be seen in the video.
An online petition calling for the Palestinian Authority to release detained Palestinian disc jockey and "queen of techno music" Samaa Abdulhadi has garnered more than 80,000 signatures since its launch on Wednesday.
PA police arrested Abdulhadi, 30, for organizing and playing music at a party on Saturday that took place at the Muslim holy shrine of Nabi Musa in the West Bank, where the Prophet Moses is believed to be buried. Alcohol was served at the gathering, which also featured the mingling of men and women, both of which are forbidden by Islamic religious guidelines.
Abdulhadi was charged with violating article 275 of the Palestinian penal code — which criminalizes the "desecration" of holy sites or symbols done with the intent of insulting a religion or particular group — and with violating COVID-19 restrictions, her lawyer told CNN.
The Palestinian techno DJ, who is an internationally well-known, said she received the necessary permits from the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to film a recording at the site that included scenes of a techno party.
The online petition for the DJ's release states that "Abdulhadi and the organizers of the concert may not have realized that this type of music was unsuitable for the site and its historical, religious and cultural associations, yet it remains that the Ministry of Tourism bears full responsibility for taking the decision to allow the concert to take place."
"Sama Abdulhadi is being made a scapegoat and held accountable for a crime that did not happen and one that she certainly did not commit," it continued. "We call for her immediate release and respect for cultural and artistic freedom and rights by the Palestinian Authority."
The hashtag #FreeSama has gone viral on social media.
Palestinian Student in Syria Kamal Salal: We Hope the Day Will Come When We See Israeli Bodies Floating in the Sea of Galilee pic.twitter.com/zeWOmyZM7T
Al-Qassam Brigades published a statement earlier today saying one of its militants had died from #COVID19. He is the second al-Qassam militant the group acknowledges that has died from the virus. #Gazapic.twitter.com/Y5oBuQaOb7
Which is strange, because DC's best and brightest - including several on or advising Team Biden - insisted unilateral US sanctions would never work to cut off the Iranian regime's resources. They insisted it in several different outlets, in fact. Repeatedly, in many cases. https://t.co/eeztzFZyYG
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.
אין תגובות:
הוסף רשומת תגובה