| Arab people still overwhelmingly oppose recognizing Israel, but there is a silver liningnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown), 09 Jan 05:45 AM The Arab Opin | | The Arab Opinion Index for 2022 has been released by the Doha Institute, and it shows that Arabs in the countries surveyed overwhelmingly oppose their countries recognizing Israel: Moroccans were the least opposed, but that is only 20% of those surveyed. Unfortunately, Bahrain and the UAE were not part of this survey. One other question where Israel is a prominent component was more interesting. When asked which world country is the biggest threat to their home countries, Israel received over 50% from only two set of nationals: Palestinians and Lebanese. The other answers are fascinating: In 2014, Israel's and the US' scores were much higher as to being considered a threat: Look how Saudi Arabia's score for Israel plummeted from 40% to only 3% thinking Israel is their biggest enemy. Iraq's score also dropped a huge amount, from 42% to 7%, Libya's from 44% to 7%, Tunisia from 42% to 9%.
I would say that while the diplomatic recognition question reflects sky-high Arab antisemitism, the "threat" question is more reflective of whether the respondents believe the anti-Israel conspiracy theories claiming that Israel wants to take over the entire region, as well as a more sophisticated understanding of how Arab states relate to each other and to other nations.
At any rate, far fewer Arabs look at Israel as their main enemy than eight years ago. That is a very...Read More |
Jodi Rudoren, editor in chief of the Forward, sent out in her weekly Friday newsletter: When Ansche Chesed, a Conservative synagogue in the liberal bastion of Manhattan's Upper West Side, convenes for Shabbat services tomorrow, three familiar words will not be recited from the bimah: raishit smichat gi'ulateinu. Hebrew for "the initial sprouting of our redemption," it's the signature line from the Prayer for the State of Israel that Jews worldwide have been saying each week since shortly after the modern state was founded almost 75 years ago. But Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky, Ansche Chesed's longtime leader, feels he can no longer honestly and full-throatedly pray for the success of Israel's leaders, ministers and advisers, as this liturgy calls for, since its new government includes right-wing extremists he considers akin to the Ku Klux Klan. "I don't hope that this government succeeds; I hope that this government falls and is replaced by something better," he explained in an interview. "I just could not imagine us saying this prayer that their efforts be successful. I think their efforts are dastardly." Rabbi Kalmanofsky is a staunch, lifelong Zionist — a liberal Zionist, as most American Jews would describe themselves, but also a religious Zionist, in the sense of seeing a Jewish homeland in the holy land as a fulfillment of a fundamental tenet of our faith, which makes the radicalization of Israel's Religious Zionist party feel particularly personal for him. Rabbi Kalmanofsky...Read More |
From Ian: Netanyahu: The Unexpected Moderate After decades, some genius pretended to have discovered the "two-state solution." That "solution", of course, had been offered by the United Nations and accepted by the Jews under the "extremist" David Ben Gurion in 1947, but rejected by neighboring Arab states. Its revival by Western powers, notably the United States, was an exercise in diplomatic wild goose chasing. The fact is that repeated opinion polls and elections show that a majority of Israelis and Palestinians do not want the "two-state solution..." [T]he dismantling of all settlements in Gaza never led to the peace expected. As the theme of the settlements began to appear shopworn, a new version of the "Palestinian problem" was put into circulation: "Israeli Apartheid." But that, too, was never defined. In South Africa under Apartheid, black and colored citizens were not allowed to vote or get elected. In Israel, non-Jewish citizens can and do. Palestinians in the West Bank do not have those rights because they are not Israeli citizens. Opinion polls in the West Bank, too, show that bread-and-butter politics and cleaning corruption are the top concerns of Palestinians. That problem might find a solution only if both Israelis and Palestinians are convinced that solving it is in their own interest. Whichever way one looks at it, that conviction isn't there yet. And even if, one day, that conviction...Read More |
This story from September sure flew under the radar.
From Jordan News: US Ambassador to Jordan Henry Wooster has said that the memorandum of understanding (MoU) Jordan and the US signed in Washington on September 16 is a platform that will enable the two governments to start a dialogue over common issues. Speaking to journalists at his residence on Tuesday, Wooster said that the MoU focuses on two main issues: water and the public sector. Under the MoU, the US government will provide a total of $10.1 billion in aid to Jordan between 2023 and 2029, at around $1.45 billion annually. It is the fourth such document signed by the two countries since 2010. Wooster stressed that support for sectors was determined by Jordan, which sets priorities, and not by the US, and that there are no conditions attached to the MoU, which are not legally binding. The US doesn't have any say on how the money would be spent? No conditions? No auditing? It looks like some of the funds are very generally earmarked: out of the $1.45 billion of grants annually, $610 million is direct assistance to the Treasury; $75 million to the stimulus support fund; $350 million towards implementing priority development schemes with USAID;...Read More |
Palestinian Arabs falsely complaining that Israeli Jews are "culturally appropriating" their cuisine have become so common that they are almost a cliche.
But at least some of these accusations cross the line from absurd into antisemitism.
Here's an article this past weekend from L'Orient Today by Emmanuel Haddad:
After hummus, falafel and so many other flagship dishes of Palestinian and Levantine cuisine, knefeh nabulsi is the latest victim of appropriation by Israel. This delicious dessert, which originated in Nablus and is named after the main ingredient — nabulsi cheese — has been incorporated into a more-than-dubious recipe developed by Pizza Hut Israel. For Palestinian chef Fadi Kattan, the affront is threefold: "First against the knefeh, then against pizza... And then, against the taste!" The flavor is as off-putting as it is bitter for Salma Serry, historian of Near Eastern cuisine. The Israeli pizza-knefeh fits perfectly into the definition of appropriation she offers on Sufra Kitchen, the online platform she created to decolonize regional cuisines: "Appropriation [is the] inappropriate adoption of a group's food without giving it credit, especially for commercial gain. Example: Israeli restaurants profiting from falafel, knefeh or hummus without mentioning their original culture." The word "inappropriate" in that definition...Read More |
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