Requiem for the Oslo Accords

From Isi Leibler, 27/1/2016:

   

 

The controversy over the Oslo Accords, which bitterly divided the nation over the past quarter century, is no longer a contentious issue. [...there is no way Israel could achieve any mutually acceptable peace agreement in the foreseeable future.]

 

The late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin personally told me on numerous occasions of his concern that the deal with Yasser Arafat, whom he despised as a murderer, was a gamble that Israel had to take in order to satisfy itself and the world that it had sought every opportunity to achieve peace.

 

In contrast, Shimon Peres, then foreign minister, in response to a few critical questions I posed in the days after the Oslo announcement, lost his cool and angrily stated, “They took Entebbe away from me, but they will never do the same with the peace process.”

 

Today Peres is possibly the sole remaining senior politician who still maintains that the deal with Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization should be retained as the basis for a peace settlement.

 

The consensus, extending beyond right-wing politics, which recognizes the failure of the Oslo Accords, was articulated by the former director general of the Foreign Ministry, Professor Shlomo Avineri, an esteemed intellectual doyen of the Zionist Left.

 

In an article published last October in Haaretz, Avineri enumerated a host of reasons on both sides that contributed to the failure. But overriding these was the fact that the Palestinian position did not consider the conflict as territorial but regarded all of Israel as a colonial implant which had to be uprooted.

 

Avineri concluded that we are obliged to face the reality that there is no way Israel could achieve any mutually acceptable peace agreement in the foreseeable future.

 

His views were echoed by one of the key architects of the Oslo Accords, former minister Yossi Beilin, who, at a recent U.N. Media Seminar, stated explicitly that the Oslo Accords must end. As he said, “Too many Israelis fear that a one-state marriage would destroy either our identity as a Jewish state or our claim to democracy. And a two-state divorce is unlikely to produce a prosperous and stable Palestine.” He concluded that the best solution now would be an Israeli-Palestinian confederation.

 

The final nail in the coffin of the Oslo Accords was the announcement by the head of Israel’s Zionist Union and leader of the opposition, Isaac Herzog, who admitted, “I don’t see a possibility at the moment of implementing the two-state solution.” He told French President Francois Hollande that “we have to be realistic. … It cannot happen at this time. Hatred and incitement among the Palestinians are just too great.”

 

... the leader of the Israeli Left has effectively joined the Israeli consensus which believes that under the current circumstances, the creation of an independent Palestinian state is not even on the horizon.

 

...Herzog seems to be attempting to sever connections between Labor Zionism and the post-Zionists and anarchists. ...Herzog makes it clear that in any future confidence-building initiatives and outreach to the Palestinians, the Israel Defense Forces would of necessity retain control of the West Bank and Jordan Valley.

 

With Herzog on board there is now a consensus for the major policies toward the Palestinians, extending from the left Zionist Union through to Avigdor Lieberman’s far-right Yisrael Beytenu...[...that there is no way Israel could achieve any mutually acceptable peace agreement in the foreseeable future.]...

Al Jazeera America closure signals a quieter Qatar

 

From JPost, 27/1/2016, by Tom Finn / Reuters:

Qatar's support for the entire Al Jazeera operation is in question...

An aerial view of Doha, Qatar's capital. (photo credit:REUTERS)

 

When Qatar announced the closure of Al Jazeera America this month, the decision by its new ruler marked a more cautious approach to public diplomacy by the tiny Gulf state after years of cultivating a high-profile international role.

Departing from a crowded US media market after a foray costing perhaps $2 billion is also consistent with a retreat from confrontation with Gulf Arab neighbors over Qatar's promotion of Islamists in the 2011 Arab uprisings.

While the gas-exporting nation is still determined to remain a power broker in the Middle East turmoil, its use of Al Jazeera as a megaphone in support of that goal appears to be on the wane under the young emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, former Qatari officials and Arab commentators say.

...The [American] channel ...struggled to shake off a perception ...that its corporate parent, Al Jazeera, was anti-American and a source of propaganda, a view articulated in 2004 by then-President George W. Bush.

Sheik Tamim, who succeeded his father Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani in 2013, prefers a different role for Qatar and more conventional forms of "soft power" like trade and investment, diplomats say.
As a result of this, support for the entire Al Jazeera operation, which includes Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic ...is in question...

"ERA OF THROWING MONEY ENDING"

"The era of throwing money at Jazeera is ending," said Hafez al-Mirazi, a former Washington bureau chief at Al Jazeera Arabic who directs the Kamal Adham Center for Television and Digital Journalism at Cairo's American University.

"Al Jazeera fulfilled its mission: making Qatar a household name, influencing politics, at one point it was a powerful tool of foreign policy but all of that is over now," he said, adding that current low oil prices had given the Qatari leadership an excuse to end "the extravagance of Jazeera which has lost credibility in parts of the Arab world."

...Al Jazeera executives and representatives of the royal family or the Qatari government declined to comment on the future of the channel and its funding for this article.

The channel cheered on Doha's bank-rolling of the Arab Spring revolts, particularly a mass uprising in Egypt, but now faces aggressive competition in its home region, and suspicion from many governments over air time given to Islamist groups in Syria, Libya and elsewhere.

Al Jazeera's spectacular growth took place under Sheikh Hamad who, unlike other Gulf Arab leaders, backed Middle East protest movements and played mediator in a host of wars. Expanding into America was conceived under Sheikh Hamad.

Under Sheikh Tamim, Qatar has toned down its foreign policy.

Since taking over in 2013, the Arab world's youngest head of state has adopted more conciliatory and inward-looking policies, analysts and diplomats say.

LESS NOISY, MORE CAUTIOUS

"Sheik Tamim wants Qatar to remain relevant on the world stage, but he wants to do that without squandering money or angering neighbors ... he doesn't want to be sucked into conflicts in the region," said a former Qatari diplomat, who declined to be named.

"The new approach is less noisy, it's more cautious."...

BOMBED, RAIDED AND SHUTTERED

In the last decade Al Jazeera's bureaus have been bombed, raided, and shuttered and its reporters imprisoned and killed.

Critics of Al Jazeera accused the network of aggressively covering unrest in Syria and Libya, while skirting over protests in Bahrain, Qatar's small neighbor in the Arab Gulf, which Qatar's ruling elite has an interest in seeing remain stable..

Breaking the Silence is a political organization

 

From JPost, 27/1/2016, by Ben Hartman:

The survey was compiled by the Association of Civil Military studies in Israel [and] polled 500 Hebrew speakers between the ages of 18-65. ...53%, believe the NGO “Breaking the Silence” is driven by political interests not related to the behavior of the Israel Defense Forces in the Palestinian Territories...

...The poll determined that just one in five respondents believe that the findings of Breaking the Silence indicate that IDF soldiers don’t believe they have a place in the IDF to turn to for filing complaints and only 9% said they believe that the findings of BTS indicate that the deployment of the IDF among the Palestinian civilian population has corrupted the army’s morality...      

Israel to track potential terrorists and BDS activism on social media

From JPost, 27/1/2016, by Herb Keinon:

                                

Hamas social media. (photo credit:PALESTINIAN SOCIAL MEDIA)

 

Israel will invest more in technology enabling it to gather intelligence on social media about potential “lone wolf” terrorists, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said on Wednesday.

Erdan was speaking at a session at the third annual Cybertech conference in Tel Aviv devoted to using Israel’s cyber abilities to fight the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and efforts to delegitimize Israel. Erdan is also head of the Strategic Affairs Ministry, in charge of the government’s anti-BDS efforts.

The session was organized by the Israeli American Council, headed by Adam Milstein, which is promoting ways to use cyber technology to tackle BDS. Milstein described BDS as an “existential threat” to Israel.

Erdan said.... “today there is incitement on the Palestinian television and social media, and you find yourself against hundreds of thousands of potential attackers who could go out to kill innocent civilians,” adding that terrorist attackers over the last number of months have admitted the degree to which they were affected by the social media...

Regarding fighting BDS, Erdan said that the Strategic Affairs Ministry has a NIS 100 million budget to fight it, and he believes that sum will grow.

Amos Yadlin, the head of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, bemoaned the fact that today it is not clear who in the government is dealing with the issue, since various aspects have been spread out across six ministries.

“In a normal country, the foreign minister would deal with this problem,” he said.

 

Israel’s enemies have identified delegitimization as Israel’s Achilles’ heel, and as an area where they can harm Israel, Yadlin said.

“The most dangerous country in the Middle East is the ‘State of Facebook,’” [Yadlin] said, saying that it provides more energy than a number of armies in the Middle East.

Milstein, who said at the conference that his organization wanted to raise greater awareness of the issue and lead to more coordination and effectiveness among groups involved in fighting it, told The Jerusalem Post that BDS is “war against Israel by nonmilitary means.”’ The movement is publishing things that were “unthinkable” a few years ago, and creating an atmosphere in the US where even Jews feel uncomfortable identifying with Israel because of being labeled supporters of occupiers and human rights abusers, he said.

Milstein, whose organization for the estimated 500,000 Israelis living in America was established in Los Angeles some eight years ago, put together a brainstorming session at the conference to generate ideas about how best to gather information on BDS – know who their leaders are and what they have planned – in order to thwart their campaign.

[Israel will invest more in technology enabling it to gather intelligence on social media about potential “lone wolf” terrorists, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said on Wednesday.

Erdan was speaking at a session at the third annual Cybertech conference in Tel Aviv devoted to using Israel’s cyber abilities to fight the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and efforts to delegitimize Israel. Erdan is also head of the Strategic Affairs Ministry, in charge of the government’s anti-BDS efforts.

The session was organized by the Israeli American Council, headed by Adam Milstein, which is promoting ways to use cyber technology to tackle BDS. Milstein described BDS as an “existential threat” to Israel.

Erdan said that the current wave of terrorism is forcing Israel to deal with a new challenge. When the terrorism was directed by terrorist organizations, Israel knew well how to collect intelligence and thwart the attacks, he said.

But, he added, “today there is incitement on the Palestinian television and social media, and you find yourself against hundreds of thousands of potential attackers who could go out to kill innocent civilians,” adding that terrorist attackers over the last number of months have admitted the degree to which they were affected by the social media.

Erdan said that Israel has learned about how these attackers operate, and about ways to monitor their intentions in advance.

“We learned that before the attacks they change profile pictures on Facebook, write on Facebook about their intentions and inform family and friends that they intend to attack. The Israeli government intends to invest more in the acquisition of resources and technologies that can help us reach the potential attackers,” he said.

Regarding fighting BDS, Erdan said that the Strategic Affairs Ministry has a NIS 100 million budget to fight it, and he believes that sum will grow.

Amos Yadlin, the head of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, bemoaned the fact that today it is not clear who in the government is dealing with the issue, since various aspects have been spread out across six ministries.

“In a normal country, the foreign minister would deal with this problem,” he said. Israel’s enemies have identified delegitimization as Israel’s Achilles’ heel, and as an area where they can harm Israel, Yadlin said.

“The most dangerous country in the Middle East is the ‘State of Facebook,’” he said, saying that it provides more energy than a number of armies in the Middle East.

Milstein, who said at the conference that his organization wanted to raise greater awareness of the issue and lead to more coordination and effectiveness among groups involved in fighting it, told The Jerusalem Post that BDS is “war against Israel by nonmilitary means.”’ The movement is publishing things that were “unthinkable” a few years ago, and creating an atmosphere in the US where even Jews feel uncomfortable identifying with Israel because of being labeled supporters of occupiers and human rights abusers, he said.

Milstein, whose organization for the estimated 500,000 Israelis living in America was established in Los Angeles some eight years ago, put together a brainstorming session at the conference to generate ideas about how best to gather information on BDS – know who their leaders are and what they have planned – in order to thwart their campaign...

Milstein said it was important to look at the trend line of BDS, and that this line was very negative, with many more unions, church groups, and academic organizations supporting it now than just a few years ago.

New Israel Fund and B’Tselem effectively endorse murder!

An important report has exposed the involvement of a number of "human rights activists", including the field researcher for B’Tselem in the South Hebron Hills, in a sting operation to hand over a person to the Palestinian Authority’s preventive security forces, with the certain knowledge that he would meet a bitter end of torture and death.

The photojournalism report was aired Thursday 14 February 2016, on Israel’s Channel 2 television’s Uvda (Fact) news program. In a video recording produced with a hidden camera, Ezra Nawi, a Jewish far-left activist from the Ta’ayush group, is heard speaking about four Palestinian real-estate sellers, whom Nawi said mistook him for a Jew interested in buying their property.

Ezra Nawi. (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

 "Straight away I give their pictures and phone numbers to the Preventive Security Force," Nawi is heard saying in reference to the Palestinian Authority’s counterintelligence arm. "The Palestinian Authority catches them and kills them. But before it kills them, they get beat up a lot."

In the Palestinian Authority, the penal code reserves capital punishment for anyone convicted of selling land to Jews…

Nawi was also documented obtaining information from a Palestinian who believed Nawi was a Jew interested in purchasing land. Nawi is seen saying he intends to give that information to Palestinian security officials as well. An activist with the human rights group B’Tselem helped Nawi set up the would-be seller in a sting operation in which the seller would be arrested.

As a result, The Israel Police have opened a criminal investigation.

In this context it is important to note that Nawi also had work ties with Breaking the Silence and Rabbis for Human Rights, which paid for his services. These two organizations, like B’Tselem, mentioned above, receive funding from the New Israel Fund (NIF).

Still, despite the grave nature of the actions portrayed in the Uvda report, the New Israel Fund, a major financer and supporter of B’Tselem, chose to defend the organization, stating that the NIF is proud to support it. According to the NIF, "The clarification we received from B’Tselem … revealed that B’Tselem’s investigator, Mr Nasser Nawaja, who appears in the report, was acting on his own behalf as a Palestinian resident of the South Hebron Hills, and not on behalf of B’Tselem."

B’Tselem, whose regional field researcher, as noted above, was also involved in the effort to turn in the "real estate agent" to the Palestinian Authority, chose to support the researcher, claiming that "contacting the sovereign authorities cannot be considered turning someone in."

Furthermore, A.B. Yehushua, a member of B’Tselem’s Public Council, contended that,

"The mechanisms of the PA are those of an official body that we recognize and we are happy that they exist. We want transparency… even in the Palestinian Authority…As for their fate [the would-be sellers], that is another question… they don’t have to torture people who sell land. That must something that is forbidden…but transparency is one thing, torture is another… that is already their business, whom they torture and whom they don’t torture… I think it is a terrible thing for the PA to do, but it’s the PA, it’s their right."

In other words, instead of denouncing the actions of the researcher, the NIF and B’Tselem back his actions, ignore the serious ramifications and are effectively endorsing murder!

In contrast to them, Israel’s prime minister, defense minister and the former head of the Shabak security forces, emphasized the severity of the situation, and sharply denounced the actions:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on Facebook on Friday 15 January 2016 that the report "unmasked radicals among us, whose hatred for settlements has pushed them over the edge to the point of delivering innocents for torture and execution. Those who encourage murder cannot continue to hide behind the hypocritical pretense of caring for human rights."

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said: "…Over the years I have encountered radical leftist activists, ‘human rights activists,’ whose main activities involve the maligning Israel, the IDF and the security forces, as part of the BDS phenomenon… in the guise of concern for human rights, some inciting against the State of Israel, spreading lies and, as it turns out – also endangering the lives of the Palestinian land sellers…and everything is kosher from their perspective in order to harm the State of Israel, out of hatred and other despicable motives… these people are promoting neither peace nor human rights activists..."

Former Shabak chief, Knesset member Avi Dichter, noted that, "In the past week I was made privy to extremely harsh materials on the covert activities of a number of organizations such as Ta’ayush, B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence and other organizations that purport to be human rights organizations. Only a few of these organizations were covered in the investigative report on Uvda, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. These are criminal activities that must be investigated by the police and the Shabak."