tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-128310692024-03-14T15:52:35.515+08:00Jewish Issues WatchdogKeeping an eye on Jewish affairs - extracting the essential - for busy people.Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.comBlogger5370125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-82066020333303720972019-06-05T13:27:00.001+08:002021-02-16T10:44:43.835+08:00Transferring this Blog to Facebook<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Dear Reader</i></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>This Blog has been superseded by Facebook.</i></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i> I don't intend to post here any further because it is much easier to post on Facebook.</i></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>To continue to stay informed of key news and opinion articles essential to keeping abreast of issues affecting Jews around the world, designed to help busy people stay up-to-date, go to the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/JewishIssuesWatchdog">Jewish Issues Watchdog Facebook Page</a>. By clicking "Like" (at the top-left of the page), postings there will be added to your News feed on Facebook.</i></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Thanks for your interest....</i></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Warm regards</i></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Steve Lieblich</i></span></b>Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-60330289283261690302019-03-24T10:13:00.002+08:002019-03-24T10:13:39.527+08:00Britain, Denmark Announce Opposition to Anti-Israel Resolutions at UNHRC<i><b>From <a href="http://www.thetower.org/7369-in-major-breakthrough-britain-austria-announce-opposition-to-anti-israel-resolutions-at-unhrc/">The Tower, 21 March 2019</a>:</b></i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The British and Danish governments announced Thursday that they will oppose every United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) measure on alleged Israeli violation of Palestinian human rights in the West Bank and Gaza under discriminatory Agenda Item 7.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt </b>said in an op-ed <a data-auth="NotApplicable" href="https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/jeremy-hunt-un-human-rights-council-ignored-our-concerns-on-its-israel-approach-now-we-must-act-1.481829" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #3c2e6a; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">published</a> in the <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jewish Chronicle </span>that, </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">“Two years ago, the United Kingdom said that unless the situation changed, we would vote against all texts proposed under Item 7. ...Sadly, our concerns have not been heeded. So I have decided that we will do exactly what we said: Britain will now oppose every Item 7 resolution. On Friday we will vote against all four texts proposed in this way.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen</b> announced similar measures Thursday, saying </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Denmark will vote NO to all resolutions under #HRC Item 7. ...It is fundamentally wrong that Israel as the only country in the world has an entire agenda item dedicated to it in the UN Human Rights Council.” </i>He called Denmark’s opposition to the resolutions a matter <i>“of principle.”</i></span></blockquote>
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Agenda Item 7, a permanent fixture on the schedule, is exclusively devoted to discussing alleged human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel is the only country in the UNHRC with a dedicated council item.</div>
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The UNHRC is currently meeting in Geneva for its 40th session, in which member states will be voting on five anti-Israel resolutions, four of which fall under Agenda Item 7. The council is set to debate, among other issues, the results of an investigation which found that Israeli troops may have committed crimes in their response to weekly Hamas-orchestrated riots at the Israeli-Gaza border last year.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The United States Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell <a data-auth="NotApplicable" href="http://www.thetower.org/7356-u-s-ambassador-at-unhrc-applying-one-standard-to-israel-and-no-one-else-is-anti-semitic/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #3c2e6a; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">denounced</a> the council’s “singular, obsessive focus” on the Jewish State in a speech he gave Monday in Geneva. Legal experts also <a data-auth="NotApplicable" href="http://www.thetower.org/7367-legal-experts-un-report-faulting-israel-for-gaza-deaths-lacks-consistency-and-common-sense/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #3c2e6a; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">slammed</a> the UNHRC for its one-sided, biased investigation.</span></div>
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“Instead of promoting reconciliation and compromise, Item 7 strengthens the hard and trampled road of self-righteousness, a narrative that one side alone holds a monopoly of fault,” Hunt wrote in the <span style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jewish Chronicle</span>. “A lasting peace would require the parties to acknowledge the wrong and harm committed by every side, requiring painful compromise by all.”</div>
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The foreign secretary announced further that Britain “will continue to press for the abolition of Item 7, which only undermines the credibility of the world’s leading human rights forum.”</div>
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Opposition to anti-Israel measures in the UNHRC has been growing. On Thursday, Austrian Ambassador to Israel, Martin Weiss, tweeted that his country will vote against the “Accountability Resolution” at the UNHRC. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told a gathering of the AJC Jewish advocacy group in Brussels that “this resolution is politically biased against Israel,” Weiss <a data-auth="NotApplicable" href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-austria-to-oppose-un-human-rights-council-condemnations-of-israel/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #3c2e6a; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">said</a>.</div>
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<span style="font-size: 15px;">I</span><span style="font-size: large;">n February, Australia and Denmark <a data-auth="NotApplicable" href="http://www.thetower.org/7251-australia-denmark-call-on-unhrc-to-drop-anti-israel-agenda-item/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #3c2e6a; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">slammed</a> the UNHRC for singling out Israel when they spoke at the opening session of the council. The two nations urged the UNHRC to drop Agenda Item 7...</span></div>
Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-83186036925091584572019-03-22T17:28:00.001+08:002019-03-22T17:28:19.804+08:00Jihadis and neo-Nazis — they have always been brothers<b><i>From The Australian, MARCH 22, 2019, by Henry Ergas:</i></b><br />
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<a href="https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/f31e42ca223e0553ca6ba46a9c08a12d?width=650" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="649" height="223" src="https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/f31e42ca223e0553ca6ba46a9c08a12d?width=650" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>Illustration: Eric Lobbecke</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>.... The neo-Nazis are not the jihadis’ opposite. They are their twins.</b></span><br />
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Both inhabit parallel universes in which all the strings are pulled by powerful cabals; both exalt violence as a purifying force; both, in their millenarian fantasies, seek an end of days.<br />
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They are, in that sense, neither of the Left nor of the Right. After all, those terms, born almost accidentally in the French Revolution, were forged into their present significance by the democratic contest.<br />
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The Left, with its confidence in government and belief in human perfectibility, stood on one side of that contest; the Right, with its attachment to individual liberty and recognition of human frailty, occupied the other.<br />
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Between them occurred what could only be an endless conversation, the balance of power sometimes favouring one side, sometimes the other.<br />
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But that is not a conversation of which the jihadis and the neo-Nazis want any part. On the contrary, their objective is to eliminate it once and for all, replacing politics, the process by which we reconcile competing, ever-changing, visions of the good life, with a caliphate or Valhalla that is frozen in time.<br />
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Nor is that all they share. Both are consumed by a hatred of Jews, who are at the heart of the conspiracy theories that frame their view of the world.<br />
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There are, for sure, neo-Nazis who harbour a murderous rage against Muslim immigrants. But as political scientist George Hawley argues in his careful analysis of the alt-Right, “because it is so obsessed with race, the alt-Right does not really care about the tenets of Islam” — rather, it is anti-Semitic rants, and calls for the destruction of the “Zionist money power”, that dominate its websites.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Little wonder then that there is far-reaching co-operation between neo-Nazis and Islamic fundamentalists. Painstakingly documented by George Michael, an American political scientist who is an authority on extremism, the basis for that co-operation was bluntly stated by David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan: </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“The real danger to all heritages is Jewish supremacism, which seeks to destroy every heritage but the Jewish heritage.”</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">The result is that seemingly incongruous partnerships have developed. The most galling, given his comments about Australia, is the close alliance between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party and the political party founded by Hitler’s most ardent and violent Turkish supporters. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But equally, in France, some of the most vicious anti-Semitic propaganda is spread by a double act which unites Dieudonne M’bala M’bala — a French comic of Cameroonian origin who has repeatedly condoned Islamist terrorism — with neo-Fascist writer Alain Soral. And just as European Holocaust deniers helped finance al-Qa’ida, so the Holocaust deniers now benefit from Turkish, Arab and Iranian largesse.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Of course, the Islamists and the neo-Nazis operate on a vastly different scale. As Michael says, “there is no real right-wing terrorist infrastructure to speak of; leaderless resistance — actually a sign of desperation — predominates”. Lacking state sponsors who could “offer intelligence, funds, sanctuaries, training facilities and other kinds of support, the effectiveness (of white supremacist movements) has been very limited”, and has been further undermined by the reluctance to engage in suicide operations.</b></span><br />
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Chronically split into warring factions and sub-factions, they are nowhere near developing the deep links with local communities that sustain the Islamists and allow them to mount complex attacks such as those in Paris.<br />
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Yes, the internet has been a boon to the neo-Nazis and the alt-Right more broadly. According to Hawley, the culture of anonymity has been especially important, encouraging people to air views they would otherwise never express in public; but anonymity also impedes the formation of durable membership structures, preventing the movements from translating an online presence into an effective fighting force.<br />
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That is not to deny that their prominence has grown, thanks largely to an intensely polarised political environment in which issues of collective identity have played an increasing role. Nonetheless, as both Hawley and Michael conclude, the amorphous cloud of their followers remains a fringe of the fringe, which, while profoundly abhorrent, poses a security threat that scarcely compares to that posed by the jihadis.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">That certainly doesn’t mean the white supremacists should be ignored. There is, however, a risk that horrors such as the massacre in Christchurch will be used to deflect resources and public attention from the still pressing dangers of radical Islamism. As in Britain’s Labour Party, and increasingly among the Democrats in the US, a double standard seems to be evolving that treats radical Islamism and its anti-Semitism with kid gloves while damning those who confront it as bigots.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">That makes it all the more troubling that the government decided to bar the entry into the country of Milo Yiannopoulos — who, as Hawley shows, has been a target of the alt-Right’s incessant hostility, not least because he denounces violence — while permitting Sheik Omar Abdel Kafi, a Holocaust denier who repeatedly calls on Allah to “take revenge of the Jews”, to tour Australia and vent his anti-Semitic ravings.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">No doubt, the government has its reasons; but it is equally apparent that it has set a precedent that could haunt this country for years to come.</span><br />
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Instead of promoting harmony, it will encourage the cancer of hatred to take root and flourish.<br />
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Ultimately, US President Donald Trump is right in describing the white supremacists as “a small group of people;” he is wrong, however, to suggest they have “very, very serious problems”, as if their behaviour were due to mental illness.<br />
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Nothing comes more readily to the modern mind than to convert sin into sickness, absolving those who trample on the moral law of the burden of responsibility. But the perpetrators of the atrocities we have witnessed are not lunatics; whether cloaking their assault weapons in the mantle of prophet or of the master race, they know all too well what they are doing when they commit crimes we can neither adequately punish nor conceivably forgive.<br />
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They are, to use the old-fashioned term, evil. And be they Islamists or neo-Nazis, it is the duty of our democracies to call them out, and to do so as unwaveringly when it is contentious as when it is easy.Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-2454083867135703282019-03-18T17:50:00.000+08:002019-03-18T17:50:01.740+08:00Monday: Historic Rally for Equal Rights to Protest UNHRC's 'Hate Israel Day'<br />
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<em><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 16.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">International
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<span data-mce-style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #ff0000;"><strong><span style="background: white; color: red; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jewish state to be targeted all day, in 7
biased reports</span></strong></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<em><b><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Above:</span></b></em><strong><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The last UN Watch rally at Place des Nations in Geneva
10 years ago, in April 2009, protested Iranian President Ahmadinejad
opening the UN's 'Durban II' racism conference. UN Watch and its
partners once again anticipate 1,000 people from across Europe to attend.</span></strong><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">GENEVA, March 17, 2009 — </span></strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">UN
Watch is leading a coalition of 24 organizations that oppose
antisemitism and anti-Israeli prejudice—from Sweden, Ireland, France,
Belgium, Israel, Italy, Germany and Switzerland—that will hold a “Rally
for Equal Rights” tomorrow, Monday, March 18, facing the UN Human
Rights Council, on the same day it launches an unprecedented assault on
Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4381&qid=3614795">SEE
BELOW FOR LINKS TO QUOTES, PHOTOS & VIDEO. </a></span></strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Eminent diplomats, authors, parliamentarians, national
security experts and activists will address the event, <strong><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">to be broadcast live at <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4381&qid=3614795">www.unwatch.org/rally</a>
at 12:30 pm Geneva time (in US, 7:30 am Eastern). </span></strong><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chartered buses of rally participants are coming from
Zurich, Lausanne, Milan, Lyon and Grenoble, with additional activists
and student leaders flying in from London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels,
Stockholm, Budapest, Vienna, Tbilisi and Jerusalem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The 47-nation body is set to release <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4382&qid=3614795">seven
biased reports</a> accusing the Jewish state of "war crimes,"
and giving a free pass to Hamas. A few days later, the council will
condemn Israel in <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4383&qid=3614795">five unbalanced
resolutions</a> that likewise make no mention of Hamas, Islamic
Jihad or the Palestinian Authority.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One thousand activists from across Europe are
expected to join UN Watch’s international protest against anti-Israeli
hatred—the <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4384&qid=3614795">Rally
for Equal Rights at the United Nations</a>—with more than 10,000
signing the <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4385&qid=3614795">petition</a>
that will be presented before the UN that day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The new Commission of Inquiry will present its one-sided
report on Israel’s “assault” on “civilian protesters” at the Gaza
border, accusing Israeli soldiers of “crimes against humanity.” The
UNHRC will call on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights “to manage
the dossiers on alleged perpetrators"—IDF soldiers—"to be
provided to the International Criminal Court.” <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4386&qid=3614795">Click
here for UN Watch's legal critique of the shoddy report</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Additionally, the UNHRC will provide an update on
their blacklist of companies who do business with Israelis living in
Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter and the West Bank, which UN rights chief
Bachelet said will be released in "coming months."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, the UNHRC will release yet another <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4382&qid=3614795">five
reports</a> singling out Israel—the only democracy in the Middle
East—but none on gross abuses committed by China, Turkey, Cuba, and
other of the world’s worst regimes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">All of this comes as the UNHRC, since its founding in
2006, has adopted <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4387&qid=3614795">more
resolutions against Israel</a> than on Iran, Syria and North Korea
combined; has convened more <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4388&qid=3614795">urgent
sessions</a> and inquiries on Israel than on any other country; and
singles out Israel alone under a <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4389&qid=3614795">permanent
agenda item</a> et every session.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Before the rally on Monday, inside the UN Human Rights
Council debate against Israel, UN Watch's delegates will take the floor
to call out he unprecedented assault on the rights of Israelis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Also on Monday at the UN, next to the Council chamber, UN
Watch will host an expert panel event, featuring renowned law of
war expert Geoffrey Cornand three other analysts,
to analyze the Gaza inquiry report. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">"Through its relentless bias and demonization of the
Jewish nation, the UN is abandoning its own founding
principles of universality and equality," said Hillel Neuer,
executive director of UN Watch. "It's time for the UN to uphold
the UN Charter promise of equal rights for all nations, large and
small."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">SPEAKERS:</span></strong><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• Dr. Dore Gold</span></strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">,
President of Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, former Israeli
ambassador to UN & director of Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• <strong><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Ambassador
Richard Grenell, </span></strong>U.S. Ambassador to Germany,
former U.S. spokesman to UN<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• Philippe Val, </span></strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">French
author, journalist, former Editor-in-Chief of Charlie Hebdo<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• Dr. Einat Wilf, </span></strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Author,
intellectual, former Member of Knesset<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• Col. Richard Kemp,</span></strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> National
security expert, author, former commander of British Forces in
Afghanistan<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• Hillel Neuer, </span></strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Executive
Director of UN Watch<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• Czech MP Jan Bartošek</span></strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">,
Vice-ChaIr of Chamber of Deputies<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• Péter Niedermüller,</span></strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Member
of European Parliament Civil Liberties Committee<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• Dutch MP Kees van der Staaij, </span></strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Leader
of the Reformed Political Party (SGP), initiated <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4390&qid=3614795">2017
motion</a> calling on Dutch government to oppose anti-Israel bias at
the UN.<strong><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"> </span></strong><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4391&qid=3614795">More</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">QUOTES, PHOTOS, VIDEO (<u><span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline;">AVAILABLE TOMORROW</span></u>)</span></strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• <em><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">10:00
am - </span></em>UN Watch Side Event: Expert Response to Gaza
Inquiry<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4392&qid=3614795">Live
Webcast</a> | <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4393&qid=3614795">Quotes</a>
| <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4394&qid=3614795">Photos</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• <em><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">11:00
am</span></em> - UNHRC Plenary: UN Watch Interventions in Debate
on Israel/Palestine <br />
<a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4395&qid=3614795">Photos</a> |
<a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4396&qid=3614795">UN
Webcast Video Live</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">• <em><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">12:30
pm - </span></em>Rally for Equal Rights at the UN: Protest Against
Anti-Israeli Discrimination<br />
<a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4381&qid=3614795">Live
Webcast</a> | <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4397&qid=3614795">Photos</a>
| <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4398&qid=3614795">Videos</a>
| <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4399&qid=3614795">Quotes</a>
| <a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4400&qid=3614795">Twitter</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">EVENT CO-SPONSORS:</span></strong><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">UN Watch, International
Council of Jewish Women, StandWithUs, NGO Monitor, Association
Suisse-Israel, CRIF, B’nai B’rith Europe, European Coalition for
Israel, The Israeli Jewish Congress, World WIZO, The Israel
Project, World Zionist Organization, ELNET, European Alliance for
Israel, European Union of Jewish Students, Ireland Israel Alliance,
Belgian Friends of Israel, The International Legal Forum, Audiatur,
Honestly Concerned, My Truth, Sweden Israel Alliance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://civicrm.unwatch.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4380&qid=3614795" target="_new"><strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">MORE ON THE
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<br />Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-56072172517615375942019-02-21T14:06:00.001+08:002019-02-21T14:06:13.209+08:00Benjamin B. Ferencz Continues His Fight for Justice at 98<b><i>From <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-war-is-won-benjamin-b-ferencz-continues-his-fight-for-justice-at-98-11550678400">WSJ, 20 Feb 2019, by Samuel Rubenfeld</a>:</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<h1 class="wsj-article-headline" itemprop="headline" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: "Escrow Condensed"; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-size: large;">‘No War Is Won’</span></h1>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials is the subject of a new documentary</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<b><i>Follow <a href="https://vimeo.com/290550747">this link to see a 2-minute trailer</a></i></b><br />
<br />
<i><img alt="Benjamin B. Ferencz, shown here in 2014, is the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials." height="266" src="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/B3-DE924_NUREMB_P_20190219154811.jpg" width="400" /></i><br />
<i>Benjamin B. Ferencz, shown here in 2014, is the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials. PHOTO: ROBIN UTRECHT</i><br />
<br />
He dug up bodies of Jews buried in shallow graves, unearthing them however he could, the souls of those killed by Nazis during World War II. Sometimes by hand, sometimes with shovels, sometimes with the help of rope and the torque of a military vehicle.<br />
<br />
In the days after the war, he toured concentration camps for the U.S. military, witnessing bodies in crematoriums stacked like cordwood and surviving inmates gnawing on garbage.<br />
<br />
Benjamin B. Ferencz, a Jewish man from New York, had to suppress his horror to accomplish his mission: to collect evidence to convict Nazis of war crimes—an experience that left him with an unshakable purpose that would guide the rest of his life.<br />
<br />
“I couldn’t possibly do the job if I let it get to me at that time,” Mr. Ferencz says in an interview at his New Rochelle, N.Y. home. “It’s remained with me ever since.”<br />
<br />
<img alt="Mr. Ferencz during the Einsatzgruppen Trial in Nuremberg in 1947." height="266" src="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/B3-DE923_NUREMB_P_20190219154645.jpg" width="400" /><br />
<i>Mr. Ferencz during the Einsatzgruppen Trial in Nuremberg in 1947. PHOTO: BEN FERENCZ PRIVATE COLLECTION</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Mr. Ferencz, 98 years old, is the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials. His story is the subject of “Prosecuting Evil,” a documentary to be released later this month at Cinema Village in New York, with a wider release to follow. It has screened for Jewish audiences at New York’s Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center and in synagogues across the U.S., and for the general public at film festivals, including last year’s Toronto International Film Festival.<br />
<br />
The documentary follows Mr. Ferencz’s life, his pursuit of justice and his decades of work building the underlying legal principles for international criminal law. Barry Avrich, who directed and produced “Prosecuting Evil,” calls the film the most important and fulfilling work of his career. “Ben should be recognized globally as a historical icon,” he says.<br />
<br />
<br />
Much of the roughly 80-minute documentary is built from interviews with Mr. Ferencz about his life and the trial, accompanied by archival photos and video footage of Germany during and after the war. Others interviewed for the film, including Mr. Ferencz’s son Don, legal analysts and government officials, provide the context of Mr. Ferencz’s legacy in international criminal justice.<br />
<br />
Mr. Ferencz was instrumental in the development of the International Criminal Court at The Hague, where individuals face prosecution for genocide, war crimes or crimes of aggression.<br />
<br />
“This is one person, one great man in history who...continues to show that this world can be better,” says Fatou Bensouda, an international criminal law prosecutor at the court, in the film.<br />
<br />
Those days in the concentration camps fueled Mr. Ferencz’s ongoing fight for the use of jurisprudence in mitigating international conflicts, decrying war as genocidal.<br />
<br />
“War will take otherwise decent people and turn them into murderous killers,” Mr. Ferencz says. “No war is won; it’s not a ballgame.”<br />
<br />
Born in Transylvania in 1920, Mr. Ferencz came to the U.S. as an infant with his sister and parents, fleeing persecution to settle in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. He spoke Yiddish at home and wasn’t initially admitted to public school, because he couldn’t speak English. But, according to the documentary, teachers believed he was gifted and he was admitted to Townsend Harris High School, which had a program that included an opportunity to attend the City College of New York.<br />
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Mr. Ferencz attended Harvard Law School, where he conducted research for criminologist Sheldon Glueck, who at the time was writing a book about war crimes.<br />
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<img alt="An image from the documentary âProsecuting Evil,â showing Mr. Ferencz in Munich in August 1945." height="225" src="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/B3-DE925_NUREMB_360V_20190219154843.jpg" width="400" /><br />
<i>An image from the documentary ‘Prosecuting Evil,’ showing Mr. Ferencz in Munich in August 1945. PHOTO: BEN FERENCZ PRIVATE COLLECTION</i><br />
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Mr. Ferencz graduated law school in 1943, after the U.S. entered the war. He enlisted that year in the U.S. Army as a private, and eventually rose to the rank of sergeant, having fought as an antiaircraft artillery man in the European theater.<br />
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As Nazi atrocities were being uncovered, Mr. Ferencz received his final Army assignment: He became a war-crimes investigator, entering the concentration camps to gather evidence.<br />
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Mr. Ferencz says he prepared himself for the task as if he was personally directed by Gen. George S. Patton to enter the camps. “I couldn’t afford to be stopped by anything I saw,” he says.<br />
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Describing in the film what he saw in the camps, Mr. Ferencz stops, swallows hard and holds back tears. “It becomes vivid again,” he says. “I did my job, because that was my job.”<br />
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<i><img alt="A general view of the trial of Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg in 1946." height="266" src="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/B3-DE926_NUREMB_H_20190219154907.jpg" width="400" /></i><br />
<i>A general view of the trial of Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg in 1946. PHOTO: BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES</i><br />
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The Nuremberg Trials, as the documentary portrays in depth, were also a formative experience for him.<br />
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When he returned to New York after the war, he was recruited by Gen. Telford Taylor, then chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, to return to Germany and gather more evidence. Mr. Ferencz and his staff discovered dossiers of the Einsatzgruppen, Nazi death squads who murdered more than a million Jews, Roma, gay people and political opponents in Eastern Europe.<br />
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Mr. Taylor then assigned Mr. Ferencz to lead the prosecution of the Einsatzgruppen case, one of the dozen subsequent war-crimes trials held at Nuremberg and what Mr. Ferencz described as the biggest murder trial in human history. The defendants were Nazi officers and Gestapo members who had carried out the murders; Otto Ohlendorf, the chief defendant, was commander of one of the death squads.<br />
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At age 27, it was Mr. Ferencz’s first trial. Barely over 5 feet tall, he stood on a stack of books to deliver the opening statement—the moment is captured in video footage in the film—in which he said: “Vengeance is not our goal, nor do we seek merely a just retribution...the case we present is a plea of humanity to law.”<br />
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Mr. Ferencz presents evidence as chief prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Trial in 1947.<br />
Mr. Ferencz presents evidence as chief prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Trial in 1947. PHOTO: US HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM/BENJAMIN FERENCZ<br />
All of the men prosecuted by Mr. Ferencz were convicted, and many received death sentences.<br />
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Mr. Ohlendorf, who had a wife and five children, was executed by hanging. “Aside from the fact that he killed 90,000 Jews, I’m sure he was quite a gentleman,” Mr. Ferencz says in the film, reflecting on the man’s character.<br />
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After the trial, Mr. Ferencz took over the process of recovering the heirless, unclaimed assets of murdered Jews. In the years following the Nuremberg prosecutions, Mr. Ferencz returned to New York and practiced law, eventually becoming partners with Mr. Taylor and taking what he called “hopeless cases” that had a moral element he could pursue.<br />
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<img alt="Mr. Ferencz presents evidence as chief prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Trial in 1947." height="266" src="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/B3-DE929_NUREMB_H_20190219154908.jpg" width="400" /><br />
<i>Otto Ohlendorf, center, during the Einsatzgruppen Trial. PHOTO: BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES</i><br />
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Mr. Avrich says when he showed Mr. Ferencz a rough cut of the film, Mr. Ferencz broke down crying and told him, “it’s all I need.”<br />
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Mr. Ferencz hopes the attention, including through the film, will help continue the fight for rule of law. It took decades to create the International Criminal Court, but he never gave up, even when people he trusted told him to stop trying, he says.<br />
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He says he seeks a more peaceful world for younger people because their lives are at stake.<br />
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“If we are repudiating law as an instrument of policy, you’re dooming the young people of the forthcoming generation—if there is one,” he says.<br />
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<b><i>Follow <a href="https://vimeo.com/290550747">this link to see a 2-minute trailer</a> of the documentary</i></b>Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-17631897200113593002019-02-19T10:04:00.004+08:002019-02-19T10:04:51.020+08:00Arab ministers defend Israel’s right to attack Iran, downplay Palestinian issue<b style="color: #1b1b1b;"><i>From <a href="https://worldisraelnews.com/arab-ministers-defend-israels-right-to-attack-iran-downplay-palestinian-issue/">World Israel News, February 16, 2019, By Associated Press and World Israel News Staff</a>:</i></b><br />
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<strong style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-size: large;">At a major Mideast summit in Warsaw this week, Arab leaders said the Iranian threat is the region’s most pressing challenge, dismissing the Palestinian issue’s relevance in comparison.</span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;"><span style="color: #1b1b1b;"><i>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yemen's Foreign Minister Khalid al-Yamani. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)</i></span></span></span></div>
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Thursday [reported on] a closed meeting in which senior Gulf Arab officials supported Israel’s right to defend itself, played down the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and described Iran as the greatest threat to regional peace.<br />
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...[He referred to a] series of comments made by officials from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on a closed panel discussion at a U.S.-sponsored security conference in Warsaw. Some 60 nations participated in the gathering, which was focused heavily on countering Iran’s growing influence in the region.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Bahrain’s foreign minister, Khalid Al Khalifa</b>, made some of the toughest comments, saying that Iran is a far bigger threat to regional security than the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“We grew up talking about the Palestine-Israel dispute as the most important issue,” </i>he said.<i> “But then at a later stage, we saw a bigger challenge. We saw a more toxic one, in fact the most toxic in our modern history, which came from the Islamic Republic, from Iran.”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: large;">He went on to denounce the “neo-fascist regime” in Tehran, accusing it of plotting attacks in his country and destabilizing Yemen, Syria and Iraq.</span></div>
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‘Every nation has a right to defend itself’</span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Khalifa continued, </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“When we come to Israel-Palestine, we had the Camp David agreement. There was Madrid. There were many other ways of solving it, had we stayed on the same path. If it wasn’t for the toxic party [Iran] … [and the] guns, food, [and] soldiers of the Islamic Republic, I think we would have been much closer today in solving this issue with Israel,” </i>Khalifa said...</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Asked about Israel’s military activity in Syria, the <b>UAE’s Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan</b>, commented, </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Every nation has the <a href="https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-netanyahu-embraced-by-arab-official-on-mideast-conference-sidelines/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">right to defend itself</a> when it’s challenged by another nation.”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Saudi Arabia’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Adel al-Jubeir</b>, also accused Iran of hurting the Palestinian cause by supporting terror groups battling Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Who is supporting Hamas and [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad and undercutting the Palestinian Authority?...Iran.”</i></span></blockquote>
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Netanyahu did not participate on the panel, but is seen sitting in the audience. Speaking to reporters early Thursday, Netanyahu hinted at the “unfathomabl[y]” friendly atmosphere at the conference.</div>
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Iran: the greatest regional threat</span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Israel has identified Iran as its greatest threat...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Once the Palestinian issue took center stage. Now [the Arab states] say that first and foremost the Iranian issue needs to be dealt with,” </i><b>Netanyahu </b>commented ...<br /><i>“Four out of five Arab foreign ministers who addressed the conference [on Thursday] spoke </i><a href="https://worldisraelnews.com/yemen-fm-denies-friendliness-towards-netanyahu-in-warsaw-blames-organizers-for-seating-arrangement/" style="color: #416ed2; font-style: italic; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">strongly and clearly against Iran</a><i>, saying exactly what I’ve been saying for years. They were as clear as possible about the issue, and Israel’s right to defend itself against Iranian aggression,” he explained.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: 18px;">Netanyahu identified the Arab representatives’ mere decision to remain in the room when he spoke, breaking from standard protocol in the past of getting up and walking out when an Israeli leader speaks, represented “the breaking of a taboo.”</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">“Here you have Arab foreign ministers, who say that Israelis have the right to defend themselves, and don’t say it in secret but on a stage with 60 other countries present...”</span></i></blockquote>
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Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-56807797675273771032019-02-18T21:41:00.001+08:002019-02-18T21:41:23.320+08:00Benny Gantz’s Dangerous Ambiguity on West Bank Disengagement<h1 data-fontsize="36" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 36px; margin: 0px 0px 25px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i style="font-size: medium;">From <a href="https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/benny-gantz-disengagement/">BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,091, 18 Feb, 2019, by Gershon Hacohen</a>:</i></h1>
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<img alt="" class="attachment-single-thumb size-single-thumb wp-post-image" data-lazy-loaded="true" height="215" src="https://besacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Benny-Gantz-photo-via-Wikimedia-Commons-300x215.jpg" style="border: 0px none; color: #00365e; display: block; font-family: "Cabin Condensed", Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="300" /></h1>
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<i>Benny Gantz, photo via Wikimedia Commons</i></div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Unilateral disengagement from the West Bank, which Israeli PM candidate Benny Gantz seems to support, would have far-reaching adverse implications for Israel in the security, economic, social, infrastructural, and ecological spheres.</span></strong></div>
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For all his efforts to keep his views on key national issues under wraps, so as to make his premiership bid appealing to the largest possible number of Israelis, former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz has indicated his readiness to apply the highly controversial unilateral disengagement formula that Sharon applied to Gaza in 2005 to the West Bank as well. </div>
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<i>“We need to find a way in which we’re not controlling other people,” </i>Gantz told the daily <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yediot Ahronot </span>in his first interview as a PM candidate. <i>“[The unilateral disengagement] was a legal move, a decision made by the Israeli government and carried out by the IDF and the settlers in a painful, but good manner. We need to take the lessons learned and implement them elsewhere.”</i></blockquote>
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Leaving aside the ambiguity of these well-worn terms (e.g., most of the world views Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem as “settlements” while Israelis consider them an integral part of Israel), or the feasibility of evacuating some 140,000 Jewish residents from their homes with no Palestinian quid pro quo, <b>Gantz’s thinking seems to be predicated on dated suppositions that have long been overtaken by events</b>.</div>
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<b>The political and strategic precepts underlying the Oslo “peace” process, which Gantz echoes, vanished long ago. The PLO has unequivocally revealed its true colors: its total disinterest in peace, unyielding rejection of the idea of Jewish statehood, and incessant propensity for violence and terrorism. The US, which rose to world preeminence after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the east European bloc, has largely lost this status over the past decade, while Russia has recovered much lost ground and regained a firm military and political foothold in the Middle East. Tehran is rapidly emerging as regional hegemon, with its tentacles spreading from Yemen and Iraq to the Mediterranean Sea and its dogged quest for nuclear weapons continuing apace under the international radar. Even the terror groups of Hezbollah and Hamas pose a far greater threat to Israel’s national security than they did a decade ago. Under these circumstances, <u>Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank’s Area C would constitute nothing short of an existential threat.</u></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Nor does Israel need to find a way to stop “controlling other people,” as Gantz put it, for the simple reason that its control of the Palestinians ended some two decades ago. In May 1994 the IDF withdrew from all Palestinian population centers in the Gaza Strip. In January 1996 it vacated the West Bank’s populated areas (the Oslo Accords’ Areas A and B), comprising over 90% of the West Bank’s Palestinian residents, and handed control of that population to the Palestinian Authority (PA).</span></div>
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Effectively realizing PM Rabin’s vision of ending Israel’s control of the Palestinians without creating a fully-fledged Palestinian state, this move should have ended the debate about the supposed contradiction between Israel’s Jewish and democratic nature. These territories (Gaza and Areas A & B) are to all intents and purposes independent entities that will never become a part of Israel.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>This in turn means that the real dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as within Israel itself, no longer revolves around the end of “occupation” but around the future of East Jerusalem and Area C. And since Area C (which is home to only 100,000 Palestinians) includes all Jewish West Bank localities, IDF bases, transportation arteries, vital topographic sites, and habitable empty spaces between the Jordan Valley and the Jerusalem metropolis, its continued retention by Israel is a vital national interest. Why? Because its surrender to a potentially hostile Palestinian state would make the defense of the Israeli hinterland virtually impossible – and because these highly strategic and sparsely populated lands are of immense economic, infrastructural, communal, ecological, and cultural importance, not to mention their historical significance as the bedrock of the millenarian Jewish ancestral homeland.</b></span></div>
Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-35725781580957817092019-02-18T19:15:00.002+08:002019-02-18T19:15:46.371+08:00PA SCHOOLS TEACHING HATE<b><i>From <a href="https://m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Declassified-US-document-shows-PA-schools-teaching-hate-580100">JPost, 8 Feb 2019, by Ben Bresky</a>:</i></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Maps erase Israel, math problems involve Palestinian causality figures, and militaristic images are found in PA textbooks being used in UN schools, report states.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>A declassified document from the United States Government Accountability Office says that schools in Palestinian Authority areas run by UNWRA have an anti-Israel bias, bordering on incitement to violence.</b></span><br />
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The report was published in 2018 and made available this week to the public after two congress members called for its release.<br />
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Congressman Scott Perry (R-PA) and Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-NY) requested the full 65-page report of “West Bank and Gaza: State Monitors Textbook Content but Should Improve Its Reporting to Congress GAO-18-227C: Published: April 26, 2018." The congressmen commented on the report's contents in a press release Thursday.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">"It is unacceptable that the textbooks that are used delegitimize Israel and demonize the Jewish people, it is unacceptable that this program attempts to engrain this hatred in the hearts of children," Rep. Zeldin stated. "American’s hard earned money went towards its funding and it is unacceptable that the State Department lied to Congress about these very realities."</span></i></blockquote>
Schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) have come under heavy criticism for years culminating in the Trump administration withdrawing funding from the agency. In February, the US announced its decision to de-fund the Palestinian Authority via its USAID program.<br />
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The two congressmen called the report "damning." In one section, the report states that "more than half of the neutrality / bias issues it found were related too one of the following three categories -- maps, Jerusalem and cities -- for example, regional maps that exclude Israel and refer to Israeli cities as Palestinian."<br />
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Math problems found in textbooks were also found to be "problematic" and "not aligned with UN values." The report explained, "a specific math problem using the number of Palestinian casualties in the first and second intifadas (uprisings) was clearly objectionable."<br />
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US officials found "material that ignores Israeli narratives, includes militaristic and adversarial imagery, and preaches the values of resistance."<br />
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Congressman Scott Perry said, “The declassification of this report is a win for government transparency and the American public. The UNRWA textbook report sheds light on how misreporting from the Department of State directly interfered with the ability of the US Congress to conduct its constitutionally vested oversight."<br />
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The report was based on an earlier study recently issued by the Jerusalem-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education [IMPACT-SE] which found that the latest Palestinian Authority elementary school textbooks are even more radical than previous editions. The IMPACT-SE report was based on examination of elementary-school grades one through four and high-school grades 11 and 12 of the 2016-2017 PA’s educational curriculum.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">“The release of this report puts to rest the myth that UNRWA is teaching an alternative, less radical curriculum to the children in its care," [</span></i><span style="font-size: large;"><i>IMPACT-SE] </i></span><i><span style="font-size: large;">CEO Marcus Sheff said. "The report clearly states that while UNRWA may have created complementary materials in an attempt to cover up some of the hate in the PA curriculum, these materials never saw the light of day. They were not distributed, nor were teachers instructed in their use."</span></i></blockquote>
...Many of the textbooks reached the hands of US officials through David Bedein of the Jerusalem based Center for Near East Policy Research. Bedein personally met with Yasser Arafat, the late head of the Palestinian Authority in 1996 as part of a special delegation and requested the textbooks. "Since then we've [examined] every textbook for the past 20 years," Bedein told The Jerusalem Post. He said school children were being taught to look up to Dalal Mughrabi, a perpetrator of the 1978 Coastal Road massacre in Israel, among other concerns.<br />
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UNRWA has provided assistance to Palestinians in Israel and other countries since 1949. The Trump administration in August 2018 cut all funding to the agency questioning the organization's "fundamental business model" of servicing an "endlessly and exponentially expanding community" of declared Palestinian refugees.Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-28989673267449788092019-02-07T12:29:00.000+08:002019-02-07T12:29:07.309+08:00The UAE Will Triumph Over Iran in the Next Middle Eastern War<h1 class="title" style="line-height: 1.2141em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-size: small;"><i>From <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/uae-will-triumph-over-iran-next-middle-eastern-war-41937?fbclid=IwAR1LUDkMTKcTnW5DpTOsodb1FMRV4mHjflkxZPg2IL1hm3KMmigmbHiWyjw">The National Interest, 19 Jan 2019</a>, </i></span><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-size: small;"><i>by Michael Rubin</i></span><i style="color: #1b1b1b; font-size: medium;">:</i></h1>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #050607; font-family: merriweather, serif; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>As Iranian bluster again increases, it could very well be Abu Dhabi that teaches Tehran a permanent lesson.</b></span></span></div>
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The eleventh annual Council on Foreign Relations’ “Preventive Priorities Survey” once again <a href="https://www.cfr.org/news-releases/us-confrontations-iran-and-china-among-top-potential-conflicts-2019-according-cfr" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">stated the obvious </a>: </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Conflict between the United States and Iran as well as between the United States and China constitute two of the greatest threats to peace in 2019.” </i></span></blockquote>
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Certainly, Washington and Tehran appear on a collision course. The risk is not that the United States will pre-emptively launch an attack on Iran—as much as the Trump administration seeks to isolate and pressure Iran, that simply is not on the table—but rather than the United States and Iran might stumble into conflict.</div>
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It has now been more than thirty years since <a href="https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1989-05/operation-praying-mantis-surface-view" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Operation Praying Mantis </a>, the last major direct confrontation between the U.S. and Iranian militaries. While that event—the largest surface naval engagement since World War II—left Iran severely chastened, there has now been a generation change in the Iranian military: the most junior conscripts from 1988 are now retired, and new commanders have risen through the ranks indoctrinated into the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) without any reality check to their rhetoric.<br />
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Traditionally, despite its problems with the IRGC Navy, the U.S. Navy has maintained professional, cordial relations with the regular Iranian Navy. That may now be a thing of the past; when Hossein Khanzadi replaced Habibollah Sayyari in November 2017 as head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, Khanzadi <a href="https://ifpnews.com/exclusive/iran-leader-urges-navy/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">promised </a>to “wave the flag of our country right on the United States’ doorstep.” Alireza Tangsiri, who replaced the Ali Fadavi as head of the IRGC Navy in August 2018, remains a largely unknown quantity. Simply put, the danger that Iranian <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran-fired-missiles-near-the-USS-John-C-Stennis-no-casualties-reported-575055" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">bluster or unpredictability </a>might spark a cascade of conflict is increasing.<br />
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Then, of course, there is Hezbollah. It is hard to dismiss the threat to Israel posed by Hezbollah’s re-armament in contravention of <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2006/sc8808.doc.htm" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">UN Security Council Resolutions </a>nor the recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/world/middleeast/israel-calls-for-international-action-against-hezbollah-tunnels.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">discovery of tunnels </a>dug under the nose of UN monitors. While Israel bloodied Hezbollah in 2006, Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian Civil War has left it battle-hardened and more capable than most Arab armies. Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, meanwhile, should also put to rest the notion that it is a Lebanese nationalist organization rather than a proxy answering to Iran.<br />
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As the Islamic Republic’s proxy, Hezbollah remains the tip of the spear again Israel. The situation is a powder keg: if Hezbollah can conduct operations without suffering retaliation, then Hezbollah can depict Israel as weak. If Hezbollah can draw Israel into a conflict in Lebanon, Iranian leaders see advantage. And, for Tehran, a Hezbollah barrage of rockets (or UAVs) into Israel represents a win-win situation: either they hit targets in Israel or Israel’s anti-missile defenses intercept them. Forcing Israel to activate Iron Dome, however, is no defeat, especially given the discrepancy in cost between Hezbollah rockets and Iron Dome interceptors.<br />
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Still, the Islamic Republic should not misjudge Israel. The threat of Hezbollah missiles is the main deterrent to any Israeli strike on Iran. Should Hezbollah launch them first, then such disincentive to decision-makers in Jerusalem to launch an attack diminishes. Even if Israel does not launch airstrikes against Iran, it has submarines in the northern Indian Ocean capable of launching missile strikes to paralyze Iranian command-and-control, its nuclear sites, and its military bases.<br />
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Debate over the effectiveness of any Israeli strike on Iran is where discussion of such scenarios usually end. The Middle East, however, is more than just Iran and Israel. The greatest change in Middle Eastern balance-of-power over the last decade hasn’t been with you regard to Israel or Iran, but rather the rise of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).<br />
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While many journalists and Western analysts condemn Saudi Arabia for its botched intervention in Yemen, they ignore that the UAE has largely been successful: it has pushed back Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and, after much delay, UAE forces are <a href="http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2019/Jan-10/473681-un-struggles-to-implement-agreement-over-hodeida.ashx" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">on the verge </a>of forcing Houthi militias out of Hodeida, the last major port the pro-Iranian group controlled. Simply put, the UAE is no longer just a lazy Gulf state showing off high-price purchases but unwilling to get its hand dirty.<br />
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But what could draw the UAE into a more direct conflict with Iran? Antagonism between the UAE and Iran dates back to before the Islamic Revolution. As the British withdrew from the Persian Gulf in 1971, Iranian troops invaded three islands even though international agreements awarded them to the UAE. Abu Musa is approximately fifty miles from the coast of Iran and forty miles from the coast of the UAE. It lies only ten miles from the Strait of Hormuz, however, and tanker traffic must pass between it and the Tunb Islands, amplifying Iranian strategic leverage. U.S. support for the Emirati claims to the islands is a bit hypocritical because the Nixon administration was willing to turn a blind eye to Iranian control given the close ties at the time between the shah and the White House. With revolutionaries in control in Tehran, however, the strategic calculus changed.</div>
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Post-revolution, Iranian authorities redoubled their presence on the islands, and Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of the IRGC, sometimes <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-island-uae/irans-guards-commander-visits-disputed-island-tv-idUSBRE85009720120601" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">visits </a>their garrisons. While the UAE has <a href="https://gulfbusiness.com/gulf-states-urge-iran-to-negotiate-in-uae-island-dispute/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">sought to negotiate </a>from time to time and <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20171202-uae-calls-for-talks-with-iran-over-disputed-islands/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">may soon again </a>, such talks have gone nowhere.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Should Iranian behavior escalate into conflict with Israel or the United States, however, then the cost to Tehran may be the three islands. The UAE will not risk a direct fight with Iran now, but if Iran is engaged with more powerful foes, then the islands would be easy pickings. Surely, the IRGC garrisons on each would fight but, when they are cut off from resupply of ammunition, weapons, or food, even the most ideological Revolutionary Guardsmen may reconsider their willingness to fight.</b></span><br />
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The UAE would have little to fear from Iranian retaliation after the broader conflict ended. Defending the islands is easier than seizing them. While the IRGC is very good at asymmetric operations and sponsoring terror, marine landings are an entirely different skill set. The UAE of 2019 is far different than that of 1971. The fact that Abu Dhabi and Dubai hold hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in Iranian investment is further disincentive to Tehran of launching direct operation or an anti-Emirati terror campaign. Iranian authorities are happy to fight to the last Palestinian or Lebanese, but when their own financial portfolios are at stake, their calculations change.<br />
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As Ayatollah Khomeini and an earlier generation of IRGC leaders learned ahead of Operation Praying Mantis, there can be a huge cost for confusing their own rhetoric with military reality. Any Israeli or U.S. military strike against Iranian nuclear or military sites would damage Iran’s air and naval operations for weeks or months but, from a broader strategic view, air strikes would simply kick disputes about Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program down the road, for the technological knowledge Iran has gained over the decades cannot be lost. Any military strike targeting Iran, meanwhile, would rally Iranians around the flag and, as with Saddam Hussein’s 1980 invasion, actually save a failing revolution. </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>But, as Iranian bluster again increases, it could very well be Abu Dhabi rather than Washington and Jerusalem which teaches Iran a permanent lesson, for should Iran lose Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunb islands against the backdrop of other conflict, Tehran will not soon regain them.</b></span></div>
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Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-6319932231331223982019-02-07T12:21:00.003+08:002019-02-07T12:21:34.436+08:00EAPPI: The World Council of Churches’ Training Camp for Anti-Israel Advocacy<b><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #47484f; font-family: futura;">From </span><a href="https://www.ngo-monitor.org/reports/eappi-the-world-council-of-churches-training-camp-for-anti-israel-advocacy/" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">NGO Monitor, 14 January 2019</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #47484f; font-family: inherit;">:</span></i></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #6d6d7d; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><a href="https://www.ngo-monitor.org/nm/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/EAPPI-Report_-Final-English.pdf" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #6d6d7d; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Click Here for Full Report</a> </i></b><b style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #6d6d7d; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>(pdf)</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Executive Summary</span></h2>
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<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 7px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>EAPPI, the World Council of Churches’ flagship project on Israel and the Arab-Israel conflict, has brought 1,800 volunteers to the West Bank to “witness life under occupation.” The World Council of Churches does not run similar activities in other conflict zones. By singling out Israel, EAPPI embodies antisemitism, as defined in the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s working definition.</b></li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 7px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Despite marketing itself as a human rights and protection program, EAPPI places significant emphasis on political advocacy before, during, and after the trip. When volunteers return to their home countries and churches, they engage in anti-Israel advocacy, such as BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns and comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany.</b></li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 7px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Participants are selected by country-specific non-governmental organizations (NGOs) known as “National Coordinators.” The National Coordinators are also active in BDS and other delegitimization campaigns against Israel.</b></li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 7px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>EAPPI receives funding from a variety of sources, including the WCC and National Coordinators. Funding from different governments is directed to EAPPI through the National Coordinators and via UNICEF.</b></li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 7px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>EAPPI contributes to a UN “Working Group” consisting of a number of UN agencies and NGOs that collaborate on and coordinate politicized anti-Israel campaigns in the West Bank. In this capacity, EAPPI does “a lot of administrative work which is fed into UN systems.”</b></li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 7px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>EAPPI partners with a number of political NGOs in the region, including groups that support BDS campaigns against Israel and/or that accuse Israel of “war crimes.”</b></li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 7px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>The significant problems with EAPPI, as laid out in this report, should be seen in light of the antisemitism<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="easy-footnote-margin-adjust" id="easy-footnote-1" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><span class="easy-footnote" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a data-hasqtip="0" href="https://www.ngo-monitor.org/reports/eappi-the-world-council-of-churches-training-camp-for-anti-israel-advocacy/#easy-footnote-bottom-1" oldtitle="See definitions of antisemitism from <a href="https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/sites/default/files/press_release_document_antisemitism.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance</a> (IHRA) and in a <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&reference=P8-TA-2017-0243" target="_blank" rel="noopener">June 1, 2017 European Parliament</a> resolution." style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title=""><sup style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">1</sup></a></span> and demonization that emerges from EAPPI’s parent body (World Council of Churches), partners, and affiliated staff.</b></li>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Recommendations</span></h2>
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<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">To the donor governments </strong>– Act immediately to broadly reevaluate funding to EAPPI, in order to ensure that these funds are not misused to promote antisemitism, BDS, and lawfare, and/or to fuel the conflict. Donor governments must develop and implement transparent funding guidelines that are accountable to the public.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">To the Israeli government </strong>– The Israeli government should develop a consistent, fact-based policy to deal with “delegimization” campaigns, which it defines as a strategic threat. It should engage in critical dialogue with the government donors, as well as with the churches involved with EAPPI.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">To the WCC</strong>– If it desires to improve its image in Israel and with the global Jewish community, the WCC should not promote an ideology that denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State and/or that discriminates against Christian supporters of Israel....</div>
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<i><b>Follow <a href="https://www.ngo-monitor.org/reports/eappi-the-world-council-of-churches-training-camp-for-anti-israel-advocacy/">this link to read the the detailed summary in full</a></b></i></div>
</section>Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-80602213070120118092019-02-06T18:03:00.000+08:002019-02-06T18:03:07.717+08:00Trump and the Jewish People<b><i>From President Trump's State-of-the-Union address, 6 Feb 2019:</i></b><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">...<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Lyon;">To ensure this corrupt dictatorship never acquires nuclear weapons, I withdrew the United States from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal. And last fall, we put in place the toughest sanctions ever imposed on a country.</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">We will not avert our eyes from a regime that chants death to America and threatens genocide against the Jewish people. We must never ignore the vile poison of anti-Semitism, or those who spread its venomous creed. With one voice, we must confront this hatred anywhere and everywhere it occurs.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">Just months ago, 11 Jewish-Americans were viciously murdered in an anti-semitic attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. SWAT Officer Timothy Matson raced into the gunfire and was shot seven times chasing down the killer. Timothy has just had his 12th surgery -- but he made the trip to be here with us tonight. Officer Matson: we are forever grateful for your courage in the face of evil.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">Tonight, we are also joined by Pittsburgh survivor Judah Samet. He arrived at the synagogue as the massacre began. But not only did Judah narrowly escape death last fall -- more than seven decades ago, he narrowly survived the Nazi concentration camps. Today is Judah's 81st birthday. Judah says he can still remember the exact moment, nearly 75 years ago, after 10 months in a concentration camp, when he and his family were put on a train, and told they were going to another camp. Suddenly the train screeched to a halt. A soldier appeared. Judah's family braced for the worst. Then, his father cried out with joy: "It's the Americans."</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">A second Holocaust survivor who is here tonight, Joshua Kaufman, was a prisoner at Dachau Concentration Camp. He remembers watching through a hole in the wall of a cattle car as American soldiers rolled in with tanks. "To me," Joshua recalls, "the American soldiers were proof that God exists, and they came down from the sky."...</span></i></div>
Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-62330902653756173562019-02-05T13:04:00.000+08:002019-02-05T13:04:13.554+08:00New Norwegian government calls for closer ties with Israel, condemns BDS<h1 class="title" style="color: #1b1b1b; line-height: 1.2141em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 100%;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: small;">From <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/New-Norwegian-government-calls-for-closer-ties-with-Israel-condemns-BDS-578141">JPost, 21 Jan 2019, by HERB KEINON</a>:</span></i></b></h1>
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<i><img alt="Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg" height="279" src="https://images.jpost.com/image/upload/f_auto,fl_lossy/t_Article2016_ControlFaceDetect/434592" width="400" /></i></div>
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<i>Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg. (photo credit: REUTERS/ADNAN ABIDI)</i></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">"The Norwegian government does not see boycott of Israel as a contribution to dialogue, understanding and a peaceful development in the Middle East."</span></i></b></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;">Israel’s relations with Norway, which improved significantly in 2013 with the election of a center-right government, are likely to improve even more following a reshuffling on Thursday, said Conrad Myrland, head of a pro-Israel group in the country.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: large;">The coalition government of Erna Solberg was expanded on Thursday with the addition of the small Christian-Democratic Party. Solberg was quoted as calling the formation of the government a “historic day,” since it marks the first time since 1985 that Norway would be ruled by a non-socialist majority government.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="max-width: 100%;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: large;">Reelected in 2017, Solberg has governed with minority governments since 2013, meaning she has needed the opposition parties to pass legislation. This will no longer be the case.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="max-width: 100%;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: large;">Though foreign policy was not the reason for bringing in the new party, Myrland – whose organization With Israel for Peace (Med Israel for Fred), the largest non-religious, pro-Israel organization in Norway – said the Christian Democrats now headed by a pro-Israel leader named Kjell Ingolf Ropstad have inserted some pro-Israel paragraphs in the new government guidelines.</span><br />
<br style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;">The government guidelines call for Norway to have “a balanced attitude to the Middle East-conflict, actively support the goal of Israel and Palestine as two states within secure and international recognized borders, and support democratic development in the Middle East.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;">Myrland said the paragraph is not new, and that something similar appeared in the previous government guidelines. What is new, he said, is a clause calling for the government to “lay the ground for strengthened research and development cooperation, trade, tourism and cultural exchange with Israel. The government does not see </span><a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/BDS-protesters-crash-Netta-Barzilai-concert-in-Paris-577971" style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">boycott of Israel</a><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;"> as a contribution to dialogue, understanding and a peaceful development in the Middle East.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;">Furthermore, the guidelines call for the government to “mark a clear critical stand against all form of antisemitism and actively work against economic contributions to terrorism, including reward of prisoners.”</span><br />
<br style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;">In the chapter about international aid, the platform said the “government will not support organizations that encourage violence or promote hateful expressions, racism or antisemitism, specifically in the Palestinian areas.”</span><br />
<br style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;">Myrland called these additions to the government guidelines a “further step in the right direction” toward Israel that began with Solberg’s election in 2013.</span><br />
<br style="font-size: 18px; max-width: 100%;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;">Norway has for years been a major donor to the Palestinians, and chairs the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee that is the main coordination mechanism for development assistance to them.</span>Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-28154704545138391282019-02-05T12:46:00.000+08:002019-02-05T12:46:00.365+08:00Will Trump's Mideast Deal Naturalize Palestinians in Arab Countries?<i><b>From <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/martinsherman/trump-palestinians-israel/2019/02/04/id/901200/">NewsMax, 4 Feb 2019, by Martin Sherman</a>:</b></i><br />
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<img alt="Will Trump's Mideast Deal Naturalize Palestinians in Arab Countries?" height="333" src="https://www.newsmax.com/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=15e14fad-711a-40ac-98d5-0bf91137d934&SiteName=Newsmax&maxsidesize=600" width="400" /><br />
<i>A picture taken on February 3, 2019, in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv shows a giant election billboard of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump shaking hands. The writing on the billboard reads in Hebrew 'Netanyahu, in another league'. </i><br />
<i>(Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)</i><br />
<br />
In recent weeks, rumors have been swirling as to the substance of the much anticipated “deal of the century,” billed by the Trump administration as a compelling blueprint for resolving the seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has plagued the region for decades.<br />
<br />
Shrouded in secrecy, it has long been held under wraps by the White House, allegedly waiting for an opportune moment to unveil it. In this regard, recent reports suggest that Trump may well be planning to present it publically, soon after the upcoming elections in Israel in April.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">While most of the attention, and speculation, has been focused on the concessions — principally the territorial ones — that the sides will purportedly be called upon to make, there is another element, just as significant, indeed, arguably more so, that is now being alluded to as comprising a central component of the “deal.”</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">This is the naturalization of the Palestinian diaspora, numbering several million, resident for decades in various countries across the Arab world — particularly Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.</span></b><br />
<br />
This development is an upshot of the Trump administration’s laudable approach to the anomalous UN entity, UNRWA (The United Nation Relief and Works). I have detailed elsewhere why UNRWA is such an egregious and injurious anomaly and what pernicious consequences result from this perverse situation. According, it will suffice here to point out that because of the unique (read “anomalous”) definition that UNRWA has for determining who is a refugee and mandate of how they are to be dealt with, the number of designated “refugees” has increased dramatically over time. This is in stark contradiction to all other groups of refugees in the world, who are under the auspices of another UN entity, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) — and whose numbers typically decrease over time<br />
<br />
In this matter, the U.S. administration has — despite hitherto unexplained and inexplicable Israeli reluctance — exposed the fraudulent fiasco of UNRWA. As its erstwhile biggest benefactor, the U.S. has retracted all funding from the organization. But more importantly, it has focused a glaring spotlight on the myth of the “Palestinian refugees” and the spectacularly inflated number of such alleged “refugees” — which even include those who have long acquired citizenship of some other country!<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This salutary U.S. initiative has the potential to rescind the recognition of the bulk of the Palestinian diaspora as “refugees.” Thus, even if they continue to receive international aid to help ameliorate their humanitarian situation, this will not be as potential returnees to their alleged homeland in Israel.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Clearly, once the Palestinian diaspora is stripped of its fraudulent “refugee” status, the door is then open to settling them in third party countries, other than their claimed homeland, and to their naturalization as citizens of these counties — as is the case with other refugee groups in the world.</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In this regard, the Trump administration has reportedly ... informed several Arab countries that he plans to disclose a citizenship plan for Palestinian refugees living in those countries.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Significantly, Palestinian sources told a London based news outlet: </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Trump informed several Arab countries that the plan will include Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.” According to these sources: “the big surprise [is] that these countries have already agreed to naturalize Palestinian refugees.” </i></span></blockquote>
Moreover, it was reported that senior U.S. officials are expected to seriously raise an American initiative with several Arab countries — including stipulation of the tools to implement it, the number of refugees, the required expenses, and the logistics demanded from hosting countries for supervising the process of “naturalization of refugees.”<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>It is difficult to overstate the significance of such an initiative!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>For, no matter what the other elements of the “ultimate deal” are, it has the potential to remove the ominous overhang of a five million strong (and counting) Palestinian diaspora that threatens to inundate the Jewish state and nullify its ability to function as the nation-state of the Jewish people. It is therefore, an element that deserves firm support and encouragement — and should be resolutely pursued as a “stand alone” initiative — irrespective of how one envisages any prospective division of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.</b></span>Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-38176332925169006242019-01-22T11:09:00.001+08:002019-01-22T11:09:36.935+08:00WHY THE WEST SHOULD BE HOLDING ITS BREATH OVER THE DESPERATE BATTLE FOR BREXIT<i><b><span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstylebody"; font-size: 17px;">From <a href="http://www.melaniephillips.com/west-holding-breath-desperate-battle-britain/">Melanie Phillips, </a></span><span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: 17px;"><a href="http://www.melaniephillips.com/west-holding-breath-desperate-battle-britain/">JANUARY 18, 2019</a>:</span></b></i><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">...</span><span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">This week, the deal struck between Prime Minister Theresa May and the EU over the Brexit terms was thrown out by an enormous majority in the House of Commons.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">Although this was the largest prime ministerial defeat in British history, Mrs. May survived a motion of no-confidence the following evening.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">This was largely because of two factors: the infighting among Tories about who should replace her, and the fear of precipitating a general election which might bring the far-left Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to power.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">At the core of May’s spectacularly inept EU negotiating strategy lay a fundamental conceptual error. Britain is bitterly split down the middle between Brexiteers and Remainers, who want to stay in the EU. May wanted to deliver a Brexit deal which would bring both sides together by giving each a little of what it wanted.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">But on the issue of sovereign British independence, there can be no compromise. The UK is either out of the EU or it is in. May’s deal would have left the UK under the thumb of the EU over which, as a non-EU member, it would no longer have any influence at all. It was Brexit in name only – or Remain by stealth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><b>The lesson here for the wider world is that negotiating with the non-negotiable always leads to surrender. Under pressure from the West, Israel has tried to bridge an unbridgeable gulf with rejectionist Arabs. As a result, it has been unable to extricate itself from a perpetual state of war and terrorist attack.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">May has survived; but Brexit itself now faces its moment of greatest peril. For a majority of MPs are Remainers, and many if not most are determined to stop Brexit in its tracks.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">Westminster is currently heaving with plots aimed at reversing the 2016 referendum result – while purporting to honor it. So MPs are coming up with demands to delay the legal date for the UK’s departure, demands for a second referendum, demands for “compromise” departure terms that are, in effect, forms of Remain.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">This is all to break what is widely reported as the parliamentary “deadlock” over the issue. But there’s no deadlock. The legally binding default position is that if no deal with the EU is struck, Britain will leave on March 29 without a deal.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">This is enshrined in an act of parliament passed last year. So the way forward is in fact very clear. The problem is that MPs who passed this act of parliament now want to dump it. They claim that leaving with no deal is out of the question because it would plunge Britain into chaos and ruin.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">Britain has been subjected to a blizzard of scare stories about starving to death, running out of medicines or being unable to fly to Europe if it leaves with no deal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">These are ludicrous exaggerations. Much more to the point, the EU itself has far too much to lose from having no deal. But it will only do a deal on Britain’s terms if its own back is to the wall. In other words, leaving with no deal is essential to get the deal that Britain wants.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">Yet instead of helping bring that about, Remainer MPs are spitting in the eye of democracy by seeking to reverse the referendum result, thus setting parliament against the people. Why?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">At the core of much Remain thinking lies a profound indifference toward or even contempt for the very idea of a sovereign nation. For people who take pride in their cosmopolitanism and who regard national ties as a form of bigoted atavism, democracy can be endlessly reinvented in their own image.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">Such Remainers thus grossly underrated the depth of feeling behind the vote for Brexit because they grossly underrate Britain itself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">Britain is a very special country; which is why it’s the one country to leave the EU. The countries of mainland Europe, with their long histories of mutual invasion, permeable borders, shifting national boundaries and attachments to democracy that are fitful and tenuous, have a shallow understanding of national identity.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">By contrast, Britain is an island nation with an unequivocally distinct and separate identity. It hasn’t been invaded for 1,000 years and has consistently repelled attackers from across the seas.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">This history has created its national character: independent of mind, stoic under pressure, opposed to extremism but ferocious in defense of its liberties and very, very averse to being bullied or told what to do.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">This is why Britain was the cradle of political liberty. And this is why it voted to leave the EU – because despite the cultural demoralization of its post-war elites which took it into the European project in 1973, it still knows itself to be special.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">There are three nations which have this view of themselves as being uniquely blessed: Britain, America and Israel. All have played an outsized role in bringing the benefits of civilization to the world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">Yes, all have had their faults. The British Empire had episodes of great cruelty; America had vicious racial prejudice; Israel’s political system is corrupt and dysfunctional.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">All three countries, however, are beset from within by an intelligentsia determined to distort their nation’s history, exaggerate its failings and prove it was born in original sin.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><b>A nation cannot be defended unless its people love and admire it, and unless it is led by men and women who acknowledge it for what it is rather than what they want it to be.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">People look for leaders who will defend their way of life, promote the historic culture that binds their society together into a nation they can call their own, and take all necessary measures to keep it safe and inviolate.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">The failure by the political establishment to deliver that led directly to the Brexit vote, the election of US President Donald Trump and, in Israel, to the destruction of the Left as a political force.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">The idea of the modern nation state grew out of the Enlightenment which first came up with the notion of limited government, the consent of the governed and sovereignty within national borders.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">Britain was first into the Enlightenment – but having led the West for the past half-century in secular ideologies which repudiate truth and reason, it’s also been the first out. Through restoring national independence, Brexit offers Britain its last chance to become itself again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">This titanic fight has now entered its final agony. If this battle for Britain is lost, the repercussions for all who believe in political freedom, democracy and moral integrity will spread far beyond its shores.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><i><b>...and from <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/battle-for-britain-people-v-commons/news-story/7a23120162a728849ada1407608c5043">The Australian, 19 Jan 2019, by Greg Sheridan</a>:</b></i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><b>Battle for Britain: people v Commons</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">Theresa May’s omnishambles of a Brexit wreck, with her government in mortal crisis, has only one saving grace — the alternative is the unspeakable Jeremy Corbyn.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">The British government is confused, disoriented and dogged. It resembles a dying man desperately driving to hospital but finding he’s going the wrong way down a one-way street.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Here’s the Kafkaesque twist — if it turns around and drives the other way, it finds itself in a new one-way street, still going the wrong way, against all the traffic. Its circumstances resemble a nightmare in which the dreamer knows the environment is irrational but cannot find the way back to consciousness.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">This week May’s government suffered the biggest parliamentary defeat in the history of British democracy, and it did so on its core policy. May’s Brexit agreement ...was defeated by 432 votes to 202, ...after 118 Conservative Party MPs voted against their government.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">Next day May easily defeated a vote of no confidence. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><b>The House of Commons is thus clear in its resolution — it wants Theresa May in government but is determined that she will not govern.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">However, let’s not get too superior in our attitude to the British mess. <b>It is an acute version of the crisis that is crippling Western democracy in many nations, and is as likely to spread.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><b>Western democracy has a virus in its central operating system. It can no longer perform its core tasks. Democracy has lost the ability to make decisions.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">At its heart, democracy is about choosing between contradictory policies. Sometimes this involves compromise and splitting the difference, sometimes it involves a clear choice. But choices must be made. If a society can’t do it democratically and in an orderly manner, it does so through the naked use of power — the power of mobs in the streets, the power of autocrats who break the rules.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Look around. France elected a charismatic President on a modest economic reform program. He tried to implement the reform and hundreds of thousands of rioters took to the streets to burn his presidency down.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Donald Trump won a tight election with no promise clearer than his commitment to build a wall along the border with Mexico. His opponents in congress will do anything to stop him.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><b>Democratic accountability is no longer about keeping the bastards honest, it’s about keeping the bastards paralysed.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">The EU has made its own epic contribution to democratic deficit by systematically eroding national sovereignty and preventing elected governments from exercising the mandates they win at national elections.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;">In the new political environment of 24/7 social media activism, of dark conspiracy theories and apocalyptic visions, of perceived social inequality and a collapse of trust in institutions, of a premium on anger and outrage for their own sake, no one any longer accepts that any decision has gone against them. The incentive to keep trying to thwart any vote you lose — the towering power of “nope” — is the addictive but arrhythmic adrenalin surge.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Because of the singular incompetence with which May has tried to manage these dynamics, like a cricketer who mistakenly went to the crease with a table tennis paddle instead of a bat, there is now a good chance that Britain will not leave the EU at all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Yet the British people have voted to leave again and again. In 2015 David Cameron won a surprise majority at the general election by promising an in/out referendum on EU membership. The subsequent bill to establish this referendum was supported by the overwhelming majority of the House of Commons. In the 2016 referendum there was a vast fear campaign against leaving. The media was furiously pro-Remain. All the main parties — Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists, Welsh nationalists, Greens — supported Remain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Robert Manne once quipped that you’d have a better chance of getting a referendum passed in Australia if it faced bipartisan opposition rather than having bipartisan support. That’s what happened in 2016. All the big British parties, the media, business, trade unions, every quango and NGO you could poke a stick at, all supported Remain, but in the biggest vote in the history of the British Isles, a clear majority voted to leave.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Then at the 2017 election both the Conservatives and Labour promised to honour the referendum and actually leave the EU. Between them they won 80 per cent of the vote. The pro-EU Liberal Democrats got smashed and the even more pro-EU Scottish Nationalists lost a dozen seats.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Here, though, is the paradox — there was a Leave majority in the nation but a Remain majority in parliament. So parliament has not seriously worked to bring about Brexit and the EU has actively worked to frustrate it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, has suggested the most obvious way forward. Britain should leave with the misnamed “no deal”, which means trading with the EU on World Trade Organisation terms. But there should be a transition period of a year or more while both sides simultaneously work to achieve a Canada-style free trade agreement and also prepare all the regulations and practical arrangements necessary if an FTA could not be negotiated in time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">This is not fiendishly complicated and could certainly be achieved if there were a coherent government in London, committed to Brexit, and a reasonable partner exercising minimal goodwill in Brussels. Sadly, neither of those exists.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">This process would undoubtedly involve some new costs and complications for business, but as even the left-wing Paul Krugman of The New York Times points out, it would create plenty of economic winners as well. And there would be the opportunity, through trade and economic policy and all the rest, for Britain to make its own economic destiny. Many “just-in-time” supply chains are maintained across modest tariff walls of the kind that would exist between Britain and the EU.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">May once had something like this in mind. At the time of the referendum she was a quiet though clear Remainer. When the referendum result came through, Cameron resigned, the Brexiteers were triumphant and she became for a while a polemical Brexiteer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">But her disastrous performance in the 2017 election unnerved her, and since then she has exhibited the clarity of an uninterpreted Rorschach test and the policy strength of a jellyfish. Her instincts as a Remainer all along have been to secure minimum fidelity to the referendum result while causing minimal disruption, which also means minimal change.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">This led to the catastrophic deal she brought back from Brussels. It would tie Britain to obeying EU institutions and rules but rob it of any influence on how those rules are formed. Britain would regain control of immigration but nothing else. It would be subject to EU court rules, trade policy, regulatory policy. And it would still have to pay into EU coffers indefinitely.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">If it ever wanted to change anything about that, it would have to get approval from the EU, in this case all 27 EU national parliaments.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">More than that, it also provides that even if it ever gets such EU agreement, Northern Ireland would remain forever ruled by EU regulations and institutions, thus destroying Northern Ireland’s constitutional status as part of the UK.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">May’s deal was literally the worst of all worlds. To understand this it is necessary to conceive of Brexit as a kind of binary choice in which any splitting of the difference, the seeming middle ground, is actually far worse than the main two alternatives.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Thus Alexander Downer, who knows British politics better than any Australian, thinks the best choice is for Britain to leave the EU altogether. The second best choice is not a soft Brexit, either of the kind May proposed or of that similar kind now gaining momentum in the House of Commons, but rather simply to stay in the EU.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">And the worst choice of all is a May-style deal or any other variant of the “soft Brexit”. That alternative not only means Britain must abide by rules it has no say in forming, it also means the EU can force Britain to take actions that are directly against its economic interests.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">This is not eccentric or strange or unlikely. It is utterly obvious. Say, for example, the EU negotiates a free trade agreement with the US or Japan or some other nation. It can give up any single interest that affects Britain to benefit companies in, say, France or Germany.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">The biggest financial centre in Europe is London. Guess which is the second biggest financial centre? Edinburgh.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Under a soft Brexit, Brussels can make any regulation it likes to penalise London or Edinburgh and advantage Frankfurt or Paris, and London has no avenue even to complain, much less do anything. Britain ceases to be a full, representative democracy and becomes, politically and economically, a governed colony of Brussels.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Outside the EU and its economic institutions, Britain can easily compete with EU capitals, and change its own regulations if necessary. And it can entice business from the rest of the world. Brussels hates and is terrified of this possibility.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Similarly, inside the EU Britain can oppose policies that uniquely harm it, make coalitions with other similarly minded Europeans such as the Dutch, even find common ground with the anti-EU government in Italy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">That is why a clean Brexit, a no-deal Brexit managed in an orderly way, or continued membership of the EU, are both infinitely superior to the kind of soft Brexit May is moving towards.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Here again, the British people are stymied by having a pro-Remain parliament that never had its heart in Brexit at all and only temporarily pretended to follow the will of the people.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">London political insiders tell me May is determined never to enact a no-deal Brexit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">There are sharp parliamentary manoeuvres under way now for the bulk of the opposition to join with 20 or 30 or perhaps more pro-Remain Tories to legislate to make no-deal effectively illegal. They are prepared to overturn all parliamentary procedure so that the house majority, made up mostly of the opposition but with some Tory rebels, controls which motions are put, what legislation is considered and so on.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">So the conflict is not just plebiscite versus parliament, but plebiscite versus parliament versus executive government.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Labour under Corbyn has been a study in ambiguity, not wanting to relieve Conservative divisions. Yet the latest polls actually put Labour six points behind the Conservatives, an astounding result for an opposition facing a government in this much disarray.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">Corbyn has not said exactly what kind of Brexit he would favour but in general has supported Britain staying in the EU customs union, the softest of soft Brexits and, as Downer argues, a terrible outcome.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">If May goes down this path herself, there is probably a clear parliamentary majority for such a deal. But it would be a majority comprised overwhelmingly of Labour and Scottish Nationalists, with a few dozen Tories thrown in. It would very likely lead to a crippling, bitter split within the Conservative Party.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">The proposal for a second referendum is much less democratic than it looks. Already there are myriad Remain proposals to rig such a vote. There would be pressure to reduce the voting age to 16, to let EU citizens living in Britain vote and to rig the question itself, offering some specific and unpopular Brexit deal against remaining in the EU as the only two options. And of course the whole contest would be incredibly divisive and bitter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;">And if they get a halfway fair question, the British people could still vote to leave. What then?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: x-large;"><b>No problem has been solved and Britain is back where it was in 2016: a people who want to live in a sovereign, independent democracy and a parliament too scared or incompetent to give them what they want</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: x-large;"><b>These are dark days for Western democracy.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-8006981583682093532019-01-22T10:52:00.004+08:002019-01-22T10:52:54.734+08:00The True-State Solution<i><b>From <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-true-state-solution-11546473263">WSJ, 2 Jan 2019, by Daniel J. Arbess</a>:</b></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Follow the map the British drew in 1922, which put Arab and Jewish Palestine across the Jordan River.</span><br />
<br />
<img alt="A view of the Dead Sea and Jordan from the West Bank." height="266" src="https://images.wsj.net/im-45208?width=620&aspect_ratio=1.5" width="400" /><br />
<i>A view of the Dead Sea and Jordan from the West Bank. </i><br />
<i>PHOTO: MENAHEM KAHANA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES</i><br />
<br />
The Trump administration has offered tantalizing clues about its forthcoming “Deal of the Century” for Mideast peace. It could be a bold new concept—replacing the failed “two-state solution” with a Jordan-Israel confederacy, in which Jordan would be recognized as the Palestinian state. Call it the true-state solution.<br />
<br />
Palestinians have always been the majority in Jordan, though they haven’t been treated as such since its creation as a British-appointed Hashemite monarchy in 1921. The true-state solution would enfranchise the Palestinians. Jordan would extend citizenship to, and assume administrative responsibility for, Arabs now living on the West Bank of the Jordan River—including the cities of Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jericho—which would be Israeli territory. West Bank Jordanians could receive financial support to relocate across the river to Jordan itself if they wish, or remain as permanent residents (but not citizens) of Israel. Israelis would be free to live anywhere west of the Jordan River. Variations of this “Jordan option” have received increasing attention across the region in recent years.<br />
<br />
Why would King Abdullah II accept such an arrangement? To be blunt, it would be his best option. His rule—and his family’s security and fortune—already teeters under pressure of regional migration and domestic Palestinian discontent. The king’s acquiescence—or possibly U.S.-guided abdication—would probably buy his family’s protection.<br />
<br />
Trump administration officials have promised their plan will take advantage of Israel’s recent unprecedented collaboration with its Arab neighbors and other developments that suggest “things can be done today that were previously unthinkable,” as then-Ambassador Nikki Haley said last month. The administration promises a new approach based on practical realities.<br />
<br />
<b>The True-State Solution</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<img alt="The True-State Solution" height="400" src="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AY237B_arbes_9U_20190101133908.jpg" width="365" /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Start with a truthful foundation of history. Britain inherited all of present-day Jordan and Israel when the Ottoman Empire dissolved after World War I. The Palestinian Mandate of 1922 divided the area into Arab Palestine (Transjordan), comprising 78% of the territory, and Jewish Palestine (Israel), the remaining 22%. Britain later tried to accommodate Arab opposition by further dividing Israel’s 22% in what became the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947. The Jewish Agency for Palestine immediately accepted that plan. But when the General Assembly passed the resolution recognizing Israel’s independence, the Arab states immediately launched a war, which squandered the Partition Plan’s window for an Arab state on the West Bank.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Jordan, encouraged by Britain, annexed the West Bank in 1950—a move the Arab League bitterly opposed and almost no state recognized. That arguably left Israel with the legal right under the original British Mandate to claim sovereignty over the entire 22% of Palestine outside modern Jordan. Israel’s claim was further consolidated by its victory in the 1967 war. Jordan later disavowed its claim on the West Bank and severed administrative ties in 1988, leaving the status of its former citizens further in limbo.</span><br />
<br />
Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization had tried to win Palestinian control of Jordan, repeatedly attempting to assassinate King Hussein in the 1960s. After the PLO was evicted to Syria by Jordanian troops in “Black September” 1970, the PLO’s narrative shifted entirely to painting Israel as the Palestinians’ “occupier.” Despite underwriting a two-state settlement in the 1993 Oslo Accords, Arafat’s launching of the second intifada seven years later revealed that the PLO’s paramount goal was still rejection and delegitimation of Israel, not coexistence.<br />
<br />
West Bank Palestinians have been fortunate to remain in territory under Israeli protection and administration since the 1967 war. They have been unwanted by the Hashemite Kingdom or other Arab nations—then and since. Little wonder that polls suggest a large majority of West Bank Palestinians would prefer life in Israel to being governed by the Palestinian Authority. They seek normal lives, jobs they can travel to and other basic human liberties. This would be possible with a Palestinian role in Jordan’s leadership that not only accepts the Jewish state’s legitimacy and mutual security responsibilities with Israel, as the Hashemite Kingdom already does, but also restores the Palestinians’ Jordanian citizenship and coordinates with Israel in civilly administering the West Bank.<br />
<br />
There are Palestinians who would support such a move. Mudar Zahran, 45, is a Jordanian Palestinian who describes himself leader of the Jordanian Opposition Coalition. He lives in Britain under asylum, having been convicted in 2014 in absentia for “inciting hatred against the regime, sectarian strife and insulting the king as well as security services” to show for it.<br />
<br />
Mr. Zahran told the European Parliament in September that what holds back the Palestinian people from enjoying Israel’s economic prosperity is the corruption of the Palestinian Authority and the Hashemite family’s exploitation of Jordan’s Palestinian majority. “Let our people go,” he implored, “both peoples, Jordanians and Israelis.” A true-state solution would let them end the futile refrain of resisting and defending and get on pursuing common interests as they have been for decades in Jerusalem’s Old City.<br />
<br />
A Palestinian capital in Amman would have no use for the Palestinian Authority, much less its corrupt, illegitimate and unpopular leaders and their incitement. Would King Abdullah make room for more-representative governance in Jordan? Or might some forward-looking Palestinian emerge, with U.S., Israeli and Arab support, to advance his citizens’ economic prospects and human rights?<br />
<br />
And what about Gaza? U.S. officials have said they see that as a separate problem and its resolution as a prerequisite for success. It seems logical that Palestinians there could also enjoy a confederacy option, with either Jordan or Egypt.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The true-state solution would be innovative and elegant—worthy of “Deal of the Century” designation. If it materializes, Barack Obama will ironically deserve some of the credit. His cultivation of Iran’s Ayatollahs stimulated the Arab states’ recent cooperation with Israel. And Donald Trump will have proved instrumental in helping Israel fully attain its potential as a “light unto nations,” for all its cultures and inhabitants—Christians, Druze, Muslims and Jews—and as a beacon of democracy, prosperity, peace and stability in the Middle East and beyond.</span>Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-40992963701781248322019-01-04T13:50:00.003+08:002019-01-04T13:50:55.043+08:00Spurning Erdogan’s Vision, Turks Leave in Droves, Draining Money and Talent<b><i>From <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/world/europe/turkey-emigration-erdogan.html">NYT, 3 Jan 2019, by Carlotta Gall</a>:</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<i><img height="266" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/01/03/world/03turkey-capital-flight1-print/merlin_139501632_a1f9b0d7-5c26-41ed-8385-4fda22e7af0d-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale" width="400" /></i><br />
<i>A commuter train in Istanbul passes an election poster for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last June. Mr. Erdogan won re-election with greater powers, but the economy has faltered since then.</i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">ISTANBUL — For 17 years, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won elections by offering voters a vision of restoring the glories of Turkey’s Ottoman past. ...Last year, the economy wobbled and the lira plunged soon after he won re-election with even greater powers. As cronyism and authoritarianism seep deeper into his administration, Turks are voting differently — this time with their feet.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">They are leaving the country in droves and taking talent and capital with them in a way that indicates a broad and alarming loss of confidence in Mr. Erdogan’s vision, according to government statistics and analysts.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In the last two to three years, not only have students and academics fled the country, but also entrepreneurs, business people, and thousands of wealthy individuals who are selling everything and moving their families and their money abroad.</span><br />
<br />
More than a quarter of a million Turks emigrated in 2017, according to the Turkish Institute of Statistics, an increase of 42 percent over 2016, when nearly 178,000 citizens left the country.<br />
<br />
Turkey has seen waves of students and teachers leave before, but this exodus looks like a more permanent reordering of the society and threatens to set Turkey back decades, said Ibrahim Sirkeci, director of transnational studies at Regent’s University in London, and other analysts.<br />
<br />
“The brain drain is real,” Mr. Sirkeci said.<br />
<br />
The flight of people, talent and capital is being driven by a powerful combination of factors that have come to define life under Mr. Erdogan and that his opponents increasingly despair is here to stay.<br />
<br />
They include fear of political persecution, terrorism, a deepening distrust of the judiciary and the arbitrariness of the rule of law, and a deteriorating business climate, accelerated by worries that Mr. Erdogan is unsoundly manipulating management of the economy to benefit himself and his inner circle.<br />
<br />
...Mr. Erdogan has tried to make Turkey more conservative and religious, with a growing middle class and a tight circle of elites who are especially beholden to him for their economic success.<br />
<br />
The flight of capital and talent is the result of this conscious effort by Mr. Erdogan to transform the society, said Bekir Agirdir, director of the Konda polling company.<br />
<br />
...Ilker Birbil, a mathematician who faces charges for signing the peace petition and left Turkey to take up a position at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, warned that the country was losing people permanently.<br />
<br />
...“People who are leaving do not want to come back,” Mr. Birbil said, citing the polarized political climate in the country. “This is alarming for Turkey.”<br />
<br />
“I have received so many emails from students and friends who are trying to get out of Turkey,” he said.<br />
<br />
Students are despairing of change partly because they have grown up with Mr. Erdogan in power for 17 years, said Erhan Erkut, a founder of MEF University in Istanbul, which teaches innovation and entrepreneurship.<br />
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“This is the only government they have seen, they do not know there is another possibility,” he said.<br />
<br />
Families are setting up businesses abroad for the next generation to inherit, said Mr. Sirkeci of Regent’s University, adding that many students at his private university fell into that category.<br />
<br />
At least 12,000 of Turkey’s millionaires — around 12 percent of the country’s wealthy class — moved their assets out of the country in 2016 and 2017, according to the Global Wealth Migration Review, an annual report produced by AfrAsia Bank.<br />
<br />
Most of them moved to Europe or the United Arab Emirates, the report said. Turkey’s largest business center, Istanbul, was listed among the top seven cities worldwide experiencing an exodus of wealthy people.<br />
<br />
“If one looks at any major country collapse in history, it is normally preceded by a migration of wealthy people away from that country,” the report said.<br />
<br />
...“Billions of dollars have fled Turkey in the last couple of years, especially after the coup attempt when people started to feel threatened,” said Mehmet Gun, the owner of a law firm in Istanbul...Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-80174183470234801592019-01-02T17:26:00.000+08:002019-01-02T17:26:20.870+08:00Asia's Iran crude imports hit more than five-year low in November as sanctions bite<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<i><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">From <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asia-iran-oil/asias-iran-crude-imports-hit-more-than-five-year-low-in-november-as-sanctions-bite-idUSKCN1OR0H8">Reuters, 28 December, by </a></span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asia-iran-oil/asias-iran-crude-imports-hit-more-than-five-year-low-in-november-as-sanctions-bite-idUSKCN1OR0H8">Florence Tan, Yuka Obayashi</a>:</span></b></i><br />
<div style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: helvetica;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Imports of Iranian crude oil by major buyers in Asia hit their lowest in more than five years in November as U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil exports took effect last month...</b></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">China, India, Japan and South Korea last month imported about 664,800 barrels per day (bpd) from Iran, according to the data, down 12.7 percent from the same month a year earlier.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">South Korea cut imports to zero for a third month in November while Japan followed suit. India’s November imports are down about 40 percent from October, the data showed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">Asia’s Iranian oil imports are set to rise from December after the United States granted eight countries waivers from sanctions against Iran’s oil exports for 180 days.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">China’s Iranian oil imports rebounded to close to 390,000 bpd in November, up from about 247,000 bpd in October, the lowest in more than five years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">Sinopec, Tehran’s biggest crude buyer, resumed Iran oil imports shortly after China received its waiver in November while China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) will restart lifting its own Iranian oil production in December.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">Japan and South Korea are preparing to resume Iranian oil imports in early 2019.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">India is expected to restrict its monthly purchases of Iranian oil to 1.25 million tonnes, or 9 m</span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">illion barrels, during the waiver period from November.</span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">#economics #crude #iransanctions</span></div>
Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-81139925112599998942019-01-02T17:21:00.001+08:002019-01-02T17:27:09.054+08:00Israel, Greece, and Cyprus: democratic bloc in the eastern Mediterranean<b><i>From <a href="https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-greece-cyprus-beersheba/">BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,049, December 28, 2018, by Dr. George N. Tzogopoulos</a>:</i></b><br />
<br />
<img height="286" src="https://besacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Benjamin-Netanyahu-Nicos-Anastasiades-and-Alexis-Tsipras-at-Beersheva-Summit-screenshot-of-video-from-Facebook-page-of-the-Prime-Minister-of-Isra-copy-300x215.jpg" width="400" /><br />
<i>Benjamin Netanyahu, Nicos Anastasiades, and Alexis Tsipras at Beersheva Summit</i><br />
<i>Screenshot of video from Facebook page of the Prime Minister of Israel</i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Israel, Greece, and Cyprus are building a democratic bloc in the eastern Mediterranean. The Beersheba trilateral summit highlighted the strong momentum of this initiative, as well as American institutional support for it. Jerusalem, Athens, and Nicosia are expanding their collaboration in fields including defense, cyberspace, energy, and education. The potential construction of an East Med pipeline could be a flagship project contributing to security and prosperity in Europe and the Middle East.</span><br />
<br />
Israel, Greece, and Cyprus are steadily strengthening their partnership in the eastern Mediterranean, with institutional dialogue organized in the form of tripartite summits. Five such meetings have already taken place – the most recent in Beersheba – and the sixth will be held in February 2019 on the island of Crete. In Beersheba, PMs Benjamin Netanyahu and Alexis Tsipras and President Nicos Anastasiades agreed to establish a permanent secretariat to be based in Nicosia. The three countries will also collaborate, inter alia, on cybersecurity, smart cities, innovation with emphasis on supporting young entrepreneurs, education, environmental protection, research on agriculture, meteorology, health, and tourism.<br />
<br />
On the economic front, the Beersheba summit was preceded by the first trilateral business forum, which took place in Tel Aviv. Relevant chambers of commerce are expected to further engage the business communities of the three countries. The potential here is enormous. Israeli foreign direct investments in Greece, for instance, remain relatively low, amounting to €26.7 million in 2016 and €32 million in 2017. But the ongoing interest of Israeli companies in the real estate sector, hotels, and the food industry in Greece can lead to an increase in the future. Similarly, some Greek companies are seeking to increase their exports to Israel or invest in the energy sector. Recently, for example, Energean Oil & Gas announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Israel Natural Gas Lines regarding constructing and transferring the onshore and near shore part of natural gas facilities for the Karish and Tanin developments.<br />
<br />
The Beersheba summit was significant for another reason: It was the first time the US participated in and publicly expressed support for the initiative. US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said a few words on behalf of President Donald Trump, adding gravitas to the trilateral collaboration scheme. He called the partnership “an anchor of stability in the eastern Mediterranean” and spoke about the importance of the East Med pipeline project, which will “help diversify energy sources throughout the entire region…help bring energy security to Europe, [and contribute to] the stability and prosperity of the Middle East and Europe.”<br />
<br />
The process has not always been harmonious. Turkish policy in the eastern Mediterranean is creating obstacles. In the Beersheba summit statement, Netanyahu, Tsipras, and Anastasiades reiterated their full support and solidarity with Cyprus in exercising its sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone. Until now, Washington has preferred to publicly adopt a stance of equal distance between Athens/Nicosia and Ankara. A recent interview with US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell might, however, signal the beginning of a change in that approach. Talking to the Kathimerini newspaper, Mitchell encouraged Cyprus to develop its resources, characterized Turkey’s view as “a minority of one versus the rest of the world,” and expressed his country’s opposition to any kind of harassment in Cypriot waters. While this message is important, it remains to be seen how Washington will react in the blocs of the Cypriot exclusive economic zone where US ships are not involved in drilling.<br />
<br />
The construction of the East Med pipeline with America’s blessing would benefit the democratic bloc of Israel, Greece, and Cyprus and cancel plans for the transportation of natural gas from the Levantine Basin to Europe via Turkey. The US may well wish to warn or even punish Turkey for its expansion of its military cooperation with Russia (for example, Ankara’s deal with Moscow for the supply of S-400 missiles). But while the bilateral relationship with Turkey is vexing, Washington still counts on it.<br />
<br />
The Department of State recently notified Congress of a proposal to sell the Patriot air and missile defense system to Ankara, which might be an attempt to halt the S-400 purchase. More importantly, the withdrawal of American troops from Syria means better coordination will now be required between Washington and Ankara. According to media reports, Trump has accepted an invitation from Erdoğan to visit Ankara in 2019.<br />
<br />
While Washington is endeavoring to find a modus vivendi with Ankara, it still values its allies in the eastern Mediterranean and southeastern Europe. The fundamental strength of American-Israeli relations is largely taken for granted, and this is slowly becoming true for American-Cypriot-relations and American-Greek relations as well.<br />
<br />
Russia is a catalyst in that process. The US and Cyprus are improving their bilateral relationship, a step Moscow is not prepared to handle. In November 2018, Washington and Nicosia signed a statement of intent on security affairs, prompting Moscow to react fiercely against what it sees as a US plan to militarize Cyprus. And in December 2018, the inaugural strategic dialogue between the US and Greece was launched. Among other things, Greece is supporting the enlargement of NATO in the Balkans, as the Prespes Agreement paves the way for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to join it. Moscow made very clear that it objects to the deal reached between the governments of Athens and Skopje (FYROM) last June.<br />
<br />
While the Israeli-Greek-Cypriot institutionalized dialogue is yielding initial results and creating a strong basis for cooperation in the long term, further grassroots mobilization is necessary. Unacceptable acts such as the frequent vandalism of the Thessaloniki Holocaust Memorial do not align with Israel’s improving image in Greece and Cyprus and are a warning signal. A nexus of collaboration between the communities of the three countries – with the participation of representatives of several sectors, including media and culture – will certainly contribute to better understanding. The respective diaspora communities, as the Beersheba summit statement illustrated, will provide more assistance and depth.Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-70437399529209702052019-01-02T17:16:00.000+08:002019-01-02T17:17:27.951+08:00A predictable move in Syria<i><b>From I<a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/a-predictable-move-in-syria/">srael Hayom, 21 December, by Prof. Abraham Ben-Zvi</a>:</b></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Contrary to popular belief, U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to end America's military presence in Syria in the near future was not a spur-of-the-moment decision. The opposite is true. This is the implementation of a plan that has been formulated for some time, one that was anchored in Trump's original position to disengage from the centers of conflict, war and crisis that he does not believe to present an immediate and tangible threat to American security.</span><br />
<br />
Ever since his election campaign, Trump's view has been that U.S. involvement in Syria, initiated by his predecessor Barack Obama's White House in 2015, embodies the dangerous potential in getting involved in a bloody conflict. It is true that as long as the Islamic State group constituted a central terrorist threat in Syria, the president accepted America's continued presence in the arena, provided it remained limited to the northeastern region, with the Kurdish enclave at its center. Now, with the murderous organization in significant decline, the decision to disengage is a natural move for Trump, who has made his desire to reduce the scope of America's overall commitment and involvement overseas abundantly clear.<br />
<br />
The president has repeatedly reiterated his intention to leave Syria and he did not set any preconditions, such as achieving a comprehensive diplomatic resolution in Syria, for the exit of foreign forces from the territory.<br />
<br />
In other words, in Trump's minimalist view of the array of U.S. interests, Syria does not meet the requirement for necessary direct military intervention. Against this background, the apocalyptic warning that the disengagement from Syria will cause massive damage to the U.S.'s overall standing appears to be without basis.<br />
<br />
Was the minimal presence of 2,000 American military advisers, counselors and security officials in a narrow strip in Syria's northeast enough to project power and dramatically influence what transpires not only in Syria but throughout the region? Moreover, will the withdrawal be enough to undermine the prestige of the American superpower on a front defined by Washington as marginal from the outset and a time in which the White House has yet to delineate the Kremlin a sworn global enemy? It is for this reason that, although one cannot dismiss the price the Kurdish minority may be forced to pay as a result, the U.S. troop withdrawal is not expected to result in any tectonic fractures in the general Syrian court.<br />
<br />
And as for Israel, America's disengagement was predictable and could provide Iran with greater room to maneuver and engage in threatening actions. The key to minimizing the damage from America's exit from Syria can be found in both Washington and Moscow. We cannot rule out the possibility that the U.S. administration will decide on taking a conciliatory and trust-building diplomatic step, such as throwing its support behind the initiative now being forged in the Senate to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. As for the Kremlin, the U.S. troop withdrawal could lead to Russia expanding and deepening its strategic coordination with Israel in Syria's skies, not necessarily out of a sense of affinity or excessive sensitivity to Israel's security concerns but rather to ensure the system of checks and balances aimed at preventing Iran's excessive empowerment in the Syrian sphere is preserved.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Also reported:</b></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot said on Sunday that the U.S. decision to withdraw its troops from Syria is "significant," but should not be overblown. "For decades, we have dealt with this front [in Syria] alone," Eisenkot said, adding that Israel has acted independently during the entire period. "That's also how it has been over the past four years, during the American and Russian presence [in Syria]. We have been acting in support of Israel's security interests." </span><br />
<br />
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<br />Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-83057936643150349212019-01-02T17:10:00.001+08:002019-01-02T17:10:31.581+08:00Who is ruining Bethlehem??<b><i>From The Australian, 26 December 2018, by Allon Lee:</i></b><br />
<br />
<img alt="Image result for anton salman bethlehem" height="266" src="https://i.cbc.ca/1.4442378.1512991537!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/mayor-salman.jpg" width="400" /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Anton Salman... Bethlehem’s mayor</b> ... shamelessly exploited genuine interest at Christmas in the traditional birthplace of Jesus to advance a dangerous and deluded anti-Israel agenda devoid of fact or historical accuracy.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Since the Palestinian Authority took over the city in 1995, the Christian percentage of the city’s population has plummeted from 40 per cent to 12 per cent. But that central and incontestable fact is a gospel too heretical for Salman to admit; he points the finger of blame for the city’s problems solely at Israel.</span><br />
<br />
In claiming “some have lost all hope for a political solution and opted for immigration instead” but “thousands of Palestinians” have stayed, Salman hides the identity of those who have left — Christians — and those who remain and keep arriving in the city: Muslims. The city’s population of 27,000 in 2017 was 23 per cent higher than in 1998. And it’s not because nature abhors a vacuum.<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This two-way migration is a mirror of the wider trends across the Middle East where Islamists in the Muslim majorities are threatening, bullying and attacking Christian minorities.</span><br />
<br />
Moreover, Salman’s claim that Israeli security measures are deliberately aimed at preventing people from visiting and spending money in Bethlehem makes it sound as if the city resembles a ghost town. Except it doesn’t because, contrary to Salman’s woe-is-me act, three million people visited bustling, busy Bethlehem last year.<br />
<br />
When Salman begrudgingly acknowledges that the city does attract visitors, he laments that they are tourists and not pilgrims, for which, of course, Israel is also responsible.<br />
<br />
Propagandists such as Salman try to hide the real reason for Palestinian suffering, instead solemnly intoning that it is Israel’s “walls encircling the city” that stifle economic opportunities. Asserting that “the illegal wall that has been built through the heart of our city is antithetical to justice and freedom”, as Salman does, challenges credulity, given that the separation barrier lies north of the city’s limits and is there to ensure the right of Israelis not to be knifed, car rammed or blown up, which he conveniently ignores.<br />
<br />
...The irony of claiming that Bethlehem’s future is at risk from Israel is Orwellian because the only threat to the Church of the Nativity is from Palestinians themselves.<br />
<br />
And Salman should know, seeing as he has said that he was there in April 2002 when 200 Palestinian gunmen stormed the church, taking priests and nuns hostage for 39 days, and making a mockery of an agreement with the Vatican to respect one of Christendom’s holiest sites.<br />
<br />
But then, under Palestinian oversight, Jewish and Christian holy sites are fair game.<br />
<br />
Just outside Bethlehem lies Rachel’s Tomb. According to Jewish tradition, the tomb is the resting place of the Jewish matriarch Rachel — a figure not even mentioned in the Koran.<br />
<br />
As the mother of Joseph, Rachel is central to the course of Jewish biblical history.<br />
<br />
In the 1990s and during the Second Intifada, Rachel’s Tomb was attacked on multiple occasions by marauding Palestinian mobs.<br />
<br />
Since then Palestinians have won UNESCO endorsement that Rachel’s Tomb is of historic Palestinian significance.<br />
<br />
Naturally this raises the question: if Rachel’s Tomb is such a valued Palestinian national treasure, why do Palestinians keep attacking it?<br />
<br />
And while you ponder that, think on this too. If Palestine is such a bastion of religious equality, as Salman implies, why does the PA continue to refuse to recognise Easter as an official holiday?<br />
<br />
Salman can promote Bethlehem as a city “of hope”, but if the latest opinion polls are accurate, the leader of the terrorist, Islamist Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, would easily win Palestinian presidential elections.<br />
<br />
If the experience of Christians in Gaza during the past decade is any indication — the Christian population there has slumped from 3000 to 1000 — “hope” will be all Salman can count on.<br />
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This is the true meaning behind his claim that “Bethlehem is no stranger to the challenges facing all of Palestine”.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It is incumbent on all people of goodwill in this season of goodwill to speak up and call out this dangerous and delusional humbug and demand the PA return to peace talks. This is the only way to secure Bethlehem’s future.</span>Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-60927894432596585202018-11-06T19:16:00.004+08:002018-11-06T19:16:51.030+08:00The World Can Live Without Iranian Oil<i><b>From <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-world-can-live-without-iranian-oil-1541361933?">WSJ, 4 Nov 2018, by Rick Perry</a>:</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The U.S. energy boom will help the global supply meet demand.</b></span><br />
<br />
<img alt="An offshore oil platform near Lavan Island, Iran, Jan. 5, 2017." height="266" src="https://images.wsj.net/im-34685?width=620&aspect_ratio=1.5" width="400" /><br />
<i>An offshore oil platform near Lavan Island, Iran, Jan. 5, 2017. </i><br />
<i>PHOTO: ALI MOHAMMADI/BLOOMBERG NEWS</i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">When President Trump ended U.S. participation in the Iran nuclear deal, he promised tough sanctions on the Iranian regime. On Monday our administration will deliver exactly that, reimposing sanctions on more than 700 people and entities in Iran’s energy, shipping and financial sectors.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The president has made clear that the U.S. supports the Iranian people’s aspirations for freedom and prosperity. He firmly opposes Tehran’s efforts to dash those aspirations—and to menace the world by developing ballistic missiles, launching cyberattacks, and funding terrorist proxies to destabilize the Middle East and beyond.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The new sanctions will deliver an unmistakable message to Tehran: Change your ways or suffer the consequences.</span><br />
<br />
The Obama administration’s deal with Iran failed to curb Tehran’s egregious misconduct and ensure the safety of the American people. As the Trump administration exerts maximum pressure on the regime to reach a new deal, Iran’s energy sector is a natural target for sanctions. Iranian leaders use oil money to line their own pockets and fund destructive foreign adventurism rather than address their people’s needs.<br />
<br />
The new sanctions will hit Iran’s energy sector hard. But thanks to anticipatory actions taken by the world’s leading producers, including the U.S., to make up the difference, there should be minimal effect on global energy markets.<br />
<br />
Iran’s oil exports began to plummet months ago as the seriousness of U.S. policy became apparent. From 2.7 million barrels a day in June, Iran’s oil and condensate exports fell to less than two million barrels a day in September.<br />
<br />
In response, major oil suppliers such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq have increased production. So has the U.S., which became the world’s No. 1 oil producer in August. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects global oil supply to meet demand in 2019 even without Iranian oil.<br />
<br />
The U.S. has powered its energy renaissance with a cascade of innovation. America now produces more energy than anyone would have thought possible a few years ago. Between August 2017 and August 2018, U.S. crude oil production increased by 2.1 million barrels a day, the largest year-on-year increase in U.S. history.<br />
<br />
And it only gets better: Crude-oil exports are expected nearly to double by 2020. When infrastructure projects in West Texas’ Permian Basin come online late next year, production will expand further. New cross-border pipelines will help Mexico and Canada increase their supply as well.<br />
<br />
The U.S. is rising to world energy leadership at precisely the moment its abundance is most needed. America’s new energy bounty gives us leverage to hold Iran accountable as never before. While entities that flout our sanctions will face the full weight of U.S. economic power, those jurisdictions on a clear path to zero Iranian imports may be granted temporary exemptions to allow time to comply fully.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Empowered by its new energy arsenal that can free the world from reliance on Iranian oil, the U.S. will apply relentless pressure on Tehran until its leaders alter their destructive behavior and return to the negotiating table. Until then, the Iranian regime must remain isolated from the global economy. The international community eagerly awaits the participation of an Iran prepared to abide by basic norms of international conduct.</b></span>Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-64626438166710623132018-11-06T19:11:00.001+08:002018-11-06T19:11:59.300+08:00Iran hit by computer virus more violent than Stuxnet<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<div style="font-family: helvetica;">
<b><i>From <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/tv-report-israel-silent-as-iran-hit-by-computer-virus-more-violent-than-stuxnet/">Times of Israel, 31 Oct 2018</a>:</i></b></div>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Tehran strategic networks attacked, Hadashot TV says, hours after Israel revealed it tipped off Denmark about Iran murder plot, and days after Rouhani’s phone was found bugged</span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">Iranian infrastructure and strategic networks have come under attack in the last few days by a computer virus similar to Stuxnet but “more violent, more advanced and more sophisticated...” ....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">The report came hours after Israel said its Mossad intelligence agency had thwarted an Iranian murder plot in Denmark, and two days after Iran acknowledged that President Hassan Rouhani’s mobile phone had been bugged. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">It also follows a string of Israeli intelligence coups against Iran, including the extraction from Tehran in January by the Mossad of the contents of a vast archive documenting Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and the detailing by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN in September of other alleged Iranian nuclear and missile assets inside Iran, in Syria and in Lebanon.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">“Remember Stuxnet, the virus that penetrated the computers of the Iranian nuclear industry?” the report on Israel’s Hadashot news asked. Iran “has admitted in the past few days that it is again facing a similar attack, from a more violent, more advanced and more sophisticated virus than before, that has hit infrastructure and strategic networks.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">The Iranians, the TV report went on, are “not admitting, of course, how much damage has been caused.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">On Sunday, Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Iran’s civil defense agency, said ...</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><i>“Recently we discovered a new generation of Stuxnet which consisted of several parts … and was trying to enter our systems...”</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">...Earlier Wednesday, Israeli officials said the Mossad provided its Danish counterpart with information concerning an alleged plot by Tehran to assassinate three Iranian opposition figures living in the Scandinavian country. According to the officials, the Mossad gave Denmark information about a plot to kill three Iranians suspected of belonging to the anti-regime Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;">The intelligence reportedly provided by the Mossad prompted the arrest of a Norwegian national of Iranian origin earlier this month. Denmark on Tuesday recalled its ambassador to Iran over the incident.</span></div>
Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-40645840644445116372018-10-30T16:35:00.000+08:002018-10-30T16:35:11.705+08:00Farmers and Fighters: The Making of the Land<b><i>From <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/273208/farmers-and-fighters-the-making-of-the-land">Tablet, October 2018, by Douglas Feith</a>:</i></b><br />
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<i>The arrival at the 1920 Cairo Conference of Sir Herbert Samuel, H.B.M. high commissioner, etc. Col. Lawrence, Emir Abdullah, Air Marshal Sir Geoffrey Salmond and Sir Wyndham Deedes</i></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>...For the 400 years before World War I, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, so it was owned by the Turks, not by the Arabs, let alone by the Arabs of Palestine. </b></span><br />
<br />
Palestine is an old but imprecise geographical term. It remained imprecise because there was never a country called Palestine. Even when—long ago— it was under Arab rule, Palestine was never ruled by its own Arab inhabitants.<br />
<br />
So it’s not accurate to say that Palestine was a country, nor to say it was Arab land. Neither the Jews nor the British stole it from the Arabs. The original Zionists came to Palestine without the backing of any imperialist or colonialist power. They bought the land on which they settled. And before Britain invaded Palestine in World War I, the Ottoman Turks had joined Germany and attacked Allied forces.<br />
<br />
Was it an injustice for Britain to issue the Balfour Declaration in favor of a Jewish national home in Palestine? The question is of more than historical interest for it relates to the current controversy about Israel’s nation-state law, which was adopted this past July. Among other controversial things, that law said,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">“The fulfillment of the right of national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.”</span></i></blockquote>
Consider the Balfour Declaration’s context. When the British war cabinet approved it on Oct. 31, 1917, the world was more than three years into the Great War, the catastrophe now known as World War I, which ultimately destroyed four major empires. Britain was fighting for its life and, because the war was going badly, the government of British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith had fallen at the end of 1916 and David Lloyd George had come to power.<br />
<br />
Lloyd George was singularly attuned to the importance of propaganda. He was the first British prime minister in history who had grown up poor. His childhood home didn’t have running water. His political rise testified to the democratization of politics and the power of public opinion.<br />
<br />
Within 48 hours after he became prime minister, his cabinet resolved to review British propaganda worldwide. He hoped to win more popular support for the Allies in Greece, Italy, Russia, America and elsewhere. Among British propaganda’s many target audiences was world Jewry. Not unreasonably, the Jews generally were seen as pro-Zionist, with useful influence especially in revolutionary Russia and in Woodrow Wilson’s America.<br />
<br />
By embracing Zionism, the British government wanted to give Jews a particular interest in Allied victory. In his memoirs, Lloyd George explained that the Balfour Declaration was “part of our propagandist strategy,” its timing “determined by considerations of war policy.”<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In other words, colonialism didn’t bring Britain to Palestine. Britain didn’t seize Palestine from an unoffending native population. It conquered the land not from the Arabs, but from Turkey, which (as noted) had joined Britain’s enemies in the war. The Arabs in Palestine fought for Turkey against Britain. The land was enemy territory. </span><br />
<br />
Supporting Zionism appealed to Lloyd George, Balfour and other officials not just on strategic grounds, but also for moral reasons. They sympathized with the Jewish national cause. Zionism was an answer to the historical Jewish question, a way to remedy some of the harm shamefully done to the Jewish people over history. And it would give Jews an opportunity to normalize their place in the world, by building up a national center and a refuge, a country in their ancient homeland where they could become the majority and enjoy self-determination as a people<br />
<br />
When those officials were young men, George Eliot, in her influential 1876 novel Daniel Deronda, foresaw the creation of a movement to create a “new Jewish polity.” The Jews then, she wrote, in the voice of a Jewish character, “shall have an organic centre” and “the outraged Jew shall have a defense in the court of nations, as the outraged Englishman or American. And the world will gain as Israel gains.” That character continued, “[L]et there be another great migration, another choosing of Israel to be a nationality whose members may still stretch to the ends of the earth, even as the sons of England and Germany, whom enterprise carries afar, but who still have a national hearth and a tribunal of national opinion. . . . Who says that the history and literature of our race are dead? Are they not as living as the history and literature of Greece and Rome, which have inspired revolutions . . .? These were an inheritance dug from the tomb. Ours is an inheritance that has never ceased to quiver in millions of human frames.” Lloyd George, Balfour, Winston Churchill and other British leaders in the Great War era echoed the lyrical pro-Jewish sympathy of Eliot’s best-selling novel.<br />
<br />
The Balfour Declaration, like Israel’s recent Jewish nation-state law, distinguished between a people’s national rights and the civil and religious rights of individuals. After endorsing “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” the Balfour Declaration said, “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”<br />
<br />
Critics have argued that it wronged Palestine’s Arabs to deny them a national home in Palestine and it was arrogant to think that they’d be content with civil and religious rights within a Jewish-majority state. But there are other ways of seeing the matter. How did the British decision makers view it at the time?<br />
<br />
They didn’t consider Palestine in isolation. It was a small part of a vast region that British forces were conquering from the Turks. Though most Arabs had fought for the Turks, the Allies would put the Arab people on the path to independence and national self-determination throughout that vast region. But the tiny Holy Land had a unique status. It was territory in which Christians and Jews worldwide had profound interests. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">That the Arabs composed a single people was a basic principle of the Arab nationalist movement. In February 1919, for example, the first Palestinian Congress took pains to explain why Palestine was not a country. Its resolutions said that Palestine had never been divided from Syria. It declared that Palestinians and Syrians were one people connected “by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.” Palestine’s Arabs were not viewed–neither by British officials nor by their own leaders—as a separate nation. (This changed later, of course, but that was later.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The idea that a small segment of the Arab people – the Palestinian Arabs – would someday live in a Jewish-majority country was not thought of as a unique problem. There were similar issues in Europe. After World War I, new nations were created or revived: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Hungary, for example. Inevitably, some people would have to live as a minority in neighboring states. Seven hundred thousand Hungarians would become a minority in Czechoslovakia, almost 400,000 in Yugoslavia and 1.4 million in Romania. Where they were a minority, they would have individual rights, but not collective rights. That is, ethnic Hungarians would not have national rights of self-determination in Romania, but only in Hungary.</span><br />
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The principle applicable to European minorities applied also to the Arabs of Palestine. In any given country, only one people can be the majority, so only one can enjoy national self-determination there. The Arab people would eventually rule themselves in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Arabia. They were going to end up in control of virtually all the land they claimed for themselves. They naturally wanted to be the majority everywhere. But then, the Jews could be the majority nowhere. The victorious Allies did not consider that just. <br />
<br />
If Zionism succeeded, Palestine’s Arabs would eventually live as a minority in a democratic Jewish-majority country. This was an imposition, but as British leaders saw it, a relatively minor one for the Arab people as a whole. In 1922, Arthur Balfour addressed the criticism that Britain had been “unjust to the Arab race.” “Of all the charges made against this country,” he said, that “seems to me the strangest.” It was, he recalled, “through the expenditure largely of British blood, by the exercise of British skill and valour, by the conduct of British generals, by troops brought from all parts of the British Empire . . . that the freeing of the Arab race from Turkish rule has been effected.” He went on, “That we . . . who have just established a King in Mesopotamia, who had before that established an Arab King in the Hejaz, and who have done more than has been done for centuries past to put the Arab race in the position to which they have attained—that we should be charged with being their enemies, with having taken a mean advantage of the course of international negotiations, seems to me not only most unjust to the policy of this country, but almost fantastic in its extravagance.”<br />
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In the British war cabinet debates about Zionism, one of the main opponents of the Balfour Declaration was the brilliant conservative aristocrat Lord Curzon. He described Palestine as a “poor land,” small and arid, abounding in “malaria, fever, opthalmia and other ailments,” and ruined by “centuries of neglect and misrule.” He said it would be unable for many years to support a substantial increase in its population, which was around 700,000. He saw the Jews as particularly unsuited to Palestine’s requirements. The land’s challenges, he said, called for the <b>agricultural skills</b> of a people “inured to agriculture.” He added archly that the Jews are “to a large extent trained in other industries and professions.”<br />
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...The Jews <b>would not be able to defend themselves</b>, he implied, so they would indefinitely be a burden on the British. “A long vista of anxiety, vicissitude and expense lies before those who desire to rebuild the [Jewish] national home,” he predicted.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">... <b>according to Curzon, Zionism was doomed because the Jews couldn’t farm and couldn’t fight.</b> He set out his analysis in a memorandum that was eloquent, reasonable and hard to contradict. But it was wrong. The degree to which the Jews disproved Curzon’s skepticism is, I think, astonishing. They learned how to farm and how to fight.</span><br />
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In fact, their military skills have driven their enemies to concentrate on political battlefields. Hence the ideological war now being waged against Israel–at the United Nations, on university campuses, in newspapers and elsewhere. The campaign to delegitimate Israel has been scoring successes. The efforts to counter that campaign have often proven inept. That too I find astonishing.<br />
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In the arena of argumentation, the Jews are practiced, having continuously honed their debating skills since Abraham questioned God about Sodom. They should be formidable in explaining why Israel is not colonialist and refuting other calumnies. Yet they’re often beaten into retreat by anti-Zionist polemicists. There’s no excuse for it.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Supporters of Zionism should learn their history and reacquaint themselves with the reasons that Zionism became a movement. They should study afresh the case for the Jewish state in the Jewish homeland. If Jews could learn to farm and fight, they can remember how to read a history book.</b></span>Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-71003952223804200002018-10-25T13:36:00.001+08:002018-10-25T13:36:35.749+08:00Replacing UNRWA in Jerusalem<i><b>From <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/jerusalem-mayor-makes-rare-visit-to-east-jerusalem-refugee-camp/">Times of Israel, 24 Oct 2018</a>:</b></i><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Nir Barkat walks the streets of Shuafat, meets city sanitation workers who enter Palestinian neighborhood for the first time, as part of plan to replace UNRWA in capital</span></b><br />
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<i><img alt="Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, center right, arrives for a tour in the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Beit Hanina and Shuafat. October 22, 2014. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)" height="250" src="https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2018/10/F141022MA006-1-640x400.jpg" width="400" /></i><br />
<i>Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, center right, arrives for a tour in the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Beit Hanina and Shuafat. October 22, 2014. </i><br />
<i>(Miriam Alster/Flash90)</i><br />
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Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat visited Shuafat in<span style="color: #333333; font-family: PT Serif, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;"> </span></span>East Jerusalem on Tuesday as part of his drive to push the United Nation’s Palestinian refugee organization out of the capital and replace its operations with municipal services.<br />
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Barkat met with city sanitation workers who entered the Palestinian neighborhood for the first time ever to carry out trash removal and other cleaning services.<br />
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...According to the city, workers found hundreds of tons of untended garbage and construction waste. They will start entering the camp daily to gradually take over what the city called UNRWA’s “inadequate services.”<br />
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The municipality will also start to provide “far superior” education, health, and other services to the area, to replace UNRWA, it said in a statement.<br />
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While Shuafat is within the Jerusalem city limits, municipal workers, police, and others have never entered ...[the area] which is situated beyond the West Bank security barrier, leading to charges of official neglect. Barkat, who has been mayor since 2008, has blamed the shortfall in services on UNRWA, which has recently had its funding slashed by the US, amid accusations that it serves as a political tool against Israel.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">“The era of UNRWA in Jerusalem is over,” Barkat said during his visit. “The time has come to stop the refugee lie in Jerusalem. There are no refugees in our city, only residents. They must receive their services from the municipality like any other resident.<br /><br />“We are implementing the first phase of the UNRWA evacuation plan by taking responsibility for the cleanliness of the camp, and in the near future, together with the government, we will also provide education, welfare, and health services there until full sovereignty is achieved,” he added. “The United States does not want UNRWA, Israel does not want UNRWA, and the residents do not want UNRWA.”</span></i></blockquote>
Earlier this month, Barkat detailed his proposal, according to which the seven UNRWA-run schools — with a total of 1,800 students — that operate without a license from the Education Ministry will be closed at the end of the current academic year, and the pupils absorbed into existing municipal schools.<br />
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The municipality will also issue closure orders for UNRWA’s medical centers, which operate without approval from the Health Ministry, and construct a new public health center in their place, Barkat said.<br />
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Existing UNRWA-run welfare programs operating within Shuafat and nearby Kufr Aqeb will continue, but will be transferred to the governance municipality welfare and employment services, according to Barkat’s plan.<br />
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<img height="250" src="https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2015/06/F150501MA100-640x400.jpg" width="400" /><br />
<i>The Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem. </i><br />
<i>(Miriam Alster/Flash90)</i><br />
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...The United States was the biggest contributor to the agency’s budget in 2017, donating $350 million. The US State Department said recently it would no longer fund UNRWA because it was “irredeemably flawed.”<br />
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In its announcement of the cuts to UNRWA, the US State Department castigated the agency for what it called “failed practices,” and indicated that it rejected the criteria by which UNRWA defines Palestinian refugees, conferring refugee status not only on original refugees, but on their millions of descendants.<br />
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UNRWA has provided aid to millions of Palestinians since it was established nearly 70 years ago, just after Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.<br />
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UNRWA recognizes over 5 million Palestinians as refugees, even though there are only several tens of thousands of original Palestinian refugees still alive. Palestinian leaders demand a “right of return” to today’s Israel for all these millions — a demand Israel sees as a bid to destroy Israel as a majority-Jewish state. Because UNRWA, uniquely, confers refugee status on descendants of the original refugees, Israel charges UNRWA with perpetuating that demand for a “return” of millions. Under the UN’s global criteria, it is estimated that there would be only some half a million recognized Palestinian refugees.Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12831069.post-49015013695376679002018-10-25T13:19:00.001+08:002018-10-25T13:19:38.700+08:00The money that disappeared<div class="tr_bq">
<b><i>From <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/10/19/the-deal-that-disappeared/">Israel Hayom, 19 Oct 2018, by Eldad Beck</a>:</i></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Historian Kobby Barda has found a lost chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: After World War II, the U.S. gave Israel and Arab nations $1.5 billion to solve the Middle East refugee problem. But only Israel lived up to its end of the deal.</span><br />
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<i><img height="272" src="http://www.israelhayom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1539935652a_mo1-433x295.jpg" width="400" /></i><br />
<i>Palestinian refugees leaving the Galilee, November 1948 | Photo: AP</i><br />
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Kobby Barda couldn't believe what he was seeing. While researching the establishment of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee under the auspices of the Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies at the University of Haifa, Barda found his way to the personal archive of one Isaiah Leo "Si" Kenen, a Canadian-born lawyer, journalist and philanthropist who was one of the founders of the pro-Israel lobby.<br />
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<img height="272" src="http://www.israelhayom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1539936406a_mo1.jpg" width="400" /><br />
<i>Researcher Kobby Barda: The American aid deal rebalances the historical narrative</i><br />
<i>Photo: Tal Givoni</i><br />
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Among the many documents that record in detail Kenen's work in the first years of Israel's existence as a state, Barda discovered a lost chapter in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the start of the 1950s, in addition to pouring money into the Marshall Plan to rehabilitate Europe after World War II, the U.S. decided to provide money to Arab states and Israel so they could find a solution to the refugee problem created by the 1948 War of Independence.<br />
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The American aid earmarked to solve the issue of Middle East refugees was supposed to have been split evenly between Israel and the Arab states, with each side receiving $50 million to build infrastructure to absorb refugees. The money to take in the Arab refugees was handed over to the U.N. agency founded to address the issue of Palestinian refugees, and the Americans gave Arab countries another $53 million for "technical cooperation." In effect, the Arab side received double the money given to Israel, even though Israel took in more refugees, including ones from Arab nations – Jews who had been displaced by the regional upheavals. The amount Congress allocated to provide for Middle East refugees – Jewish and Arab – at the request of then-President Harry Truman was equal to $1.5 billion today.<br />
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"When I saw the documents, I was in complete shock," Barda says.<br />
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"The U.S. undertook to fund a solution to the refugee problem in the Middle East. A message Harry S. Truman sent Congress explicitly says that this is where the matter ends. It was a commitment the president made in a letter to convince Congress to vote for the aid bill. In other words, an important chapter in the history of the conflict has been lost, simply swept away by history. The people who worked on it aren't alive anymore, and there's no one who will put it back on the table. Now, when the Trump Administration is coming up with new ideas to solve the conflict and address the refugee issue, the information takes on new relevance.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"In hindsight, the Americans have already paid to have the Palestinian refugees accommodated, but they are still defined as refugees and still living in refugee camps. Israel, on the other hand, has taken in [Jewish] refugees from Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, given them citizenship, and ended the matter. In Jordan, where most of the Palestinian refugees wound up and which signed the aid deal with the U.S. – unlike Syria, which refused – there are still Palestinian refugee camps. This is the asymmetry that has been created in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it's very important to the historical narrative and to any future attempt to reach an agreement," </i>Barda explains.</span></blockquote>
...In May 1952, Truman sent a message to Congress explaining the importance of passing a law for international aid and laying out his vision for the Middle East. Truman said that Israel and the Arab countries needed a regional approach to basic problems of economic development, which he called "vital" to easing existing tensions that were mainly the result of a satisfactory solution to the refugee problem.<br />
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Truman said that the aid he was proposing for Arab nations would allow them to produce more food and develop their water infrastructures, whereas the aid to Israel would help the young state sustain its economy in a crucial time of national development. Moreover, the president argued, aiding Arab refugees from Israel would serve three purposes: It would help their new home countries; strengthen the countries where they settled; and help Israel and the Arab countries by eliminating the refugee problem, which he said presented a "serious threat" to peace in the region.<br />
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Barda sees this as an enormous miss for Israeli foreign policy and public diplomacy.<br />
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<i>"This information completely changes the perspective on the matter of [the Palestinians'] right of return. There are two nascent sides, both of whom a rich uncle agreed to pay so they could solve their problems about the refugees once and for all, just like what happened in the population exchanges between Greece and Turkey after World War I, and in the spirit of the action taken to rehome the German refugees in central and eastern Europe, who after World War II were returned to Germany, partly through the Marshall Plan. Both sides received hefty sums of money and were told: take compensation and let's move on," </i>Barda says.<br /><i>"Israel took in refugees from Arab countries and didn't perpetuate their status by giving them any different status [here]. Arab counties didn't do that – even though it was clear that the Americans had given them the money so they could feed the refugees, develop agriculture, provide housing and employment for them – in addition to the aid that was transferred directly to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency.</i><br /><i>"If today [U.S. President] Donald Trump really wants to make a move toward creating a mechanism of compensation for the refugees, particularly with Jordan, where most of them live, he can take into account that any additional compensation will in effect be superfluous. This story could be a very powerful card to play, as Jordan and other countries have already received money to take in refugees," </i>Barda says...</blockquote>
<b><u>An exclusive agency for the Palestinians</u></b><br />
Only a few days before the law passed, Deputy Secretary of State George McGhee addressed the Senate and told legislators that the regional economic plan included three parts: direct aid to Arab countries, direct aid to Israel, and helping the U.N. coordinate the matter of refugees from Arab countries.<br />
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Barda says that this is exactly the idea Kenen was pushing for in the first place.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"<b>UNRWA was established in 1949, started operating in 1950, and in 1960 declared that its work was done. But then, under pressure from Arab countries, it was decided to extend its mandate. It's a unique organization because there is a high commission in the U.N. that deals with refugees from all over the world, and a special authority established to handle only the Palestinian issue. On the other hand, no one established any agency for Jewish refugees in Israel.</b><br />"The American aid plan rebalances the historical narrative. The U.S. undertook to pay both sides to put an end to the refugee issue. Israel also played a part in the equation. There was drama the entire time it took to get the aid approved, which was the first U.S. foreign aid to Israel. They were always trying to cut down the amount. This story doesn't exist in history books. In contemporary journalism, it is mentioned offhand. Kenen's archive opened my eyes and let me see the full picture and understand what happened and why it provides us with a lot of armor," </i>Barda says.</span></blockquote>
Steve Lieblichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04026335065453324679noreply@blogger.com0