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ISRAEL

About Those ‘DOA’ Abraham Accords Biden Administration policy—not a failed “peace process”—is the underpinning of the current Hamas war against Israel. By Shoshana Bryen

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/20/about-those-doa-abraham-accords/

It is hard to be against a peace agreement. Really hard. But the Biden Administration is giving it a go. 

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki slammed Donald Trump’s policies in the Middle East and called the Israel-United Arab Emirates-Bahrain Abraham Accords “DOA.”

“We felt there was not a constructive action by the prior administration, aside from putting forward a peace proposal that was dead on arrival. We don’t think they did anything constructive really to bring it into the long-standing conflict in the Middle East.”

Psaki appears to be channeling Washington Post columnist Max Boot. “The clashes in recent days between Israelis and Palestinians make clear that there is no ‘peace’ and no ‘new Middle East.’ It remains the same blood-soaked mess as ever. The Abraham Accords were nice, but they did nothing to resolve underlying conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Libya—or the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”

It is understandable that critics choose not to consider the accords in their own context. Yemen, Syria, and Libya weren’t on the table. Neither was world hunger, relief for China’s Uighurs, or the U.S. national debt. And, deliberately, neither were the Palestinians. 

In the immediate aftermath of the September 2020 signing, a horde of pundits and politicians including Samantha Power, John Kerry, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Representative Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), and media including Reuters, CNN, The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, the Guardian and more, spewed their litany about how much more dangerous the region had become and how the United States was doomed to fail. They are joined now by Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Bernie Sanders (again), and others.

They are wrong.

Glazov Gang: Killing Jews and Double Standards What country in the world would tolerate rockets killing its civilians?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/glazov-gang-killing-jews-and-double-standards-frontpagemagcom/

Due to YouTube Censorship, The Glazov Gang has moved to Rumble. Please SUBSCRIBE.

This new Glazov Gang episode features features Barry Nussbaum, the son of Auschwitz survivors, the founder of the American Truth Project, and a news commentator on international affairs who has regularly appeared on major television networks. His new book is Because You Asked.

Barry discusses Killing Jews and Double Standards, reflecting on the question: What country in the world would tolerate rockets killing its civilians? 

Don’t miss it!

Canada: Open Letter Lobbies Journalists on How to Cover the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict The “woke” agenda that tarnished journalism. Joan O’Callaghan

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/canada-open-letter-lobbies-journalists-how-cover-joan-ocallaghan/

A letter with nearly 1600 signatories was sent on May 14 to newsrooms across Canada, calling for greater “balance” (code for pro-Palestinian) in coverage of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. The letter began with the observation that covering events in the Middle East is “complicated” but then goes on to imply that newsrooms are cowed by pressure from “outside groups” into favoring the Israelis. This amounted to the latest iteration of the old canard that Jews control the media, a favorite trope of the world’s antisemites. It was rather befitting to the victimhood agenda that has grown steadily to morph real journalism into becoming woke activism over time.

An examination of the signatories of this “open letter” revealed that the vast majority of names have a Middle Eastern ring to them, and most were not media people, although several of the signatories did claim to work in the media.  

The letter of course is ironic because–both nationally and internationally–most media outlets have found ways to present Israel as the villain, the bully beating up on innocent Palestinians, booting them out of their homes and dropping bombs on them.

The journalistic rot began a long time ago and is now in full flower.

Take for example, in his memoirs, Maverick Publisher – J. Patrick O’Callaghan: A Life in Newspapers (Carrick Publishing, 2015), O’Callaghan recalled an April, 1995 annual Canadian Press dinner, where Ralph Klein, former premier of Alberta, was the keynote speaker. Klein maintained that newspapers were obsessed with victim-of-the-week journalism. He cited the case of the Edmonton Journal, which in advance of an Alberta budget had prepared a document for reporters suggesting how they might contextualize the budget items. At the head of the list was the proposal to put the case for those who would be “victimized” by certain budget cuts. In other words, reporters were expected to go out and find “victims.”

Biden’s Handlers Get the Ceasefire They Wanted All for the benefit of Hamas. Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/bidens-handlers-get-ceasefire-they-wanted-robert-spencer/

He demanded it, and he got it: CNN reported Wednesday that according to the White House, Old Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “‘that he expected a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire’ in the raging violence. The statement was a signal Biden is losing patience with Netanyahu, a leader he has known for four decades.” It’s hard to believe the Most Beloved President in History could hold that coherent a conversation, but whatever may be the truth behind this, Biden’s handlers got their ceasefire. According to Reuters on Thursday, “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said his security cabinet had voted unanimously in favour of a ‘mutual and unconditional’ Gaza truce proposed by Egypt.” Nevertheless, the chief beneficiary of the respite is not Israel, but Hamas.

Taher Al-Nono, media adviser to Hamas top dog Ismail Haniyeh, sounded a decidedly tepid note with a hint of a threat, saying: “The Palestinian resistance will abide by this agreement as long as the Occupation (Israel) does the same.” Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing, was less successful in hiding his enthusiasm: “With the help of God, we were able to humiliate the enemy, its fragile entity and its savage army.”

Abu Ubaida doesn’t have anything he can point to in order to justify this claim of victory. Netanyahu stated: “They received blows that they didn’t expect. And I have no doubt we set them back years.” There is no reason to doubt his word. While Hamas did succeed in firing more rockets at Israel than ever before, most of them were stopped by the Iron Dome Missile Defense System; few did serious damage. 

However, the chief indication to which Abu Ubaida can point in order to justify his claim that Israel has been humiliated is the fact of the ceasefire itself. This is because an Islamic army, which Hamas undoubtedly is, doesn’t ask for or want a ceasefire unless it is losing. And Hamas, according to Israeli Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen, was “begging for a ceasefire.” 

‘Cut off their heads’: Hamas leader repeats murderous directive to kill Jews Hamas previously walked back similar comments from a leader who said all Jews should be slaughtered. By Susan Katz Keating

https://justthenews.com/world/middle-east/cut-their-heads-hamas-leader-re

A senior Hamas leader this month joined a years-long chorus from fellow extremists telling Palestinians to kill Jews using multiple methods, including cutting off their heads with knives, according to translated videos.

In a video released on May 17, the Israel Defense Forces portrayed the latest such demand, from Fathi Hammad, a member of the Hamas Political Bureau. 

“People of Jerusalem, we want you to cut off the heads of the Jews with knives,” Hammad shouted while speaking at a May 7 rally. The video was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “With your hand, cut their artery from here,” Hammad said. “A knife costs five shekels. Buy a knife, sharpen it, put it there, and just cut off [their heads].”

Leaders of the militant group have for years alternately issued and retracted the deadly instructions. Hammad five years ago called for Palestinians around the world to murder Jews.

“All of you 7 million Palestinians abroad, enough of the warming up,” Hammad said at a 2019 protest near Gaza. “You have Jews everywhere, and we must attack every Jew on the globe by way of slaughter and killing, if God permits.”

Those comments brought condemnation, including from Hamas.

“These statements do not represent the movement’s official positions and consistent, adopted policies that stipulate that our conflict is with the occupation, which is occupying our land and sullying our holy sites, and not with Jews around the world or with Judaism as a religion,” the organization said in a statement posted on its website.

The IDF in its Monday video showed that Hamas leaders consistently have called for Jews to be killed.

The deputy speaker of the Hamas parliament, Ahmad Bahr, in 2012 invoked a wide-ranging curse on his perceived enemy.

After the Israeli Cease-Fire Islamist radicals saw how Democratic support for Israel has eroded.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-the-israeli-cease-fire-11621550460?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

As we went to press, it looked like Israel and Hamas would put down their arms—for now. The truce comes less than two weeks after the terrorist group commenced its 4,000-rocket barrage on Israeli civilians—the most intense since it took over the Gaza strip in 2007. Israel’s leadership wouldn’t have approved a cease-fire if it hadn’t accomplished most of what it wanted through air strikes, but the question now is what lessons the region’s players take from the short war and the world’s response.

The cease-fire has no strings attached, so neither Hamas nor Israel won a strategic victory. Israel says Hamas suffered the destruction of its tunnel network and the death of many military leaders. The group may lack the capacity to launch another major war on Israel, which it wants to annihilate, for some time.

Israel’s casualties were more limited because of its Iron Dome anti-missile technology. Yet Hamas inflicted a blow to Israeli democracy by showing that it could foment ethnic violence among Arab and Jewish Israelis, both of whom rioted during the conflict. That’s a tragedy, especially after Arab parties have advanced in recent years within Israel’s democracy.

Meanwhile Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran saw that Democratic support for Israel in the U.S. has declined. We credited President Biden this week with not trying to dictate Israel’s security decisions, but he soon bent rhetorically to his party’s left, saying Wednesday he “expected a significant deescalation today.”

With Iranian Help, Hamas Builds ‘Made in Gaza’ Rockets and Drones to Target Israel More than 4,000 rockets fired; thousands more left in the arsenal, Israelis estimate

https://www.wsj.com/articles/with-iranian-help-hamas-builds-made-in-gaza-rockets-and-drones-to-target-israel-11621535346?mod=hp_lead_pos6

Over the past 10 days, Palestinian militants have unleashed one of the most intense attacks on Israel in decades, firing more than 4,000 short-range rockets and deploying a new, explosive drone intended to evade the country’s Iron Dome air-defense system.

Behind this onslaught, defense officials in Israel and security analysts say, is an extensive arsenal built with technical expertise from Iran and growing local skills in arms manufacturing.

Israeli military leaders say they have destroyed more than two dozen missile-building factories in Gaza with airstrikes in recent days. But they estimate that the militants still have thousands of rockets left and the technical capacity to begin building more when the fighting stops.

As Israel has become more effective at blocking the smuggling of weapons into the isolated Mediterranean strip, Iran has looked for other ways to help Hamas, supplying designs and know-how the militants can use to make rockets—in some cases cobbled together from common materials such as pipes, castor oil and scavenged spent Israeli munitions.

“The design is Iranian but the production is local,” said Ephraim Sneh, a retired Israeli brigadier general and former deputy defense minister.

Israel’s public relations outreach can’t combat Jew-hatred By Ruthie Blum    

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/israels-hasbara-cant-combat-jew-hatred-opinion-668708

As has been the case during every war forced on the Jewish state by enemies bent on its destruction, Israel’s ostensibly poor public-diplomacy performance is currently a topic of heated debate. No TV panel is complete without a discussion on the discrepancy between the country’s prowess plus “purity of arms” on the battlefield and its hasbara flop.

Ironically, it’s one issue on which even politically diverse pundits – other than those who agree with their counterparts abroad that Israel deserves every military and rhetorical attack it gets – seem to agree. The only real distinction between them is where they place the blame for the sorry situation.

But even this generally enjoys consensus, with the main target being – what else? – the government. It’s the Israeli public’s go-to culprit for all internal and external ills, after all.

As prime minister for the past 12 years, Benjamin Netanyahu is thus treated to the lion’s share of the finger-pointing. Today, with fruitless coalition negotiations leading to a feared fifth round of Knesset elections, the so-called “absence of a government” is also faulted.

Some critics argue that Israel’s difficulty in countering hostile press coverage and Twitter blitzes is due to the clipping of the Foreign Ministry’s budget and wings, with embassies around the world short-staffed. And this isn’t even taking into account that Gilad Erdan is serving two crucial ambassadorships, to the United Nations and the United States, simultaneously.

Withholding Weapons from Israel Makes the US Weak Shoshana Bryen

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/insight/

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a group of like-minded colleagues want to sink the proposed $735-million sale of a Boeing-built arms guidance kit to Israel.  The Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) kit converts unguided or “dumb” bombs into precision-guided munitions.  The goal, according to Politico, is “leverage to push the Israelis to drop their resistance to a ceasefire.”

In fact, Israel’s resistance is not to a ceasefire, but to the continued rocket attacks by Hamas into Israeli civilian centers.  The Biden administration has no leverage at all with Hamas and is pushing desperately for an Iran deal, which precludes asking Iran to rein in its Hamas terror-proxy.  For America to consider punishing Israel is nasty at best and counterproductive of AOC’s stated goal at worst.  Would she prefer that Israel use “dumb” bombs to defend itself and its people?

We’ve seen this before.

In 2009, Barak Obama’s administration blocked delivery of six Apache helicopters to Israel on the grounds that Israel might use them in Gaza.

During Israel’s 2014 response to Hamas rockets and mortars fired into Israel, President Obama accused Israel of “heavy-handed battlefield tactics” and halted the supply of Hellfire missiles.  Military equipment supplied to Israel would also have to be vetted individually in the White House instead of shipped by the Pentagon according to prior agreements.  The irony of withholding precision missiles — precision being the operative word — was lost on the White House.

Media Bias: How ‘Woke’ AP Got Caught Lying (Again) About Israel And Terrorist Hamas

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/05/20/media-bias-how-woke-ap-got-caught-lying-again-about-israel-and-terrorist-hamas/

For journalists of a certain age, the Associated Press was the gold standard for hard, objective news. Facts mattered, opinions didn’t. It influenced the world. Even now, its website brags that “More than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day.”

If true, that might not be a good thing. After recent revelations about its bias in reporting on Israel’s conflict with Hamas, the AP has again shown itself to be just another left-biased media outlet. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, AP’s reporting can’t be trusted.

This is a tragedy for journalism. Generations of reporters knew they could cull facts and quotes from AP stories and trust that they were accurate and unbiased.

That’s no longer the case.

“Once considered the epitome of neutrality and fairness,” the American Spectator recently wrote, “the AP has become a woke organization.”

Its reporting simply isn’t reliable. AP’s rage over the Israel Defense Forces’ destruction of its offices in Gaza is a perfect example.