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ISRAEL

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When abundance breeds contempt By Ruthie Blum

By on February 16th, 2021

https://www.jns.org/opinion/when-abundance-breeds-contempt/

 In a recent phone call, a friend complained about the pressure that the Israeli government, media and much of the public have been applying to citizens who refuse to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
As someone who felt that she had been virtually “bullied” into getting inoculated, she was protesting in particular the latest carrot-and-stick element of the campaign to rid the country of coronavirus: a proposal to grant certain privileges to those possessing the Health Ministry double-dose certificate.

Among the epidemiological benefits being discussed—aside from the existing exemption from quarantine after exposure to infection—are unhindered entrance into malls, theaters, stadiums and other venues when they reopen.

“Why does it matter whether everyone complies?” she asked, pointing to the warning by officialdom that even after full vaccination, the virus can still strike and be spread. As a result, we’ve been told, mask-wearing and social distancing will continue to be required for a long time.

She clearly hadn’t heard the more encouraging research revealing a serious drop in viral load after a single shot—indicating not only a less severe reaction to infection, but a lower chance of transmitting the virus to others. Nevertheless, she is not alone in her resentment on behalf of the anti-coronavirus-vaxxers.

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Israeli Elections 2021 Naftali Bennett is projected to be the kingmaker. Joseph Puder

By on February 16th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/israeli-elections-2021-joseph-puder/

Although Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu is facing a long-delayed trial, his party – the Likud – is rising in the polls. Six weeks to Election Day, on March 23, 2021, is a long time in Israeli politics, and it has the potential for many surprises. The discernible trend has been an upward climb for the Likud, which remains the largest party with a wide margin between it and the next party. Netanyahu, moreover, has been polled consistently as the most qualified to serve as prime minister.

The Irony about the upcoming election is that it is more than likely to end up in another draw, and possibly a fifth election in two years. The last two years have been essentially a story of two blocs: the anti-Bibi camp, which includes all the center-left parties, of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid,  Merav Michaeli’s Labor party, Nitzan Horowitz’s Meretz, and Benny Gantz, the current Defense Minister and leader of the Blue and White party.  They are joined by Gideon Saar’s New Hope party and Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beitenu.  Naftali Bennett’s center right Yamina  (rightward), is potentially in this camp, too.

In this election cycle, Naftali Bennett (48, pictured above) is the clear kingmaker. While ideologically Bennett is much closer to the pro-Bibi bloc, which includes the Orthodox parties of Shas (Sephardic), Torah Judaism (Ashkenazi), and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism.  (Netanyahu pushed Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir of Jewish Strength or Otzma Yehudit, to merge, since separately neither would cross the electoral threshold of 3.25% of the vote, and thus, right wing votes would go to waste.) Bennett has however, declared his ambition to replace Netanyahu as prime minister.  He believes that he is qualified for the job.  

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Palestinians: What Real Education Means by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on February 16th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17060/palestinians-election-education

The result of the 2006 election showed that a majority of Palestinians fully supported Hamas’s call for ending corruption in the Palestinian Authority, imposing Islamic law and, most importantly, continuing the armed struggle against Israel.

Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. It seeks to replace Israel with an Islamic state.

Palestinians did not buy Fatah’s talk about ending corruption: they saw how Fatah’s leaders had enriched themselves after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars that were lavished on them without a shred of accountability by the US, the European Union and other Western donors.

The reason that Fatah, unlike Hamas, did not talk about the “liberation of all of Palestine” or promise to launch an armed struggle against Israel is because its leaders were afraid that the US and EU would halt financial aid to the Palestinians.

Any Palestinian, like Fayyad, who runs in the election on a platform that talks about peace and coexistence with Israel will lose.

Real education starts at home, not necessarily in the classroom…. Palestinian leaders need to tell their people that Israel has the right to exist. They need to tell their people that peace and normalization is good not only for Israel, but also for the Palestinians. They need to tell their people that cooperation with Israel is better than boycotts.

Under the current circumstances, in which anti-Israel sentiments are at an extreme high, one wonders whether it is a good idea to proceed with the plan to hold new elections. They are certain only to strengthen the radical camp among Palestinians even further.

The last Palestinian parliamentary election, held on January 25, 2006, resulted in a victory for Hamas, the Islamist movement controlling the Gaza Strip. The next parliamentary election is scheduled to take place on May 15, 2021, although the parliament, known as the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) was elected for a four-year term.

The Hamas victory in 2006 triggered a bitter dispute with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, effectively paralyzing the PLC and creating two separate mini-states for the Palestinians — one in the West Bank and another in the Gaza Strip.

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Opinion: Is Israel still a US ally? The answer was no David Isaac

By on February 16th, 2021

https://worldisraelnews.com/opinion-is-israel-still-a-us-ally-the-answer-was-no/

Jen Psaki’s circuitous answer wasn’t pretty but it said plenty.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

There are at least 42 ways to say “yes” in English. Biden’s White House press secretary chose none of them. That’s because the answer was “no.”

“Does the administration still consider the Saudis and the Israelis important allies?”

The question was simple enough, but at last Friday’s press briefing, Jen Psaki couldn’t get the appropriate one-syllable answer to form on her lips, which is incredible, because even if you plan to shaft Israel at every turn, you still say, “Of course it is!” Then you throw out the well-worn cliches like, “unbreakable,” “unshakeable,” and “special relationship.”

Psaki did none of that, so she gets credit for being honest, if turgidly so. She said, instead:

“Well, you know, again, I think we — there are ongoing processes and internal interagency processes — one that we, I think, confirmed an interagency meeting just last week — to discuss a range of issues in the Middle East. We’re — we’ve only been here three and a half weeks, and I think I’m going to let those policy processes see themselves through before we give, kind of, a complete laydown of what our national security approaches will be to a range of issues.”

She didn’t even circle back.

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The Significance of San Remo Eugene Kontorovich thinks that the 1920 San Remo conference sits at the foundation of Israel’s legal legitimacy. Martin Kramer disagrees. Who’s right?

By on February 15th, 2021

https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/israel-zionism/2021/02/the-significance-of-san-remo/

In December 2020, the historian and regular Mosaic contributor Martin Kramer asked whether those recently celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 1920 San Remo Conference were justified in seeing it as a cornerstone of Israeli sovereignty. In particular, he found that the historical case for San Remo’s importance was overstated, even as he sympathized with the celebrants’ impulse to strengthen Israel’s legitimacy. Below, we present an exchange between Eugene Kontorovich—another Mosaic contributor and a frequent commentator on international law as it applies to Israel—who writes to dispute Kramer’s argument, and a last word in response from Kramer himself. —The Editors

Eugene Kontorovich: The San Remo Treaty Sits at the Foundation of Israel’s Legitimacy in International Law

This spring, I was among those arguing that the centennial of the San Remo conference—where the League of Nations assigned the mandate for Palestine to Great Britain—should be celebrated as a milestone in Israel’s pre-history, and remembered alongside the more widely-known Balfour Declaration and the UN General Assembly’s stillborn 1947 partition proposal. Martin Kramer recently criticized this stance, contending that the conference did little to advance the Zionist project of establishing a sovereign state in the Land of Israel. As he mentions with particular disapproval my suggestion that a street in Jerusalem currently named in honor of the UN resolution should be redubbed to commemorate San Remo, I thought I’d respond. At stake is more than street signs and civic commemorations festivals. Such engagements with the past, along with the work of careful scholars like Kramer himself, together amount to the reconstruction of Zionism’s legal and political history.

Kramer’s disagreement centers on the fine points of historical emphasis. He does not claim that the League of Nations’ actions were unimportant. Rather, he claims that San Remo was a disappointment relative to the other events.

But first, let’s summarize these key events in order. On November 2, 1917, the British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, issued his famous declaration that “His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” At that moment Palestine was still part of the Ottoman empire, although parts of it had been occupied by Britain, which would go on to conquer the rest in the remaining year of World War I. But only at the April 1920 San Remo conference would the victors in the war—by this time acting under the supervision of the newly created and broadly-based League of Nations—award the territories west of the Jordan River to the United Kingdom. The text of the corresponding “mandate” included phrases from the Balfour Declaration about establishing a Jewish national home there. Finally, in 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of dividing parts of the mandatory territory into Arab and Jewish states. The Arabs rejected the suggestion, Israel declared independence, and the rest, as they say, is history.

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Netanyahu’s 1st crisis with Biden? US demands Israel open skies or El Al will be banned By Batya Jerenberg

By on February 14th, 2021

https://worldisraelnews.com/

If the government refuses, Israeli planes will not be allowed to land in the United States.

The U.S. administration has issued an ultimatum to Israel to open its skies to American flights this week or see El Al banned from landing in the U.S., Channel 12 News reported Saturday night.

According to the report, officials in the Biden administration sent a message saying, “Why do you need a crisis with the new administration? Allow our planes to fly to Israel.”

Fearing the import of new, deadlier mutations of the Covid-19 virus, the government shut down Ben Gurion airport on Jan. 26 to all foreign airlines. El Al won a tender last Monday to bring home some of the thousands of Israelis stuck in the U.S. on so-called emergency flights.

Delta and American Airlines made runs into Israel during previous months of the pandemic and are looking to recoup some of their massive losses from last year’s major international travel ban. Along with other foreign airlines, they are now being allowed only to bring in cargo, not passengers.

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Biden Makes History: First President in 40 Years to Punt on Contacting Israel White House doesn’t list Israel as American ally Adam Kredo

By on February 13th, 2021

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/biden-makes-history-first-president-in-40-years-to-punt-on-contacting-israel/

President Joe Biden is the first American leader in 40 years not to contact Israel’s leaders as one of his first actions in the White House, setting up what could be four years of chilly relations between America and its top Middle East ally.

Biden has already phoned multiple world leaders, including Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping, but during his 23 days in office has yet to speak with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu—making Biden the first president in modern history to punt on bolstering U.S.-Israel relations during his initial days in office. Every president going back to at least Ronald Reagan in 1981 made contact with their Israeli counterpart within a week of assuming office, according to a review of news reports.

Congressional foreign policy leaders slammed Biden’s Netanyahu snub, prompting a flurry of questions for White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who has declined to disclose when or if Biden will call the Israeli leader. Psaki also said on Friday the White House would not list Israel as a U.S. ally when asked about the relationship during her daily press briefing.

Modern presidents going back to Reagan made calls or overtures to Israel during their first days in office, sending a message the United States would continue to stand for the Jewish state’s security. Biden’s diplomatic slight comes as Israel faces encroaching terrorist threats and the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran. He also has hired several individuals with a background in anti-Israel activism, including Maher Bitar, a top White House National Security Council official who spent his youth organizing boycotts of the Jewish state. The State Department’s Iran envoy, Robert Malley, also has been a vocal critic of Israel.

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Is Israel an ally? Biden’s administration is unclear on that one By Andrea Widburg

By on February 13th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/02/is_israel_an_ally_bidens_administration_is_unclear_on_that_one.html

Israel has been America’s staunch ally going back to the Cold War. Additionally, as a friendly nation that has been genocidally besieged by the anti-American, anti-Semitic bullies in its neighborhood, America felt the good guy’s responsibility to help Israel protect herself. Beginning in 1979 with the Iranian Revolution, Israel and America also shared a common enemy: radical Islam. But none of that matters to Joe Biden, who’s long been hostile to Israel and is following Obama’s delusional effort to make nice with Iran.

Biden has never liked Israel. Moreover, he shares Obama’s dislike for Netanyahu, something demonstrated by his refusing to talk to Netanyahu since entering office.

With Jews who are Democrats showing decreasing support for Israel, that made the campaign easier for Biden. Democrats, rather than supporting the Abraham Accords, which are causing peace to break out across the Middle East, resented the fact that Trump was able to broker the accords by circumventing the totalitarian and genocidal Palestinians, rather than pandering to them.

As the election drew near, confident that Democrat Jews’ loathing for Trump overrode any residual love for Israel, Biden became more openly hostile to Israel. In August, the Washington Post summed up Biden’s Israel policy as a morally muscular opposition to Trump’s unwavering support for Israel and the peace deals he was making by ignoring the Palestinians, who have proven themselves incapable of self-governance in both Gaza and the West Bank:

“The new UAE-Israel announcement does not just normalize bilateral relations between the two countries, which have existed barely under the table for many years,” wrote Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. “For Palestinians, it also helps to normalize (if not actually reward) Israel’s occupation.”

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Palestinians: More Corruption as Biden Resumes Financial Aid by Bassam Tawil

By on February 12th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17042/palestinians-corruption-financial-aid

The assumption that renewed financial aid would lead the Palestinian leadership to make “concessions” has proven, over the past three decades, to be completely baseless. Anyone in the Biden administration who thinks that the Palestinian leadership would make real “concessions” to Israel in return for hundreds of millions of dollars is living under an illusion.

Last year, the Palestinians rejected Trump’s $50 billion Middle East economic plan that would create a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and Arab state economies. The Palestinians dubbed it an “attempted bribe.”

The “innocent Palestinians” the Biden administration is talking about would undoubtedly be happy to receive financial aid from the US or the European Union. These Palestinians, however, are concerned that their leaders will continue to deprive them of the financial aid, and that the money, ever-fungible, would, as usual, just end up in the pockets of Palestinian leaders as well as to incentivizing murder for “pay-for-slay” terrorists.

A recent public opinion poll showed that a majority of Palestinians are still worried about the corruption of their leaders, especially the Palestinian Authority.

The majority of Palestinians believe that corruption is concentrated among senior public sector employees, particularly in the executive public institutions (the ministries, the presidency and the security services). The Palestinians continue to believe that senior employees are the most corrupt individuals among the Palestinians.

All this means that, if and when the general elections take place, Hamas is well on its way to score another easy victory.

The message that the findings send to the Biden administration and other Western donors: The funds you are sending to Palestinian leaders are being stolen. If you want to send money, you must ensure that the money does not end up in the private bank accounts of Palestinian leaders.

If, as the poll shows, a majority of Palestinians continue to see their leaders as corrupt, this means that Abbas’s rivals in Hamas are again likely to win the vote.

Ignoring rampant corruption in the Palestinian Authority (PA), the US administration of President Joe Biden says it is preparing to resume unconditional financial aid to the Palestinians.

“The suspension of aid to the Palestinian people has neither produced political progress nor secured concessions from the Palestinian leadership,” US State Department Spokesman Ned Price said at a press briefing earlier this month. “It has only harmed innocent Palestinians.”

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The ‘Five Million Palestinian Refugees’ A profitable hoax that keeps on growing. Hugh Fitzgerald

By on February 11th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/five-million-palestinian-refugees-hugh-fitzgerald/

Mitchell Bard has provided a detailed look at the data surrounding the claims of refugee status for five million “Palestinian refugees” here: “The Palestinian refugee hoax,” by Mitchell Bard, Israel Hayom, January 31, 2021:

The negotiation affairs department of the PLO tweeted on May 15, 2020, “Every nakba commemoration day, we mark the catastrophe that befell our people in 1948, when 957,000 Palestinians became refugees.” The truth is that number was concocted, as is the current figure of 5.7 million used by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The actual number is more likely less than 30,000.

Palestinians typically claim that 800,000 to 1,000,000 Palestinians became refugees between 1947 and 1949. The last census was taken in 1945. It found only 756,000 permanent Arab residents in Israel. On Nov. 30, 1947, the date the United Nations voted for partition, the total was 809,100. A 1949 Government of Israel census counted 160,000 Arabs living in the country after the war, which meant no more than 650,000 Palestinian Arabs could have become refugees. A report by the UN Mediator on Palestine (as of September 1948) arrived at an even lower figure: 360,000. The CIA estimate was 330,000. In 2011, historian Efraim Karsh analyzed the number of refugees by city and came up with an estimate of 583,000 to 609,000.

When the United Nations created UNRWA to assist the Palestinians, a refugee was defined as “a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood.”

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