RUTHFULLY YOURS

While the Red Sea Jazz Festival gives August a jazzy rep, Tel Aviv & Jerusalem haven taken the cake in making December the unofficial month of jazz. Just as the Jerusalem Jazz Festival draws to a close, Tel Aviv Cinematheque (in conjunction with Zappa Tel Aviv & Zappa Herzliya) has packed an impressive schedule of 20 performers from Israel and abroad, including: Ester Rada, Daniel Jobim, Dee Alexander, and the famed Ravi Coltrane.

With original productions, live shows, free performances (every evening outside the Cinematheque), and tributes to the greats, the Tel Aviv Jazz Festival is the best way to ring in the winter.

“As I prepare for an upcoming trip to Israel and the West Bank, my third visit to the region, I expect to find an even more dynamic Jewish state, where even the constant threat of catastrophe does not interfere with a zest for life.Then again, that’s Israel. A miracle among nations.”
On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish, one Arab. Most Zionists accepted the deal, while Arabs almost universally rejected it and declared war.

One Muslim delegate, referring to Jews living in Arab nations, warned that “The blood will flow like rivers in the Middle East.” Iraq’s prime minister threatened that the Jewish state would not survive, saying “We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in” while Syria’s leader claimed “We shall eradicate Zionism.”

Seventy years later, a lust for Jewish blood is a staple of Islamic State, Hezbollah and Hamas, whose charter calls for the elimination of Israel. Iran’s leaders call Israel “Little Satan” and vow to wipe it off the map.

In important ways, then, not much has changed. Jew hatred remains mainstream enough to flourish in the sunshine as well as the shadows, including at major American university campuses and European parliaments. Year in, year out, Jews are the victims of most of the religious hate crimes in the United States.

Some UN bodies exist to demonize Israel while ignoring wholesale slaughter and oppression in other lands. Indeed, if that partition proposal were submitted to a much-larger General Assembly today, it probably would not get majority support, let alone the two-thirds approval it got in 1947.

Yet in other ways, everything has changed. Israel, which declared independence in 1948, is a mighty regional power militarily and its economy and technical innovations are world-renowned. This is exceptionalism, Israeli-style.

Politically, it’s made progress, too. Peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt have proved remarkably durable and other Arab states have established quiet working relationships with the nation they tried repeatedly to destroy.

Paradoxically, the rise of Islamic terrorism has created common ground with some former enemies. Even Barack Obama’s flawed nuclear deal with Iran, vehemently opposed by both Israel and Saudi Arabia, is bringing the two nations closer because they share a vision of Iran as an existential threat.

A recent article in the Jerusalem Post described growing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia as “perhaps the most significant shift in the region” and called a secret visit by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Israel in September evidence that official diplomatic relations are possible.

Past experience tends to repeat itself, creating the most glittering writing on the wall. However, too often it is overlooked by Western policy-makers, who frequently sacrifice long-term interests, strategic complexity and reality-based hope on the altar of short-term convenience, oversimplification and wishful-thinking.

The November 29, 1947 Partition Plan produced a series of long-term geo-strategic lessons – relevant to the 2017 national security of Israel and the US – which have been largely ignored, although they have recurred and have been reaffirmed, systematically, throughout the last 70 years.

Lesson #1. The foundations of the special ties between the US and Israel were not laid down by policy-makers, but – since the 1620 “Mayflower – by the American people. In 1947, the State Department opposed, aggressively, the establishment of the Jewish State, but the US public overwhelmingly supported the Partition Plan, equally among Democrats and Republicans, college-educated and non-college-educated. According to the October, 1947 Gallup poll, support of the Partition Plan was 65%:10% with 25% “no opinion.” Lowell Thomas, a US radio icon, told his listeners on May 14, 1948: “Today, as the Jewish State is established, Americans read through the Bible as a historical reference book.”

Lesson #2. The pugnacious rejection of the 1947 Partition Plan by the Arabs – including the Arabs west of the Jordan River – reflects the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which has never been the Palestinian issue, Jewish settlements, the reunification of Jerusalem, or the size of the Jewish State. It has always been the existence of the “infidel” Jewish State in the Abode of Islam, a land which is, ostensibly, divinely-ordained only to “believers.”

According to the October 11, 1947 issue of the Egyptian daily, Akhbar al-Yom, the Arab League Secretary General, Azzam Pasha warned of “a war of extermination and momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Tartar Massacre, or the Crusader wars… to win the honor of martyrdom for the sake of Palestine… the shortest road to paradise….” In 2017, hate-education dominates the Palestinian curriculum, Friday sermons and public discourse.

Lesson #3. The secondary-to-marginal role played by the Palestinian issue in shaping Arab policy has been demonstrated, repeatedly, since 1947. While Arab leaders have talked passionately about their support of an Arab state west of the Jordan River, they have never walked the walk.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Protein switch helps immune system fight cancer. Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a protein “switch” that activates the immune system to attack cancer cells. They were able to distinguish cancer cells from healthy tissue by their DNA sequences.
http://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Joint-Israeli-US-research-distinguishes-cancerous-cells-from-healthy-ones-508738 https://www.youtube.com/embed/vbWDuAev7Oo?rel=0

Injection melts fat. Israeli startup Raziel Therapeutics has developed an injectable molecule that apparently melts away fat cells. The new synthetic small molecule was discovered by Professor Shmuel Ben-Sasson of Hebrew University almost by accident. Raziel is conducting phase 2a clinical testing on 32 US patients.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-fat-busting-shot-seeks-to-help-battle-obesity/

GE imaging to use Israeli technology. I reported previously (twice) on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform of Israel’s MedyMatch for diagnosing head trauma and strokes from CT-scans. MedyMatch is now partnering with GE Healthcare to integrate its products with the US giant’s imaging solutions.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ge-healthcare-to-use-israeli-tech-to-help-doctors-assess-stroke-embargo/

Prostate device gets European approval. Israeli biotech Butterfly Medical has received the CE Mark for its novel medical device for non-surgical treatment of Benign Prostate Hyperplasia (BPH) or enlarged prostate that affects 105 million men globally. The device is inserted in a 10-minute procedure under local anesthetic.
https://www.globes.co.il/en/article-butterfly-medical-awarded-ce-mark-for-prostate-device-1001213492

Autism and the smell of fear. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have discovered that people with Autism react differently to certain odors produced by the human body. Experiments using sweat collected from people taking skydiving classes and from those undertaking normal exercise had remarkably different results.
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/autism-and-smell-fear
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-017-0024-x

Cancer patients win golf tournament. I reported previously (twice) on the annual fund-raising “Hole in One” golf tournament of Israeli cancer charity Ezer Mizion. For the first time, a team of cancer patients also competed. The team not only won one of the top awards, but the patients benefited from a wonderful day out.
http://www.ezermizion.org/blog/why-is-this-tournament-different-from-all-other-tournaments/

United Hatzalah founder saves a life. Eli Beer, founder and President of United Hatzalah was flying El Al from New York to Israel when he rushed to save the life of a passenger who was having a hypoglycemia attack. Using a borrowed glucometer, honey and jam he stabilized the patient so the flight could continue to Tel Aviv.
https://israelrescue.org/blog/dramatic-rescue-eli-beer-saved-a-mans-life-mid-flight-this-morning/
http://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Mans-life-saved-on-El-Al-flight-by-United-Hatzlah-president-Eli-Beer-514962

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration is considering a plan to formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the U.S. Embassy there in the future, U.S. officials said, steps that could trigger Palestinian protests and imperil the restart of a long-stalled peace process.

The Trump administration this week notified U.S. embassies overseas about the plan and a possible forthcoming announcement so envoys can inform their host governments and prepare for possible protests.

Officials said the plans weren’t final, however, and the U.S. was working through additional legal and policy considerations. A formal announcement could come as early as next week, the officials said.

“The president has always said it is a matter of when, not if,” a White House spokesman said when asked about moving the embassy. “The president is still considering options and we have nothing to announce.”

Officials said the administration is mulling laying out a long-term plan to move the embassy that would play out in President Donald Trump’s second term, should he be re-elected.

The disclosures about the potential move come as Mr. Trump faces an early December deadline under U.S. law to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem or sign a presidential waiver to keep it in Tel Aviv.

It was unclear what Mr. Trump would decide on the waiver question, but officials said one option would be to recognize Jerusalem as the capital and announce plans for the embassy move, but postpone the actual relocation for several years. In the interim, the U.S. ambassador to Israel could work from Jerusalem instead of Tel Aviv, the current site of the U.S. Embassy.

The administration also could choose to recognize Jerusalem as the “undivided” capital of Israel, one of the officials said.

Any U.S. move to declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital would likely be taken as an affront by Palestinians, who consider East Jerusalem the capital of a future state. U.S. officials said they were weighing those concerns. CONTINUE AT SITE

Many people in the West are not aware that the Palestinians are trying to torpedo any peace initiative in order to blame others.

The Palestinians are crying Wolf, Wolf! — but only a few in the Arab world are listening to them. This, in a way, is encouraging and offers hope for them finally to be released from decades of repressive and corrupt governance.

These are just some of the challenges Saudi Crown Prince is facing. It is important to support him in the face of attacks by some Palestinians and other spoilers.

A young Saudi man has posted videos on social media in which he calls the Palestinians “dogs” and “pigs.” The man says that Saudi Arabia has provided the ungrateful Palestinians with “billions of dollars” during the past few decades. “The Palestinians,” the Saudi man charges, “have been milking us for decades.”

The videos, which have since gone viral, have understandably drawn strong condemnations from Palestinians, who say they would not have been made public without the tacit approval of the Saudi authorities. For the Palestinians, the abusive videos represent yet another sign of increased tensions in their relations with Saudi Arabia.

Further evidence of Saudi disdain for the Palestinians was provided in a video posted by Saudi Arabia featuring a Palestinian gunman as a terrorist.

Last July, the Saudi ambassador to Algeria, Sami Saleh, shocked many Palestinians when he described Hamas as a terror group. Hamas responded by saying that such remarks were “harmful to Saudi Arabia and its record and stances towards the Palestinian cause and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”

The apparent shift in Saudi Arabia’s position towards the Palestinians should not come as a surprise. Like most Arab countries, the Saudis too have finally realized that the Palestinians are ungrateful and untrustworthy. Saudi Arabia and most of the Arab countries are obviously fed up with the recurring attempts by the Palestinians to blackmail them and extort money from them.

Seventy years ago today, with the Holocaust still fresh in the minds of global leaders, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to partition Palestine in two, with the goal of establishing one state for Jews to reclaim their historic homeland and another for the Arabs who were also living there.

So, one must wonder what those global leaders would think of today’s United Nations – which operates a single-minded campaign of opprobrium against Israel for its alleged human rights transgressions against Palestinians, but which largely ignores the far more serious human rights abuses of regimes that stretch from Beijing to Moscow, Tehran to Riyadh and Havana to Caracas.

In the latest manifestation of the U.N.’s Israel obsession, its Human Rights Council (which is perhaps the U.N.’s most comically misnamed institution) is preparing in the coming weeks to release a “blacklist” of about 200 companies around the world that do business in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The list is apparently designed to shame them into severing their business ties with those Israeli-run areas.

Some 130 Israeli and 60 international companies received letters recently from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights – whom the Human Rights Council asked to create the list nearly two years ago – to inform them that they’re being “blacklisted” for “acting contrary to international law and U.N. decisions.” The companies reportedly include Israeli banks, supermarkets and restaurant chains as well as such U.S. companies as Caterpillar, TripAdvisor, Priceline.com, and Airbnb.

The request to create such a list not only reflects the Human Rights Council’s outsized focus on the Jewish state, but also reveals the rank hypocrisy of its membership, which includes some of the world’s worst human rights abusers.

The list will have no force of law, but it could still prove harmful to Israel if companies decide that doing business in those Israeli-run areas isn’t worth the risk to their corporate reputations. It’s another manifestation of the global campaign by public institutions and private activists to destroy Israel not by defeating it on the battlefield but by delegitimizing it in the court of public opinion. Among other things, the list would provide further fuel for the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement against Israel that’s popular in Europe and on U.S. college campuses.

The hundredth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration has passed to mixed reactions. It has been celebrated, as it deserves to be—the achievements of the Jewish state that emerged from it are breathtaking—but also attacked and denigrated.

Some of the attacks are unsurprising. The “Foreign Minister” of the “State of Palestine” Riyad Malki said it was bringing legal proceedings against the British government in British and international courts, in his words, to “compel the British government to apologize and make reasonable reparations to make up for that tragedy [the Balfour Declaration] including recognizing the State of Palestine.” The UN is using the occasion to set aside $1.3 billion to fund Palestinian legal campaigns against Israel and to support creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Emily Thornberry

More unsettling are some British reactions. Melanie Phillips reports that Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn refused to attend the dinner celebrating the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, a dinner attended by Prime Minister Netanyahu as the guest of Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May. In his place he sent the Labor shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry who made no secret that she saw nothing to celebrate. In an interview with the Middle East Eye news site, Thornberry said: ”I don’t think we celebrate the Balfour Declaration but I think we have to mark it…and I think probably the most important way of marking it is to recognize Palestine.” Even more unsettling are the reactions of some hitherto respectable Jewish organizations. For example, the American Jewish Historical Society has clearly gone over to the dark side with its plan (only withdrawn under pressure) to “commemorate” Balfour with speeches by two anti-Israel activists, partnering with the viciously anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace.

Which brings us to the importance of another anniversary that went totally unremarked: the 24th year anniversary this September of the signing of the Oslo accords in Washington. There is a direct connection between the rampant, ever-growing hostility to Israel and the so-called “peace” agreement Rabin signed with Arafat. Until then, Arafat had been a terror chieftain whose fortunes were in sharp decline. Whatever the failures of Israel’s 1982 campaign in Lebanon, it had one major success, forcing the PLO, which had sowed havoc in both Jordan and Lebanon, to find refuge in Tunisia, a backwater where it remained weak and constrained. With Oslo Israel bestowed vigorous new life on the PLO—and on the worldwide assault on her own legitimacy.

As remarkable as Israel’s stupidity was the enthusiasm with which it was greeted by Israel’s supporters (a reminder—think catastrophic global warming—of just how wrong a “consensus” can be). As American Jewish organizations vied for a place on the White House lawn to witness signing of the “historic” peace agreement, AFSI was a lone pro-Israel organization in denouncing the agreement and in pointing out its inevitable disastrous consequences. There would be individuals who spoke out and indeed traveled to Oslo to protest the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Arafat, Rabin and Peres. These were the people who at the time we called “the real heroes of Oslo,” including Rabbi Avi Weiss, Ronn Torossian, David Kalb and Joshua Meisels of the Coalition for Jewish Concerns (AMCHA) as well as New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who brought a group of prominent New Yorkers to Oslo.

President Trump needs a win. Fortunately, one is within reach.

In 1995, Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, a law that mandated moving America’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to a “unified” Jerusalem by May 31, 1999. But that move never happened, and, as Ambassador John Bolton pointed out in his recent congressional testimony on the subject, the U.S. embassy to Israel remains the only American embassy not located in the host country’s capital.

How has the Jerusalem Embassy Act not yet been fully executed? One of the law’s provisions grants the president the authority to bypass its penalty for not moving the embassy by issuing a waiver, renewable every six months, which invokes “the national security interests of the United States.” The latest waiver was issued on June 1 of this year.

Every president since 1999, from Clinton to Bush to Obama to Trump, has kept up the unending string of waivers, declining to move the embassy to Jerusalem. Some of them have promised, as candidates, to make the move, but none have followed through. The next waiver is set to expire on December 1. On that day, Trump can break the streak.

Security concerns do not merit a waiver of this provision of the Jerusalem Embassy Act. It is true, as events across the Arab world in 2012 showed, that U.S. embassies and consulates are targets for attacks by violent extremists. That has been the case since at least 1998, when al-Qaeda terrorists blew up American embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.The response of the United States to those attacks, however, was not to withdraw from Nairobi or Dar es Salaam. As Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law professor Eugene Kontorovich argued in his own congressional testimony, after these very attacks “the Executive undertook to hunt down and punish the perpetrators, while Congress appropriated extraordinary amounts for improved security at diplomatic facilities around the world.”

Recent events do not suggest that beginning to grant Jerusalem equal status with other world capitals would significantly endanger American security. Last April, Vladimir Putin’s Russia became the only country on Earth to actually recognize West Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. The silence across a Middle East split on religious lines, riven by proxy wars, and aflame with extremism was deafening.

America’s policy of maintaining its embassy in Tel Aviv was born not of security concerns, but of legal deference to the U.N. General Assembly’s Resolution 181, a 1947 proposal that would have made Jerusalem into an international city governed by a “Special International Regime,” while partitioning the rest of Mandatory Palestine into Arab and Jewish sections.