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ISRAEL

Annex Judea and Samaria Judea and Samaria should be returned to their rightful owners. Amil Imani

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23228

When we dig into history books, we can hardly find people or countries that have gone out of existence for as long as 2,000 years and then reappeared and been reborn. Thus, it is indeed accurate to say that the rebirth of Israel, this beautiful ancient culture, people and the land is truly a miracle from God.

I believe time has come for Israel to unite all Israel. Historically and biblically, both Judea and Samaria have been undeniably part of the heritage of the Jewish people. They belonged to Israel 2000 years ago as they belong to Israel now. Arabs have absolutely no historic ties to Judea and Samaria. Historic ties are what your base assertions to a geographic area.

Annexation of these two historical Jewish lands, will stipulate a strong and well-defined standing for West Bank Arabs. Simultaneously, the so-called Palestinians, will have no motive to have their own county. Israeli equal justice under the law will apply to all people. All terrorists’ infrastructures will be eradicated. The residents of those regions will be subjected to Israeli rules and regulation and will be dealt with in the same fashion that all countries deal with domestic insurgent, treachery and lawless organizations.

“The Jewish people didn’t wake up one day saying ‘Jews are connected to the Land of Israel’. The whole story, the history and the destiny of the Jewish people, is geared toward the idea that we were there and we are coming back.”

Let us clarify this now and forever, historically or otherwise, there has never been a Palestinian state, nor political body that is owned by Palestinians. According to the advancement of international agreements from 1917 until 1947, the land of Israel, renamed Palestine by the Romans in the 2nd century. It was later divided into three states: Jordan, Jewish and Arab state. While the Jews swallowed this excruciating deal, shrinking the size of their ancestral land by over 75%, the Arabs snubbed and rejected it all together. As a result, the Arabs launched an invasion against the newly established State of Israel in 1948. Jordan managed to occupy the area of Judea and Samaria and illegitimately annexed it.

The false accusation of “Israel apartheid” South Africa’s uniquely evil regime has been maliciously twisted into a uniquely evil lie Melanie Phillips

https://melaniephillips.substack.com

The campaign to demonise and delegitimise Israel has recently moved into a higher gear with the increased use of one particularly vicious falsehood.

This is the claim that Israel is an apartheid state.

The claim is as fatuous as it is pernicious. Apartheid was the name given to South Africa’s systematic oppression of its black inhabitants who were denied political, civic and human rights.

By contrast, Arab Israeli citizens have fully equal rights. They study in Israel’s universities; enjoy Israel’s beaches and parks; receive equal treatment as patients in Israel’s hospitals and work there as doctors and other medical staff; serve as members of the armed forces and as judges; and are represented by members of Knesset who are currently lynch-pins in Israel’s governing coalition.

Those Arabs who live in the disputed territories don’t have Israeli rights — for the very good reason that they aren’t Israeli citizens. They have no civic entitlements purely because the status of those territories remains unsettled as a result of Palestinian Arab rejectionism and violence — and because Arab states regard them as a nuisance preferably to be ignored.

The “Israel apartheid” smear, however ludicrous, isn’t new. It has its roots in the infamous 1975 “Zionism is Racism” UN resolution. Although that was revoked in 1991, it was resurrected at the scarcely-less infamous UN conference in Durban in 2001.

At that anti-Jewish hate-fest, the NGO forum referred to “Israel’s brand of apartheid and ethnic cleansing methods” to justify advocating “a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel”. This spawned the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and launched a propaganda campaign against “apartheid Israel,” resulting in grotesque campus “Israel apartheid” weeks.

The Real Palestinian ‘Heroes’: Terrorists by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17764/palestinian-heroes-terrorists

As far as [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas and the PA leadership are concerned, any Palestinian who joins the jihad (holy war) against Israel and Jews and gets killed, wounded or imprisoned is a “hero” and a “freedom fighter.” This is the same PA that the Biden administration is now working to strengthen.

This approach by the PA leadership has sent a message to generation after generation among the Palestinians that the murder or injuring of a Jew is a noble deed that earns the perpetrator boundless respect – even adoration.

This is the theater of the absurd, where a senior Palestinian official condemns Israel for making an effort to recapture convicted terrorists who murdered and injured several Jews and are serving lengthy sentences. Israel, according to this official, should stand aside while terrorists escape from prison and return to murdering Jews.

What Abbas, the PLO and Fatah have been saying – in Arabic – about the terrorists over the past few days reveals the Biden administration’s talk about reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for what it really is: a fatal phantasm.

Under such circumstances, how could Abbas – or any Palestinian leader – ever return to the negotiating table with Israel, regardless of how many hundreds of millions of dollars the Biden administration decides to waste on the Palestinians’ worthless words.

While many international media outlets focused their attention on the escape of six Palestinian inmates from an Israeli prison on September 6, as well as the ensuing dramatic manhunt launched by thousands of Israeli police officers and soldiers, only a few – if any – reported on the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership’s ongoing glorification of terrorists.

Rashida Tlaib Finance Director Shills for Palestinian Islamic Jihad Prison Escapees Rasha Mubarak: “These 6 Palestinian freedom fighters offer us hope.” Joe Kaufman

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/rashida-tlaib-finance-director-shills-palestinian-joe-kaufman/

On September 6th, six Palestinian prisoners being held in an Israeli jail escaped, forcing Israeli authorities to launch a manhunt for them. All have been caught, since. Of the six, five are members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and one is a commander in the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, two groups internationally-recognized as terrorist organizations. Democratic operative and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib staffer Rasha Mubarak thinks otherwise; she has lionized the terrorists as heroes. It is not the first time Mubarak has championed Palestinian terror, and the Democratic Party continues to embrace her and even groom her for future political office.

In August 2014, at the end of the 2014 Gaza War, along with photos of a jubilant Hamas, who had bizarrely just declared victory over Israel, Mubarak tweeted, “Thousands of people celebrating in the streets of Gaza for the victory. Alhamdulillah. #VictoryForGaza.” The war had left nearly 2200 Palestinians and 70 Israelis dead.

Mubarak has promoted material from Hamas-supporting media, including the Palestine Info Center and Shehab News, both of which are directly affiliated with Hamas and publicize the group along with shocking anti-Semitic cartoons of evil looking Orthodox Jews. In July 2014, Mubarak copied onto Facebook a post from Falastin News Palestine, a site that glorifies Hamas and PIJ fighters as heroes; outright states, “God bless Hamas”; features numerous photos of armed masked terrorists interacting with little children; and showcases photos of dead US and British Jews murdered in a Jerusalem synagogue, grossly referring to the dead as “occupiers.”

In June and July 2020, Mubarak posted memorials onto her Twitter and Facebook pages for car-ramming terrorist Ahmed Erekat, who was shot and killed after attempting to run over a female Israeli border officer, at a checkpoint east of Jerusalem.

Behind Israel’s Swift Rollout of Covid-19 Vaccine Boosters By Dov Lieber and Thomas Grove 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-israels-swift-rollout-of-covid-19-vaccine-boosters-11632821987

By getting early access to Pfizer’s vaccine, Israeli scientists had more and earlier data than their counterparts elsewhere—and were willing to act on it

TEL AVIV—In late July, dozens of Israeli scientists and government health officials were locked in a marathon video call where they examined new data indicating that the effectiveness of the Covid vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE was waning.

Infections from the new Delta variant were increasing, and growing numbers of people were falling seriously ill, even those who had had both shots of the vaccine. Lives were potentially on the line.

Within days of the midnight vote that decided to distribute a third shot, the first of millions of booster shots were administered, months before the U.S. or any other country would take the same step.

“It was a really tough discussion,” said epidemiologist Gili Regev-Yochay, who presented key research on the effectiveness of booster shots. “[But] it was a decision that was reached essentially with one voice.”

Throughout the global effort against Covid-19, Israel’s public health experts have been consistently ahead of their counterparts elsewhere in the world. By securing an early supply deal with Pfizer for its vaccine, sweetened in part by a promise to share data from Israel’s extensive network of health maintenance organizations, they have had an edge in understanding how the vaccine behaves in the real world.

Palestinian Leaders: No to Solving Economic Crisis by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17774/palestinian-solving-economic-crisis

The Hamas charter does not talk about improving the living conditions of the Palestinians. It does not talk about boosting the economy or creating job opportunities for unemployed Palestinians.

Instead, the charter talks about jihad (holy war) and urges all Arabs and Muslims not to abandon the fight against Israel….

“The people of the Gaza Strip want their freedom,” he said. “They want the return of their land. Israel does not know the reality of the Palestinian people and believes that economic solutions would prompt the Palestinians to abandon their goals of liberation and achieving the right of return. This is not an economic or material issue.” Hazem Qassem, Hamas official, i24news.tv, September 13, 2021.

The PA and Hamas leaders are apparently worried that the Palestinians would forget about the jihad against Israel once they have jobs and a strong economy.

That is why the PA and Hamas rejected former US President Donald Trump’s plan for peace in the Middle East, “Peace to Prosperity.”

By rejecting all the offers, the leaders of the Palestinians are actually telling… the world: For the Palestinians, the conflict with Israel is not about financial aid or boosting the Palestinian economy. Do not expect the Palestinians to make any concessions to Israel because of the billions of dollars that you are offering or have already given us.

This is an important message that needs to be grasped by the Biden administration in the aftermath of its decision to resume financial aid to the Palestinians. The Biden administration and other Western donors are wrong to assume that their funds could change the hearts and minds of the Palestinians. The only way to bring about such a change is by ending the anti-Israel rhetoric of Palestinian leaders and media outlets — something that is not likely to happen, at least not in the foreseeable future.

Palestinian leaders have again proved that they are continually and cynically putting their own interests before the best interests of their people.

On September 13, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid presented a plan for improving the conditions of the two million Palestinians living in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger :Congress – the co-equal and systematic ally of Israel

https://bit.ly/3uii0cw

Presidents propose and Congress disposes

On September 23, 2021, the US House of Representatives voted 420:9 to replenish the Israeli-developed defensive “Iron Dome” missiles, which are increasingly manufactured – and eventually exported – by the US defense company Raytheon, that benefits from the battle-tested “Israeli laboratory.”

The overwhelming vote reflects Congressional realization that the “Iron Dome”:  

*Enhances Israel’s posture of deterrence, which is critical to the survival of all pro-US Arab regimes and minimization of regional instability;
*Reduces the need for full-scale Israeli wars on Palestinian and Islamic terrorism;
*Provides an alternative to Israeli military ground-operations against Palestinian terrorists, which would entail substantial Israeli and Palestinian fatalities;
*Represents joint US-Israel interests, militarily and technologically, in the face of mutual threats (e.g., Islamic terrorism) and mutual challenges (e.g., developing world-class, game-changing technologies).  
*Constitutes another example of the systematic support by Congress of enhanced US-Israel cooperation.

The decisive role played by Congress in the replenishment of the “Iron Dome” underscores the cardinal rule of the US political system: The President proposes, but Congress disposes. 

The involvement of Senators and House Representatives in foreign policy and national security-related issues has surged since the Vietnam War, Watergate and Iran Gate scandals, the dismantling of the USSR (which transformed the world from a bi-polar to a multi-polar) and rapidly-expanding globalization.   

Iraq Should Join the Abraham Accords Full relations with Israel would help atone for the infamous act of driving out our Jewish population. By Wisam Al-Hardan

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iraq-abraham-accords-israel-sunni-shiite-11632495291?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Erbil, Iraq

More than 300 of my fellow Iraqis from Baghdad, Mosul, Al-Anbar, Babel, Salahuddin and Diyala joined me Friday in this northern city, where we issued a public demand for Iraq to enter into relations with Israel and its people through the Abraham Accords.

We are an assembly of Sunnis and Shiites, featuring members of the (Sunni) Sons of Iraq Awakening movement, which I lead, in addition to intellectuals, tribal elders, and youth activists of the 2019-21 protest movement. Some of us have faced down ISIS and al Qaeda on the battlefield. Through blood and tears we have long demonstrated that we oppose all extremists, whether Sunni jihadists or Iran-backed Shiite militias. We have also demonstrated our patriotism: We sacrificed lives for the sake of a unified Iraq, aspiring to realize a federal system of government as stipulated in our nation’s constitution.

Now, in striving to rebuild our country, we commit ourselves to an awakening of peace. Our guiding light is the memory of a more honorable past: a young, modern state with a glorious ancient tradition; a country that, at its finer moments, witnessed a spirit of partnership across ethnic and sectarian lines. Iraq’s subsequent deterioration was marked by the dissipation of tolerance—a casualty of generations of tyranny and fear, imposed first by rulers, then by external actors, as a tool to divide and conquer.

The most infamous act in this tragedy was the mass exodus and dispossession of the majority of our Iraqi Jewish population, a community with 2,600 years of history, in the mid-20th century. Through their forced migration, Iraq effectively cut one of its own principal veins. Yet we draw hope from the knowledge that most Iraqi Jews managed to rebuild their lives, passing their traditions to their children and grandchildren in Israel.

Israeli pipeline company embroiled in conflict over UAE oil deal David Isaac

https://www.jns.org/israeli-pipeline-company-embroiled-in-conflict-over-uae-oil-deal/

An agreement penned a year ago has encountered growing opposition from environmentalist groups and Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection. It was hailed as the first major partnership to come out of the Abraham Accords—a deal in which Israel would serve as an artery for Emirati crude to Western markets. The lucrative deal, reportedly worth hundreds of millions, was inked on Oct. 19, 2020, by Israel’s state-owned Europe Asia Pipeline Co. (EAPC) and MED-RED Land Bridge Ltd., a private Dubai-based company.

An Israeli “land bridge” transporting oil from Eilat on the Red Sea to Ashkelon on the Mediterranean already exists; it has been operating for more than 50 years. In fact, there are two pipelines between the cities: one for crude oil and one for distillates (gasoline, jet fuel, etc.). While the pipeline isn’t new, pumping Arab oil through it is, at least in such a publicly celebrated manner.

“Since the establishment of the state, Israel has been dealing with the Arab boycott and its consequences,” EAPC said in a statement. “These agreements are, in fact, the practical expression of improving relations between the State of Israel and the Gulf states.”

Then-United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was present at the signing, called it a “significant breakthrough that was made possible thanks to the Abraham Accords,” the normalization treaty signed between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain a month earlier.

But the agreement has encountered growing opposition from environmentalist groups and Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection. The Eilat oil terminal is roughly 200 yards from coral beaches. While those favoring the deal focus on its geo-strategic importance, opponents say it poses an unacceptable risk to the coral reefs.

One of the earliest critics was environmentalist group Zalul, which issued a statement immediately after the October 2020 signing, calling the intention to bring more oil tankers to Eilat “a mortal danger.” Zalul then organized a coalition of 20 green groups to fight what they termed “the transformation of Eilat and Ashkelon into oil cities.”

Democrats Can’t Hide Their Israel Problem By Philip Klein

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/09/democrats-cant-hide-their-israel-problem/#slide-1

Stripping funding for Iron Dome only makes sense if the goal is to help Hamas become more efficient at killing civilians.

F or the past decade or so, top Democrats have been desperately trying to downplay the increasing size and influence of the anti-Israel wing of the party. But it keeps getting harder to hide what’s happening. This week provided yet another stark reminder when a group of progressives banded together to force House speaker Nancy Pelosi to rip $1 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system out of a spending bill meant to avert a government shutdown. It’s hard to overstate what a radical turn this is for the party.

Iron Dome has been an enormously successful shield that has allowed Israel to protect its people by shooting down rockets that Palestinian terrorist groups indiscriminately fire at civilians. By limiting Israeli casualties, the system also protects Palestinian civilians. That is, were the rocket attacks more deadly, Israel would have no choice but to launch a more aggressive military campaign — and likely a ground invasion in Gaza — which would mean the loss of more lives on both sides.

But the life-saving system comes at a cost. Each time Israel intercepts a rocket, it is estimated to cost between $50,000 and $80,000. When Palestinians pursue a saturation-bombing strategy and fire thousands of rockets all over Israel, as they did in May, the price tag of defending civilians can quickly add up, so the system requires constant funding.

There is of course a principled stand one could take against foreign aid in general, or against sending more money overseas at a time when the U.S. is facing historic debt. But progressives are not making any sort of consistent argument against foreign aid and have zero concern for the national debt. If current plans being pushed by progressives pass, then Democrats will have authorized $6 trillion in new spending within the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency. That’s 6,000 times $1 billion.