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Thursday, December 31, 2020

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: A Jewish prisoner's longing for Zion
Pollard paid for that fateful decision with 30 years in prison and another five years of conditional release during which he was barred from moving to Israel.

I asked him back then to describe his life in prison.

"I don't want to go into detail," he responded with a brief, sad sigh. "I will give you an impressionistic description of my life. Life here involves constant noise, endless noise that is impossible to imagine, all the time; constant violence; profanity every conceivable type of profanity. There is no place to be quiet or to find quiet to read. You really have to be disciplined not to be provoked. You need to be disciplined to see when a situation is getting out of hand and to get away as quickly as possible. I have to be ready if my door opens at 2 in the morning."

I asked Pollard what he thought about when he was sitting in his room.

"My dream is to be with my wife, at home in Israel. I am worried about my wife. She is a cancer survivor. But she refused to have chemotherapy because it would have destroyed any chance of having children. Do you have any idea of what it feels like for a husband to have to hear over the phone that his wife has cancer?" he asked in an expression of unending distress and barely disguised desperation.

"I want to come home so that I can be with my wife, my people and my land. That is all I want. I love my nation."

Thirty-five years after his initial arrest, 15 years after I met with him, early on Wednesday morning, Jonathan Pollard finally realized his dream, the dream of a Jewish prisoner longing for Zion.
5 reasons why mainstream Jews should drop the Palestinian cause in 2021
As we close the chapter of an unprecedented year filled with enormous loss and begin a new year with unparalleled opportunity, I believe now is the time to ask bold questions with answers that may be uncomfortable for the mainstream Jewish community in North America. As we made, and now pursue, resolutions for our personal and professional selves, our families and our communities, let us also have the courage to ask the more uncomfortable, more durable – and frankly, more honest questions that we only have the courage to ask in the light of this most challenging year.

How do we engage with Israel? What core policy objectives do we as a community and our organizations seek to achieve? Which organizational policy objectives, written long ago in boardrooms far far away, are still relevant? Which objectives are not relevant? What is achievable? What is not? What is the “needle” – and in what direction do we push it? Which causes embrace all of our identities? And which causes force us as Jews, as Americans, and as Zionists to leave our identities at the door?

I have a resolution.

In 2021, and in the years and decades beyond, the organized Jewish community should abandon its paralyzing, archaic, immoral and dangerous objective of establishing a Palestinian state.

Our world has changed. The Middle East has changed. Israel has changed. The American Jewish community, and its objectives, must too. Suppress your anger, lay down your talking points and hear me out.

1. The Abraham Accords

2. John Kerry’s Middle East is gone – if it ever existed after all

3. No Jewish Organization was actively involved in the Abraham Accords – and likely won’t even be involved in any other breakthrough

4. The Palestinians, and any future potential Palestinian state, would be an organized society and nation whose values and lack of rule of law would be completely antithetical to the Western world

5. The PLO, our alleged partners in peace, incentivize and pay terrorists to kill Jews


David Collier: Exclusive - Project Wiki - how Wikipedia is breeding armies of antisemites
Tell people that Wiki is a problem when it comes to antisemitism or historical revisionism and they will most likely brush you off. You will hear stock responses that range from ‘everyone knows that about Wikipedia‘ or ‘I only use it as a guide‘ to the more expertly constructed excuse that ‘most people understand it isn’t 100% accurate, but it is a good starting point to gather further sources‘. Sometimes they’ll acknowledge Wiki is a minor problem but claim it ‘does its best’ in the circumstances and suggest it has far too many benefits to give up.

I think these attitudes grossly understate the danger Wiki poses and the damage it has already done. Far too many people are still making donations to a platform that has long since turned from ‘doing its best’ into a manipulated monster that breeds ill-will towards Jewish people. To those that say Wiki isn’t a serious problem

BBC watch, Honest Reporting, UK Media Watch, Camera – these are all organisations set up to tackle misinformation – in the understanding that bias or non-factual articles in newspapers influence readers. CIF Watch was originally set up just to monitor the Guardian. How many readers did the Guardian have?

Wiki is the 13th most visited website in the world. If you search for a term online, the most visited website in the world, Google, will *almost always* put the Wiki entry in top spot. Whether we like to admit it or not – Wiki is probably one of the greatest influencers in the world. Everyone knows media outlets such as the Sun and Daily Mail are full of inaccuracy – but would anyone in their right mind suggest that they do not influence people? What is written in Wikipedia matters. You can dismiss it all you like, but I promise you, more people in the west will have their opinion shaped today by the words of Wiki than any other source on the planet.

Read what Wikipedia says about itself:
“Wikipedia is not a reliable source for academic writing or research. Wikipedia is increasingly used by people in the academic community, from freshman students to distinguished professorship, as an easily accessible tertiary source for information about anything and everything, and as a quick “ready reference”, to get a sense of a concept or idea.”

As one of the most popular websites on the planet, Wiki is therefore a builder and protector of paradigms. Even amongst those who won’t use it as a primary source, there is a growing habit of turning to it as a collector of further resource material. This holds true for academia too. Thus – if you are in its pages – you are part of the conversation – if not – you are left outside of the normative paradigm.

The damage it can do
Bad references, or sources on the issue of the Titanic, may be a catalyst for sloppy articles elsewhere, but they probably won’t lead to anyone financing terrorist groups or joining racist movements. But when it comes to issues that matter – Wiki is a clear and present danger. Given what can be found on its pages, Twitter and Facebook should carry a disputed warning on any Wiki article linked to their platforms.

Wikipedia possesses its own Overton window, but this fluctuates according to subject matter. How bad can it be? Here are some examples of the massive brainwashing / disinformation campaign that is taking place:
Col Kemp: We Need a Global Alliance to Defend Democracies
Under a Biden administration, many will be mindful of the Obama-era sell-out of America's Middle East allies while accommodating the hostile Iranian ayatollahs.

Despite the optimistic indulgences by foreign policy experts and politicians over decades, China will not reform to allow normal coexistence within the world order but must instead be contained.

A modern alliance to resist today's "attempted subjugation and outside pressures" should focus not only on China and the immediate challenges of 5G technology and supply chains, but also on the other major strategic threats to democratic states.... The object should not be... to lecture governments such as Hungary, Poland and Romania... While [Biden] may find their internal policies unpalatable, they pose no threat to any other country.

An interests-based, rather than ideological, alliance of strategically like-minded democracies should be built, each with the economic power and will to counter the authoritarian entities that oppose the Free World.... The alliance should work to push back the authoritarians and radicals across the economic, cultural, political, cyber and technological realms and deny them access to critical infrastructure and technology as well as opportunities for cultural subversion. It should also act to deter their further advances.

An important function of the proposed alliance would be to encourage member states, and their allies against authoritarian and extremist entities, to both provide adequate defence resources and where necessary adapt and modernise forces to ensure credible deterrence.

If a country lacks the confidence to stick up for its own values at home, how is it to robustly defend its virtues against those who wish to undermine them? This weakness in Western democracies has already allowed great strides across the world by China, Russia and jihadism and has helped create the situation that a D10 alliance is now urgently needed to repair.
Combating Double Standards Is the Key to Human Rights for All
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights calls to ensure that all people are guaranteed fundamental freedoms - to life, liberty, safety and more. The denying of these rights to any group, individual or country undermines the entire system. The Holocaust provides just one example of Jews being singled out and systematically targeted, and the world stood by in silence as six million Jews were slaughtered.

On Nov. 30 we marked the Commemoration for Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands and Iran - recognizing 850,000 Jews who were ethnically cleansed last century from the Middle East, wiping out communities 2,500 years old. Rights granted to refugee communities all over the world were not provided to these Jewish refugees.

Some 42% of all countries are religious in some way, yet only Israel - the only Jewish state in the world - is singled out. Israel - the Jew among the nations - is the only state treated with consistent condemnation by the international community and its institutions, even as mass human rights violations are committed in China, Iran, Syria and elsewhere.
2020 achievements in the battle against anti-Semitism
The decision this year by the European Court of Justice that the Flemish and Wallonian governments can only allow ritual slaughter of animals after stunning was a major anti-Semitic act. It also affects part of the Muslim population. When Adolf Hitler came to power, the Nazi government introduced a similar measure in Germany, as it fit their anti-Semitic policies.

Though the European court effectively backed up Hitler’s approach, it is possible that the judges were ignorant of the anti-Semitic character of their ruling.

Anti-Semitism born of ignorance is one of the hatred’s many strains.

The court wrote that its judgment strikes a “fair balance” between animal welfare and religion. This is a lie. Jews who observe the laws of their religion are forbidden to eat animals that have been stunned before slaughter. There is thus no balance at all. The court’s decision should be seen as one more step in the more than 1,000-year anti-Semitic culture that permeates European societies, whether the judges were aware of the fact or not.

Yet 2020 also saw a number of positive developments in the battle against anti-Semitism. The most important of these result from policies initiated by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Its decision to stop American financing of the Palestinian Authority was a major step against anti-Semitism. No more U.S. government money would be made available to an organization that rewards the murderers of Jews.

The cessation of U.S. funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) falls into the same category. This U.N. agency finances hate literature against Israel and makes it available in Palestinian schools, among many other anti-Semitic acts. Any renewal of funding by the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden to UNRWA, which it might falsely call “humanitarian aid,” would boil down to an act of anti-Semitism.

Within the broad framework of Trump administration policies, several other measures favorable to Israel had a positive effect in the battle against anti-Semitism. While visiting Israel in November 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S considers the anti-Israel BDS movement to be anti-Semitic. There is indeed ample documentation of the profound anti-Semitic motivation of the initiators and main promoters of BDS.

Another important issue that came up only marginally (there was no follow-up) occurred in the final days before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 3. Sources inside the Trump government made it known that the State Department may declare three major human-rights organizations—Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Oxfam—anti-Semitic. That this is factually correct was not news to anti-Semitism experts, but to hear it expressed in U.S. government circles was a radical step forward.
Can Georgians be foolish enough to vote for hate-filled lyiing phony like Warnock?
I don’t get it. I just can’t figure it out.

Of course Raphael Warnock has no business running for a serious political office. Still, he certainly is allowed to try. The man is a phoney, a liar, a Jew-hater, a White-hater, messed with his wife, a man who would chant “Amen!” to those who would curse America. Still, he is allowed to seek high office, just as prominent haters in other American states have done.

The thing is, the people of other Amrican states see through the masquerades and camouflage. They reject the haters in state-wide contests. Are the people of Georgia multiple times less intelligent than the people in the rest of America? For example, a hater in Louisiana repeatedly has been rejected by that state’s voters. Are peaches and Coca-Cola more devastating to the brain that beignets and jambalaya?

I am a Jew. So I readily regard Warnock as despicable. For me, that part is personal. Anyone who hates Jews — well, howdaya expect me to feel? Indeed, a statement recently was issued by more than 1,500 Orthodox rabbis, under the aegis of the Coalition for Jewish Values, recoiling from Warnock’s years of hatred.

But Warnock does not only hate Jews. He hates Americans a great deal more.

For years Warnock would get up in church, week after week, and attack Jews in Israel, accusing them of horrific things that have no relationship to reality. It was safe for him to do so. He was preaching in a Black church. Jews don’t attend Black churches in any particular numbers, if at all, so there is nowhere safer to beat up on Jews.

Compare us to Nazis — who is going to take umbrage? Tell a Black audience that Jews in Israel are like those who imposed Apartheid against Blacks in South Africa. Who will stand and exclaim: “You are a liar!” In a room where even Waldo will not be found, it is safe to slander Jews and Israel. So, with no Jews in the church to bear witness to truth, this anti-Semite compared the Prime Minister of Israel to . . . former Alabama Governor George Wallace, the ultimate racist encountered by Blacks in southern segregationist states like Georgia and adjacent Alabama.

Warnock used his Black church pulpit for years to attack Jews, to attack Israel. Who can know or gauge how many truly decent, kind-hearted Black Americans in Georgia have been converted for life into Jew-haters by this evil man? Preachers carry enormous influence.


PreOccupiedTerritory: Jews Only Group Guilty Of Cultural Appropriation From Position Of Submission (satire)
Anthropologists examining the controversial phenomenon in which a more powerful society adopts and adapts elements of a subject people’s heritage have observed that the insistence on the direction of the dynamic pertains to every situation except for one involving Jews, who can be accused of the practice even when serving in the role of the less-powerful group, a new study confirms.

Researchers writing in the sociology journal Tosh note the exception to the normal rules of “cultural appropriation” when Jews figure in the picture in some way: when Jews absorb or adopt cultural elements from their host cultures over the course of centuries or millennia, they face the same opprobrium from Social Justice Warriors that any other culture faces only in the position of host or dominant.

Thus, the article explains, Jews who brought to Israel the foods, musical styles, or dress of the Muslim societies that hosted their communities face more fury for appropriating those elements than their Muslim host societies will ever face from activists for the reverse.

“By mechanisms that we can describe,” the article states, “the cumulative documentary evidence regarding cultural appropriation indicates that as a rule, the phenomenon applies only when the party or society perpetrating the appropriation exerts or has exerted imperialistic influence on the culture from which the practices, objects, or styles are appropriated; this contrasts with the reverse phenomenon, similarly criticized, of the dominant power imposing its culture on the subject culture, often to the detriment of the subject culture’s integrity and sustainability.”
Telegraph corrects claim Palestinians in 'occupied' Gaza live under 'Israeli control'
An otherwise unproblematic and, in fact, interesting Telegraph article (“The world’s fastest Covid inoculation drive: Israel vaccinates half a million in nine days”, Dec. 29) concluded with the following sentence:
Israel’s vaccination programme covers all Israeli citizens over 16 but currently excludes the millions of Palestinians living under Israeli control in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

We contacted Telegraph editors to express two main concerns with the sentence:

First, it falsely suggests that it’s Israel’s responsibility to vaccinate Palestinians.

As we made clear in yesterday’s post about this Telegraph piece, under Oslo, the responsibility for healthcare (including vaccinations) falls under the Palestinian Authority. Further, Palestinian leaders have stated publicly that they “do not expect Israel to sell them, or purchase on their behalf, the vaccine from any country”, and that the PA will soon receive millions of vaccines from the US, UK, China and Russia.

The other element of the sentence we argued was substantively misleading is the claim that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank live “under Israeli control”. Whilst the overwhelming majority of Palestinians in the West Bank (in Area A) are governed by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, Gaza, which Israel totally withdrew from in 2005, is of course governed by Hamas.

They upheld most of our complaint, and revised the sentence erroneously suggesting Israeli control over Gaza and West Bank Palestinians.

Here’s the new sentence:
Israel’s vaccination programme covers all Israeli citizens over 16 but currently excludes the millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Hamas led Gaza Strip.
BBC News ignores the latest display of Hamas’ budgetary priorities
Nine months ago the BBC began telling its audiences that the ruling Hamas authority’s ability to deal with the Coronavirus pandemic in the Gaza Strip is compromised by a shortage of medical supplies, high population density and poverty. That messaging has been repeated numerous times since then across all BBC platforms, including in an interview with a senior official at the Hamas-run ministry of health aired in September.

Al-Haj: “You know the health services in Gaza, the healthcare system, which depends mainly on the governmental ministry of health facilities because of the health insurance that is almost free due to the very bad social economical situation in Gaza, so people are relying on the government, more than 96% of them. I know that we have a big problem in our resources either for the human resources – not receiving the salaries – or with the resources of medication that are more than 47% of the medications are zero stock in Gaza since a month and also more than 28% of our consumable medical supplies are also zero stock besides the laboratory material which is also 61% of them are zero.”

Neither in that nor any other BBC report throughout the past nine months did audiences hear about the issue of Hamas’ budgetary priorities which place terrorism over healthcare and other services. While report after report told audiences of a shortage of ventilators and medical supplies, the discovery in October of a cross-border attack tunnel costing millions of dollars was ignored by the BBC.

The corporation has likewise turned a blind eye to the highly-publicised military drill held (despite the high number of cases of Covid-19) on December 29th in the Gaza Strip. Organised by the ‘Joint Operations Room’ which comprises Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, Fatah and additional terror factions, the drill included the firing of rockets into the sea, which was closed to fishing.


Police Search for Suspect After Four Brooklyn Synagogues Vandalized
New York City police released footage on Wednesday of a man suspected of vandalizing four Brooklyn synagogues last weekend.

In a video published by PIX11 News, the man is seen vandalizing the Young Israel of Midwood, one of a string of similar incidents that took place on Saturday night. The other three synagogues targeted were Kahal Darkei Noam, Khal Toras Chaim D’Flatbush and Knesses Bais Avigdor.

The New York Police Department Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating, and New York Governor Cuomo has asked the state’s counterpart to assist, according to CBS News.

“Let us remember, hate, in any of its forms, will not be tolerated in New York and we will always stand united against the cowards who seek to sow division and attack people for who they are or what they believe,” the governor said in a statement.

According to police, derogatory language was included in the graffiti, and one of the targeted synagogues, Knesses Bais Avigdor, was also burglarized.
French Court Convicts Man for Threatening Jewish TV Presenter Who Called Out Rapper’s Antisemitic Lyrics
A French court this week convicted a 33-year-old man for an attempted assault last September on a Jewish TV presenter at the Paris studio where she works.

The court in Nanterre, near Paris, gave a two month suspended sentence to the assailant, named in French news outlets as Samir E. He was convicted for leveling insults and death threats at the presenter, Valerie Benaim — including telling her that he had come “to do battle with the Jews.”

The court heard that the assailant had been angered by Benaim’s trenchant criticism of Freeze Corleone — a French rapper whose hit debut album is steeped in “antisemitism, conspiracy theories, and apologies for Hitler, the Third Reich and [Afghan Taliban commander] Mullah Omar,” according to one leading French anti-racist organization.

Appearing on the live talk show “TPMP” on Sept. 17, an angry Benaim denounced Corleone for lyrics such as, “I arrive determined like Adolf in the 1930s,” and, “Every day I f_k Israel like I live in Gaza.”

“I’m going to try to be very calm, because the words of this boy touch my heart, because I am a Jew, I belong to the Jewish religion,” Benaim declared. “He speaks about humanity, but when you attack a black person, a Jew, a Muslim, you attack humanity.”
Shipping firm Zim publishes prospectus for New York IPO
The Israeli shipping company reportedly plans to raise up to $500 million at the end of January, at a company valuation of $1.5 billion, before money.

Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. has published a prospectus ahead of an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange. Market sources believe that the Israeli shipping company will try to raise between $300 million and $500 million at a company valuation of $1.5 billion, before money. Zim's CEO is Eli Glickman.

Zim is believed to be working with Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Citi, and Jefferies to lead the IPO, which is planned for the end of January.

Earlier this year, Zim first reported that it was planning an IPO and several months ago it repeated its intention in an announcement about the early repaying of $55 million in debt.

Zim's most recent financial results have been positive with revenue of $1 billion in the third quarter of 2020, up 20% from the corresponding quarter of 2019, and net profit of $142 million, up from just $4 million in the corresponding quarter of 2019.
16 expert predictions for 2021 – the year of the homebody
As we near the end of a totally unpredictable year, it may seem a bit bold to predict what’s in store for 2021.

And yet one megatrend emerging from the Covid-19 crisis will influence everything from ecology to economy, healthcare to lifestyle in 2021: “WFH” – working from home.

For better or worse, WFH is now part of our vocabulary. This figures into many of the predictions you’ll read below from our experts.

HOW WE LIVE AND WORK
Lior Fisher Shiloni, partner in lifestyle and design trend forecasting agency The Visionary

Fisher Shiloni and her partner, Nataly Izchukov, predict the homebody trend will continue boosting self-care products and practices: cosmetics, immune-boosting supplements, at-home workout systems, “stress baking,” organizing and nostalgia.

“We see a renaissance of nostalgia because in times of crisis, society has a tendency to think about what was great about the past,” she explains. “We’re even seeing content on Netflix that is so much more nostalgic and retro in its visual appearance.”
A Look Back at Israel's 2020


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Continuing my series of re-captioning cartoons....








We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

There was a kerfuffle recently when the International Committee of the Red Cross decided to make a Twitter thread about the violations of international law depicted in the fictional, excellent Israeli TV series Fauda.

Of course, people made fun of the ICRC for pretending that a fictional story is real. 

But even more idiotic was Mondoweiss' take. The site outdid itself in its article about the incident in its sheer ignorance about, really, everything.

The writer, Jonathan Ofir, freely admits that he never saw the show. He then goes on to create a conspiracy theory that the people who responded to the ICRC tweet are a group of professional Israeli hasbarists who are part of a shadowy group:
The Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry under Gilad Erdan (who is now Israel’s UN Ambassador)– which has been the headquarters for the anti-BDS campaign, which included secret ‘black ops’ operations– has established an army of social media propagandists. 
He's talking about Digitell, which is a very loose group of already-existing bloggers and pro-Israel activists who have met in person twice. I should know - I'm in the group. And while the ministry would love for us to have a unified strategy and messaging, we all still do whatever we want to, while sometimes consulting with others. (Ofir even proves that there was an inconsistency in messaging between the Zionist responses to the ICRC tweet, which undermines his entire argument.)

But Ofir really shows how little he knows when he adds his own non-expertise in international law to the discussion of why Fauda is so evil:

The central theme of Fauda is what is know in international law as Perfidy. ICRC provides the definition of Perfidy from standard International Humanitarian Law:

Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with the intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy.

In other words, it is about conducting a military operation under the guise of being a civilian, or impersonating an individual who is supposed to be offered special humanitarian protection. This act is dangerous also because it puts civilians and humanitarian workers at risk, as it creates a suspicion that they may be involved in the hostilities.

Such perfidy is standard operating procedure for Israel. 
For some reason, the ICRC didn't mention perfidy in its list of Fauda's violations of international law, but Ofir thinks he knows better.

Ofir has no clue.

When characters in Fauda go undercover, they are not acting as soldiers. They are acting as spies. And espionage is not against international law.

As the ICRC quotes US practice in its documentation on perfidy:
Customary international law does not … prohibit belligerents from using saboteurs, secret agents or other irregular forces feigning civilian status to attack legitimate military targets. Wear of civilian clothing during an attack, or during a spying or sabotage mission behind enemy lines, may subject combatants to punishment if captured by the enemy.
Spies do not have the protection of international law given to soldiers. Their risk is much greater, and if they are caught they can be executed if that is the law of the capturers. 

How much ignorance can Mondoweiss fit in one article?





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hippie vanSacramento, December 31 - Stalwarts of forward-leaning politics voiced consternation today at a new dilemma that may force them to choose as never before between the values of ecological sensitivity and steamrolling Jewish concerns in pursuit of those values.

Progressive figures across California expressed dismay Thursday after the 48-seater vehicle, under which they had intended to throw Jews while pursuing the progressive agenda, could not meet the state's air pollution limitations, the toughest such thresholds in the nation. As never before activists observed, they must decide whether to proceed in their endeavors to implement a progressive agenda if in that pursuit they do not end up harming Jewish interests.

"It's not a problem we gave much thought to," admitted Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (D-NY). "All of us just kind of assumed that throwing Jews under the bus was an automatic consequence of pursuing our vision for the twenty-first century in ecology, economics, race relations, everything. But it turns out sometimes you have to go out of your way to make harming Jewish interests, or at the very least disregarding the expressed concerns of the vast majority of the American Jewish community, an outcome. We need to have some serious conversations about how far out of our way to go to ensure that outcome, and what the other costs might be to such a direction."

Previous conflicts between Jewish concerns and the progressive agenda have tended to make Jewish concerns secondary or irrelevant to the desired outcome, as when prominent progressives have declared support for Jewish sovereignty and security in the ancestral Jewish homeland to be at odds with progressive values. "It's not Israel-Palestine per se that's the issue," explained activist and Women's March founder Linda Sarsour. "My buddies in the Nation of Islam probably couldn't care less whether Israel exists, or who rules the Palestinians, just as the Arabs in Palestine couldn't care less when they were under foreign rule for many centuries. It's the Jews of America that bother Brother Farrakhan, not the Jews of Tel Aviv, although licking the latter in the teeth might also be good. No, it's about maintaining the Jew as an enemy, and as time passes, our sensibilities have increasingly painted the Jew as the source of our community's problems, because it's more convenient to blame someone else than to fix your own problems, and hey, look, the Jews are right here, always available as scapegoats."

"But this time it's a little different," she acknowledged, "because now we have to determine whether harming Jews is simply a positive side-effect of our efforts, or a goal in itself, and if the latter, then does it outweigh other progressive goals? I think we all know what the decision will be in the end, but it looks good to have a 'conversation' about it that really only involves people who want Jews to just go away with their irritating insistence that people treat them with the same humanity and respect we demand for everyone else."

From Ian:

Honest Reporting: Does UNRWA Violate International Law?
UNRWA’s definition of refugee technically violates international law, as it contradicts the 1951 UN Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.

Article 1 of the Convention defines a refugee as:
…a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.

Under Article I(c)(3), a person is no longer a refugee if, for example, he or she has “acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality.”

UNRWA’s definition of a Palestinian refugee, which is not anchored in any treaty and thus does not carry the weight of international law, includes no such provision. In fact, UNRWA defines “Palestinian refugees” to include all offspring of male Palestinian refugees from 1948, including legally adopted children, regardless of whether they have been granted citizenship elsewhere.

The United Nations claims on its website that UNRWA’s unusual practice does not violate international law and norms, by pointing out that there are other conflicts in the world where refugee status has continued for successive generations (eg. Afghanistan and Somalia).

However, the United Nations’ claim is not only misleading but objectively wrong. Under the 1951 Convention (1967 Protocol, Article IV Section B), successive generations have refugee status only if it is necessary to maintain what is called “family unity.” For example, imagine that a couple escaped Afghanistan, became refugees in Pakistan, and then had a child. Even though that child never lived in Afghanistan, he or she would nevertheless be granted refugee status in order to keep the family unit from being broken apart by potential developments.

However, under UNRWA’s rules, there is no “family unity” limitation. To the contrary, unlimited future generations may inherit refugee status even when there is no living family connection to pre-1948 British-ruled Palestine and, consequently, there is no danger of tearing apart any family unit. This is no subtle distinction: UNRWA has, knowingly or not, created a financial incentive for host countries to deny Palestinians citizenship, so that the nations in question can benefit from the international aid that comes with hosting people who maintain refugee status in perpetuity.

According to a 2012 report by the United States Senate, under the terms of the 1951 Convention, which applies to all other people in the world, the number of real Palestinian refugees living today is only about 30,000. Yet, according to UNRWA, the number of “refugees” is over 5 million, making Palestinians the only group in the world whose refugee population has increased — and dramatically — over time.


Israel’s 2 top int’l law officials take on ICC: Is Gaza ‘occupied’?
Two of Israel’s top international law officials have published a rare public article to challenge the International Criminal Court prosecution and others who say that Israel still illegally occupies Gaza.

The article, published in the journal Iyunei Mishpat (Legal Studies) recently but being reported now for the first time in English, is important both regarding addressing cases of alleged Israeli war crimes in ongoing fighting with Hamas, as well as regarding what humanitarian obligations Jerusalem has to Gaza, during coronavirus and other periods.

These issues ultimately have major long-term implications at the national security and diplomatic levels, including whether Israel’s naval blockade and other periodic closures of Gaza are legal.

Just as important are the authors: Deputy Attorney-General (International Law) Roy Schondorf and IDF International Law Division chief Col. Eran Shamir-Borer, two officials who have led much of Israel’s handling of ICC issues and humanitarian dilemmas with Gaza.

Schondorf rarely writes publicly or appears in public with the exception of specific conferences or at the Knesset, and Shamir-Borer appears even less often.

It seems that the impetus for their article was to address prior statements by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda as well as a current article by prominent Israeli prof. Eyal Gross in the same journal, declaring that Israel still legally occupies Gaza, despite having withdrawn in 2005.
Senate Investigation Finds Obama Admin Knowingly Funded al-Qaeda Affiliate
Non-profit humanitarian agency World Vision United States improperly transacted with the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) in 2014 with approval from the Obama administration, sending government funds to an organization that had been sanctioned over its ties to terrorism, according to a new report.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) recently released a report detailing the findings of an investigation his staff began in February 2019 into the relationship between World Vision and ISRA.

The probe found that World Vision was not aware that ISRA had been sanctioned by the U.S. since 2004 after funneling roughly $5 million to Maktab al-Khidamat, the predecessor to Al-Qaeda controlled by Osama Bid Laden.

However, that ignorance was born from insufficient vetting practices, the report said.

“World Vision works to help people in need across the world, and that work is admirable,” Grassley said in a statement. “Though it may not have known that ISRA was on the sanctions list or that it was listed because of its affiliation with terrorism, it should have. Ignorance can’t suffice as an excuse. World Vision’s changes in vetting practices are a good first step, and I look forward to its continued progress.”

The investigation was sparked by a July 2018 National Review article in which Sam Westrop, the director of the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch, detailed MEF’s findings that the Obama administration had approved a “$200,000 grant of taxpayer money to ISRA.”

Government officials specifically authorized the release of “at least $115,000” of this grant even after learning that it was a designated terror organization, Westrop wrote. (h/t MtTB)
From 2009 Tom Getman of World Vision talking to Stephen Sizer (antisemetic priest) about the incoming Obama administration.

Set to amend ‘pay to slay,’ PA hopes Biden will shun law deeming PLO ‘terrorist’
With just three weeks until US President-elect Joe Biden enters the White House, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is putting together a strategy for a reset of ties with Washington after three years of boycotting the Trump administration.

The centerpiece of the effort will be convincing the Biden administration to designate as unconstitutional congressional legislation from 1987 that labeled the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) “and its affiliates” a terror group, senior Palestinian officials told The Times of Israel.

They hope that doing so will set the stage for a renewed bilateral relationship — one in which Ramallah is viewed as a more equal partner, and that isn’t entirely tied to the peace process with Israel.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas severed relations with the Trump administration after US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017 and moved the US embassy there from Tel Aviv in May 2018. He also preemptively rejected Trump’s January 2020 “vision” for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The administration, while repeatedly urging Abbas to reengage, drastically reduced state funding for the Palestinians.

Senior Palestinian officials told The Times of Israel that a fresh willingness to alter the way it pays stipends to Palestinian security prisoners, as well as the families of terrorists and others killed by Israelis, is aimed at laying the groundwork for the new diplomatic push.
With Best Intentions Bipartisan Initiative Pours $250 Million into Anti-Israel NGO Coalition
A Ben Samuels report in Haaretz Wednesday night should give pause to any rightwing Jew, in Israel and the US, on two counts: one, because it represents yet another attempt by US Jews to fix Israel; and, two, because of its disturbing Kumbaya note, the likes of which we have been spared for a while, thank God.

Samuels was gushing about the opportunity to finally achieve real peace, the kind of peace made possible only by direct contact between real human beings on either side of the fence (I mean, read the head and subhead: Joe Biden Will Enjoy One Advantage No President Ever Had on Israel-Palestine – A new fund approved by Congress will give his administration the ability to invest tens of millions of dollars in peacebuilding efforts on the ground). It’s like every time a new twist on the Oslo Accords descends into a new catastrophe, a new one pops its cheerful, fuzzy head.

First, the facts. The Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act of 2020, which was enacted as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, “establishes two special funds to support programs encouraging peaceful co-existence and expand economic cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians.”

The Nita authorizes $50 million a year for five years divided among the two funds to support joint programs. And don’t you worry, because “all funds will be subject to applicable US laws governing Palestinian assistance programs—including the Taylor Force Act,” so no terrorist hanky panky, and “no funds may be provided to governments, the Palestinian Authority, the Palestine Liberation Organization, groups involved in terrorist activity or members of foreign terrorist organizations.” So, like, it’s covered, only good people need apply.

Here’s the thing, though: according to Samuels, the Nita was the brainchild of the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), “an umbrella organization of groups working in Israel and the Palestinian territories,” which spent almost a decade “advocating for such a fund and finally achieved the bipartisan support needed for making it into law.” They tried and tried and every time they thought they were there, somebody, usually a Republican, became suspicious and walked away. Ten years – you must hand it to the folks at ALLMEP, theyre nothing if not persistent.
Caroline Glick: What Explains Turkey's Sudden Charm Offensive on Israel?
After a decade of unadulterated hostility, over the past few weeks Turkey's Islamist president Recep Erdogan and his advisors have been waging a charm offensive on Israel. How are we to understand this sudden turn of events?

In the 1990s, aside from the U.S., Turkey was Israel's closest strategic ally. The alliance between the two countries was felt in everything from tourism to weapons sales, from business ties to joint training exercises. Following Erdogan's initial rise to power in 2002, things began gradually shifting. Fashioning himself a new Ottoman sultan on a mission to rebuild the lost Ottoman Empire, Erdogan began warming up to the Muslim Brotherhood, and particularly to its Palestinian branch—the Hamas terror organization.

Turkey led the line of governments that condemned Israel for killing Hamas's terror chief Ahmed Yassin in 2004. Ankara's support for Gaza continued to expand over the years until 2009, when Turkey openly supported Hamas against Israel in its 2009 mini-war. In 2009 and 2010, Turkish television broadcast two openly anti-Semitic drama series that depicted Israelis as baby killers, kidnappers and terrorists.

Also in 2010, Turkey began serving as Hamas's operational headquarters. That year, IHH, an al-Qaeda-associated non-governmental organization in Turkey organized a flotilla to Gaza in an effort to break Israel's maritime blockade of the terror-controlled territory. When Israeli naval commandos boarded the main ship—the Mavi Marmara—they were attacked by an organized force armed with iron bars, knives and guns. In the ensuing fight, nine of the Turkish attackers were killed. Seven Israeli soldiers were wounded.

What still remained of Israel's strategic alliance with Turkey disappeared after the Mavi Marmara incident. Weapons sales ended. Israeli tourism to Turkey dried up after Israeli tourists were harassed at Istanbul airport. Turkey intervened with NATO to keep Israel out of joint exercises.
Is Anti-Israel Sentiment Diminishing at the UN?
Countries that support Israel by voting with it or abstaining at the UNHRC or UNESCO, do not necessarily follow that trend in New York.

Resolutions with language neutralized in Geneva or Paris, such as ignoring Jewish ties to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, are still approved by the UNGA.

The Trump administration’s strong advocacy on behalf of the Jewish state at the UN, combined with the work of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, former ambassador Danny Danon and the current Ambassador Gilad Erdan were not able to stem the tide of anti-Israel sentiment, but they have been able to diminish it slightly.

Here are eight things to know about these texts.

1. Number of anti-Israel resolutions dropped
There were 17 texts pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli resolutions approved this year, down from 18 last year and 21 in 2018. This does not reflect a change in attitude toward Israel. Rather, it is a testament of success of the Israeli argument that there are too many resolutions against Israel with redundant texts.

Of the 17 texts, only 13 dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One called for Israel to give up its undeclared nuclear weapons. A second spoke of Israeli culpability in a 2006 oil spill along the Lebanese shore. Two others call for Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day war and on which it applied sovereignty in 1981. The Trump administration has recognized that sovereignty.

Among those on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, only three specifically deal with Israeli actions against the Palestinians.

Others deal with Palestinian sovereignty and financial assistance to the Palestinians. One affirms the work of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees and four others affirm the work of pro-Palestinian committees at the UN.

All the pro-Palestinian resolutions operate out of the context that Israel “occupies” the territory over the pre-1967 lines and that it must withdraw from that territory.
UN Watch: UNESCO Elects Assad-Linked Syrian Charity to Cultural Heritage Body
A Syrian charity created by Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad to enrich the regime has been elected by a 24-nation UNESCO committee to a world body that protects intangible cultural heritage, sparking outrage among activists who cited the Assad regime’s role in destroying heritage sites during its decade-long civil war.

The Syria Trust for Development, a proxy for the Syrian regime, was elected to the Evaluation Body of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, in a secret ballot held during its 15th Session, held in the week of December 14-19 2020.

According to the UNESCO committee’s meeting document for establishing the Evaluation Body for the 2021 cycle, the Syria Trust was competing in a regional electoral group against two other NGOs from Saudi Arabia and Morocco for one available position. (See video above for announcement of the new members of the Evaluation Body.)

“It’s a disgrace,” tweeted the Syria Campaign. “The Assads have crushed swathes of Syria’s cultural heritage. Whole cities, towns and villages have been destroyed.”

International human rights activists also slammed the UNESCO decision.

“Inviting the Syrian regime to protect cultural heritage is asking the foxes to guard the chickens,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an independent Geneva-based human group that monitors the United Nations. “It’s absurd, and sends absolutely the wrong message to millions of Syrians victimized by the Assad regime.”

As expected, the regime’s state-run news agency hailed “the Trust’s victory,” saying it “carries great importance in terms of representing Syria in a large international forum.”


U.S. Proposal to Stop U.N. Funding for Commemoration of Antisemitic Durban Conference Fails
Draft decision on Programme budget implications relating to the programme budget for 2020: comprehensive implementation of and follow-up to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action

The draft decision was adopted by the Fifth Committee on December 30, 2020, by consensus, with Israel and the United States disassociating from consensus. A proposed amendment by the United States to delete funding relating to the Durban Conference and Durban Declaration and Programme of Action failed by a vote of 2 in favor (Israel, the United States), 105 in favor, 50 abstentions (Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan)
Bahraini and Emirati activists in Israel express feeling ‘like family returning home’
Israel welcomed a delegation of leaders and activists from Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates earlier this month, following the success of the Abraham Accords that have normalized relations between Gulf and Muslim countries with Israel.

Under the auspices of a newly established organization named Sharaka (Arabic for “cooperation” or “partnership”), which “aims to lead social initiatives that bring Israel’s voice to strengthen familiarity with the State of Israel in the Arab world and create cooperation between young people in Israel and Arab states,” the group visited historical and cultural sites in Israel and meet with Israeli activists and leaders.

The partnership was born after Israelis visited the UAE and decided to jump-start a joint project that focuses on people-to-people encounters. Participating activists included professionals in academia, art, literature, politics, education, activism and the hospitality industry.

“We want a warm peace, where people will connect,” said Sharaka founder Amit Deri (who is also the founder and CEO of Reservists on Duty). “When leaders make a peace agreement, that’s one thing, but people-to-people connections are another. We want Emiratis to feel comfortable walking the streets of Tel Aviv in their traditional clothes, and Israelis want to feel comfortable walking the streets of Manama or Abu Dhabi with Israeli and Jewish symbols,” he told JNS.

As they lit candles at the Western Wall during Hanukkah, recalled Deri, “they felt like they were rock stars, with thousands cheering for them.”

Emirati delegation member Dr. Majid Al Sarrah, 37, told JNS that “it was a very spiritual and blessed moment, and we could feel the positivity all around us.”
Man of the Year 2020: Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed
In a November 20, 2020 letter to the Nobel Committee, Former First Minister of Northern Ireland Lord David Trimble, himself a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, nominated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. Lord Trimble explained that he was nominating Netanyahu and bin Zayed “in recognition of their historic achievements in advancing peace in the Middle East.”

A few months earlier, on August 13, Netanyahu left a coronavirus cabinet meeting unexpectedly and in great haste, telling his ministers he had to take care of a “national emergency.” A short while later, the world’s view of the Middle East was altered: the United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash signed his country’s agreement to normalize relations with Israel.

It was not the first peace agreement between Israel and an Arab country: Egypt and later Jordan have ended their state of war and launched diplomatic relations with the Jewish state decades earlier. But while those two Arab states have maintained a cold peace with Israel, with almost zero cultivation of a neighborly friendship and nothing but hate from their popular media outlets, the message from Abu Dhabi was radically different.

A joint statement issued by President Donald Trump—who brokered the move, Netanyahu, and Bin Zayed read:
“This historic diplomatic breakthrough will advance peace in the Middle East region and is a testament to the bold diplomacy and vision of the three leaders and the courage of the United Arab Emirates and Israel to chart a new path that will unlock the great potential in the region.”

It was followed, besides the formal ceremony on the White House lawn, by a storm of economic and cultural endeavors: tourism, shopping, television interviews of excited men and women from both countries, news of a thriving Jewish community under UAE rule, with a synagogue, two schools, kosher restaurants, a Chabad emissary, and Chanukah parties.
US Justice Department ‘Stands Ready’ to Try Daniel Pearl’s Murderer Should Pakistani Efforts Fail
The US Justice Department has said that it would be willing to try the terrorist convicted in Pakistan of the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl in an American court.

The announcement followed last week’s decision by the High Court in the Sindh region of Pakistan to release four men accused of orchestrating the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Pearl, an American Jew and Wall Street Journal correspondent. The group included the main suspect who was earlier sentenced to death for masterminding the killing, British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh.

In a statement on Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen noted that Pakistani officials were trying to appeal decisions overturning Omar Sheikh’s murder conviction and ordering his release, but that his department will step in should those efforts fail.

“We understand that Pakistani authorities are taking steps to ensure that Omar Sheikh remains in custody while the Supreme Court appeal seeking to reinstate his conviction continues. The separate judicial rulings reversing his conviction and ordering his release are an affront to terrorism victims everywhere,” Rosen said.

“We remain grateful for the Pakistani government’s actions to appeal such rulings to ensure that he and his co-defendants are held accountable,” Rosen continued. “If, however, those efforts do not succeed, the United States stands ready to take custody of Omar Sheikh to stand trial here. We cannot allow him to evade justice for his role in Daniel Pearl’s abduction and murder.”

An attempt to bring Sheikh to the US would need the active cooperation of the Pakistani authorities.


FDD: Implications for the U.S. of Israel's Recent Missile Defense Test
The Israel Missile Defense Organization and U.S. Missile Defense Agency this month completed a series of tests of Israel's multilayered missile defense system. The tests simulated a variety of advanced threats, including low-altitude cruise missiles, long-range ballistic missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles. It was the first time Israel deployed the David's Sling, Iron Dome and Arrow systems simultaneously.

The Israeli navy will soon equip its Sa'ar 6-class corvettes with Iron Dome to protect natural gas rigs against cruise missiles. Israel tested its tactical laser system - still in development - as an alternative to Iron Dome interceptors for lower-tier threats. The tests also demonstrated for the first time Israel's ability to intercept a salvo of precision-guided munitions which Iran's proxy, Hizbullah, has been stockpiling.

Iran and its regional proxies have repeatedly attacked U.S. personnel and partners in the Persian Gulf. On Jan. 8, Iran launched short-range missiles at two Iraqi bases hosting U.S. troops. Unfortunately, the current American Patriot systems are at best only a partial solution to such threats.

After Israel's recent missile defense tests, Washington has little choice but to look closer at Israel's proven air defense systems. Israel's Skyceptor interceptor, developed for David's Sling, can be fired from Patriot batteries and can intercept low-altitude, maneuverable cruise missiles and drones.
2020 sees fewest soldiers, civilians killed in war or terror in Israel’s history
The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday released a heap of statistics illustrating its activities over the past year, including the number of targets struck in Syria (about 50), fighter jet sorties flown (1,400) and calls answered by the Home Front Command’s coronavirus information call center (1.4 million).

Despite the pandemic, the West Bank remained a significant source of concern for the IDF — on par with recent years — though there were some areas of improvement and some of regression. In 2020, the number of stabbings decreased by a third, from 12 in 2019 to nine. The number of shooting attacks, however, increased significantly, from 19 in 2019 to 31, though this was similar to the number of shootings in 2018 — 33 — and in 2017 — 34.

In total, the IDF said the West Bank saw 60 terror attacks in 2020, up from 51 in 2019, but down from 76 in 2018 and 75 in 2017.

In response to these attacks and as part of ongoing efforts against terror groups in the West Bank, the military conducted 2,277 arrests over the past year, a slight decrease from the previous years: 2,328 in 2019; 3,173 in 2018; and 3,627 in 2017.

Though not included in the statistics released by the military Thursday, the year 2020 also saw the lowest number of soldiers and civilians killed in war and terror attacks in the country’s history. As of Thursday, three people — two civilians and one soldier — were killed in security-related attacks, including Esther Horgen, who was killed earlier this month in a brutal assault outside the northern West Bank settlement where she lived, Tal Menashe.
IDF intercepts 93% of rockets fired from Gaza in 2020, report finds
There has been an uptake in terrorist activity in 2020, a new report published by the IDF reveals. According to the data, 60 terror incidents happened this year, compared to the 51 that occurred the year before.

Judea and Samaria saw a slight increase in the number of stone-throwing incidents: 1,500 this year compared to 1,469 in 2019.

Some 2,277 Palestinian terror suspects have been arrested across the West Bank, compared to the 2,328 last year. There was an uptake in shooting accidents: 31 incidents this year and 19the year before. Some 50 workshops closed in 2020, compared to the 14 that closed in 2019.

There was a decrease in the number of illegal weapons seized: 541 this year compared to the 603 weapons in 2019. Altogether, 229 firebombs were thrown at vehicles and settlements in 2020, compared to the 290 the year before.

The report reveals some positive changes as well.

There was a decrease in terror funding: from 972,000 shekels ($300,000) last year to NIS 675,000 ($209,000) this year.

The Border Police thwarted 38 infiltration attempts. One Hamas tunnel was exposed, and 300 targets in the Gaza Strip were destroyed. Some 176 rockets were fired at Israel this year; of those that targeted cities, 93% were intercepted.
IDF: 50 Targets Were Attacked in Syria in 2020
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recently revealed that it launched 50 attacks on targets located in Syria over 2020.

Released in an annual statistics report Thursday, the Israeli military said that most of the strikes targeted Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah or Iran-backed military units in the war-ravaged country.




Israel's population nears 10 million mark as country enters 2021
Israel will grow to 10 million people in the coming years, the Central Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday, on the eve of the new year of 2021.

With a total of 151,000 new additions in 2020, Israel’s general population stands at nearly 9.3 million, including 6,870,000 Jews (73.9%), 1,956,000 Arabs (21.1%) and 465,000 people (5%) belonging to other ethnic groups.

In other words, Israel’s population grew by 1.7% in 2020. Some 84% of that was due to natural population growth, subjected to the number of overall births and deaths, while 16% was due to international migration into the country.

Data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics before have previously indicated that the country’s population will reach 10 million by the end of 2024, 15 million by 2048 and 20 million by 2065.

Births and deaths
In 2020, some 176,000 babies were born in Israel. Some 73.8% of the newborns were born to Jewish families, 23.4% to Arab families and 2.8% to other ethnic groups. While Jewish births corresponded to the population, Arabs had over 2% more births relative to their population, taken from other ethnic groups that had more than 2% less.

Some 50,000 people died in Israel during 2020. In July, as Israel struggled to contain the spread of coronavirus, the percentage of deaths caused by the virus spiked. However, it has been steadily declining since the end of October.
Khaled Abu Toameh: ‘Number of Jews and Palestinians will be equal at end of 2022’
The worldwide Palestinian population today is estimated to be 13.7 million, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).

PCBS president Ola Awad reported that 5.2 million Palestinians live “in the State of Palestine” – the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. About 6.2 million Palestinians live in Arab states and another 738,000 live in foreign countries.

The figure includes about 1.6 million Arab citizens of Israel, whom the PCBS refers to as “Palestinians who live in the 1948 territories.” Altogether “PCBS estimates indicate that around 6.8 million Palestinians are living in historical Palestine at the end of 2020,” she said in a report published on the PCBS’s official website. By the end of 2022 she estimated, “The number of Palestinians and Jews (living between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River) will be equal at about 7.1 million each.”

The number of Palestinians living in the West Bank is estimated at 3.1 million, Awad added. An estimated 2.1 million Palestinians live in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, she said.

The percentage of refugees in 2017 reached 42% of the total number of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to Awad. She also pointed out that the total fertility rate among Palestinians between 2017 and 2019 has declined to 3.8 births, compared to 4.6 births in 1999; 3.8 in the West Bank and 3.9 in the Gaza Strip.

Awad also noted that there has been a decline in the average household size among Palestinians, 5.1 individuals in 2019, compared to 6.1 individuals in 2004; 4.9 in the West Bank and 5.5 in the Gaza Strip.
Fatah to celebrate first attempted terrorist attack in Israel
The Palestinian political party and organization Fatah is planning to commemorate its first attempted terrorist attack in light of the New Year, according to a Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) report Thursday.

On Friday, January 1, Fatah will commemorate the 56th anniversary of terrorist attacks against Israeli targets, including infrastructure and civilians, when they attempted to blow up Israel’s National Water Carrier in 1965.

The commemoration is part of its annual recognition of its legacy of terrorism and "armed struggle," which was most prominent at the organization's launch in 1964, and from the 1970s to early 2000s. Although no parade has actually taken place now, Palestinian Media Watch reports that Fatah, which is headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, released a video of a parade from the previous year. The video described by PMW shows Fatah members parading with weapons and the political movement's yellow flag, along with people dressed in fighters' garb.

The video also featured a girl as young as 13 holding a gun.

Other videos were also shared in a series of Facebook posts from Fatah, with one paying tribute to Hamama Al-Dalki, a female fighter who tried to perpetrate the 1965 attack.

"Today, Wednesday [Dec. 16, 2020], Fatah eulogized fighter Hamama Hussein Al-Dalki, sister of the commander of the Eilabun squad, Martyr Hussein Al-Dalki," the post read.
PMW: Armed struggle - Fatah’s focus for 2021
These days, Abbas’ Fatah Movement is busy highlighting its upcoming 56th anniversary. “The Launch” of Fatah is counted from its first terror attack against Israel, when the movement attempted to blow up Israel's National Water Carrier on Jan. 1, 1965.

In line with earlier years’ celebrations and anniversary posters and logos, Fatah this year too focuses on the “armed struggle” and its continued uncompromising attitude towards peace with Israel.

The central image on Fatah’s poster above is a line of masked men holding Kalashnikov assault rifles, while text glorifies “the revolution.”
Text at bottom of image: “Long live the anniversary of the outbreak of the modern Palestinian revolution
Revolution until victory”
Posted text: “The anniversary approaches
#Fatah56
#Intilaqa” (i.e, “The Launch”)
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Dec. 17 and 21, 2020;
Facebook page of Fatah Deputy Chairman Mahmoud Al-Aloul, Dec. 21, 2020]


The poster also carries a logo made for Fatah’s 56th anniversary. At the bottom it includes the PA map of “Palestine” that presents all of Israel together with the PA areas as “Palestine.”

Another Fatah anniversary logo – presented by Fatah as “the official logo” - includes the barrel of a rifle (above the digit 6 in “56” and the PA map of “Palestine” (behind the number “56”):
Palestinian flag carrier to shut down after 25 years
According to the report, the decision to ground the airline, announced by the Palestinian Transport and Communications Ministry, was not surprising: in September, the airline offered its two remaining Fokker 50 aircraft for sale.

The operations of Palestinian Airlines had been growing increasingly limited for years. Its tiny fleet has been leased to other airlines, and its least two planes are currently sitting one at Cairo International Airport in Egypt and the other in Amman, Jordan.

Palestinian Transport and Communications Undersecretary Ammar Yassin told PNN that the PA has not received offers on the plane parked in Amman and that the one parked in Cairo had been leased to an airline in Nigeria but the contract was suspended over the global pandemic.

Palestinian Airlines was founded in 1995 and became operational in 1997. Its fleet included the two Fokker 50 aircraft donated by the Netherlands and a Boeing 727 donated by Saudi Arabia.
Hamas arrests Gaza man for tearing down poster of slain Iranian commander
Hamas’s Internal Security Force on Thursday arrested Sheikh Majdi al-Mughrabi, an extremist Muslim Salafi jihadist, on suspicion he tore down a poster of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq on January 3, 2020. The arrest of Mughrabi, a resident of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, came hours after Palestinians posted on social media platforms a video and photos of a man tearing down the poster of Soleimani.

Mughrabi is one of the leaders of the Islamic State (ISIS)-inspired Palestinian Salafi group in the Gaza Strip.

His brother, Musa al-Mughrabi, confirmed the arrest in a post on Facebook. “My brother, Sheikh Majdi al-Mughrabi, has been arrested by the Internal Security Force,” the brother wrote. “He was arrested for tearing down the picture of a murderer. Why?”

A large poster of the slain Iranian commander appeared in the Gaza Strip earlier this week as Hamas and several Palestinian armed groups carried out a joint military drill in preparation for a possible confrontation with Israel.


Twenty-Two Killed in Attack on Aden Airport After New Yemen Cabinet Lands
At least 22 people were killed and dozens wounded in an attack on Aden airport on Wednesday, moments after a plane landed carrying a newly formed Saudi-backed cabinet for government-held parts of Yemen.

Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik said all members of the cabinet were “fine.” But the attack underlined the difficulties facing a government intended by Saudi Arabia to unite two of its allies in the war against the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

Hours after the attack, a second explosion was heard around Aden’s Maasheq presidential palace where the cabinet members including Maeen, as well as the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Mohammad Said al-Jaber, had been taken to safety, residents and local media said.

In the airport attack, loud blasts and gunfire were heard shortly after the plane arrived from Riyadh, witnesses said. A local security source said three mortar shells had landed on the airport’s hall.

The cabinet gave the death figure on Twitter, citing the interior minister, and said 50 people were wounded. Medecins Sans Frontieres aid group had earlier said 17 people were treated for wounds at its hospital in Aden.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.


Seth Frantzman: Will Iran’s threat to Israel from Iraq increase?
The overview of Iraq’s role in Iran’s operations in the region and the brief period of alleged airstrikes in the summer of 2019 raise many questions about what might come next. Iran’s use of Iraq as part of its road to the sea, a corridor of arms trafficking to Syria and Lebanon, increased from 2016 to 2019. Militia-controlled warehouses in Iraq and Syria serve as storage facilities for Iranian weapons. In 2020 it appears the number of Iranian IRGC members in Syria was slightly reduced. It is not clear if Iran’s overall footprint and access to bases, as well as entrenchment using arms warehouses and airstrikes, has diminished. Iran’s role in Iraq is central to its alliance with Iraqi political parties, such as the Fatah Coalition and pro-Iranian groups such as Badr, Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nuajaba and most recently groups such as Rab’Allah. These groups appeared to have shifted their focus increasingly to targeting U.S. forces and getting the U.S. to leave Iraq since tensions grew in May 2019.

This is a slight shift for these groups because some of them, such as Kataib Hezbollah, had played a visible role in the Syrian civil war and set up bases in Syria. In addition AAH leader Qais Khazali travelled to Lebanon in Sept. 2017 to showcase Iraqi Shi’ite militia support for Hezbollah. After the killing of Soleimani and Muhandis in Iraq the focus shifted as Hezbollah sent Mohammad al-Kawtharani to Iraq to support unity among Iraqi-based militias. This appears to indicate Iran shifted focus to opposing the US role in Iraq in the fall of 2019 and early 2020, and the tensions with the alleged Israeli airstrikes ended in Sept. 2019. That also coincided with the eruption of massive protests in Iraq in Oct. 2019 which led to the fall of Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi. This chaos in Iraq could have served Iran’s ability to transfer weapons to Syria, but it also meant the powerful militias needed for those transfers were focused domestically.

The fall of 2020 found Iran considering responses to the killing of Fakhrizadeh and awaiting the outcome of the U.S. election. Overall Iran’s posture since its Abqaiq attack on Saudi Arabia in Sept. 2019, has shifted to less high profile attacks. It showed its capability in Sept. 2019. Israel’s air defense drills in Dec. 2020 illustrate that Israel can confront the types of threats Iran displayed last year. Iraq’s will continue to play a potential role in basing those types of threats, from ballistic missiles to serving as a conduit for weapons flowing to Syria. Iran and its allies in Iraq and Syria are also focused on the diminished presence of the US in Iraq and questions about the continued U.S. role in Syria. This shapes Iran’s calculations about shifting weapons and routes of trafficking through Iraq and Syria.
Iran’s Zarif says Trump trying to fabricate ‘pretext for war’
Trump said last week said he would hold Iran “responsible” for any fatal attack on Americans in Iraq after accusing Tehran of being behind a rocket strike on the US embassy in Baghdad on December 20.

Zarif at the time warned the US president against any “adventurism” before leaving the White House on January 20, and said, “putting your own citizens at risk abroad won’t divert attention from catastrophic failures at home.”

The US embassy in Iraq and other foreign military and diplomatic sites have been targeted by dozens of rockets and roadside bomb attacks since later 2019.

Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from a landmark nuclear deal with Iran and world powers in 2018 and launched a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran, reimposing and reinforcing crippling sanctions.

The two countries have twice come to the brink of war since June 2019, especially following the killing of Soleimani.

Tensions with Iran further escalated with the killing in November of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an Iranian scientist named by the West as the leader of the Islamic Republic’s disbanded military nuclear program. Iran has blamed Israel for the killing, but US officials are concerned that any Iranian retaliation could hit US interests.


UN condemns Iran’s ‘appalling’ execution of young offenders
The UN voiced outrage at the Thursday execution of a man in Iran who was only 16 when he committed his alleged crime, marking the fourth juvenile offender put to death in the country this year.

The UN human rights office said that Mohammad Hassan Rezaiee was executed early Thursday.

It did not provide further details about Rezaiee or the crime he was convicted of, allegedly committed when he was 16.

But according to Amnesty International, he was arrested in 2007 in connection with the fatal stabbing of a man in a brawl and had spent more than 12 years on death row.

“The execution of child offenders is categorically prohibited under international law and Iran is under the obligation to abide by this prohibition,” UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, “strongly condemns the killing,” she added.

Shamdasani said the rights office was dismayed that the execution had taken place despite its efforts to engage with Tehran on the case.



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A few days ago, Hamas started plastering billboards all over Gaza with pictures of the Iranian Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, ahead of the first anniversary of his being assassinated by the US.

The billboards quoted Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh who called him a "Martyr of Jerusalem" at his eulogy.

The Sunni Arab world reacted harshly. 

Saudi journalist Muhammad Al Sheikh tweeted, "Pictures of the criminal Iranian serial killer Qassem Soleimani greet you from every direction in Gaza. The reason is because the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood Hamas is just the arm of a Persian conspirator ... and you want to liberate Palestine, traitors? "

Even within Gaza people were upset. One man ripped down one of the posters to the cheers of a crowd and the video went viral.


Hamas is still more popular in Gaza than Fatah by far, but Gazans seem to have little interest in becoming an Iranian proxy like Hezbollah or theHouthis.





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