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Monday, January 2, 2017

01/02 Links Pt1: Kerry on Israel: An Alternate Universe; Friedman’s Unhinged Attack on Netanyahu

From Ian:

Omri Ceren: Kerry on Israel: An Alternate Universe

For months one of the worst-kept secrets in foreign-policy circles was that Secretary of State John Kerry would give a speech about his vision for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, just as soon as the 2016 elections were safely over. Gossip revolved around which staffers were getting pulled in to write, which wonks were being brought in to vet, how far it would go, and so on. A few weeks ago, Kerry even nudge-winked about just how much of an open secret his plans had become, telling an audience in London that he’d be moved to speak on the issue some time “in the next weeks, months, or over the year.”
What few people expected is how totally irrelevant Kerry’s performance would end up. The secretary’s remarks, which extended for over an hour, have already generated the expected heap of praise and criticism. But the praise feels like writers rationalizing how they wasted a day on what will ultimately become a footnote in American diplomatic history, and some of the criticism is crankiness over the same thing.
Kerry’s speech was already going to be drowned out by the global din around United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which passed in recent days after the U.S. abstained, and which among other things lumped Judaism’s holiest sites in East Jerusalem together with the West Bank and declared all of them occupied Palestinian territory. It has been criticized first as a diplomatic gambit that detonated the peace process and, second, as an abandonment of Israel contrary to decades of U.S. diplomacy aimed at blocking international assaults on the Jewish state.
The resolution presented another rhetorical problem for Kerry: To even get to the parameters, he was going to have to get past those two criticisms. He needed to paint a world in which the UNSCR built on the peace process rather than detonated it, and boosted Israel rather than abandoning it.

Algemeiner Editor-in-Chief: ‘Obama Has Given Incredible Boost to March of Antisemitism’ by Abstaining From Vote on Anti-Israel UN Resolution

US President Barack Obama “has given an incredible boost to the march of antisemitism,” the editor-in-chief of The Algemeiner said in an interview on Friday.
Discussing the latest moves by the lame-duck administration in Washington to put pressure on Jerusalem — abstaining in the UN Security Council vote on anti-settlements Resolution 2334, and Secretary of State John Kerry’s subsequent harsh address, warning that Israel cannot remain both a democracy and a Jewish state — Dovid Efune told Rush Limbaugh Show guest host Buck Sexton that such behavior encourages and invigorates the deligitimization and demonization of Israel, both defined as antisemitic by the US State Department.
It is for this reason, said Efune, that Kerry caused such a stir.
“His speech was essentially a glorified attempt to justify the vote at the UN last Friday, which the US — in an unprecedented move — abstained from, angering the Israelis, betraying the Israelis. And I can tell you from where I stand: The mainstream Jewish community in this country is seething, outraged, furious across the board with this stab in the back and, as some have even defined it, a stab in the front,” Efune said.
Listen to the full interview below (Efune’s remarks begin at 37:30):

How UN Security Council Resolution 2334 Relates to Palestinian Terrorism

On December 23, 2016, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2334, with 14 countries voting in favor. The United States abstained allowing the resolution to pass. Resolution 2334 deals mostly with the Israeli settlements in Judea, Samaria and east Jerusalem, over which there is broad international consensus. The issue of terrorism is included in the resolution but its weight is slight (as opposed to extensive dealing with the settlements, which are represented as the main obstacle to peace). Moreover, for the most part the terminology used in dealing with terrorism is general and vague. The resolution does not explicitly refer to Palestinian terrorism, the Palestinian terrorist organizations (especially Hamas) and popular terrorism and violence(the so-called "popular resistance").
1. By not explicitly mentioning Palestinian terrorism and the Palestinian terrorist organizations,the resolution can be expected to lead the Palestinians to interpret the operative paragraphs dealing with terrorism and violence as relating to Israeland not Palestinian terrorism(Paragraphs 6 and 7; see Appendix A). That was manifested at the recent 7th Fatah Movement conference when Mahmoud Abbas rejected terrorism "regardless of motive and source," including the terrorism of a country [i.e., Israel] and the settlers. He claimed that "we [Palestinians] adhere to culture and tolerance."

Thomas Friedman’s Unhinged Attack on Trump and Netanyahu

Probably the one columnist I have critiqued more than any other in my blogging career is Thomas Friedman of The New York Times.
Friedman, one-time NY Times Jerusalem bureau chief, is considered The Times’ go-to expert on the Middle East, globalization and environmental issues.
However, when reading Friedman’s columns, it’s easy to see that rather than being an expert on any of these topics, he holds certain beliefs and uses all of his observations to support his deeply held beliefs. He often conveys his convictions using superficial metaphors that sound clever, but are meaningless or misleading.
Given his long history of animosity towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his admiration for President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, it’s no surprise that he sided with the administration in its decision to allow anti-Israel United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to pass and Kerry’s subsequent speech.
What may not have been predictable is how incredibly unhinged Friedman was in his column Wednesday covering what Charles Krauthammer called Obama’s “most shameful” legacy last week.
Friedman begins his column, Bibi Netanyahu Makes Trump His Chump:
For those of you confused over the latest fight between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel, let me make it simple: Barack Obama and John Kerry admire and want to preserve Israel as a Jewish and democratic state in the Land of Israel. I have covered this issue my entire adult life and have never met two U.S. leaders more committed to Israel as a Jewish democracy.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper: Why 2334 leads our top 10 list

You want to guarantee a peaceful two-state solution? Convene a Security Council meeting on how to dislodge Hamas from Gaza, and you’ll have one.
They might want to consider the price of continuing one-sided bullying of Israel by the United Nations. They should reflect on the fact that the US has refused to pay $400 million in dues to UNESCO, because its acceptance of “Palestine” as a member state violated a US statute signed into law by Democrat president Bill Clinton. If the UN, under new leadership, continues its nonstop demonizing of the Jewish state, we hope that the new Trump administration will seriously consider endorsing Sen.
Lindsey Graham’s threatened bill to downsize the US’s oversized annual financial contribution.
As for Obama and Kerry, their last-minute UN gambit seeks to add a fourth “achievement” to their Middle East legacy. Here are the other three: 1. Failure to destroy Islamic State, early and outright.
2. The Iran nuclear deal, which has succeeded only in further empowering the Mullahocracy.
3. Syrian redline debacle.
The Jewish people are a people of memory.
We approach our collective future with eyes wide open. No matter what the pressure, no Israeli government, left, right or center, will ever accept that our people’s sacred sites are built on stolen land; nor will it ever validate the lies denying the Jewish people’s 3,500- year link to the Holy Land – those very lies that now pass for historical fact at the United Nations.
And rest assured that Israel will never walk the gangplank for the convenience of a hypocritical world.

ADL: UN vote and Kerry speech will impede prospects for peace

Whatever the motivation of the Obama administration, the events of this past week mark a dramatic low point in US-Israeli relations. The Kerry speech has commanded attention in the past 48 hours, but the disastrous decision to abstain on United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2443 is more likely to be recorded as a milestone that doomed the peace process. It is a moment that could trigger any number of highly destructive consequences for Israel and the two-state solution that the administration claims to champion.
To start with, the abstention represents an incredibly negative bookend that closes the foreign policy section of the Obama Library. Indeed, the Obama administration’s Israel policy seemed uneven at best and unfair at worst. There were many moments that fed the skepticism of the pro-Israel, pro-peace community. These include the initial decision to skip Israel in a series of speeches across the region in 2009; the ill-advised decision to force the Israeli government to freeze settlement construction before supporting peace talks that same year; the push in 2015 for the Iran nuclear deal despite the protests of Israelis across the political spectrum and the blithe dismissal of the genocidal rhetoric of the Islamic Republic; and the complete failure to deal with surging non-state actors like Hezbollah because of their alignment with Iran.
It should be noted that the administration has stood by Israel in other respects. The president might point to prior UNSC vetoes and the landmark $38 billion arms deal concluded earlier this year. Yet, the personal rancor between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to drive the dynamic of the bilateral relationship for nearly eight years. The patronizing tone of Secretary John Kerry’s speech seemed familiar to many Israelis, who had grown weary of hectoring from the Obama administration.
Whatever the motivation, the failure to veto UNSC 2443 was a disaster which will have a number of highly destructive consequences for Israel and the peace process. I can see several constituencies that will be impacted by this decision, all in ways that will hamper, not help, the peace process.

On Israel, A Resolution To Repudiate

Once Mr. Obama advanced the thesis in his Cairo speech of June 4, 2009, that all settlements are illegal and an obstacle to peace, ignoring the Bush letter of April 14, 2004, that recognized Israeli control of the major Jerusalem settlements as the likely outcome, Obama made it impossible for any Palestinian leader to demand less, and much more difficult for any Israeli leader to rely on U.S. representations.
The irony for those who support a two-state solution, including Mr. Netanyahu, is that this resolution has caused many Israelis to favor more settlement construction. Every important Israeli leader denounced the U.S. abstention, because they know that the Palestinian Authority prefers costless victories at the U.N. to condemning terror and accepting a Jewish State.
Whatever the U.S. may say about its intentions, as Ms. Powers acknowledged, any U.N. action will be exploited against Israel. Even the resolution's condemnation of terrorism, and its call to end incitement, will be used against Israel and ignored by those whose actions the U.S. pretends will be altered. In allowing the resolution's adoption, the U.S. joined those very states that Ms. Powers has repeatedly condemned for lacking moral conscience, even for Arabs let alone Jews.
The abstention, in short, was a shameful act openly touted as punishment for Israel's failure to abide by a U.S. policy that set back the prospects of peace. The Trump administration must repudiate Resolution 2334 in order to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution, by recognizing that Israel's settlements are not an obstacle to peace if peace were genuinely pursued.

Bolton to Trump: Cut aid to UN settlement resolution supporters

Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton has reportedly called on the incoming Trump administration to retaliate against countries who supported a recent UN Security Council resolution against Israeli settlement.
Washington-based news site The Hill quoted Bolton as telling New York radio station AM 970 that Malaysia and Venezuela in particular should have their US aid cut.
However, Bolton advised that the US and Israel give the 14 countries that voted in favor of the resolution one last chance to correct themselves.
"I think what Israel, together with the incoming Trump administration, should do is say, ‘Look, we’re going to give everybody a chance to do this over again, repeal this resolution and pass something that’s acceptable. And if not, we’re going to take steps to show our unhappiness," he was quoted as saying.

How the UNSCR 2334 scuttles hope for a Palestinian state

Widely condemned by Israelis from all sides, UNSC Resolution 2334 was seen as a stab in the back. It was not; it was a stab in the chest. And, given the hostility of the Obama administration and members of the Security Council, it was predictable and unavoidable. Ironically, however, the resolution may have created the basis for legitimizing Israeli annexation and sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.
The resolution changed the rules of the game: it abrogates the Oslo and interim agreements that divided Judea and Samaria into Areas A and B, under the Palestinian Authority, and Area C, in which Jewish communities (“settlements”) were built under Israel control. The issue of settlements was left for final status agreements, along with the issues of return of Palestinian “refugees” to Israel, and the status of Jerusalem. By seeking to impose an Arab Palestinian state without negotiations, as a fait accompli, and declaring settlements to be illegal, the UNSC Resolution 2334 has wiped out all prior agreements.
The question is who should be the responsible authority in the disputed areas? If that goes back to 1967, it can’t be the Palestinian Authority, since it did not exist then. Moreover, the new UNSC Resolution seems to contradict 242 and 338, which recognized Israel’s legitimate claims.
Jordan cannot be considered the authority, since it renounced all claims to Judea and Samaria, which it had acquired by force in 1948, and was never recognized as the legitimate sovereign in those areas. The only legitimate claimant of sovereignty in what was called Palestine by the international community according to the League of Nations and the British Mandate is the State of Israel, the “Jewish national home.”
The recent UNSC Resolution has made the issue even more complicated, by declaring that all Israeli settlements and buildings beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines (“the Green Line”) are “illegal according to international law,” which the International Criminal Court could declare a war crime. But, what is “the law”?

Bennett: We will annex Ma’aleh Adumim first and then all of Area C

Bayit Yehudi chairman and Education Minister Naftali Bennett declared in Ma'aleh Adumim on Monday that his party was advancing a law to annex Ma'aleh Adumim as part of a strategy to annex all of Area C in the West Bank.
Bennett was speaking alongside Ma'aleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel, and said that he expected all members of the government to support the law.
“Citizens of Israel have paid in no end of victims, and no end of denunciations for this messianic policy of a Palestinian state,” said Bennett.
“We have to stop marching towards the unjust path of a Palestinian state and to impose Israeli law on Ma'aleh Adumim, the Jordan Valley, Ofra, Ariel, and all of Area C as soon as possible. This is how we win.”
The Bayit Yehudi leader said that there was a small window of opportunity open to begin annexing Area C, in reference to what is expected to be the favorable policy of President-elect Donal Trump toward Israel.

Cotton: Anti-Israel UN Resolution Passed with 'Explicit United States Coordination'

On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said the anti-Israel U.N. resolution that the Obama administration declined to veto could only be voted on and passed with “explicit United States coordination.”
Cotton said, “Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows how the real world works and the United Nations Security Council works. Senegal and Malaysia, some of the countries that sponsored the resolution, don’t call the shots there. If Barack Obama and John Kerry and Samantha Power hadn’t been speaking for months about the prospect of this resolution and had not been creating a climate inside the security council to let it come forward without firmly saying we will veto any one-sided anti-Israel resolution, no country would have brought that resolution forward. It only could have been brought forward and passed with explicit United States coordination with other members of the security council.”

Netanyahu, Putin speak for second time in a week

Russia was one of the 14 countries that supported the anti-settlement resolution at the UN 10 days ago, but after the vote, issued a statement criticizing the way it was brought to the Security Council for a surprise vote just a day after Egypt pulled its own proposal on the matter.
“Our experience shows convincingly that a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is only possible through direct talks between Palestinians and Israelis without any preconditions,” that statement said. “It is with this aim in view that Russia has been working and will continue working as a member of the Middle East Quartet of international intermediaries to facilitate such negotiations. We would also like to reaffirm our readiness to host a meeting of the leaders of Israel and Palestine in Moscow.”
Russia’s Deputy Ambassador to Israel Alexander Dubrovin told Army Radio last week that Moscow had wanted the vote delayed, but was rebuffed on this matter by the other countries on the Security Council.
He also said that Moscow was not happy that the resolution focused primarily on the settlements.
Moscow also criticized US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Wednesday, with NRG quoting a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry as questioning the timing of Kerry’s harsh indictment of the settlement enterprise, saying that “narrow partisan interests” were involved.
The statement questioned why Kerry was making pronouncements about the Mideast diplomat process now, rather than in 2014 when the Washington-led negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority hit a standstill.

JPost Editorial: Support down under

At a time when Israel is recovering from the shock of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, comments made by Australia’s government are encouraging. In a statement released on Thursday, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop voiced her disagreement with the resolution.
Australia is not currently a member of the Security Council and therefore is not eligible to vote, noted Bishop. However, “in voting at the UN, the coalition government has consistently not supported one-sided resolutions targeting Israel.”
One day later, at a Hanukka menorah-lighting ceremony at Sydney’s Central Synagogue, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that “Australia stands with Israel. We support Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East,” the Australian Jewish News reported.
Canberra’s support for Israel should not be taken for granted. Pro-Palestinian activists have lamented the fact that consecutive Australian governments have been out of step with public opinion. While a large proportion of Australians tend to be critical of Israel and its policies, Labor and in particular Liberal governments have been very supportive.
Consecutive public opinion polls have shown that Australians are divided over their support for Israel. A Roy Morgan Research poll from November 2011 found that Australians were just as sympathetic with Israelis as they were with Palestinians. Only 17% said they supported Jewish settlements while 63% opposed it.
And more than half of Australians supported the Palestinian push for recognition as a full member state of the UN.

Former Australian PM: Cut off aid to Palestinians

Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott called on his country to cut millions of dollars of annual aid to the Palestinian Authority, accusing Ramallah of funneling the money to “terrorists and their families.” He also called on Canberra to join any move by the incoming Trump administration in the US to relocate the embassy to Jerusalem.
In an article penned by Abbott and published in The Spectator Australia weekly on Monday, the former PM said Canberra should offer “unswerving support for Israel as the region’s only liberal, pluralist democracy,” and “join any move by the Trump administration to move its embassy to Jerusalem.”
During the 2016 election, Trump pledged to end a longstanding White House policy to perpetually defer a 1995 Congressional decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and move the embassy there.
Abbott’s comments come days after Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull panned the United Nations Security Council resolution that criticized Israeli settlement building as one-sided and biased against Israel.

Tony Abbot: Jerusalem diary

‘To know how the world goes without America, look at Aleppo’. That’s the kind of insight (from the head of one of Israel’s security agencies) you get at the Australia-Israel-UK Leadership Dialogue. The brain-child of Melbourne businessman and jazz musician Albert Dadon, the Dialogue has been going since 2009 and in its present format since 2011. It was four days of discussions, just before Christmas, between MPs, officials and analysts of the three countries. The Australian delegation included Opposition leader Bill Shorten, Trade Minister Steve Ciobo and ten other federal and state parliamentarians.
Originally intended as another forum to familiarise Australia’s leaders with Israel, the Dialogue has become an opportunity for leaders from like-minded countries to consider issues in common, as well as to analyse in-depth the security problems of Israel and the wider Middle East. Along with the ‘two state solution’ to the Palestinian question, the challenge of Iran and Syria, the Sunni-Shia divide, the interplay of religious and economic grievances, and the consequences of United States’ and Russian policy in the region, there were vigorous discussions of Brexit, border protection, housing affordability, fiscal and monetary policy and the science of climate change – which turns out to be far less settled than most people think.
We often forget the role that Australians have played in this part of the world long before our FA18s and our military trainers joined today’s fight against the death cult in Syria and northern Iraq. In the Great War, the Australian Light Horse formed the spearhead of General Allenby’s British army that liberated Beersheba, Jerusalem and Damascus from the Ottoman Turks. In World War Two, Australia’s Seventh Division was the bulk of the British force that freed Syria and Lebanon from the Vichy French. And long before we were taught to think of ourselves as a multicultural country, Jews had been Australia’s chief justice, army commander and head of state (as that’s what our governor-general is). Indeed, we’re the only country with this distinction other than Israel itself.

Australian FM: We won't relocate embassy to Jerusalem

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said that Australia "does not have any plans to move the Australian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem," The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Monday.
Bishop's comments came in response to a call from former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott to move the embassy to Israel's declared capital as US President-elect Donald Trump has vowed he will do once in office.
In the column, Abbott wrote that "Australia should cut our $40 million a year aid to the Palestinian Authority while it keeps paying pensions to terrorists and their families," adding that Australia should demonstrate its "support for Israel" by mirroring Trump's plan to "move its embassy to Jerusalem."
Bishop rejected both of Abbott's suggestions, defending Australian aid to the Palestinian Authority, which she said is stipulated on a "zero tolerance policy" for fraud and corruption.
Head of the Palestinian delegation in Australia, Izzat Abdulhadi, warned of possible sanctions from Muslim countries if Australia were to take Abbott's suggested measures. Abdulhadi said that relocating the embassy would "severely damage the prospects for a two-state solution to the conflict - the solution that is supported by Palestine, Australia, and the international community."

A new possible disaster for Angela Merkel

No Islamic country will take in Palestinians (nor the refugees in the Middle East or North Africa), nor will any deed them unused land. They want Islam to eradicate Israel's very existence and make no secret of this. Instead of assisting "refugees," they opt for the West's submission to hijra, or spreading Islam through migration, they rely on the moral narcissism of Europe, led by Angela Merkel.
Merkel's New Year's Eve speech is insight into what we can expect in the future. Merkel's nation is both under attack and in the midst of a revolution that seeks to undo the submission to Islam her administration has facilitated. For security in Cologne, politicians had police hire Muslim security guards on New Year's Eve 2015, but on New Year's 2016, they "protected" Germany by barring a peaceful march by those who disagree with Merkel. By following the pattern of absurdity, we may predict what comes next.
In 2015, Merkel took front and center to become the "greatest woman" and leader in Europe when she said, "We will take them all!" – regardless of the cost to her own nation or the nations of Europe. She nullified the "refugee agreement" and brought a torrent of Islamists from the Middle East and North Africa whose own ideology is to conquer Europe. She was hailed throughout the world by the political elite and mainstream media. She is now running for re-election.
What can she do as an encore?
She can offer a two-state solution.
Merkel, and the EU in general, can "demonstrate their compassion" to the Islamic world by ceding lands that are already, de facto, under Islamic control, and come out to show Israel and the world, by example, how to obtain "peace" with Islam.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Following J-Street Lead, Enemies Of Israel Now Calling Selves ‘Pro-Israel’ (satire)

Arab and Muslim countries long committed to the destruction of the world’s only Jewish State have taken a page out of left-leaning advocacy organization J-Street and have begun to refer to themselves as, “pro-Israel, pro-peace.”
Iran, Syria, Malaysia, Pakistan, and several other states that have no diplomatic relations with Israel and have never sought rapprochement with Israel have noted recently that explicit threats to destroy Israel play less well in powerful Western circles than the J-Street-pioneered strategy of painting oneself as in favor of Israel but redefining the Israel in question to mean the country that would exist after the current one ceases to function as a recognizably Jewish entity or a haven for Jews from persecution.
Public relations consultants working with a number of Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian Muslim states gathered in the US capital this week to compare notes on the ongoing efforts of those governments to rebrand themselves as pro-Israel in the mold of J-Street. The professionals discussed multiple options for presenting their clients’ stated desire to exterminate the Jewish State – and many or all of its Jewish inhabitants – as pro-Israel, just as J-Street’s goals point to the undermining of the Jewish character of Israel and its ability to establish and maintain security for its citizens, while the organization calls itself pro-Israel.
“We’re following the trail blazed by Jeremy Ben-Ami and his group, with an assist from the New Israel Fund,” explained Roger Gasleiter of JCPOA Associates, a Washington-area firm. “Better late than never, so for the next couple of weeks while Obama is still in office and his door is open to liberal groups à la J-Street, maybe we can get this new strategy and image going, and burnish our clients’ credentials with the American pro-peace camp, but without our clients’ having to actually change their pursuit of Israel’s destruction in any meaningful way.”

IsraelCool: Is There An Illegal Occupation Of Judea And Samaria (West Bank) By Israel?

However the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs stops short of actually declaring that settlements are legal. Some people say that’s a mistake.
If you want something hostile, you can read Wikipedia’s entry which, using a whole lot of words basically boils down to “everyone says settlements are illegal” without providing anything much in the way of actual evidence to back that up.
For the other side Eugene Kontorovich’s excellent lecture, explained here, gives reams of evidence to back up his legal opinion. If you have any good faith desire to understand this issue it’s pretty much essential you watch his lecture or read the summary.
To sum up, you can believe arguments one way or another, but you can’t yet say the matter of settlements is settled. It’s not even clear that Jews living in Judea and Samaria are settlers. As I’ve shown over and over with the indigenous nature of Judaism and Jews in these lands, trying to equate our Jewish return to these lands with a colonial invasion is dishonest and ahistorical.
Eugene Kontorovich speaking a Maxwell School of Syracuse University, Mar 2016.

Ex-CIA director: I was sure if we didn’t strike Syria’s nuclear reactor, Israel would

Gen. Michael Hayden provides an inside look into the attack that stopped Assad's nuclear ambitions in their tracks. From that fateful moment when Meir Dagan entered his office with photos of the reactor, through the clash between the Mossad director and the CIA’s analysts, who feared an all-out-war with Syria, to the secret meeting at Bush’s residence in which Hayden announced: ‘Mr. President, the Syrians are building a nuclear reactor, and it is part of a weapons program.’
"It was one of the most candid conversations I’ve ever had with him," says Gen. Michael Hayden as he recounts that fateful meeting with Mossad director Meir Dagan on the seventh floor of the United States Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
It was in April 2007, at the office of General Hayden, the director of the CIA at the time. When Hayden with his broad smile talks about a “candid conversation,” he means one between two people who have known each other for many years and had great respect for one another. But at least in that conversation, there was total disagreement between them.
That charged conversation at Langley revolved around one question: “How can this thing, which undoubtedly endangers the peace in the region, be destroyed without starting an all-out war in the Middle East?”
“This thing” was the Syrian nuclear reactor that was secretly being built at the time in Deir ez-Zor, not far from the Euphrates River.

Israeli ambassador on new UN secretary-general: 'Just be fair'

Former Portuguese prime minister Antonio Guterres took over from Ban Ki-moon on Sunday as the UN’s new secretary-general, and Israel has one request: Just be fair.
“I met with him and was impressed with his wide knowledge of the UN and the international arena,” Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon told The Jerusalem Post. “I hope we can turn a new page with him.”
Danon acknowledged that Guterres has a difficult job when it comes to Israel and the Middle East.
“I told him that the UN system creates so much negative energy against Israel, we just want him to be objective – not for Israel, but objective – and able to withstand the tremendous pressure against Israel that exists inside the UN.”

Trump ‘aggressively’ pursuing Netanyahu to attend inauguration — report

US president-elect’s White House transition team has been “aggressively” pursuing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend the inauguration ceremony in Washington, DC later this month, the New York Post reported on Sunday.
“There’s a plan for Trump to meet with Netanyahu,” a source close to the transition team said, according to the paper.
“They’re talking all the time. And Netanyahu is talking about possibly going to the inauguration,” the source was quoted as saying.
The report said Trump staffers, led by son-in-law Jared Kushner, were “aggressively courting” the Israeli prime minister in an effort to persuade him to attend the January 20 ceremony.
Netanyahu’s tense relationship with outgoing US President Barack Obama was exacerbated in recent weeks, after the White House publicly clashed with Israel over its West Bank policy and later declined to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning settlements.
Trump has assured Israel that things will be different after he takes office, and last week lamented that the Jewish state was “being treated very, very unfairly” by the international community.

Think Tank: Hezbollah Remains Israel’s Greatest Threat

Hezbollah remains the most serious conventional threat Israel is facing, more than Hamas or Iran, a report released Monday by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) determined.
According to the report, submitted to President Rivlin by INSS head Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, Hezbollah has rockets that can reach any range, precision-guided missiles, attack and suicide drones, the best Russian-made air defense systems and ground units that are training to conquer Israeli towns and cities.
The INSS recommended to improve Israeli intelligence gathering in an effort to continue reducing the transfer of advanced arms to the terror organization and consequently reduce the chances of an escalation.
However, the potential for the eruption of a conflict with Hamas is higher than with Hezbollah or Iran.
Hamas, the INSS determined, may have been deterred after the 2014 Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, but it is continuing to build up its strength.
Furthermore, even if both sides are not interested in escalation, a conflict can break out over violent incidents or due to the deep social and economic frustration in the strip that will manifest itself in violence against Israel.

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The fallout from the videos of Jews dancing in Bahrain continues.

The Bahrain Women's Union, also known as the Bahrain Society Renaissance Girls, issued a statement against "normalization with the Zionist entity" that was prompted by the videos.

The group "considers this reception and hosting [of Jews] is an integral part of the deception and deceit and conspiracy process exercised by racist enemy Zionist usurper in order to impose the recognition of their settlements and the gradual normalization.

"This reception and celebration of the Zionist delegation was a serious episode of penetration and normalization with the Zionist entity, and it also represents a provocation against the national feelings of the Bahraini people who refuse to compromise on the fundamentals of the Arab nation. It also represents a flagrant threat to the Palestinian presence.

"We express our condemnation of this visit."

The statement also condemned "provocative dancing and performing Zionist songs and anthems of to build a Jewish temple on the ruins of the mosque Al-Aqsa," adding that the Jews were also somehow threatening a public square in Manama.

But they have nothing against Jews. Only "Zionists."

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Fatah honors terrorist Dalal Mughrabi at "52nd anniversary" celebrations

On January 1, Fatah celebrated 52 years since its first terror attack in 1965. (It never marks the anniversary of its actual beginnings in the 1950s.)

According to the leaked minutes of meetings between John Kerry and Susan Rice and Palestinian leaders, the Americans "praised 'Abbas's courage, positions, leadership, and adherence to the culture of peace and to peace as a strategic option."

These photos show what kind of a "culture of peace" Mahmoud Abbas has built in the territories he controls.

The celebrations included boys in military uniforms:

Lots of masked Fatah members, imitating if not being actual terrorists:

Armed terrorists as well:

And large posters of Fatahs' heroes: Arafat, Abbas, and terrorist Dalal Mughrabi:

Mughrabi's poster was clearly meant to boost Abbas' popularity as a man who supports terror while he tells gullible Westerners the opposite:

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Hamas put out its annual statistics of its "martyrs."

It shows Hamas was far more efficient at killing its own people than Israel was last year.

According to the Al Qassam website and Hamas newspaper Felesteen, 29 Hamas members were "martyred" in 2016. This included 21 people killed in tunnel collapses, 2 in training accidents, 2 killed in work accidents, one killed while trying to dismantle a bomb, one died of previous wounds, one killed by Israel in Hebron after he murdered Rabbi Miki Mark, and one who was presumably assassinated by the Mossad in Tunisia.

Islamic Jihad also released a list of its nine "martyrs" for the year. None were killed by Israel in 2016, although one died from wounds from an Israeli attack in 2006. The rest were killed in work accidents, tunnel accidents, or even heart attacks.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Record breaking "desecrations of Al Aqsa" in 2016

According to Arab media, this year some 17,602 Jews visited the Temple Mount in 2016, the highest number since 1967.

This means that more Jews visited their holiest spot in 2016 since the destruction of the second Temple.

Somehow, the Muslim observers at Judaism's holiest spot know that the visitors who "desecrated the Al Aqsa Mosque" included 14,103 "settlers," 2,259 Jewish students, 815 police and 425 plain-clothed police. I don't know how they determine which people are "settlers" and which ones are Jews who live within the Green Line.

Oh, that's right. All Israelis are settlers.

th Muslim officials say that October was the busiest month with 3,020 Jews because of the Jewish holidays.

For context, far more than 17,000 Muslims visit the Temple Mount every Friday.

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There is no shortage of NGOs and media articles that claim, falsely, that Israel limits medicine and critical medical equipment to Gaza.

But there are very few reports of the corruption that actually occurs within Gaza for patients.

According to a new investigative article, there are two ways to get a routine operation at a government hospital in Gaza: either you must be politically or socially connected, or you must pay a bribe to the doctor. Otherwise you may wait a year or more for basic surgery.

The bribes are euphemistically called "gratuities."

Doctors are prioritizing procedures for their friends and relatives over others, and patients are even witnessing their own scheduled operations being bumped by well-connected patients.

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01/01 Links: A Palestinian Defeat Is Good for All; Israel is Jewish

From Ian:

Daniel Pipes: A Palestinian Defeat Is Good for All

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was photographed on December 21, carrying a copy of Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History, by John David Lewis. In that book, Lewis looks at six case studies and argues that in them all, “The tide of war turned when one side tasted defeat and its will to continue, rather than stiffening, collapsed.”
That Netanyahu should in any way be thinking along these lines is particularly encouraging at this moment of flux — when Sunni Arab states focus as never before on a non-Israeli threat (namely the Iranian one), Obama leaves Israel in the lurch at the United Nations Security Council and insurgent politics disrupt across the West. In other words, the timing’s exactly right to apply Lewis’ argument to the Palestinians. Actually, Israel successfully pursued a strategy of forcing the taste of defeat on its enemies through its first 45 years, so this would be a return to old ways.
That strategy starts by recognizing that, since the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the Palestinians and Israelis have pursued static and opposite goals. The Palestinians adopted a policy of rejectionism with the intent to eliminate every vestige of Jewish presence in what is now the territory of Israel. Differences among Palestinians tend to be tactical: Talk to the Israelis to win concessions or stick to total rejectionism? The Palestinian Authority represents the first approach and Hamas the second.
On the Israeli side, nearly everyone agrees on the need to win acceptance by Palestinians (and other Arabs and Muslims); differences are again tactical. Show Palestinians what they can gain from Zionism or break the Palestinians’ will? The Labor and Likud parties argue this out.
These two pursuits — rejectionism and acceptance — have remained basically unchanged for a century. Varying ideologies, objectives, tactics, strategies and actors mean that details have varied, even as the fundamentals remained remarkably in place.

Report: East Jerusalem Christmas Tree Decorated With Photos of Palestinian ‘Martyrs’ Killed While Attempting to Murder Jews Attracts Enthusiastic Visitors, Including Greek Orthodox Archbishop

A Christmas tree in east Jerusalem decorated with photos of Arab “martyrs” killed while committing terrorist attacks against Jews has been attracting prominent Arab Muslims and Christians, Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Sunday.
According to the report, one such member of the Christian community was Theodosios, the Archbishop of Sebastia from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, who told passersby about the importance of the Palestinian people’s struggle for their land and holy sites.
The tree, declared Theodosios – known more commonly in the West as Atallah Hanna — constitutes a “Christmas message” from “the heart of Palestine” — that “we are one nation defending one issue…standing firm and remaining in the holy land.”
Other people who stopped by to gaze at the tree — which resembles a similar evergreen erected last year on the campus of nearby Al-Quds University – were even more outspoken in their praise for terrorists, according to Channel 2. Some went as far as to laud those who died during the “Al-Quds Intifada,” a reference to the surge in Palestinian terrorism, which began in September 2015 and has been characterized by stabbings, car-rammings and other acts of violence against Israelis.
In a video obtained by Channel 2, Israeli Border Police are seen arriving at the tree late at night and removing pictures of the “martyrs” hanging from its branches.

Israel Is Not the Occupier

This past summer, the section of the Republican Party’s platform on Israel included a key statement made in anticipation of President Obama’s betrayal of our great ally: “We reject the false notion that Israel is an occupier.”
The United Nations Security Council’s passage of Resolution 2334, an outrageous act of hostility personally engineered by President Barack Obama against the state of Israel, has rightly evoked great anger across all parts of the American political spectrum.
Given the anticipated effects of Resolution 2334, this policy statement is critical as it represents the central tenet of what will now unquestionably be the policy of the Trump administration and the pro-Israel community.
“Occupier” is nothing more than a polite way of calling Israel a thief, suggesting that Jewish invaders colonized territory belonging to the Arabs — territory that therefore must be restored to its rightful, victimized owners. The term is intentionally misused against Israel in order to shape negative misperceptions of its history and legitimacy, while perpetuating a sense of Palestinian-Arab victimhood. To suggest that the Jews are occupiers in a region that has been known as Judea for over 3,000-plus years is no less ridiculous than to suggest that Arabs are occupiers in Arabia.
“Occupier” is a legal term whose definition does not apply to Israel under the law. Israel’s legal title and rights to all of its present territory stem directly from an act of international law made in the post-World War I San Remo Agreement, which was then further recognized and incorporated in subsequent binding acts — from the Covenant of the League of Nations all the way through Article 80 of the United Nations’ charter. None of the national and political rights recognized as inherit to the Jewish people have ever been revoked, nullified or superseded by a subsequent act of international law.

Abbas: 2017 will be the year of Palestinian statehood

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday told Fatah party officials that 2017 would be “the year of the independent Palestinian state.”
At a torch-lighting ceremony marking the 52nd anniversary of Fatah’s founding, Abbas hailed the recent UN anti-settlement resolution as a diplomatic victory.
“The settlements are illegal, and in recent days, we were given an unprecedented decision regarding this issue,” he told members of his party at the ceremony, held at the grave of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, Channel 10 news reported.
The PA president said the Palestinians would not tolerate Israeli efforts to fool the international community, Israel Radio reported, and said that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was building “colonies” in the West Bank and was seeking to perpetuate Israeli rule there, and racist discrimination against the Palestinians.
Nonetheless, the Palestinians were ready to work with the incoming Donald Trump presidency to achieve peace via a two-state solution based on the relevant UN decisions and the Arab Peace Initiative, the radio report said. “We want to emphasize our willingness to work with the newly-elected American administration… to achieve peace… based on a two-state solution,” he said. (h/t Jewess)

Ben-Dror Yemini: Blocking peace

Both Kerry's speech this week and the UN Security Council resolution last week enabled Palestinian intransigence. But Netanyahu's response to the resolution causes just as much damage—by undermining Israel's relations with important countries and doing BDS's work for them.
The Palestinians have been presented with three proposals to establish a Palestinian state on 95 percent—more or less—of the land Israel currently controls. They said 'no' three times.
To understand the Palestinian logic, one must listen to the comments made, for example, by Abbas Zaki, one of the PLO's senior officials, about five years ago: "When we say that the settlement should be based upon (the 1967) borders, President (Abbas) understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go ... If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall – what will become of Israel? It will come to an end ... Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Obama ... All those scumbags ... If one says that one wants to wipe Israel out... C'mon, it's too difficult. It's not (acceptable) policy to say so. Don't say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself."
Zaki didn't keep this strategy to himself. He presented it in an interview with Al-Jazeera. It may not be the position of the entire leadership at the Palestinian Authority, but he's obviously representing a lot more than we think.

Netanyahu said to warn of more anti-Israel UN activity

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly expressed fears Sunday that the United Nations Security Council could take fresh action against Israel during a meeting on January 17, three days before US President Barack Obama is slated to leave office.
Netanyahu told his weekly cabinet meeting that Israel is “in the midst of an event that has still not ended,” according to a report by Israel’s Channel 10 news.
White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said last week that the US would veto any further UN action against Israel, after Washington abstained last month and allowed a resolution critical of West Bank settlement building to pass, drawing fury in Jerusalem at the US and the Security Council’s other 14 nations.
The Security Council meeting is scheduled to take place just two days after a planned peace conference in Paris on January 15, which Israel says may be used to advance further measures against it after the UN Security Council resolution and US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech last week in which he condemned Israel’s “pernicious policy of settlement construction that is making peace impossible” and laid out his six principles for peace talks.
Although it was not specified what kind of additional action Netanyahu believes will be taken against Israel at the Security Council, Channel 10 reported last week that the prime minister thinks the Middle East Quartet — the US, UN, Russia and EU — will coordinate positions at the Paris summit, and then return to the Security Council in the very last days of Obama’s presidency to cement these new parameters on Mideast peacemaking.

Defund the United Nations

We pay more than anyone else to keep the U.N. in business, about 22 percent of the U.N.’s regular budget. As Brett Schaefer of the Heritage Foundation notes, “the U.S. is assessed more than 176 other U.N. member states combined.”
Because nothing involving the U.N. is clean or straightforward, it’s hard to even know how much the U.S. pays in total into the U.N. system. But it’s probably around $8 billion a year. We should withhold some significant portion of it, and demand an end to the U.N.’s institutional hostility to Israel and the implementation of reforms to increase the organization’s accountability. There are individual U.N. agencies that do good work, and we can continue to support those.
Realistically, though, the U.N. will always be a disappointment. The fact is that the closest thing to what FDR envisioned in the U.N. is NATO, a like-minded group of nations that has been a force for peace, order, and freedom. This is why President-elect Donald Trump should embrace NATO and turn his critical eye to the U.N., where there is the genuine opportunity to, if nothing else, save the U.S. some money and rattle the cages of people taking advantage of our beneficence.
Charles de Gaulle dismissively called the U.N. “the thing.” The thing will always stumble on, but maybe Donald Trump can teach it a lesson or two about how we truly value our ally and its nemesis, Israel.

PMW: Message from PMW director Itamar Marcus

Dear friend,
The recent UN resolution condemning Israel is a gross misrepresentation of reality. PMW's findings prove that Palestinian Authority hate and terror promotion are the fundamental impediments to peace. PMW has exposed unremitting evidence of a PA leadership that has actively created a hate-filled Palestinian society, by its routine naming of schools and sporting events after murderers, salary payments to terrorist prisoners, instilling Antisemitism among its children, and the outlawing of peace-promoting activities.
As I am writing this, Israeli PM Netanyahu has just posted on his Facebook page PMW's recent release (see right),
writing in Hebrew:
"Does anyone need further proof that the UN's shameful decision only distances peace?"
Significantly, as more of the world is being exposed to PMW's material, greater clarity as to the true nature of the Palestinian Authority is being achieved internationally. This shift is culminating in revisions in international policy.
I am asking that you help today at this historic juncture, to enable PMW to expand the international impact we had in 2016 on governments, media, NGOs, and campuses to an even greater extent in 2017.

IsraellyCool: An Open Letter To An Israel Hater

Sometimes thoughts come in groups. That’s what happened to me after I heard about United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334. I wanted to say something to Senegal, and I did. I wanted to say something to New Zealand, and I did.
That leaves three countries that have a hand in this fiasco (and another 10 who deserve our anger and disdain). One is the Ukraine, where just a few days ago, they threw a pig’s head and red paint at the grave site of a much-loved Jewish rabbi who had the misfortune to have lived and died in the Ukraine. Another is Venezuela, whose loyalty as a major oil producer is clearly not going to be centered on little Israel. Venezuela, according to Wikipedia, has a ton of its own problems but still has time to focus on little Israel. Never mind that “Venezuela was the most murderous place on Earth in 2015” and “in Venezuela, a person is murdered every 21 minutes.”
What the UNSC resolution did was suggest that the deaths of 450,000 people in Syria is less important than Israel daring to build apartments for its citizens on land it captured from a country that attacked us. Yes, Jordan attacked Israel in 1967 and lost.
Jordan held the land from 1948 – 1967 and made zero effort to create a Palestinian entity…and not one UN resolution condemned them as “occupiers.” During that time, unlike the almost fifty years that have followed, one religion was denied access to its holiest place – Judaism. Yes, that’s right. Jews were not allowed to go up to the Temple Mount or even visit the Western Wall, and not one nation protested, not one UN resolution accused Jordan of intolerance.

Obama and the UN’s end-of-year sale

New Zealand’s obsession with Israel verges on the bizarre. If Israel were surrounded by sea, were not a mere nine miles wide, and our nearest neighbors were Australian, we too would live in peace and security.
(Kiwis anxious to right their own record regarding the Maoris should note that actually Jews are indigenous to Israel.) Perhaps, like Obama and Kerry, New Zealand was desperate to leave a legacy before its two-year term on the UN Security Council ends on December 31 – not that Obama need worry about being forgotten; the mark he made on the Middle East is inescapable.
There are battle scars everywhere.
While many Israelis are now looking forward to Trump taking over from Obama, I believe it is up to Israel to determine its own policy and redlines. That’s an integral part of sovereignty. The government must make it absolutely clear that cities like Ariel and Ma’aleh Adumim, the communities in Gush Etzion, the Jordan Valley and the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem, let alone holy sites, will remain in Israeli hands. The Dead Sea resorts that Kerry raised in his speech are not his to give away.
We shouldn’t be relying on Trump or any other foreign leader to determine our own future.
My educated guess is that the Security Council resolution is more likely to mark the beginning of the end of the UN than the downfall of Israel.
But then you know where I got my education.

Dump UNRWA, Vote on 2008 Peace Agreement?

A referendum is within the realm of the reality. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was founded in 1949 and was meant to be temporary. In 1951, the agency reported, “There must be a firm goal of terminating relief operations. Sustained relief operations inevitably contain the germ of human deterioration.” UNRWA’s directors were right, but Arab states, however, hijacked the group to use it as a political hammer against the Jewish state. With time, UNRWA began to view international support as an entitlement. Today, its annual budget is $1.4 billion. If the Trump administration pushed for UNRWA’s dissolution more than six decades after its mandate was supposed to expire and channeled the U.S. contribution instead to host the referendum among those currently living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestine could be independent in a year. Jerusalem need not be an obstacle: Jerusalemites might choose to vote as Israelis or Palestinians but not both. If East Jerusalem Arabs seek to vote as Palestinians, they can forfeit their Israeli citizenship and join the Palestinian state.
Israelis will accept a two-state solution. Kerry may be optimistic when he says Palestinians would as well. What happens if Palestinians vote no? Simply put, the international community can move on. Palestinians have historically received more assistance per capita than any other people and, even in Gaza, they have a higher standard of living than many Turks, Brazilians, fellow Arabs, and Africans.
Money dumped on the West Bank and Gaza could be better spent on Yemenis, Syrians, Rohingya Muslims, Turkey’s Kurds, displaced Ukrainians, or others. If Palestinians recognize that they cannot endlessly live off of international donations, they might instead learn that the path to progress is through government and personal accountability, not handouts. Diplomats might understand that throwing money at problems more often prolongs than resolves them. So if the Palestinians vote no, it is time to declare the Oslo era—and the Palestinian Authority upon which it was built—over, give Israel an open hand to secure its borders as it sees fit, and write the Palestinians off until they reconsider.

Canada's Conservatives blast Liberals' silence on Israel

Canada’s opposition Conservatives issued a scathing criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government over its silence in the wake of the anti-Israel resolution passed by the UN Security Council.
Peter Kent, the Conservative Critic for Foreign Affairs and Member of Parliament for the largely Jewish riding of Thornhill, Ontario, issued a statement on Thursday in which he said his party “strongly rejects” the wording of the resolution.
“Conservatives will always recognize Israel’s right to exist, its right to defend itself, by itself, and the historic fact and right of a Jewish presence in Jerusalem. We strongly reject the wording of this United Nations resolution which appears to suggest that the Western Wall and East Jerusalem should become part of a Palestinian state. We are also disappointed in the actions of the outgoing Obama administration, which abandoned historic United States precedent by refusing to veto this one-sided and prejudiced resolution,” said Kent.
“Now, more than ever, Israel needs its friends and allies. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Israel had no greater friend than Canada. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. And the reasons for this are purely political,” he stated.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Titus Cites UNSCR 2334 In Demanding Besieged Jerusalem Surrender (satire)

The Roman general commanding the forces surrounding the Jewish capital sent messengers today to the leaders of the besieged stronghold urging them to comply with Security Council Resolution 2334, which declared that a Jewish sovereign presence beyond the 1949 lines is illegal.
Titus Flavius, who took over the siege when his father Vespasian received word he had been appointed Emperor of Rome, cited the relevant decision of the United Nations, noting the fact that in deeming Jewish settlement or construction beyond the armistice lines illegal under international law, the Council automatically rendered the entire Jewish stronghold currently under siege an illegal entity that must be dismantled. That could happen, warned Titus, by peaceful means if the defenders of the city simply gave up the fight and agreed to be subjugated and sent elsewhere, or it could happen by force if necessary, and the Roman Legions laying the siege were prepared to subdue Jerusalem by those means.
“Be advised that in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted December 23, 2016, this Jewish settlement of Jerusalem constitutes a violation of international law, in its consisting of Jewish settlement beyond the retroactively recognized boundaries that obtained prior to June, 1967,” read the general’s message, conveyed by courier. “Any attempt to thwart our action, sanctioned under the same international law, will be met with uncompromising force. Surrender, Jews, or face the wrath of the international community.”

Bennett vows to pursue Ma’ale Adumim annexation this month

Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett on Sunday said he plans to introduce legislation this month that would extend Israeli sovereignty to the Jerusalem-area settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.
In a tweet, Bennett said his Orthodox-nationalist party would present to the Knesset what he described as a coalition-backed plan to lawmakers later this month — presumably after the January 20 inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Bennett has long proposed that Israel annex large parts of the West Bank, arguing that the creation of a Palestinian state in that area poses a threat to Israel’s existence.
On Thursday, he asserted the arrival of a Trump administration would see a shift in Israel’s West Bank policies, including the annexation of Ma’ale Adumim, a city with some 40,000 residents.
But on Saturday, Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, a close ally of Netanyahu, rejected suggestions that Israel may unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank, saying such a course of action would be “a disaster” for the country.
Zionist Union chairman Isaac Herzog, speaking at a cultural event in Haifa Saturday, said those supporting annexation were “brainwashing the public with lies, such as claiming that we can annex Area C and the world will allow it.” After the results of a survey commissioned by Israel Radio showed that around one-third of Israelis would like to see the disputed territory annexed to Israel, Herzog on Friday called on Bennett to support a referendum.

Zionist Union calls for referendum on whether to annex West Bank

Opposition lawmakers on Friday called on the government to hold a referendum on the fate of the West Bank, after the results of a survey commissioned by Israel Radio showed that around one-third of Israelis would like to see the disputed territory annexed to Israel.
Zionist Union chairman Isaac Herzog called on Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the head of the pro-settler Jewish Home party, to support a public poll that would decide the fate of settlements in the West Bank.
“Bennett, if you are so sure (the public favors annexation), let’s do a referendum now and decide whether we are heading to one or two states, without your mockery and arrogance,” Herzog was quoted by the Israel National News website as saying.
Echoing Herzog’s call to Bennett, Zionist Union MK Eitan Broshi noted that the Israel Radio survey — a curiously worded poll that gave respondents only three options regarding the fate of the territories — found that “60 percent of Israelis supported the establishment of a Palestinian state in some borders or others, and in maintaining the State of Israel Jewish and democratic.”

Turkey hunts for attacker who killed 39 in nightclub shooting

Turkish security forces were in the midst of a massive manhunt Sunday for an assailant in a Santa Claus hat who unleashed a salvo of bullets in a crowded Istanbul nightclub during New Year’s celebrations just after midnight, killing at least 39 people.
Foreigners were among the fatalities, including an 18-year-old Israeli woman and a Belgian national, according to the two countries’ respective foreign ministries. Close to 70 others were injured in what authorities described as a terror attack.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the attacker has not been identified and is still at large. “Our security forces have started the necessary operations. God willing he will be caught in a short period of time,” he said.
Turkey’s prime minister denied news reports claiming the terrorist wore a Santa Claus outfit.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters Sunday: “There is no truth to this. He is an armed terrorist as we know it.”

Israeli teenager, 19, killed in Istanbul nightclub attack

An Israeli teenager was killed in the shooting attack at an Istanbul club during New Year festivities.
The victim, who earlier was reported missing, was identified Sunday morning as 19-year-old Lian Zaher Nasser from the Arab Israeli city of Tira.
Thirty-nine people, including many foreigners, were killed Sunday when a gunman went on a rampage at the exclusive Reina nightclub in Istanbul where revelers were celebrating the New Year.
Dr. Ayia Ihsan Abd al-Hay, another Israeli who was with Nasser in the club, said the gunman “shouted Allahu Akbar” as he opened fire. She told Channel 2 there was “complete chaos” in the club, and that she was lucky to escape with her life.
Nasser’s father Zaher told the Walla news website that he urged his daughter not to travel to Turkey, citing the uptick in terror attacks in the country.
“She insisted on going because her friends were,” he said. Before losing contact with Lian, Nasser said his daughter to “managed to send us a few photos from there and she told us how cold she was.”

Attacker yelled ‘Allahu akbar’ as he fired, says Israeli survivor of Turkey terror

An Israeli woman who survived the New Year’s terror attack in an Istanbul nightclub said Sunday that the gunman shouted “Allahu akbar” as he opened fire and “cruelly” cut down dozens of people. Turkish police were still hunting for the attacker on Sunday evening as the death toll reached 39 with 40 more wounded. Arab-Israeli 19-year-old Lian Zaher Nasser, from the city of Tira, was among those killed.
Dr. Ayia Ihsan Abd al-Hay, a dentist, was one of a small group of Israelis who were in the club with Nasser. She told Israel’s Channel 2 News in Istanbul on Sunday that Nasser worked for her as a dental technician and that she was devastated by her death.
She said the gunman “shouted Allahu Akbar” as he opened fire, that she couldn’t identify his accent, and that his actions were “so cruel.”
Abd al-Hay said the group had not been scared to come to Turkey for a New Year’s vacation, despite the potential for terror attacks. “We weren’t afraid,” she said.
It was “the biggest blow that we lost our best friend… I’m so devastated,” she said. “She worked with me. I don’t know what to do now.”

Husband of Israeli woman killed in Berlin attack regains consciousness

The husband of an Israeli woman killed earlier this month in a terror attack in Berlin has regained consciousness to some degree from a medically induced coma, relatives said Saturday.
Family members said Rami Elyakim, 60, was breathing independently at a Berlin hospital.
“This morning they began lowering the sedatives, the respirator has been removed, and he is somewhat awake and communicating a bit, so there is improvement,” his sister Sigal Tzabari-Elyakim said.
Elyakim, 60, has not yet been told that his wife Dalia was killed in the December 19 truck-ramming attack.
Dalia was buried in the couple’s hometown of Herzliya last week. She was one of 12 people killed when an alleged Islamic State jihadist plowed into the Berlin market on December 19.

Palestinian Jihadist: Ban Christmas Celebrations in Islamic States

Abu Omar Almaqdesi, a senior Gaza-based Islamic State jihadist, said the soldiers and supporters of the Caliphate must not permit the celebration of Christmas in Islamic countries. He went on to describe the festivities as depraved, lewd and based on the “blasphemous idea” that Allah had an equal in Jesus.
“Isa (Jesus), may he rest in peace, is a prophet like all the others,” Almeqdesi told Breitbart Jerusalem “and in Islam we don’t discriminate between prophets for they are all the messengers of Allah, but the claim that Jesus is a deity represents a heresy that ought to be stamped out in Islamic states.”
“Those Christians who pay the jizya – the poll tax – and refrain from practicing these blasphemous celebrations should be given the security they deserve. But if somewhere there are Christians who insist on celebrating Christmas with the support of the heretic authorities, one must unleash upon them all one’s might and deploy all the available means.”
Asked what he means by that, Almeqdesi said that “all methods are admissible when it comes to preventing blasphemy against Allah and his commandments. Yes, including killing and blowing up. But, like I said, we believe that at first you should act politely and explain that living in Islamic countries is conditioned on accepting the Sharia and refrain from openly practicing rituals other than Islam.”

Jordan army chief: ISIS in Golan have anti-aircraft missiles

Jordanian Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mahmoud Freihat warned in an interivew with BBC on Saturday that ISIS fighters have anti-aircraft missiles.
In the interview, which was given in Arabic, Freihat referred specifically to the Syria-Jordan-Israel border, near the Golan Heights area.
"This faction is a constant and close threat to Jordan. Some of the areas its fighters are in are a kilometer away from the border," he said."They have tanks, armored vehicles, anti-aircraft missiles and machineguns that can hit the military posts on the frontline."
In truth, the ISIS was reported to have seized Russian anti-aircraft missiles a few weeks ago, when they recaptured th Syrian town of Palmyra, and they are not the first terrorist group to have anti-aircraft abilities.

'ISIS seeking to launch mass-casualty chemical attacks in Europe'

Islamic State militants have aspirations to launch mass-casualty chemical attacks on targets in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, the British security minister said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday.
Ben Wallace also said British authorities feared that as the militant group was driven out of strongholds in the Middle East such as the Iraqi city of Mosul, Britons fighting for the group would return home and pose a growing domestic threat.
"The ambition of IS or Daesh is definitely mass-casualty attacks," Wallace told the Sunday Times newspaper.
"They have no moral objection to using chemical weapons against populations and if they could, they would in this country. The casualty figures that could be involved would be everybody's worst fear."

New Report: Some of 2016's Worst Antisemitic Activity Took Place on British, Canadian Campuses

Some of the past year’s worst antisemitic activities took place at British and Canadian universities, according to a new report, released by a prominent international Jewish human-rights organization.
According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s “2016 Top 10 Worst Global Antisemitic/Anti-Israel Incidents,” among the most distressing events of the past 12 months were the failure of UK school administrations to protect Jewish students, and attempts by activists at Toronto’s Ryerson University to derail a Holocaust education motion.
Citing a recent interview by British parliamentarian Baroness Ruth Deech — who, as The Algemeiner reported, decried that many institutions of higher learning have becoming “no-go zones” for Jewish students — the SWC wrote, “Antisemitism is so rife on campuses that some Jewish people are feeling threatened or unsafe.”

Israel Advocacy Group Gives ‘Worst BDS Fail of 2016’ Award to Denver U’s Chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine for Using Website Developed in Jewish State

Anti-Israel campus activists earned the dubious distinction of having made this year’s greatest blunder where their efforts against the Jewish state were concerned — by advertising their endeavor on a site created by an Israeli company.
Denver University’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) was “honored” by advocacy organization StandWithUs for exhibiting the greatest blooper in its own anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.
In a video called “5 Worst BDS Fails of 2016,” StandWithUs mocked SJP for using Wix, and Israeli invention, to call for boycotts of Israeli-made products.
“First call of action for Denver SJP — boycott your own site,” the narrator of the video says.
This isn’t the first time anti-Israel activists have been called out for boycotting the Jewish state while utilizing technology developed by the startup nation — with Wix at the center of the BDS botch-ups on a number of occasions.

NPR Covers Up the Ethnic Cleansing of Jews

In its article, “7 Things To Know About Israeli Settlements,” National Public Radio manages to demonstrate just how little its writers know about settlements, Israel and how to practice journalism.
Our critique of this article is not about settlements, but about basic journalistic standards.
Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank
Reporters Greg Myre and Larry Kaplow begin by claiming:
When Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Six-Day War, no Israeli citizens lived in the territory.
This stunning lack of context ignores that Jews had indeed lived in Hebron, Bethlehem and many other towns in the land historically called “Judea and Samaria,” until 19 years earlier – when Jordanian forces (with the help of local Palestinians) expelled or killed all of the indigenous Jews, and then re-named the entire area “The West Bank.”
The only reason the population of the West Bank was entirely Palestinian by 1967 was because they expelled the indigenous Jews in 1948.

BBC News claim of ‘illiberal directions’ does not hold water

An article by an outside contributor which appeared on the BBC News website on December 22nd discusses “2016 and the liberal story“.
“2016 has been a momentous year. The UK’s Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump confounded expectations while the wars in Syria and Yemen caused more bloodshed. BBC Radio 4’s Today programme asked top historians for their assessment of the year.”
In that article by historian Yuval Noah Harari, readers find the following:
“However, since the global financial crisis of 2008, people all over the world have become increasingly disillusioned with the liberal story.
It is no longer so clear that the Chinese Communist Party is on the wrong side of history, and authoritarian rulers such as Putin, Erdogan and Netanyahu are taking their countries in distinctly illiberal directions.”
The Oxford dictionary defines ‘authoritarian‘ as: “favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom” and ‘illiberal‘ as: “opposed to liberal principles; restricting freedom of thought or behavior”.

Disputed or occupied? How location dictates BBC terminology

With BBC audiences having read and heard terminology such as “occupied Palestinian territory”, “occupied Palestinian land” and “illegal Israeli settlements” scores of times over the last week or so in BBC coverage of UNSC resolution 2334 (see related articles below), it is interesting to take a look at the language used in an article published on December 25th on the BBC News website’s ‘Africa’ page.
Although its subject matter concerns a decades-old conflict involving an invasion, disputed territory, thousands of people living in refugee camps and more than twenty years of failed negotiations, nowhere in that article – titled “Western Sahara: Kitesurfing in the Dakhla danger zone” – did the BBC tell readers in its own words that the area is “occupied” or describe the presence of Moroccan citizens as “illegal” and at no point did the BBC endorse the narrative of one side of that dispute over the claims of the other side.w-sahara-art-25-12
In fact, readers were specifically told that the location of the story is in “disputed territory”.

IsraellyCool: Newsweek’s Nina Burleigh Tweets Out Antisemitic Article

Just over 3 months after I exposed the antisemitism of Newsweek Middle East Senior Deputy Editor Leila Hatoum comes yet another troubling example of a Newsweek reporter disseminating an antisemitic article.
The person in question this time is Nina Burleigh, the National Politics Correspondent for Newsweek, who tweeted this yesterday.

It is a link to this article on Mondoweiss, which, while not as explicit in its antisemitism as, say, something written by David Duke, is nevertheless antisemitic. Unless you subscribe to the view that spreading the notion of a powerful Jewish lobby, while questioning the need for a Jewish state, is fine and dandy.

Trump-cheering YouTube stars ‘stand with Israel’

Popular YouTube personalities and avid Donald Trump fans Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, better known as Diamond and Silk, have a message for US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry: “We stand with Israel!”
The two former Democrats, who rose to prominence as devoted — and flamboyant — Trump backers throughout the campaign, posted a new clip Thursday in which they lambasted the White House for its recent conflict with Israel over West Bank policy and for failing to veto the UN resolution criticizing settlements.
“I know that something went down with Israel because I saw Kerry on TV talking about them,” Hardaway announces, with Richardson murmuring and humming in agreement throughout her short speech. “Now I’m not quite sure as to what went down, but I do know that Kerry must be slipping in all of that Heinz ketchup, cuz he trippin’!”
Hardaway then grows more flustered: “Let me tell you something: Israel is our ally, so that means we have to have their backs! I don’t care if their back is small, and our backs our big, we still got to have their backs — period.”

Aerosmith Guitarist Wishes Israelis ‘Happy Hanukkah’ With Rendition of Hava Nagila Ahead of Performance in Israel

The lead guitarist for Aerosmith wished Israelis a “Happy Hanukkah” with a rendition of a well-known Jewish song in a Facebook video posted ahead of his band’s upcoming concert in Israel.
Joe Perry played “Hava Nagila” on his guitar for a clip by Creative Community for Peace, an entertainment industry advocacy organization, and reminded his Israeli fans that Aerosmith will be performing at Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park in May.
Though musicians and celebrities continue to promote BDS — most notably Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters — and bully fellow performers to isolate the Jewish state, others continue to strike back by performing in major Israeli cities.

Israel is Jewish

At a time when Australian Christians have been celebrating Christmas and the New Year and Australian Jews marking the Festival of Light, Hanukkah, it is perhaps timely — particularly when Israel faces, relentless terrorist attacks and rocket attacks, boycott, divestment and sanctions threats and the ongoing threat of unilateral statehood declarations by the Palestinian Authority — to address Israel and the Zionist vision from an Australian perspective.
Imagine, if you will, that after the arrival of the first fleet and European settlement in Australia the Aborigines, the indigenous people of Australia, after the failure of their struggle to maintain their lands and freedoms were rounded up and expelled from Australia.
Such an event may well seem implausible and even ridiculous but a campaign of this sort could be seen as being simply and extension of the infamous “Black Line” in Tasmania in 1830 when an attempt was allegedly made to round up and eradicate the Aboriginal population of Tasmania. Bear with me and further imagine that the expelled Aboriginal population were then dispersed around our region and eventually around the world forming a substantial Aboriginal diaspora.
Given the love that Aborigines have for this land and the centrality of the land in their religion, culture and sense of identity it is surely not hard to imagine that the Aborigines in the diaspora would maintain their love of their native land, would maintain their religion, their languages and cultures and would pray for the day that they could return to the land that they loved.
Imagine that in the fullness of time these diaspora Aborigines did somehow succeed in returning to their native land — the land that they had continued to hold close to their hearts, their hopes and longings — and, through a near miraculous effort, managed to re-establish an independent Aboriginal homeland on part of the land that was once theirs.

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Fifty years from now Barack Obama will be known to most Americans as, quite simply, the first African-American president of the United States. Aside from this he will have precious little to distinguish himself other than in the notable electoral deterioration of the Democratic Party under his tenure.

While future historians may join Alan Dershowitz in considering him among the worst foreign policy presidents in U.S. history, he will probably hold a very special place in the hearts of Jewish people throughout the world. This is true because he will likely be known as the American president who, whatever his honest intentions, did more than any to divide the Jewish people from one another and from the Jewish state.

The genius in this bit of Jewish slicing-and-dicing is in its multifaceted aspect.

Obama did not merely rub poison into the cleavage between progressive-left Jews and the rest of us. Nor did he merely drive a wedge between American Jews and Israeli Jews. He even managed, much to my astonishment, to divide pro-Democratic Party Jews among themselves and between themselves and, increasingly, the party as a whole.

Now that is quite an accomplishment.

Let's briefly go through it.

Dividing American Jews from One Another

Barack Obama can hardly be blamed for creating Jewish divisions over Israel, as Edward Alexander and Paul Bogdanor would readily agree. Nonetheless, it must be understood that while Obama may appreciate certain Jews as individuals he has never been friendly or sympathetic to the Jewish people as a whole... or so we can reasonably deduce from his posture toward the Jewish state.

On the contrary, along with figures like Mahmoud Abbas, Louis Farrakhan, George Galloway, Rashid Khalidi, Jeremy Corbyn, and Keith Ellison, Obama regards Israel as a rogue state imposing itself upon the "indigenous" Palestinian-Arab population. The Jewish people who live there are considered by their very presence, an impediment to peace.

Among the various ways that Obama's influence, therefore, served to crack Jewish solidarity, the first was in hammering the wedge between progressive-left Jewish Democrats, who generally show greater sympathy toward his views on Israel, and the rest of us who do not.

By insisting that Jews in Israel should be allowed to live in some places, like Tel Aviv, but not in others, like Hebron, the Obama administration animated a confrontation within American Jewry. Those loyal to the Democratic Party, like Peter Beinart and Alan Dershowitz, agreed that the Jewish presence in Judea represents an appropriation of land that rightly belongs to Arabs and is, therefore, an obstacle toward resolving the conflict. Beinart and Dershowitz may not agree on much, but they definitely agree on that. Others, like Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), believe (along with me) that Jewish people have every right to build housing on the lands of our ancestry. Furthermore, in a recent piece for the Jerusalem Post Isi Liebler acknowledged Klein as the ONLY American Jewish leader of national consequence to be consistently critical of Obama's transparent flaws and who, he says, "has been more than vindicated" in his views.

I couldn't agree more.

Given the existential nature of the long Arab aggression against the Jews in the Middle East, Obama's hostility toward Jews who live in the wrong place set Jew upon Jew in a manner that grew increasingly acrimonious throughout the period of his tenure. By supporting J-Street while devaluing AIPAC, Obama agitated this split. He also put his sincerest American-Jewish friends on the defensive before those of us who believe in Jewish property rights in Judea and Samaria. Obama thereby forced his Jewish devotees into the position of justifying an unjustly racist stance toward the Jews of Israel.

Dividing American Jews from Israeli Jews

If Obama encouraged political divisions within the American Jewish community he also encouraged political divisions between American Jews and Israeli Jews. Because Israeli Jews understood how Obama's policies encouraged Palestinian-Arab violence and intransigence on the so-called "peace process," the vast majority of Israeli Jews quickly learned to distrust the man. Jewish Democrats who wished to maintain their progressive bona fides were thereby leaned into ideological tensions with friends and relatives in Israel.

In order to maintain good-standing with their fellow Democrats, Jews who care about Israel were put into an exceedingly uncomfortable position. They could support Obama or they could support Jewish rights to property on ancestral Jewish land, but they could not do both. And, again, Obama did not create this dilemma, he simply forced the issue. Obama used the two-state solution as a reason for opposing Jews like our friends Joseph and Melody Hartuv who live in Hebron and thereby allegedly stand as an obstacle to peace. He was not even the first president of the United States to do so, but he was certainly the most insistent.

Hebron, of course, is the site of the Cave of the Patriarchs. This is a place that, with a little encouragement from Obama, the United Nations decided belongs to Arabs. Through the unjust, if not racist, insistence that the "settlers" represent an obstacle to peace by their mere presence, Obama encouraged his American Jewish supporters to join him in condemning their fellow Jews. He managed this while still maintaining a pro-Israel face to his Jewish followers. Furthermore, by playing along with the erasure of Jewish history on the ancestral lands of the Jewish people, Obama also encouraged the dilution of American-Jewish support for that country and those people.

Dividing American Jews within the Democratic Party

I have considerable sympathy for Jewish Democrats.

Many in their own party hold them in contempt for defending Israel, while much of the rest of the American Jewish population casts a gimlet eye upon their never-ending pro-Obama apologetics and sycophancy. These are Jews who, from political and ideological standpoints, are getting smacked around by all sides and finding it increasingly difficult to walk the "progressive Zionist" tightrope. Divisions thereby emerged between the true Obama devotees and those going wobbly watching Obama's year-in-and-year-out hostility toward Israel.

In this way, within the Democratic Party, there are good Jews and bad Jews.

Good Jewish Democrats support Barack Obama while bad Jewish Democrats question the wisdom of breathing life into the corpse of Oslo. Good Jewish Democrats believe that if only Netanyahu had pushed Yosef and Melody out of their home in Hebron then peace could be achieved through the offices of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Bad Jewish Democrats tend to doubt this. They understand that Palestinian-Arabs have no desire to create a state for themselves in peace with Israel. Indeed, why should Palestinian-Arabs hope for a conclusion of hostilities via a negotiated two-state settlement when Obama and the UN want to give them a state on Jewish land in a manner that maintains those hostilities?

Whatever happens going forward, however, the Jewish people and the Jewish State of Israel are, and will continue to be, one.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

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Chanukah Extra: Israel Philharmonic, Maoz Tzur

As we say goodbye to Chanukah, here is the Israel Philharmonic (with Yedidya Wexler singing) playing the grandest version of Maoz Tzur you are likely to hear.

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Humanist Israeli leftists refer to Israelis they don't like as "vermin"

Dror Etkes loves all humans. His Twitter account includes this anti-racist cartoon:

But his love for all humans doesn't extend to Jews who want to live in Judea and Samaria.

Haaretz quotes him as saying "Israel’s racist education minister is busy trying to find ways to make vermin like the Amona outpost kosher."

So while he loves all humans, he draws the line at vermin.

This is not the only ironic use of the term by a left-winger who pretends to be against racism. Before the 2013 elections, Yehonatan Geffen wrote (also in Haaretz), without the slightest sense of shame:

Watching the televised campaign ads physically turns your stomach: The religious parties are busy sowing hatred while the right-wing parties, as usual, are focused on fear-mongering.

I am not particularly interested in disclosing who's got my vote, but I can tell you that it rhymes with sheretz [also the Hebrew word for vermin].

Yet the real vermin is the country's stable coalition,

Literally two sentence after pretending to be outraged at people who are "sowing hatred" he refers to his political opponents as "vermin." And Meretz is a party that explicitly puts human rights in its platform.

It's bad when anyone dehumanizes people, but it is the height of hypocrisy to pretend to be an advocate of human rights and anti-hate while at the very same moment being in the forefront of pushing hate yourself.

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Lies, damn lies and New York Times-quoted statistics

One of the easiest ways for people to make their points about what Israelis and Palestinians supposedly want is by cherry-picking surveys on the matter and then using those results as proof.

Causal readers of the articles generally aren't attuned to the specifics (or quality) of the surveys and give outsized importance to them.

Bernard Avishai in The New York Times uses a combination of pseudo-statistics and his own observations to make sweeping generalizations that, in the end, have little basis in reality.

Mr. Friedman’s allies in Israel’s right-wing Likud Party and its nationalist and Orthodox coalition partners see the land, including the West Bank, which they call Judea and Samaria, as holy. They regard any strategic territorial compromise entailing a withdrawal of Israeli sovereignty as sinful. In this respect, they benefit politically from the violence produced by the occupation.
Perhaps 40 percent of Jewish Israelis hold these attitudes, which imply others, such as theocracy over Supreme Court defenses of individual dignity, or privileges for Jewish citizens over Arab citizens, whose right to vote they consider provisional. A clear majority of these rightists want the release of Yigal Amir, who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. They see Europeans as anti-Semitic unless proven otherwise, Reform Jews as apostates, and Islam as terrorism’s gateway drug. Last week, the editor in chief of Haaretz, Aluf Benn, warned that Greater Israel zealots have moved to control the news media, schools, courts and army. “That means replacing the heads of cultural institutions and threatening a halt to government funding for those who don’t go with the flow,” he said.
People in Tel Aviv are cut from different cloth. Invite friends from Tel Aviv to dinner in Jerusalem, and they raise an eyebrow, as if you’re asking them to leave Israel for the ancient Kingdom of Judea.
The ethos of Tel Aviv — which runs, in effect, up the seaboard to Haifa — reflects the attitudes of another 40 percent of the Israeli Jewish population, which declares itself secular. One can slice the data many ways, but these Israelis see themselves as a part of the Western world and Israel’s Jewishness as custodianship of a historic civilization, not Orthodox rabbinical law.
Zionism, to them, means a culture. There may be a sentimental attachment to the rhetoric of Zionism’s insurgent period around independence: “redeeming” the land of Israel, “answering” the Holocaust, building a “majority” of people with J-positive blood, and so forth. But for most liberal Israelis, Zionism concretely means building a modern Hebrew-speaking civil society that can assimilate all comers.
There are some less liberal, who might call themselves “centrists.” They fear (or loathe) Arabs — about a third of secular Israelis would entertain expulsion — and have given up on the Oslo peace process, if not the two-state solution in the abstract. Yet they think the occupation, for which their conscripted children provide the backbone, should be run according to civilized norms. They fear (or loathe) settlers, too. In 2016, reflecting on the influence of the settlers, senior military and political leaders worried publicly about the growth of Israeli “fascism.”

Avishai divides up Israeli society into 40% religious fanatic bigots, 40% enlightened secular humanists, and 20% part-time bigots. He cites no figures to back up these claims outside a link to a Pew article that doesn't ask those questions.

But that Pew article links to another Pew poll which shed some, but not enough, light on how Israelis are divided. And the situation is far more complex and very different from how Avishai says.

Starting with that poll, we see that a strong plurality of Israeli Jews, 42% saying continued settlement building helps Israel's security to 30% saying it hurts Israel's security, with 25% saying it makes no difference.

Avishai's 40% figure for the Tel Aviv-style Jews is clearly wrong. But so is his characterization of secular Jews in Israel.

On that same question, among secular (Hiloni) Jews, the numbers are flipped: 42% say settlements in the West Bank hurt Israel’s security, while 31% say they help, and the rest think they do not make much difference or do not take a position either way.

Which means that less than 20% of Israeli Jews- 42% of 40% - are secular Jews who have the viewpoints on settlements that Avishai implies.

This isn't the only way that the 40% who define themselves as secular don't espouse the views Avishai claims they do. In every way, they are far more to the right than he says. For example, 36% favor expelling some Arabs from the country (the survey question was very vague so it is unclear how they interpreted the question.)

Most Hilonim, 62%, place themselves in the political center, and 24% on the Right, with only 14% identifying with the Left. This directly refutes most of Avishai's thesis.

The Hilonim who belong to political parties most commonly are affiliated with Likud, again contradicting Avishai's implication that Likud is a party that supports a theocracy in Israel.

The Pew survey goes on to say that 87% of Hilonim say they hosted or attended a Seder last Passover, and about half (53%) say they at least sometimes light candles before the start of the Sabbath.

If Avishai so badly mischaracterizes a survey that he clearly read, how can you believe anything he writes about how Israeli society is? Avishai is not just spinning facts - he is knowingly lying about them.

And the New York Times fact checkers are doing exactly what they always do when the "facts" support their biases - they don't bother checking them.

(h/t POTerritory)

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Chanukah Bonus Video: The Chanucorn Holiday Special (Jimmy Kimmel)

This is just...bizarre.

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