RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/danger-international-community-two-state-solution-dr-shmuel-katz/

The conflict in the Middle East between some Arab states and the State of Israel did not start yesterday. Unfortunately, people who are not familiar with the reality on the ground may think that there are easy solutions to the conflict.

One of the superficial ideas which was offered to solve the problem was to create two states for two peoples. Unfortunately, drawing these lines in the sand did not solve the problems, and in fact this solution has already failed in the past because it did not address the core problems that are at the heart of the conflict. They did not address seriously, for example, radical Islamic fanaticism, self-serving power trips, financial corruption, or fearful self-preservation of evil leaders.

The Ottoman Empire, which controlled the Middle East for about 400 years, crumbled during World War I, and the League of Nations created the British and the French mandates, which oversaw the transfer of the land in the Middle East to their rightful owners.

The territory that came under the Mandate of the British included the Land of Israel (including Judea and Samaria), the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, which had been renamed “Palestina” by Roman invaders about 2,000 years earlier.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration, and the legally binding ruling by the international community at the 1920 San Remo conference, recognized the historical connection of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland; there was a recommendation to help the Jewish people settle in their ancestral homeland, and at the same time to respect the human rights of all local inhabitants in the land of Israel.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/cop26-a-climate-carnival-to-remember-and-ridicule-opinion-684033

Had participants in the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow this week not taken themselves so seriously, the global happening would have made for great comedy. It’s always amusing watching the “woke” trip themselves up without even realizing it, after all.

A perfect example was the refusal of the guards at the Scottish Event Campus to allow Energy Minister Karin Elharrar to enter the premises. This was not, however, because the government official suffering from muscular dystrophy did not have the proper proof of COVID-19 vaccination – a requirement for all the delegates to the convention.

No, the most relevant politician to the topic at hand, aside from Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg, was safe on that score.

The reason for her inability to grace the place with her presence was, well, her disability. Somehow, with all the pining about the destruction of the planet and preparation for the summit, nobody among the enlightened crowd in kilt-land had thought to arrange for wheelchair accessibility.

In fairness, it’s hard for people who concern themselves with the plight of mankind – and fate of the world’s grandchildren – to take individual human beings into account. This makes sense. Huge goals, and the trillions of dollars pledged for their future realization, are a lot easier to contemplate than small, far less costly ones that need immediate and inconvenient attention.

When he learned of Elharrar’s predicament, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett complained, and rightly so. He went as far as to threaten not to attend the following day’s sessions if the matter was not rectified. When it was, he personally accompanied her to meetings. One of these was with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who made a point of personally apologizing to Elharrar.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17913/the-palestinian-authority-campaign-against

The six Palestinian NGOs were classified by Israel as terrorist organizations because of their affiliation with the PLO’s Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by both the United States and the European Union.

The PFLP, which has carried out many attacks against Israelis, including civilians, is one of 11 groups that form the PLO, headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Each group receives monthly allocations of up to $70,000 from the PLO’s unofficial finance ministry.

Yet while Israel has come under attack for its move against the six NGOs, there is almost no mention that the Palestinian Authority (PA), which joined the bandwagon of anti-Israel criticism, has also been targeting Palestinian NGOs for quite some time.

[T]he PA has been targeting hundreds of Palestinian NGOs… as part of an effort to control them and take their funds. Unlike Israel, the PA is not targeting the NGOs because of their affiliation with terrorism. Many of the NGOs have been critical of the PA leadership: that is why Abbas wants to silence them.

Al-Haq, one of the six organizations labeled by Israel as a terrorist organization… pointed out that this was not the first time the PA leadership had targeted Palestinian NGOs.

When Al-Haq complained about the PA decree targeting Palestinian NGOs, the mainstream media in the West, as well as several human rights organizations self-righteously chose to look the other way…. The international community did not demand clarifications from the PA leadership about his “assault” on Palestinian NGOs.

Palestinian legal expert Majed al-Arouri…. said that more than 20,000 Palestinian employees would lose their jobs as a result of the restrictions imposed by the PA on the work of Palestinian NGOs and charitable organizations.

As far as many in the international community are concerned, it is fine if Abbas takes punitive measures against the PFLP, but it is outrageous if Israel does it.

Those who are ignoring Abbas’s crackdown on the Palestinian NGOs are depriving the Palestinians of democracy and freedom of speech.

The international community’s obsession with Israel… proves that it is more interested in condemning and delegitimizing Israel than improving the status of human rights and democracy under the PA.

Israel’s recent decision to designate six Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as terrorist organizations sparked a wave of protests and condemnations from many parties around the world, including human rights groups and political activists. Israel is being accused of cracking down on Palestinian civil society organizations not because of their affiliation with a terrorist group, but because of their political activities, which are often not that different.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/316151

“Colin Powell was at times accused of being less than sympathetic to Israel, [but] that was not at all the case,” former Defense Department official Dov Zakheim recently claimed in the Washington Jewish Week newspaper. But a careful examination of Powell’s record shows that friends of Israel in the U.S. had legitimate concerns.

The well-known anecdotes about Powell speaking some Yiddish and serving as a “Shabbos goy” as a teenager are heartwarming. It’s too bad that this seems unrelated to interactions with Israel.

It was Powell who pressured Israel not to respond to Saddam Hussein’s Scud missile attacks during the Gulf War. As missile after missile struck the heart of Israel, as more than 4,000 buildings were damaged and 74 Israelis were killed, Israel’s hands were tied by Powell’s pressure.

In April 2001, Palestinian Arab terrorists in Gaza fired hundreds of rockets at Israeli kindergartens and kibbutzim. Israel hit back at the terrorists. Powell’s response? He publicly denounced Israel’s response as “excessive and disproportionate.”

Abraham Foxman, the longtime national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said Powell’s harsh criticism of Israel was an “overreaction” and “an erroneous judgment about the Israeli action.” Malcolm Hoenlein, executive Vice President of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Powell’s language “was inappropriate and subject to distortion by the media.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/11/commemorating_the_balfour_declaration_.html

Before World War I, the area of Palestine was a region of the Ottoman Empire with a small Jewish population. After the start of World War I, the British government began considering changes in the Ottoman Empire, the sick man of Europe, which had entered the war on the side of Germany and the Central Powers in October 1914. Among other proposals, Prime Minister David Lloyd George favored partition of the empire. In the Middle East, the last generally recognized sovereign power was the empire, and the area of Palestine was a district, not a political entity.

The Balfour Declaration was not a declaration but a letter of November 2, 1917, written by Scottish-born Arthur Balfour, former prime minister and foreign secretary, to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community.  Balfour, who was raised as a Protestant in the evangelical tradition, had been a friend of Chaim Weizmann, the most important Jewish personality of his day,  since 1906 when they opposed the Russian pogroms.   The Balfour letter was the result of prolonged discussion in the British cabinet and with Zionist leaders, and the subject of several drafts of the letter. Various individuals have been suggested as the primary author, including Lord Milner and Leopold Amery, but there is no definitely acknowledged single writer.

The declaration stated that “His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object.”   In the statement, two factors are clearly understood: nothing should be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The declaration gave rise to conflicting emotions: Jewish hopes and Arab disappointments. Lord Rothschild remarked that “for the first time since the dispersion, the Jewish people have received their proper status by the declaration of one of the great powers.”

The declaration was the first public support for Zionism by a major political power since Cyrus, the Persian king who liberated the Jews from their Babylonian exile in the 6th century BC.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/peace-groups-hate-the-abraham-accords-arab-israel-iran-progressives-11635794408?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid flew to Manama, Bahrain, in September to open the new Israeli Embassy, where he stated, “May our people live in peace and prosperity forever.” The ceremony was proof that last year’s Abraham Accords continue to foster peace and prosperity.

Mr. Lapid’s trip, the first by an Israeli foreign minister to Bahrain, showed the emerging Arab and Israeli determination to unite against the threat of Iran. As Mr. Lapid said: “Our opportunities are shared. Our threats are also shared, and they aren’t far from here.”

Iran’s propaganda apparatus sprang into action to condemn the visit: Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said: “This stain will not be erased from the reputation of Bahrain’s rulers. The people of the region will continue to oppose the process of normalization of ties with the Zionist regime.”

Opposing the Abraham Accords has become a diplomatic priority for Iran, and it’s clear why. The more Arab-Israeli ties produce good results, the more the people of the region will reject Iran’s malign influence. And so Iran has campaigned to sabotage new relations.

More than 300 Iraqis, including tribal leaders, attended a Sept. 24 conference in autonomous Kurdistan on normalizing ties between Iraq and Israel. But many who attended were soon forced to renounce the conference after receiving death threats from pro-Iran militias.

Equally disturbing is the Oct. 3 attempt to assassinate businessman Teddy Sagi and other Israelis in Cyprus. Whether Tehran is behind the attack is disputed, but Iran’s record of killing Israelis abroad is long. The hope is that other Israelis will be deterred from venturing abroad to form commercial relations with new partners in the region.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/jewish-academics-promote-binationalism-in-place-of-israel/

The annual convention of the Association for Jewish Studies on Dec. 19 will feature “Binationalism Revisited‒Palestinian, Zionist and Jewish-American Perspectives.” A snapshot of panelists speaks volumes.

The premier association of Jewish-studies scholars is planning to provide a platform in December for radical professors to promote “binationalism” to replace Israel.

Binationalism has a long and ugly history in the Jewish world. When Palestinian Arabs slaughtered 69 Jews in Hebron in 1929, Hebrew University chancellor Judah Leon Magnes responded that Jews should give up the dream of a Jewish state and instead agree to a “binational” Arab-Jewish state of Palestine.

According to the Magnes plan, Jews would never be a majority in their own homeland. Immigration would depend on the consent of Palestinian Arab pogromists like the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Of course, like all Jewish “peace” proposals over the years, Arab leaders unanimously rejected the Magnes scheme. The idea of even a small number of Jews being admitted to the Land of Israel was unthinkable to them.

But the fact that there was no Arab partner didn’t stop Magnes and his tiny band of followers from continuing to advocate binationalism. Even after the rise of Hitler, when the lives of millions of European Jews depended on finding a haven, Magnes continued pushing a plan which, in practice, would have left most Jews trapped in Europe.

The term “tone deaf” does not even begin to describe a man who was so utterly out of touch with the needs of his people that he was ready to deny most of them shelter in their most desperate hour.

That’s why binationalism vanished in disgrace from the Jewish public conversation decades ago. At the time, it would have been a disaster for the Jewish people. Today, it would mean the dissolution of Israel.