Mideast Dispatch Archive: December 2014 Archives

Islamic preacher: Jews should be allowed on Temple Mount (& CIA advice for spies)

December 29, 2014

Bad Santa: Palestinian dressed in Father Christmas costume throws tear gas at Israeli security forces in Jerusalem

Below are stories from the past week, mainly concerning Israel.

There is a separate dispatch today with items mainly concerning Israel, which you can read here: Israeli products in Syria, but not in Oakland (& the end of beauty salons in Gaza?)

-- Tom Gross

* Please “like” these dispatches on Facebook here www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia, where you can also find other items that are not in these dispatches.

CONTENTS

1. Jordanian preacher proposes place of worship for Jews on the Temple Mount
2. Chinese company to buy Israel’s largest dairy conglomerate
3. In major policy shift, India may end support for “Palestine” at U.N.
4. Israel provides aid to victims of Philippines typhoon
5. Netanyahu denounces Erekat for incitement, as 11-year-old Israeli girl is fire-bombed
6. New York Times gets headline right
7. Israel saves life of Palestinian baby, after child collapses at border crossing
8. Joseph’s Tomb vandalized by Palestinians; almost no-one condemns it
9. Leaked CIA manual reveals how U.S. spies try to slip Ben Gurion security
10. Ridley Scott’s Exodus movie banned in Egypt for showing Jews building pyramids

[Notes below by Tom Gross]

JORDANIAN PREACHER PROPOSES PLACE OF WORSHIP FOR JEWS ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT

Jordanian Preacher Yassin Al-Ajlouni has said that a place of worship should be set up for Jews on the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest spot, which the newer religion of Islam has sought to appropriate, and Islamic leaders have tried to prevent Jews from praying there in recent decades.

In a statement posted on the Internet on December 18, 2014, Al-Ajlouni said that the Jews should be given a place of worship on the Temple Mount.

He said: “I have given a lot of thought into what I am about to say, because I know that it is the most important issue of our times, and that whoever talks about it is likely to face severe criticism, and will be accused of generating controversy and maybe even strife. Do the Israelites have the right to pray in Beit Al-Maqdis? Is it permissible to allocate a place of worship in Beit Al-Maqdis for the Israelites?

“… The place where Omar Ibn Al-Khattab prayed was named the Al-Aqsa Mosque, but the truth is that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is not the Mosque of Omar, but the entire area within the old walls, which is called Beit Al-Maqdis. I call upon the Islamic world and upon the Hashemite sovereign to allocate for the peaceful among the Jewish Israelites a house of prayer within Beit Al-Maqdis.

“Beit Al-Maqdis is the place sanctified by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, as well as by Jesus son of Mary and by the Muslims. There should be a special place of worship for the Jews among the Israelites under Hashemite and Palestinian sovereignty, and in agreement with the Israeli regime… Part of the courtyard, where there are trees, will be allocated for the prayer of the Israelites.

“I officially call upon the religious ruling authorities in Palestine and Jordan to issue a fatwa that will clarify their religious position regarding the building of a place of worship dedicated for the Israelite Jews. Allah’s prayers and blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad and his companions.”

Video here (courtesy of Memri).

Tom Gross adds: Were such a move to occur, this would be a significant step in making Israeli-Palestinian peace more likely.

CHINESE COMPANY TO BUY ISRAEL’S LARGEST DAIRY CONGLOMERATE

Israeli media reported yesterday that China is poised to complete its acquisition of Tnuva, Israel’s multi billion-dollar dairy conglomerate. The purchaser is China’s Bright Foods.

While European and North American opponents of Israel continue to call for the boycott of the Jewish state, other world powers, in particular China and India continue to significantly increase investment there.

IN MAJOR POLICY SHIFT, INDIA MAY END SUPPORT FOR “PALESTINE” AT U.N.

The Hindu newspaper reports from New Delhi:

“In what could amount to a tectonic shift in the country’s foreign policy, the Modi government is looking at altering India’s supporting vote for the Palestinian cause at the United Nations to one of abstention. Two sources within the government confirmed to The Hindu that the change, which will be a fundamental departure from India’s support to the cause of a Palestinian state, was under consideration.”

India has growing defense, diplomatic and economic ties with Israel, as I have noted in several recent dispatches on this list.

ISRAEL PROVIDES AID TO VICTIMS OF PHILIPPINES TYPHOON

An emergency response team sent by the Israeli-government and privately supported agency IsraAID has been a key player in providing medical, psychological, social and material relief goods in the areas close to the Philippines city of Dolores, where a massive typhoon struck earlier this month.

Local Philippino UN staff singled out Israel for praised for its efforts. Israel has delivered food and non-food items to thousands of Philippinos, including rice, noodles, water, mosquito repellent, and hygiene kits and set up welfare centers for children.

During the Holocaust, the Philippines accepted Jewish refugees when few other countries did, and Israel and the Philippines retain close humanitarian and other ties.

NETANYAHU DENOUNCES EREKAT FOR INCITEMENT, AS 11-YEAR-OLD ISRAELI GIRL IS FIRE-BOMBED

In a meeting on Saturday evening with U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (who is visiting Israel), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, for his inflammatory comparison last week between Israel and ISIS.

Netanyahu said: “This is the same Palestinian Authority that joins hands with Hamas, incites constantly against Israel, the kind of incitement that has led to an attack that we witnessed just two days ago of a Molotov cocktail thrown at a little girl.”

(That 11-year-old Israeli girl, Ayala Shapira, who was attacked with her father in her father’s car on Thursday evening by Palestinians, is still fighting for her life in an Israeli hospital. She suffered severe and agonizing burns all over her face and body.)

Saeb Erekat, a favored guest of CNN, the BBC and other prominent western media, has a long track record of incitement and lies, for example in creating the totally discredited myth of the “Jenin massacre”, which I commented on in this article: Jeningrad

Former New York Times writer Chris Hedges (who as I have noted before regularly slams Israel), is also coming under criticism after he compared ISIS with Israel.

NEW YORK TIMES GETS HEADLINE RIGHT

In a rare move, the New York Times accurately described an incident involving Israel in a headline last week.

After a Hamas sniper in Gaza shot across the border and severely wounded an Israeli Bedouin soldier in an unprovoked attack, the media ran the following headlines:

NYT: “Palestinian Sniper Attack on Israeli Patrol at Gaza Border Sets Off Clash”
Reuters: “Palestinian killed in clash with Israeli troops near Gaza border”
Al Jazeera: “Israeli forces kill Palestinian man in Gaza”

Many would regard the headlines by Reuters, Al Jazeera and others as very misleading.

So is that by BBC Arabic service, whose headline (in Arabic) was “Palestinian shot dead by Israeli army near Khan Younis”.

Hamas proudly took credit for the sniper attack, not that you would know this from certain media headlines.

* In a separate incident, a photo of Palestinian dressed in a Father Christmas costume throwing tear gas at Israeli security forces in Jerusalem, has gone viral. Here is one report from the (London) Daily Mail.

Every Christmas, some (Muslim) Palestinians dress up this way and provoke IDF troops, in an effort to get media-friendly photos taken of them being “harassed” or “man-handled” by Israeli soldiers. The resulting photos make Israel appear to be attacking innocent Christmas revelers. However, this year this policy backfired as some media outlets showed a Palestinian “Santa” on the attack.

ISRAEL SAVES LIFE OF PALESTINIAN BABY, AFTER CHILD COLLAPSES AT BORDER CROSSING

A Palestinian baby collapsed on Saturday after suffering what turned out to be a heart attack while crossing the border between the West Bank and Jordan.

A nearby Israeli border official called IDF paramedics who raced to the scene and then called in a helicopter. The baby was taken by helicopter to Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital, where his life was saved.

JOSEPH’S TOMB VANDALIZED BY PALESTINIANS; ALMOSTNO-ONE CONDEMNS IT

Last week (on December 22), Joseph’s tomb, one of the holiest places in the Jewish Tradition, was vandalized by Palestinians.

To date, almost none of the international organizations, governments and media that rush to condemn Israel for any infringement they can find, have condemned this desecration. Joseph’s tomb, like many of Judaism’s holiest sites, is located in what the international community now call the West Bank, but which many Israelis refer to by its previous (pre-1948) names Judea and Samaria.

LEAKED CIA MANUAL REVEALS HOW U.S. SPIES TRY TO SLIP BEN GURION SECURITY

WikiLeaks last week exposed an internal CIA manual, dated September 2011, titled “CIA Assessment on Surviving Secondary Screening at Airports While Maintaining Cover”.

It is an open secret that the CIA spies heavily on Israel, as well as on other allies of America.

The document gives American operatives using false identities specific instructions on how to handle additional “secondary screening” while entering Israel through Ben-Gurion Airport without blowing their cover.

The document warns CIA operatives to avoid secondary screenings “at all costs” by maintaining a consistent and well-rehearsed cover story. “Referral to secondary screening can occur if irregularities or questions arise during any stage of airport processing – immigration, customs, or security – and regardless of whether the traveler is arriving, in transit, or departing. Officials may also randomly select travelers.”

The leaked document also reveals how the CIA operates in the EU’s Schengen area, in which travelers between 22 EU countries are not required to show passports.

The CIA expressed concerns that a new EU security system will potentially make life harder for American agents.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the documents show the CIA is intent on carrying out spying in Europe, and confirms Israel is a target for U.S. spy operations.

RIDLEY SCOTT’S “EXODUS “ MOVIE BANNED IN EGYPT FOR SHOWING JEWS BUILDING THE PYRAMIDS

The new Hollywood blockbuster “Exodus: Gods and Kings” has been banned in Egypt for showing that the Pyramids were built by Jewish slaves.

Morocco has also banned the film saying that prophets (in this case, Moses) are not supposed to be depicted in films.

And the UAE has banned “Exodus” for what it claims are “religious inaccuracies.”

The film “Noah,” which was released earlier in 2014, was also banned in some Muslim countries for portraying Noah as a prophet.

Israeli products in Syria, but not in Oakland (& the end of beauty salons in Gaza?)

[Notes below by Tom Gross]

SYRIAN GOVERNMENT NEWS AGENCY FEATURES ISRAELI CONTAINERS AT PORT

This article from December 27, 2014, on the website of the official Syrian News Agency SANA, is illustrated with a stack of Israeli ZIM Lines containers at a port:

http://www.sana.sy/en/?p=23144

The SANA article is about Syrian exports “whose certificates of origin have been ratified by Damascus Chamber of Industry being exported to Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia and Italy.”

It is ironic that even the Assad regime appears to be using Israel’s ZIM lines (one of the best) while anti-Israeli protestors in America and elsewhere are calling for a boycott of ZIM. In September, protestors in Oakland, California, prevented ZIM from unloading cargo.

At the present time, SANA has left the ZIM photo up, but in case the Syrian regime now removes it, at the top of this webpage is a screenshot of the article from 19:50 on December 27, 2014.

AS ARABS SHUN HAMAS, MESHAAL AND TURKEY’S ERDOGAN COZY UP

Almost every government in the Arab world has now distanced itself from the Islamist terrorist group Hamas.

The latest to do so is Qatar, which (as part of Qatar’s moves towards reconciliation with Egypt) is “temporarily suspending support for Hamas” according to Arab media reports:

http://www.aljarida.com/news/index/2012703826/

By contrast, the increasingly dictatorial leader of the western “ally” and NATO member Turkey is welcoming Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal.

Meshaal was a star speaker at the annual convention of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party on Saturday.

Turkey’s state-run Anatolia news service reported that Meshaal called for the “liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem. According to the news agency, his speech was repeatedly interrupted by cheers of “Allah Akbar” (Allah is the greatest).

As this report from Saturday’s Al-Ahram makes clear, Turkey’s leaders, in particular Erdogan, are known for their angry outbursts at Israel.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/118943/World/Region/Hamas-chief-lauds-Turkey-as-source-of-power-for-Mu.aspx

Erdogan has also made a number of blatantly anti-Semitic statements (See previous dispatches on this email list).

Turkish Jews are now leaving the country in record numbers. For more, see:

Heading for a Jew-Free Turkey (by Burak Bekdil, Gatestone Institute, December 23, 2014)

HAMAS LEADER MESHAAL TO VISIT IRAN

Iran has also announced that Meshaal is to visit to Tehran.

This signals the end of the rift between Hamas and Iran. Iran had reduced support for Hamas after Hamas refused to back Iran’s ally Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in his genocidal campaign against Sunni Muslims, which includes the repeated use of chemical weapons and poisonous gases. Hamas’s members are, of course, Sunni, whereas most Iranians are Shia.

The semi-official Iranian FARS news agency reported yesterday on the upcoming visit here:

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931006001375

FARS adds: “Media reports said on December 19 that Saudi Arabia had offered to put up the funds for Hamas’ entire annual budget if the resistance movement suspended all its communication with Iran, adding that the Palestinian faction has turned down the offer… The Saudi regime believed that its package would be too generous to resist, but Hamas refused to even send a reply.”

(Tom Gross adds: These reports about Saudi Arabia are less than 100 percent reliable.)

Earlier this month, Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades, thanked Iran for providing it with “financial and military” assistance during last summer’s war against Israel. Speaking at a mass rally in Gaza, Hamas Spokesman Abu Obeida thanked Iran for providing rockets with which to hit Israelis.

(Tom Gross adds: While the Arab world continues to slam Hamas, as I reported in an earlier dispatch, the General Court of the European Union this month removed Hamas from the European Union list of terrorist organizations on a technicality, much to Israel’s anger.)

EGYPT PREPARES TO DESTROY PALESTINIAN 1,200 HOMES IN SECURITY ZONE NEXT TO GAZA

In its efforts to clamp down on Hamas-assisted terrorist attacks in the Egyptian-controlled Sinai peninsula, the Egyptian authorities continue to act forcefully against the civilian Palestinian population with barely a peep of protest from all those supposedly pro-Palestinian human rights groups in the west (groups that in reality primarily interested in attacking Israel, not in helping Palestinians).

Egypt has announced that at least a further 1,200 Palestinian homes will be destroyed as it acts to extend the 7.8-mile (13-kilometer) long buffer zone adjacent to Egypt’s border with Gaza. On Friday, Egypt’s military said the zone will be broadened to 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) – twice the depth originally planned – and that 1,200 homes have been marked for demolition. Plans to limit the zone to 500 meters changed when terrorists killed 31 Egyptian soldiers in October.

More here from the Palestinian Maan News Agency:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=749939

Were Israel now to do the same, there would no doubt be a world outcry.

“ISRAELIS ASK EGYPTIANS TO REDRAW BORDER A BIT” (& IF ONLY THEY HAD DONE SO)

Back in 1982, realizing that it would not be good for the Palestinians to have the town of Rafah split in half between Sinai and Gaza, the then Israeli Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon, on a visit to Cairo, asked Egypt “to draw the frontier around Rafah rather than through it, placing the town wholly within the Gaza Strip.”

If only they had done so, perhaps the destruction Egypt looks set to carry out would not be happening.

The New York Times correspondent David Shipler, reported this on January 19, 1982:

“Israelis ask Egyptians to redraw border a bit”

During the Egyptian occupation of Gaza from 1948-67, the town of Rafah spread out from Gaza into the Sinai, with thousands of Palestinians building homes across the border.

MILITANT ATTACKS CONTINUE IN SINAI

In the latest attack a roadside bomb killed two Egyptian soldiers on Thursday evening:

http://www.egyptindependent.com//news/bomb-kills-two-egyptian-troops-sinai

And Egypt’s security forces have increased their security presence in North Sinai’s Al-Arish following an attack last week against a pipeline that carries gas to Jordan. It is the 27th such attack since 2011.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/118640/Egypt/Politics-/Security-reinforcements-in-North-Sinai-following-g.aspx

A video released by a terrorist group after a previous such attack showed footage of the pipeline exploding, while a note across the bottom of the screen announces “God willing, not a drop of gas will reach Jordan until the caliph [the Islamic State] permits it.”

EXPLOSION HITS BEAUTY SALON IN NORTHERN GAZA STRIP

An explosion rocked a women’s beauty salon in the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday morning.

Witnesses said a bomb was placed at the salon, and the explosion was heard for miles around. No injuries were reported.

This is thought to mark another effort by extreme Islamists in Gaza to impose stricter Sharia law there.

EGYPTIAN JOURNALIST TO FACE TRIAL FOR “INSULTING ISLAM”; SAUDI WOMAN JAILED FOR JOKE ABOUT BEARDS

On Saturday, the Egyptian state prosecutor has announced that a female writer will stand trial for allegedly insulting Islam, after she criticized the slaughter of animals during a major Islamic religious festival. (Animals are slaughtered during Eid al-Adha.)

“Happy massacre,” Fatima Naoot, a 50-year-old media columnist, wrote on her Facebook page at the time. “Massacre committed by men over the past 10 centuries and followed by men each year with a smile,” she added.

Naoot, who is Muslim, deleted her posts from Facebook after controversy erupted and apologized for them, but she has nevertheless been arrested. Her trial is due to start on January 28.

In June, in a separate case, a Coptic Christian man was sentenced to six years in jail for allegedly insulting Islam.

And in Saudi Arabia, Souad Al-Shammary, a Saudi women’s rights activist, has been put in prison this week, for telling a joke about beards, which was deemed insulting to religious men.

SAUDI GOVERNMENT PRESS: THE U.S. ESTABLISHED ISIS TO FURTHER ITS OWN AIMS IN THE REGION

I have previously reported on how Iran claims America (and Israel and Britain) supposedly set up the Islamic State in an effort to cement their grip on the Middle East.

Now, Saudi media columnists are saying the same thing, as the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reports here.

Hillary Clinton is also playing a key part in this conspiracy, according to one Saudi writer.

By contrast, Saudi Columnist Amal ‘Abd Al-’Aziz Al-Hazzani, writing for the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, claimed that Saudi Arabia, and not the U.S., had created ISIS, and added that the organization is deeply rooted in Saudi culture and heritage.

* In a separate conspiracy theory, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported last Tuesday that Israelis are buying properties in Islamic State-held areas of northern Iraq for eventual Jewish settlement. Fars claimed that more than 2,000 Jews have already settled in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

“SYRIAN REBELS INCREASINGLY JOINING ISIS FOR FINANCIAL REASONS”

Asharq Al-Awsat reports from Riyadh:

Moderate Syrian opposition fighters are increasingly joining the Islamic State for financial reasons, Syrian National Coalition representative to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Adib Al-Shishakli has warned.

Syrian moderate fighters earn around 140 US dollars per month while reports indicate that ISIS pays its members as much as 150 US dollars per day.

Oxfam helped fund “performance artist” who defecated on Israeli flag (& top Mossad honor)

December 19, 2014

[Notes below by Tom Gross]

FEMALE MOSSAD AGENT IN HER 20’S AWARDED “FOR OUTSTANDING SERVICE”

In a closed ceremony yesterday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, together with President Reuven Rivlin, and Mossad Director Tamir Pardo, presented two Lifetime Achievement awards to Mossad personnel.

The first was made to a female Mossad agent in her 20s, who Netanyahu said (according to his spokesperson) “operated deep in enemy territory” and “took part in complex, critical assignments, while under life-threatening conditions”.

In the other case, a lifetime award was given to a technology expert said to have broken “new barriers at the forefront of technology”. “He provided a solution to one of the most important and central projects the Mossad is occupied with,” Netanyahu said, according to his spokesperson.

These awards are unusual.

Netanyahu also said at last night’s ceremony: “I would like to thank here all the servicewomen and men of the shadows… the threats around us [Israel and the Jewish people] are multiplying and spreading across the world, though your work is also being done across the world; our enemies are crossing ethical boundaries, and your work is crossing the borders of the imagination. You do things that if a producer of sci-fi films wanted to reproduce on screen, they would not be able to even imagine what you’re doing – and these are very important for the State of Israel.”

Additional commendations were given to, among others, “a fighter who led a team in a complex operation in enemy territory, an officer who participated in of the most important and sensitive operations to the State of Israel, and a serviceman who was stationed in three missions in unique and complex regions.”

***

Among several previous dispatches concerning the Mossad:

* Israel Harel, “The man who made the Mossad” (Feb. 19, 2003)
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000240.html

* “Patricia Roxborough,” the Mossad’s Christian superspy, buried in Israel (Feb. 21, 2005)
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000007.html

* BBC set to name woman agent who killed Olympics massacre mastermind (Jan. 24, 2006)
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000634.html

* Egypt claims Mossad to blame for shark attacks (& details of new Mossad head) (Dec. 12, 2010)
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001155.html

“YES, WE ARE FRUSTRATED TOO”

The evening before, Netanyahu made his annual address to the foreign press corps in Israel.

This year, the address concentrated on European policies towards Israel and the Palestinians.

Netanyahu said: “Now I know that some in Europe say that they are frustrated with the situation in the Middle East. Well let me tell you a secret. We in Israel are frustrated with the situation in the Middle East. We are frustrated that our Palestinian neighbors refuse to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own at the time that they’re asking for us to recognize their right to have one. We’re frustrated that our Palestinian neighbors continue to incite against Jews and the Jewish state, creating a climate of hatred and violence. We’re frustrated that they refuse to negotiate seriously about our legitimate security concerns. And I think all of you know that in this part of the world, there can be no genuine peace without security for peace will not last if it cannot be defended.”

I attach the whole address below.

After that I attach an editorial from The Wall Street Journal, which says:

“Hamas is no longer a terrorist organization. This is the astonishing verdict of the European Court of Justice… this takes place in a week when jihadists left their deadly stamp in Sydney and Peshawar. European judges and parliamentarians may imagine that Hamas is somehow different from other terrorist groups. In reality Hamas is their model. Europe legitimizes these cold killers at its own peril.”

EUROPEAN DONORS FUNDED DESECRATION OF ISRAELI FLAG

The Israeli “performance artist” Natalie Cohen-Waxberg, who last month released a video of herself defecating on the Israeli flag, received funding from the anti-Zionist Israeli NGO Zochrot. In the last year, Zochrot received $500,000 in grants from mainly European donors, including Oxfam in the UK, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Germany, Trocaire in Ireland, and church organizations which receive taxpayer funds from their national governments.

Zochrot has won admiring articles in the last year in several prominent Western media outlets, including one by Jodi Rudoren in the New York Times.

Cohen-Waxberg also outraged Israelis (and others) earlier this year by videoing herself at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, wearing pantomime costume, laughing and claiming “to personify the Holocaust.” While being videoed by a colleague, she screamed insults to visitors to Yad Vashem, mumbling nonsense about “the IDF” and “ovens”.

Eitan Bronstein, the founder of Zochrot, appears alongside her in her Yad Vashem video.

BBC TRENDING IMPLICITLY CRITICIZES BBC CORRESPONDENT’S TWEETS

While the online “BBC Trending” webpage is warning readers that a photograph of a blood-soaked child’s shoe which has gone viral this week on social media was not in fact from the Taliban terror attack against a children’s school in Pakistan, but was taken by Israeli journalist Edi Israel in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon after a Hamas missile fired from Gaza injured Israeli children in 2008.

Yet BBC reporter Rana Jawad has now retweeted (on December 16) an inaccurate tweet from a Dutch journalist claiming that the photo was taken in the Gaza Strip.

While the BBC’s own BBC Trending page has got it right, its biased foreign correspondents continue to spread misinformation about Israel.

“IRAN UNVEILS A MEMORIAL HONORING JEWISH HEROES”

The Washington Post online reported yesterday that Iran has “unveiled a memorial honoring Jewish heroes.” Many commentators (though not the Washington Post writer) are dismissing the gesture as a propaganda stunt by the regime at a time when Iran’s supreme leader as stepped up rhetoric calling for attacks on Israeli and other Jews.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/18/iran-unveils-a-memorial-honoring-jewish-heroes/

The Arab world has pretty much been cleansed of Jews in the past century despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Jews lived in what became Arab-occupied territory for centuries before Islam was founded.

Turkey and Iran remain the only two Middle East countries (apart from Israel) with sizeable Jewish communities (although both are much smaller than they were historically).

But one of Turkey’s main papers reports this week that Jews are “leaving Turkey due to safety concerns” after an increase in threats and attack.

-- Tom Gross

WORLD CUP ARTICLE UPDATE

My piece for The Guardian about moving the world cup to Gaza continues to draw attention, for example, in this piece just published in the Algemeiner:

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/12/19/qatar-should-give-gaza-2022-soccer-world-cup-to-ease-middle-east-tensions-british-analyst-says/

NETANYAHU’S ADDRESS TO THE FOREIGN PRESS CORPS

Delivered at the Israel Museum, December 18, 2014

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today we witnessed a series of examples of European naivety, and may I add, hypocrisy: the decision of the European court in Luxembourg on Hamas, the resolution of the EU Parliament in Brussels on Palestinian statehood, and the call from Switzerland to investigate Israel for supposed violations of the Geneva Convention. Now all these point in the same direction.

They point to a spirit of appeasement in Europe of the very forces that threaten Europe itself. Too many in Europe are calling on Israel to make concessions that would endanger not only the security of Israel, but also paradoxically, the security of Europe itself because Israel is the forward position of European civilization. Israel is the bulwark of European values. Israel is a pluralist, vibrant multi-party democracy.

In Israel there is equality before the law. The rights of all are vigorously protected - of minorities, of women, of gays, of everyone. Only in Israel. In Israel there is a true separation of powers. Our judiciary is fiercely independent and we’re proud of this.

And you as journalists know something that applies to your profession: In a very, very large expanse, Israel is the only country in the Middle East and beyond with a truly free press. No one is incarcerated. No one is pressed. No one is harassed. You could write what you want. You do. You can say what you want. You do. And you can just about photograph anything you want and you do that too. Only in Israel, and it stands in sharp contrast to what we see in the region around us, in the horrors that afflict human beings there, in the horrors that afflict journalists who cover these savageries.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Israel is an embattled democracy in a region plagued by totalitarianism, tyranny and Islamist terrorism; a region where human rights are trampled upon; where basic human freedoms ignored; where arbitrary violence is par-for-the-course. Israel is forced to defend itself against terrorists who time and again try to target our civilians. This summer they fired thousands of rockets on our cities and while they were doing this, these terrorists committed a double war crime. They deliberately targeted our civilians. That’s a war crime. And they used their civilians as human shields. That’s a second war crime.

Yet the focus in Geneva today was that Israel must be investigated for war crimes. What hypocrisy. What a travesty. I ask, where is elementary European integrity?

Now I know that some in Europe say that they are frustrated with the situation in the Middle East. Well let me tell you a secret. We in Israel are frustrated with the situation in the Middle East. We are frustrated that our Palestinian neighbors refuse to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own at the time that they’re asking for us to recognize their right to have one. We’re frustrated that our Palestinian neighbors continue to incite against Jews and the Jewish state, creating a climate of hatred and violence. We’re frustrated that they refuse to negotiate seriously about our legitimate security concerns. And I think all of you know that in this part of the world, there can be no genuine peace without security for peace will not last if it cannot be defended.

The simple truth is that half of Palestinian society has been taken over by Islamist extremists who openly call for Israel’s destruction, while the other half refuses to confront the first half. So when Europeans say that they are frustrated, we say, “Join the club”. And I don’t believe that frustration can be an excuse for wrong policy.

Removing the terrorist designation of Hamas is a grave mistake. Hamas is a ruthless terrorist organization with a proven track record of brutal terror attacks against innocent civilians - by the way, not only Israelis: hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of Palestinians who have been murdered by them. Just this year, Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers. It launched thousands of rocket attacks indiscriminately at our children, at our civilians. And it celebrated just recently the murder of innocent worshippers massacred at a Jerusalem synagogue, and called upon its followers to commit more such terrorist atrocities.

Some erroneously believe that Hamas terror is a function of a failed peace process. Well, I will remind all of you that in the heyday of Oslo, when leaders across the globe were excited about the new momentum in the peace process, hundreds of Israelis were the victims of one of Hamas’s most brutal terror campaigns. Now, it was said then that Hamas uses terror to destroy the peace, and it is said now that Hamas uses terror because there is no peace.

Well, the truth is that Hamas uses terrorism against Israel because it’s a terrorist organization committed to Israel’s destruction. It’s as simple as that. That’s the nature of this organization and that’s its fundamental goal. Now if anyone had any illusions about that, you could hear one of the leaders of Hamas this weekend, Mahmoud al-Zahar. He reminded us that Hamas’s goal isn’t to rule over Gaza or to rule over Judea/Samaria in the West Bank. He said it clearly: Hamas’s goal is the total and complete annihilation of Israel and the murder of Israel’s citizens.

Well, do the self-proclaimed Palestinian moderates confront Hamas and the other Islamist extremists? Unfortunately, they often seem to be trying to compete with them over who can use the most inflammatory language and who can summon wells of anti-Jewish sentiment and anti-Israel sentiment.

It was President Abbas himself who spoke seriously, slanderously of a Jewish threat to the Muslim holy sites. There is no such threat. We keep the status quo rigorously. That’s not going to change. We guard the holy sites of all the religions. That’s not going to change. And by the way, again, in the broad Middle East, we’re the only ones who do so - for Jews, for Christians, for Muslims. In fact, the only place where Christian communities are not persecuted, where Christian communities have not shrunk - they’ve actually grown four-fold since the founding of the State of Israel - is Israel. It’s the only place.

So to speak about our “attack” on the holy sites is not merely a lie, it’s just wrong. It’s wrong because it creates the wrong impression among Palestinian youngsters, among Palestinians at large and it produces these waves of attacks from people who seriously believe that we would destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque.

There was just a poll taken in Palestinian society. About 90% believe, 85% believe that Israel seeks to achieve such a goal so this rhetoric has consequences. It forces a change in people’s minds and it forces radical and violent behavior. It has to stop. It was Abbas who actually called the Palestinians to use “all means” to fight this fabricated threat; and it was Abbas who accused the Jews of “contaminating” - that was his word - “contaminating” the Temple Mount.

Now, the question I raise for you tonight is where is Europe in all of this? Does it hold the Palestinian leadership accountable for its coddling of extremism? Does it demand that the Palestinian Authority break its signed pact with Hamas? Does Europe call for an end to outrageous official Palestinian incitement against Jews and the Jewish state?

The sad truth is that Europe is largely silent on these questions and when it raises its voice, it’s typically in the other direction. In fact, the European Parliament and some parliaments of EU member states have been calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state.

And I ask you, why should the Palestinian leadership demonstrate responsible behavior? Why should the Palestinian leadership jettison its maximalist and extreme positions? Why should it abandon its call to flood Israel with millions of Palestinians? Why should the PA do any of this if its extremist and irresponsible behavior is rewarded time and again by European parliaments? Let there be no mistake: parliamentary recognitions do nothing to advance peace. Quite the contrary. These declarations merely reinforce Palestinian intransigence, pushing peace further away.

And the point that I came here tonight to make, this is the point I close with: There is a simple truth that cannot be ignored. Peace will only come when the Palestinians are willing to confront their own extremists. Instead of embracing the militants, the PA should fight them. And instead of rewarding Palestinian intransigence, the European democracies should support the one and only democracy in the Middle East and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the State of Israel.

Thank you.

EUROPEANS FOR HAMAS

Europeans for Hamas
Editorial
Wall Street Journal
Dec. 18, 2014

Hamas is no longer a terrorist organization. This is the astonishing verdict of the European Court of Justice, delivered only a few months after Hamas indiscriminately fired thousands of rockets against civilian targets in Israel.

The ECJ’s ruling on Wednesday in Hamas v. Council concluded that the Palestinian group’s terror-designation is “based not on acts examined and confirmed in decisions of competent authorities but on factual imputations derived from the press and the Internet.”

In an ostensibly procedural ruling, the court objected that Brussels didn’t conduct its own original research when it first put the terrorist label on Hamas in 2001. It did, however, allow that Brussels may still maintain its asset freeze on Hamas—a group that openly avows responsibility for dozens of suicide bombings over many years.

This judicial incursion into foreign policy is particularly troubling since courts should defer to law enforcers and political leaders when it comes to national security. By second-guessing European officials at a terror group’s behest, the ECJ has jeopardized the ability of those officials to set security policy. Don’t be surprised if other terror groups line up in Luxembourg to litigate their way out of asset freezes and other sanctions.

The ECJ’s decision came on the same day that the European Parliament voted to grant “in principle recognition of Palestinian statehood.” Leftist and center-left blocs wanted to endorse Palestinian statehood without condition, but ultimately language about the need for negotiations and a two-state solution was added to the motion at the behest of the center-right bloc. The move follows similar votes in national parliaments in Ireland, Britain and France. The Swedish government in October recognized the state of Palestine.

The votes are symbolic, but symbolism has its own power. Since Hamas continues to exercise effective control over Gaza (despite a fig-leaf agreement earlier this year that restored Ramallah’s de jure sovereignty), a vote for Palestinian statehood is tantamount to acceptance of Hamas as a legitimate political entity.

All this takes place in a week when jihadists left their deadly stamp in Sydney and Peshawar. European judges and parliamentarians may imagine that Hamas is somehow different from other terrorist groups. In reality Hamas is their model. Europe legitimizes these cold killers at its own peril.

Australian who abused Jewish children sentenced to read Primo Levi (& “There is no Plan B”)

December 17, 2014

[Notes below by Tom Gross]

AUSTRALIAN WHO SCREAMED “KILL THE JEWS’ IS SENTENCED TO SHABBAT DINNER

The leader of an Australian teenage gang who threatened Jewish school children on a bus in Australia has been sentenced to visit the Sydney Jewish Museum, attend a Shabbat dinner with a Jewish family, and read Primo Levi’s “If this is a Man” and Elie Wiesel’s “Night.”

The gang of five youths had terrorized a bus in Sydney carrying Jewish school children, some as young as 6 years old. They made signs slitting their throats while chanting “Kill the Jews” and praising Hitler.

The local Jewish community welcomed the punishment, saying that education was a better method of combating anti-Semitism than a fine or a period of incarceration. Local social workers and police also welcomed the creative form of punishment. The offender has agreed to express remorse for his actions.

***

ABC TV (the Australian Broadcasting Corp.) reported on Dec. 10, 2014 that there has been “a six-fold increase in anti-Semitic attacks in Australia this year, which is a trend reflected globally.”

***

Tufts became the latest American university to witness swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti painted on the side of dorm rooms. Police were called to the campus on Saturday morning to investigate the fresh painting of swastikas. They said they are taking the matter very seriously.

AUSTRALIAN GUNMAN ABUSED JEWISH SOLDIER AND COMPARED JEWS TO HITLER

Man Haron Monis, the gunman shot dead by Australian Special Forces early on Tuesday morning after taking hostages in a Sydney café, was (among other things) known for a string of anti-Semitic attacks.

Monis, who claimed he was a Muslim Sheikh, had for years sent anti-Semitic letters and emails to Australian Jews.

In 2011 he was prosecuted for a letter he sent to the parents of an Australian Jewish soldier killed in Afghanistan, who Monis described as a “dirty animal” and “a thousand times worse than a pig”. He likened the Jewish soldier to Hitler.

At the time he begun his siege yesterday, Monis was on bail for being an accessory to the murder of his former wife as well as for more than 40 sexual and indecent assault charges.

***

“A Muslim youth group is under investigation after a disturbing video of children as young as six years old calling for an end to Australian democracy was unearthed by 7News.”

https://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/a/25380378/six-year-old-soldier-for-khilafa-kids-radicalised-in-shocking-video/.

BRITISH PAPER CRITICIZED FOR USING PHOTO WITH JEWISH MENORAH TO ACCOMPANY CIA TORTURE EDITORIAL

Britain’s Observer newspaper (which is the Sunday sister paper of the Guardian, with which it shares a website) has been criticized for choosing to use a photo of George W. Bush standing in front of a Jewish menorah – one of the few times Bush has stood next to a Jewish symbol (it was a photo from a Hannukah party in 2008) – to illustrate its official editorial last Sunday, titled “The Observer view on torture”.

The editorial discussed the report issued last week in America by the Senate Intelligence Committee into the CIA’s interrogation of terror suspects following the 9/11 attacks.

Given the rise of anti-Semitic discourse in the UK, Jewish and other groups are urging editors at respectable newspapers not to do anything to encourage conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy theorists suggest Israel and/or Jews were both behind the 9/11 attacks and behind the Bush and Obama administrations’ response to them.

Critics says that even if the use of the menorah photo was subconscious, and not in any way intentionally anti-Semitic, they should be more aware of allowing any subconscious prejudices to creep through.

Among other recent examples of this, the (London) Sunday Times used a picture of Hassidic Jew to illustrate the dangers of the Ebola virus being transported into America.

NBC’S RICHARD ENGEL SAYS SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL CAUSES JIHADI TERRORISM

On “Meet the Press” last Sunday, Richard Engel, NBC News’s chief foreign correspondent, claimed the following:

(Question) Chuck Todd: What creates more terrorists, torture or drones?

(Answer) Richard Engel: The history of terrorism is complicated - it goes back to US support for Israel.

It is 41 minutes into this recording:

http://tve-nbcnews.nbcuni.com/tve/show/Meet%20the%20Press/372409923866/0/Meet%20the%20Press%2C%20Dec.%2014%2C%202014

Richard Engel has won multiple awards – including for his highly critical reporting on Israel.

In 2012 he was kidnapped, tortured and released by a militia in Syria aligned to the Assad regime.

***

Among some of the less reported Islamist attacks this week (which Engel presumably wants to blame on Israel):

Somali al Shabaab militants behead two policewomen

Islamic State in Syria stones couple to death for adultery, beheads four for blasphemy

Iraq jihadists release pictures of mass execution

HAMAS ADMIT: “ARAFAT GAVE US ARMS FOR SECOND INTIFADA”

The co-founder and former foreign minister of Hamas, Mahmoud al-Zahar, admitted in an interview with Al-Aqsa TV on Sunday that then Palestinian Authority President (and Nobel peace prize winner) Yasser Arafat transferred arms and explosives to Hamas to carry out terror attacks against Israelis at the start of the intifada in 2000.

Hamas, together with Fatah’s al-Aqsa brigades, carried out a wave of suicide and other attacks that killed and injured thousands of Israeli civilians, following the collapse of the Camp David Peace Talks when Arafat turned down Ehud Barak’s and Bill Clinton’s offer of an independent Palestinian state.

Al-Zahar said that Arafat (who received billions of dollars in funding from western countries) transferred the weapons through a third group that Arafat set up for the purpose, called the Omar Al-Mukhtar Forces.

Israel has long alleged that the second Intifada was not spontaneous but was carefully planned by Arafat, though most Western media have failed to report this.

(For more on Arafat, see my articles from the Wall Street Journal and other papers, here.)

(For more on Israelis injured in the intifada, please see my Wall Street Journal article here.)

***

During a mass military parade on Sunday, Hamas flew a drone over Gaza in a show of strength. The Israeli air force scrambled warplanes to monitor the Hamas drone, which did not cross into Israeli airspace.

On the ground, thousands of masked Hamas militants paraded through the streets showing off their latest weaponry, including M75 rockets which have a range of 80 kilometers (50 miles), and can reach Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

In a speech, a Hamas speaker leader thanked “the Islamic Republic of Iran [for providing] money, weapons and rockets.”

In its charter, Hamas calls for the eventual destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic state on the pre-1948 borders of the British Palestine Mandate.

During the conflict this summer, Israel shot down two Hamas drones, which entered Israeli airspace. The drones are believed to have been manufactured in Gaza.

BBC AGAIN CRITICIZED FOR SENDING OUT DEFAMATORY TWEETS ABOUT ISRAEL

The BBC’s Australia correspondent Jon Donnison is again being assailed by media watchdog groups for taking time off from covering events in Australia in order to send an inaccurate and defamatory tweet about Israel.

He has long been criticized for sending out misleading tweets. For example, in 2012 he sent out a tweet which he said showed a Gazan child injured by an alleged Israeli attack, which was in fact a photo from the Syrian civil war.

Donnison’s latest tweet wrongly alleging Israeli misconduct during an incident in the West Bank, in fact originated in a fake report carried by the Russian propaganda station Russia Today.

The BBC Editorial Guidelines state:

“Presenters, reporters and correspondents are the public face and voice of the BBC – they can have a significant impact on perceptions of whether due impartiality has been achieved. Our audiences should not be able to tell from BBC output the personal prejudices of our journalists or news and current affairs presenters on matters of public policy, political or industrial controversy, or on ‘controversial subjects’ in any other area.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/page/guidelines-impartiality-news-current-affairs-factual/

NEW YORK TIMES, AP ADMIT MOSQUE FIRE NOT CAUSED BY SETTLERS

The New York Times is to be credited for admitting (on December 14) that its sensational front page story and another follow-up story last month about a supposed arson attack by settlers on a West Bank mosque (in the village of Mughayer) was wrong, and that the small fire in the mosque (which caused limited damage and injured no one) was in fact caused by an electrical fault. The Associated Press (on December 15) and the Israeli paper Haaretz has also now acknowledged that it was wrong to blame Israelis for the fire.

The supposed arson attack generated a worldwide wave of intense media criticism of Israel last month. Most other media are yet to offer corrections.

“AMERICA NEEDS TO IMPOSE A TWO STATE SOLUTION”

Below, I attach a new essay by Daniel Kurtzer, the former American ambassador to both Egypt and to Israel. The essay, published in the American Interest magazine, is being widely discussed by the Israeli left.

Kurtzer argues that the Obama administration should disregard the lull created by the Israeli election campaign and formally lay down its vision of a future deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

Kurtzer was one of President Obama’s top foreign policy advisers in the 2008 presidential campaign, but has not been awarded any subsequent job by Obama -- so far. (He is also a longtime subscriber to this email list.)

One point Kurtzer does not address in his essay is that in past instances where the U.S. has tried to impose a deal on the Palestinians, this has resulted in extreme violence against Israeli civilians, most notably after the failed 2000 Camp David talks, and in a more limited way in the last year since John Kerry tried to push President Abbas into compromising with Israel.

Before that I attach a piece by the Israeli journalist, Ben Dror Yemini (who is also a subscriber to this list).

-- Tom Gross

NORTH KOREA UPDATE

A subscriber to this list who works in cooperation with the U.S. government on security matters, writes in relation to item 5 (“Did Iran help North Korea in Sony Pictures attack?”) in my previous dispatch.

To be exact, the North Koreans did not deny responsibility for the Sony Pictures hack, despite what many media outlets have reported. Rather, they disclaimed knowledge while insinuating that their sympathizers overseas had acted on their behalf:

“The hacking into the SONY Pictures might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers with the DPRK in response to its appeal.”

It’s a neat way of having it both ways.

The statement in question can be seen here: http://kcna.co.jp/item/2014/201412/news07/20141207-12ee.html

WORLD CUP ARTICLE UPDATE

The Guardian published a letter in response to my article of December 1, from Baroness Jenny Tongue, a well-known critic of Israel who has on a number of occasions been criticized for allowing her views to spill over into outright anti-Semitism.

I decided not to write in response to her letter, but had I done so this is what I would have written, below:

The Guardian, Wednesday 3 December 2014

After reading the article by Tom Gross (A modest proposal: let Gaza host the World Cup, 1 December), I had to check my diary to make sure it was not 1 April. The article is such nonsense that a considered response is not needed, but I would like to ask Mr Gross if he has been to Gaza recently, and if so whether he could point out where exactly Ismail Haniyeh lands his private jet. I think we should be told.

Jenny Tonge
House of Lords

MY REPLY

Never one to let facts get in the way of her attempts to score cheap political points, Jenny Tonge can’t even be bothered to do a cursory Google search before shooting off letters to The Guardian. If she had, she would have seen that Hamas PM Ismail Hanieyh has himself texted journalists boasting about his trips on private jets, as the New York Times and others have reported.

Tom Gross

ARTICLE

“NOW THE WAR IS NOT AGAINST ISRAEL – IT’S AGAINST THE ENTIRE WESTERN WORLD”

From Sydney to Rome, until Islam rules the world
Op-ed: As the Israeli-Arab conflict becomes more religious, solidarity with the Israeli side grows; because now the war is not against Israel – it’s against the entire Western world.
By Ben Dror Yemini
Yediot Ahronot
December 16, 2014

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4604079,00.html

“One Ummah without the West; until Islam rules there will be no rest.”

These words, said by children aged six to 13, were broadcast during a solidarity ceremony with the Islamic State, in which participants also waved the organization’s flags.

It didn’t happen in Mosul. The ceremony took place recently in one of the suburbs of Sydney. The shocking event was documented by the Australian 7News television news service. The irony of date is that the Sydney café where the hostage siege took place Monday is located beside to the network’s offices.

The children participating in the ceremony are wearing Muslim clothes, speaking English. They are guided by adult jihadists. The education they receive is similar to the education in Gaza. It’s happening on the other side of the world. The goal is not to free al-Aqsa. The goal is to free Sydney from the chains of democracy.

It turns out that there is no need for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, or for the occupation, to nurture hatred towards democracy and the West. The jihadists in Sydney are also calling for the death of US President Barack Obama and Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“It’s sickening,” Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said in response to the video. The Australians are also trying to do something. The immigration policy is changing. The Israeli infiltration prevention bill is an embodiment of humanity compared to what is going on there.

By the way, one of the first terrorist attacks in the Islamic context was carried out on Australian soil. In as early as 1915, two Muslims murdered four train passengers. The assailants were killed. In a letter one of them left behind, he said he was defending the Ottoman caliphate and that “I must kill you and give my life for my faith, Allāhu Akbar.”

What has Australia done to them? Why prepare a cadre of children, starting from the age of six, educate them to jihad and raise them as potential shahidim (martyrs)?

Australia hasn’t done anything to them. They don’t need someone to do something to them. That’s because the global jihad organizations, from 1915 to this very day, from al-Shabaab to the Taliban, from Hamas to Islamic State, from Boko Haram to al-Qaeda, share the same ideology: Imposing Islam’s rule on the entire world.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi said several weeks that the plan is to take over Rome. Why Rome? Yunis al-Astal, a Palestinian Parliament member on behalf of Hamas, explained even before the IS declaration that Rome must be conquered because it is “the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusaders.” All stops lead to Rome, including Sydney.

Most Muslims, including in Australia, are not jihad supporters. The problem, as always, is with the radical minority, which is trying to impose a nightmare. The problem is that the minority acts. Thousands of Westerners are joining ISIS. Not a single Muslim has come out of the West to join the battle against IS.

The Israeli-Arab conflict, or Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is becoming more religious. This change has another aspect. The West is very biased against Israel when it comes to the national conflict, the settlements, the occupation. The overdone support for a nonexistent Palestinian state is proof of that.

But on the other hand, as the conflict becomes more religious, there is much more solidarity with the Israeli side. Because then, the war is not against Israel. The war is against Sydney and Rome.

It’s true that the delusional margins in the left will continue to understand jihad, offer explanations for it and blame Israel. But the majority in the West is beginning to show signs of repulsion. It is running out of patience.

“It’s okay that they don’t want to be like us,” a Norwegian journalist told me candidly, “but it’s unacceptable that they want us to be like them.”

But when we went back to talk about Israel, he returned to the old slogans.

What is happening in Australia won’t wake the free world from its slumber. But another small alarm bell rang Monday. Let’s just hope that the wake-up call won’t arrive with a festival of bells.

THERE IS NO “PLAN B”

There is no “Plan B” for the Israelis and Palestinians
By Daniel Kurtzer
The American Interest
December 12, 2014

The Middle East peace process is in a deep hole, with no easy way out. The Israeli coalition, none too interested in pursuing engagement on peace, is now frozen in place with elections scheduled for March 17. The Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority are weak, don’t govern in Gaza, and barely represent a majority of Palestinian opinion. The PLO seems intent on pursuing a UN statehood option that is guaranteed to elicit a U.S. veto. The United States, the traditional third party and catalyst for negotiations, is absorbed with other crises at home and abroad, and is apparently not interested in investing more effort in the peace process sinkhole. And the context for a negotiated peace is anything but conducive: the Middle East is broken, at war with itself, and in the midst of historic transformations in identity, state power, and religious ideology.

Under these circumstances, it could be argued that the best course of action would be to do nothing: in other words, to wait until the situation is more propitious or “ripe” for peacemaking and for a time when leaders are better prepared to take the necessary risks to reach an agreement. But this is an attractive option only for the opponents of peace. On the Palestinian side, Hamas derives support and legitimation from peace process setbacks, for this bolsters its argument for resistance. The absence of a peace process does not force Hamas to confront its rejectionist, absolutist stance on Israel, enshrined in its Charter. On the Israeli side, settlements leaders and activists take heart from the breakdown of peace efforts, for it provides time to build more settlements and gives meaning to the argument that Israel does not have a partner with whom to make peace.

Doing nothing also really does not mean doing nothing. Life goes on in the meantime, and the bad behaviors of both Palestinians and Israelis (terrorism, incitement, settlements, onerous occupation practices) continue during a period of inactivity in peace making. At bottom, the argument for doing nothing rests on the false premise that the status quo can hold until the situation allows for progress toward peace. Reality is different: status quos in the Israeli-Palestinian arena are never static, and they inevitably deteriorate when positive actions are not taken to improve them.

The alternative to a strategy of doing nothing is often thought to be a “Plan B”—that is, a different strategy than the one that has been followed until now, namely pursuit of the two-state solution. Currently, the market is awash with Plan B’s, with many rushing in to fill the perceived vacuum. For example, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren believes the time has come to return to unilateralism, a theme taken up by others with variations. Former military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin wants Israel to unilaterally determine its borders. Naftali Bennett, the leader of Israel’s National Home Party, advocates the annexation of Area C—more than 50 percent of the West Bank—while easing up on the rest of the area by providing Palestinians with autonomy. Former settlements leader Dani Dayan argues for “peaceful non-reconciliation,” eschewing annexation while maintaining Israeli control under more relaxed conditions.

Other Plan B’s offer different solutions. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman urges Israel to make peace in a regional context, from which a Palestinian state would emerge, and in which there would be territorial and population swaps, along with economic incentives for Israel’s Arab citizens to emigrate. Al Quds University President and former negotiator Sari Nusseibeh has argued for Palestinians to forego independent statehood as a goal and to accept full social and economic rights within Israel, but without citizenship. There is a movement among Palestinians to accept a one-state solution, as long as Palestinians are given full citizenship and voting rights. Some Palestinians have argued that Palestinians should aim for confederation with or absorption into Jordan, rather than pursuing their own independent state. And there are jointly developed, creative ideas such as “two states in one space,” a proposal developed by IPCRI in consultation with Israelis and Palestinians.

Thus far, none of the Plan B’s has gotten much traction, and they are likely to take their place on the library shelf alongside the scores of other plans that have been advocated over the decades. All of these plans share at least one thing in common: They seek to avoid the only common sense outcome of the Arab-Israeli conflict that has been known ever since it was first surfaced in the 1930s by the British Peel Commission: namely, partitioning the land between the two national movements that claim exclusive control over all the territory.

If there really is no acceptable Plan B—and I submit that to be the case, that there is no alternative to a two-state outcome that would be acceptable to a significant majority of Israelis and Palestinians—then what should happen now, when the prospects of achieving Plan A, two states, appears so remote? Israelis and Palestinians need to confront this question on their own; for the United States, the policy implications are clear.

I start with four analytical assumptions:

No progress towards substantive negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians is possible now. Neither side can move because of politics, weakness, and/or ideological rigidity.

An attempt by the United States to revive negotiations now is ill-advised and certain to fail, leading to further weakening of U.S. credibility.

The status quo is neither static nor sustainable, and is likely to deteriorate if nothing is done.

Plan B strategies won’t work and will only serve to detract attention from the obvious, though hard, decisions that ultimately need to be made to reach a two-state solution.

As such, U.S. strategy should be aimed not at reaching negotiations now, but rather at establishing a sound basis of U.S. policy on which to operate in the future. Specifically, during these next two years, the Obama administration should strive to create a sustainable foundation both for U.S. diplomacy and for the peace process itself. This would involve coordinated policy and action along four axes, each of which should be accompanied by a significant public diplomacy effort:

First, the United States should articulate U.S. positions on the core issues—that is, American parameters. (See, for example, here). Forty-seven years after the 1967 war, it is time for the United States to express its views on a peace settlement. The parameters would represent American views of the principles that would drive negotiations, once the parties are ready to negotiate the details. The parameters would represent American policy, and would not be represented as reflecting the positions of the parties. Indeed, the United States would not seek formal responses from the parties. The parameters would represent American policy.

Second, if the United States opposes bad behaviors, it should act accordingly and not simply issue statements of condemnation. U.S. statements that criticize Palestinian violence and incitement, or Israeli settlement activity or occupation practices, have become meaningless, because they are only words. If we truly oppose these behaviors, we need to exact consequences from the party that acts irresponsibly. Without U.S. action, U.S. credibility suffers. Any U.S. actions in response to bad behaviors will be politically difficult and controversial, especially U.S. actions directed at Israel. For this reason alone, the responses must be measured and of a kind that is able to be seen as reasonable by the publics in the region and at home. U.S. security and humanitarian assistance should be fenced off and not become part of this policy of exacting consequences for bad behaviors.

Third, the United States and others need to develop a strategy and take steps to start deconstructing the occupation. The Palestinian economy, trade, and labor are all dependent on Israel, and Israel uses the West Bank as a closed market for Israeli goods. A game plan is needed to build independent Palestinian capacities. These changes will need to be introduced gradually and carefully so as to avoid short-term dislocations especially in Palestinian society.

Fourth, the United States should consult closely with Arab states to develop ways to activate the Arab Peace Initiative, to the extent possible. The Arab Peace Initiative is very important, but its benefits for Israel kick in only at the end of the peace process. If the United States starts to act more forthrightly as advocated here, so too should the Arab states do more than simply reiterate support for their initiative. As the United States takes the steps above, which the Arabs are likely to welcome, the Arabs should also be taking steps to signal Israel about the tangible benefits of peace—for example, regional working groups on pressing issues such as health and water, diplomatic contacts, and the like.

The political fallout in Washington and the region from this integrated U.S. strategy is likely to be severe. Republicans in Congress will seize upon these policies as evidence of bias against Israel and seek to lay claim to being Israel’s only friends in Washington. Right-wing members of the large pro-Israel community in the United States will protest the administration’s actions. The current Israeli government will balk and, at a minimum, accuse the United States of unveiling these ideas so as to interfere in Israel’s elections. Some Palestinians will argue that the U.S. policies do not go far enough. However, the impact of such pushback, both here and in the region, should not be exaggerated. The essence of this strategy is to articulate U.S. policy, to make clear what we support and do not support.

Two immediate questions arise: how does this strategy relate to the Palestinian strategy of forcing a UN Security Council vote on statehood; and should the United States launch this strategy in the midst of an Israeli election campaign? On the first issue, strong and determined leadership by the United States will make any Palestinian UN initiative look weak in comparison. The Palestinians might not back off, but a U.S. veto in this context will be far more reasonable and explainable than a veto in the absence of a U.S. strategy.

Regarding Israeli elections, the United States is a factor whether we articulate a strategy or remain silent. Indeed, U.S. silence at this stage will be represented by some in Israel as acceptance of the status quo. To be sure, the announcement of a U.S. strategy now will be far more controversial than waiting until later. However, having an American strategy on the table will also help inform the debate in Israel over the critical issues involved in peace making. On balance, it is far wiser to be upfront about our policy—if we decide to go in this direction—than to unveil it only after the Israelis go to the polls.

The risk/benefit calculation of this strategy clearly weighs in favor of implementing it. Since there is no expectation that it will lead to negotiations, in a sense it can fail only if the United States abandons it in the face of opposition from the region or domestically. Potentially, it could stimulate a healthy debate in Israel and Palestine about issues that are normally avoided. And, at a minimum, it will leave U.S. policy in far better shape to craft a strategy in the future to reach negotiations, once the politics in Israel and Palestine will allow it.

Iconic Mideast photo was staged (& Iran targets Adelson’s casinos)

December 14, 2014

[Notes below by Tom Gross]

ICONIC MIDEAST PHOTO REVEALED TO BE STAGED

The American-Jewish newspaper The Forward has revealed that Ricki Rosen’s famous photograph (above) of an Israeli and Palestinian boy, with their arms round each other, looking over Jerusalem, was staged.

The photo came to prominence again this summer during the Hamas-Israel war, after pop superstar Rihanna tweeted the photo under the hashtag #FreePalestine. Rihanna’s tweet was retweeted tens of thousands of times.

The photo was taken in 1993, shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accords, and has become one of the most iconic pictures from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The photo has been used many times in the literature of pro-peace groups.

But in reality, it has now been acknowledged, the boys in the photo aren’t an Israeli and a Palestinian, but two Israeli Jews.

However, American photojournalist Ricki Rosen is standing by her photo in the wake of The Forward’s article. “It was a symbolic illustration,” she said. “It was never supposed to be a documentary photo. It is for hopes of peace down the road.”

She added in a “right of reply article” to The Forward: “It’s dismaying that some have chosen to trash me, as if my photo were in the same category of an image of a dead Syrian girl which was published as if it had been taken in Gaza.”

“I am angered by the charge that the photo is ‘faked.’ Your article reveals a lack of understanding of the difference between a faked photo, which misrepresents reality, and a photo illustration, which uses models and props to convey a concept.”

She continued: “An example of a truly fake photo is the infamous image of the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad, supposedly a spontaneous protest by Iraqis but in fact stage-managed by American troops.”

“MANKIND FIRST LEARN HOW TO LIGHT A FIRE IN ISRAEL 350,000 YEARS AGO”

This month’s Journal of Human Evolution publishes findings of a study by archaeologists from the University of Haifa which conclude that the first use of heat by prehistoric humans was carried out in the territory now occupied by Israel some 350,000 years ago.

Scientists have uncovered flints and other material from the Tabun cave near Haifa, where there is evidence of half a million years of human habitation. Using modern techniques they have helped pinpoint the date that humans mastered the use of fire, the journal says: “Fire became a regular, even permanent part of their adaptations once hominins had solved the technical challenge of kindling and maintaining it.”

Science Magazine also reports on the discovery here.

THE INVENTION OF RECYCLING

Just a week earlier, the New York Times reported on another discovery.

Archaeologists working at the Qesem cave, a prehistoric site near the Tel Aviv suburb of Rosh Haayin, found that those living there 400,000 years ago developed bone and flint tools, and learned to repair and recycle these tools. Some of the technological advances seem to have been spurred by the disappearance of elephants from the region, reports the NY Times.

“Elephants that had served as a main food source apparently disappeared, prompting a change of menu and lifestyle for the inhabitants of Qesem Cave.”

IRANIAN HACKERS TARGET SHELDON ADELSON’S CASINOS

Bloomberg Business Week reveals in its current issue that earlier this year Iranian hackers released malware into Sheldon Adelson’s Sands computer systems in Las Vegas, severely damaging the company’s servers and costing the company $40 million to repair.

Adelson is a major supporter of Israel and has also made threatening remarks about Iran’s nuclear program.

“This was no Ocean’s Eleven,” Bloomberg Business Week says (referring to the Hollywood movie starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney). “The hackers were not trying to empty a vault of cash, nor were they after customer credit card data, as in recent attacks on Target, Neiman Marcus, and Home Depot.”

“This was personal. The perpetrators wanted to punish the company, or, more precisely, its chief executive officer and majority owner, the billionaire Sheldon Adelson.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is aware of the situation and is “addressing it as appropriate,” FBI spokeswoman Bridget Pappas told Bloomberg News.

DID IRAN HELP NORTH KOREA IN SONY PICTURES ATTACK?

North Korea has finally denied it carried out the massive hacking attack on Sony Pictures that crippled Sony’s computer systems and revealed extensive data about the company, including confidential emails about some of its film stars.

But some are suggesting that North Korea’s close ally, Iran, may have had a hand in carrying out the attack. Iran has recently greatly increased its cyber warfare activities and many attempts have been made to infiltrate Israeli government and financial and military institutions.

Accusations were initially made against North Korea because the Sony film, “The Interview,” scheduled for release this Christmas, mocks North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

In June, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry released a statement that distribution of this movie would be “the most undisguised terrorism and an act of war,” and “will invite a strong and merciless countermeasure.”

In September, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei met with senior North Korean officials and promised to extend cooperation between the two countries. North Korea’s official KCNA news agency reported that a memorandum of understanding between North Korea and Iran on “cooperation in science, technology and education” was signed.

There is more here from the award-winning investigative journalist Claudia Rosett in the current edition of Forbes. (Claudia Rosett is a longtime subscriber to this list.)

Background here from the BBC.

MUBARAK’S FORMER MAKEUP ARTIST REVEALS ALL

In an interview with Egypt’s Al-Hayat newspaper, makeup artist Mohammed Assub (pictured above) has revealed how he managed to keep the former Egyptian dictator looking relatively young, and healthy enough to fend off challenges.

“Mubarak’s skin was very dark and it was necessary to make it a bit lighter. I would also hide all of his wrinkles,” he told Al-Hayat. “No one could get close to Mubarak and touch him other than me,” said Assub proudly, “it was not easy to get to him.”

According to Assub, Mubarak would take 15 minutes before each public appearance to have his makeup applied and he and Mubarak developed quite a friendly relationship, chatting about family life and other matters.

He added that as part of his role as the resident makeup artist for the Egyptian president’s office, he also applied makeup to Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein when they visited, before official press conferences and photo shoots.

JOHN HENRY PATTERSON, THE ANGLO-IRISH “GODFATHER OF THE ISRAELI ARMY,” REINTERRED IN ISRAEL

The ashes of the Anglo-Irish adventurer Lt Col John Henry Patterson, said to be one of the British Empire’s most swashbuckling officers (he even wrestled man-eating lions in Kenya) have been reburied near Tel Aviv along with those of his wife, Frances Helena.

In a heartfelt tribute at the ceremony, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Patterson, who also became godfather to Netanyahu’s elder brother Yonatan (who was killed while rescuing Israeli hostages at Entebbe in 1976), had commanded the first Jewish fighting force in nearly two millennia.

Netanyahu called him the “godfather of the Israeli army”.

Patterson was born in 1867 in Ireland, to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. He fought alongside Jewish soldiers in World War I and then became an ardent Zionist, helping to train the Jewish underground in Palestine.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky, one of the soldiers commanded by Patterson, said: “In all of Jewish history we have never had a gentile friend as understanding and devoted.”

Later Patterson went to America to campaign for the creation of Israel, he became a close friend of Netanyahu’s father, Benzion.

The re-burial of the ashes of Patterson and his wife Frances followed a three-year process. They were taken from California, where the couple had lived until his death in 1947. Alan Patterson, the soldier’s grandson, who also spoke at the ceremony alongside Netanyahu, said it had been his grandfather’s dying wish that he be buried alongside Jewish Legion fighters he had once commanded.

PARIS HILTON RECEIVES ANTI-SEMITIC DEATH THREATS

The American actress and socialite Paris Hilton (who is not Jewish) has been receiving anti-Semitic death threats from a man who believes she is.

Celebrity website TMZ said she had received messages such as “Kill Jews For Fun,” and “I know ur Jew family gives nothing.”

The LAPD has opened a hate crime investigation.

COMEDIAN ROSEANNE BARR ASSAILS “ANTI-SEMITIC” JEWS WHO SUPPORT BDS

Famously outspoken comedian Roseanne Barr has fiercely attacked Jews who support a boycott of Israel.

In an open letter published last week, she wrote:

“You feel it is moral to express your sympathy for those who occupy all but a sliver of the Middle East, those who stone women to death, execute gays and rape little children, and get away with doing it, because child ‘marriage’ (polygamist pedophile cults) have a priest class which absolves all pedophiles of criminal action against innocents.”

She said her letter was penned for “Jews who hate Israel and collude with anti-Semites.”

She wrote: “You believe that making Judaism illegal in every Arab Country is OK? Really? You ignore the Jewish Nakba – 800,000 expelled Jews in the middle east forced to move to Israel, since 1948 – by violence and hatred, their wealth stolen? You scream and yell that there should be no harbor or rest for any of them inside a Jewish State, or anywhere else on earth? Really?”

***

At the end of this dispatch, I attach a piece from the Wall Street Journal, by Brendan O’Neill, the editor of the online journal Spiked (and a subscriber to this email list).

He writes:

“The Zionistfrei movement isn’t really about effecting any change in the Middle East. As Leicester Councillor Mohammed Dawood admits, Israel is hardly going to be ‘trembling in its shoes’ over the city’s boycott. Rather, the movement is about making the chattering classes in Europe feel pure and righteous, unsullied by the poisonousness of the state it’s now so fashionable to hate.

“Where yesteryear’s creators of Judenfrei zones saw the Jewish people as a corrupting presence, today’s lobbyists for Zionistfrei territories see the Jewish state as corrupting, as a toxic entity whose fruit and technology and books must be shunned.”

ROSIE O’DONNELL CRITICIZED AFTER USING SYRIA PHOTOS TO ATTACK ISRAEL

Another American comedian and TV star, Rosie O’Donnell, has been criticized for selling artwork on her website with messages critical of Israel, but using photos from the Syrian civil war.

Two collage-like pieces created by O’Donnell and put up for sale on her website include a photo purportedly taken in Gaza this summer, but actually from Syria.

One of the pieces, titled “Israel Begins Bombing Gaza,” includes a quote from O’Donnell saying, “This man carries a baby about the same age as the one I sit next to, watching Frozen.”

Another piece uses the words “stop and think… Israel and Gaza.”

However, in both cases the photos used are from Syria, and have nothing to do with Israel.

More here from the blog IsraellyCool.

O’Donnell was also criticized in 2010 when she defended the late White House correspondent Helen Thomas, who was accused of anti-Semitism after she said Israelis should leave the Middle East and “go home” to Germany and Poland.

LONDON’S NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY DISPLAYS PHOTO OF HASSIDIC GIRL

The National Portrait Gallery in London (one of my favorite museums) has taken the unusual step of putting on show a photograph of a young Hassidic Jewish girl.

Titled “Chayla in Shul”, the photo by Laura Pannack is of an 11-year-old redheaded Hasidic girl in synagogue.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews often refuse to be photographed but permission was given in this case.

The photo, which art critics say has an almost timeless feel, and many of the qualities of a painting, is on display until late February 2015.

ARTICLE

UGLY ECHOES OF 70 YEARS AGO

Rinsing Israel Out of Europe: The Zionistfrei Movement
Brendan O’Neill
Wall Street Journal
Dec. 10, 2014

In Nazi Germany, it was all the rage to make one’s town Judenfrei. Now a new fashion is sweeping Europe: to make one’s town or city what we might call “Zionistfrei” — free of the products and culture of the Jewish state. Across the Continent, cities and towns are declaring themselves “Israel-free zones,” insulating their citizens from Israeli produce and culture. It has ugly echoes of what happened 70 years ago.

Leicester City Council in England last month voted to boycott goods made in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. All services run by the council will be free of any product or technology made in any of the settlements. The motion “condemns the Government of Israel for its continuing illegal occupation of Palestine’s East Jerusalem and the West Bank” and resolves “to boycott any produce originating from illegal Israeli settlements.”

Leicester Mayor Peter Soulsby insists that there’s nothing anti-Semitic about this erection of an Israel-deflecting force field around the city, telling the local Leicester Mercury newspaper that it’s simply about expressing dismay with “the behavior of the Israeli state.”

But Jeffrey Kaufman, former president of Leicester’s Progressive Jewish Congregation, isn’t convinced. He wants to know why, “of all the horrible things going on in the world,” the council singled out Israel for punitive treatment. “It’s blatant anti-Semitism,” he said.

Other communities in Europe have gone further than Leicester. During this summer’s Gaza conflict, the town of Kinvara in western Ireland went completely Zionistfrei. Pro-Palestinian campaigners lobbied the town’s retailers, restaurants and cafes to expunge from their premises anything produced in Israel. All the businesses agreed, meaning Kinvara is now, in the eyes of anti-Israel agitators, morally pure. It is held up as a model town by numerous European backers of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement.

Also during the Gaza conflict, the mayor of Newry in Northern Ireland wrote to all the retailers of his district asking them to provide a list of the Israeli products they stock. He then asked them to remove these products from sale — he was backed by 21 votes to three on the Newry Council.

Numerous Spanish provinces have this year been bombarded with requests to reject the “products, culture and sport” of the state of Israel. When BDS activists can’t get official backing for their desire to live Zionistfrei lives, they take things into their own hands. Three years ago in Montpellier, France, BDS activists spent an hour and a half rampaging through a shopping mall and “de-shelving” all the fruit produced in Israel.

Under pressure from campaigners to break off all links with Israel, the French city of Lille in October ripped up its twinning accord with the Israeli city of Safed. Roger Cukierman, president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, was quoted in the French press saying Lille’s officials had shown a “heinous attitude toward the Israeli people.”

In 2011, the council of West Dunbartonshire in Scotland voted to boycott all Israeli products and instructed all local libraries to stop stocking books printed in the state of Israel. Why not just burn them?

Various towns in Turkey are shunning Coca-Cola over what they see as its support for Israel. Earlier this year, the mayor of Ordu in northern Turkey said “we boycott killer Israel and the global capital supporting it and do not drink its products,” as if anything made by Israel or its friends is some kind of poison liable to sully one’s body and soul.

The Zionistfrei movement isn’t really about effecting any change in the Middle East. As Leicester Councillor Mohammed Dawood admits, Israel is hardly going to be “trembling in its shoes” over the city’s boycott. Rather, the movement is about making the chattering classes in Europe feel pure and righteous, unsullied by the poisonousness of the state it’s now so fashionable to hate.

Where yesteryear’s creators of Judenfrei zones saw the Jewish people as a corrupting presence, today’s lobbyists for Zionistfrei territories see the Jewish state as corrupting, as a toxic entity whose fruit and technology and books must be shunned.

No, Jews aren’t being physically expelled from Europe, but they are being made to feel unwelcome. Given that most Jews feel affinity with the state of Israel, what must they think when they see parts of Europe being cleansed of all things Israeli? They must think: “My culture and my people are not wanted here.” And European Jews are voting with their feet. In the first eight months of this year, 4,566 Jews left France for Israel, more than the total number that left in 2013 (3,228). Last year a European Union survey found that 29% of Europe’s Jews had considered emigrating because they no longer feel safe.

BDS is one of the ugliest political movements of our time. It is shot through with double standards, treating Israel as more wicked than any other state. It is shrill and censorious, too. Its members boo and jeer and seek to expel from apparently civilized Europe not only Israeli military leaders and politicians but even Israeli violinists and actors. Now, the demand for Zionistfrei zones is taking BDS to its terrifying conclusion, that Israel and everyone associated with it (you know who) should be shunned by respectable communities everywhere.

Could soccer save Palestine by moving the World Cup to Gaza?

December 01, 2014

Could the World Cup, the planet’s most popular event, be the key to turn the focus in Gaza away from conflict with Israel and the lure of radical Islam?

[Note by Tom Gross]

I attach a piece of mine that appears in the print edition of the British paper The Guardian today. The idea may seem far-fetched at first, but if carried out (and I realize that is a very long shot), it could actually help distract people’s attention from the conflict with Israel and weaken Hamas’s power, while building an infrastructure to improve significantly daily life for ordinary Gazans.

Many people on both sides of the divide may not like this idea. But before submitting my piece, I ran it by both Palestinian and Israeli friends of mine and both sets of friends said they really liked the idea (a rare meeting of minds between the two peoples…)

A modest proposal: Qatar could win by letting Gaza host the World Cup

* Handing over the tournament voluntarily would allow the emirate to save face and play a lead role in bringing the Middle East together

By Tom Gross
The Guardian
December 1, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/30/qatar-let-gaza-host-world-cup

The controversy surrounding the decision to allow Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup, seems only to keep growing. Sunday brought revelations of a dossier of new allegations. There’s the allegedly corrupt means by which Qatar is rumoured to have “bought” the tournament, the deaths of more than 2,000 migrant workers who have toiled in slave-like conditions and, of course, Qatar’s weather. The tournament is to be held in summer when temperatures routinely soar above 40 degrees
centigrade, posing risks to the players as well as to millions of visiting fans.

Many people feel Qatar should not host the tournament. But how to bring this about with Qatar’s consent, without the emirate losing face – such an important consideration in the Arab world – and bringing multiple legal challenges?

Here’s one idea: Qatar should take the high ground by announcing that it will heed calls by an outgoing Fifa official for the tournament to be moved to other Arab lands. It should give the World Cup to Gaza. And Qatar should pay for it too.

The idea is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Gaza’s key problem is not money, but rule by militant Islamism, combined with hopelessness. Indeed, Gaza has received billions in aid over the years – but its corrupt Hamas rulers have never shared this properly with the population. The Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, among others, flies around in a Qatari-provided private jet. Recently Forbes rated Hamas “the second richest terrorist group in the world” – poorer than Isis but considerably richer than the Taliban and other groups.

As long as Hamas maintains its grip on the territory Israel will respond with force. So how to prevent the next Gaza war? For the first time in history almost the entire Arab world backed Israel – albeit tacitly – in last summer’s campaign against Hamas. The one exception was Qatar (as well as non-Arab regimes in Turkey and Iran).

And consider this. Football is almost a secular religion for millions of people throughout the world. I know from my own visits there that Gaza is no exception. (Readers may have noticed from photos during the recent conflict how many Gazans were wearing the shirts of leading European teams.)

What other force is great enough to pull Gazans from the lure of Hamas, restore a sense of pride and purpose, create thousands of jobs, and direct billions of dollars into the territory – to be used to transform the strip into a prime Mediterranean tourist hub? Hamas would, of course, object but football is such a powerful force in Gazan society that it would be hard even for its leadership to justify to its own people its continued focus on jihadi activities.

Such an idea may sound implausible at first, but only if you disregard other historical examples of the healing power of football. For example, the “Miracle of Berne” in 1954 when West Germany won the World Cup, a victory that played a role in reviving the country and accelerating its economic recovery. “In the days after the game,” Uli Hesse, the respected German journalist, wrote, “the country celebrated like seldom before and never since.”

Gaza is a small territory, but so is Qatar, whose population is smaller than Gaza’s. And if Gaza is too small to host all the matches, why not also allow Ramallah, Cairo and even Tel Aviv to host a few. The 2022 final should be played in Gaza, of course, and Gazans could rejoice in this, after decades of perceived humiliation. I suspect Israelis – so long as security was not an issue – would welcome the idea with great enthusiasm. It would, one hopes, buy eight years of quiet, economic development and reconstruction in which the focus in Gaza could be taken off conflict with Israel and radical Islamism. An unusual idea? Perhaps. But can anyone think of a better one?

This piece is also now on the Marker, the sister website of Haaretz:

http://www.themarker.com/wallstreet/1.2500721

(Readers’ comments on The Guardian website – and there are some quite amusing ones – are now closed until tomorrow morning. Unlike some other media, The Guardian employs staff in the daytime to ensure any racist or anti-Semitic readers’ comments are removed quickly.)

* If you “like” these dispatches on my public Facebook page here www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia, you can also find other Mideast-related items that are not in these dispatches.