American singer Mariah Carey became the latest in a long line of celebrities to take vacations or perform in Israel this year, despite the efforts of boycotters. She toured Jerusalem yesterday with her twin children Monroe and Moroccan. Above, at Jerusalem’s Western Wall on Sunday.
* Michael Herzog (Israeli Labour Party leader Herzog’s brother, writing in today’s Financial Times): “Israel is not at the table negotiating the deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. Yet it is Israel’s national security, perhaps more than anyone else’s, that will be affected. Threatened by Iran’s nuclear and hegemonic ambitions, Israel and most of its Arab neighbours question whether the expected agreement will stem either. The choice is not between a good deal and a bad deal. A good deal – permanently rolling back Iran’s nuclear capacity, as was done in Libya – is no longer possible. The question is whether the deal is acceptable, given the confines of the framework agreed in April.”
* “Even as negotiations were under way, Israelis have watched Mr. Khamenei tweet nine “key questions about the elimination of Israel” (the third was: what is the proper way of eliminating Israel?). If the U.S. and its partners do not stand firm in the coming days and years, Israelis feel they may be left alone to face the ayatollahs – enemies who might one day wield the ultimate weapon.”
* Demonstrating outside the Iran talks in Vienna. Raimund Fastenbauer, leader of Vienna’s Jewish Community: “Whoever negotiates with the ayatollahs, but ignores the Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei’s Holocaust denial, has already fallen for Hassan Rouhani’s and Mohammad Zarif’s charm offensive. And whoever ignores the permanently repeated Iranian annihilation threats against Israel is actually putting up the Jewish State’s existence for negotiation.”
* Pro-democracy Iranian exiles join Jews in Vienna. Hiwa Bahrami: “It is like a stab in the back of the democratic and secular opposition in Iran and in exile to recognize regime figures as legitimate negotiating partners while the same regime executes more people under Rouhani than under Ahmadinejad.”
* ISIS release statement justifying Tunisian beach massacre which killed 38: This was “an attack upon the nests of fornication, vice and disbelief in God.” (Tom Gross adds: Families vacationing on the beach is punishable by death, but kidnapping 10 year old girls to auction off as sex slaves is fine, according to ISIS…)
* Islamic State marks U.S. gay marriage ruling by throwing four more gay men to their deaths off a roof in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor. (This new ISIS video released over the weekend is too sick to link to. Here is one of my previous dispatches on ISIS crimes against gays.)
* Islamists in Nigeria murder five, injure 10 others with suicide bombing at a leprosy hospital, reports AFP.
* The strange world we live in… Shia from impoverished Afghanistan fight not against the Sunni Taliban at home, but travel all the way to Syria to fight alongside Hizbullah and the Assad regime: here the Iranian media publishes images of Reza Esameili, the first member of the all-Afghan Shiite Fatemiyoun brigade fighting in Syria, to be beheaded by Sunni Islamists there. [Warning: Very graphic content]
I attach two opinion articles below, from this morning’s Financial Times and Wall Street Journal, and one semi-sarcastic letter from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the anti-Israel activists who sailed for Gaza yesterday.
* Please “like” these dispatches on Facebook here www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia, where you can also find other items that are not in these dispatches.
-- Tom Gross
CONTENTS
1. “How to salvage some security from the botched Iran deal” (By Michael Herzog, Financial Times, June 30, 2015)
2. “The President Against the Historian” (By Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2015)
3. Letter by Benjamin Netanyahu (June 29, 2015)
A GOOD DEAL IS NO LONGER POSSIBLE
How to salvage some security from the botched Iran deal
By Michael Herzog
Financial Times
June 30, 2015
If the United States and its partners do not stand firm in the coming days and years, Israelis feel they may be left alone to face the ayatollahs.
***
Israel is not at the table negotiating the deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. Yet it is Israel’s national security, perhaps more than anyone else’s, that will be affected. Threatened by Iran’s nuclear and hegemonic ambitions, Israel and most of its Arab neighbours question whether the expected agreement will stem either.
The choice is not between a good deal and a bad deal. A good deal – permanently rolling back Iran’s nuclear capacity, as was done in Libya – is no longer possible. The question is whether the deal is acceptable, given the confines of the framework agreed in April.
That framework in effect legitimises Iran as a nuclear-threshold state and focuses on stopping it from crossing that threshold. In the first decade the deal limits Iran’s capacity to quickly make enough nuclear material for a weapon. But in the second decade Iran is allowed to reduce its breakout time almost to zero, as restrictions on enrichment and stockpiling of uranium expire.
Iran’s nuclear threshold status could trigger nuclear proliferation. Regional rivals, not least the Saudis, may race to catch up. It could also embolden the Iranians to advance their radical and sectarian agenda. In addressing these risks, the context of the deal matters no less than its fine print.
The six world powers negotiating with Iran should insist on certain critical elements: anytime, anywhere inspection and verification; irreversible conversion of excess enriched material in Iran; significant restrictions on research and development relating to centrifuges; a clear and binding pathway to resolving concerns expressed by international inspectors about the possible military dimensions of Iran’s programme. Sanctions relief should be phased over years and be conditional on Tehran meeting these requirements.
But that is not enough. The key to stopping Iran from crossing the threshold at short notice is deterrence. Most of all, the U.S. needs to make clear there will be punishing consequences for violations. In addition, the international community should formally affirm its determination to prevent Iran from acquiring enough fissile material for a weapon, even after the restrictions lapse. The U.S. should also adopt a tough stance against Iran’s hegemonic regional ambitions to reassure traditional allies who have lost faith in American political will to guarantee their security.
Unfortunately, U.S. deterrence has been badly eroded of late, both due to its reluctance to project power in the region, and its overeager approach to negotiating with Iran. Doubts about U.S. deterrence are only reinforced by the administration’s insistence that there is a binary choice between a deal soon and war – a self-defeating assertion which implies that it is the White House, rather than Tehran, that is most likely to be deterred from pursuing its objectives by the prospect of war.
Viewed from the region, one thing seems obvious: the best chance to prevent Iran from acquiring the bomb comes if the U.S. reasserts its willingness to use military force. While Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has had no qualms stating his red lines, it has not been clear what the deal-breakers would be for those negotiating with him. Yet if such limits were set, they could be insisted upon. With the pressure of sanctions and a U.S.-led posture of deterrence, the western negotiators could credibly make clear that they are resolute, patient and will not accept a deal if their terms are not met.
Even as negotiations were under way, Israelis have watched Mr. Khamenei tweet nine “key questions about the elimination of Israel” (the third was: what is the proper way of eliminating Israel?). If the U.S. and its partners do not stand firm in the coming days and years, Israelis feel they may be left alone to face the ayatollahs – enemies who might one day wield the ultimate weapon.
“TRUTH HURTS”
The President Against the Historian
Michael Oren’s candid account of Obama’s Mideast policy has won him the right enemies.
By Bret Stephens
Wall Street Journal
June 30, 2015
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB11486026120286184909004581077992565304976
Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, has written the smartest and juiciest diplomatic memoir that I’ve read in years, and I’ve read my share. The book, called “Ally,” has the added virtues of being politically relevant and historically important. This has the Obama administration – which doesn’t come out looking too good in Mr. Oren’s account – in an epic snit.
The tantrum began two weeks ago, when Mr. Oren penned an op-ed in this newspaper undiplomatically titled “How Obama Abandoned Israel.” The article did not acquit Israel of making mistakes in its relations with the White House, but pointed out that most of those mistakes were bungles of execution. The administration’s slights toward Israel were usually premeditated.
Like, for instance, keeping Jerusalem in the dark about Washington’s back-channel negotiations with Tehran, which is why Israel appears to be spying on the nuclear talks in Switzerland. Or leaking news of secret Israeli military operations against Hezbollah in Syria.
Mr. Oren’s op-ed prompted Dan Shapiro, U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv, to call Mr. Netanyahu and demand he publicly denounce the op-ed. The prime minister demurred on grounds that Mr. Oren, now a member of the Knesset, no longer works for him. The former ambassador, also one of Israel’s most celebrated historians, isn’t even a member of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party, which makes him hard to typecast as a right-wing apparatchik.
But it’s typical of the administration that no Israeli slight is too minor not to be met with overreaction – and not only because Mr. Obama and his entourage have thin skins. One of the revelations of “Ally” is how eager the administration was to fabricate crises with Israel, apparently on the theory that strained relations would mollify Palestinians and extract concessions from Mr. Netanyahu.
To some extent, it worked: In 2009, Mr. Netanyahu endorsed a Palestinian state, an unprecedented step for a Likud leader, and he later imposed a 10-month moratorium on settlement construction, a step not even Labor Party leaders like Yitzhak Rabin ever took.
But no Israeli concession could ever appease Mr. Obama, who had the habit of demanding heroic political risks from Mr. Netanyahu while expecting heroic deference in return. In 2010, during a visit from Joe Biden, an Israeli functionary approved permits for the housing construction in a neighborhood of Jerusalem that Israel considers an integral part of the municipality but Palestinians consider a settlement.
The administration took the Palestinian side. Hillary Clinton spent 45 minutes berating Mr. Netanyahu over the phone. Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg “summoned” Mr. Oren to Foggy Bottom and read out his list of administration demands. What follows is one of the more memorable scenes in “Ally.”
“Steinberg added his own furious comments – department staffers, I later heard, listened in on our conversation and cheered – about Israel’s insult to the president and the pride of the United States. Then came my turn to respond.
“‘Let me get this straight,’ I began. ‘We inadvertently slight the vice president and apologize, and I become the first foreign ambassador summoned by this administration to the State Department. Bashar al-Assad hosts Iranian president Ahmadinejad, who calls for murdering seven million Israelis, but do you summon Syria’s ambassador? No, you send your ambassador back to Damascus.’”
“Ally” is filled with such scenes, which helps explain why it infuriates the administration. Truth hurts. President Obama constantly boasts that he’s the best friend Israel has ever had. After reading Mr. Oren’s book, a fairer assessment is that Mr. Obama is a great friend when the decisions are easy – rushing firefighting equipment to Israel during a forest fire – a grudging friend when the decisions are uncomfortable – opposing the Palestinian bid for statehood at the U.N. – and no friend at all when the decisions are hard – stopping Iran from getting a bomb.
Best friends are with you when the decisions are hard.
Since “Ally” was published, Mr. Oren has been denounced in near-hysterical terms in the media, Israeli and American. In Israel the carping is politics as usual and in the U.S. it’s sucking-up-to-the-president as usual. The nastiest comments came from Leon Wieseltier, the gray eminence of minor magazines, and the most tedious ones came from the Anti-Defamation League, that factory of moral pronouncement. When these are the people yelling at you, you’ve likely done something right.
Mr. Oren has. His memoir is the best contribution yet to a growing literature – from Vali Nasr’s “Dispensable Nation” to Leon Panetta’s “Worthy Fights” – describing how foreign policy is made in the Age of Obama: lofty in its pronouncements and rich in its self-regard, but incompetent in its execution and dismal in its results. Good for Mr. Oren for providing such comprehensive evidence of the facts as he lived them.
“BY THE WAY, THE VOLUME OF EQUIPMENT THAT HAS BEEN SENT FROM ISRAEL TO GAZA IS MORE THAN 500,000 TIMES LARGER THAN THE YOUR BOATS THAT YOU ARE ARRIVING ON”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu writes to the flotilla participants mentioned in my last dispatch (item 8 here.)
June 29, 2015
Welcome to Israel!
It seems you got lost. Perhaps you meant to sail to a place not far from here – Syria. There the Assad regime slaughters his people every day with the support of the murderous Iranian regime.
Despite that, here in Israel we are dealing with a situation where terror organizations, such as Hamas, are attempting to harm innocent civilians. Against attempts like these we are defending the citizens of Israel in accordance with international law.
Despite that, Israel assists with the transport of humanitarian supplies to Gaza – 800 truckloads a day, more than 1.6 million tons of supplies this past year. The equivalent of 1 ton per resident of Gaza.
By the way, the volume of equipment that has been sent from Israel to Gaza is more than 500,000 times larger than the your boats that you are arriving on.
Israel assists in hundreds of humanitarian projects via international organization including the establishment of medical clinics and hospitals.
But we are not willing to allow in weapons to the terrorist organizations in Gaza, as they have tried to do in the past, by sea.
Just a year ago, we stopped an attempt to bring in hundreds of weapons by sea, that were meant to harm innocent civilians.
There’s no closure on Gaza, and you are welcome to transport, via Israel, any humanitarian supplies.
The sea blockade is in accordance with international law, and has received backing from the UN Secretary General.
If human rights were truly important to you, you wouldn’t be sailing in solidarity with a terror regime that executes, without trial, residents of Gaza, and uses the children of Gaza as human shields.
If you were to come to Israel you would be able to be impressed by the only democracy in the Middle East that is concerned with equality for all its citizens, and freedom of religion for all faiths. A state that operates in accordance with international law in order to provide its residents a secure life and its children to grow up in peace and serenity.
Once again, the BBC’s policy about using the word “terror” is markedly different than when Jews are killed by Islamists in a French kosher supermarket or in synagogues in Jerusalem, when the BBC avoids it. See item 2 below after the contents. (With thanks to JS for the screen shots.)
* Bari Weiss, Wall Street Journal: “On Friday my phone was blowing up with messages, asking if I’d seen the news. Some expressed disbelief at the headlines. Many said they were crying. None of them were talking about the dozens of people gunned down in Tunisia, France, and Kuwait… They were talking about the only news that mattered: gay marriage. Unlike President Obama, I have always been a staunch supporter of gay marriage, and I cheered the Supreme Court’s ruling making gay marriage legal in all 50 states. But as happy as I was, I was equally upset on Friday – and not just with the Islamists who carried out those savage attacks [but by the] moral relativism [of my friends]… You can’t get married if you’re dead.”
* Whoops: In this clip, a CNN anchor and editor fail to recognize that what they have identified as an “ISIS flag” in a gay rally is actually a flag of sex toys.
* 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. Jihadi against jihadi, as ISIS behead al-Qaeda
2. The BBC’s hypocrisy over terrorism
3. “Liking” the Tunisia attack on YouTube
4. The Guardian writes of a “massacre,” a “slaughter,” and of “terrorism”
5. Jihadi accused of French beheading, previously arrested for assaulting Jewish teen
6. French beheading suspect sent “selfie” with severed head, to Canadian contact
7. Vigil for beheading victim
8. Meanwhile activists in the West are targeting… Israel
9. “Love Among the Ruins” (By Bari Weiss, Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2015)
10. “After Tunisia, Kuwait and France we should not be afraid to call evil by its name” (By Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, June 27, 2015)
[Notes below by Tom Gross]
JIHADI AGAINST JIHADI, AS ISIS BEHEAD AL-QAEDA
A new video released on Friday by Islamic State in Syria shows the brutal beheading of 12 men accused of fighting for the terror group’s Al Qaeda and Jaish al-Islam rivals.
12 masked executioners line up behind 12 kneeling victims, paraded in front of the camera and are beheaded one by one in a sequence that takes several minutes on the film, after “confessing” to the crime of failing to declare allegiance to the Islamic State.
According to ISIS, the executions took place close to the Syrian capital Damascus.
As with other similar videos, the victims are forced to wear brightly-colored orange jumpsuits. The video, which I won’t link to because it is too grizzly and the victims’ screams too awful, is again made in a slick, high-tech way and professionally edited. As I have written before, it is likely that those editing these ISIS videos have prior professional video editing experience, possibly in the West. There are Hollywood-style graphics at the start of the film.
Those killed are clean-shaven. This is unusual for jihadis. It is likely to have been done to them as an additional way to humiliate them before their deaths.
THE BBC’S HYPOCRISY OVER TERRORISM
The BBC -- which refused to call the Jihadist massacre at the French kosher supermarket in January, in which shoppers were executed, “terrorism” -- had no problem calling Friday’s Jihadist attack on the French gas station, in which only one person died, terrorism.
The BBC -- which refused to call the Jihadist massacre of 31 guests at a hotel in Netanya (including Auschwitz survivors, during a Passover meal) terrorism, even when it refers back to it now -- had no problem calling the Jihadist massacre of guests at a hotel in Tunisia terrorism.
The BBC -- which refused to call the massacre of worshippers in synagogues terrorism (for example, those cut to bits by terrorists in the Jerusalem synagogue in November) -- had no problem calling the attack on a Shia mosque in Kuwait on Friday, in which 27 died, terrorism.
Nor is it a question, for the BBC, of whether the victims are British citizens. In the Jerusalem synagogue, as in Tunisia, British citizens were among the victims.
* See: The BBC: You can’t show that picture!
CNN calls the attacked synagogue “a mosque”
***
The BBC’s “Editorial Guidelines on Language when Reporting Terrorism” read:
“Our policy is about achieving consistency and accuracy in our journalism… We need to ensure that when we report acts of terror, we do so consistently… The value judgements frequently implicit in the use of the words ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorist group’ can create inconsistency in their use or, to audiences, raise doubts about our impartiality.”
* Tom Gross adds: I don’t think many have too much doubt at this point about the impartiality of the BBC, which happily forces all TV viewers in the UK to pay for the BBC whether they watch it or not, and as a result is under a British legal requirement to be impartial, but fails time and again, especially if the victims are Jews, or cartoonists.
As The Independent newspaper in London reported in January:
“The Islamists who committed the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris should be not be described as “terrorists” by the BBC, a senior executive at the corporation has said.”
***
* Among my previous articles on this subject:
The BBC discovers ‘terrorism,’ briefly
***
* See also: “UK Government and media partly responsible for British deaths in Tunisia”
“LIKING” THE TUNISIA ATTACK ON YOUTUBE
Many Arabic-speakers appear to approve of Friday’s Tunisia terrorist attack, as you can see from the “likes” awarded to this video, which refers to the massacre on the hotel beach as a “party”.
The Tunisian gunman who opened fire on tourists was a local “break-dancing star” and a fan of Real Madrid soccer team, according to press reports.
Among those murdered in Friday’s attack in Tunisia were persons from Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, Belgium and Tunisia.
THE GUARDIAN WRITES OF A “MASSACRE,” A “SLAUGHTER,” AND OF “TERRORISM”
Like the BBC, the Guardian, the influential British newspaper with a sizeable worldwide online readership, almost always refuses to call attacks on Israelis, whether Olympic athletes or holiday makers, whether carried out in Munich, Bulgaria, or elsewhere, “terrorism”.
Yet the first sentence of its lead front page story in this weekend’s international print edition (published yesterday) uses the word “terrorist”. Its page 1 headline starts with the word “Massacre”. Its lead story on page 3 starts with the words “The slaughter”.
***
To its credit, The Guardian is one of the few papers that did bother to report on the massacre of over 150 Kurdish and other civilians in Kobani on Friday (albeit in a small item on page 26 of its international edition). (* Tom Gross adds: By last night the death toll in Kobani had risen to at least 206 civilians, including many women and children, but by this morning Kurdish forces pushed ISIS out of the town. Entire families have been wiped out, according to AFP.)
Also, The Guardian’s award winning columnist Jonathan Freedland, who is a subscriber to this list, does refer in his column this weekend to the “snuff movie” reported on in this dispatch last week. So do several other journalist subscribers to this list, for example, Bari Weiss writing in The Wall Street Journal yesterday. (I attach the columns of both Jonathan Freedland and Bari Weiss at the end of this dispatch.)
JIHADI ACCUSED OF FRENCH BEHEADING, PREVIOUSLY ARRESTED FOR ASSAULTING JEWISH TEEN
Yassin Salhi, the French Jihadi arrested for carrying out a terror attack at a French industrial gas factory near Lyon on Friday, was arrested for an anti-Semitic attack on a Jewish teenager in 2012, reports the Associated Press.
Salhi, 35, a married father of three, beat up a random Jewish teenager and screamed anti-Semitic abuse at him while they were traveling on a train from Toulouse to Lyon.
I reported on that attack in passing in 2012. The reason I mention it now is because perhaps if the law enforcement authorities (and the media) took more seriously anti-Semitic attacks by Islamists, they might nip in the bud later, often worse attacks on non-Jews.
On Friday, Salhi decapitated his 54-year-old boss at the delivery company for which he worked. His “head was hung onto the fence surrounded by two Islamic flags bearing the Shahada, the profession of the Muslim faith,” French prosecutor Francois Molins said.
The director of the gas plant which was attacked is a Shia Muslim or Iranian origin called Seifi Ghasemi, reports the Daily Telegraph.
***
(At the end of item 13 in this dispatch in April, there is a short clip of the chief rabbi of Lyon explaining how he gets death threats on a regular basis.)
FRENCH BEHEADING SUSPECT SENT “SELFIE” WITH SEVERED HEAD, TO CANADIAN CONTACT
Yassin Salhi, the French Jihadi accused of decapitating his boss and pinning his head to the gates of a gas factory in France on Friday sent a “selfie” photograph with the severed head, French investigators said yesterday.
The “selfie” picture was sent via the WhatsApp messaging system to a number in Canada, investigators said.
When the Islamic State has beheaded prisoners in Syria, Nigeria and elsewhere, it has photographed and displayed their heads on the Internet to inspire others to do the same.
VIGIL FOR BEHEADING VICTIM
Yesterday, hundreds of people turned out in a vigil to honor slain French beheading victim Herve Cornara. A minute’s silence was held in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, the town southeast of Lyon where Friday’s attack took place.
Several hundred people gathered outside a housing project in the town of Fontaines-sur-Saone where Cornara, 54, lived. Cornara was the manager of a transportation company that had employed Salhi since March. Agence France Presse (AFP) reports that those gathered said he was “a kind, humble man who was active in the community of the Lyon suburb”.
“He lived on the fifth floor, me on the fourth,” said Leila Bouri, a 24-year-old cafe cashier and French Muslim. “He spoke with all the young people in the neighborhood. He didn’t differentiate between Muslims and non-Muslims. He was friendly to us all.”
MEANWHILE ACTIVISTS IN THE WEST ARE TARGETING… ISRAEL
Hamas are an integral part of the worldwide Sunni Islamist extremist movement. Never mind what they have done to the Jews, what they have done to many fellow Palestinians is hardly any better than what ISIS has done to its victims: dragging them at high speed through the streets of Gaza chained to the backs motorcycles until their skin rips apart, pushing doctors to their deaths off Gaza high-rises, and so on.
The latest pro-Hamas flotilla is on is way, funded by many western well-wishers, and receiving grants form NGOs which themselves are funded by European governments, including the French government.
https://ff3.freedomflotilla.org/next-stop-gaza/
This Hamas newspaper says “Almost 1,000 participants from 25 countries around the world, including parliamentarians and Tunisia's ex-president, will be on the deck.”
***
I attach two articles below.
-- Tom Gross
ARTICLES
YOU CAN’T GET MARRIED IF YOU’RE DEAD
Love Among the Ruins
* Hurrah for gay marriage. But why do supporters save their vitriol for its foes instead of the barbarians at our gates?
By Bari Weiss
Wall Street Journal
June 27, 2015
On Friday my phone was blowing up with messages, asking if I’d seen the news. Some expressed disbelief at the headlines. Many said they were crying.
None of them were talking about the dozens of people gunned down in Sousse, Tunisia, by a man who, dressed as a tourist, had hidden his Kalashnikov inside a beach umbrella. Not one was crying over the beheading in a terrorist attack at a chemical factory near Lyon, France. The victim’s head was found on a pike near the factory, his body covered with Arabic inscriptions. And no Facebook friends mentioned the first suicide bombing in Kuwait in more than two decades, in which 27 people were murdered in one of the oldest Shiite mosques in the country.
They were talking about the only news that mattered: gay marriage.
Unlike President Obama, I have always been a staunch supporter of gay marriage, and I cheered the Supreme Court’s ruling making gay marriage legal in all 50 states. But as happy as I was, I was equally upset on Friday—and not just with the Islamists who carried out those savage attacks.
Moral relativism has become its own, perverse form of nativism among those who stake their identity on being universalist and progressive.
How else to explain the lack of outrage for the innocents murdered on the beach, while vitriol is heaped on those who express any shred of doubt about the Supreme Court ruling? How else to make sense of the legions of social-justice activists here at home who have nothing to say about countries where justice means flogging, beheading or stoning?
How else to understand those who have dedicated their lives to creating safe spaces for transgender people, yet issue no news releases about gender apartheid in an entire region of the world? How else to justify that at the gay-pride celebrations this weekend in Manhattan there is unlikely to be much mention of the gay men recently thrown off buildings in Syria and Iraq, their still-warm bodies desecrated by mobs?
It is increasingly eerie to live in this split-screen age. Earlier this week I received an email from a progressive Jewish organization about how Judaism teaches “that the preservation of human dignity is important enough to justify overriding our sacred mitzvot.” The rest of the email was about respecting dignity by using preferred gender pronouns.
On my other computer screen, I looked at a photograph of five men in orange jumpsuits, their legs bound. They were trapped like dogs inside a metal cage and hanging above a pool of water. They were drawing their final breaths before their Islamic State captors lowered the cage into the pool and they drowned together.
What was that about human dignity?
The barbarians are at our gates. But inside our offices, schools, churches, synagogues and homes, we are posting photos of rainbows on Twitter. It’s easier to Photoshop images of Justice Scalia as Voldemort than it is to stare evil in the face.
You can’t get married if you’re dead.
FROM BELSEN TO ISIS: YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN THIS BY POLITICS/IDEOLOGY ALONE
After Tunisia, Kuwait and France we should not be afraid to call evil by its name
* The sheer sadism of Islamic State cannot be explained by politics alone. It comes from something deeper and darker
By Jonathan Freedland
The Guardian
June 27, 2015
In France, in Tunisia, in Kuwait – horror upon horror, in a single day. It played out like some kind of gruesome auction, each atrocity bidding against the others for our appalled attention. The opening offer came near Lyon, where a factory was attacked and, more shocking, a severed head was found on top of a gate, and a decapitated body nearby. The French president said the corpse had been inscribed with a message.
From the Tunisian resort of Sousse, holidaymakers tweeted terrified pictures from their barricaded hotel rooms, describing how they had fled from the beach after sounds they had assumed were a daytime fireworks display turned out to be the opening gunshots of a massacre. From Kuwait City, as if to top the rival bids, a suicide bomber walked into a mosque packed with 2,000 people and pressed the button that he hoped would send scores to their deaths.
Each of these acts pulled our gaze from the event its perpetrators had surely hoped would trump all others. On Tuesday an Isis video – “snuff movie” would be the more accurate term – showed five Muslim men, each wearing a Guantánamo-style red jumpsuit, packed into a cage and lowered into a swimming pool. State-of-the-art underwater cameras recorded the men’s dying minutes, the thrashing and flailing as they drowned. (I rely here on reports: my small stance against the so-called Islamic State’s propaganda war is to refuse to watch its propaganda.)
What are we to make of these events? What are we to do with what we have witnessed? Experts will look for connections, for common authorship. There will be claims of responsibility. Islamic State has already sought credit for the deaths in Kuwait. There will be analysis aplenty of IS’s position, of the global response, of the nature of contemporary terrorism.
But a simpler thing connects these horrendous incidents. A clue to it came in a quieter moment, one all but lost in the calamity and grief of this bloody Friday. The Queen visited Bergen-Belsen, a Nazi concentration camp liberated 70 years ago, where unspeakable brutality reigned and where 50,000 lost their lives.
Within months of the war’s end in 1945, the political theorist Hannah Arendt wrote: “The problem of evil will be the fundamental question of postwar intellectual life in Europe.” She meant that after the Holocaust – when Europeans had seen what they were capable of – the dominant concern would be understanding how such horror had been possible. As it happened, that contemplation of the Holocaust did not come straight away, and it did not come everywhere. But it did come.
In the process, “the problem of evil” became shorthand for a particular challenge to people of faith: how can one believe in a benevolent, all-powerful God when the world contains such wickedness? The Nazi murder of 6 million Jews, including more than a million children, almost became a point of theology, a standing rebuttal to the possibility of a good God.
But what we saw today confirms that “the problem of evil” is not a historical question. It is a problem of now. And nor does it challenge only religious believers. It surely vexes all of us, as we contemplate a world where such cruelty can happen – whether it was worshippers gunned down in Charleston last week or blown apart in Kuwait today.
I know there are coherent, substantial explanations for all these events. Historical legacies, geopolitical forces, local factors: they are all relevant, but they only go so far. They do not reach the heart of the matter: how is such horror possible?
Take the example of the underwater drowning, so carefully staged and slickly filmed. Anti-Shia sectarianism might explain the killers’ hatred and therefore their motive. The 2003 invasion of Iraq helps explain the killers’ capacity, their ability to wreak such violence: they are only able to rule in Nineveh because US-led forces destroyed the Iraqi state. But that doesn’t explain the sheer sadism on show, the ability of one human being to inflict not just death but such a painful, humiliating death on another.
One option is not to regard it as puzzling at all. Recall the character in Woody Allen’s movie Hannah and Her Sisters, whose response to Arendt’s problem of evil was to say that people who ask how the Holocaust happened are asking the wrong question. “Given what people are, the question is, ‘Why doesn’t it happen more often?’”
The crucial phrase there is “given what people are”. Such a stance rests on a bleak view of human nature. If we believe that people are innately savage creatures who delight in each other’s pain, then it is no surprise the young men of Isis will try to pile one atrocity upon another – torching a man in a cage, executing children, forcing a child to shoot dead an adult – turning sadism into a competitive sport.
But if we have a different view of human beings and their capacity for love and empathy, then the problem of evil persists. We can fall back on psychology, suggesting or even hoping that the men behind today’s horrors were simply unhinged, damaged individuals, no different in kind from Nicholas Salvador, who was committed indefinitely to a secure psychiatric hospital this week, for his beheading of Palmira Silva, an 82-year-old north London grandmother.
Or, if we decide the killers are sane, we can look to the psychology of groups. We can remind ourselves of the post-Holocaust work of Stanley Milgram whose experiments on obedience demonstrated a human willingness to inflict great pain, just so long as one was following the instructions of a trusted authority.
We might turn to those at the cutting edge of “philosophy of mind”, who argue that the self is a collection of fragmented character traits. “In a unified self, it all fits into a coherent whole,” Professor Quassim Cassam of Warwick University explained to me. “But in others, the self is made up of different fragments which are not coherent.” Such people can compartmentalise, complying with human norms in one part of their lives while violating them in another.
A simpler explanation is that the butchers of Islamic State are following an age-old military tactic, one that would have been recognised by Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun: terrify the enemy. Isis drowned those men to make us tremble.
It works too. Holidaymakers will abandon Sousse, at least for a while. But while these crimes sow fear, they also prompt revulsion. And that revulsion is shared. I spoke yesterday with Usama Hasan, an Islamic scholar and one-time jihadist. He spoke of his “disgust” at the evils committed this week, noting how alien they were to Islamic scripture which forbids, for example, the desecration of a corpse.
He said that a battle was under way for civilisation, one that should unite the great societies and religions of the world – Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and more – against the vicious death cult that is violent jihadism. It would be a nonsense to speak of such a struggle as a war against evil. A war like that could never be won. Evil is within us and it is, apparently, perennial. But we must not be afraid to name it for what it truly is.
In a barbaric new 7-minute video released by ISIS yesterday, caged “infidels” are lowered into a swimming pool and drowned. Slick (and highly expensive) ISIS hi-tech underwater propaganda cameras capture their murders in close-up detail, as they desperately gasp for air and thrash their limbs around before dying. Muslims and converts to Islam from more than 100 countries have joined the ISIS terror group.
* 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. Isis snuff movie plumbs new depths
2. Leading media close their eyes
3. ISIS crucifies two children, accusing them of breaking Ramadan fast
4. ISIS offers Yazidi sex slaves as prizes for Ramadan quiz
5. Female suicide bombers murder 30 at crowded Ramadan mosque that wasn’t Muslim enough
6. ISIS begins blowing up ancient shrines in Palmyra
7. Meanwhile at the NY Times: Erekat: Jerusalem is Israel’s capital; NYT says Tel Aviv is
8. New York Times’ Rosenthal and colleagues act out mass killings at work
9. Former President Ahmadinejad: U.S. seeks to arrest the Hidden Imam
10. Video: Pepsi uses Seinfeld character to film ad in Israel
[Notes below by Tom Gross]
ISIS SNUFF MOVIE PLUMBS NEW DEPTHS
A vile new ISIS video shows prisoners locked in a cage and lowered into a swimming pool in Mosul and drowned, while another group are locked in a car and then blown up with a missile launcher at close range. They can be seen burned and decapitated by the blast, while others suffer horrific upper body injuries before dying. The final scene is the most repulsive of all: seven prisoners are led out chained together with explosive necklaces, which are then detonated.
The video also shows the cage hauled back out of the swimming pool, with the men foaming at the mouth as they lie dead on the cage floor.
It is disappointing that the New York Times places this story only on page 6 of today’s paper (and far down its home page online), without showing any photos, and none of the BBC news bulletins I listened to yesterday and today mentioned it. (Media such as the New York Times certainly haven’t avoided showing graphic photos whenever they can cast Israel in as bad a light as possible.)
LEADING MEDIA CLOSE THEIR EYES
Many would consider it crucial that people see these images and that the New York Times and others don’t close their eyes to what is going on, including reporting on almost equally horrific crimes being perpetrated by the Iranian regime-orchestrated militias and by the Assad regime (which is continuing to use chemical weapons).
The New York Times has never properly acknowledged how they closed their eyes during the Holocaust during the Holocaust and it was revealed only this month that the BBC removed the word “Jews” from their the Holocaust coverage so as to mislead audiences what was happening:
(BBC forced my father to cut all references to Jews from Belsen broadcast, reveals Richard Dimbleby’s son, Jonathan, London Sunday Times, June 7, 2015)
***
I don’t recommend watching the new ISIS video unless you have a strong stomach, but I do recommend viewing these photos, which other papers did run.
Here, for example, from the (London) Daily Mail.
***
This is the latest in series of grizzly videos ISIS has released.
(For new subscribers to this list, you may want to watch the interview I conducted with a French hostage who was held by ISIS chained to the British and American hostages who were beheaded last year in carefully choreographed ISIS propaganda videos. I also wrote about it here in the Daily Mail.)
ISIS OFFER YAZIDI SEX SLAVES AS PRIZES FOR RAMADAN QUIZ
The Islamic State competition to memorize the Koran for Ramadan is offering as prizes young Yazidi girls as sex slaves, according to multiple media reports.
The competition is being held in the northern Syrian state of Hasakah. The seven-day competition is set to finish on 27 June.
The ongoing genocide of the Yazidi people is being carried out with barely a peep of protest by the self-styled peace and human rights activists in the west.
Among related dispatches:
* “Genocide” of Yazidis waiting to happen if America pulls out of Iraq too soon (November 16, 2007)
* Threats against Yazidis were predictable and predicted
* Yazidi leaders beg Obama to bomb the compound where thousands of Yazidi women and girls are being held. They say that even though some Yazidis would be killed in the bombing, it would give the others a chance to escape.
REUTERS: ISIS CRUCIFIES TWO CHILDREN, ACCUSING THEM OF BREAKING RAMADAN FAST
Two young boys were crucified by Islamic State in the streets of the Syrian town of al-Mayadin for not observing the laws of Ramadan, Reuters and AP reported yesterday, citing the (reliable) Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The children, who were charged with the crime of “not fasting on Ramadan,” had placards around their necks announcing their crime.
The Independent newspaper (London) reported that the boys had been caught eating during daylight hours in Ramadan. The boys were hung from their wrists near the Islamic State police headquarters, and their bodies were left on display until late Monday evening.
Throughout the month of Ramadan, which began on Thursday, devout Muslims abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and having sex from dawn until sunset.
The Islamic State has crucified several other adults and children for breaking Sharia law, not just in Syria but last month in Libya too.
FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBERS MURDER 30 AT CROWDED RAMADAN MOSQUE THAT WASN’T MUSLIM ENOUGH
The Associated Press reports from Nigeria (June 22, 2015):
“Two girls blew themselves up on Monday near a crowded mosque in northeast Nigeria’s biggest city, killing about 30 people, witnesses said.
It is the fourth suicide bombing this month in Maiduguri, which is the birthplace of the Boko Haram Islamic extremist group.
Fishmonger Idi Idrisa said one teenager exploded as she approached the mosque crowded with people from the nearby Baga Road fish market, performing afternoon prayers during the holy month of Ramadan…
Boko Haram has kidnapped hundreds of girls and women and the numbers of female suicide bombers has raised fears that it is using the captives in its campaign.
A military bomb disposal expert has told the AP that most bombs carried by girls and women have remote detonation devices, meaning the carrier cannot control the explosion….
ISIS BEGINS BLOWING UP ANCIENT SHRINES IN PALMYRA
Reuters reported yesterday that the Islamic State has blown up two ancient shrines in Palmyra, a 2,000-year-old UNESCO World Heritage site in central Syria. The group seized Palmyra in May. Before-and-after pictures showed several terrorists carrying explosives and the shrines then reduced to rubble.
Syrian antiquities Chief Abdul Maamoun Abdulkarim said, “In all the areas where they spread when they see tombs they destroy them as see them as sacrilegious and a return to paganism.”
Hundreds of statues had been moved from the city to safe locations before ISIS took over, he told Reuters.
***
Mahmoud al-Salfiti, the Palestinian terrorist convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni in Gaza in 2011, has fled to Syria in order to join Islamic State, the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds reports. He was on leave from prison to visit his family for Ramadan.
MEANWHILE AT THE NEW YORK TIMES: EREKAT: JERUSALEM IS ISRAEL’S CAPITAL; NYT SAYS TEL AVIV IS
It would take me all day to catalogue just how misleading the New York Times ’ Israel coverage is, particularly on its editorial pages. (Michael Oren calls the Times’ Israel coverage “malicious” in his new book, Ally.)
Yesterday the Times ran yet another lengthy editorial lambasting Israel, parroting UNHRC reports as though they were accurate!
Today the paper suggests on its news pages that Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel. (“The move is the latest effort by Tel Aviv this week to rescind gestures that were intended to ease movement into Israeli-controlled territory for the Muslim holy month.”)
The position of the New York Times and the U.S. State Department that Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel looks increasingly absurd when even Saeb Erekat and the Palestinian Authority last week again called (west) Jerusalem the capital of Israel.
***
In contrast to the anti-Israel Jewish columnists and editorialists at the New York Times, more European papers are running editorials and op-ed pieces understanding of Israel’s position and predicament:
For example, here in today’s Irish Independent:
Boycott of Tel Aviv feis shows the face of real bigotry
By Ian O’Doherty
NEW YORK TIMES’ ROSENTHAL AND COLLEAGUES ACT OUT MASS KILLINGS AT WORK
Photos leaked yesterday by other staff at the New York Times show editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal and his colleagues acting out mass killings, as if they were some sort of subject to laugh about.
FORMER PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD: U.S. SEEKS TO ARREST THE HIDDEN IMAM
Golnaz Esfandiari (who is a friend of mine and a long time subscriber to this list) reports for Radio Farda (the Iranian section of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty):
Iran’s former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reportedly said that the United States is working to arrest the Hidden Imam, who according to Shi’ite belief went into hiding in the 10th century and will reappear to bring justice to Earth. [TG: An event that coincides, in Ahmadinejad’s belief, with Israel being wiped out.]
Ahmadinejad made the comments in a speech to a group of clerics marking the start of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, according to a transcript posted on June 21 on the website Dolatebahar.com, which is run by his supporters.
Ahmadinejad is quoted as saying that the West has been building a case against the Hidden Imam to prevent his reappearance…
“They’ve done so much research about the Hidden Imam in the human science universities of the United States that I am not exaggerating by saying that it is a thousand times more than all the work done in the seminaries of Qom, Najaf, and Mashhad,” he reportedly said, referring to three Shi’ite holy cities.
Ahmadinejad, who is known for his controversial statements and his devotion to the Hidden Imam, added that U.S. universities have debriefed numerous individuals who have been in touch with the disappeared spiritual leader…
VIDEO: PEPSI USES SEINFELD CHARACTER TO FILM AD IN ISRAEL
And today’s “lighter” story…
Pepsi Max has used the famous Seinfeld ‘Soup Nazi’ character, played by actor Larry Thomas, to film an ad for in the Israeli coastal town of Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv.
* Inc. magazine (June 15): “Israel’s ‘Silicon Wadi’ is the number two start-up market in the world, second only to Silicon Valley in California. KPMG reports that Israeli high-tech and life sciences capital raising is at an all-time record.”
* Chinese investment flowing into Israel.
* Bon Jovi dismiss as utter lies reports in British and other western media; say Israel is “the one place they want to play” and they “couldn’t care less about boycott calls”; looking forward to Tel Aviv concert.
* American comedian Jay Leno returns to Israel (this time with Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones). Leno: “President Obama has declared the month of May Jewish American Heritage Month. He is calling it an opportunity to renew our ‘unbreakable bond with the nation of Israel.’ And he knows it’s unbreakable because he’s been trying to break it for the last several years.”
* 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. Bosnia soccer fans chant “kill the Jews” before match; riot police protect Israelis
2. Croatia to be investigated for allowing huge swastika on pitch
3. It’s not all boycott-Israel in Britain
4. Bon Jovi dismiss “BDS and media lies”; say Israel is the one place they want to play
5. No more ‘Livin on a prayer’ for Israel
6. Michael Douglas to give talk in Israel tomorrow; Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jay Leno accompany him
7. Inc. magazine: Foreign investment pouring into Israel
8. Hamas “close to agreeing five-year ceasefire with Israel”
9. Israel further eases restrictions on Palestinians for Ramadan
10. Al-Ahram recommends “Jewish” series for Ramadan
11. Saudi journalist: attack Iranian nukes, and open an Israeli Embassy in Riyadh
12. “Wanting only the best possible future for the Palestinians”
[Notes below by Tom Gross]
BOSNIA SOCCER FANS CHANT “KILL THE JEWS” BEFORE MATCH; RIOT POLICE PROTECT ISRAELI PLAYERS
-
Bosnia soccer fans trample on an Israeli flag before trying to attack the Israeli players ahead of last Friday’s match against Israel. There were also many anti-Semitic chants calling for the deaths of Jews.
Bosnian riot police deployed hundreds of officers along the route from the Israeli team’s hotel to the stadium to protect the Israeli players. Hatred of Israel and Jews was whipped up last month after Israel (and only Israel) was singled out for opprobrium by dozens of national football (soccer) associations at the FIFA congress.
A security official from the Bosnia-Herzegovina Football Federation, Adis Hajlovats, confirmed to the Turkish Anadolu Agency that Israeli players were protected by the country’s most elite forces during their time in the country. Manchester City’s star Edin Dzeko led Bosnia to a 3-1 win in the game after Israel took a surprising 1-0 lead.
Before another match that Bosnia played in Austria a few weeks ago, Austrians began shouting pro-Palestinian slogans in Vienna’s central Stephansplatz plaza. Bosnian fans responded with a chant of “Ubij, ubij Židove!” (“Kill, kill the Jews!”) as can be seen in this video.
CROATIA TO BE INVESTIGATED FOR ALLOWING HUGE SWASTIKA ON PITCH
The European soccer body UEFA say they will investigate Croatia after a massive swastika was allowed to remain carved on the grass on the pitch during Croatia’s Euro 2016 qualifier match against Italy in Split also last Friday. (Tens of thousands of Jews were murdered in Bosnia and Croatia during the war.)
The photo below shows fans of Karpaty Lviv from western Ukraine. No action has been taken by the Ukrainian authorities. Lviv (previously called Lemberg, Lwow and Lvov) was the third biggest Jewish town in Poland before the war. During the war it was annexed into Ukraine. The Jewish population was wiped out at the nearby Belzec death camp (where over 450,00 Jews were killed and only 7 survived).
-
IT’S NOT ALL BOYCOTT-ISRAEL IN BRITAIN
The Guardian reports that Israeli artist Matan Ben Cnaan last night won the prestgious BP portrait award for what the judges called an “engaging filmic narrative” inspired by biblical story of Jephthah set “in the blistering sunlight of Israel’s Jezreel Valley”.
As The Guardian notes, it is one of the world’s most prestigious painting awards. The award was announced at a ceremony yesterday evening at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
There were a record number of entries this year – 2,748 portraits from 92 countries, up from 2,377 from 71 countries last year.
BON JOVI DISMISS “BDS AND MEDIA LIES”, SAY ISRAEL IS THE ONE PLACE THEY WANT TO PLAY
While anti-Israel media abroad such as the New York Times tend to focus in great detail on those very few (and usually minor) artists who are boycotting Israel, in general they fail to mention the great number of international artists and musicians performing in Israel.
Robbie Williams played to tens of thousands of fans in Tel Aviv last month. Last week singer Art Garfunkel performed with his son in Israel.
And American rockers Bon Jovi, one of the world’s biggest groups, has announced they will give their first show in Israel on October 3. Bon Jovi has dismissed as “absolute lies” claim by the BDS movements that the group had a boycott policy against Israel.
In 2013, lead singer Jon Bon Jovi told BBC radio 2 that of all the countries he’s never played, the one he most wanted to perform in was Israel.
NO MORE ‘LIVIN ON A PRAYER’ FOR ISRAEL
Among stories dismissed as a complete lie, is this one by Jerusalem correspondent Alistair Dawber of the British paper The Independent, which stated “The issue of artists giving performances in Israel is controversial. In recent years, Jon Bon Jovi and the South African band Ladysmith Black Mambazo have cancelled concerts in support of the BDS – or Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions – movement.”
The Independent has just now added another utterly duplicitous and misleading “correction” in italics at the foot of their story.
Bon Jovi say they have never contemplated boycotting Israel and can’t wait to play there. In a statement through his manager, Jon Bon Jovi said he “couldn’t care less” about an email campaign from political extremists calling on him to boycott the Jewish state.
Here is their track “Livin on a prayer”.
***
As I noted in this dispatch last month:
“Neither The Guardian nor New York Times stories on Lauryn Hill mentioned that Robbie Williams played to 40,000 fans in Tel Aviv on May 2, or that Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys, Madonna, Lady Gaga, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and others all played in Israel recently.”
See also item 7 here: Lady Gaga: “World view of Israel is wrong”
MICHAEL DOUGLAS TO GIVE TALK IN ISRAEL TOMORROW; CATHERINE ZETA-JONES AND JAY LENO ACCOMPANY HIM
Film stars Michael Douglas and his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones are in Israel again this week. Tomorrow Douglas is to make public remarks as he accepts the 2015 Genesis Prize, presented to him at the Jerusalem Theater by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
American comedian and chat show host Jay Leno, who was master of ceremonies at last year’s prize in Jerusalem, said he enjoyed his trip to Israel so much that he is returning again to be master of ceremonies at this year’s award. Israeli Supermodel Bar Refaeli will join Leno as a co-presenter.
Tomorrow morning prior to the presentation, Douglas will have a one-on-one conversation with filmmaker Benjamin Freidenberg at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.
***
* See also: Film star Michael Douglas in the Los Angeles Times: “Anti-Semitism now derives [in part] from an irrational and misplaced hatred of Israel.”
* See also remarks from Jay Leno’s visit to Israel last year:
“President Obama has declared the month of May Jewish American Heritage Month. He is calling it an opportunity to renew our ‘unbreakable bond with the nation of Israel.’ And he knows it’s unbreakable because he’s been trying to break it for the last five years.”
* See also at the same link above, a photo of Hollywood star Samuel L. Jackson taking a “selfie” at New York’s Israel parade, which he then tweeted to his 3.74 million Twitter followers.
INC. MAGAZINE: FOREIGN INVESTMENT POURING INTO ISRAEL
Inc. magazine reported on Monday (June 15) that the raising of capital for Israeli high-tech and life sciences startups rose to an all-time record in 2014, up 46% on 2013 levels, as Chinese and overseas investors poured money into the market.
“Israel’s ‘Silicon Wadi’ is the number two start-up market in the world, second only to Silicon Valley in California, with over 6,000 startups being founded in the last 10 years. It currently has about 70 active venture capital funds, of which 14 are international VCs with Israeli offices.
“Both KPMG and Israeli-based research center IVC report that Israeli high-tech and life sciences capital raising set an all-time record as 688 companies raised $3.4 billion in 2014. This amount was 46 percent higher than 2013, when 659 companies raised $2.3 billion.”
HAMAS “CLOSE TO AGREEING FIVE-YEAR CEASEFIRE WITH ISRAEL”
The Saudi paper Asharq Al-Awsat reported yesterday:
“Hamas and Israel are close to agreeing on a five-year truce plan, after two weeks of continued discussions between both sides, informed sources have told Asharq Al-Awsat.
“The plan, proposed by Qatar and supported by Turkey as well as a number of EU countries and the UN, would see Hamas and Israel declare a five-year ceasefire in exchange for Israel easing its blockade of Gaza, speeding up the process of rebuilding the Strip, and constructing a floating seaport on the Gaza coast. The plan could also be extended beyond the five years…
“Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has criticized the current ceasefire proposal, saying that only the Palestinian Authority (PA) – the interim Palestinian government which Abbas heads as president – should negotiate directly with Israel.
“He has accused Hamas of conducting ‘secret and unilateral’ negotiations with Tel Aviv without consulting other Palestinian groups, in a bid to boost its own international legitimacy and bypass the PA.”
***
Tom Gross adds: The Hamas newspaper and website in Gaza Alresalah.ps today dismisses these reports:
Hayya: Claims on Truce Aim to Preoccupy the Public Opinion
17 June 2015
http://english.alresalah.ps/en/post.php?id=4715
Gaza (Alresalah.ps) — The prominent leader in Hamas movement Khalil al-Hayya stated that much talking about the truce aims to preoccupy the public opinion and delude people that Gaza problems will be solved through calm.
ISRAEL FURTHER EASES RESTRICTIONS ON PALESTINIANS FOR RAMADAN
Prior to the month-long Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which began today, Israel has further eased a series of restrictions on Palestinians. Tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank (and hundreds from Gaza) usually come to Friday prayers at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan.
But this year for the first time, Israel is arranging special shuttle buses to make it easier for them to travel directly from West Bank towns to the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Some Palestinian officials objected to the idea of Palestinians riding on Israeli buses and say they may try and stop the Israeli buses from running. The announcement is the latest in a series of moves by the Netanyahu government designed to make daily life easier for Palestinians. There are now fewer restrictions and checkpoints in the West Bank than there have been for decades.
Israel is also bringing 800 Palestinians from Gaza to visit Jerusalem each Friday.
***
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today met in his office with Dr. Qanta Ahmed, the noted activist against Islamic extremism. The meeting was arranged by Likud MK Anat Berko (a long time subscriber to this list, who tells me she learned of Dr. Qanta from this list).
AL-AHRAM RECOMMENDS “JEWISH” SERIES FOR RAMADAN
This is a follow-up to item 3 in this dispatch:
New Egyptian TV drama set to show Jews in non anti-Semitic light
The leading Egyptian paper Al-Ahram Online has now recommended “five TV series to watch during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan” and this is one of them:
Ahram Online, Friday 12 Jun 2015
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/5/159/132531/Arts--Culture/Entertainment/Five-Egypt-television-series-to-watch-this-Ramadan.aspx
...2. Harrat El Yahood (The Jews’ Alley)
Director: Mohamed Gamal Al Adl
Scriptwriter: Medhat Al Adl
Producer: Gamal Al Adl
Starring: Menna Shalaby, Eyad Nassar, Gamil Rateb, Shouikar, Riham
Abdelghafour, Hala Sedki, Ahmed Hatem
The series traces how particular events in modern Egyptian history -- namely the 23 July Revolution and the 1956 War -- affected the everyday lives of the Jews of Egypt. At its core is the story of a Jewish girl (Menna Shalaby) who falls in love with a Muslim (Eyad Nassar), a love that becomes impossible due to the changing political environment in Egypt in the 1950s.
SAUDI JOURNALIST: ATTACK IRANIAN NUKES, AND OPEN AN ISRAELI EMBASSY IN RIYADH
Iran’s Fars news agency reported yesterday that Saudi journalist Dahham Al Enazi has infuriated social network users after he advocated attacking Iran and opening an Israeli embassy in Riyadh.
“We welcome replacing Iranian embassy compound in Riyadh with an Israeli embassy, then launch a shared war on Iran and destroy its nuclear power plants; then when it (Israel) withdraws to the 1967 borders, we will recognize it and make it a member of the Arab League,” Al Enazi wrote.
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940326001030
-- Tom Gross
ARTICLES
“WANTING ONLY THE BEST POSSIBLE FUTURE FOR THE PALESTINIANS”
The following letter by Denis MacEoin was sent to the Executive Council of the National Union of Students (NUS), an umbrella organization representing 600 British student unions across the UK, questioning why they voted to boycott Israel on June 2.
Denis MacEoin is a lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University in northern England, and an expert on Islam and Shari’a Law. He is fluent in Persian and Arabic, and has a PhD in Persian/Islamic Studies from Cambridge University.
The letter was reprinted with Denis MacEoin’s permission by the Gatestone Institute of which he is a senior fellow. (He is also a subscriber to this email list.)
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5939/university-human-rights
The Upside-Down World of University Human Rights
By Denis MacEoin
June 13, 2015
Neither the great many supporters of Israel whom I know personally nor I want anything but the best possible future for the Palestinians. No one I know hates the Palestinians. What we do hate are the organizations that exploit and dominate the Palestinian people, that deny them the right to vote for new governments, the culture of hatred in Palestinian mosques, schools, and political speeches, and the acts of terror and war that have been directed at Jewish, Muslim and Christian Arab Israelis for many decades. It is the hatred and the violence we deplore, knowing as we do that this hurts not only Israelis, but that, since 1948, it has been blocking Palestinians from achieving their true potential.
We believe sincerely that boycotting, sanctioning and divesting from Israel will not bring peace so long as the Palestinian leaderships in Gaza and the West Bank insist that they intend to destroy Israel and take control of its entire territory.
Your latest resolution to boycott Israel is in defiance of historical, geographical, political and legal fact. Your motions are built on a pastiche of lies, misunderstandings, and distortions of reality. That worries me. It worries me because I expect today’s university students to be as earnest in their pursuit of truth and fact as I was trained to be when I was in their position. It is not your fault. You study the sciences or philosophy or literature or European history, and you do not have historical, political, or sociological training to equip you to comment or write motions on the situation in the Middle East.
If you cannot read Arabic or another Islamic language, if you have never studied Islamic history, doctrine, scripture or civilization, if you know little of the modern history of the Middle East from the collapse of the Ottoman empire until today, if you rely entirely on propaganda put out by pro-Palestinian activists, if you refuse to listen to or take on board the views of scholars and others from the Israeli point of view, you are in denial of all the best values of objective enquiry of the academy. I do not meddle in physics, medicine, Chinese affairs, or Latin American politics because I have no expert knowledge of any of them. Ignorance is not a substitute for informed understanding.
By acting as you do, you undermine the most basic principles on which the academy is founded, principles from which you draw the justification for your studies and the worth of the degrees you will at last have, and which you will employ as guarantees of your later success in life. Those principles, without which no university can possess even a shred of authority, include freedom of speech and authorship, open and free debate, vigorous argument built on reason and logic, and, perhaps most importantly, the consideration of both sides to any dispute.
You all know that an essay that uses sources from one side only will be failed. However forceful the argument, if it gives no space to the views of those with whom the writer disagrees, it will -- and should be -- rejected. No doubt, one-sidedness works well as a foundation for political success, not least in the use of propaganda. But it is an insult to the values of academic life.
We in Britain enjoy freedom to present controversial views, unlike the teachers and students in countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Pakistan, Egypt and a host of other states, where disagreeing with official religious or political views can lead to arrest, imprisonment, and even death.
For the sake of students living in totalitarian states across the globe, we in the liberal democracies are obliged to take advantage of our freedom to debate. But that does not mean allowing ourselves to be swayed by manifest “agitprop,” distortion or factual inaccuracy. And it does not permit us to ban opinions on a racist basis (as is the case with academic boycotts of Israeli Jews). There is no sign in the motions you passed of Israeli opinion, just the views of one side.
You make no mention of the extraordinary good Israel does in the world, its medical aid for thousands of Palestinians in Israeli hospitals and clinics, its life-saving surgery for Palestinian children with heart defects, its international aid following disasters around the world -- Haiti, the Philippines, South Sudan and, most recently its provision of the largest medical aid team in Nepal.
You are silent about the Israeli treatment of injured Syrian refugees, the major role it plays in advancing agriculture in Africa and other parts of the Third World, and its growing work with advancing countries such as India and China.
You say not a word about the fact that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, the only country in the region to give full equal rights under law to women and members of the LGBT community, to protect its Christian, Muslim and Baha’i minorities and their holy places, you say nothing its full civil rights for Israeli Arabs, or its strenuous efforts to end discrimination against them.
You criticize Israel, a country that advances human rights, and you are mute when it comes to the egregious human rights abuses in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Sudan, Russia, North Korea, Turkey, Syria, Tibet, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Thailand, Cambodia and elsewhere.
The world you live in is upside-down: you claim to act in defense of human rights, but your motions do not reflect this. You give free passage to the worst abusers of human rights -- countries that persecute religious minorities, suppress and kill women, throw homosexuals from high roofs, execute hundreds of dissidents every year, imprison, torture and slaughter -- without rebuke. Yet you fulminate against Israel, which does none of those things. It does not use torture, it does not execute anyone, not even Palestinian terrorists who have committed mass murder against innocent civilians and children -- and all this while being forced to defend itself against more wars, more terrorist attacks, and more hatred than are suffered by the rest of the world combined.
In one motion, you condemn Israel for its invasion of Gaza in 2014, but say not a word about the simple fact that the war was started when Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired dozens, then hundreds of rockets into civilian areas in Israel’s south. It is a plain matter of international law that Israel defended itself by retaliating against its enemies.
You do not even mention two reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International stating that the war crimes were carried out by Hamas, and that many of the Gazan citizens who died were, in fact, killed by Hamas rockets.
Are you proud of yourselves to be involved in a campaign against Israel that is being described by more and more legislatures as a modern expression of anti-Semitism, almost identical to the Jew-hatred of Nazi Germany? Are you unaware that anti-Semitism, a deadly form of racism, is growing in Britain and across Europe, and that much of this is directly funded and fostered by the anti-Israel campaigns?
Do you support people like the marchers in London, Amsterdam, and many other cities who have walked on our streets chanting “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas”? Is that something that left-wing students in the UK find endearing or proper? Why do none of you campaign against that? Why do you not expel members who subscribe to that philosophy? Are you happy to share your campuses with people who want to kill Jews?
You rightly oppose Islamophobia, but act willingly to foster anti-Semitism, which is by far the larger prejudice. There are many more attacks on Jews in Europe (including the UK) than on Muslims, yet one only ever sees “liberal” students marching hand in hand with Muslims who call for the destruction of Israel and support some of the world’s most bloody terrorist groups.
Should your conference not have addressed that degree of bigotry instead of battening on a democracy that can serve as a role model across the region in which it is located?
You support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), yet ignore the fact that many years of boycott campaigns against Israel have proved totally useless. Israel today is a leader in medicine, science, technology, business and humanitarian relief. Other countries flock to it to benefit from its high level of expertise. Growing numbers of the world’s major companies from Apple to Google and, very soon, Alibaba, are opening major R&D centers there. Investors from almost everywhere are ploughing money into the staggering list of Israeli start-ups. BDS is a failure. Why should you think your resolution to boycott Israel will make the slightest impression on the sixth largest country, economically, in the world? It is a mere irritant that sends out a false message that tells the world more about you than about Israel.
Your prejudice is as appalling as your refusal to act fairly and honestly. Criticize Israel if you must, but at least learn that it does great good for mankind and that the best hope for the Palestinian people, with whom you express solidarity, does not lie in further acts of terrorism and warfare, nor in defiance of international legal norms, but in encouraging the paths to real peace: free speech for the Palestinians, and freedom from their own barren leaders, who hope to keep their jobs-for-life by deflecting blame for their own corrupt governance onto their neighbor. You could insist on their ending their incitement, which is only radicalizing the Palestinians to turn to the waiting arms of Hamas and ISIS. Why not encourage the Palestinians to accept Israel’s frequent offers to help them actually build their infrastructure and economies?
BDS motions do not help. Before your next conference, perhaps you might take on board the informed opinions of people who know their way around the Middle East. Many will condemn Israel, for it is popular to do so, and no one likes to be thought out of fashion; but others will tell a very different story, and it is your duty as college and university students to an equal hearing of their views.
If you do not do this, you can only shame yourselves and the generation of students whom you represent. Please restore our faith in the ability of young people to listen, to be open-minded and to be fair.
Jews and Arabs together on Tel Aviv beach yesterday in “Apartheid Israel”. Despite the relentless attempts by some journalists and academics to portray it as a horrible place, Israel was this week named one of the five happiest countries in the world.
Cry freedom: A Syrian woman who has escaped from the “hell” of Islamic State rule, rips off her black robe and headscarf yesterday.
* While most of the items below are from recent days, a few are from over a week ago. They are derived from a dispatch I wasn’t able to complete at the time because of illness, but are included here since they still haven’t been widely reported in the western media.
Please “like” these dispatches on Facebook here www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia, where you can also find other items that are not in these dispatches.
-- Tom Gross
CONTENTS
1. Cry freedom
2. Saudi student kicked off university bus for unveiling face
3. New Egyptian TV drama set to show Jews in non anti-Semitic light
4. Israelis and Saudis reveal secret talks
5. Egyptian historian: We must focus on our own interests, not on the Palestinian cause, and improve ties with Israel
6. Leading Jordanian author: Jihadi terror based on Jewish Talmud, not Islam
7. Iranian media: Mossad plotting terrorist attacks on Sunni mosques
8. Iran, Russia, who is telling the truth?
9. Whoops, Tehran forgot to shrink its enriched uranium stockpile
10. France opposes Iran nuclear deal without military site checks
11. Work accident
12. “And from behind the head – there was no brain”
13. Russia and Egypt hold first joint naval exercise
14. Egypt to destroy 10,000 more Palestinian homes in Gaza buffer zone expansion
15. “In defense of Tony Blair, peace envoy”
[Notes below by Tom Gross]
CRY FREEDOM
In what many will find to be heart-warming pictures and videos, these Syrian women who escaped ISIS, jump with joy as they rip off their black robes and headscarves as they reach the safety of Rojava in northern Syria, which is outside ISIS control.
They were published yesterday on the website of Britain’s Daily Mail
SAUDI STUDENT KICKED OFF UNIVERSITY BUS FOR UNVEILING FACE
Al-Arabiya reports, citing Al-Hayat:
A Saudi student of Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University for Women has been kicked out of a university bus by a male supervisor because she unveiled her face.
Tom Gross: what is also of note is that, as has been the case recently in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere, amateur cell phone videos uploaded to YouTube are now being used to try and encourage social change.
Al-Arabiya continues:
A video of the incident was recorded and posted on YouTube showing the supervisor yelling at the bus driver not to drive and ordering students to give up the identity of the girl who revealed her face.
In the clip, the man tells the bus driver to turn the air conditioner off so the heat would force the students to reveal the girl’s identity.
The students then argue back, saying the veil is not mandatory in Islam. The supervisor then threatens to go to Minister of Education Azzam Al-Dakheel and ask him to expel the students [from the university].
One of the students told the newspaper she always unveils her face inside the bus because its windows are tinted and no one from outside can see them.
IN REMARKABLE TURN-AROUND NEW EGYPTIAN TV DRAMA SET TO SHOW JEWS IN NON ANTI-SEMITIC LIGHT
I have reported many times over the years, on how Egyptian (and Turkish) TV have marked Ramadan evenings, where families traditionally gather at home, with a series of viciously anti-Semitic TV dramas and soap operas. This applied in both the Mubarak and Moslem Brotherhood eras in Egypt. The programs had some of the highest ratings in the Arab world, with tens of millions of viewers.
Now, in what appears to be a remarkable about turn under the anti-Muslim Brotherhood government of General Sisi, a new TV drama for this year’s Ramadan titled The Jewish Quarter (“Haret al-Yahood”) will show Jews in a positive light, according to the Egyptian newspaper al-Masry al-Youm.
“The Jewish Quarter” is due to premiere on Egyptian TV on June 18. It is set in 1950s Cairo and centers around a love story between an Egyptian army officer and a young Egyptian-Jewish woman. It is set against the rising wave of Egyptian nationalism which often included anti-Semitic elements, and was fuelled by Nazi war criminals who made their homes in Egypt having escaped justice in Europe at the end of the war.
EGYPTIAN HISTORIAN: WE MUST FOCUS ON OUR OWN INTERESTS, NOT ON THE PALESTINIAN CAUSE, AND IMPROVE TIES WITH ISRAEL
In a TV interview, Egyptian historian Maged Farag called for normalized relations with Israel, saying that Egypt would benefit from cultural and economic exchange, from tourism, and from Israel’s advanced agricultural and industrial technology.
“For 70 years, the Palestinian cause has brought Egypt and the Egyptians nothing but harm, destruction, and expense,” Farag said. “We should think with a scientific and open mind, with our eyes set on the future,” added the historian, who recently visited Israel to attend a conference on Egyptian Jewry.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) provides extracts here.
ISRAELIS AND SAUDIS REVEAL SECRET TALKS
The international media (including the New York Times) reported on Friday that persons connected to the Israeli and Saudi governments have been holding “secret talks” over the past year.
Retired Saudi general Anwar Majed Eshki, who is a confidante of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the U.S., and Dore Gold, the former Israeli ambassador to the UN, who this morning starts work as director general of Israel’s foreign ministry, publically shook hands in front of photographers at the end of an event at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
I know both Anwar Majed Eshki and Dore Gold, and both subscribe to this email list.
I am told by persons connected to both the Israeli and Saudi governments that they have decided to “come out of the closet” now, so to speak, so frustrated and alarmed are they with the Obama administration’s weak positions regarding the Iranian regime.
***
As mentioned in these dispatches, in the past Israeli media citing Arab sources have reported on the visits of Mossad head Tamir Pardo to Riyadh.
I have also mentioned meetings between Pardo’s predecessor Meir Dagan and Saudi intelligence officials at other locations, for example, in this dispatch in 2010 (the third paragraph in item 6):
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001155.html
Israel’s largely clandestine relationships with Saudi Arabia and various other Gulf Arab states date back to at least the 1990s.
LEADING JORDANIAN AUTHOR: JIHADI TERROR BASED ON JEWISH TALMUD, NOT ISLAM
Regrettably, there is still a great deal of anti-Semitism in the Arab world and elsewhere.
In a column in the Jordanian daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm, the head of the Jordanian Authors Union, Dr. Muwaffaq Mahadin, claimed that Jihadi terror groups base their actions on “global Judaism and its secret circles.”
“When these [Islamist] organizations carry out mass murder, with suicide operations and various explosive devices… these are [derived from] clear Talmudic methods lacking any connection to Islamic heritage and its lofty traditions and practices.”
IRANIAN MEDIA: MOSSAD PLOTTING TERRORIST ATTACKS ON SUNNI MOSQUES
The Iranian regime continues to pump out anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli conspiracy theories on an almost daily basis, as it lays the ground for its nuclear arsenal.
Here is one of the regime’s more ridiculous accusations, this time citing unnamed Palestinian sources, complete with what Fars believes to be the logo of the Mossad:
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940305001396
Palestinian Security Source: Mossad Plotting Terrorist Attacks on Sunni Mosques in Iran to Stir Unrest
TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Palestinian security source said the Israeli spy agency has a plot to carry out a terrorist attack in one of Iran’s Sunni mosques to create rift between the Shiites and Sunnis and stir unrest.
The source told al-Wae’y news website that the bombing plot is due to be implemented similar to the Friday terrorist attack on the Shiite worshipers in a mosque in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern province.
The Mossad seeks to incite the Sunni Muslims against the Shiite population and the government in Iran, the source said. The source called for the Islamic Ummah’s vigilance against the Israeli divisive plots, and said Tel Aviv is well experienced in sowing discord and creating sedition and ethnic wars.
At least 21 people lost their lives and 97 others sustained injuries in a bomb attack carried out by the Takfiri ISIL terrorist group against a Shiite mosque in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province…
IRAN, RUSSIA, WHO IS TELLING THE TRUTH?
Contrast these reports:
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, which is close to the regime, reports:
http://www.tasnimnews.com/english/Home/Single/751454
Iran to Get Russian S-300 Missile System Soon: Official
TEHRAN– Delivery of Russian-made S-300 air defense missile system to Iran will happen soon, an Iranian deputy foreign minister announced.
“The negotiations on the subject have ended in success. I estimate that the S-300 delivery will take place in quite a short time,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian was quoted as saying after meeting with his Russian counterpart Mikhail Bogdanov in Moscow.
***
By contrast, Russia’s deputy security chief announced delivery will “take some time”
Russia Confirms Sale of S-300 Missile Systems To Iran
MOSCOW – Russia on Tuesday confirmed its decision to deliver S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran, but said it could not yet announce a date.
“The decision on delivering S-300 to Iran has been taken but the realization of the project will take some time,” Yevgeny Lukyanov, deputy head of Russia’s security council, was quoted by Russian agencies as saying. “As I understand, the time of delivery has not come yet,” he said.
***
Meanwhile, Defense News reports:
Israel Air Chief: Nothing Can Stop Our Air Force
Israel’s top Air Force officer said that Russian S-300 air defense systems, if or when deployed by Iran, would constitute more of “a strategic issue than an operative issue”…
“It’s a huge challenge,” Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, Israel Air Force commander conceded, when asked about the announcement – following meetings in Moscow between Russian and Iran officials – that the systems would be delivered to Iran at an unspecified time.
“But it’s more a strategic issue… because whoever has the S-300 feels protected. He can allow himself to do things even more aggressively, because he thinks he’s defended,” Eshel said…
“I tell you now, and obviously this is based on all kinds of assessments we’ve done … that the enemy cannot stop our Air Force.
WHOOPS, TEHRAN FORGOT TO SHRINK ITS ENRICHED URANIUM STOCKPILE
This editorial is from The Wall Street Journal (June 4):
Iran’s uranium hoard
Whoops, Tehran forgot to shrink its enriched uranium stockpile.
Since Iran agreed in late 2013 to negotiate limits on its nuclear ambitions, the Obama Administration has boasted that its diplomacy has “frozen” Iran’s progress, particularly the regime’s stockpile of enriched uranium. Turns out this isn’t true.
That’s the conclusion of a report Tuesday by the Institute for Science and International Security (the other ISIS), a clearinghouse for technical analysis on Iran’s nuclear programs. Under the 2013 interim nuclear agreement, Iran was not prevented from running its centrifuges to enrich uranium. And enrich it has, producing some four tons of low-enriched uranium since the agreement came into effect in January 2014.
The agreement did require Iran to convert the enriched uranium into an oxide form that cannot be easily turned into weaponizable material. And here is where Iran has failed to comply. As the ISIS report notes, Iran has produced only 150 kilograms of uranium oxide, “a mere five percent of what was expected.” Since last November Iran hasn’t even bothered to convert any enriched uranium into oxide.
Iran has until the end of June to convert the remaining 3,800 kilos into oxide if it’s to honor the terms of the deal. Don’t hold your breath. The Iranians claim that their efforts to oxidize the uranium have been slowed by technical snafus and fouled by sabotage. Sabotage by whom? It makes no sense for the West to stymie an attempt to reduce Iran’s stockpile of weapons-usable uranium.
A likelier explanation is that Iran never intended to honor the interim agreement. Now it can use its additional uranium stockpile either to drive a harder bargain as nuclear negotiations approach their June 30 deadline – or drive harder toward a bomb.
Meantime, the U.S. State Department continues to insist that Iran has met its nuclear commitments under the interim agreement. That follows an Administration pattern of trying to salvage its nuclear diplomacy – not only with Iran but also with Russia – by ignoring or minimizing violations of previous agreements. Another example is last week’s International Atomic Energy Agency report, which notes that Iran “has yet to propose any new practical measures” to comply with an agreement it struck with the Agency to come clean on the “possible military dimensions” of its nuclear work.
Iran’s preferred method of nuclear cheating typically takes the form of seemingly technical and arguable infractions of an agreement that collectively amount to massive violations. In this case the infractions add up to four tons of enriched uranium. This is the regime with which President Obama proposes to sign the most consequential nuclear deal of this century.
FRANCE OPPOSES IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL WITHOUT MILITARY SITE CHECKS
At least one major Western government seems serious about stopping Iranian nukes (and it doesn’t appear to be the Obama administration...)
The Arab and Israeli press covered this story prominently, for example, here in the Beirut Daily Star, from Agence France Presse (May 27, 2015), but the western press didn’t, which is why I include it here.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Wednesday that France would oppose a nuclear deal with Iran if it did not allow inspections of military sites.
An agreement “will not be accepted by France if it is not clear that verifications can be made at all Iranian facilities, including military sites,” Fabius told parliament.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week ruled out inspections at military sites.
***
See also:
Commander: Iran Not to Allow Even ‘Restricted Access’ to Military Sites
June 5, 2015 - 17:26
http://www.tasnimnews.com/english/Home/Single/760672
WORK ACCIDENT
The Egyptian Independent reported on Friday (June 5) that:
http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/hamas-militant-killed-gaza-tunnel-collapse
A member of the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas died Friday when a smuggling tunnel collapsed in the Gaza Strip near the Israeli border, Hamas and medical sources said.
A statement from Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of de facto Gaza rulers Hamas, said a member was killed in the collapse of “a resistance tunnel”.
“A Palestinian source said the collapse occurred while militants were conducting ‘resistance-related activities,’ a possible reference to weapon transfers or training.”
***
Tom Gross adds: Hamas has created a network of underground tunnels into Israel, designed to carry out large-scale terror attacks against Israeli civilians. Many of the tunnels were destroyed by the Israeli air force in last summer’s war. Since then, Hamas has begun work on building new tunnels and used diverted international aid money to acquire new rockets and other weapons to attack Israel, and indeed (largely unreported by the western media) there have been a number of rocket attacks from Gaza into southern Israel in recent days.
The Egyptian army has also destroyed some 1,600 tunnels on its border with Gaza, used to smuggle weapons and other goods into Gaza.
“AND FROM BEHIND THE HEAD – THERE WAS NO BRAIN”
Amnesty International’s report of 26 May 2015 has been ignored or downplayed by many of the news outsets that have reported prominently when Amnesty International issues declarations concerning Israel.
The new Amnesty report begins:
Palestine (State of): ‘Strangling Necks’ Abductions, torture and summary killings of Palestinians by Hamas forces during the 2014 Gaza/Israel conflict
By Amnesty International, 26 May 2015, Index number: MDE 21/1643/2015
Hamas forces in Gaza committed serious human rights abuses, including abductions, torture and summary and extrajudicial executions with impunity during the 2014 Gaza/Israel conflict. To date, no one has been held to account for committing these unlawful killings and other abuses, either by the Hamas de facto administration that continues to control Gaza and its security and judicial institutions, or by the Palestinian “national consensus” government that has had nominal authority over Gaza since June 2014.
***
Tom Gross adds: Amnesty says Hamas committed “war crimes” during last summer’s 50-day war with Israel. It lists 23 Palestinians executed by Hamas (for, for example, refusing to allow their families to be used as human shields). In fact the numbers of Palestinians killed by Hamas in last summer’s war is far greater than this, including Palestinians killed by Hamas rocket attacks which were aimed at Israel but misfired and hit Palestinian civilians instead.
Even now, on their websites and elsewhere, news organizations such as the BBC continue to include these Palestinian fatalities in statistics which they say or strongly imply died at Israeli hands.
The Amnesty report also says Hamas arrested and tortured dozens of other Palestinians during the war.
For example, one of Atta Najjar’s brothers told Amnesty: “There were marks of torture and bullet shots on Atta’s body. His arms and legs were broken, his body was as if you’d put it in a bag and smashed it. His body was riddled with about 30 bullets. He had slaughter marks around his neck, marks of knives. And from behind the head - there was no brain… it was difficult for us to carry him … He was heavy, like when you put meat in a bag; no bones. His bones were smashed. They broke him in the prison.”
Even though the report is about Hamas, Amnesty can’t resist slurring Israel in its report. The report includes several accusations and statistics about Israel which Israel has shown to be categorically untrue.
However, Amnesty doesn’t shy away from critiquing Hamas in a way that the other major self-appointed rights group, Human Rights Watch, which is notorious for its campaigns against Israel, would never do.
RUSSIA AND EGYPT HOLD FIRST JOINT NAVAL EXERCISE
The Egyptian Independent newspaper reports:
Russia and Egypt hold first ever joint naval exercise
Sat, June 6, 2015 - 19:21
http://www.egyptindependent.com//news/russia-and-egypt-hold-joint-naval-exercise
Russia and Egypt are holding their first ever joint naval exercise, Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday, strengthening the ties between two states…
The eight-day drills off the Mediterranean Egyptian port of Alexandria, beginning today, will include supply and communication at sea, search operations, all forms of defence at sea and firing exercises…
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has been cultivating ties with Egypt, a Soviet ally for much of the Cold War and traditional export market for Russian arms.
He visited the country in February for talks with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whom Putin has strongly backed.
EGYPT TO DESTROY 10,000 MORE PALESTINIAN HOMES IN GAZA BUFFER ZONE EXPANSION
Almost unreported by the western media, and uncommented upon by many of the supposedly pro-Palestinians groups in the west, the Palestinian Maan news agency reports:
Egypt to evacuate 10,000 homes in Gaza buffer zone expansion
June 6, 2015
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=765794
CAIRO (Ma’an) – Egyptian military forces will begin to evacuate more homes opposite the border with the Gaza Strip come July, in an ongoing expansion of the no-go area between Egypt and the Palestinian coastal enclave, Egyptian military sources said Saturday…
Several families have been notified of the evacuation plans which are expected to affect some 10,000 houses in the Safa, Imam Ali and al-Ahrash neighborhoods in Rafah city in North Sinai Peninsula, said authorities, who seek to expand the zone by 500 meters…
After a bombing killed more than 30 Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai in October 2014, the military stepped up a campaign to build the buffer zone amid accusations of Hamas support for the group that carried out the attack.
Egyptian military authorities accuse Hamas of direct involvement of planning and executing attacks against Egyptian military targets, as well as intentionally threatening political stability in the region…
Around 1,110 houses on the Egyptian side had been demolished by the end of April to make way for the expanding buffer zone, with more than 1,000 families displaced…
The evacuation is set to start immediately after the holy month of Ramadan, around July 20…
“IN DEFENSE OF TONY BLAIR, PEACE ENVOY”
The former British prime minister Tony Blair is stepping down from his job as Middle East peace envoy. He has been widely attacked and lampooned, particularly in the British press, for his failure to bring peace to the Middle East.
Here, by contrast, is a piece by British writer Jonathan Foreman in the new European edition of the influential American website Politico, defending Blair.
The Sorek desalination plant in Rishon Lezion, Israel.
* Guy Bechor (Yediot Ahronot): “On (Israeli) Independence Day (a few weeks ago), I received a message on Facebook from a man who lives in Iraq and wanted to congratulate the State of Israel on its independence and thank it for destroying Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor in 1981. If it were not for that, he wrote, Iraq would have been filled with nuclear facilities, and imagine what would happen now, with the all-out war taking place there, where there are no rules and no limits. Indeed, Saddam’s Osirak reactor, had it remained, would now be in the area occupied by the Islamic State in the al-Anbar province. What would the world do then?
“His messages raises a lot of interest not just about what happened and what was prevented, but also about what will happen. Iran is an ethnically, religiously and tribally torn country, just like Iraq -- maybe even more. It has no majority ethnic group, and the Persians, because of the negative birthrate, have already become a minority. The others are Azeris, Balochs (Sunnis), Tajiks (Sunni), Lurs, Turkmens (Sunnis), Kurds (mostly Sunnis), Arabs (Sunnis) and others. Some of these minorities want to split from Iran and connect their territory to other countries. The Azeris want to join Azerbaijan; the Balochs want to join Pakistan; the Kurds want to establish the greater Kurdistan.
“A war between different ethnic minorities is only a matter of time in Iran. The ground is already on fire, and there are constant conflicts between the Balochs and Ahwazi Arabs and the regime, which is oppressing them with an iron fist… Imagine Iran falling apart like Syria, Iraq, Libya or Yemen in a civil war with armed militias and nuclear facilities all over the area – what a danger of mass destruction that will be. With radioactive materials one can prepare ‘dirty nuclear bombs’, and we already know that there is no mercy between the Sunnis and the Shiites – they just don’t have a nuclear weapon yet.”
* Efraim Inbar (Israel Hayom): “The Europeans have decided that the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Holy Land, over a hundred years long, must finally end. High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini recently came to Israel to convey the EU’s impatience. France intends to bring the matter to the U.N. Security Council. The European intentions are laudable, but seem to be removed from the Middle Eastern reality. The gap in positions between Israelis and Palestinians is extremely large. It is totally unrealistic to expect an agreement on final status issues in the near future. The gullible Europeans are having difficulty realizing that peace is not the most important value for the Israelis or the Palestinians.
“Above all, the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel as a Jewish state, a core issue in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. While Israel, under the leadership of then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin, recognized the ‘legitimate rights of the Palestinian people’ in 1978, the Palestinians still have not reciprocated. Denying the legitimate right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel only reinforces the large Israeli consensus that the Palestinians are not a serious partner for peacemaking. A resolution to the conflict is not in the cards. The best that can be achieved is interim agreements, tacit or formal.”
* Ghaith al-Omari and Neri Zilber (Foreign Affairs): “Palestinian President Abbas recently turned 80 and is known to be an industrious smoker. His successor by law is the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Hamas official Aziz Duwaik. Duwaik is currently imprisoned in Israel, but even if he were free, there would be no chance of a parliamentary speaker from Hamas taking the reins of power in the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian parliament has not met in over seven years, and Abbas himself is now a decade into a four-year presidential term that began in 2005. Laws regulating transitions of political power are thus irrelevant: Abbas rules by presidential decree in the West Bank; Hamas rules by the gun in the Gaza Strip. No clear successor has come to the forefront, however, let alone one that has been officially designated by the party.
“Palestine’s crumbling political institutions stand in sharp contrast to how Abbas himself became president, in the last – and only – instance of Palestinian leadership succession in late 2004, following Yasser Arafat’s death. The Palestinian Liberation Organization and Fatah hierarchy moved within hours to resolve the issue of succession, and Abbas’ only other competitor, Ahmed Qurei, conceded gracefully. Abbas has been leading the Palestinian Authority for a decade now, nearly equal in time to Arafat. In this period, Abbas has ensured that no new leaders would come to the fore as realistic successors. For a people intent on attaining self-determination, it behooves the Palestinians, as well as the international community, to ensure a smooth transition process after Abbas.”
* Isabel Kershner (New York Times): “‘We were in a situation where we were very, very close to someone opening a tap somewhere in the country and no water would come out,’ said Uri Schor, the spokesman of Israel’s Water Authority. But that was about six years ago. Today, there is plenty of water in Israel. A lighter version of an old ‘Israel is drying up’ campaign has been dusted off to advertise baby diapers.”
“As California and other western areas of the United States grapple with an extreme drought, a revolution has taken place in Israel. A major national effort to desalinate Mediterranean seawater and to recycle wastewater has provided the country with enough water for all its needs, even during severe droughts. More than 50 percent of the water for Israeli households, agriculture and industry is now artificially produced.”
“Israel has become the world leader in recycling and reusing wastewater for agriculture. It treats 86 percent of its domestic wastewater and recycles it for agricultural use – about 55 percent of the total water used for agriculture. Spain is second to Israel, recycling 17 percent of its effluent, while the United States recycles just 1 percent.”
Below, I attach four articles concerning Middle East background developments. There are short extracts of the articles above, for those who don’t have time to read them in full.
It is, of course, dispiriting that the first of these three articles are so depressing. However it is better to be realistic, than unnecessarily starry-eyed and naive, as too many western policy-makers are about the Middle East.
The last of these four articles provides great hope in one crucial problem for Israel, the Middle East (and elsewhere): The lack of water.
-- 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. “An ethnic war in Iran is only a matter of time” (By Guy Bechor, Yediot Ahronot, May 29, 2015)
2. “The European Peace Offensive” (By Efraim Inbar, Israel Hayom, June 1, 2015)
3. “After Abbas, an abyss” (By Ghaith al-Omari and Neri Zilber, Foreign Affairs, May 20, 2015)
4. “Aided by the sea, Israel overcomes an old foe: Drought” (By Isabel Kershner, New York Times, May 30, 2015)
ARTICLES
ONLY A MATTER OF TIME?
An ethnic war in Iran is only a matter of time
By Guy Bechor
Yediot Ahronot
May 29, 2015
Imagine the Islamic Republic falling apart like Syria, Iraq, Libya or Yemen in a civil war with armed militias – and nuclear facilities all over the area.
***
On (Israeli) Independence Day, I received a message on Facebook from a man who lives in Iraq and wanted to congratulate the State of Israel on its independence and thank it for destroying Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor in 1981.
If it were not for that, he wrote, Iraq would have been filled with nuclear facilities, and imagine what would happen now, with the all-out war taking place there, where there are no rules and no limits and everything is permitted. Israel saved the Iraqi people, he wrote and thanked us.
Indeed, Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor, had it remained, would now be in the area occupied by the Islamic State in the al-Anbar province. What would the world do then?
His messages raises a lot of interest not just about what happened and what was prevented, but also about what will happen. Iran is an ethnically, religiously and tribally torn country, just like Iraq and Syria, and maybe even more. It has no majority ethnic group, and the Persians, because of the negative birthrate, have already become a minority, although they are the largest minority among all other minorities, 24%. The others are Azeris, Balochs (Sunnis), Tajiks (Sunni), Lurs, Turkmens (Sunnis), Kurds (mostly Sunnis), Arabs (Sunnis) and others.
Some of these minorities want to split from Iran and connect their territory to other countries. The Azeris want to join Azerbaijan; the Balochs want to join Pakistan; the Kurds want to establish the “Great Kurdistan,” which will extend over parts of Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran; and the Arabs want to establish their own independent state which will be called Ahwaz in Arabic or Khuzestan in Persian.
In other words, a breakup and a Sunni-Shiite ethnic war and a war between different ethnic minorities is only a matter of time in Iran. The ground is already on fire, and there are constant conflicts between the Balochs and Ahwazi Arabs and the regime, which is oppressing them with an iron fist.
The only thing that is still keeping this huge disintegrating country together is the fear of the void that may be created instead of the hated regime. They are afraid to become Syria, but when the ethnic and religious impulses rage, that can no longer be stopped. That’s why it’s important for Iran to divert the attention to Israel – in order to hide this destructive internal hostility.
Imagine Iran falling apart like Syria, Iraq, Libya or Yemen in a civil war with armed militias and nuclear facilities all over the area – what a danger of mass destruction that will be. It doesn’t have to be ready bombs. With radioactive materials one can prepare “dirty nuclear bombs” or other means of horror, and we already know that there is no mercy between the Sunnis and the Shiites – they just don’t have a nuclear weapon yet.
The American administration is naively assuming that the Iranian regime will continue to rule the area, but the Bashar Assad or Muammar Gaddafi regimes were as strong, and so were the regimes in Egypt and Yemen. In addition, Iran is a sort of transit country with representatives from all the nations in the region – from Afghanistan to Pakistan, from the Persian Gulf to Turkey – and if it falls apart, dark terroristic forces will penetrate and infiltrate it.
The Persians are actually a relatively weak force among the regional forces, and it will spark a competition over who will take over the nuclear facilities faster and who will also use them – because forces like ISIS have no responsibility or limits.
So how exactly will US President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement help? It’s like flogging a dead horse. Only one question will remain: Who is the dead horse? Now no one can say they didn’t know.
“ANOTHER EXERCISE IN FUTILE DIPLOMACY”
The European Peace Offensive
By Professor Efraim Inbar
Israel Hayom (Tel Aviv)
June 1, 2015
The Europeans have decided that the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Holy Land, over a hundred years long, must finally end. High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini recently came to Israel to convey the EU’s impatience with the impasse in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. France intends to bring the matter to the U.N. Security Council to set an 18-month deadline on the resolution of the conflict.
The European intentions are laudable, but seem to be removed from the Middle Eastern reality. While partition of the Land of Israel between the Jews and the Arabs living in this small part of the world is desirable, the Palestinian national movement has proven to be the wrong partner to implement partition and is largely responsible for the failure of the two-state solution.
The Palestinian national movement seems unable to reach a historic compromise with the Zionist movement as it still seeks control over the Temple Mount, a “right of return” for Palestinian refugees, and the complete absence of any Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria. The Palestinian media and education system perpetuate the conflict by inciting against Jews and their link to the Land of Israel. Indeed, the gap in positions between Israelis and Palestinians is extremely large and cannot be bridged overnight. It is totally unrealistic to expect an agreement on final status issues in the near future.
The bitter truth is that the two societies still have the energy to fight for what is important to them. Ethno-religious conflicts usually end when at least one of the sides displays great weariness. The gullible Europeans are having difficulty realizing that peace is not the most important value for the Israelis or the Palestinians.
In addition, the Palestinians failed to capitalize on the opportunity to build a state. The most remarkable failure and most devastating to the state-building attempt was the loss of a monopoly over the use of force. This led to chaos and the loss of Gaza to Hamas in 2007. As long as Hamas plays a central role in Palestinian affairs, no real Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation is possible. What happened in the Palestinian territories reflects a phenomenon widespread in the Arab world, the collapse of statist structures. Arab political culture seems unable to sustain statist structures or overcome tribal and sectarian identities.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is not that different than Arab political entities such as Libya, Iraq, Syria, or Yemen, which are unable to effectively govern their territories. The PA and its leadership are basically sitting on Israeli bayonets that make sure the PA-ruled territory is clear of radical violent elements that want to topple the illegitimate rule of PA President Mahmoud Abbas and to perpetrate terrorist attacks against Israel. This is the essence of the security cooperation between Israel and the PA. Economically, the PA is also dependent upon interactions with Israel and Israel’s cooperation with donor states.
Above all, the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel as a Jewish state, a core issue in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. While Israel, under the leadership of then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin, recognized the “legitimate rights of the Palestinian people” in 1978, the Palestinians still have not reciprocated. Moreover, the growing appeal of Islamism within Palestinian society, a phenomenon reflecting regional trends, makes the recognition of a Jewish state increasingly difficult. Denying the legitimate right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel only reinforces the large Israeli consensus that the Palestinians are not a serious partner for peacemaking.
The turmoil in the Arab world has also hardened Israeli positions in negotiations with the Palestinians. Political circumstances may change suddenly in the Middle East, making defensible borders imperative. Israeli presence along the Jordan River is a vital security requirement for Israel. It is a pity that the Palestinians have not yet internalized this change and are failing to calibrate their aspirations to the reality on the ground. Unfortunately, realism is hardly part of the maximalist Palestinian political culture.
Therefore, the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains intractable. The two-state solution that everybody pays lip service to is simply not a realistic outcome under the current circumstances.
Last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reluctantly accepted a working paper submitted by the U.S. in an effort to salvage the negotiations with the Palestinians. But Abbas refused to accept the American document, effectively ending the American diplomatic efforts. As expected, Netanyahu’s latest concession – negotiating the borders of the settlement blocs – did not satisfy Palestinian desires. Over the years, the Palestinians have rejected generous offers by Prime Ministers Ehud Barak (2000) and Ehud Olmert (2008). Obviously, Netanyahu cannot do better.
A resolution to the conflict is not in the cards. The best that can be achieved is interim agreements, tacit or formal, that do not entail grave security risks for Israel. Even the Obama administration learned the hard way that conflict resolution should be substituted with conflict management. That is the only strategy that has a chance to minimize suffering on both sides and achieve a modicum of stability in a stormy Middle East.
The European peace offensive, another exercise in futile diplomacy, will in all probability produce another bout of diplomatic activism in pursuit of another forum for an Israeli-Palestinian exchange of views that will similarly fail. Such failures hardly discourage professional diplomats who make an honorable living by trying to bring peace. The Quartet will probably also try again to make peace. We should wish all of them luck.
AFTER ABBAS, AN ABYSS
After Abbas, an abyss
By Ghaith al-Omari and Neri Zilber
Foreign Affairs
May 20, 2015
President Abbas has long ensured that no new leaders would come to the fore as realistic successors, but while this may have helped him consolidate control over a fractious polity, it is potentially ruinous as a national strategy.
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On a quiet Friday afternoon last December, a rumor that began as a whisper quickly became a shout. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the story went, was rushed to the hospital with an undisclosed ailment. Abbas’ supposed health scare set off a worldwide frenzy of speculation on social media until he finally appeared in a Ramallah grocery store later in the day, shaking hands and pinching babies. This rushed public appearance among the people – a rare occurrence for Abbas – was broadcast live on Palestinian television. The message was made clear: Abbas is fine, and still in command. The question that needs to be asked, however, is what happens when this is no longer true.
Abbas recently turned 80 and is known to be an industrious smoker. His successor by law is the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Hamas official Aziz Duwaik. Duwaik is currently imprisoned in Israel, but even if he were free, there would be no chance of a parliamentary speaker from Hamas taking the reins of power in the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian parliament has not met in over seven years, and Abbas himself is now a decade into a four-year presidential term that began in 2005. Laws regulating transitions of political power are thus irrelevant: Abbas rules by presidential decree in the West Bank; Hamas rules by the gun in the Gaza Strip. Presidential and legislative elections have been suggested for some time, yet neither Hamas nor Fatah likely want them to take place in the near future.
Legalities aside, the clear assumption is that the next president after Abbas will hail from Fatah, which continues to dominate Palestinian political life. No clear successor has come to the forefront, however, let alone one that has been officially designated by the party. Fatah’s Central Committee, the movement’s top decision-making body, remains weak; the pool of potential candidates is both too large and too shallow. As one well-connected official in Ramallah stated pithily last year, “The next president will be a Palestinian and a patriot.”
The party’s internal disarray was supposed to be remedied during the seventh Fatah General Conference, which was originally scheduled for August 2014. This would have been the most recent meeting of its kind since 2009, but it was pushed back due to the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. A rescheduled January date came and went, and local elections for delegates to the conference are still ongoing. The Fatah General Congress agenda was rumored to include the creation of a vice-presidential post, although this is now on hold alongside the conference. Without a conference, it is impossible to accurately assess who holds power within Fatah’s leadership and, perhaps more importantly, to effectively reenergize the movement.
Palestine’s crumbling political institutions stand in sharp contrast to how Abbas himself became president, in the last – and only – instance of Palestinian leadership succession in late 2004, following Yasser Arafat’s death. The Palestinian Liberation Organization and Fatah hierarchy moved within hours to resolve the issue of succession, and Abbas’ only other competitor, Ahmed Qurei, conceded gracefully. Once selected, Abbas’ election in the 2005 presidential election was all but guaranteed. It is indicative of Palestine’s political processes that Abbas or Qurei were implicit heirs to power after Arafat’s death. Both were members of the Palestinian national movement’s founding generation, making their ascension to power inevitable. Today, however, there are no such identifiable candidates from within Fatah, with either the longevity or political stature.
Abbas has been leading the Palestinian Authority for a decade now, nearly equal in time to Arafat. In this period, Abbas has ensured that no new leaders would come to the fore as realistic successors. This might have made for good politics locally, allowing him to consolidate control over a potentially fractious polity. But as a national strategy, it could be ruinous for Palestinians as a whole. The Palestinian Authority cannot afford a leadership crisis if Abbas were to leave office; it already finds itself divided between Gaza and the West Bank, hamstrung by a moribund peace process, and facing growing discontent in the streets and refugee camps.
A Palestinian state requires many things in order to be viable: economic opportunity, territorial contiguity, natural resources, and working institutions. For a people intent on attaining self-determination, it behooves the Palestinians, as well as the international community, to ensure a smooth transition process after Abbas.
(Ghaith al-Omari is a senior fellow at The Washington Institute. Neri Zilber is a visiting scholar at the Institute, and a subscriber to this email list.)
ISRAEL BECOMES THE WORLD LEADER IN RECYCLING AND REUSING WASTEWATER
Aided by the Sea, Israel Overcomes an Old Foe: Drought
By Isabel Kershner
The New York Times
May 30, 2015
At the peak of the drought, Shabi Zvieli, an Israeli gardener, feared for his livelihood.
A hefty tax was placed on excessive household water consumption, penalizing families with lawns, swimming pools or leaky pipes. So many of Mr. Zvieli’s clients went over to synthetic grass and swapped their seasonal blooms for hardy, indigenous plants more suited to a semiarid climate. “I worried about where gardening was going,” said Mr. Zvieli, 56, who has tended people’s yards for about 25 years.
Across the country, Israelis were told to cut their shower time by two minutes. Washing cars with hoses was outlawed and those few wealthy enough to absorb the cost of maintaining a lawn were permitted to water it only at night.
“We were in a situation where we were very, very close to someone opening a tap somewhere in the country and no water would come out,” said Uri Schor, the spokesman and public education director of the government’s Water Authority. But that was about six years ago. Today, there is plenty of water in Israel. A lighter version of an old “Israel is drying up” campaign has been dusted off to advertise baby diapers. “The fear has gone,” said Mr. Zvieli, whose customers have gone back to planting flowers.
As California and other western areas of the United States grapple with an extreme drought, a revolution has taken place here. A major national effort to desalinate Mediterranean seawater and to recycle wastewater has provided the country with enough water for all its needs, even during severe droughts. More than 50 percent of the water for Israeli households, agriculture and industry is now artificially produced.
During the drought years, farmers at Ramat Rachel, a kibbutz on the southern outskirts of Jerusalem, took water-economizing measures like uprooting old apple orchards a few years before their time. With the new plenty, water allocations for Israeli farmers that had been slashed have been raised again, though the price has also gone up.
“Now there is no problem of water,” said Shaul Ben-Dov, an agronomist at Ramat Rachel. “The price is higher, but we can live a normal life in a country that is half desert.”
With its part-Mediterranean, part-desert climate, Israel had suffered from chronic shortages and exploitation of its natural water resources for decades.
The natural fresh water at Israel’s disposal in an average year does not cover its total use of roughly 525 billion gallons. The demand for potable water is projected to rise to 515 billion gallons by 2030, from 317 billion gallons this year.
The turnaround came with a seven-year drought, one of the most severe to hit modern Israel, that began in 2005 and peaked in the winter of 2008 to 2009. The country’s main natural water sources – the Sea of Galilee in the north and the mountain and coastal aquifers – were severely depleted, threatening a potentially irreversible deterioration of the water quality.
Measures to increase the supply and reduce the demand were accelerated, overseen by the Water Authority, a powerful interministerial agency established in 2007.
Desalination emerged as one focus of the government’s efforts, with four major plants going into operation over the past decade. A fifth one should be ready to operate within months. Together, they will produce a total of more than 130 billion gallons of potable water a year, with a goal of 200 billion gallons by 2020.
Israel has, in the meantime, become the world leader in recycling and reusing wastewater for agriculture. It treats 86 percent of its domestic wastewater and recycles it for agricultural use – about 55 percent of the total water used for agriculture. Spain is second to Israel, recycling 17 percent of its effluent, while the United States recycles just 1 percent, according to Water Authority data.
Before the establishment of the Water Authority, various ministries were responsible for different aspects of the water issue, each with its own interests and lobbies.
“There was a lot of hydro-politics,” said Eli Feinerman of the faculty of agriculture, food and environment at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who served for years as a public representative on the authority’s council. “The right hand did not know what the left was doing.”
The Israeli government began by making huge cuts in the annual water quotas for farmers, ending decades of extravagant overuse of heavily subsidized water for agriculture.
The tax for surplus household use was dropped at the end of 2009 and a two-tiered tariff system was introduced. Regular household water use is now subsidized by a slightly higher rate paid by those who consume more than the basic allotment.
Water Authority representatives went house to house offering to fit free devices on shower heads and taps that inject air into the water stream, saving about a third of the water used while still giving the impression of a strong flow.
Officials say that wiser use of water has led to a reduction in household consumption of up to 18 percent in recent years.
And instead of the municipal authorities being responsible for the maintenance of city pipe networks, local corporations have been formed. The money collected for water is reinvested in the infrastructure.
Mekorot, the national water company, built the national water carrier 50 years ago, a system for transporting water from the Sea of Galilee in the north through the heavily populated center to the arid south. Now it is building new infrastructure to carry water west to east, from the Mediterranean coast inland.
In the parched Middle East, water also has strategic implications. Struggles between Israel and its Arab neighbors over water rights in the Jordan River basin contributed to tensions leading to the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel, which shares the mountain aquifer with the West Bank, says it provides the Palestinians with more water than it is obliged to under the existing peace accords. The Palestinians say it is not enough and too expensive. A new era of water generosity could help foster relations with the Palestinians and with Jordan.
Desalination, long shunned by many as a costly energy-guzzler with a heavy carbon footprint, is becoming cheaper, cleaner and more energy efficient as technologies advance. Sidney Loeb, the American scientist who invented the popular reverse osmosis method, came to live in Israel in 1967 and taught the water professionals here.
The Sorek desalination plant rises out of the sandy ground about nine miles south of Tel Aviv. Said to be the largest plant of its kind in the world, it produces 40 billion gallons of potable water a year, enough for about a sixth of Israel’s roughly eight million citizens.
Miriam Faigon, the director of the solutions department at IDE Technologies, the Israeli company that built three of the plants along the Mediterranean, said that the company had cut energy levels and costs with new technologies and a variety of practical methods.
Under a complex arrangement, the plants will be transferred to state ownership after 25 years. For now, the state buys Sorek’s desalinated water for a relatively cheap 58 cents a cubic meter – more than free rainwater, Ms. Faigon acknowledged, “but that’s only if you have it.”
Israeli environmentalists say the rush to desalination has partly come at the expense of alternatives like treating natural water reserves that have become polluted by industry, particularly the military industries in the coastal plain.
“We definitely felt that Israel did need to move toward desalination,” said Sarit Caspi-Oron, a water expert at the nongovernment Israel Union for Environmental Defense. “But it is a question of how much, and of priorities. Our first priority was conservation and treating and reclaiming our water sources.”
Some environmentalists also say that the open-ocean intake method used by Israel’s desalination plants, in line with local regulations, as opposed to subsurface intakes, has a potentially destructive effect on sea life, sucking in billions of fish eggs and larvae.
But Boaz Mayzel, a marine biologist at the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, said that the effects were not yet known and would have to be checked over time.
Some Israelis are cynical about the water revolution. Tsur Shezaf, an Israeli journalist and the owner of a farm that produces wine and olives in the southern Negev, argues that desalination is essentially a privatization of Israel’s water supply that benefits a few tycoons, while recycling for agriculture allows the state to sell the same water twice.
Mr. Shezaf plants his vines in a way that maximizes the use of natural floodwaters in the area, as in ancient times, and irrigates the rest of the year with a mix of desalinated water and fresh water. He prefers to avoid the cheaper recycled water, he says, because, “You don’t know exactly what you are getting.”
But experts say that the wastewater from Israel’s densely populated Tel Aviv area is treated to such a high level that no harm would come to anyone who accidentally drank it.
(New York Times Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner, together with her colleagues in the Jerusalem bureau and on the foreign desk in New York, is a long-time subscriber to this email list.)
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Tom Gross adds:
There is more on this story here from Technology Review:
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534996/megascale-desalination/
On a Mediterranean beach 10 miles south of Tel Aviv, Israel, a vast new industrial facility hums around the clock. It is the world’s largest modern seawater desalination plant…