A photo of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister, and Shimon Peres’ mentor, hangs on the wall behind Peres’s desk.
Update:
There are two further dispatches on Shimon Peres here:
* Is it really the position of the White House that Rabin and Peres are not buried in Israel?
* How Peres faced down the generals and pacifists to build Israel’s nuclear program
SHIMON PERES, THE LAST OF ISRAEL’S FOUNDING FATHERS, DIES
[Note by Tom Gross]
Shimon Peres, the former president and prime minister of Israel, and in recent years the country’s elder statesman, died this morning at age 93, after suffering a severe stroke two weeks ago.
Peres was born in what was then Poland (now Belarus) and escaped to what would become Israel in the 1930s. His family that remained behind were murdered in the Holocaust.
For seven decades (since 1946 when Ben Gurion put Peres and Moshe Dayan in charge of making arms purchases for the Haganah), he held senior positions in Israeli military and political life.
His most important achievement (in my view) was his key role in helping Israel to gain a nuclear deterrence in order to make much less likely the possibility of a second Holocaust of the Jewish people. It is the nuclear deterrence that has helped allow Israel to take significant risks for peace in recent decades, moves that Peres was at the forefront of and for which he was awarded the Nobel peace prize.
Both U.S. President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton have confirmed they will attend Peres’ funeral in Jerusalem on Friday.
On a side note, away from politics, it is rather droll that Peres (whose original surname was Persky) was a cousin of the legendary Hollywood actress Lauren Bacall (born Betty Perske) a matter I discussed with Peres on one of the occasions we met, bringing a smile to Shimon’s face.
Attached below is the obituary of Peres by Marilyn Berger from the front page of today’s New York Times.
As Berger notes, Peres frequently drew on historical allusions and thought of himself as philosopher as much as a politician. “An ancient Greek philosopher was asked what is the difference between war and peace,” said Peres. “‘In war,’ he replied, ‘the old bury the young. In peace, the young bury the old.’ I felt that if I could make the world better for the young, that would be the greatest thing we can do.”
***
(Incidentally, what the New York Times writes in its obituary below about the causes of the second Intifada is incorrect. As I have pointed out before, the Palestinian Authority Communications minister and other Palestinian leaders have long confirmed that the intifada was carefully planned by Yasser Arafat and not caused by Ariel Sharon.)
NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARY OF SHIMON PERES
A Pillar of Israel From Founding to Oslo Accords
By Marilyn Berger
New York Times
September 28, 2016
Shimon Peres, one of the last surviving pillars of Israel’s founding generation, who did more than anyone to build up his country’s formidable military might, then worked as hard to establish a lasting peace with Israel’s Arab neighbors, died on Wednesday in a Tel Aviv area hospital. He was 93.
His death was confirmed by two people with direct knowledge who did not want to speak publicly until the family made an announcement. The family planned to address the media around 7 a.m. Israel time.
Mr. Peres died just over two weeks after suffering a stroke. Doctors kept him largely unconscious and on a breathing tube since then in hopes that it would give his brain a chance to heal. But he deteriorated as the nation he once led watched his last battle play out publicly and leaders from around the world sent wishes for his recovery.
As prime minister (twice); as minister of defense, foreign affairs, finance and transportation; and, until 2014, as president, Mr. Peres never left the public stage during Israel’s seven decades.
He led the creation of Israel’s defense industry, negotiated key arms deals with France and Germany and was the prime mover behind the development of Israel’s nuclear weapons. But he was consistent in his search for an accommodation with the Arab world, a search that in recent years left him orphaned as Israeli society lost interest, especially after the upheavals of the 2011 Arab Spring led to tumult on its borders.
Chosen by Parliament in 2007 to serve a seven-year term as president, Mr. Peres had complicated relations with the hawkish government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, elected in 2009. While largely a ceremonial post, the presidency afforded Mr. Peres a perch with access and public attention, and he tried to exert his influence.
For someone who was dogged for decades by a reputation for vanity and back-room dealing, Mr. Peres ended his years in public office as a remarkably beloved figure, promoting the country’s high-tech prowess and cultural reach, a founding pioneer who set an example for forward thinking.
Never at a loss for a bon mot in his Polish-accented Hebrew, English and French, Mr. Peres said of his transformation: “For 60 years, I was the most controversial figure in the country, and suddenly I’m the most popular man in the land. Truth be told, I don’t know when I was happier, then or now.”
HISTORIC HANDSHAKE
In his efforts to help Israel find acceptance in a hostile region, Mr. Peres’s biggest breakthrough came in 1993 when he worked out a plan with the Palestine Liberation Organization for self-government in Gaza and in part of the West Bank, both of which were occupied by Israel.
After months of secret negotiation with representatives of the P.L.O., conducted with the help of Norwegian diplomats and intellectuals, Mr. Peres persuaded his old political rival Yitzhak Rabin, then the prime minister, to accept the plan, which became known as the Oslo Accords.
Mr. Peres, who was serving as foreign minister, signed the accords on Sept. 13, 1993, in a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House as Mr. Rabin and their old enemy Yasir Arafat, the chairman of the P.L.O., looked on and, with some prodding by President Bill Clinton, shook hands.
It was a gesture both unprecedented and historic. Up to that time, Israel had refused to negotiate directly with the P.L.O. Mr. Peres broke the taboo, and the impasse.
“What we are doing today is more than signing an agreement; it is a revolution,” he said at the ceremony. “Yesterday a dream, today a commitment.”
“We are sincere,” he pledged to the Palestinians. “We mean business. We do not seek to shape your lives or determine your destiny. Let all of us turn from bullets to ballots, from guns to shovels.”
Later that day, in a television interview, Mr. Peres pronounced himself 100 percent sure that peace had arrived. With the changes in the world — the end of the Cold War; the collapse of the Soviet Union and, with it, its military, financial and diplomatic support of the P.L.O.; and the drying up of funds from Arab countries angered over Arafat’s support of Iraq in the recent Persian Gulf war — the time had come for the Palestinians, too, to seek peace.
“If you have children,” he said, “you cannot feed them forever with flags for breakfast and cartridges for lunch. You need something more substantial. Unless you educate your children and spend less money on conflicts, unless you develop your science, technology and industry, you don’t have a future.”
Mr. Peres, Mr. Rabin and Arafat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
But the era of good feelings did not last. It was shattered in 2000 after a visit by the opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the sacred plaza in Jerusalem known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The next day, the Israeli police fired on stone-throwing protesters, inaugurating a new round of violence that became known as the second intifada.
It did not end until Arafat died in 2004, bringing new leadership to the Palestinians and a new effort at coexistence led by Mr. Sharon, a former hawk who was elected prime minister and withdrew Israeli settlers and soldiers from Gaza and small parts of the West Bank.
Mr. Peres had tried before to get a peace settlement, in 1987, at that time between Israel and Jordan. He was foreign minister in a coalition government with Yitzhak Shamir when he proposed an international peace conference on the Middle East. But Mr. Shamir and his Likud faction scuttled the plan.
Mr. Peres had sought to settle the future of the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel had occupied since the Arab-Israeli War in 1967. As a first step, he proposed that Jordan and Israel could either divide the land or share the government but that Israel should not control the area forever.
A COALITION, AND CALM
Mr. Peres became prime minister at the head of an unusual coalition of Israel’s two major political parties, his own Labor Party, and the Likud, the party led by Yitzhak Shamir, who served as deputy prime minister and foreign minister. In accordance with the coalition agreement, the two men exchanged posts after 25 months.
Mr. Peres brought a period of tranquillity to the social environment, which had been frayed by animosities between European and Middle Eastern Jews and between religious Jews and secular Jews.
He presided over the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon after an invasion that had generated unprecedented controversy, and he became the first Israeli prime minister to take the difficult steps required to deal with the nation’s fundamental economic problems and ruinous inflation.
During his time in office, Israel airlifted some 7,000 Ethiopian Jews who had trekked to refugee camps in Sudan to escape famine, anti-Semitism, forced conscription of boys and other threats that made their lives in Ethiopia precarious. Mr. Peres called the clandestine rescue operation a “daring and wonderful” act of “self-redemption.”
Taking over what was expected to be a government of national impasse, Mr. Peres left office with an image as a dignified, self-confident statesman.
But while he was prime minister, severe strains developed in relations between the United States and Israel growing out of a major spy scandal involving an American, Jonathan Jay Pollard, and the disclosure in 1986 of Iranian arms deals.
A man of medium height and slender, athletic build — his dark hair turned gray and then white in his later years — Mr. Peres always exuded vitality, despite a schedule that kept him going 18 hours a day. When, on his 88th birthday, he was offered a traditional Jewish greeting, “May you live till 120,” he retorted without missing a beat, “Don’t be stingy.”
Mr. Peres was married to the former Sonya Gelman, who shunned the spotlight to the point of refusing to move into the president’s house when he took his last public post. She died in January 2011. They had three children: a daughter, Zvia, and two sons, Jonathan and Nehemya. They and Mr. Peres’s eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren survive him.
Mr. Peres was an effective speaker, comfortable in front of large audiences as well as the television camera. He cultivated party members — remembering their names and attending their weddings and bar mitzvahs — and nurtured his relationship with the intelligentsia.
He also wrote poetry and was given to quoting the ancient Greeks and Flaubert and Churchill. He published a dozen books, including “The New Middle East,” in 1993, and “Battling for Peace,” a memoir, in 1995. His last book was an affectionate political biography of his mentor, the country’s founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion.
A JOURNEY FROM POLAND
He was born Shimon Persky on Aug. 16, 1923, in the small village of Vishniewa, Poland, to a merchant family. His parents, Yitzhak and Sara Persky, took him to Palestine when he was 11, where he studied in Tel Aviv and then entered an agricultural school.
In 1941, he helped found Kibbutz Alumot in the eastern Lower Galilee, where he worked as a herdsman and was elected kibbutz secretary. He soon became active in the Mapai, which was to become Israel’s Labor Party, and, at 18, was appointed the coordinator of the youth movement of the Histadrut, the General Labor Federation.
He rose rapidly, getting experience in the intricacies of Israeli political life. In 1944, Ben-Gurion, then the head of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, sent Mr. Peres with a small reconnaissance group to Eilat on the Red Sea to survey the Sinai Desert and make maps that became important strategic assets during the 1948 war of independence.
It was on that mission that a friend sighted a nest of eagles, “peres” in Hebrew. “Persky,” he said, “why don’t you change your family name to Peres?” He accepted the suggestion, though, in fact, the bird they saw was more a vulture than an eagle.
When Israel became independent in 1948, Mr. Peres was named head of the naval service. Within two years, he was sent to the United States to lead a defense supply mission in New York. He was 27 and spoke no English, but within three months, after rounds of intensive private lessons, he was fluent. He took courses at the New School for Social Research and New York University, and later at the Harvard School of Public Administration.
In 1951, Ben-Gurion, then prime minister and minister of defense, appointed Mr. Peres director general of the Defense Ministry, where he used his Harvard training to reorganize the department. Mr. Peres became known as one of “Ben-Gurion’s boys” — protégés of the “Old Man” — a group that included Teddy Kollek and Moshe Dayan.
Those years may have been the genesis of a lifelong rivalry with Mr. Rabin, who at the time was chief of the operations branch, the second-highest position in the Israeli Army, and who complained of what he called Mr. Peres’s excessive authority.
At the Defense Ministry, Mr. Peres was in charge of a substantial portion of the nation’s total budget, and he played a central role in developing the young nation’s industry, particularly in aeronautics and electronics.
He stressed domestic weapons production, but when Egypt received advanced military equipment from the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, Mr. Peres began to cast about for new sources of supply. He finally turned to France.
His timing was excellent. The French believed the Algerian revolutionaries fighting for independence were fueled by President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and saw Israel as a source of intelligence about Egypt. Mr. Peres negotiated a $1 billion arms deal and acquired a reputation as a canny bargainer.
The arms negotiations formed a basis for the Franco-Israeli alliance that led to Israel’s lightning capture of Sinai during the Arab-Israeli War in 1967. Zeev Schiff, for many years the military editor of the newspaper Haaretz, said, “There is no doubt that Peres was one of the brains behind Suez.”
Ben-Gurion felt that a pre-emptive war was bad for Israel in terms of public opinion and was reluctant until the last. Mr. Peres saw it as an opportunity to get a better position among the superpowers, a special relationship through a “joint venture of going to war together.”
Out of that joint venture came French help in building a nuclear reactor in Dimona, which provided Israel with the ability to build nuclear weapons.
“I reached the stage in France where I was trusted by everybody, and really the sky was the limit,” Mr. Peres said many years later.
POWER STRUGGLES
In 1957, Mr. Peres was awarded the French Legion of Honor, one of many international distinctions. In 2012, President Obama presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The American honor partly reflected Israel’s shift in alliance to the United States from Europe in previous decades. While under Ben-Gurion, and his successor, Levi Eshkol, Mr. Peres negotiated with the West German defense minister, Franz Josef Strauss, to get arms and continued to get weapons from France, as well. But he came to rely increasingly on the United States. He visited Washington frequently and met with Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Mr. Peres ran for the country’s Parliament, the Knesset, in 1959, in his first bid for national elective office. With the support of Ben-Gurion, he was given a position high enough on his party’s electoral list to be assured of victory.
In the political turmoil that preceded the 1967 Middle East War, Mr. Peres tried to negotiate a return to power for Ben-Gurion, who had retired. In the course of his negotiations, he proposed a coalition to Menachem Begin, the head of the right-wing Herut Party, despite Ben-Gurion’s belief that if Mr. Begin ever came to power, he would bring Israel to the “precipice of destruction.”
Shabtai Teveth, a professor of history at Tel Aviv University and the biographer of Ben-Gurion, said in an interview, “I believe Peres will go down in Zionist and Israeli history as the man who legitimized Begin and the Herut.”
Ten years later, in 1977, when Mr. Peres challenged Mr. Rabin, the split in the Labor Party opened the way for the election of Mr. Begin as prime minister.
When Israel’s top leaders were discredited because of the country’s lack of preparedness for the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Mr. Peres made a bid for power. To block him, Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir recruited Mr. Rabin, who had been ambassador to the United States and bore no responsibility for the wartime failures. Mr. Rabin named Mr. Peres defense minister, a decision he later came to regret. In his memoirs, Mr. Rabin called him unscrupulous and untrustworthy. He wrote that he could not believe a word Mr. Peres said.
Their decades-old feud flared again in 1976 when an Air France plane that left Tel Aviv for Paris was hijacked in Athens and taken to Entebbe, Uganda. The hijackers held about 100 Israeli passengers hostage. Mr. Peres accused Prime Minister Rabin of weakness for resisting a military solution. A raid by Israeli commandos on July 3, 1976, rescued 91 passengers and 12 crew members.
The next year, Mr. Peres again sought nomination as his party’s candidate for prime minister, but he again lost out to Mr. Rabin. When Mr. Rabin was forced to drop out after disclosures that he and his wife had violated Israeli law by maintaining a bank account in Washington, Mr. Peres led the party, but he lost in the general election to Mr. Begin.
Mr. Peres finally became prime minister in 1984 when he led his Labor Party into the coalition with Likud.
He returned to office as foreign minister in July 1992 in the government of Mr. Rabin and was soon working toward the accord signed a year later. In 1996, Mr. Peres, who had taken over as prime minister after Mr. Rabin’s assassination, called an early election, certain of victory.
But a series of terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Mr. Peres’s decision to mount an offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon — during which scores of Lebanese refugees sheltering at a United Nations base in Qana died in an Israeli artillery barrage — led to ill feelings in Israel and the surprise victory by Mr. Netanyahu of Likud.
Ehud Barak then replaced Mr. Peres as head of Labor and kept him in a minor role in his government, which was elected in 1999.
Mr. Peres spent that period partly building up his Peres Center for Peace but made another political comeback when Mr. Sharon was elected prime minister in 2001 over Mr. Barak.
Mr. Peres took Labor into the Sharon-led government in a bid for national unity. Later, in 2005, he left Labor and joined the new centrist party, Kadima, formed by Mr. Sharon.
Mr. Peres, who frequently drew on historical allusions, thought of himself as philosopher more than a politician. When asked about the 1993 Oslo Accords, he said: “There was no alternative. We had to do it.” He added, “An ancient Greek philosopher was asked what is the difference between war and peace. ‘In war,’ he replied, ‘the old bury the young. In peace, the young bury the old.’ I felt that if I could make the world better for the young, that would be the greatest thing we can do.”
* You can also find other items that are not in these dispatches if you “like” this page on Facebook www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia
First Lady Michelle Obama gives former President George W. Bush a hug at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture on Saturday. This picture sets a somewhat different tone than the one we have witnessed in much of the current presidential election.
One aspect of Bush’s presidency that the media rarely gives him credit for was his strong popularity and positive policies in sub-Saharan Africa. (Bush also signed the legislation in 2003 to build the new museum in Washington.) Meanwhile, Donald Trump is in many respects running against both major party establishments, so any newfound warmth between Bush and Obama is unlikely to impact Trump’s support.
TRUMP AND THE JEWS
[Note by Tom Gross]
Ahead of the first American presidential debate tonight, this is another in a series of occasional dispatches about the U.S. election. It focuses on Donald Trump, but just to be clear it is not an endorsement for him, nor for Hillary Clinton.
The reason this dispatch focuses on Trump is that less is known about him. In modern times there has never been a candidate who has got so close to the presidency, yet has so little background in political life.
I attach a long feature and an editorial from last week’s Jerusalem Post on “Trump and the Jews”.
Before that I attach a “Readout of Donald J. Trump’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”. The two met yesterday at New York’s Trump Tower for more than an hour. The Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also participated in the meeting.
Netanyahu – like many international leaders who visited New York in recent days for the UN General Assembly – met both Trump and Clinton yesterday. Netanyahu is staying strictly neutral (at least in public) in this election.
Incidentally, the author of the Jerusalem Post report, the paper’s Washington bureau chief Michael Wilner, has been criticized by some Jerusalem Post readers who claim (rightly or wrongly) that he “has shown himself to be biased against Trump and solidly pro-Clinton in his reports in recent months.”
Other Post readers claim that the paper has been moving steadily to the left in recent years “and nowadays has just become another Haaretz.”
Both Donald Trump and his father Fred donated to various Jewish-related institutions and charities over the years, including the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation of New York and New Jersey, the Hospital for Special Surgery and the Long Island Jewish Hospital. Both have in the past received various plaques and acknowledgements from Jewish institutions for their charitable contributions.
Donald Trump has also donated to organizations such as the Jewish National Fund and United Jewish Appeal. “Many of his donations and event appearances were quite private and went unrewarded – at least with publicity, a commodity Trump values enormously,” says the Jerusalem Post.
Among other recent dispatches concerning Donald Trump:
* Trump’s hostile takeover gathers pace (& Sanders’ conspiracy theorist advisor) (Feb. 26, 2016)
* How Bernie Sanders’ socialist ideas were developed on the kibbutz (Feb 11, 2016)
Trump and Netanyahu in New York yesterday. Netanyahu also met Hillary Clinton.
READOUT OF DONALD J. TRUMP’S MEETING WITH ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU
September 25, 2016
www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/readout-of-donald-j.-trumps-meeting-with-israeli-prime-minister-benjamin-ne
NEW YORK, NY – Donald J. Trump met privately today with Prime Minister Netanyahu for over an hour at Mr. Trump’s residence in Trump Tower. The two have known each other for many years and had the opportunity to discuss many topics important to both countries.
Mr. Trump and the Prime Minister discussed the special relationship between America and Israel and the unbreakable bond between the two countries. The topics of military assistance, security and regional stability were addressed. Mr. Trump agreed that the military assistance provided to Israel and missile defense cooperation with Israel are an excellent investment for America. Mr. Trump said that under a Trump administration, there will be extraordinary strategic, technological, military and intelligence cooperation between the two countries. Mr. Trump recognized Israel as a vital partner of the United States in the global war against radical Islamic terrorism.
They discussed at length the nuclear deal with Iran, the battle against ISIS and many other regional security concerns.
Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu discussed at length Israel’s successful experience with a security fence that helped secure its borders. They discussed Israel’s burgeoning hi-tech and biotech economy and how it has made stunning advances improving and saving lives around the world. In particular, Mr. Trump noted Israel’s emergence as a world leader in cyber defense and security and its cooperation with the United States in this regard.
Mr. Trump recognized that Israel and its citizens have suffered far too long on the front lines of Islamic terrorism. He agreed with Prime Minister Netanyahu that the Israeli people want a just and lasting peace with their neighbors, but that peace will only come when the Palestinians renounce hatred and violence and accept Israel as a Jewish State.
Finally, Mr. Trump acknowledged that Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish People for over 3000 years, and that the United States, under a Trump administration, will finally accept the long-standing Congressional mandate to recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel.
The meeting concluded with both leaders promising the highest level of mutual support and cooperation should Mr. Trump have the honor and privilege of being elected President of the United States.
JERUSALEM POST EDITORIAL: TRUMP AND THE JEWS
Trump and the Jews
Jerusalem Post editorial
September 20, 2016
Two conclusions can be reached from the in-depth and superbly documented report about Donald J. Trump’s ties with the Jews by Michael Wilner, The Jerusalem Post’s Washington bureau chief.
The first is that Trump is no antisemite. Despite claims by people like Democratic National Committee chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz that antisemitism in the Republic Party “goes straight to the feet of Donald Trump;” despite Trump’s controversial statements; and despite the support he receives from people like antisemite and white power supremacist David Duke, the presidential hopeful is a philosemite who has had intimate relations with Jews throughout his life. If anything, he sees Jews as a group of smart, successful and generally powerful deal-makers – traits which he himself seeks to emulate.
The second conclusion is that Trump can potentially do more to distance himself from people like Duke and some members of the alt-Right who voice antisemitic and racist sentiments.
In his comprehensive report on “Trump and the Jews,” Wilner documented what he referred to as Trump’s “affirmative prejudice” for Jewish people.
Trump has donated generously to Jewish philanthropic institutions such as the Jewish National Fund and United Jewish Appeal; he has throughout his business career surrounded himself with Jewish lawyers, executives and accountants; and there is no reason to question Jared Kushner, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law and campaign adviser, when he said recently in defense of his father-in-law that Trump is “an incredibly loving and tolerant person who has embraced my family and our Judaism since I began dating my wife.”
Nevertheless, Trump’s handling of several controversies related to Jews during his campaign has made him vulnerable to claims like the one leveled at him by Wasserman Schultz.
For instance, after Trump’s social media director retweeted a graphic image of a six-pointed star over a pile of money that had made the rounds on a neo-Nazi Internet bulletin board, he told a crowd of supporters gathered near Cincinnati that he would have preferred to have left the six-pointed star on the tweet’s image instead of removing it, as his social media team had done after the controversy broke.
Trump went on to accuse the media of “racially profiling” his campaign for highlighting the star and conflating it with the Star of David.
After former KKK grand wizard David Duke said that voting against Trump would be a “treason to your heritage,” Trump delayed disavowing the support, claiming he did not know who Duke was. And even while Trump has since distanced himself from Duke, he failed to condemn antisemitic vitriol on social media directed by his supporters against Jewish journalists who have written critically of Trump, such as New York Times reporter Jonathan Weisman and GQ writer Julia Ioffe.
After Trump’s wife, Melania, criticized the April 27 profile in GQ as “another example of the dishonest media and their disingenuous reporting,” Ioffe was inundated with antisemitic images and messages, including a doctored photo of her wearing a Holocaust-era Jewish star, a cartoon of an identifiably Jewish caricature being shot in the head and threats that she would be sent “back to the oven.”
Trump’s popularity stems from his refusal to kowtow to the consensus or be intimidated by conventional thinking.
His outspokenness and refusal to retract controversial statements are all part of what makes him so appealing for many Americans who believe political correctness has gone too far. Americans like Trump’s brutal honesty and sincerity.
However, as a US presidential nominee, we believe that Trump has a moral responsibility to use that same irreverence and outspokenness to discourage expressions of hate. As the article makes clear, there is no need to question Trump’s own feelings and sentiments towards Jews.
There are however legitimate concerns about some of his followers.
History has taught that antisemitism is a potent hatred that is surprisingly easy to trigger. Hatred of Jews, which has never run deep in American society, nevertheless has its adherents. Trump might yet become the next US president. His public statements have the power to influence.
Trump should use this newfound power for good by coming out unequivocally against all manifestations of antisemitism.
PRIDE AND AFFIRMATIVE PREJUDICE: DONALD TRUMP AND THE JEWS
Pride and affirmative prejudice: Donald Trump and the Jews
A ‘Jerusalem Post’ special report explores differing perspectives on the Republican presidential nominee’s decades-long relationship with the Jewish community.
Jerusalem Post
September 19, 2016
NEW YORK – Near the end of his debt-ridden ownership of the Plaza Hotel, Donald Trump summoned Abe Foxman to breakfast at its iconic Palm Court. The real estate tycoon had a bone to pick with the Anti-Defamation League.
Foxman, then ADL’s national director, sat waiting for half an hour at the owner’s usual corner table. Trump finally walked in blustering, hand outstretched.
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“Mr. Foxman,” he began, “Trump never apologizes.”
Foxman’s colleague, Art Teitelbaum, had recently criticized Trump for his tactics in Palm Beach – a city long marred by discrimination – battling the city council over turning his estate at Mar-a-Lago into a private social club. Trump was accusing the Florida township of antisemitism, claiming that it was opposed to his efforts because his club was going to welcome members of all races and creeds, including Jews and African-Americans.
The ADL’s leadership had seen this phenomenon up close: Teitelbaum and Foxman were in the trenches fighting discrimination in Palm Beach already back in 1964. There was still antisemitism there three decades later, and they expected discrimination to persist. “But that has nothing to do with Trump’s plans to build at Mar-a-Lago,” Teitelbaum told members of the press at the time, suggesting Trump was using Jews as a negotiating ploy.
“Who the f**k is this guy, Teitelbaum?” Trump asked Foxman, according to a version of the 1994 conversation as recalled by the ADL leader. “Abe, it’s antisemitism. All my members will be Jewish.”
“Donald – that’s antisemitism,” Foxman said. “You don’t know who your members will be.”
Trump appeared shocked, and privately backed off his use of the term at Foxman’s explicit request. But Trump apparently did not understand the problem. In his mind, the caste of Jews was complimentary – if still a caste nonetheless.
“To say that only Jews will be members meant that only Jews have money – it was stereotypic,” Foxman recalled in a recent interview. “For him, it may have been an assessment of business opportunities. He’s a shrewd businessman.”
THROUGHOUT MUCH of his adult life and childhood, at seemingly every significant juncture in his business career, Donald J. Trump has surrounded himself with members of a single minority group.
His relationship with the Jewish community offers exceptional insight into the tolerance of a man whose unpredictable presidential campaign has been defined, by many, as one of the most culturally and racially divisive in modern American political history.
Over the course of a months-long investigation of that relationship by The Jerusalem Post – resourcing court documents, media archives and original interviews with campaign aides, close personal confidantes, past lawyers, business partners and employees – both supporters and detractors of the Republican nominee agreed on one critical revelation: Trump seems to have something of an affirmative prejudice toward Jews.
They believe he considers Jews a group of rich, smart, successful and generally powerful deal makers – all traits which Trump himself aspires to, and has sought to emulate, while simultaneously touching on tropes described by historians of the topic as classically antisemitic.
“In some ways, Donald Trump and his relationship with the Jews is the latest chapter in a very long history of ambivalence and dichotomous relations,” Jonathan Sarna, author of American Judaism: A History, said in an interview. “The line between philosemitism and antisemitism is often a difficult one – the line is thin. It’s not bright red. Often you can find within the same person both tendencies, and Trump is a study in that.”
‘JEWS ARE THE BEST TENANTS’
Trump Village on Coney Island was still an empty plot of sand when Sharon Glaser’s family signed up for an apartment on Fred Trump’s waiting list.
The Glasers were shown a model of what their unit would look like, and offered a list of planned amenities. “We had to put money down,” said Glaser, who moved into the property in 1964 and still lives there to this day. “It was mainly Jewish when we first moved in, but now it’s very mixed.”
The process for securing an apartment wasn’t hard for her Jewish family. “We met the requirements,” she said.
Fred Trump, founder of Trump Management and father and mentor to Donald, was personally involved at this stage of development. In interviews, residents said they would see him around often and that he maintained a good reputation in the community.
But at this point in his life, Fred, born of German immigrants, was publicly peddling a fabricated Swedish past. As has now been acknowledged by the Trump family, he was hiding his German heritage out of fear that it would deter critical Jewish contacts in the New York real estate world, as well as potential Jewish tenants interested in his properties.
And Jewish tenants were his preference.
Documents from a Justice Department discrimination case against Trump launched in 1973 quote one of his rental agents describing a racial code: “Some blacks do live in Trump buildings,” the agent recalled in one March 6, 1974, district court filing, but “Trump Management believes that Jewish tenants are the best tenants.” Another agent was instructed to rent only to “Jews and executives” and to disregard the applications of blacks.
Facing one of the highest profile Fair Housing Act prosecutions in the country, the Trump family retained lawyer Roy Cohn, former chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare and Jewish himself. Fred and Donald were soliciting members of minority groups through an advertising campaign, Cohn insisted at the time. “We think the [New York] Times is geared to minorities. It supported a Puerto Rican for mayor against a Jew,” he noted.
A report in that very paper puts a young Fred, age 21, at a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1927 (Donald has denied this report refers to his father, but the arrestee’s police record accurately lists Fred’s old address in Queens). Archived newspaper coverage of Klan organizing efforts in New York City from that period records the group claimed itself neither to be “anti-Jewish” nor violent. But “our investigations have led to disclosures which convince us there is a sweeping Bolshevist and Socialist propaganda moving in large areas of the Jewish population,” the city’s Klan chapter head said in 1922, according to a Times article. “We oppose movements of this kind.”
If Fred ever flirted with Klan recruiters, their dalliance appears to have been short-lived, as he proceeded throughout the rest of his life to work extensively with members of the Jewish community. And whatever prejudice Fred may have maintained against “colored” people, he demonstrated a consistent willingness to work with and befriend Jews beyond simply renting to them.
Fred was not the only Trump to allegedly fib about his heritage: Donald’s older brother, Freddy Trump Jr., joined a Jewish fraternity at Lehigh University in 1960, claiming to at least some pledgees that his father was part of the tribe, according to interviews with former fellow classmates. Donald himself kept up the story of his father’s Swedish ancestry until acknowledging German roots to Vanity Fair in 1990.
Sarna said that Christian European immigrants to New York during this time were often torn between what they had in common with their Jewish European brethren, and what appeared to set them apart.
“Ambivalence is the right word,” said Sarna. “On the one hand, lots of German Americans had lots of Jewish friends in this period. And yet they were always different as Jews, and they knew that they were different – and at crucial moments, the two really came to be at loggerheads.”
Fred’s rise in New York real estate was intimately tied to the success of Abraham “Bunny” Lindenbaum, his longtime counsel, and Abe Beame, the first Jewish mayor of New York. Beame and Lindenbaum were old friends, and together worked on the approval of Fred’s cornerstone Coney Island project.
Stuart Oltchick, who knew the Trump family well and met Freddy Jr. in their Jewish fraternity days, said he frequently attended dinners with the Trumps and Sandy Lindenbaum, Bunny’s son.
“You’re not in Dubuque, Iowa, so a good part of what happens in New York City, commercially, is related to Jews,” said Oltchick, who described Donald’s father as a “reserved, well-dressed executive” who came from a “different time” when discrimination was acceptable business practice.
Oltchick told The Post he remained close with Freddy Jr. until his sudden death at age 43 after struggling with alcoholism – an event that has turned Donald off of all substances. He describes their father as less reverential of blue-collar work than Donald expresses himself to be on the campaign trail: “When Freddy became a commercial airline pilot, his father called him a bus driver in the sky,” Oltchick recalled.
Fred donated generously to Beame’s election campaign, despite a conflict of interest later acknowledged by Donald, and to the campaign of Manfred Ohrenstein, majority leader of the New York State Senate and a critical contact for the Trump family on several other projects in proceeding years.
Racial integration at Trump properties was slow even after Cohn reached a settlement with the Justice Department, and Trump Village was still “just about all Jewish” when at least one resident, Charna Kaplan, moved in with her son in the late 1980s, as Donald was already moving on to Manhattan.
Donald came of age during this critical period in his father’s life, and assumed a leading role in Trump Management shortly before facing his first public test: the Justice Department case. He testified in 1974 that he personally handled leases in Brooklyn and Queens, which disproportionately awarded apartments to Jewish applicants. In a short period, he was building on his own, using some of the vital contacts his father had established. The Lindenbaums ultimately helped Donald forge into Manhattan real estate several years later.
The immediate circle around Trump as he entered Manhattan was full of Jewish figures and has remained so consistently ever since.
Donald’s father remained in the outer boroughs and died at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in 1999. Fred has been memorialized there in at least one venue: a Jewish center, built on a plot of land in Sea Breeze he donated to the Orthodox community in an act of apparent goodwill.
“Fred C. Trump, humanitarian,” a 1956 plaque in the Beach Haven building reads, “a sagacious person deserving of every plaudit and tribute given by our community, emphasized more so by the tumultuous age in which we live.”
‘I FIGURED OUT HOW TO USE JEWS TO MY ADVANTAGE’
The Jerusalem Post first reported on Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions in 1999, when he floated himself as a potential candidate for the Reform Party of Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader.
By that time he was publicly known as a brash New York builder, a casino mogul and a twice-divorced tabloid magnet.
Trump kept loyalists around him throughout this period, when he carefully reconstructed the image of his father’s company based on his own personal brand as a shrewd deal maker.
“He surrounds himself oddly enough with Jewish personnel, both then and now: his real estate lawyer is Jewish, his house counsel is Jewish, his controller is Jewish, his chief of staff, chief financial officer, executive vice president, his first executive vice president – I was his litigator for 15 years,” Jay Goldberg, who worked for Trump from 1990 to 2005, said in an interview.
Goldberg navigated Trump through both of his divorces in the 1990s with Ivana Zelníková and Marla Maples. Aware of Fred’s past, Goldberg warned against holding deeds of the father against the son: “No attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood,” he said, quoting the Constitution.
“When we talk about the Jewish community and I really think about it, I can’t think of one Christian person on his senior staff,” said Goldberg, who will vote for Trump in November. “It’s amazing to me. It’s almost prejudice in favor of Jewish people.”
During their divorce proceedings, Ivana reportedly told her friend that Trump would jokingly “Heil Hitler” with his cousin – an allusion to their hushed German heritage – and that he kept a book of Adolf Hitler’s most successful propaganda speeches, titled My New Order, on his bedside. When a Vanity Fair reporter asked Trump to explain this in 1990, he referenced the wrong book. “It was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he’s a Jew,” Trump asserted. The late Hollywood executive was not Jewish.
Several authors made hay of Trump’s star appeal, including John O’Donnell, who wrote a book titled Trumped! that Donald said was generally accurate. One section of the book depicts him openly discriminating against people on the basis of their race, ethnicity and religion.
“I’ve got black accountants at Trump Castle and at Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money,” Trump said, according to the 1991 biography. “I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” Trump later denied making that comment.
Only one author spent extensive time with Trump, however, and that was Tony Schwartz, who embedded himself in Trump’s life for 18 months as ghostwriter of The Art of the Deal.
Schwartz would often hear Trump talk about Jews – a group that he quintessentially characterized as shrewd accountants and lawyers, the writer said.
“The way I would describe his perception of Jews is that he thinks of them in very simple and very stereotypical terms,” Schwartz said in an interview. “My feeling was, ‘I figured out how to use Jews to my advantage.’”
Asked whether he ever thought Trump defined him by his affiliation with a group, Schwartz said he felt at the time that Trump thought of him as a “smart hustler Jew” who would probably write a solid book.
“It’s preposterous to think that Donald Trump has a deep personal understanding of or affinity with the Jewish community in the fullest sense of what that means,” Schwartz said. “And the reason I say that is that ‘affinity’ or ‘connection’ or ‘empathy’ or ‘deep understanding’ are not part of his vocabulary.”
Trump raised eyebrows with a Twitter message posted in April of 2013 which suggested that “outing” Daily Show host Jon Stewart as Jewish would indicate his level of intelligence.
“I promise you that I’m much smarter than Jonathan Leibowitz – I mean Jon Stewart, who, by the way, is totally overrated,” Trump tweeted at the time.
But Trump has also given generously to Jewish philanthropic organizations, including the Jewish National Fund and United Jewish Appeal, dating back to his very early career. Many of his donations and event appearances were quite private and went unrewarded – at least with publicity, a commodity Trump values enormously.
Trump often touts his connections to the community and hangs several Jewish awards prominently above his desk in Trump Tower, including JNF’s Tree of Life, awarded to him in 1983 for his fund-raising abilities, according to one longtime board member.
“I’ll have friends of mine come in [who are] Jewish and they’ll see the Tree of Life, and they’ll say, ‘wow, what a great thing,’” Trump told the Washington Post last year. He lost the original award in his move to Mar-a-Lago and personally requested a replacement for his wall in 1997.
“Donald is clearly not an antisemite – he’s just neutral,” said a former senior Trump Organization employee, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic. “He’s not a supporter of the community. If it’s to his advantage, then it works for him.”
‘TRUMP KNOWS WHERE HIS ROOTS ARE’
The closest link Donald has to the Jewish community is not his staff, his business partners or his tenants, but his daughter, Ivanka, who converted to Judaism after three years of study in 2009.
Shortly after her engagement to Jared Kushner was announced that year, a friend of the family for over 20 years caught both Donald and Ivanka for a private moment on the sidelines of an important business meeting in Chicago.
Congratulations were offered; and knowing the Kushner family as Modern Orthodox, he asked her: Are you going to convert?
“He didn’t make a grimace in his face or raise his eyebrows or anything,” said Herb Kolben, who later attended their wedding with a “million-dollar” huppa. “Donald told me he was entirely supportive.”
Jared and Ivanka declined requests to be interviewed for this article, as did her conversion rabbi, Haskel Lookstein, who said the Trump experience with Judaism was “a private matter for the family.” But the candidate’s top two advisers on Israel and the Jewish world, David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt, both sat down with The Post to discuss what they described as Trump’s heartfelt, consistent and demonstrable commitment to the community.
“I don’t know where Jewish culture and New York culture begin and end,” said Friedman, who described a candidate with deep New York values. “There’s a lot of overlap there. And there’s a lot of that going on at the Trump Organization – fast talkers, quick thinkers, self-starters, motivated people.”
Friedman’s support for Trump is personal. Donald’s friend and lawyer for fifteen years, he took a genuine liking to his client roughly two years into their relationship, when Friedman’s father died.
In the middle of a blizzard, a ways outside the city, Friedman was sitting shiva when Trump suddenly showed up. Friedman was stunned. Trump was famous, and busy, and didn’t owe him anything.
“He came by, spent about an hour with me,” Friedman said. “We talked about my father and talked about his father – about how much of an influence his father had over him. And you know, there was nobody around. He wasn’t trying to prove anything to anybody.”
Greenblatt, executive vice president and chief legal officer at the Trump Organization, describes a workplace environment where he – and several other Sabbath observers – have been treated with nothing but respect.
“Deep down I think Donald has a Jewish heart,” said Greenblatt, who has attended services with Trump where he would hum along to Aleinu and stand and sit with the flow of ritual. “I wouldn’t say that he isn’t equally fond of non- Jews who share the same work ethic as his own. I think he’s very much an equal opportunity type of person.”
Greenblatt also remembers watching Donald as he listened, seemingly with appreciation, to the religious service at Ivanka’s wedding. Over the course of his capricious presidential campaign, the GOP nominee has discussed his daughter’s Judaism publicly with a sort of pride – as an example of his own personal tolerance, of his commitment to religious freedom, and to the security of Israel.
But at least one avid Trump supporter isn’t buying it.
“I don’t really use the term white nationalism, but I do want to preserve my heritage – just like Jews do,” said David Duke, a prominent white power activist, offering an explanation of why his worldview attracts him to the Trump campaign. “And I think deep down inside, Donald Trump knows where his roots are. He’s concerned about the general heritage of this country. The fact that some of his family is intermarried doesn’t really change that.”
Duke has become emblematic of a type of voter who, until this year, couldn’t find a horse to ride in the quadrennial race for the presidency. In the words of Trump’s rival, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, these voters are in a “basket of deplorables” discriminating against people based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, place of origin and religion.
The sentiment that Clinton spoke of has jolted Jewish voters, who are frequently the targets of white supremacist attacks. Recent polls show Jewish voters supporting Clinton over Trump by over three to one.
“When Trump was asked about antisemitic slurs and death threats coming from his supporters, he refused to condemn them,” Clinton said in a speech on Trump’s relationship with the “alternative Right” movement, also known as the alt-Right, which generally opposes multiculturalism and immigration.
When Trump hired Steve Bannon, former head of the “platform for the alt-Right” website Breitbart.com, as his campaign CEO, campaign staff offered no comment when allegations of antisemitism from Bannon’s ex-wife surfaced days later. They were similarly quiet when Trump’s top foreign policy adviser, Joseph Schmitz, was found to be under investigation for trying to purge Jewish employees while at the Pentagon. And when Trump retweeted a graphic image of a six-pointed star pasted on a pile of money accusing Clinton of corruption, he ultimately deleted the post without ever acknowledging any problem with it – even after learning the image originated on a white nationalist website.
Duke rejects efforts to label him a white supremacist and to constantly evoke his past experience with the Ku Klux Klan as a coordinated smear campaign designed by the same “Jewish establishment media” that apparently has it out for his candidate.
Trump adviser Friedman says that Duke’s endorsement has “distressed” the presidential candidate. Indeed, both Trump and his vice presidential running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, have disavowed Duke’s support on several occasions.
“I find it comical that David Duke thinks that he’s aligned with Donald, because Donald stands for everything that I think that David would abhor – tolerance, religious freedom, diversity, equal opportunity. That’s who Donald is,” Greenblatt said of Duke’s commentary for this article. “I think they are worlds apart.”
But Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail of late has enthused Duke and his ilk: “Our Christian heritage will be cherished, protected and defended like you’ve never seen before,” Trump told a summit of value voters on September 9.
“It would be very important, wouldn’t it, for a German American gentile to go to Jewish funding drives and charities and to build those relationships in order to navigate a society of Jewish nepotism ,” Duke said, describing the business tactics of Fred and Donald as an “astute” navigation of Jewish sensibilities in a city gripped by “immense” Jewish power. “The Jewish establishment wants massive immigration in this country, an interventionist, it wants gun control – that’s why they hate Donald Trump.”
Kushner has offered few media opportunities despite occupying a critical role in the Trump campaign: he helps run its daily operations, and penned the first teleprompter speech of Donald’s political career, delivered at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference.
But Kushner felt compelled to address accusations of antisemitism against Donald, after the six-pointed star post went viral.
“My father-in-law is not an antisemite,” Kushner wrote in a newspaper column in July. He called Trump a loving and tolerant person whose embrace of his family’s identity has been “unwavering and from the heart.”
Toward the end of an hour-long interview, Duke put himself in Trump’s shoes to comport his perspective with the candidate’s lifelong relationship with the Jewish community.
“‘I’m going to be quiet,’” Duke surmised of Trump’s thinking, “‘I’m going to gain as much power as I can, and when the time comes, I’m going to do what I can for my people. ‘“
Trump voted in the Republican primaries at Central Synagogue in Midtown. He won the state of New York, but lost Manhattan.
‘AFFIRMATIVE PREJUDICE’
Trump has made a handful of appeals to the Jewish community since announcing his presidential run, but most of them have resulted in one controversy or another.
“I’m a negotiator like you folks,” Trump said in a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in December. Campaign aides said the speech was geared toward business executives (it was not). “Is there anybody that doesn’t renegotiate deals in this room? This room negotiates them – perhaps more than any other room I’ve ever spoken in.”
At a group interview with Jewish reporters four months later, Trump looked around his conference table, saw several “Orthodox faces,” and “summoned some Orthodox Jews of his own to the room,” JTA reported at the time. “I’ve had many, many friends over the years Orthodox, in fact people that work for me,” Trump said. Jared and Ivanka sent their regards.
Friedman doesn’t see anything wrong here.
“If he’s guilty of anything, it’s of observing that Jews have been successful and they’re smart, and they’re engaging – you know?” Friedman said. “Okay, guilty.”
But to cast Jews in positive Trumpian terms – smart, shrewd, deal maker – still amounts to degradation equivalent to the sexist act of calling a woman a 10, said Maurice Samuels, director of Yale University’s Program for the Study of Antisemitism.
“Affirmative prejudice is a good term, and I prefer it to philosemitism,” said Samuels in an interview. “As soon as you begin viewing Jews as a group, either positively or negatively, you’re veering into very problematic territory. It’s a process of ‘othering’ and separating that usually doesn’t end well for Jews.”
The impression that Trump is peddling bigotry vexes his most loyal Jewish friends, many of whom go back with him several decades. Those deeply appreciative of his tolerance for their religious practices in the workplace see him either taking a low road to score votes, or simply not caring enough to take a stand– choosing instead a path that serves his own interests, like an old political hand.
“I think it’s really sad, and disturbing, that he has so many Jews around him,” Schwartz said. “I don’t think it’s good for Jews, because I believe the people he has around him are probably quite smart, and they know who Trump is. Every one of them knows who Trump is. They’ve made some kind of pact with the devil – and I should know because I did this myself – that now threatens the future of civilization.”
Several current and former Trump employees described a man more respectful and understanding of their religiosity than their own families – “pray for me,” Trump would say, entering important negotiations late on Friday nights without critical members of his senior staff. Others portrayed a New Yorker at heart who understands that even Jewish humor includes some off-color, ‘All in the Family’-style jokes from time to time.
Many expressed admiration, and some will vote for him in November. But virtually everyone identified a pattern that strikes at the core of his sensational campaign for president.
In subtle stereotypes of Jews that have long rallied their most impassioned enemies, Trump may see winning virtues: A special group worthy of his praise that has acquired whatever it is he defines as success, paying him forward and the rent on time.
And what greater compliment can Mr. Trump give to a minority than that?
“Part of the problem with Donald Trump is that he seems to stereotype different groups – Muslims, Hispanics, blacks and Jews,” Sarna concluded. “He seems not even to understand that in the era in which we live, that’s precisely what we’re trying to move away from: Group stereotypes and definitions.”
Americans go to the polls on November 8.
“I think one has to ask oneself,” Sarna said, “if they are prepared to vote for president someone who judges individuals based on their group.”
(Josh Solomon in New York and Elaine Moshe in Jerusalem contributed to the Jerusalem Post report.)
* You can also find other items that are not in these dispatches if you “like” this page on Facebook www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia
Following his recent landmark tour of Africa, Israeli PM Netanyahu was invited to meet with leaders of over 15 African states yesterday in a sideroom at the UN in New York. “Netanyahu is now more sought after in many African countries than Obama is,” one African government advisor said privately.
NETANYAHU ASKS ABBAS TO ADDRESS THE KNESSET
[Note by Tom Gross]
Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again called for a two state solution, and invited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to speak at the Knesset in Jerusalem and make an address to the Israeli people. Netanyahu also said he “would gladly come to speak to the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah” to advance peace.
Through his spokesperson, Abbas immediately turned down the offer to address Israelis and again made clear he is not interested in peace negotiations towards a two state solution.
If you have time, it is worth watching Netanyahu’s 40-minute speech to the UN yesterday, in this video here.
(For those who prefer reading a transcript, there is one below, but I found it easier to absorb the speech and the way it was delivered, by watching it. For those who don’t have time to watch or read it, I placed a few extracts below first.)
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There are an increasing number of senior people throughout the Arab world subscribing to this list, from members of the Iraqi parliament to Syrian opposition leaders. But it is the members of European governments and embassies, who subscribe to this list, who I sometimes find to be more hostile to Israel than the Arab leaders I meet. The Europeans on this list might benefit from watching the full speech, rather than rely on the often partisan reports about Netanyahu in some European media or in papers such as Haaretz.
Incidentally, for what I believe is the first time ever, the Kuwaiti delegation remained in the auditorium to listen to Netanyahu’s speech in UN.
EXTRACTS
IN THE REAL WORLD, OUTSIDE THE UN, ISRAEL HAS MORE AND MORE FRIENDS AND ALLIES
Netanyahu in his address to the UN General Assembly yesterday:
“More and more nations in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America, more and more nations see Israel as a potent partner… Governments are changing their attitudes towards Israel because they know that Israel can help them protect their peoples, can help them feed them, can help them better their lives…
“Today Israel has diplomatic relations with over 160 countries. That’s nearly double the number that we had when I served here as Israel’s ambassador some 30 years ago. And those ties are getting broader and deeper every day. World leaders increasingly appreciate that Israel is a powerful country with one of the best intelligence services on earth. Because of our unmatched experience and proven capabilities in fighting terrorism, many of your governments seek our help in keeping your countries safe.
A THIRSTY WORLD
“Many also seek to benefit from Israel’s ingenuity in agriculture, in health, in water, in cyber and in the fusion of big data, connectivity and artificial intelligence – that fusion that is changing our world in every way.
“You might consider this: Israel leads the world in recycling wastewater. We recycle about 90% of our wastewater. Now, how remarkable is that? Well, given that the next country on the list only recycles about 20% of its wastewater, Israel is a global water power. So if you have a thirsty world, and we do, there’s no better ally than Israel.
AN INSECURE WORLD
“How about cybersecurity? That’s an issue that affects everyone. Israel accounts for one-tenth of one percent of the world’s population, yet last year we attracted some 20% of the global private investment in cybersecurity. I want you to digest that number. In cyber, Israel is punching a whopping 200 times above its weight. So Israel is also a global cyber power. If hackers are targeting your banks, your planes, your power grids and just about everything else, Israel can offer indispensable help.
ON THE STARVING OF NORTH KOREA
“I have total confidence that in the years ahead the revolution in Israel’s standing among the nations will finally penetrate this hall of nations [at the UN]. I have so much confidence, in fact, that I predict that a decade from now an Israeli prime minister will stand right here where I am standing and actually applaud the UN. But I want to ask you: Why do we have to wait a decade? Why keep vilifying Israel? …
“Are the half million slaughtered Syrians helped by your condemnation of Israel? The same Israel that has treated thousands of injured Syrians in our hospitals, including a field hospital that I built right along the Golan Heights border with Syria. Are the gays hanging from cranes in Iran helped by your denigration of Israel? That same Israel where gays march proudly in our streets and serve in our parliament, including I’m proud to say in my own Likud party. Are the starving children in North Korea’s brutal tyranny, are they helped by your demonization of Israel? Israel, whose agricultural knowhow is feeding the hungry throughout the developing world?
“The sooner the UN’s obsession with Israel ends, the better. The better for Israel, the better for your countries, the better for the UN itself.”
ON WOMEN
“The UN General Assembly that last year passed 20 resolutions against the democratic State of Israel and a grand total of three resolutions against all the other countries on the planet. Israel – twenty; rest of the world – three.
“And what about the UN Human Rights Council, which each year condemns Israel more than all the countries of the world combined. As women are being systematically raped, murdered, sold into slavery across the world, which is the only country that the UN’s Commission on Women chose to condemn this year? Yep, you guessed it – Israel. Israel. Israel where women fly fighter jets, lead major corporations, head universities, preside – twice – over the Supreme Court, and have served as Speaker of the Knesset and Prime Minister.”
ON THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA
“And this circus continues at UNESCO. UNESCO, the UN body charged with preserving world heritage. Now, this is hard to believe but UNESCO just denied the 4,000 year connection between the Jewish people and its holiest site, the Temple Mount. That’s just as absurd as denying the connection between the Great Wall of China and China.”
FULL TRANSCRIPT OF NETANYAHU’S REMARKS AT THE UN, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2016
“Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
What I’m about to say is going to shock you: Israel has a bright future at the UN.
Now I know that hearing that from me must surely come as a surprise, because year after year I’ve stood at this very podium and slammed the UN for its obsessive bias against Israel. And the UN deserved every scathing word – for the disgrace of the General Assembly that last year passed 20 resolutions against the democratic State of Israel and a grand total of three resolutions against all the other countries on the planet.
Israel – twenty; rest of the world – three.
And what about the joke called the UN Human Rights Council, which each year condemns Israel more than all the countries of the world combined. As women are being systematically raped, murdered, sold into slavery across the world, which is the only country that the UN’s Commission on Women chose to condemn this year? Yep, you guessed it – Israel. Israel. Israel where women fly fighter jets, lead major corporations, head universities, preside – twice – over the Supreme Court, and have served as Speaker of the Knesset and Prime Minister.
And this circus continues at UNESCO. UNESCO, the UN body charged with preserving world heritage. Now, this is hard to believe but UNESCO just denied the 4,000 year connection between the Jewish people and its holiest site, the Temple Mount. That’s just as absurd as denying the connection between the Great Wall of China and China.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The UN, begun as a moral force, has become a moral farce. So when it comes to Israel at the UN, you’d probably think nothing will ever change, right? Well think again. You see, everything will change and a lot sooner than you think. The change will happen in this hall, because back home, your governments are rapidly changing their attitudes towards Israel. And sooner or later, that’s going to change the way you vote on Israel at the UN.
More and more nations in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America, more and more nations see Israel as a potent partner – a partner in fighting the terrorism of today, a partner in developing the technology of tomorrow.
Today Israel has diplomatic relations with over 160 countries. That’s nearly double the number that we had when I served here as Israel’s ambassador some 30 years ago. And those ties are getting broader and deeper every day. World leaders increasingly appreciate that Israel is a powerful country with one of the best intelligence services on earth. Because of our unmatched experience and proven capabilities in fighting terrorism, many of your governments seek our help in keeping your countries safe.
Many also seek to benefit from Israel’s ingenuity in agriculture, in health, in water, in cyber and in the fusion of big data, connectivity and artificial intelligence – that fusion that is changing our world in every way.
You might consider this: Israel leads the world in recycling wastewater. We recycle about 90% of our wastewater. Now, how remarkable is that? Well, given that the next country on the list only recycles about 20% of its wastewater, Israel is a global water power. So if you have a thirsty world, and we do, there’s no better ally than Israel.
How about cybersecurity? That’s an issue that affects everyone. Israel accounts for one-tenth of one percent of the world’s population, yet last year we attracted some 20% of the global private investment in cybersecurity. I want you to digest that number. In cyber, Israel is punching a whopping 200 times above its weight. So Israel is also a global cyber power. If hackers are targeting your banks, your planes, your power grids and just about everything else, Israel can offer indispensable help.
Governments are changing their attitudes towards Israel because they know that Israel can help them protect their peoples, can help them feed them, can help them better their lives.
This summer I had an unbelievable opportunity to see this change so vividly during an unforgettable visit to four African countries. This is the first visit to Africa by an Israeli prime minister in decades. Later today, I’ll be meeting with leaders from 17 African countries. We’ll discuss how Israeli technology can help them in their efforts to transform their countries.
In Africa, things are changing. In China, India, Russia, Japan, attitudes towards Israel have changed as well. These powerful nations know that, despite Israel’s small size, it can make a big difference in many, many areas that are important to them.
But now I’m going to surprise you even more. You see, the biggest change in attitudes towards Israel is taking place elsewhere. It’s taking place in the Arab world. Our peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan continue to be anchors of stability in the volatile Middle East. But I have to tell you this: For the first time in my lifetime, many other states in the region recognize that Israel is not their enemy. They recognize that Israel is their ally. Our common enemies are Iran and ISIS. Our common goals are security, prosperity and peace. I believe that in the years ahead we will work together to achieve these goals, work together openly.
So Israel’s diplomatic relations are undergoing nothing less than a revolution. But in this revolution, we never forget that our most cherished alliance, our deepest friendship is with the United States of America, the most powerful and the most generous nation on earth. Our unbreakable bond with the United States of America transcends parties and politics. It reflects, above all else, the overwhelming support for Israel among the American people, support which is at record highs and for which we are deeply grateful.
The United Nations denounces Israel; the United States supports Israel. And a central pillar of that defense has been America’s consistent support for Israel at the UN. I appreciate President Obama’s commitment to that longstanding US policy. In fact, the only time that the United States cast a UN Security Council veto during the Obama presidency was against an anti-Israel resolution in 2011. As President Obama rightly declared at this podium, peace will not come from statements and resolutions at the United Nations.
I believe the day is not far off when Israel will be able to rely on many, many countries to stand with us at the UN. Slowly but surely, the days when UN ambassadors reflexively condemn Israel, those days are coming to an end.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today’s automatic majority against Israel at the UN reminds me of the story, the incredible story of Hiroo Onada. Hiroo was a Japanese soldier who was sent to the Philippines in 1944. He lived in the jungle. He scavenged for food. He evaded capture. Eventually he surrendered, but that didn’t happen until 1974, some 30 years after World War II ended. For decades, Hiroo refused to believe the war was over. As Hiroo was hiding in the jungle, Japanese tourists were swimming in pools in American luxury hotels in nearby Manila. Finally, mercifully, Hiroo’s former commanding officer was sent to persuade him to come out of hiding. Only then did Hiroo lay down his arms.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Distinguished delegates from so many lands,
I have one message for you today: Lay down your arms. The war against Israel at the UN is over. Perhaps some of you don’t know it yet, but I am confident that one day in the not too distant future you will also get the message from your president or from your prime minister informing you that the war against Israel at the United Nations has ended. Yes, I know, there might be a storm before the calm. I know there is talk about ganging up on Israel at the UN later this year. Given its history of hostility towards Israel, does anyone really believe that Israel will let the UN determine our security and our vital national interests?
We will not accept any attempt by the UN to dictate terms to Israel. The road to peace runs through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not through New York.
But regardless of what happens in the months ahead, I have total confidence that in the years ahead the revolution in Israel’s standing among the nations will finally penetrate this hall of nations. I have so much confidence, in fact, that I predict that a decade from now an Israeli prime minister will stand right here where I am standing and actually applaud the UN. But I want to ask you: Why do we have to wait a decade? Why keep vilifying Israel? Perhaps because some of you don’t appreciate that the obsessive bias against Israel is not just a problem for my country, it’s a problem for your countries too. Because if the UN spends so much time condemning the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, it has far less time to address war, disease, poverty, climate change and all the other serious problems that plague the planet.
Are the half million slaughtered Syrians helped by your condemnation of Israel? The same Israel that has treated thousands of injured Syrians in our hospitals, including a field hospital that I built right along the Golan Heights border with Syria. Are the gays hanging from cranes in Iran helped by your denigration of Israel? That same Israel where gays march proudly in our streets and serve in our parliament, including I’m proud to say in my own Likud party. Are the starving children in North Korea’s brutal tyranny, are they helped by your demonization of Israel? Israel, whose agricultural knowhow is feeding the hungry throughout the developing world?
The sooner the UN’s obsession with Israel ends, the better. The better for Israel, the better for your countries, the better for the UN itself.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
If UN habits die hard, Palestinian habits die even harder. President Abbas just attacked from this podium the Balfour Declaration. He’s preparing a lawsuit against Britain for that declaration from 1917. That’s almost 100 years ago – talk about being stuck in the past. The Palestinians may just as well sue Iran for the Cyrus Declaration, which enabled the Jews to rebuild our Temple in Jerusalem 2,500 years ago. Come to think of it, why not a Palestinian class action suit against Abraham for buying that plot of land in Hebron where the fathers and mothers of the Jewish people were buried 4,000 years ago? You’re not laughing. It’s as absurd as that. To sue the British government for the Balfour Declaration? Is he kidding? And this is taken seriously here?
President Abbas attacked the Balfour Declaration because it recognized the right of the Jewish people to a national home in the land of Israel. When the United Nations supported the establishment of a Jewish state in 1947, it recognized our historical and our moral rights in our homeland and to our homeland. Yet today, nearly 70 years later, the Palestinians still refuse to recognize those rights – not our right to a homeland, not our right to a state, not our right to anything. And this remains the true core of the conflict, the persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize the Jewish state in any boundary. You see, this conflict is not about the settlements. It never was.
The conflict raged for decades before there was a single settlement, when Judea Samaria and Gaza were all in Arab hands. The West Bank and Gaza were in Arab hands and they attacked us again and again and again. And when we uprooted all 21 settlements in Gaza and withdrew from every last inch of Gaza, we didn’t get peace from Gaza – we got thousands of rockets fired at us from Gaza.
This conflict rages because for the Palestinians, the real settlements they’re after are Haifa, Jaffa and Tel Aviv.
Now mind you, the issue of settlements is a real one and it can and must be resolved in final status negotiations. But this conflict has never been about the settlements or about establishing a Palestinian state. It’s always been about the existence of a Jewish state, a Jewish state in any boundary.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Israel is ready, I am ready to negotiate all final status issues but one thing I will never negotiate: Our right to the one and only Jewish state.
Wow, sustained applause for the Prime Minister of Israel in the General Assembly? The change may be coming sooner than I thought.
Had the Palestinians said yes to a Jewish state in 1947, there would have been no war, no refugees and no conflict. And when the Palestinians finally say yes to a Jewish state, we will be able to end this conflict once and for all.
Now here’s the tragedy, because, see, the Palestinians are not only trapped in the past, their leaders are poisoning the future.
I want you to imagine a day in the life of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy, I’ll call him Ali. Ali wakes up before school, he goes to practice with a soccer team named after Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian terrorist responsible for the murder of a busload of 37 Israelis. At school, Ali attends an event sponsored by the Palestinian Ministry of Education honoring Baha Alyan, who last year murdered three Israeli civilians. On his walk home, Ali looks up at a towering statue erected just a few weeks ago by the Palestinian Authority to honor Abu Sukar, who detonated a bomb in the center of Jerusalem, killing 15 Israelis.
When Ali gets home, he turns on the TV and sees an interview with a senior Palestinian official, Jibril Rajoub, who says that if he had a nuclear bomb, he’d detonate it over Israel that very day. Ali then turns on the radio and he hears President Abbas’s adviser, Sultan Abu al-Einein, urging Palestinians, here’s a quote, “to slit the throats of Israelis wherever you find them.” Ali checks his Facebook and he sees a recent post by President Abbas’s Fatah Party calling the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics a “heroic act”. On YouTube, Ali watches a clip of President Abbas himself saying, “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem.” Direct quote.
Over dinner, Ali asks his mother what would happen if he killed a Jew and went to an Israeli prison? Here’s what she tells him. She tells him he’d be paid thousands of dollars each month by the Palestinian Authority. In fact, she tells him, the more Jews he would kill, the more money he’d get. Oh, and when he gets out of prison, Ali would be guaranteed a job with the Palestinian Authority.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
All this is real. It happens every day, all the time. Sadly, Ali represents hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children who are indoctrinated with hate every moment, every hour.
This is child abuse.
Imagine your child undergoing this brainwashing. Imagine what it takes for a young boy or girl to break free out of this culture of hate. Some do but far too many don’t. How can any of us expect young Palestinians to support peace when their leaders poison their minds against peace?
We in Israel don’t do this. We educate our children for peace. In fact, we recently launched a pilot program, my government did, to make the study of Arabic mandatory for Jewish children so that we can better understand each other, so that we can live together side-by-side in peace.
Of course, like all societies Israel has fringe elements. But it’s our response to those fringe elements, it’s our response to those fringe elements that makes all the difference.
Take the tragic case of Ahmed Dawabsha. I’ll never forget visiting Ahmed in the hospital just hours after he was attacked. A little boy, really a baby, he was badly burned. Ahmed was the victim of a horrible terrorist act perpetrated by Jews. He lay bandaged and unconscious as Israeli doctors worked around the clock to save him.
No words can bring comfort to this boy or to his family. Still, as I stood by his bedside I told his uncle, “This is not our people. This is not our way.” I then ordered extraordinary measures to bring Ahmed’s assailants to justice and today the Jewish citizens of Israel accused of attacking the Dawabsha family are in jail awaiting trial.
Now, for some, this story shows that both sides have their extremists and both sides are equally responsible for this seemingly endless conflict.
But what Ahmed’s story actually proves is the very opposite. It illustrates the profound difference between our two societies, because while Israeli leaders condemn terrorists, all terrorists, Arabs and Jews alike, Palestinian leaders celebrate terrorists. While Israel jails the handful of Jewish terrorists among us, the Palestinians pay thousands of terrorists among them.
So I call on President Abbas: you have a choice to make. You can continue to stoke hatred as you did today or you can finally confront hatred and work with me to establish peace between our two peoples.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I hear the buzz. I know that many of you have given up on peace. But I want you to know – I have not given up on peace. I remain committed to a vision of peace based on two states for two peoples. I believe as never before that changes taking place in the Arab world today offer a unique opportunity to advance that peace.
I commend President el-Sisi of Egypt for his efforts to advance peace and stability in our region. Israel welcomes the spirit of the Arab peace initiative and welcomes a dialogue with Arab states to advance a broader peace. I believe that for that broader peace to be fully achieved the Palestinians have to be part of it. I’m ready to begin negotiations to achieve this today – not tomorrow, not next week, today.
President Abbas spoke here an hour ago. Wouldn’t it be better if instead of speaking past each other we were speaking to one another? President Abbas, instead of railing against Israel at the United Nations in New York, I invite you to speak to the Israeli people at the Knesset in Jerusalem. And I would gladly come to speak to the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
While Israel seeks peace with all our neighbors, we also know that peace has no greater enemy than the forces of militant Islam. The bloody trail of this fanaticism runs through all the continents represented here. It runs through Paris and Nice, Brussels and Baghdad, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Minnesota and New York, from Sydney to San Bernardino. So many have suffered its savagery: Christian and Jews, women and gays, Yazidis and Kurds and many, many others.
Yet the heaviest price, the heaviest price of all has been paid by innocent Muslims. Hundreds of thousands unmercifully slaughtered. Millions turned into desperate refugees, tens of millions brutally subjugated. The defeat of militant Islam will thus be a victory for all humanity, but it would especially be a victory for those many Muslims who seek a life without fear, a life of peace, a life of hope.
But to defeat the forces of militant Islam, we must fight them relentlessly. We must fight them in the real world. We must fight them in the virtual world. We must dismantle their networks, disrupt their funding, discredit their ideology. We can defeat them and we will defeat them. Medievalism is no match for modernity. Hope is stronger than hate, freedom mightier than fear.
We can do this.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Israel fights this fateful battle against the forces of militant Islam every day. We keep our borders safe from ISIS, we prevent the smuggling of game-changing weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, we thwart Palestinian terror attacks in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, and we deter missile attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza.
That’s the same Hamas terror organization that cruelly, unbelievably cruelly refuses to return three of our citizens and the bodies of our fallen soldiers, Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin. Hadar Goldin’s parents, Leah and Simcha Goldin, are here with us today. They have one request – to bury their beloved son in Israel. All they ask for is one simple thing – to be able to visit the grave of their fallen son Hadar in Israel. Hamas refuses. They couldn’t care less.
I implore you to stand with them, with us, with all that’s decent in our world against the inhumanity of Hamas – all that is indecent and barbaric. Hamas breaks every humanitarian rule in the book, throw the book at them.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The greatest threat to my country, to our region, and ultimately to our world remains the militant Islamic regime of Iran. Iran openly seeks Israel’s annihilation. It threatens countries across the Middle East, it sponsors terror worldwide.
This year, Iran has fired ballistic missiles in direct defiance of Security Council Resolutions. It has expended its aggression in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen. Iran, the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism continued to build its global terror network. That terror network now spans five continents.
So my point to you is this: The threat Iran poses to all of us is not behind us, it’s before us. In the coming years, there must be a sustained and united effort to push back against Iran’s aggression and Iran’s terror. With the nuclear constraints on Iran one year closer to being removed, let me be clear: Israel will not allow the terrorist regime in Iran to develop nuclear weapons – not now, not in a decade, not ever.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I stand before you today at a time when Israel’s former president, Shimon Peres, is fighting for his life. Shimon is one of Israel’s founding fathers, one of its boldest statesmen, one of its most respected leaders. I know you will all join me and join all the people of Israel in wishing him refuah shlemah Shimon, a speedy recovery.
I’ve always admired Shimon’s boundless optimism, and like him, I too am filled with hope. I am filled with hope because Israel is capable of defending itself by itself against any threat. I am filled with hope because the valor of our fighting men and women is second to none. I am filled with hope because I know the forces of civilization will ultimately triumph over the forces of terror. I am filled with hope because in the age of innovation, Israel – the innovation nation – is thriving as never before. I am filled with hope because Israel works tirelessly to advance equality and opportunity for all its citizens: Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, everyone. And I am filled with hope because despite all the naysayers, I believe that in the years ahead, Israel will forge a lasting peace with all our neighbors.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am hopeful about what Israel can accomplish because I’ve seen what Israel has accomplished. In 1948, the year of Israel’s independence, our population was 800,000. Our main export was oranges. People said then we were too small, too weak, too isolated, too demographically outnumbered to survive, let alone thrive. The skeptics were wrong about Israel then; the skeptics are wrong about Israel now.
Israel’s population has grown tenfold, our economy fortyfold. Today our biggest export is technology – Israeli technology, which powers the world’s computers, cellphones, cars and so much more.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The future belongs to those who innovate and this is why the future belongs to countries like Israel. Israel wants to be your partner in seizing that future, so I call on all of you: Cooperate with Israel, embrace Israel, dream with Israel. Dream of the future that we can build together, a future of breathtaking progress, a future of security, prosperity and peace, a future of hope for all humanity, a future where even at the UN, even in this hall, Israel will finally, inevitably, take its rightful place among the nations.
Thank you.”
* You can also find other items that are not in these dispatches if you “like” this page on Facebook www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia
[Note by Tom Gross]
I attach six comment pieces that I found of interest. (There will be a separate dispatch later today with a series of news items.)
You can also find other items that are not in these dispatches if you “like” this page on Facebook www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia
CONTENTS
1. “The age of distrust” (By Roger Cohen, NY Times, Sep. 20, 2016)
2. “Life during wartime” (By Bret Stephens, Wall St Journal, Sep. 20, 2016)
3. “Who will run the U.N.?” (Editorial, Wall St Journal, Sep. 19, 2016)
4. “A future Palestinian state doesn’t have to be ‘ethnically cleansed’ of Jews” (By Moshe Arens, Haaretz, Sep. 19, 2016)
5. “How Egyptians’ conspiracy theories about Clinton explain Trump’s appeal to them” (By Eric Trager, Wall St Journal, Sep. 19, 2016)
6. “The Cold War is over. The Cyber War has begun” (By David Ignatius, Washington Post, Sep. 16, 2016)
THE AGE OF DISTRUST
The Age of Distrust
By Roger Cohen
New York Times
September 20, 2016
ATHENS – I have a profound respect for the intelligence of the voter. Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying that the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter, but more important is what he actually said in the House of Commons on Oct. 31, 1944: “At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper – no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly palliate the overwhelming importance of that point.”
Nobody, looking back at the first 16 years of this century, can suggest that the political, economic and financial elites who brought you the euro crisis, the war in Iraq, the Great Recession of 2008, growing inequality and (at least until last year in the United States) middle-class income stagnation have not made some very serious mistakes, of very enduring consequences, with very startling impunity. This has not been lost on the little woman with the little pencil in the little booth.
No wonder experts are increasingly viewed as being in the business of bamboozling for their own ends. Ordinary folk reckon the system is rigged, that elites are not in it for the people but, rather, the money. This is the Age of Distrust. No two presidential candidates have ever been as distrusted as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
The grave mistakes that I have mentioned occurred in the midst of a technological whirlwind that moved factories offshore and migrants onshore, and offered huge opportunity for the initiated at the hubs of globalization’s churn while stripping many outlying places and outcast people of their raison d’être.
Technology is a wonderful thing if you are putting it to use, less so if it is putting an end to your usefulness.
Many people in our liberal democracies feel they are being tossed hither and thither by forces beyond their control – nowhere more so than in Greece where national elections in recent years – and there have been a lot of them – have revealed an almost complete disconnect between the vote itself and any tangible effect. What then is democracy, a mere game?
There has been another whirlwind, a cultural one. As Sylvie Kauffmann has suggested, when Poland’s foreign minister, Witold Waszczykowski, says the world must not move in a single direction – “toward a new mix of cultures and races, a world of cyclists and vegetarians” – he is expressing a nativist anti-liberal resurgence.
All this unease has been compounded by the sense of insecurity instilled by jihadi terrorism and other violence. A bombing in New York and a stabbing attack at a Minnesota mall are still under investigation, but whatever their origin they will impact an already tense American election.
All this is the backdrop to Trump, to Marine Le Pen in France, to Brexit, to the nationalist governments dominating central Europe, to the rise in Germany of the rightist Alternative für Deutschland, to the vogue for authoritarian models – in short to the challenges facing liberal democracies. Marx noted that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The British exit from the European Union was the exception – simultaneous tragedy and farce, a disaster abetted by lies, energized by a buffoon and consummated in mayhem.
This was the moment when it became irrefutable that some of the very foundations of the postwar world and the spread of liberal democracy – free trade, free markets, more open borders, fact-based debate, ever greater integration – had collapsed.
I am pessimistic in the short-term, optimistic in the long-term.
I am pessimistic because the problems cannot be righted in short order. Politicians are going to have to work very hard to earn back the trust of the people. A serious issue exists with what Stephen Walt of Harvard University has called the “ruling elites in many liberal societies and especially the United States, where money and special interests have created a corrupt political class that is out-of-touch with ordinary people, interested mostly in enriching themselves, and immune to accountability.” This has to end.
Democracy has to deliver – not just to the rich but the most vulnerable. This is a fundamental lesson of recent times.
When democracy creates wealth on a broad scale there is no tension between it and capitalism. But when that is not the case, the value of democracy becomes less clear to some. There are tremendous tensions between democratic national sovereignty, open global markets and mass migration.
The answer is not to build walls. Western societies need to build education and innovation and opportunity. A time of great uncertainty is upon the world.
Still, I believe in the resilience of liberal democracy, in the little man in the little booth. Greece knows that the democratic idea is stubborn.
Technology has prized the world open. Nobody – not Vladimir Putin, not Xi Jinping, not Trump – can shatter that interconnectedness. Nor can anybody quash forever the human desire to be free and to live under the only form of government consistent with that desire – representative government installed with the consent of the people.
Liberalism demands acceptance of our human differences and the ability to mediate them through democratic institutions. It demands acceptance of multiple, perhaps incompatible truths. In an age of polarization and vilification this may seem a lofty aspiration. But democracies have a habit of rising to the challenges they face.
Democracies need to be challenged, unlike dictatorships that fear broad challenge because it may cause them to buckle. Challenge in democracies is also rebirth.
Respect the intelligence of voters. Sooner or later they come to their senses. Churchill, of course, was re-elected in 1951.
LIFE DURING WARTIME
Life During Wartime
As terrorist attacks become more common, public tolerance for liberal pieties will wane.
By Bret Stephens
Wall Street Journal
September 20, 2016
Long after I returned to the U.S. after living in Jerusalem I kept thinking about soft targets. The peak-hour commuter train that took me from Westchester to Grand Central. The snaking queue outside the security checkpoint at La Guardia Airport. The theater crowds near Times Square.
All of these places were vulnerable and most of them undefended. Why, I wondered, weren’t they being attacked?
This was in late 2004, when Jack Bauer was an American hero and memories of 9/11 were vivid. Yet friends who were nervous about boarding a flight seemed nonchalant about much more plausible threats. Maybe they expected the next attack would be on the same grand scale of 9/11. Maybe they thought the perpetrators would be supervillains in the mold of Osama bin Laden, not fried-chicken vendors like Ahmad Khan Rahimi, the suspected 23rd Street bomber.
Life in Israel had taught me differently. Between January 2002, when I moved to the country, and October 2004, when I left, there were 85 suicide bombings, which took the lives of 543 Israelis. Palestinian gun attacks claimed hundreds of additional victims. In a small country it meant that most everyone knew one of those victims, or knew someone who knew someone.
To this day the bombings are landmarks in my life. March 2002: Cafe Moment, just down the street from my apartment, where my future wife had arranged to meet a friend who canceled at the last minute. Eleven dead. September 2003: Cafe Hillel, another neighborhood hangout, where seven people were murdered, including 20-year-old Nava Applebaum and her father, David, on the eve of her wedding. January 2004: Bus No. 19 on Gaza Street, which I witnessed close-up before the ambulances arrived. Another 11 dead and 13 seriously injured, including Jerusalem Post reporter Erik Schechter.
Living in those circumstances had a strange dichotomous quality. Things were absolutely fine until they absolutely weren’t. Memories of bombings mix with other memories: jogs around the walls of the old city, weekend outings to the beach, the daily grind of editing a newspaper. The sense of normality was achieved through an effort of will and a touch of fatalism. Past a certain point, fearing for your own safety becomes exhausting. You give it up.
But it wasn’t just psychological adjustment that made life livable. Israelis recoiled after each bombing, mourned every victim, then picked themselves up. Cafe Moment reopened weeks after it was destroyed. The army and police could not provide constant security, so every restaurant and supermarket hired an armed guard, every mall and hotel set up metal detectors, and people went out. More than a few attacks were stopped by lone Israeli civilians who prevented massacres through the expedient of a handgun.
As for the Israeli government, after much hesitation it did what governments are supposed to do: It fought. In April 2002 then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sent Israeli tanks into Jenin, Bethlehem and every other nest of Palestinian terror. He trapped Yasser Arafat in his little palace in Ramallah. He ordered the killing of Hamas’s leaders in Gaza.
All this was done in the teeth of overwhelming international condemnation and the tut-tutting of experts who insisted only a “political solution” could break the “cycle of violence.” Instead, the Israeli military broke that cycle by building a wall and crippling the Palestinians’ capacity to perpetrate violence. In 2002 there were 47 bombings. In 2007 the number had come down to one.
What’s the lesson here for Americans? This past weekend’s terrorist attacks hold at least two. One is that there is a benefit for a society that allows competent and responsible adults to carry guns, like the off-duty police officer who shot the knife-wielding jihadist in St. Cloud, Minn. Another is that there is an equal benefit in the surveillance methods that allowed police in New York and New Jersey to swiftly identify and arrest Mr. Rahimi before his bombing spree took any lives.
These are lessons the political left in this country doesn’t want to hear, lest they unsettle established convictions that weapons can only cause violence, not stop it, and that security is the antithesis of, not a precondition to, civil liberty.
But hear them they will. The eclipse of al Qaeda by Islamic State means the terrorist threat is evolving from elaborately planned spectaculars such as 9/11 or the 2004 Madrid train bombings to hastily improvised and executed blood orgies of the sort we saw this year in Nice and Orlando. As attacks become more frequent and closer to everyday life, public tolerance for liberal pieties will wane. Not least among the casualties of the Palestinian intifada was the Israeli left.
Living in Israel in those crowded years taught me that free people aren’t so easily cowed by terror, and that jihadists are no match for a determined democracy. But it also taught me that democracies rarely muster their full reserves of determination until they’ve been bloodied one time too many.
WHO WILL RUN THE U.N.?
Who Will Run the U.N.?
The best choice for reform at Turtle Bay is Serbia’s Vuk Jeremic.
Editorial
Wall Street Journal
September 19, 2016
There’s an election on, and the top candidates include a Vladimir Putin favorite and a lifelong socialist who mismanaged a global humanitarian organization. We speak of the race to become the next United Nations Secretary-General.
That was the state of play when the U.N.’s Security Council took its fourth straw poll this month to suss out the leading contenders to succeed Ban Ki-moon, whose decade at Turtle Bay ends in December. Topping the list of 10 candidates is António Guterres, a former Socialist Portuguese Prime Minister who was recently the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Mr. Guterres is the favorite of Western Europeans, despite a UNHCR record that the U.N.’s Internal Audit Division lambasted in April for failing to comply with rules, safeguard U.N. assets, provide accurate financials and conduct effective operations.
U.N. tradition also dictates that the position rotate among regional blocs, and now it’s Eastern Europe’s turn. Among that group, the current favorite is Slovakian foreign minister Miroslav Lajcák, who was a Czechoslovak diplomat under the former Communist dictatorship and holds a doctorate from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
There’s also Bulgaria’s Irina Bokova, who runs Unesco, the notoriously anti-Israeli cultural and social welfare agency. Ms. Bokova is Russia’s preferred candidate and attended the Kremlin’s Victory Day Parade in Moscow last year, which most Western leaders boycotted after the invasion of Ukraine. Ms. Bokova’s chances seem to have waned, falling to fifth from fourth place in the latest straw poll. Another woman in the mix is Argentine Foreign Minister Susanna Malcorra, who was Mr. Ban’s chief of staff and is a favorite of the Obama Administration.
But as our Mary Anastasia O’Grady reported in June, Ms. Malcorra has used Argentina’s position at the Organization of American States to block discussions of human-rights violations in Venezuela. An Argentine candidate is also unlikely to pass muster with the U.K. given Buenos Aires’s history of using the U.N. to cause diplomatic trouble over the Falklands.
That leaves former Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, who polled third and is the only commendable candidate in the mix. At 41, the Harvard-educated Mr. Jeremic is young, but he was a leader of the social movement that helped topple Slobodan Milosevic’s dictatorship in Belgrade in 2000. He later served in the pro-Western government of Boris Tadic, who in 2010 issued a historic Serbian apology for the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica.
Mr. Jeremic also seems to understand that his first job as Secretary-General is to bring proper managerial controls to the U.N.’s sprawling bureaucracy and require U.N. officials to file annual public financial disclosures to avoid the corruption that became endemic in the days of Kofi Annan. That alone would restore some public trust in the broken U.N. system.
Whoever wins the job will inherent an organization that is failing on multiple fronts, from taking responsibility for the cholera epidemic it caused in Haiti to the failure of its peacekeepers in South Sudan to stop atrocities. The Obama Administration could do worse than endorse a candidate who believes in democratic values and bureaucratic accountability.
A FUTURE PALESTINIAN STATE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE ‘ETHNICALLY CLEANSED’ OF JEWS
A future Palestinian state doesn’t have to be ‘ethnically cleansed’ of Jews
Why ‘ethnic cleanse’ when Jews and Arabs are living peaceably together in the State of Israel?
By Moshe Arens
Haaretz
September 19, 2016
Ethnic cleansing is the forced removal of ethnic or religious groups from a particular territory with the intent of making it ethnically or religiously homogeneous. That’s the generally accepted definition of the phrase, and there are no differences of opinion on that, or for that matter on whether ethnic cleansing is abhorrent in the civilized world.
Unfortunately, ethnic cleansing is being carried out at this moment in parts of Iraq and Syria. Shi’ites are getting rid of Sunnis and Sunnis are getting rid of Shi’ites, and both are getting rid of Christians.
So why did Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent use of that phrase cause such an uproar? Is it because he referred to Judea and Samaria, a territory that the proponents of the “two-state” solution envisage as part of the future Palestinian state? Is it because many consider the presence of Jewish settlers in this area illegal and an obstacle to peace, and therefore view their removal as something positive and refuse to consider it ethnic cleansing?
Let’s look at the facts. An act of ethnic cleansing was carried out in the Gaza Strip 11 years ago when all Jewish settlers were forcibly removed from their homes. But that was a case were Jews uprooted Jews, you’ll say. Does that make it any less a case of ethnic cleansing?
The objective of that “disengagement” was to leave the Gaza Strip without Jews. But the objective was to advance the peace process, you’ll argue. Still, that’s the claimed objective of almost everyone who engages in ethnic cleansing. Leave behind a homogenous population and you’ll avoid future conflicts, they insist. That may be true in some cases, but can that justify ethnic cleansing? Does the end justify the means?
So how about the immediate subject of the debate that followed Netanyahu’s recent statement – Judea and Samaria (or the West Bank if you prefer)? There, in Gush Etzion on May 13, 1948, two days before the declaration of the State of Israel, ethnic cleansing in the area may have begun. When the settlers, attacked by Jordan’s Arab Legion and irregular local Arab fighters, surrendered after resisting for more than a week, over a hundred were massacred, and the rest were taken prisoner and sent to Jordan. The four Jewish settlements were destroyed.
Destroyed they remained until Jewish settlers returned to the area after the Six-Day War. No Jew was allowed to live in Jordan, including in the areas of the West Bank that were annexed to Jordan after the war. In the fate of the defenders of Gush Etzion, the Jewish community saw the fate that awaited them if the Arabs had succeeded in their attack.
Nowadays, some people claim that the settlements in Gush Etzion are illegal and constitute an obstacle to peace. That’s a claim directed at all Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, based on the assumption that this area should be reserved for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and this state should be a homogeneous Arab state. It can’t be argued that the removal of the Jews there would not be an act of ethnic cleansing.
Underlying the opposition of many who object to Jewish settlements in the area is the assumption that Jews and Arabs cannot live peaceably together and should therefore be separated. The more extreme proponents of this view, like Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, would like to “export” some of Israel’s Arab citizens to the future Palestinian state by moving the border and transferring the territories where they live to that state. This is presumably a more humane form of ethnic cleansing.
They all need to be reminded of the obvious – that Jews and Arabs are living peaceably together in the State of Israel, and if ever a Palestinian state were to be established existing side by side with Israel in peace, there is no reason it shouldn’t contain a Jewish minority. As a matter of fact, such a minority might actually prove an economic asset to that state. So what’s all the fuss about?
HOW EGYPTIANS’ CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT CLINTON EXPLAIN TRUMP’S APPEAL TO THEM
How Egyptians’ Conspiracy Theories About Clinton Explain Trump’s Appeal to Them
By Eric Trager
Wall Street Journal (blogs)
September 19, 2016
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Whereas Mr. Trump’s meeting is consistent with his admiration for strongmen and therefore unsurprising, Mrs. Clinton’s meeting is raising some eyebrows in Egypt given prevalent conspiracy theories that depict her as a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and therefore an enemy of Egypt’s current government.
Many Egyptians, including senior government officials, believe that Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi won the June 2012 presidential election thanks to pressure from Mrs. Clinton. As with most conspiracy theories, this one is rooted in a twisted interpretation of what Mrs. Clinton actually said at the time.
Four days before Egypt’s election results were announced, Mrs. Clinton remarked that “it is imperative that the military fulfill its promise to the Egyptian people to turn power over to the legitimate winner.” (In the same interview, she also said that “we don’t know yet who’s going to be named the winner.”)
Clinton inadvertently played into this conspiracy theory two weeks after Mr. Morsi took office, when she visited Cairo. During a press briefing, Mrs. Clinton said, “The United States supports the full transition to civilian rule, with all that it entails.” This was interpreted in Egypt as supporting the Brotherhood in its low-grade power struggle with the military. Hours after her visit, Egypt’s defense minister, then Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, said, “The armed forces will not allow anyone, especially those pushed from outside, to distract it from its role as the protector of Egypt.” This was widely interpreted as a rebuke of Mrs. Clinton; he also said that he would never allow “a certain group” – meaning the Brotherhood – to dominate the country.
Some Egyptian media outlets continue to suggest that Mrs. Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin is secretly a member of the Muslim Brotherhood (they often cite far-right American sources as proof), pointing to comments such as Mrs. Clinton likening Ms. Abedin to a “second daughter” as a sort of evidence of Mrs. Clinton’s closeness to the Brotherhood. Moreover, various Egyptian media outlets claimed last year that Morsi’s wife was threatening to release “secret communications” between her husband and Mrs. Clinton that would supposedly reveal their “special relationship.”
These conspiracy theories badly mischaracterize Mrs. Clinton’s outlook on the political situation that followed Egypt’s January 2011 uprising. Mrs. Clinton was vocally skeptical of the uprising and disagreed with President Barack Obama’s decision to embrace the Tahrir Square protests. In her 2014 memoir, Mrs. Clinton recounts her negative first impressions of Mr. Morsi and speaks deferentially of Gen. Tantawi. And while she wrote that Mr. Sisi “appears to be following the classic mold of Middle Eastern strongmen,” her takeaway from the Obama administration’s experience navigating the Arab Spring is that Washington’s attempt to “walk a tightrope, promoting democratic values and strategic interests without taking sides or backing particular candidates or factions” bred further mistrust.
Many Egyptians are not familiar with those views. Instead, it is widely believed in Egypt that Mrs. Clinton admitted in her memoir that she helped create Islamic State, and Donald Trump’s remarks accusing her and President Obama of that have been widely reported in Egypt.
These conspiracy theories have bred a not-always-subtle preference for Mr. Trump among Egyptian officials and elites. Although many dislike his comments about Muslims, those remarks are often viewed as campaign rhetoric, and more attention is paid to Mr. Trump’s pledges to destroy ISIS and to work with autocratic leaders. Former parliamentarian Mohamed Kamal, who once served on the policy committee of Hosni Mubarak’s ruling party, recently wrote in the Egyptian daily Al Masry Al Youm: “Anyone following Trump’s statements will find that many of them agree with the positions of the Egyptian state during the current period.”
News that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sisi would meet has been welcomed within Egypt and even inspired suggestions that the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to prevent their conversation.
Former Foreign Minister Mohamed Orabi, chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said in an interview on Saturday that he expects bilateral relations to improve no matter who wins the U.S. presidential election and that Cairo had no preference. But he added that no matter who wins in November, American thinking will continue to impose chaos within the Middle East. That last remark is an important reminder that news and developments do not tend to debunk conspiracy theories, and that the ones about Mrs. Clinton will linger well past her meeting this week with Mr. Sisi.
THE COLD WAR IS OVER. THE CYBER WAR HAS BEGUN
The Cold War is over. The Cyber War has begun
David Ignatius
Washington Post
September 16, 2016
Contemplating Russian nuclear threats during the Cold War, the strategist Herman Kahn calibrated a macabre ladder of escalation, with 44 rungs ranging from “Ostensible Crisis” to “Spasm or Insensate War.”
In the era of cyberwarfare that’s now dawning, the rules of the game haven’t yet been established with such coldblooded precision. That’s why this period of Russian-American relations is so tricky. The strategic framework that could provide stability hasn’t been set.
Russian hackers appear to be pushing the limits. In recent weeks, the apparent targets have included the electronic files of the Democratic National Committee, the private emails of former secretary of state Colin Powell, and personal drug-testing information about top U.S. athletes.
The Obama administration is considering how to respond. As in most strategic debates, there’s a split between hawks and doves. But there’s a recognition across the U.S. government that the current situation, in which information is stolen electronically and then leaked to damage and destabilize U.S. targets, is unacceptable.
“A line has been crossed. The hard part is knowing how to respond effectively,” argues one U.S. official. Retaliating in kind may not be wise for a country that is far more dependent on its digital infrastructure than is Russia. But unless some clear signal is sent, there’s a danger that malicious hacking and disclosure of information could become the norm.
As always with foreign-policy problems, a good starting point is to try putting ourselves in the mind of our potential adversaries. The point of this exercise isn’t to justify Russian behavior but to understand it – and learn how best to contain it.
The Russians have a chip on their shoulder. They see themselves as the aggrieved party. The United States, in their view, has been destabilizing Russian politics by supporting pro-democracy groups that challenge President Vladimir Putin’s authority. To Americans, such campaigns are about free speech and other universal human rights. But to a paranoid and power-hungry Kremlin, these are U.S. “information operations.”
Russian officials deny meddling in U.S. politics, but it’s clear from some of their comments that they think the United States shot first in this duel of political destabilization.
This payback theme was clear in Russian hackers’ disclosure this weekof information stolen from the World Anti-Doping Agency about Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and tennis superstars Serena and Venus Williams. The Russians have been irate about the exposure of their own doping, which led to disqualification of many Russian Olympic athletes. And so — retaliation, in the disclosure that Biles and the Williams sisters had been given permission to use otherwise banned substances.
If you’re a Russian with a sense that your country has been humiliated and unjustly maligned since the end of the Cold War – and that seems to be the essence of Putin’s worldview – then the opportunity to fight back in cyberspace must be attractive, indeed.
How should the United States combat Russian cyber-meddling before it gets truly dangerous? I asked a half-dozen senior U.S. officials this question over the past few weeks, and I’ve heard competing views. The Defense Department’s cyber strategy, published last year, argues thatthe United States should deter malicious attacks by a combination of three approaches: “response . . . in a manner and in a place of our choosing”; “denial” of attack opportunities by stronger defense; and “resilience,” by creating redundant systems that can survive attack.
A few caveats to this official strategy were cited by many of the officials:
● The U.S. response probably shouldn’t come in cyberspace, where an advanced America is more vulnerable to attack than a relatively undeveloped Russia, and where the United States lacks sufficient “overmatch” in cyberweapons to guarantee quick success. “Don’t get into a knife fight with someone whose dagger is almost as long as yours,” explains one expert.
● The Obama administration should disclose more of what it knows about Russian actions, much as it did with Chinese and North Korean hacking. But getting in a public argument with Moscow will be fruitless, and the United States may blow its cyber “sources and methods” in the process.
What would the Cold War “wizards of Armageddon” advise? The nuclear balance of terror finally gave way to arms-control agreements that fostered stability. But this model probably doesn’t work in cyberspace. Such agreements wouldn’t be verifiable in a world where cyber-warriors could reequip at the local Best Buy.
Norms for global behavior emerge through trial and error – after a messy period of pushing and shoving, accompanied by public and private discussion. Starting this bumpy process will be the last big challenge of Barack Obama’s presidency.
Britain’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia Simon Collis (above, right) has been inundated with congratulations from across the Islamic world after he revealed on twitter that he converted to Islam and carried out the first Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca ever performed by a senior UK diplomat.
CONTENTS
1. “British ambassador to Saudi Arabia completes Hajj pilgrimage after converting to Islam” (Daily Telegraph, Sep 15, 2016)
2. “This man who survived Auschwitz will finally get a bar mitzvah, a century late, at age 113” (Washington Post, Sep 15, 2016)
3. “Palestinian women take to social media to get back their names [after Fatah and Hamas take them away]” (Haaretz , Sep. 13, 2016)
4. “Iran’s British Hostage” (Wall Street Journal, Sep 12, 2016
5. “Libyans like me are grateful to Cameron for his airstrikes” (The Independent, Sep 15, 2016)
6. “Behind Boko Haram’s split: A leader too radical for Islamic State” (Wall St Journal, Sep 15, 2016)
PALESTINIAN WOMEN WANT THEIR NAMES BACK AFTER THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY TAKES THEM AWAY, AND OTHER NEWS ITEMS
[Note by Tom Gross]
I attach six articles below on various subjects.
In relation to the first article, from the Daily Telegraph, this has also been reported elsewhere in the British media, for example here in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/15/british-ambassador-to-saudi-arabia-completes-hajj-after-converting-to-islam
In relation to the second article from the Washington Post, this has also been widely reported in Israel, where the world’s oldest man lives, for example here in Yediot Ahronot: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4855338,00.html
In relation to the fourth article, about Iran’s latest British hostage (a mother of a 2-year-old girl), while the Wall Street Journal was condemning Iran’s latest provocations on its editorial page, it should be noted that on the same day the New York Times’s editorial page carried a gushing propaganda article by Iran’s foreign minister.
In relation to the sixth article on Boko Haram, you may wish to view my on-stage interview with one of the schoolgirls who escaped from Boko Haram.
* You can also find other items that are not in these dispatches if you “like” this page on Facebook www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia
ARTICLES
BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO SAUDI ARABIA COMPLETES HAJJ PILGRIMAGE AFTER CONVERTING TO ISLAM
British ambassador to Saudi Arabia completes Hajj pilgrimage after converting to Islam
By Raf Sanchez
Daily Telegraph (London)
September 15, 2016
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/15/british-ambassador-to-saudi-arabia-completes-hajj-pilgrimage-aft/
Britain’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia has been inundated with congratulations from across the Islamic world after it emerged that he converted to Islam and carried out the first Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca ever performed by a senior UK diplomat.
The conversion of Simon Collis, the UK envoy to Riyadh, became public after pictures posted on Twitter showed him and his wife Huda wearing the traditional white garments of Muslim pilgrims in front of the British consulate in Mecca.
The 60-year-old diplomat, who speaks fluent Arabic, confirmed the news in response to messages on Twitter.
“God bless you. In brief: I converted to Islam after 30 years of living in Muslim societies and before marrying Huda,” he wrote.
The news led to a wave of online congratulations from Saudi Arabia and across the Islamic world, with many Muslims saluting Mr Collis as “Haji Simon” using the title reserved for those who make the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Mr Collis converted in 2011 shortly before marrying his wife, who is Syrian. While his conversion was known to some fellow diplomats it was not public knowledge in Riyadh.
The Foreign Office declined to comment, saying Mr Collis’s religion was a personal matter.
While Mr Collis acknowledged many of the congratulatory messages coming in on Twitter, he declined interviews about his faith.
The pictures of him and his wife were first posted by Fawziah Al-Bakr, a Saudi women’s rights activist. “The first British ambassador in Saudi Arabia is performing the Hajj with his wife Mrs Huda after he converted to Islam. Thanks be to God,” she wrote.
He is believed to be the first British ambassador to carry out the Hajj pilgrimage although other ambassadors are thought to have converted to Islam in the past.
Mr Collis took up the post in Riyadh in early 2015 after a long career across the Middle East. He was the ambassador to Syria from 2007 until 2012 and angered the Assad regime after he criticised the government’s crackdown on peaceful protesters.
He left Damascus in February 2012 when the British government suspended diplomatic ties with Syria.
Mr Collis also served as ambassador to Iraq from 2012 until 2014 and before was the UK enjoy to Doha.
He is a graduate of Christ’s College, Cambridge and has five children.
Mr and Mrs Collis were among 1.8 million Muslim pilgrims from across the world to make the Hajj this year, according to the Saudi government.
Islamic scripture calls for all able-bodied Muslims to make the journey to Mecca at least once in their lives.
Mecca, the Saudi city where the Prophet Mohammed is said to have received the first revelations of the Koran, is the holiest site for Muslims and believers pray towards it every day.
WORLD’S OLDEST MAN, WHO SURVIVED AUSCHWITZ, WILL FINALLY GET A BAR MITZVAH, A CENTURY LATE, AT AGE 113
This man who survived Auschwitz will finally get a bar mitzvah, a century late, at age 113
By Julie Zauzmer
Washington Post
September 15, 2016
In 1916, Israel Kristal was a motherless Jewish child whose father was away fighting in World War I and would soon be killed in action.
He turned 13 without celebrating his bar mitzvah.
A century later, Kristal will finally get the chance.
Kristal, who is the oldest man in the world, according to Guinness World Records, turns 113 on Thursday. His daughter, Shulimath Kristal Kuperstoch, told the DTA news agency that his family is planning a bar mitzvah for him, and about 100 relatives will attend. “We will bless him, we will dance with him, we will be happy,” she said.
Born in what is now Poland, Kristal has survived 113 years of Jewish history. He was in his 30s when the Nazis invaded, and he was imprisoned with his wife and two children in the Lodz ghetto and then at Auschwitz. His wife and children died.
Speaking about the horror of Auschwitz, he once told Haaretz, “Two books could be written about a single day there.”
He moved to Israel in 1950 and lives in Haifa. He remarried and had two children, and is now a grandfather and great-grandfather.
His daughter told the BBC that on his bar mitzvah day, Kristal will put on tefillin, the small boxes containing prayers that Jews above the age of bar mitzvah wrap around their arms and heads, and will say the blessings for the Torah.
He has maintained his faith throughout his life, she said. Talking to the Jerusalem Post about her father surviving the Holocaust, she said, “He believes he was saved because that’s what God wanted.”
As for himself, Kristal said in March when he was named the world’s oldest man, “I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why. There have been smarter, stronger and better-looking men … who are no longer alive. All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost.”
And, after 113 years, to celebrate a century-delayed milestone.
PALESTINIAN WOMEN TAKE TO SOCIAL MEDIA TO GET BACK THEIR NAMES
Palestinian women take to social media to get back their names
Some lists for the now-postponed local elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip replaced the names of female candidates with ‘wife of’ or ‘sister of.’
By Haaretz
September 13, 2016
www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/1.741718
Palestinian women are taking to social media to protest the exclusion of the names of female candidates in campaign materials for local elections in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, according to a report in al-Monitor.
The elections were postponed by the Palestinian Supreme Court last week, but the protests have continued – and widened into other areas of Palestinian life, such as weddings.
The immediate cause of the outcry was the omission of women’s names from some of the electoral lists, which replaced the names with “wife of” or “sister of.”
One of the places where that happened was the village of Tammun, near Jenin, where Palestinians – both women and men – took to social media to express their anger. The Arabic hashtag they used – which translates into “Our names should not be covered” – soon went viral.
“Our names are not mere terms; our names refer to our identity,” rights activist Sumaya al-Mashharawi said in a statement.
That message was picked up by newspaper and television channels, coalescing into a campaign for greater female participation in public life.
“I think it’s shameful that some people still believe that women’s names should be omitted,” said Amal Habib, presenter of the “Beitna” women’s show on the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV channel.
“I’m shocked at this culture and how it was embraced. Women should be called by their names out of respect and our names should not be hidden.”
Women’s rights activists have taken to Facebook to make their case. “Our names are not mere terms; our names refer to our identity, which ignorant people do not understand,” wrote Sumaya al-Mashharawi.
Activist Diana Maghribi, a member of Filastiniyat Association, told Al-Monitor that the “Our names should not be covered” campaign is a call to all educated women to urge the patriarchal society to stop neglecting this powerful social driver.”
IRAN’S BRITISH HOSTAGE
Iran’s British Hostage
The mullahs use a five-year prison sentence as leverage for ransom.
Editorial, Wall Street Journal
Sept. 12, 2016
www.wsj.com/articles/irans-british-hostage-1473630294
President Obama says the $400 million he paid Iran in January for the release of four hostages was leverage, not ransom. If so, the mullahs have apparently developed a taste for it. Witness the five-year prison sentence handed to their latest Western hostage, which came to light Friday.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual citizen, had traveled to the Islamic Republic to visit relatives. She and her 2-year-old daughter, Gabriella, were detained in April at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport as they were about to fly home to London.
The exact charges haven’t been disclosed, but Iran’s Revolutionary Guards accuse her of plotting revolution. Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe works at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the company that owns the Reuters news agency. She wasn’t involved in coverage of Iran.
One purpose of the harsh sentence is to remind Iranians in the diaspora tempted to return home in the wake of the nuclear deal that the regime sees them as traitors. It’s also no accident that the sentence came shortly after the U.K. upgraded its diplomatic relations back to ambassador level.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson cheered the new opening to Tehran last Monday, only to receive a rude awakening days later. Now the regime has a new political and financial bargaining chip, and Mr. Obama has created a cash-for-hostages incentive system with his earlier ransom. Let’s hope the British government is wiser than to stuff briefcases with unmarked bills.
LIBYANS LIKE ME ARE GRATEFUL TO THE WESTERN AIR STRIKES THAT REMOVED GADDAFI
Libyans like me are grateful to Cameron for his air strikes – and westerners crying imperialism need to accept that
If you knew the facts about the civil war in Libya, you would understand why we wished the air strikes had come sooner. White British people advocating on my behalf keep calling it ‘neo-colonialism’, but that’s not the truth
By Rema Abdulaziz
The Independent (London)
September 14, 2016
www.independent.co.uk/voices/libyans-like-me-are-grateful-to-cameron-for-his-air-strikes-and-westerners-crying-imperialism-need-a7307326.html
Four and a half years ago, on the 19th of March, 2011, Mohamed Nabbous was killed by a sniper while covering the latest updates of the Libyan revolution against Muammar Gaddafi. Nabbous, at just 28 years old, represented the ambitions of so many young Libyans; he founded the Libya Alhurra TV Channel, which all Libyans at home and abroad were glued to during those early days of the uprising, myself included. Hours after his death, French and British aeroplanes entered Libyan airspace to enforce a no-fly zone, as was authorised by the United Nations Security Council.
Today, David Cameron was attacked over what many headlines referred to as the “collapse” of Libya as a country. In particular, media outlets and MPs suggested that Cameron should never have allowed Britain to carry out air strikes. As a Libyan I couldn’t disagree more with this, and I’ll tell you why.
The Libyan revolution kicked off very rapidly. It started in Benghazi, and all of a sudden, pockets all over the country started uprising in non-violent protest. We were all surprised: uprisings in Libya were uncommon, and in the past the Gaddafi regime had responded to them with an iron fist. But this time, people were buoyed by the support of their Tunisian and Egyptian neighbours, and social media was an invaluable weapon.
Gaddafi, of course, ordered his forces to quash the uprising – and what Nabbous was reporting on the day that he died was the advancement of Gaddafi’s arsenal into the second capital city. If they hadn’t been stopped by the coalition air strikes, God only knows what would have happened – the torture and death of a million people is my best guess, taken from experience.
My hometown Zawiya, some 40km to the west of Tripoli, was one of the first cities to follow in the footsteps of the East and revolt. Gaddafi wouldn’t have this. It was the first and only major city that his troops regained control of, as it was close to his stronghold in Tripoli. What happened there was ugly; the firsthand accounts I heard daily from my family were terrifying. My grandmother witnessed Gaddafi’s troops enter Zawiya from her house on the eastern edge of the city by the motorway. She told me that you could not see where the line of military tanks started or ended.
The battle for Zawiya was gruesome – not only did they kill a lot of people, but they even dug up the graves of people who had died in the main square and been buried by their families, and threw the bodies into pits in unknown locations. When some of Gaddafi’s troops were captured, it turned out that most of them weren’t even Libyans themselves: they were hired mercenaries from other African countries. Gaddafi couldn’t find enough Libyans to fight for him, but he had enough money to buy vast armies of these mercenaries from surrounding areas.
The fact that our dictator had access to these kinds of funds made the playing field spectacularly uneven. If he had been allowed to continue his reign of terror with an unending supply of troops from throughout the continent, there’s no doubt that he would have retaken every city in Libya the same way. The people of Zawiya were yearning for an intervention to happen earlier like it did in Benghazi. Months of suffering were endured in Zawiya before it was liberated again. The air strikes were welcome, and they should have come sooner.
To many western people, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. Comparisons with Iraq, for example, always seem to be used, and the terms “imperialism” and “neo-colonialism” thrown around (mainly by white British people attempting to advocate on my behalf). But every situation is different, and Muammar Gaddafi was a genocidal maniac. Public executions and “disappearings” were common under his dictatorship; executions were even broadcast during children’s TV programmes. The secret police in Libya were so terrifying that nobody dared speak a word against Gaddafi in public, and their reach extended into the UK. Even when I moved to London, I only criticised Gaddafi’s reign in private, with a select group of friends who were under strict instructions to never repeat anything I’d said in public.
In hindsight, of course Cameron could have done things differently. The real issue is that there was no plan in place for what was to happen after Gaddafi was deposed. No boots on the ground was the deal, which was probably the wrong decision – although who can blame the Libyan people for brokering that deal after centuries of suffering under colonialism before Gaddafi’s rule?
A UN army of peacekeepers should have been dispatched to Libya after the war to collect weapons at the very least, as so much weaponry from Gaddafi’s supplies became available to militias and vigilante groups in the aftermath of the air strikes. This abundance of armoury is the root cause of the problems Libya suffers from today, including the fact that it has become an enclave for Isis.
The situation worsens the longer we leave it, and it’s time for the UN to step up: a peacekeeping mission can still be done. It will be difficult, but it will make a positive difference in Libya and, ultimately, for the world. As for David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, Libyans will always feel indebted to them and their countries.
A LEADER TOO RADICAL FOR ISLAMIC STATE
Behind Boko Haram’s Split: A Leader Too Radical for Islamic State
Extremist group’s appointment of rival commander could lead to one faction focusing only on Christian targets, possibly reviving its public support
By Yaroslav Trofimov
Wall Street Journal
Sept. 15, 2016
www.wsj.com/articles/behind-boko-haram-s-split-a-leader-too-radical-for-islamic-state-1473931827
Some people can be too extreme even for Islamic State.
The self-proclaimed caliphate’s biggest and deadliest franchise outside the Middle East, the “West Africa Province” also known as Boko Haram, fractured in recent weeks over Islamic State’s decision to replace its notorious leader, Abubakar Shekau.
Mr. Shekau hasn’t recognized the August appointment of a rival Boko Haram commander, Abu Musab al-Barnawi, as the group’s new “governor.” The two factions have repeatedly clashed since then and their followers have accused each other of abandoning the true faith.
This split, while weakening Boko Haram in the immediate term, could have dramatic consequences for how jihadists continue their struggle in Nigeria and in neighboring countries. Boko Haram’s areas of influence were cut down by the recent offensives of regional militaries, which were aided by U.S., British and French advisers. But the group still controls large chunks of northeastern Nigeria and operates in parts of Niger, Cameroon and Chad.
Mr. Shekau took over Boko Haram after its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, was killed in Nigerian police custody in 2009. He unleashed a strategy of unbridled terror, treating Muslim villages that didn’t join his organization as legitimate targets. Over the past year, he sent scores of children on suicide missions to blow up markets and mosques—with local Muslim civilians making up the vast majority of the casualties.
“You can’t really be more barbaric and more savage than Shekau. He’s the pinnacle of barbarism,” said Issoufou Yahaya, a political analyst and head of the history department at the Niamey University in Niger.
Dispatching child suicide bombers to Sunni mosques was apparently too much even for Islamic State’s leadership in Syria and Iraq. In August, the organization’s newspaper al-Naba published an interview with Mr. Barnawi that made no mention of Mr. Shekau. Instead it referred to Mr. Barnawi, who is rumored to be a son of the Nigerian group’s founder, Mr. Yusuf, as the new “governor” of the West Africa Province.
A surprised Mr. Shekau responded by accusing his rival of apostasy and by complaining that Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been tricked.
Nigeria’s military, which has repeatedly announced Mr. Shekau’s death in the past, claimed to have seriously injured him in a late August airstrike. There has been no independent confirmation of that claim.
In an implicit criticism of Boko Haram’s strategy until now, Mr. Barnawi told al-Naba that the jihadists should focus on combating Nigeria’s Christians—a target largely ignored by Mr. Shekau in recent years. The new approach should be “booby-trapping and blowing up every church that we are able to reach, and killing all those we find from the citizens of the cross,” Mr. Barnawi announced.
Such a shift has the potential to revive a degree of popular support for Boko Haram, especially if the group succeeds in exploiting existing communal tensions in areas with mixed Muslim and Christian populations. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is roughly 40% Christian, and there is a large Christian minority in Chad and a Christian majority in Cameroon.
“Shekau’s approval of attacking Muslims indiscriminately led to a situation of significant loss of support within the Muslim community. The fact that he could kill Muslims praying in a mosque convinced the locals that he is not really fighting for Islam,” said Jibrin Ibrahim, director of the Center for Democracy and Development in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. “The return to systematic attacks against Christians would be very dangerous. It could lead to a wider confessional conflict.”
Paradoxically, out of the two Boko Haram leaders, it’s Mr. Barnawi who is closest to Islamic State’s main ideological rival in the jihadist universe, al Qaeda. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a North African affiliate, has adopted a similar focus on targeting Christians and Westerners, attacking hotels in Mali, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast in the past year. Back in 2012, Boko Haram militants close to Mr. Barnawi trained in al Qaeda-controlled northern Mali, a fact that he mentioned in his al-Naba interview.
Still, the vast distance between Boko Haram’s area of operations and other jihadist front lines means that neither al Qaeda nor Islamic State’s leadership can do much to intervene in the dispute beyond issuing statements.
“The local dynamics of the insurrection are much more important here,” said Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos, an expert on Boko Haram at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. “We shouldn’t assign too much significance to them pledging allegiance to Islamic State or making references to al Qaeda. The only expertise that was actually transferred is how to make HD videos.”
Since the split, Mr. Shekau has resumed using the name Boko Haram, which it dropped when he pledged allegiance to Islamic State last year. Subsequent video releases showed large formations of Boko Haram fighters expressing their loyalty to Mr. Shekau, condemning Mr. Barnawi and threatening Nigeria’s Muslim president, Muhammadu Buhari.
“In the context of this conflict, Shekau’s group is likely to be stronger, unless Barnawi manages to get a lot of support from Islamic State,” said Atta Barkindo, a specialist on the Nigerian insurgency at the SOAS University of London. “Shekau was in control of territory and of the wealth, Barnawi won’t be able to acquire the resources that Shekau already controls – and the way these guys operate is they always go to where the resources are.”
Walter Russell Mead: “History has few examples of a weak power like Russia making so many gains against so powerful a country as the United States. For the leader of an ex-global power whose economy is in disarray, Vladimir Putin is having a pretty good 2016. His ships sail the South China Sea, supporting China’s defiance of international law. The Japanese Prime Minister brushes Washington’s protests aside to meet with him. Putin’s Russia digs itself more thoroughly into Crimea each week, a Permanent Member of the Security Council in open and glaring violation of the UN Charter and its own pledged word. He’s watching the European Union grow weaker and less cohesive each day. And in Syria he forced the Obama administration to grovel for a ceasefire deal that leaves him, Putin, more in control than ever, and tacitly accepts his long term presence as a major player in the Middle East. Watching the State Department pursue its Syria negotiation with Russia was surreal: as if Robert E. Lee had to chase Ulysses Grant around Northern Virginia, waving a surrender document in his hands and begging Grant to sign it.”
Tom Gross: More details below of Abbas’s extensive operational activities for the KGB
CONTENTS
1. “Holidays from history”
2. President Abbas, ex-KGB agent, whose handler is now Putin’s Mideast envoy
3. Abbas’s extensive operational activities for the KGB
4. A role for Luxembourg?
5. “Palestine expects meeting with Israel in Moscow later this year” (Tass, Sep 13, 2016)
6. “Lavrov warns against provocations in Golan Heights” (Tass, Sep 13, 2016)
7. “Assad’s attack on Israel intended to defend his honor, not country” (By Amos Harel, Haaretz, Sep 14, 2016)
8. “Russia re-emerges as a Great Power in the Middle East” (By Walter Russell Mead, Hudson institute, Sep 12, 2016)
9. “Soviet document suggests Mahmoud Abbas was a KGB spy in the 1980s” (By Peter Baker, NY Times, Sep 8, 2016)
“HOLIDAYS FROM HISTORY”
[Notes by Tom Gross]
This is a follow-up to other recent dispatches on the increasing Russian involvement in the Middle East, as the U.S. withdraws its leadership from the region.
I attach two pieces published yesterday by Tass, the official news agency of the Russian Federation. (Both these articles reflect the Kremlin’s political viewpoints.)
The fourth piece (“Russia Re-Emerges as a Great Power in the Middle East”) is more interesting. It is by Walter Russell Mead, who in my view is one of the sharpest American academics writing about foreign policy today.
He writes: “Putin may not have an economy, and his power projection capability may be held together with chicken wire and spit, but the delusions of his opponents have always been his chief tools. European and American leadership since the end of the Cold War has been operating on the false belief that geopolitics had come to an end; they have doubled down on that delusion as geopolitics came roaring back in the Obama years. In the past, Europe was able to take ‘holidays from history’ because the United States was keeping an eye on the big picture. But that hasn’t been true in the Obama administration, and the juddering shocks of a destabilizing world order are the consequence of a foreign policy that isn’t grounded in the hard facts of power.”
PRESIDENT ABBAS, EX-KGB AGENT, WHOSE HANDLER IS NOW PUTIN’S MIDEAST ENVOY
Last week it was revealed that current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas worked for the KGB as an agent in Moscow and Damascus in the 1980s and that his then KGB handler was none other than Mikhail Bogdanov, who is now Vladimir Putin’s deputy foreign minister and who has been shuttling between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in recent days at a time when Russia is intervening to broker talks between Israel and the Palestinians. (Putin, of course, also worked in a senior position in the KGB.)
The information on Abbas comes from Vasili Mitrokhin, a senior archivist for the KGB who later defected to the West, and smuggled a large cache of documents from Russia to London. The Mitrokhin Archive was opened to public researchers a few weeks ago.
Bogdanov was stationed in Damascus for much of the 1980s. His official Russian Foreign Ministry biography says he served as a diplomat in Syria from 1983-89 and again from 1991-94.
ABBAS’S EXTENSIVE OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE KGB
Tom Gross adds:
I am told by highly knowledgeable sources that the document in the London archives is accurate but in fact underplays Abbas’s role.
I am told that Abbas had many years of active involvement on behalf of the KGB and Soviet satellite services. Abbas was not just on the periphery as an informer, a collaborator or sympathizer. He was directed, trained and given orders across a large number of areas in these years.
Abbas (and others in the PLO) were actively controlled and used in operational activities by the Soviet Union to benefit and achieve the goals of the Soviet Union and of the Hafez Assad regime. Some of these activities, I am told, were conducted against the interests of Saudi Arabia as well as against other states and against Jews in a number of countries.
PLO operations, arms inquisitions, and training for terror attacks and airline hijackings were carried out through Soviet satellite services, in particular the Bulgarians, Romanians and East Germans, and to a lesser extent the Poles and Czechoslovaks.
***
Of course the Soviet leadership was very anti-Semitic at that time, which probably led Abbas to feel comfortable assisting them.
For more on Abbas in general, here is an opinion article I wrote for the Wall Street Journal after he succeed Yasser Arafat as Palestinian leader.
And here is a dispatch on his long history of Holocaust denial.
A ROLE FOR LUXEMBOURG?
The first Tass piece below reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that the Israeli-Palestinian summit could take place in Luxembourg rather than in Moscow.
This comes after the visit of Luxembourgish Prime Minister Xavier Bettel to Jerusalem on Monday for meetings with Netanyahu.
During his visit, Bettel also issued a formal “apology to the Jewish people” on behalf of Luxembourg for its extensive collaboration with the Nazis during the Holocaust.
“For me it was important to make that step because it’s never too late to recognize errors but the biggest error is not to recognize errors. So I’m happy that we did it,” Bettel told the press after he made the apology on Monday.
He added: “We are friends, Luxembourg and Israel, and our bilateral relations are excellent on the political level but also on the business level and I have a big economic delegation with me here.
“We are both innovative economies, based on innovative economies. Luxembourg and Israel trade has nearly doubled between 2014 to 2015. There is still a large potential but I’m also happy that we opened, in 2010, a Trade and Investment Office here in Israel.
“After this meeting I will go now to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to sign an agreement between universities to strengthen cooperation on the academic and student levels.”
-- 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.
ARTICLES
“PALESTINE INSISTS THAT THE MEETING IS HELD IN MOSCOW AND NOT AT SOME OTHER PLACE”
Palestine expects meeting with Israel in Moscow later this year – ambassador
Tass (News Agency of the Russian Federation)
September 13, 2016
MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/. Palestine expects that a meeting with the Israeli leadership will be held in Moscow before the end of the year, Palestine’s Ambassador to Russia Abdel Hafez Nofal told TASS.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday that the Israeli-Palestinian summit could take place in Moscow or Luxembourg as the country’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel had invited his Israeli counterpart to visit Luxembourg.
“Palestine insists that the meeting is held in Moscow and not at some other place. We hope the meeting takes place in Russia’s capital before the end of the year. Any time, when Russia considers it possible, we are ready to meet the Israeli leadership”, the ambassador said.
In his view, Russia “is now determining a different date for the meeting”.
“We don’t know when and how it is going to happen”, Nofal said.
Palestine hopes Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will pay a visit to that state in November, Nofal added.
“Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will visit Palestine and Israel after November 11,” he said. “The Palestinian leadership is at the final stage of preparations for this important visit,” he said.
(The rest of this piece is here: http://tass.com/world/899599 )
“RECOGNIZED BY EVERYONE AS ENEMIES OF MANKIND”
Lavrov warns against provocations in Golan Heights
Tass (News Agency of the Russian Federation)
September 13, 2016
http://tass.com/politics/899497
MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called to show restraint and to avoid any provocations on the territory of the Golan Heights.
“There is the need to show restraint and not to allow any provocations in the Golan Heights,” Lavrov said commenting on an airstrike carried out by the Israeli jets in Syria’s Golan Heights on Tuesday.
Tel Aviv said this came in response to a projectile from Syria that hit the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights. A similar incident occurred on July 25 and the Israeli Air Force also responded by fire.
The situation in the Golan Heights reflects the overall destabilization of the Middle East and the growing terrorist threat that needs to be countered, Russia’s top diplomat said.
“There are terrorists in the Golan Heights who have been recognized by everyone as enemies of mankind. But the fight against them should be conducted in the framework of the UN Security Council’s resolutions,” Lavrov stressed. “We proceeded from this in our contacts with the Israeli and Syrian colleagues and other countries of this region,” he added.
The Golan Heights, belonging to Syria from 1944, were seized by Israel in 1967 during the Six-Day War. In 1981, the Knesset passed The Golan Heights Law, unilaterally proclaiming sovereignty of the Jewish state over this territory. The annexation was recognized as illegal by the UN Security Council Resolution in December 1981.
ASSAD’S ATTACK ON ISRAEL INTENDED TO DEFEND HIS HONOR, NOT COUNTRY
Assad’s attack on Israel intended to defend his honor, not country
The Syrian firing of missiles at Israeli jets doesn’t necessarily point to a critical situation on the border. If the shooting continues, however, Israel will be obliged to eliminate the danger – and the road to a direct clash won't be that long.
By Amos Harel
Defense correspondent
Haaretz
Sep. 14, 2016
Paradoxically, it was the border with Israel – the quietest and most marginal in the Syrian conflict – which supplied the first significant violation of the cease-fire that took effect on Monday night. Israel’s almost routine response to Syrian violations, which have become frequent recently, prompted a highly unusual response from Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime: The firing of missiles at Israel Air Force planes.
The Syrian surface-to-air missiles missed their targets and apparently didn’t seriously endanger them. That didn’t stop the Syrian media from declaring that one Israeli plane and one Israeli drone had been downed – a blatant lie that was received skeptically, even in the Arab world.
Nevertheless, the Netanyahu government must now reconsider its policies. Has an overly predictable pattern of behavior not been created, which will ultimately expose Israel to risk? And what message is the Syrian dictator trying to send, on the very day that Russia managed to arrange a cease-fire that is likely to ensure his continuance in power?
Israel doesn’t intervene in the fighting on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. Last week, rebel groups began an offensive aimed at distancing Assad’s forces and affiliated militias, including Hezbollah, from Quneitra and positions near the Druze town of Khader, both areas near the Israeli border (regime forces are no longer present on the border itself.)
Assad’s forces responded with artillery shells and mortar fire – imprecise weapons that ended up landing in Israel, time after time, landing near the town of Majdal Shams. With a rebel command post located very close to the Israeli border, the margin of error is small; thus it’s no surprise that regime fire sometimes strays into Israeli territory.
The army responded to several such incidents over the past week with airstrikes on Syrian positions. The last of these prompted the Syrians to respond with anti-aircraft missiles.
It was a dangerous provocation by the regime, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate that the situation on the border has grown critical or that Assad has any interest in clashing with Israel. It’s more likely that this was muscle-flexing for public relations purposes, and that the false claim of having downed Israeli aircraft was meant to defend Assad’s honor against what he views as Israeli humiliations.
As noted, the Golan is a secondary front in Syria’s civil war. For some time now, the rebels have been trying to link up their forces in the south and central Golan with their enclave near Beit Jinn, east of Mount Hermon, which would threaten the Quneitra-Damascus road. The regime wants to keep this corridor open, and also wants to prevent the rebels from advancing toward the southern corner of the Syrian-Lebanese border, which could allow them to threaten Hezbollah on its home ground.
The continued fire on the Golan could simply indicate that both sides need time to adjust to the cease-fire after such a long period of fighting.
The few details published about the Russian-American deal that led to the cease-fire indicate that the powers will test the truce for a few days – and if it works, they will probably launch a coordinated assault against the most radical rebel organizations, Nusra Front and Islamic State. This gives the extremist groups every reason in the world to keep fighting, and to try to draw other factions in as well, so that they aren’t left alone in the sights of the superpowers.
The past week’s almost automatic response pattern entails risks that could lead to escalation. If, for instance, missiles are fired again at Israeli jets, Israel will have to eliminate this threat to its planes. From there, the road to a direct clash with Assad’s forces isn’t that long.
RUSSIA RE-EMERGES AS A GREAT POWER IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Russia Re-Emerges as a Great Power in the Middle East
By Walter Russell Mead
Hudson institute
September 12, 2016
History has few examples of a weak power like Russia making so many gains against so powerful a country as the United States.
For the leader of an ex-global power whose economy is in disarray, Vladimir Putin is having a pretty good 2016. His ships sail the South China Sea, supporting China’s defiance of international law. The Japanese Prime Minister brushes Washington’s protests aside to meet with him. Putin’s Russia digs itself more thoroughly into Crimea each week, a Permanent Member of the Security Council in open and glaring violation of the UN Charter and its own pledged word. He’s watching the European Union grow weaker and less cohesive each day. And in Syria he forced the Obama administration to grovel for a ceasefire deal that leaves him, Putin, more in control than ever, and tacitly accepts his long term presence as a major player in the Middle East. Watching the State Department pursue its Syria negotiation with Russia was surreal: as if Robert E. Lee had to chase Ulysses Grant around Northern Virginia, waving a surrender document in his hands and begging Grant to sign it.
Putin may not have an economy, and his power projection capability may be held together with chicken wire and spit, but the delusions of his opponents have always been his chief tools. European and American leadership since the end of the Cold War has been operating on the false belief that geopolitics had come to an end; they have doubled down on that delusion as geopolitics came roaring back in the Obama years. In the past, Europe was able to take “holidays from history” because the United States was keeping an eye on the big picture. But that hasn’t been true in the Obama administration, and the juddering shocks of a destabilizing world order are the consequence of a foreign policy that isn’t grounded in the hard facts of power.
Take the recently concluded Syria negotiations. As thousands died, and millions fled, as hatreds festered, jihadi groups metastasized and populations radicalized, the United States and Russia edged toward an agreement that would lead to a cease fire. After fevered speculation that the long sought agreement would be signed at the G-20 meeting in China ended in disappointment, John Kerry flew to Geneva and came back with… something.
Ironically, what the Obama-Putin deal is closest to is Donald Trump’s plan for the Middle East. The United States is putting aside its worries about Russian complicity in Syrian war crimes, ignoring the destabilizing potential of an ascendant Iran and its impact on the Sunni world and acquiescing in Russia’s return to the Middle East in order to cooperate with Russia (and Assad and Iran) against Sunni jihadi groups. Secretary Kerry, after much hard work, has gotten Putin to accept an temporary alliance with the United States on Russia’s terms. Assad is already stronger as a result of this agreement; America’s alliance network in the Middle East is already weaker. It’s likely that Putin will push the envelope of the agreement to inflict further humiliations on the Obama administration and inflict further damage on America’s international position. One hopes that at least the people of Aleppo will gain some kind of reprieve from all this, but unless the next administration changes course, the restoration of an Assad-run Syria is looking more likely than before Kerry flew to Geneva.
President Obama came into office with a set of ideas that dominate the thinking of liberal Democrats today. On the one hand, he was a Wilsonian, believing that the spread of democracy, the promotion of multilateral institutions, and a serious commitment to human rights and the rule of law are the only means to advance U.S. interests and prevent destructive new wars. And he has some of the most ambitious, world-order-building goals that any President has ever sought: the end of global warming, the end of nuclear weapons, winning over adversaries like Russia, China, Iran and “moderate Islamists” to the U.S.-world-order agenda. And he wants war criminals like Assad removed from office and tried in the Hague. Yet he was also a non-interventionist, someone who believed that American interventions abroad – in Vietnam, in Laos (as he reminded us last week), in Iraq and elsewhere – were bad for the United States and worse for the world. More, he believes that America can best lead the world by “nation-building at home”: rather than spending money on military build ups and foreign wars, we should spend more money dealing with injustice and poverty in our own country.
Over the course of his first term, Obama gradually shifted toward the non-interventionist position. A series of disasters in the Middle East – the chaotic aftermath of the war in Libya, the debacle that followed the removal of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and the generally disappointing results of the Arab Spring – seem to have convinced the President that his “humanitarian hawk” advisors couldn’t be trusted with the keys to the car. But this didn’t kill his humanitarian and idealistic impulses, nor did it diminish the strength in the Democratic Party of those who believe that the promotion of democracy, morality and the rule of law should be the foundation of American foreign policy.
As Syria imploded and the worst humanitarian disaster since World War Two gradually took form in the heart of the Middle East, President Obama and his team faced nothing but bad choices. Intervention became increasingly chancy and risky as all sides in the war turned uglier; on the other hand, abstention meant that Iran, Russia and the Sunni world would turn Syria into a free fire zone. The rise of ISIS (and the impact of its atrocities on American public opinion) forced the Administration to assemble the elements of an anti-ISIS coalition, and ultimately to put a limited American military presence into the war. Nobody was happy with the resulting policy or the situation in Syria, and it kept getting worse. The Assad government, supported by Russia and Iran, intensified a murderous campaign that targeted civilians. Heartrending stories filled the press; the throng of refugees threatened the stability of countries like Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, and created a major political crisis inside the European Union. The Saudis and their allies were furious at American lack of cooperation against what they saw as a Shi’a sectarian war of aggression; the Turks were furious both at the ongoing conflict and at the U.S. policy of supporting the Syrian Kurds as an anti-ISIS ally. Besides the countless atrocities and horrors the war inflicted on Syrians, the conflict and the American reaction to it were stressing key American alliances and allies from Saudi Arabia and Jordan to Germany and Greece.
From the Oval Office point of view, bad as the results of the current policy were, there were no better alternatives. But the pressure to “do something” was continuous. Both within and beyond the administration, the criticism was devastating, and the consciences of many administration officials were increasingly burdened by the lack of American response. Given the immovable object of the President’s refusal to escalate, and the irresistible force of criticism, the administration sought to ease the pressure through two approaches. First, it would try to buy off humanitarian critics by making statements of disapproval about the Assad government’s tactics. Second, it would seek to work with Russia for a cease fire that would stop, or at least significantly slow, the bloodshed, while creating a framework for a political negotiation leading to a stable Syria in the future.
This plan represents the sweet spot in the internal politics of the administration. It balances the Oval Office’s determination to avoid a military clash in the final months of the President’s term with the humanitarian instincts that are still strong at Foggy Bottom, in Congress and among many administration officials. Cynics would say it is a way to look like you are doing something without doing anything much; the President’s supporters would say it’s a balanced and nuanced response that offers the best hope of progress for the kind of solution Syria needs without giving up on America’s (verbal) support of its ideals.
But there was one player that the White House doesn’t seem to have fully taken into account: Vladimir Putin. It’s doubtful that at this point President Obama retains many of the optimistic illusions that marked the early stages of his Russia policy: the naive hopes that Medvedev might offer a serious alternative to Putin, the belief that Putin was angry only because of errors on our part, the belief that he is a geopolitical bumbler whose serial errors would soon trip him up. Those mists and fogs have (finally, after many lost months and years) burned away, but the White House may not yet understand the degree to which humiliating President Obama and making him look weak has become a principal driver of Russian policy.
To hear the Obama Administration explain it, Russia and the United States have common interests in Syria, difficult though it may be to reach an agreement based on them. We both want a stable Syria. Neither one of us wants the jihadi radicals to end up in charge of the country. We both want religious and ethnic minorities protected. We both want the killing to stop.
And there’s more. Russia has, the White House believes, more reasons for ending the conflict. Militarily, it’s a war neither Russia nor Assad can win. The only option is to keep throwing good money after bad, to prop up an Assad government that cannot restore security in the country. Worse, as Assad’s forces weaken, Russia will have to throw more of its combat strength into the mix, leading to more casualties and unrest at home. Some of that unrest will be among the Russian Muslim population, who are overwhelmingly Sunni and who are not pleased at Russian participation in a sectarian war on the Shi’a side. Supporting Assad and Iran also weakens Russia’s hopes for outreach to the Sunni Arabs, whose help Russia will need to jack the oil price back up. Given all that, negotiating with Russia over Syria looks like a smart play, and this is where, over and over, the Obama Administration comes out when it debates Syria policy.
All of this explains why Charlie Brown thinks Lucy will help him kick the football, but fails to explain why Lucy likes to pull it away.
The truth seems to be a simple one: Lucy likes watching Charlie Brown humiliate himself by falling flat on his back more than she enjoys watching the football fly down the field. That is, the Obama Administration’s Syria calculus has underestimated how great Putin’s interest is in making the United States look and sound weak and unsuccessful. He doesn’t just enjoy it when John Kerry slips and falls on a banana peel that Lavrov has artfully positioned behind him; Putin is willing to run risks and even to take on significant costs simply in order to make the United States look bad.
Beating Barack Obama like a brass drum doesn’t just help Putin at home. It helps him re-establish Russia’s prestige in the Middle East. It shakes the confidence of our NATO allies. It unnerves Japan and Taiwan. It endears Putin to Beijing. Because the United States is the global superpower, emerging as the power that has the capacity to make President Obama look like a loser is a huge gain for Russia. It strengthens the narrative being propounded by the Kremlin disinformation machine; it strengthens anti-Americanism everywhere. It helps drive a wedge between the U.S. and our allies in Europe. It helps persuade rulers all over the world that the U.S. is a weak and ineffective power, encouraging them to look to rising powers like China, Iran and, of course, Russia as better partners for the future. It undermines the liberal order that the United States and its allies have been working on since World War Two, and hastens the day when it will be replaced by something less liberal and less orderly.
This means, among other things, that the more urgently the United States wants to negotiate for something like a cease fire in Syria, the more the Russians enjoy withholding it for weeks and months and even years. Our very eagerness to negotiate incentivizes the Kremlin to tease, to stall, to hold the glittering prize just beyond reach, making us beg for it. Dance, Kerry, dance!
After milking the situation for all it is worth, and negotiating the over-eager Americans into a set of damaging concessions, the Russians gave the Obama Administration the deal it so obviously and desperately wants. But will they keep it? Having tortured, teased and humiliated the Americans for months over the framing of the deal, will they now shift to a strategy of torturing, teasing and humiliating the Americans over its implementation?
The answer is that they probably will. What both Obama and the Russians know is that Obama doesn’t have an alternative. If the Russians break the deal, will Obama unleash massive American support for an anti-Assad offensive? No. Will the White House assemble a coalition of regional allies to bring the war criminals to justice? Nyet. Will the U.S. force Russia to pay some dire price on some other issue in world politics? Almost certainly not.
Kicking sand in this administration’s face is a one way bet for the Russians. The Americans will sulk and pout and make inspiring speeches about the arc of history, but the weaker they look the less anyone cares about all that. There are no consequences to embarrassing Obama, hanging Kerry out to dry, or to walking away from a deal the Americans spent months begging you to accept. Under this President, they will just come back for another round of negotiations from a weaker bargaining position.
For President Obama, this is leadership. It is embracing negotiation. It is looking beyond the atmospherics, reaching out to one’s opponents, finding common interests. It is overcoming the inherited taboos of the Cold War era, transcending the shibboleths of geopolitical competition, dispensing with the superstitious faith that ‘credibility matters’, laying the foundations of a true, and truly liberal, international order. The President does not see that occupied Crimea, embattled Ukraine, slaughtered Syria represent the negation of everything he hopes to build. He doesn’t understand that from Pyongyang to Caracas hard men with cold eyes and dead hearts are weighing his words and placing their bets. He doesn’t see the connection between his concessions to Putin and the crisis of his China policy. He doesn’t really understand why, despite his best efforts, the world is less peaceful now than it was when George Bush left office.
For Obama, closing down some of Guantanamo, signing an unenforceable climate agreement in Paris, flirting with the notion of a ‘no first use’ nuclear doctrine, apologizing to Laos and exchanging ambassadors with the Castro brothers are what history is made of.
Putin disagrees, but hopes Obama goes on thinking as he does.
We live in interesting times.
SOVIET DOCUMENT SUGGESTS MAHMOUD ABBAS WAS A K.G.B. SPY IN THE 1980s
Soviet Document Suggests Mahmoud Abbas Was a K.G.B. Spy in the 1980s
By Peter Baker
The New York Times
September 8, 2016
www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/world/middleeast/mahmoud-abbas-israel-palestine-kgb.html
JERUSALEM – Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may have more in common than an interest in Middle East peace talks. According to a newly discovered Soviet document, Mr. Abbas may have once worked for the K.G.B., too.
The possibility, trumpeted by the Israeli media on Wednesday night and just as quickly dismissed by Palestinian officials, emerged from a document in a British archive listing Soviet agents from 1983. A reference to Mr. Abbas is tantalizing but cryptic, just two lines identifying him by the code name “Mole.” At the end of his entry are two words: “K.G.B. agent.”
The suggestion that Mr. Abbas may have been on Moscow’s roster more than three decades ago might have been just a historical curiosity but for the fact that it comes at the same time that Mr. Putin has been trying to organize new talks between Mr. Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. A Russian envoy was in Jerusalem this week to meet with Mr. Netanyahu, but the Israeli and Palestinian leaders remain at odds and no direct talks appear imminent.
“We thought it was important now in the context of the Russian attempt to arrange a summit between Abbas and Netanyahu, particularly because of Abbas’s joint K.G.B. past with Putin,” said Gideon Remez, one of two researchers at the Truman Institute at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who found and disclosed the Soviet document to Israel’s Channel 1. (At the end of the Soviet era, Mr. Putin was a K.G.B. lieutenant colonel.)
Mr. Remez’ research partner, Isabella Ginor, said Mr. Abbas’s past was relevant because of Russia’s possible continuing influence on him. “We don’t know what happened later on and if Abu Mazen went on with his service or work for the Soviets,” she said, using another name for Mr. Abbas. “But now that he is head of the Palestinian Authority, this can be a lever on him.”
Palestinian officials scoffed at the report of Mr. Abbas’s possible ties to the Soviet spy agency, calling it a brazen effort to undermine him at a time when he is struggling with dissent at home and seeking support abroad. Gal Berger of Israel Radio said Palestinian officials laughed at the report.
“There’s a clear trend of attempting to damage Abu Mazen by various elements, including Israel,” Mohammed al-Madani, a central committee member of Mr. Abbas’s Fatah party, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “This is another attempt to slander him.”
Indeed, Palestinian officials argued that there would have been no need for Mr. Abbas to be a Soviet agent because the Palestine Liberation Organization at the time was openly working with Moscow. Mr. Abbas, they said, led a Palestinian-Soviet friendship foundation, making him the de facto liaison to Moscow.
The document naming Mr. Abbas was among thousands of pages of files spirited out of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and turned over to British intelligence by a former K.G.B. archivist, Vasily Mitrokhin. Disillusioned by Soviet repression, Mr. Mitrokhin spent years painstakingly copying secret documents by hand, creating a treasure trove for Western analysts and historians that became known as the Mitrokhin archive.
The documents, the subject of at least two books, are now stored at the Churchill Archives Center at the University of Cambridge and were opened to the public two years ago. Mr. Remez and Ms. Ginor said they came across the paper naming Mr. Abbas while researching Soviet involvement in the Middle East.
Under a title listing K.G.B. workers in 1983, the document names “Abbas, Mahmoud,” born 1935 in Palestine, as an agent in Damascus. It calls him “Krotov,” a variant of the word mole. Mr. Abbas was indeed born in 1935 in what was then known as Palestine, but after the creation of the State of Israel, in 1948, his family fled to Damascus, Syria, where he was raised and educated.
Yet the document is as notable for what it does not say. It says nothing, for instance, about how or when Mr. Abbas was recruited, what he did for the K.G.B., whether he was paid or how long he remained an agent.
But Mr. Remez and Ms. Ginor noted that Mikhail Bogdanov, the Russian deputy foreign minister who has been shuttling between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in recent days, was stationed in Damascus around that time. Mr. Bogdanov’s official Foreign Ministry biography says he served in Damascus from 1983-89 and again from 1991-94.
“We can’t say he was directly connected with Abbas at the time but we assume at least over time he learned about it because he is a Middle East expert,” Mr. Remez said.
Mr. Remez said that they were not trying to undercut Mr. Abbas and, in fact, they favor talks with the Palestinians – but not under the auspices of the Russians, who should not be trusted. “It is not basically a good idea,” he said. “So that is why we thought this is the time to go public with this discovery.”
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
[Note by Tom Gross]
Warning: there are distressing images in both the videos below.
There is only music, no spoken commentary in this first two minute video broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4 News yesterday, as a little Syrian girl shakes after another chemical attack by the Assad regime.
The video was taken by the amazing Waad Al-Kateab, who is documenting these crimes against humanity. You can watch her previous work here:
* Children of Aleppo: the baby born in a barrel bomb attack
It is not only Iran and Russia who, with their client Assad regime, are behind these crimes against humanity. The Obama administration and his cheerleaders in the American media who have applauded him for not creating a no-fly zone, are also responsible in these awful crimes which show no sign of ending.
Assad’s five-year-long war against his own people using chemical and other heinous weapons on his own cities, is probably the worst crime of the 21st century to date. Obama’s deal with the Iranian regime in the summer of 2015 released hundreds of millions of dollars which have -- as I and others predicted -- been used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to fund and supply large number of troops and weapons to Assad, which is why the Syrian regime aided by Iran and Hizbullah has greatly increased the killing of Syrian Sunnis and the ethnic cleansing of millions of other Sunnis into Europe and neighboring Arab states.
In private, I am told, Hillary Clinton is critical about Obama’s moral and strategic failure and lack of leadership in his foreign policy. She has long supported a no-fly zone in Syria.
But Clinton is so concerned about the editorial pages of the New York Times and elsewhere criticizing her should she publically distance herself from the president’s Syria policy, that she is largely staying silent on this issue.
The BBC’s chief Middle East correspondent Jeremy Bowen is also complicit in failing to explain what is going on in Syria. He reported on Syria yesterday without mentioning once that it is the Iranian regime that is the chief director of operations of most of the crimes there, not Assad. Without understanding this, one can’t understand the Syrian conflict, or how to solve it.
-- Tom Gross
See also:
* UN pays tens of millions to Assad regime under Syria aid programme
* Iran sending Iraqi Shia Families to Syria to Change Demographics
* Please “like” these dispatches on Facebook here www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia, where you can also find other items that are not in these dispatches.
Unlike in France, Burkinis have long been welcome in Tel Aviv (above) and other Israeli beaches
CONTENTS
1. “Detecting Trump’s feelings lands Israeli startup $3 million” (Haaretz, Sept 7, 2016)
2. “Israel Seeking Police Recruits: Eager, and Arab” (By Diaa Hadid, NY Times, Sept 4, 2016)
3. “Brussels minister’s tolerance adviser resigns after calling Israel Islamic State’s twin” (JTA, Sept 6, 2016)
4. “How Israel Ignored Its Most Valuable Spy” (By Bruce Riedel, The National Interest , Sept 5, 2016)
5. “I support Israel, which is why I don’t support US aid to Israel” (By Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, Sept 4, 2016)
6. “Egypt documenting Jewish artifacts” (By Khalid Hassan, Al Monitor, Sept 4, 2016)
[Note by Tom Gross]
I attach a number of articles, mainly related to Israel. There are short extracts from some of them first.
Among the writers:
Bruce Riedel is a retired CIA officer who has advised four U.S. presidents on Middle East and South Asian issues.
Khalid Hassan is a freelance journalist who has worked for several Egyptian newspapers since graduating from Ain Shams University in 2010.
Jeff Jacoby is a lead columnist for The Boston Globe, and a longtime subscriber to this Middle East dispatch list.
Diaa Hadid is the New York Times’s Jerusalem-based correspondent dealing mainly with Israeli Arab and Palestinian affairs.
EXTRACTS
Diaa Hadid writes: “The roll call was startling for a class preparing to take Israel’s police academy exam: Mohammad Hreib, Ghadeer Ghadeer, Munis Huwari and Arafat Hassanein, dressed like a hipster and named after the Palestinian leader, whom most Israeli Jews view as a terrorist… Israel’s right-wing public security minister seeks to increase the number of Arab Muslims in the police force in three years by adding 1,350 new ones.”
(Tom Gross adds: Jamal Hakroush, the current deputy commissioner of the Israeli police, is a Muslim Arab.)
***
Jeff Jacoby writes: “The US-Israel alliance would be stronger, not weaker, if the financial largesse were removed from the picture. That money comes with strings attached – strings that by definition limit Israel’s freedom to make choices… The ties that bind Americans and Israelis are among the strongest in the world. Disentangle them from foreign aid and they’ll be even stronger.”
***
Bruce Riedel writes: “He was the best spy ever recruited by the Mossad. Too bad the Israelis didn’t listen to him. … But the Israelis were not his only clients; this asset also sold his services to Saudi Arabia…
“Why did he do it? Why would a twenty-nine-year-old Egyptian in 1973, married to the daughter of his country’s greatest hero, betray his country to its great foe? Money was part of the story. The Mossad paid him over a million dollars, helping Marwan become a very rich man. Ego was a part, too. As the Angel, Marwan was the central player in the world’s most dangerous conflict. And he enjoyed the thrill of it all…
“Saudi Arabia also had confidence in Ashraf Marwan. They, of course, had no idea he was an Israeli agent. But the Israelis also now had an asset with access to the Saudi royal family, a significant coup.”
***
Khalid Hassan writes: “Egypt has begun registering Jewish antiquities in an attempt to protect them from theft and neglect – an important step forward in preserving history. However, the government still faces criticism for not making good on promises to renovate the country’s synagogues… Jewish antiquities have always been part of Egypt’s cultural heritage, and government officials have said they are also part of the world’s heritage and the property of all mankind, not only Egypt.”
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ARTICLES
DETECTING TRUMP’S FEELINGS LANDS ISRAELI STARTUP $3 MILLION
Detecting Trump’s feelings lands Israeli startup $3 million
Beyond Verbal, a startup that has developed a way to analyze emotions from vocal intonations, uses the presidential candidate’s infamous rhetoric to showcase its product.
Haaretz Business Staff
September 7, 2016
The latest round of Chinese investment in Israeli companies involves a surprise twist in the form of Donald Trump, whose infamous rhetoric is used to highlight a startup’s product.
Beyond Verbal, an Israeli startup that has developed a way to analyze emotions from vocal intonations, announced on Friday that it received $3 million in funding by Kuang-Chi Science, according to a report in Tech in Asia.
“We can understand the speaker’s mood, his attitude toward the subject that he is speaking about, his degree of self-control, his level of cooperation, and also his character – whether he’s someone who makes things happen or someone who pursues power,” Beyond Verbal CEO Yuval Mor told Haaretz in the past.
To understand the capabilities of vocal analysis, it bears visiting Beyond Verbal’s YouTube channel, which shows excerpts of famous video clips.
A popular one is from an exchange between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Megyn Kelly of Fox News last summer. As the two speak, captions analyzing their emotions run across the bottom of the screen.
Other video clips include the debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney during the elections campaign, an interview with the late Princess Diana and a clip from the film Dirty Harry. All the clips include insights that Beyond Verbal’s system provides in real time.
Mor told Tech in Asia that “we envision a world in which personal devices understand our emotions and well-being, enabling us to become more in tune with ourselves.”
ARAFAT THE ISRAELI POLICEMAN
Israel Seeking Police Recruits: Eager, and Arab
By Diaa Hadid
New York Times (Front page)
September 4, 2016
KIRYAT ATTA, ISRAEL – The roll call was startling for a class preparing to take Israel’s police academy exam: Mohammad Hreib, Ghadeer Ghadeer, Munis Huwari and Arafat Hassanein, dressed like a hipster and named after the Palestinian leader, whom most Israeli Jews view as a terrorist.
“How did they even let you in?” an astonished colleague asked Mr. Hassanein, 20.
The unusual roster is the result of an Israeli push to recruit into its police force Arab Muslims, who are both vastly underrepresented in its ranks and vastly overrepresented among criminal suspects and victims.
Arab Muslims are currently 1.5 percent of the 30,000-member national police force, and the right-wing public security minister seeks to increase that number in three years by adding 1,350 new ones. Many would work in Arab cities and towns, where the ministry has promised to open 12 new police stations. (There are seven in such areas now, out of 70 across Israel.)
The deep-rooted tension between Israel’s police and its 1.7 million Arab citizens – about a fifth of the population – in some ways mirrors the flaring problems over race and policing in the United States. This spring and summer, the public security minister, Gilad Erdan, traveled to London and to New York – where Hispanics make up about 27 percent of the Police Department, African-Americans 15 percent and Asians nearly 7 percent – to study those cities’ experiences with diversifying and sensitizing their forces and with using body cameras to address complaints of police abuse.
“They are not going to disappear, and hopefully we are not, either,” Mr. Erdan said in an interview, referring to Arabs and Jews.
Alongside the recruitment drive, he promoted a rare long-serving Muslim officer to deputy commissioner, the second-highest rank on the force, holding him up as an example of how high an Arab could ascend in the force. The challenge, he acknowledged, is how to enlist this new population sensitively – to do it “for them and not against them.”
Many Palestinian citizens said they felt that Mr. Erdan was pressing forward with the recruitment of Arab officers because the violence that was wreaking havoc in their communities had begun to impact the wider Jewish society. They bitterly noted that Mr. Erdan’s plan was announced only after Nashat Melhem, an Arab-Israeli, opened fire on bar patrons in Tel Aviv on Jan. 1, ultimately killing three people. But Mr. Erdan denied that was the impetus for the plan, saying it had been in the works long before the attack.
Building trust is his challenge. Many Arab citizens identify primarily as Palestinian, not Israeli, and see the conservative government, especially its security forces, as hostile to their interests. They are suspicious of a broader government program to invest $3.8 billion in infrastructure, education, housing and other services in Arab communities – an effort to better integrate the residents, who suffer more poverty and unemployment, into society.
The police recruitment has unleashed a particular conundrum for an Arab population that has not quite recovered since officers fatally shot a dozen Palestinian citizens of Israel and one from Gaza during violent demonstrations at the start of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000. The feeling on the street is that the disproportionate violence afflicting Arab communities is the result of deliberate police neglect.
“The police don’t care for the Arabs,” said Amneh Freij, whose son Suhaib, 24, a professional soccer player, was fatally shot in January last year in Kafr Qasim. Adding to their sense of powerlessness, Ms. Freij’s husband, Mohammed, is the deputy mayor of Kafr Qasim, an Arab town of 22,000 in Israel. His position made no difference, they said.
Mr. Freij’s killer has not been caught. Had the victim been Jewish, Ms. Freij said as she wept in a recent interview, the police would have worked harder to find a suspect. “You would pluck him from between the eyelashes of the townspeople,” she said.
Mr. Erdan acknowledged the Freij family’s grief, and said having more Arabs on the force would help solve such cases in the future because they could better understand local crime structures and gather intelligence and evidence.
There are plenty of cases to work on. Mr. Erdan said 60 percent of Israel’s murders occurred in Arab communities, triple the Arab proportion of the population, along with more than 40 percent of traffic accidents. The Abraham Fund Initiatives, a group that promotes the coexistence of Palestinian and Jewish citizens, said an examination of prosecutions last year showed that Arabs were charged in 58 percent of all arsons, 47 percent of robberies, 32 percent of burglaries and 27 percent of drug-trafficking cases.
While Arab leaders are concerned about crime in their communities, they also complain that police use excessive force. In 2014, Arabs staged a daylong strike to protest the fatal shooting by officers of a 22-year-old as he retreated from their vehicle after banging on its windows with what looked like a knife, and this January, a young man was shot dead and his father beaten during a drug arrest.
And so the sight of an Arab in an Israeli police uniform is, still, visual shorthand for a collaborator, and many argue that the police need reform, not recruits. A popular Arab-Israeli website refused to run the police force’s recruitment commercials.
“More police isn’t the solution. Changing the mentality of the police is,” said Ayman Odeh, who leads a bloc of Arab lawmakers in Israel’s Parliament.
Amnon Beeri-Sulitzeanu, a co-executive director of the Abraham Fund Initiatives, which has led its own initiative to improve relations between Arabs and the police, said there was a contradiction in a government that had been vocally hostile to Arabs while presenting a large budget to improve their lot.
“It’s this conflicting trend – very positive on one hand, very destructive on the other,” he said. The government “is unhelpful – I’m trying to be gentle here – in its rhetoric and action when it comes to the place and collective rights of the Palestinian minority.”
Since the recruitment initiative was announced in April, about 700 Arabs have applied to the police force. Jamal Hakroush, 59, the newly promoted deputy commissioner, said about 200 were expected to make it.
The first hurdle is the entrance exam, which many Arabs have struggled with because of its emphasis on Israeli civics and Hebrew, topics that often get short shrift in Arab-Israeli public school curriculums. So the police created special prep courses for potential recruits, including intensive Hebrew lessons, like the one that Mr. Hreib, Mr. Ghadeer, Mr. Huwari, and Mr. Hassanein took this summer.
These recruits will be bused together to exams, on the theory that they will do better in groups. For their physical exams, they are instructed in Arabic, not Hebrew.
The applicants in class here at an abandoned police barracks in northern Israel have a mix of motivations.
Ahmad Sarhan, 22, said he was inspired by a relative on the force. “My cousin was a shepherd. Now look at him: He has a house,” Mr. Sarhan said. “He has a future.”
Thekra Darwish, 22, said working as a policewoman would help her fight for equality for Arabs. “If we had a Palestinian state, we would serve that one,” she said with a shrug. “But we are here.”
Aisha Dahleh, 26, a social worker, wants to help resolve crimes plaguing her town. If selected, according to Commissioner Harkoush, she would be the first ever Israeli police officer who wears a Muslim head scarf.
“There will be those who say, ‘She is a girl, she is religious, she is an Arab, she is a Muslim – and she works with the state,’” Ms. Dahleh said. “But I know my goals.”
Mr. Hakroush is simultaneously leading a charm offensive with Arab mayors to raise support for the recruitment drive. On a recent day in Taibeh, a town with a particularly violent reputation, he met the mayor, Shuaa Mansour, inside his bulletproof office.
Over coffee and pastries, Mr. Mansour said he would reluctantly support the plan. “Whoever has an alternative to the police – bring it,” Mr. Mansour said. “We have no alternative.”
Guy Ben-Porat, a professor at Ben Gurion University of the Negev who has researched race and policing, said that for decades, the Israeli police and Palestinian citizens mostly sidestepped each other, with tribal elders reconciling conflicts among Arabs instead. As the influence of such elders eroded in modernizing communities, some, like Kafr Qasim, organized their own security patrols.
These volunteer patrols functioned like neighborhood watch groups, mostly cracking down on young men speeding, blasting music and harassing teenage girls. But they could not prevent the killing of Suhaib Freij, even though he was the son of Kafr Qasim’s deputy mayor.
Mr. Freij, sitting in a living room crammed with his son’s soccer medals, was dubious about the prospects for change, but still offered a small voice of support for the new police initiative because, as he put it, “you have to try and try.”
“There are police now,” he noted, referring to a newish police station in Kafr Qasim, “and the incidents happen and happen and happen.”
BRUSSELS MINISTER’S TOLERANCE ADVISER RESIGNS AFTER CALLING ISRAEL ISLAMIC STATE’S TWIN
Brussels minister’s tolerance adviser resigns after calling Israel Islamic State’s twin
Staffer also likened Israelis to Nazis
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
September 6, 2016
A Belgian Muslim official who compared Israel to Nazi Germany and the Islamic State is no longer employed as a minister’s adviser on tolerance.
Youssef Kobo, the adviser on diversity for the minister in charge of equal opportunity in the regional government of Brussels, offered to resign after finding he could no longer fulfill his duties, a ministry spokesperson told the HLN news website Monday.
Last month, Kobo apologized for his vitriol against Israel, which he said was a modern Nazi Germany and “an identical twin” of the Islamic State terrorist group.
He said he was “young and stupid” when he wrote the Facebook posts in 2014, which he said he “regrets,” the La Capitale daily reported. The newspaper had contacted Kobo, 28, following criticism by the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism.
However, in recent days Belgian media discovered earlier tweets, in which he proposed to slaughter activists working to prevent the ritual slaughter of animals.
“What if we compromise on slaughtering Gaia-activists instead of sheep?” he wrote, in what he later dismissed as an inappropriate joke. Gaia is the mythological spirit of Earth.
Kobo had referenced the Islamic State in posting a caricature of Israel cutting the throat of the Gaza Strip, where Israel in the summer of 2014 carried out strikes against the Hamas terrorist group. Kobo said of a video of Israeli troops: “21st century Nazis.”
Kobo told La Capitale that he was “very emotional” following the strikes in Gaza, which followed rocket fire by Hamas on Israel.
He works for a minister in the government of one of the three autonomous regions that make up the federal kingdom of Belgium.
Bart de Wever, the mayor of Antwerp, which is the capital of Belgium’s Flemish Region, in July told the Joods Actueel Jewish monthly he finds Kobo’s appointment “troubling” also because Kobo, according to de Wever, recently published a tweet about the shooting of police officers in the United States in which he wrote “a shot for a shot.”
De Wever said it means Kobo justifies the shootings as retribution for perceived police brutality, especially against blacks.
Joel Rubinfeld, the president of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, said Kobo’s statements make him unfit to advise on tolerance and especially on anti-Semitism.
“He can’t be both fireman and fire starter,” Rubinfeld told La Capitale.
Rubinfeld noted that Israel is connected to the phenomenon often called “new anti-Semitism,” in which anti-Israel sentiment becomes a veil for anti-Semitism. In France, Belgium and the Netherlands, most anti-Semitic assaults are by people with a Muslim background, watchdogs in those countries have said.
Echoing the position of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Rubinfeld said “anti-Zionism is but modern anti-Semitism, where hatred for the Jewish state substitutes hatred of the Jew.”
“THE ANGEL”
How Israel Ignored Its Most Valuable Spy
By Bruce Riedel
The National Interest
September 5, 2016
He was the best spy ever recruited by the Mossad. Too bad the Israelis didn’t listen to him. Even worse, the quarrel over why the spy was ignored inside Israel led to his death. But the Israelis were not his only clients; this asset also sold his services to Saudi Arabia.
Ashraf Marwan was the son-in-law of Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser. He became a crucial adviser to Nasser’s successor Anwar el-Sadat. In 1970 he called the Israeli embassy in London and offered to work for the Israeli intelligence service. The Mossad ran him as its best asset ever, with then head of the service Zvi Zamir often meeting him face-to-face to debrief him.
A new book by veteran Israeli intelligence expert Uri Bar-Joseph tells the story of the Angel, Marwan’s code name, in detail. This is a tale of espionage at the highest level. The Angel provided Israel with Egypt’s entire order of battle for its armed forces and Egypt’s war plans for attacking Israel across the Suez Canal. He provided details of Sadat’s meetings with the Soviet leaders and up-to-the-minute reports on Soviet arms deliveries to Cairo.
But the Israeli military intelligence experts in the Directorate of Military Intelligence, which was solely responsible for producing the national intelligence estimates on whether Egypt would go to war, were convinced Sadat would not take the risk. The DMI had a concept of war planning. In the concept, Egypt could not beat Israel because of Israel’s overwhelming air superiority, which Egypt’s leaders knew made war suicidal. Thus Sadat wouldn’t attack.
But the Angel reported in 1972 that Sadat believed he had no choice but to go to war because Israel was blocking every avenue for diplomacy. Moreover, Sadat was planning a limited war to break the stalemate, not a full scale conflict. The concept was irrelevant.
Then, in August 1973, Marwan told Zamir that Sadat had traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with King Faisal. Sadat told Faisal, in a meeting with only Sadat, Faisal and Marwan in the room, that he would attack Israel with Syria that fall. Faisal promised Sadat that the kingdom would impose an oil embargo on America if it resupplied Israel. The oil embargo was the Arabs’ ultimate weapon.
It was also America’s nightmare. According to this account, the Israelis shared the substance of the Angel’s reports with the Nixon administration. Apparently Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ignored the warning that the oil weapon was being readied for use. Other reports have shown it wasn’t the only warning Kissinger ignored.
Meanwhile, the Israeli generals refused to abandon their concept. When war clouds gathered in October 1973, the DMI insisted that there was nothing to worry about. They convinced Defense Minister Moshe Dayan that war was not imminent. Even when the Russians began an urgent mass evacuation of their civilian advisers from Egypt and Syria, DMI chief Eli Zeira said that there was no reason to expect war.
The day before Sadat attacked, the Angel urgently summoned Zamir to London, to tell him the attack was coming on October 6, 1973, Yom Kippur in Israel. Only the next morning did Israel begin to mobilize. If the army had listened to Marwan in the months before October, it would have been far better prepared. As it was the last minute, the warning from London probably saved Israel from losing the Golan Heights and an even worse disaster than what actually happened to the country.
Why did he do it? Why would a twenty-nine-year-old Egyptian in 1973, married to the daughter of his country’s greatest hero, betray his country to its great foe? Money was part of the story. The Mossad paid him over a million dollars, helping Marwan become a very rich man. Ego was a part, too. As the Angel, Marwan was the central player in the world’s most dangerous conflict. And he enjoyed the thrill of it all.
Bar-Joseph’s captivating account also makes clear that the Mossad was not alone in paying Marwan. The Saudi intelligence service saw him as a useful agent of influence in Cairo. Faisal’s intelligence chief and son-in-law, Kamal Adham, probably paid Marwan even more than the Mossad in lucrative contracts and other deals. His presence at the crucial August summit was a reflection of Saudi Arabia’s confidence in Ashraf Marwan. They, of course, had no idea he was an Israeli agent. But the Israelis had an asset with access to the royal family, a significant coup.
After the war, the Israeli spy agencies engaged in another war over who should be blamed for the debacle of the warning failure in October 1973. If wars between spies are deadly, the wars between ex-spies over the blame game are even more deadly. Zeira desperately tried to smear the Angel as a clever double agent in his retirement, to absolve the DMI of its gross negligence. Gradually, he released details about the Mossad’s greatest agent to the media, which would point the finger at Ashraf Marwan. Zamir even tried to stop him from going to court.
By 2007 it was too late. Marwan fell, or was pushed, to his death from the balcony of his London home. The investigation by Scotland Yard was perfunctory. They concluded it was either suicide or murder by sources unknown.
For the Mossad, the unveiling of the organization’s best-ever source by a fellow Israeli intelligence officer is a disaster that won’t go away. Any future potential walk-in will have to think long and hard about whether the Mossad can keep a secret.
***
For another recent dispatch relating to the Yom Kippur war please see:
The CIA on day Israel was attacked: “The Arabs do not seem bent on starting hostilities” (August 28, 2016)
“DISENTANGLE THEM FROM FOREIGN AID AND THE TIES WILL BE EVEN STRONGER”
I support Israel, which is why I don’t support US aid to Israel
By Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
September 4, 2016
A Longtime Reader, unabashedly Zionist, chastises me. “I can’t believe you’re going to vote for Gary Johnson for president,” she writes. “You’ve always been a great supporter of Israel. How can you be with a candidate who wants to eliminate US aid to Israel?”
I replied that Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee, has a number of positions I strongly disagree with. But this isn’t one of them. I want to eliminate US aid to Israel too.
Johnson has said that he “advocate[s] ending all foreign aid” and has criticized the federal government for “spending us deeper and deeper into debt while we shell out billions in foreign aid we can no longer afford.” The Libertarian platform endorses a policy of no foreign intervention, “including military and economic aid.”
At the same time, Johnson has said unequivocally that “Israel has been and will remain an important ally.” Both he and his running mate, Bill Weld, are former Republican governors; both appear to hold Israel in the same esteem that most Americans do – particularly Americans with Republican or conservative leanings.
But is it possible to support Israel and uphold the importance of the US-Israeli relationship while simultaneously opposing the annual subsidy Congress provides to Israel’s military? Of course it is. The Jewish state, with its booming economy, doesn’t need American charity. If only out of national self-respect, Israel should want to wean itself off the US dole – and America shouldn’t want its friendship for its stalwart Middle East ally to be tainted by financial dependence.
Admittedly, this is not the traditional pro-Israel view. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) characterizes US military aid to Israel as “the most tangible manifestation of American support.” That aid currently amounts to $3.1 billion a year, and will likely rise to $3.8 billion if a proposed 10-year aid package – which AIPAC vigorously supports – is approved. For decades, pro-Israel groups like AIPAC have stressed that US aid represents “the immutability of the US-Israel alliance.” And Israel-bashers agree: Many of them venomously denounce US aid precisely because they detest the close ties between Washington and Jerusalem that the aid reflects.
But the US-Israel alliance would be stronger, not weaker, if the financial largesse were removed from the picture. That money comes with strings attached – strings that by definition limit Israel’s freedom to make choices.
For example, Israel is required to spend 75 percent of each year’s assistance in the United States. That money may not be used to pursue military R&D or acquire weapons in Israel itself, even though the country has a domestic arms industry with a global reputation. (Under the new package being negotiated, Israel would have to spend all US aid in the United States.) Military aid to Israel thus amounts to a significant subsidy for the US defense industry. That may be great for Lockheed Martin, but it has inevitably distorted Israel’s military decision-making.
In an interview with Defense News last month, the former commander of the Israel Defense Force’s Northern Corps, and one-time commander of its military colleges, argued that US defense assistance “harms and corrupts” his country’s national security interests.
“Israel is so addicted to advanced US platforms and the US weaponry they deliver that we’ve stopping thinking creatively in terms of operational concepts,” said Major General Gershon Hacohen, who is now a reservist in the IDF. Dependence on US aid, he contends, has institutionalized Israeli reliance on air power and ever-more-advanced technology, at the expense of focusing more intensively on ground maneuvers and the unique threat posed by enemies waging asymmetric warfare.
Hacohen thinks Israel should break its addiction to US aid, and he’s not alone in saying so. Naftali Bennett, an Israeli cabinet minister who made a fortune in software engineering before entering politics, also wants to cut the cord. US military aid, he points out, amounts to only 1 percent of Israel’s nearly $300 billion GDP. A generation ago, American aid might have been indispensable. But the country today, he says, “is much stronger, much wealthier, and we need to be independent.” Support for winding down the military handouts comes as well from elder statesman Moshe Arens, a former Israeli defense minister and ambassador to Washington. “We love to get it . . . but we could get along without it,” Arens told a parliamentary conference in 2013.
Besides military aid, the United States for many years supplied Israel with economic assistance funds. By the 1990s, the notion that Israel’s surging high-tech economy needed to be propped up by American taxpayers had become embarrassing. The subsidies were phased out. By 2007 they were gone, and no one regrets their disappearance.
What happened with economic aid should now happen with military aid. Israel is healthy enough to stand on its own two feet, and it should be a matter of pride for it to do so. The ties that bind Americans and Israelis are among the strongest in the world. Disentangle them from foreign aid and they’ll be even stronger.
“JEWISH ANTIQUITIES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN PART OF EGYPT’S CULTURAL HERITAGE”
Egypt documenting Jewish artifacts
By Khalid Hassan
Al Monitor
September 4, 2016
Egypt has begun registering Jewish antiquities in an attempt to protect them from theft and neglect – an important step forward in preserving history. However, the government still faces criticism for not making good on promises to renovate the country’s synagogues – or, for that matter, Egyptian historical and archaeological sites in general.
Jewish antiquities have always been part of Egypt’s cultural heritage, and government officials have said they are also part of the world’s heritage and the property of all mankind, not only Egypt. And so, Saeed Helmy, the head of the Islamic and Coptic Monuments Department at theMinistry of Antiquities, is calling on countries around the world to financially support Egypt in restoring and preserving the antiquities.
Helmy, who is in charge of the Jewish monuments in Egypt, told Al-Monitor in mid-August that the country has been unable to finance such projects because of its financial state. Egypt’s economy has suffered since the January 25 Revolution in 2011, and tourism has been decimated.
“I know very well that the Egyptian monuments – including the Jewish antiquities – capture the attention of people all around the world. Therefore, I’d like to make it clear that Egypt pays considerable attention to its monuments whether they are Islamic, Coptic or Christian, and that is what I asserted during my meeting with the [US] cultural attache at the US Embassy [in Egypt] on Aug. 2. However, we need the support of the countries that are interested in cultural heritage in order to protect these great antiquities.”
The Jews built 11 synagogues in Egypt – 10 in Cairo and one in Alexandria – which contain thousands of manuscripts that document their community in the country, along with birth and marriage records of Egyptian Jews.
Many synagogues in the heart of Cairo were frequently visited tourist attractions, especially Ben Ezra, Ashkenazi and Sha’ar Hashamayim. Ben Ezra in Old Cairo is one of the oldest synagogues in Egypt and houses thousands of ancient Jewish books. Old Cairo is also where the first mosque in Egypt, Amr ibn al-As Mosque, was built in 642, and is home to a number of Coptic churches, most notably the so-called Hanging Church.
The Ashkenazi Synagogue in Ataba, built in 1887, is in need of complete maintenance in addition to renovation work of its floors and walls.
Despite their small number, members of the Jewish community in Egypt – which is down to six individuals – have always cared for and attended to the Jewish antiquities in Egypt.
On March 26, Magda Haroun, the president of Egypt’s Jewish community, said in an interview with the privately owned Al-Youm Al-Sabeh newspaper that she had received several promises from Egyptian officials who are responsible for documenting and repairing buildings of Jewish origin, but none of these promises were actually fulfilled.
Therefore, Haroun said, she called on President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to help preserve this cultural heritage, especially after water leaked through the walls of some synagogues.
“I don’t want to place on him [Sisi] a burden greater than what he can bear. He is a true human being who bears a great responsibility. Yet I had to look for a higher authority to preserve this great heritage,” Haroun said.
Sisi indeed may have responded to Haroun’s message, as the Ministry of Antiquities announced June 11 that it was forming a special committee to take stock of Jewish antiquities in synagogues and register them in the ministry’s records. This was the first time that the Ministry of Antiquities has offered to register the artifacts, after many years of neglect.
Ahmad Abd al-Majid Hammad, a member of the committee assigned to register the artifacts, said 60 pieces have been registered to date at the Moussa al-Dar’I synagogue, which was built in 1925. The antiquities included 32 boxes containing Torah scrolls, in addition to a few curtains that display drawings, decorations and the Star of David. Moreover, the antiquities included a metal frame and wooden artifacts.
Helmy, who heads the registration committee, told Al-Monitor that the ministry looks equally at Islamic, Coptic and Jewish antiquities. Helmy said he does not allow any discrimination against any of these monuments, and that he often reminds antiquities students of this.
“The best proof that the Ministry of Antiquities cares about the Jewish heritage is that we have finished [in 2010] repairing the Maimonides synagogue in Jamaliyyah Street in midtown Cairo at a total cost of 8.5 million Egyptian pounds [roughly $950,000]. We have restored the synagogue’s entrances, floors and all the antiquities inside it. For the first time, the synagogue has been placed on the list of tourist attractions in Egypt,” he said.
Helmy added, “Therefore, anyone can come and freely visit this great archaeological site. It is an unprecedented achievement and it shows that the ministry gives great attention to the Jewish monuments in Egypt and seeks to preserve them, [even] making them touristic attractions that visitors can enjoy.”
He acknowledged the deteriorated condition of Jewish antiquities in Egypt, saying, “The situation of the Jewish antiquities in Egypt is no different than the situation of the Egyptian monuments as a whole. They need considerable support to restore and repair them, especially after the security chaos that broke out in Egypt after the [2011] revolution that had a [negative] impact on tourism and the economy.
“Therefore, the Ministry of Antiquities paid a heavy price, given that its resources are based on the revitalization of tourism.”