The Problem with Lapid’s Weak Conditions for Establishing a Palestinian State

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October 13, 2022

Institute for Contemporary Affairs

Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation

Vol. 22, No. 20

At the UN General Assembly in September, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid expressed the dream of reaching an arrangement with the Palestinians that would rid Israel of the reality of the “occupation,” while at the same time achieving security for Israel. His remarks show that he understands how far we are from a solution. However, Lapid’s formulations regarding the conditions for establishing a two-state solution for two peoples indicate too little familiarity with past discussions of the issue.
Israeli prime ministers and U.S. presidents have made it clear to the Palestinians that the realization of the idea of a Palestinian state depends on their willingness to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Only such recognition can lead, after time, to the abandonment of terrorism and acceptance of the reality of two states for two peoples, one of which is the Jewish people.
President Trump raised a series of additional conditions including the cessation of incitement and hate indoctrination, the cessation of the payment of salaries to terrorists, giving up the attempt to sue Israel in the International Criminal Court, and Palestinian willingness to accept Israeli security supremacy that would allow Israel to deal with those involved in terrorism against it in the territories of the Palestinian state.
As long as the Palestinians are committed to the narrative adhered to by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in his UN remarks, the chances of a renewal of terrorism will be high. This narrative argues that the Palestinians have a vested right to the entire territory of historic Palestine, that there is no Jewish people and the Jews have no sovereign history in the Land of Israel/Palestine, and that Israel was established by colonialism and imperialism that wanted to rid themselves of the presence of the intolerable Jews in their countries and exploit them as a bridgehead in the struggle against Islam. Therefore, the Palestinians have the right and duty to fight for the realization of their goals, chief among them the victory over Zionism.
The idea that Israel needs to “strengthen the PA” reflects an exaggerated fear of its collapse. The PA is not in danger of collapse. It continues to function as a mechanism that manages the lives of Palestinians and employs some 160,000 officials. It also continues to be perceived, despite the criticism of its senior figures, as the Palestinians’ main national achievement. A focus on strengthening the PA ignores the fact that it does not fight terrorism but encourages it, perpetuates the Palestinian narrative through incitement, and works to promote this in the international arena as well.
Israel must continue to intensify its efforts to thwart terrorism as part of Operation “Break the Wave” and through increased military deployment in Jerusalem and at recognized friction points. The idea that refraining from action will stop the cycle of terrorism ignores the fact that the motivation for carrying out attacks is not due to the activities of the IDF and the Israel Security Agency on the ground, but is rooted in much deeper motives derived from the Palestinian narrative described above.

The speeches delivered at the UN General Assembly by Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and American President Joe Biden, together with Abbas’ recent remarks on the “50 holocausts” that Israel carried out against the Palestinians and the tense situation in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, reflect the complex reality currently framing the Palestinian issue.

Lapid expressed the dream of a part of the Israeli public to reach an arrangement that would rid Israel of the reality of the “occupation,” while at the same time achieving security for Israel. His remarks on the lessons we have learned from the disengagement from Gaza reflect the distress faced by this part of the Israeli public, and they show that the prime minister understands how far we are from a solution. However, Lapid’s formulations regarding the conditions for establishing a two-state solution for two peoples are not clear enough and indicate a kind of naivety and too little familiarity with past discussions of the issue.

Past Discussions of Conditions for a Palestinian State

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, followed by Israeli Prime Ministers Sharon and Netanyahu, and apparently Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, as well as President Obama, President Biden implicitly in his recent visit to Bethlehem, and of course President Trump in his peace plan, made it clear to the Palestinians that the realization of the idea of a Palestinian state depends on their willingness to recognize Israel as a Jewish state or as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Only such recognition can lead, after time, to the abandonment of terrorism and acceptance of the reality of two states for two peoples, one of which is the Jewish people.

Prime Minister Rabin simply ruled out the possibility of a Palestinian state under any conditions. Lapid, on the other hand, confined himself to a formula that ignores the roots of terrorism and conditions the establishment of the Palestinian state only on the cessation of terrorism. It is an approach that effectively guarantees dangerous concessions to expedite the realization of the false maxim of conflict resolution.

Trump raised a series of additional conditions – no less essential – including the cessation of incitement and hate indoctrination, the cessation of the payment of salaries to terrorists, giving up the attempt to sue Israel in the International Criminal Court, and Palestinian willingness to accept Israeli security supremacy that would allow Israel to deal with those involved in terrorism against it in the territories of the Palestinian state. Lapid, for some reason, omitted all these stipulations.

In practice, the establishment of a Palestinian state under the conditions presented by Lapid will make it very difficult for Israel to act against terrorism when it resumes from the territory of the Palestinian state because it will be impossible for Israel to operate in the territory of a foreign country without restriction.

The Palestinians Remain Committed to Their Anti-Israel Narrative

Moreover, the chances of a renewal of terrorism will be high as long as the Palestinians are committed to the narrative adhered to by Abbas, together with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the other factions. This narrative, which was reflected in Abbas’ speech at the UN and in his problematic remarks in Germany, argues that the Palestinians have a vested right to the entire territory of historic Palestine, that there is no Jewish people and the Jews have no sovereign history in the Land of Israel/Palestine, and that Israel was established by colonialism and imperialism that wanted to rid themselves of the presence of the intolerable Jews in their countries and exploit them as a bridgehead in the struggle against Islam.

Therefore, the Palestinians have the right and duty to fight for the realization of their goals, chief among them the victory over Zionism, in all ways, including the use of violence and terrorism (although Mahmoud Abbas prefers, for cost-benefit considerations, to focus on violence that does not involve the use of firearms). In addition, the Palestinians must not relinquish their status as the exclusive collective victims of the conflict, continue to integrate the national and Islamic dimensions in their political campaigns, and maintain their refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state.

In order to justify such dangerous moves within the Israeli discourse, false threats are raised that if we do not promote moves that will lead to the existence of a Palestinian state, we will find ourselves unwillingly in the reality of one bi-national state, and that will be the end of the Zionist vision.

Yet this threat is completely baseless. The political separation between Israel and the Palestinians has already been carried out within the framework of the Oslo Accords and is reflected in the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, which is the body through which the Palestinians realize their political rights and control their own destiny. This includes the Hamas-controlled system in Gaza and the Fatah-controlled system in Judea and Samaria. Raising concerns over a binational state is simply a tool to pressure Israel and justify the establishment of a Palestinian state or unilateral separations in the absence of the conditions for the establishment of this state.

The Intensification of Palestinian Terrorism

What should really bother Israel is the intensification of Palestinian terrorism as a result of the ongoing incitement and the erosion of the Palestinian Authority’s ability to fulfill its role as the manager of the territories under its control. This is due to the rampant corruption, and because of frustration by Mahmoud Abbas and many others in the Palestinian leadership over their inability to advance their political goals at Israel’s expense. This is due to both economic difficulties and because of the sense that Abbas’ hold on his position as chairman of the PA, the PLO, and Fatah is being undermined by his advanced age, and therefore everyone must prepare for the “day after.”

Does Israel Need to Strengthen the PA?

The Israeli response to this reality appears to be limited to the idea of “strengthening the PA,” reflecting an exaggerated fear of its collapse. In practice, despite its difficulties, the PA is not in danger of collapse. It continues to function as a mechanism that manages the lives of Palestinians and employs some 160,000 officials. it also continues to be perceived, despite the criticism of its senior figures, as the Palestinians’ main national achievement.

A focus on strengthening the PA ignores the fact that it does not fight terrorism but encourages it, perpetuates the Palestinian narrative through incitement, and works to promote this in the international arena as well. The PA also reconciles the involvement of Fatah elements and the PA security apparatuses in terrorism in the West Bank and even encourages this.

Although the PA sometimes acts against Hamas activists in its territory, as it has done recently in Nablus, this is mainly because it sees them as a threat to its survival in power. Israeli efforts are also carried out while ignoring the fact that the PA’s weaknesses are so profound that there is no assurance that Israel’s actions will actually lead to a change in the trend, and to some extent they are even harmful in portraying the PA as collaborating with Israel. As a result, the chances that the effort to strengthen the PA will lead to a change for the better in its policy are slim.

What Should Israel Do?

So what should Israel do? First, it must continue to intensify its efforts to thwart terrorism as part of Operation “Break the Wave” and through increased military deployment in Jerusalem and at recognized friction points. This is in parallel with the continued buildup of readiness for another campaign against the terrorist organizations in Gaza, which will lead to a significant blow to Hamas’ ability to threaten Israel.

The idea that refraining from action will stop the cycle of terrorism ignores the fact that the motivation for carrying out attacks is not due to the activities of the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (ISA) on the ground, but is rooted in much deeper motives derived from the Palestinian narrative described above.

Second, Israel must try to continue to develop relations with Arab countries according to the model of the Abraham Accords because this is the best way to illustrate to the Palestinians that their concept of the struggle against Israel is archaic and futile. In the first stage, recognition of this reality may increase Palestinian frustration and encourage terrorist attacks, but over time, recognizing the futility of the attacks and the denial of recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is essential to Palestinian introspection that may promote other views.

Third, Israel must strengthen those in the Palestinian system who are willing to prioritize improving the quality of life over commitment to the struggle and work directly with them and not through the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. Raising the number of work permits in Israel for Palestinians and allowing Palestinians to fly from Ramon Airport are positive examples of this type of action.

Fourth, Israel must continue to demand that the Palestinians stop incitement and salary payments to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and make it clear that a solution to the conflict is contingent on the acceptance of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Above all, we must understand that the struggle is still long and we must be prepared for its continuation militarily, politically, and mentally, and not get caught up in the fallacies and false visions that threaten to undermine the consciousness required for this struggle.

* This article originally appeared in Hebrew on the N12 website (Israel TV Channel 12) on September 30, 2022.

Former lone soldier David Morel seriously injured in Shuafat terror attack

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October 12, 2022

Civilian security guard David Morel, who was seriously injured in the Shuafat terror attack on Saturday evening, remains in a serious and unstable condition, Hadassah University Medical Center said in an update on Tuesday morning.

30-year-old Morel originally immigrated to Israel from Brazil in 2017, drafting as a lone soldier into the IDF, where he completed his service in the Search and Rescue Brigade.

Following his service, Morel found work as a civilian security guard, first at the Jerusalem Municipality and then later at checkpoints, including the one at the entrance to the Shuafat refugee camp.

On Saturday evening, Morel was seriously injured in the Shuafat checkpoint shooting that claimed the life of 18-year-old Border Police officer Noa Lazar, and he remains sedated and on ventilation in the intensive care unit of Hadassah University Medical Center on Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus.

While Morel lies in the ICU, the search for the terrorist continues, with Israeli security forces releasing a photo of the 22-year-old shooter Udi Kamel Tamimi in their appeal for information about his whereabouts. As the search for him continues, Palestinian media has reported that IDF forces are preparing for the demolition of his family’s home in the Shuafat refugee camp.

Palestinian youths clash with Israeli security forces in the Shuafat Refugee Camp, east Jerusalem, October 10, 2022. (credit: JAMAL AWAD/FLASH90)

Tamimi arrived at the checkpoint in a vehicle belonging to a stranger who was under the impression that he was taking a hitchhiker to Modi’in. When the car stopped at the checkpoint, Tamimi fired seven rounds at the checkpoint until his gun jammed. He then fled on foot. The driver then turned himself in and police concluded that he did not intentionally involve himself in the attack.

Death of Sgt. Noa Lazar

18-year-old Lazar was killed while on duty at the Shuafat checkpoint, although her death was not made public by the IDF until several hours after the attack.

Sgt. Noa Lazar. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON UNIT)

Lazar was originally from the northern town of Bat Hefer and she served in the IDF’s Military Police Erez battalion. She was promoted posthumously from the rank of corporal to sergeant.

Response of US embassy to attack at the UNRWA facility in Shuafat

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October 12, 2022

Kristin Stewart
Press Officer/Spokesperson
U.S. Embassy Jerusalem | Tel Aviv Branch Office

Dear Kristin,

Greetings., With warmest regards to Ambassador Nides.

The US has returned to the position as the leading funder of UNRWA;;

In the wake of the armed and violent riots at the UNRWA facility in Shuafat:

Will the US government ask for an inspection .of UNRWA facilities in Shuafat for arms and munitions?

Will the US ask for UNRWA in Shuafat to remove active members of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad be removed from the UNRWA payroll?

For your perusal, my latest UNRWA piece:

Doubling Australian aid to UNRWA: A vital perspective

Thank you for your prompt response

Deadline; Ocr. 12, 2022 9am Israel time,

Yours,

David

Doubling Australian aid to UNRWA: A VITAL PERSPECTIVE

By

David Bedein

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October 11, 2022

Producer, 20 SHORT UNRWA DOCUMENTARIES – ALL SHOT ON LOCATION.
https://www.cfnepr.com/205640/Movies
The Australian government has announced that it will double to its aid to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
On Saturday evening. October 8, 2022, rioting took place in Shuafat. Following an attack on an Israel security vehicle, where a female Israel security officer was killed.
Shuafat hosts at least 30,000 descendants of Arab refugees who left their homes during the 1948 Arab Israel war. There is an UNRWA refugee camp located in Shuafat.
Here is a link to a movie which I produced and filmed in 2019 on location at the UNRWA
refugee camp in Jerusalem.

(*) https://israelbehindthenews.com/?s=shuafat
The UN created UNRWA as a “temporary” entity in the wake of the Israel War of
Independence, to help half a million Arabs displaced as a result of these hostilities.
Seventy-three years later, in texts taught in the UNRWA schools, Israel does not exist and is replaced by an entity known as “Palestine.”

Doubling Australian aid to UNRWA IN PERSPECTIVE 9.10.22

Rate of Illegal Arab Construction in Area C Increased by 80% in 2022

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October 11, 2022

A report released by the Regavim Movement reveals that in 2022, illegal Palestinian Authority Arab construction in Area C, the portion of Judea and Samaria under full Israeli jurisdiction, increased by 80%. The report documents 5535 new illegal structures built in 2022, compared to 3076 structures in the same period in 2021. Regavim: “The Israeli government is creating a de facto Palestinian state.”

Illegal Arab construction in Area C of Judea & Samaria.

In 2022, illegal Arab construction in Area C of Judea and Samaria boomed, outpacing the already-alarming rate seen in 2021 by 80%. Regavim’s most recent report, based on data collected through meticulous fieldwork, aerial photography and GIS mapping, compared the situation on the ground in 2021 to that of 2022. The study covered the period of April 2021 through April 2022, analyzing the number of structures, the legal status of the land on which they were built and the jurisdictional lines dictated by international law.

Regavim’s exhaustive study indicates that in comparison to previous years, the data for the most recent period are unprecedented, both in quality and quantity. The structures in built in recent months are not temporary shacks or makeshift shelters that characterized much of the illegal activity in earlier years; in 2022, new Palestinian construction is characterized by “palatial residences, sprawling holiday resorts, amusement and entertainment compounds and event halls, swimming pools and vacation villages, and high-rise residential and commercial towers.” In addition to the mass-scale construction, in many areas development and infrastructure work was carried out to lay the groundwork for future full-scale neighborhoods, such as at Khirbet Khattha near Tarkumiyeh and Lakef near Karnei Shomron.

Regavim studied construction patterns exclusively in Area C, the portion of Judea and Samaria placed under full Israeli jurisdiction in the Oslo Accords framework. At present, according to Regavim’s research, there are 81,317 illegal Arab-built structures in this area, covering an area of approximately 150,000 dunams – twice the total area of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria all told, legal and illegal.

Illegal Jewish construction stands at 4,382 structures, of which 406 new structures were built in the time period of the new study. Although the disparity in number is striking, it is far overshadowed by the disparity in quality: Whereas illegal Arab-built structures are located in desolate, remote areas far from existing villages or settlement clusters, all of the illegal construction in the Jewish sector is located within the municipal “blue line” boundaries of Jewish settlements.

Analysis of the hard data reveals several additional important facts: Aerial photos show that in Areas A and B – the sections of Judea and Samaria placed under full Palestinian Authority civil jurisdiction under the Oslo framework, there are abundant empty spaces that remain undeveloped and completely un-utilized.

Rather than developing in Area A, Arab construction has continued to seep into the open spaces of Area C. Additionally, these same aerial photos leave no room for doubt: Arab construction is neither random nor haphazard. Construction is strategically placed, in accordance with the Fayyad Plan, according to pre-established criteria and objectives: Creating contiguous Arab settlement – a pattern that is particularly pronounced in northern Samaria; isolation and strangulation of Jewish communities; construction on the route of planned traffic arteries such as the Funduk Bypass Road and the Tekoa – Ibei HaNachal Access Road in eastern Gush Etzion; construction alongside existing highways, including Route 55 and Route 60, the main roads of Samaria and Judea respectively.

“The Israeli government is creating a de facto Palestinian state,” says Meir Deutsch, Director General of Regavim. “Over the years we have documented the illegal construction on a daily basis and sounded the alarm about the Palestinian annexation of Judea and Samaria, but the most recent construction data are clear and unequivocal: Under the present government there has been a meteoric rise in the extent of illegal construction and the Palestinian takeover of land. This is not a warning light – it’s a wailing, deafening siren. Before our eyes, a Palestinian state is taking shape – and it is already posing an existential threat to the future of the State of Israel. The data indicate that the present government did not merely turn a blind eye to this phenomenon; this a clear and conscious policy, reflected in recent statements by Interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid regarding the creation of a Palestinian state.”

Recently, Minister of Defense Benny Gantz announced: “We are enforcing the law against illegal construction in area C – on both sides, both Jewish and Arab, and I am proud of it.”

The data revealed by Regavim indicate that Gantz’s statement should be cause for concern “primarily because it exposes the Minster of Defense’s complete failure to grasp the impact and inevitable outcome of failure to protect the territory under Israel’s jurisdiction,” said Deutsch. “No less cause for concern is the failure of so many of our elected officials and political hopefuls, as well as a very large segment of the Israeli public, to grasp the danger posed by Benny Gantz to the security of the State of Israel.”

A nechtiker tog

By

Michael Kuttner

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October 7, 2022

This exquisite Yiddish expression loosely translated means “whom are you trying to fool?”

After two thousand years of being abused, kicked around, targeted, slandered and accused of a myriad array of theological and political crimes, one would think that those dark days were well and truly a relic of the past.

The original Zionist vision of a world purged of its Jewish phobias and replaced with a love for the return of Jews to their ancestral homeland is, unfortunately, still a dream. We may will it but it won’t become a reality in a hurry, if at all.

We are in a much better condition these days to combat Judeophobia articulated and enacted by those whose hostility is openly and unabashedly displayed. The real and major challenge, however, revolves around those individuals and nations which profess to “love” us but, in actual fact, are working assiduously to undermine us both as a nation-state and as members of the world’s original monotheistic faith.

I wish that all our detractors, Jewish and non-Jewish, would listen to the words of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, which we read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

“You will be rebuilt. You will yet plant vineyards in the mountains of Samaria. The planters will plant and redeem. Behold, I will bring them from the northern land and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind, the lame, pregnant and birthing mothers together. A great congregation will return here. Hear the word of the Lord oh nations and relate it in distant islands (NZ?): He shall gather them in and guard them as a shepherd guards his flock.”

As I looked around our local minyan, the words of Jeremiah resonated loud and clear. Here was truly an ingathering of exiles from distant lands. From New Zealand and Australia, Canada and the USA, the UK, Sweden and Russia and most interesting of all from Brazil, where generations after the inquisition sought to extinguish any vestige of Judaism increasing numbers are returning to the faith of their ancestors. As the entire assembled multitude, including native born Israelis whose families several generations back escaped from the horrors of Europe, listened to the Prophet’s words one could not escape the miraculous fact that here we are settled in the very places our Patriarchs and Matriarchs lived.

Switching on the media after the Chag hurled us straight back into the surreal and bizarre reality of most of the rest of the world convulsing over the fact that Jews were defending themselves against terror.

From the White House, State Department and the US Ambassador to Israel (he who refuses to visit the very places Jeremiah talks about) came a stream of crocodile tears over terrorists eliminated either before or after murdering Israelis. Nides (the ambassador) condemned the heinous crime of “settlement growth.” Obviously he is deliberately oblivious to our ancient and legal claim to this land and prefers as so many Jewish genetic Democrats do, to believe that if only we would fold up our tents and surrender to the falsifiers of history, all will be well in the world.

Our touted “best friends” feel sufficiently emboldened to interfere in a most blatant manner in how we govern Israel. “Leaks” from “well informed” US Government sources and expressions of horror from Democratic members of Congress and the Senate, warned Israeli politicians against including members of a right-wing nationalist party in any future coalition. The unmitigated gall behind this gross and blatant interference in Israel’s electoral process demonstrates yet again the double standards prevailing in Washington.

Any Israeli political party or aspiring Knesset member failing to meet the democratic standards set by the Supreme Court is banned from taking part in the elections. One may not like the politics of a particular party or the views of a candidate but at the end of the day it is up to the Israeli electorate to decide in free and fair balloting. The fact that, no doubt after a series of “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” gestures behind the scenes, American officials feel emboldened to demand who should be or not be included in our next coalition speaks volumes about actual “friendship.”

At the same time our local self proclaimed liberals and defenders of their version of democracy are up in arms because anyone who does not conform to their leftist dogma must be by default a “fascist” and therefore beyond the pale.

Just imagine the uproar if Israeli politicians demanded that AOC and her squad plus all the “progressives” who obsess about Israel be banned from the US political process. Yet these same individuals feel no shame and compunction in interfering in our domestic affairs.

Whom are they trying to fool with their false and hypocritical, hysterical posturing?

There are two leading contenders for the “nechtiker tog” award of the year.

The first is the new and beleaguered Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Liz Truss. Whether her economic policies will fatally wreck the country’s finances or create an economic miracle remains to be seen. The polls don’t look good but then anything could happen between now and when elections are due in 2024.

Prior to her elevation to Downing Street and in an effort to round up the Jewish vote she declared that if chosen she would investigate the possibility of moving the UK Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. She reiterated this pledge again when she subsequently met Israel’s PM.

Anyone with even only a smattering of previous and current British policies towards Israel knows that Truss’s declarations are just hot air. Trump may have been successful in squashing the anti-Israel State Dept but Truss has no show whatsoever of doing the same with the Foreign Office whose track record since Balfour and San Remo has been consistently hostile. Already the howls of outrage have emanated forth from Arab nations, Islamic spokespersons, Corbyn groupies and of course media outlets such as the Guardian.

As usual, gullible UK Jewish and Israeli “machers” were quick to applaud Liz Truss. The fact that not one of them managed to decipher the real meaning behind the word “investigate” and instead cheered a non-existent event speaks volumes.

The second contender for the “nechtiker tog” award must surely go to the wackiest “peace” plan ever promoted in recent times if not ever.

At first glance I thought the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine was a new spoof from John Cleese and Fawlty Towers or a new episode of the Life of Brian. Instead, it turns out that a Saudi author and commentator has discovered a solution to the seemingly unsolvable problem of Israel’s place in the Middle East.

He suggests that Jordan merge with Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria in order to create this weird creature called the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine.

The proponents of this plan are frustrated that neither Israelis nor the Hashemites let alone the Ramallah and Gaza based Palestinian Arabs have embraced his vision of peace on earth and goodwill to all. The reasons are very simple and as those concerned still cannot understand the refusal to embrace it I will try to clarify.

This is not an official Saudi offer. The Saudi authorities have been strikingly silent.
The Hashemite Monarch is hardly likely to commit hari kari by dissolving his country and getting into bed with the likes of the PLO and Hamas.
Israelis have no intention of handing large parts of Judea and Samaria over to a terror sponsoring entity, no matter what exotic name it adopts.
Joining the terror territory of Gaza with Israeli sovereign territory is an exercise in lunacy.
Can anyone in their right mind imagine that the Palestinian Arabs, having been brainwashed for generations, will willingly renounce their intention to destroy the Jewish State and settle for Amman as their Capital?
As reported by PMW, Abbas has described the creation of Israel as “a disgrace to humanity.”

These are just a few of the fatal flaws which doom this plan from ever being implemented. Like others of its ilk, peddled by the UN and a pathetically inept American Administration, if implemented the intended cure would prove fatal as far as Israeli Jews are concerned.

What the promoters of such schemes still fail to internalize is the fundamental fact that it is the refusal to acknowledge any legitimate Jewish presence in this Land by Islamic extremists which is the sole core of the problem. Unlike some of the Gulf States the current Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the PLO/Hamas/Hezbollah terrorists only envisage a land ethnically cleansed of Jews.

The ever expanding numbers of “refugees” in UNRWA camps where they are brainwashed to believe in a Judenrein Palestine constitute yet another challenge. Unfortunately, thanks to increased funding by nations such as New Zealand and Australia, UNRWA will continue to contribute to the absence of any sort of peace.

Unless and until all these realities are tackled and dealt with our response to hallucinatory mirages must be “a nechtiker tog.”

Coalition for unrwa education policy change

By

David Bedein

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October 7, 2022

View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building during a strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on July 26, 2018. Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90 *** Local Caption *** אונר"א
עזה
בניין
שביתה

The time has come to launch a coalition for Unrwa Education Policy Change, with initiators from Israel, Germany, Sweden, the UK, Canada, US and Australia, all major funders of UNRWAthe United Nations Relief and Works Agency, launched as a temporary agency for refugees from the 1948 war. Their descendants have been there ever since.
Let us ask citizens in each of these prominent UNRWA donor nations to ameliorate the current UNRWA school system, which now defies the values of the United Nations.

The first Unrwa Education Policy Change conference will convene, following November elections, in the US and in Israel.

Let us raise funds to provide an alternative to the current direction of UNRWA education, which does not allow any child to see past the illusion of the “right of return”

The coalition for Unrwa Education Policy Change has one purpose in mind: to transform UNRWA schools into an oasis of peace and reconciliation, so that a future of dignity can be advanced for the next generation of UNRWA young people to see beyond the squalor of 59 “temporary” refugee camps, where their families have dwelled with no hope and no future for over 70 years.

The coalition for Unrwa Education Policy Change will provide a practial vision of peace and reconciliation for the 6.7 million descendants of the 1948 war which they have never seen.

Injustices at Berkeley

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October 7, 2022

From Boston to Los Angeles, what started as a trickle of outrage has cascaded into huge marches in the streets in solidarity with the long-suffering Iranian people after the Ayatollah Khamenei regime’s torture and brutal murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, for failing to fully cover her hair.
You would expect that such an outrageous crime against humanity would bring to the front lines women’s rights leader Linda Sarsour, and US Congresswomen Omar, Tlaib, and AOC. Nothing. Crickets.

You would hope that the nearly three weeks of protests by Iranian trade union members and university students, some of whom have been arrested, maimed, or killed, would kindle mass acts of solidarity. That the rising death toll and mounting arrests would inspire demands that members of faculties at major US universities – including Princeton and Oberlin – who’ve defended the Holocaust-denying ayatollah and his regime’s horrific crushing of the human rights of their own people, be removed from their seats in America’s “Ivory Tower of Academia.”

And how about the elites at the University of California, Berkeley? Back in the roiling 1960s, Berkeley students practically invented sit-ins and student strikes – demanding an end to any and all censorship and full freedom of speech on campus.

And today? Are they working to galvanize a nation to stand for the oppressed in Iran? In Ukraine? In China? In North Korea? In Cuba? In Nicaragua? Have they shown solidarity with the estimated 80% of the world’s believers who are discriminated against because of their faiths?

Perhaps there are some voices on campus trying to do their share to speak out for the truly oppressed. But if they exist, they’re drowned out by the Berkeley University Law School elite who are uniting to condemn, demonize and silence the most dangerous people on the planet – Zionists, and to in effect create “Jew-free” zones to protect the righteous zip code from such poison.

In a campaign worthy of Soviet universities in the heyday of Stalin’s Russia, or Mao’s China, or Ayatollah Khamenei’s Iran, nine different law student groups at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Law, launched this new academic year by amending their bylaws to ensure that they will never invite any speakers that support Israel or Zionism. They include a who’s who of our nation’s future legal elite: Women of Berkeley Law, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, Law Students of African Descent, and the Queer Caucus.

Please spare us the phony argument that this is merely an anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic, exercise. Today, the world’s largest Jewish community, nearly 7 million Jews, resides in Israel, fulfilling 2,000 years of yearning and prayer by Jews the world over to return to Zion, the land of Israel. The overwhelming majority of Jews in the Diaspora support Israel in word and deed.

None of this means that Israel or any other state deserves a moral blank check for everything they do. No nation does. But in 2022 we are witnessing an assault not on Israeli policies but on the very legitimacy of a sovereign Jewish state. Israel, and Israel alone, is slandered as an apartheid state, a colonialist afterthought, a Nazi-like occupier, a harvester of Palestinian organs, a serial murderer of children. All lies. Yet all these cancers spread through our campuses, poisoning attitudes toward Jews.

Then, if Israelis are Nazis, what should you do when threatened by Nazis? You kill them. So that’s not terrorism, that’s heroism, acts by innocent Palestinians yearning to be free.

How to react to Israel’s Zionist supporters? You boycott them, you threaten their synagogues, schools, and leaders with online maps listing names and addresses on social media; you create hostile environments so that many Jews begin to hide their Stars of David and remove their kippahs in public. Against this backdrop, the continuing surge of anti-Semitic acts continues to plague cities with large Jewish populations, including the biggest one of all – New York City.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is urging the UC Regents and California Gov. Gavin Newsom to take action, to withhold any state funding from law school-linked student associations. We urge UC Berkeley to call out law students who are seeking to destroy freedom of speech and to institute Stalin-like censorship.

But more must be done and not only at Berkeley.

Our institution’s namesake, Simon Wiesenthal, a Jewish architect who lost 89 members of his family in the Nazi Holocaust and went on to become the famed Nazi hunter, told us that the Holocaust taught him that Jews alone will never defeat antisemitism. We need friends and new allies to act against history’s oldest hate, Wiesenthal said.

Now is the time we Jews need our neighbors, university alumni, philanthropic donors, elected officials, and social influencers from New York to Illinois to California to take on the latest pernicious variant of this deadly virus.

Remember, too, that history has shown time and again that it begins with the Jews, it never ends with the Jews.

Rabbi Marvin Hier is the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s founder, CEO and a two-time Academy Award-winner. Rabbi Abraham Cooper is the center’s associate dean and global social action director.

This is the report of an intelligence officer with decades of experience in the Russian world and deep insights into the Soviet mindset.

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October 6, 2022

Premise

1. Putin is a ruthless KGB officer. No less ruthless than Stalin and Hitler.
2. Putin firmly holds that the Russian nation, with its values, culture and orthodox religion constitutes the last bastion of Christendom against moral corruption and death.
3. Corruption and moral death in his worldview are embodied by profiteering, cosmopolitanism, individualism, hedonism and sexual immorality.
4. The global centers of this decadence are Hollywood, Las Vegas and Wall Street.

Corollary

Due to the premises listed above Putin is a latent anti-Semite. So far his antisemitism has been kept in check by the following factors:

1. Jews are an economic, cultural and PR blessing for every land they reside in. Putin, as a history buff, understands this well.
2. Putin knows that the Jewish people and the Russian people both suffered terribly under a common enemy: Nazism.
3. Whatever misgivings Putin may have always felt about Jewish political liberalism, cultural avantgardism and cosmopolitanism, he has felt it wiser to hug Russian Jews in order to be on friendly terms with them and their “international networks”.

Anti-Corollary

Putin now feels betrayed by Jews around him and by the Jewish world as a whole:

1. Few Russian Jewish personalities have supported his military campaign against Ukraine.
2. Russian Jews have been disproportionately hostile to the military campaign against Kyiv.
3. Russian Jewish emigration has by far exceeded that of other ethnic communities in the Russian Federation. This threatens Putin with a brain drain and is viewed by him as a personal “Dolchstoss”.
4. Many visible leaders of resistance to Putin’s plans are Jewish: Zelensky, Blinken, the famous artist Pugacheva who has recently fled to Israel with her husband and countless oligarchs and influential bloggers and intellectuals.

Consequences

Putin has started talking a threatening language towards the Jewish people:

1. He has curbed the activities of the Jewish Agency.
2. He has publicly demanded more “patriotism” and “commitment” from Russian Jews.
3. He has invoked Satan in his speeches. From a Christian metaphysical viewpoint, there is nothing closer to Satan than those whom Christian orthodox tradition blames of having murdered the Lord.

Warning

Putin, if pushed too much into a corner, could be tempted to strike the Jewish state. Why?

1. Since Israel is not a NATO-member this would not invite immediate retaliation against Russia.
2. The Arab and Muslim world, together with scores of antisemites all over the globe, would celebrate this assault and view Russia and Putin as redeemers.
3. Zelensky would be caught in the crucible of fighting and/or negotiating as a Ukrainian or as a Jew. An impossible dilemma! Anthony Blinken will blink too.

Solution

1. Israel must preserve its neutrality between Russia and Ukraine at all costs.
2. Israel should on Twitter ask Zelensky to seek a fair peace and remember that he is no Conan the Barbarian or Rambo. The message of this quip will be clear.
3. In exchange for Russian diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran, Israel should quietly allow Azerbaijan to deliver drones to Russia.

The former strategy will have these advantages:

1. Israel will demonstrate to the non-hawkish Biden administration and to the dovish German government that it does not want Zelensky to push Putin into a corner and possibly unleash a nuclear war.
2. Israel will demonstrate to Putin that Jews do not by default support other Jews, as Zelensky assumed when he addressed the Knesset and as so do too many non-Jews.
3. If push comes to shove, Israel can argue to Russian emissaries that Zelensky, with his Gentile wife and baptized children, is a terrible Jewish hero that the Jewish State wishes to cut to size.
4. Azerbaijan will exhaust its drone reserves and Israel will assure America and France on the side that it will not replenish these stocks in order for Armenia to be less vulnerable to another Azerbaijani assault.
5. Pressured also by Russia and under intense domestic turmoil, Iran will submit to the conditions demanded by the international community for the neutralization of its nuclear goals.
6. Russia will hold its ground militarily and the resulting stalemate will lead to a negotiated peace agreement that will have no clear winners, but one clear loser: Putin and his clique.

These outcomes are far superior than humiliating Russia and causing a social and political collapse in the Russian Federation akin to that of Germany in 1918 or that of Iraq after its liberation. Nuclear powers cannot be pushed to implode for the sake of the world as a whole.

For further clarification of these issues, feel free to reply to this message

Babi Yar: Erev Yom Kippur September 1941

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October 6, 2022

On September 29-30, 1941, the eve of Yom Kippur, the Germans murdered 33,771 Jewish men, women and children in Babi Yar, almost four miles from the center of Kiev, the capital of the Soviet Ukrainian Republic. Although Babi Yar was “not the largest Holocaust era mass-murder site on Soviet soil,” it was significant for two reasons, historian Shay Pilnik explains. Kiev, with a Jewish population of 160,000, was “the hub for Jewish culture,” and the first European capital to become Judenrein (free of Jews) during the Holocaust.

Pilnik quotes historian Lucy Dawidowicz, who remarked that the “unprecedented” pace of the killings, which occurred within 36 hours, is the second reason for Babi Yar’s importance. The numbers established “a record in the annals of mass murder,” she said. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the total capacity of the four gas chambers and crematoria was a maximum of 6,0000 a day at its peak.

Another justification for Babi Yar’s uniqueness Shay said, was that although the site “was not the largest killing field during World War II in the Soviet Union, the approximate number of 100,000 dead in Babi Yar, the overwhelming majority of whom were Jewish, helped establish Babi Yar’s position as the centerpiece of the Holocaust in the USSR.”

Arrival in Kiev

On September 19, 1941 German troops entered Kiev, Dawidowicz noted. They were accompanied by Sonderkommando (special commando) 4a, an advance group of Einsatzgruppe C that had been assigned to Ukraine. By September 25, the entire Einsatzgruppe C had arrived in Kiev. Before the Soviet troops escaped from the capital, they placed delayed time explosives in downtown Kiev. On September 24, the bombs began exploding, engulfing the entire city center in flames. Many buildings were completely gutted and destroyed, with people having to be evacuated. Approximately 25,000 were left homeless.

An Excuse to Murder Jews

The Germans seized the opportunity to accuse the Jews of Kiev of planting the bombs. “Judaism in the East,” Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Main Office [RSHA], advised them, “is the source of Bolshevism and must therefore be wiped out in accordance with the Fuhrer’s aims.” After a meeting with Emil Otto Rasch, Einsatzgruppe A Commander, Sonderkommando commanding officer Paul Blobel had explosives placed under the Dormition Cathedral at the Pechersk Monastery, which destroyed a significant portion of the nearly 900-year-old building, according to historian Richard Breitman.

Blobel then had placards printed instructing all Jews of Kiev to meet on September 29 at 8 a.m. near the Jewish and Russian cemeteries. The notices were distributed throughout the city by the recently recruited Ukrainian militia, Dawidowicz said. She also noted that many people in Ukraine and in other areas of the Soviet Union hailed the German invaders, with some having actively “collaborated in the wholesale slaughter.”

Jews were ordered to bring “documents, money, valuables and also warm clothing, underwear, etc.,” Dawidowicz added. They were told that those who defied the directive would be shot. Like the Jews in other areas of the Soviet Union, the Jews in Kiev had little or no knowledge about the antisemitic designs of the Third Reich. A German intelligence officer observed how Russian Jews were “shockingly ill-informed about our attitude toward them.” Practically everyone assumed they would be “resettled,” since they were to gather near a railroad siding. Some believed the rumors that Germans were sending them to Palestine.

As uninformed as the Jews were about the German ultimate objectives, they began their hopeless march with a sense of uncertainty and apprehension, Dawidowicz said. Some Ukrainians offered to assist their friends, although most watched “with indifference.”

The Procession to Babi Yar

On September 29, Breitman said, more than 30,000 Jews appeared as directed, in spite of the cold weather. The streets leading to the ravine in the northwest part of Kiev were blocked as the Jews were being led to their death. As their food and possessions were being confiscated and placed on mounds, the Jews began to be frightened; panic ensued. “The lines,” Dawidowicz said, “seemed to stop moving, and people were crushed together, exhausted, terrified. The children were crying. Disorder, despair, nightmare.”

Describing the horrifying scene afterwards she said: “Then the Germans began shoving the Jews into new narrower lines. They moved very slowly. After a long walk, they came to a passageway formed by German soldiers with truncheons and police dogs. The Jews were whipped through. The dogs went at those who fell. But the pressure of the surging lines behind was irresistible, and the weak and the injured were trod underfoot. Bruised and bloodied, numbed by the incomprehensibility of their fate, the Jews emerged onto a grassy clearing. They had arrived at Babi Yar; ahead of them lay the ravine. The ground was strewn with clothing. Ukrainian militiamen, supervised by Germans, ordered the Jews to undress. Those who balked, who resisted, were assaulted, their clothes ripped off. Naked bleeding people were everywhere. Screams and hysterical laughter filled the air. Some people’s hair turned gray on the spot. Others went mad in moments.”

The Jews were then led to a narrow ledge near the ravines. Obscured from view, the Germans arranged machine guns so that when the ledge held as many Jews as it could accommodate, they opened fire. Dawidowicz noted, “The bodies toppled into the ravine, piling up layer upon layer. Where once a clear stream flowed, now blood ran.”

The executions lasted for an hour at a time, before the men were relieved, and another group took over. At certain points, the Germans and Ukrainian militiamen went down to the ravine, “trampling over the bodies” to make sure the Jews were dead, pushing them down to allow more to be buried, and then covering the bodies with sand from the quarry.

A Final Note

Murders continued at Babi Yar for a number of months, Dawidowicz said, but never to the extent as on September 29-30, when 33,771 Jews were slaughtered, simply because they were Jews. “Mass murder transforms … the physical environment” observed historian Wendy Lower. “What were rolling hills and sylvan glades in Ukraine became rough craters, death mounds and scorched patches.” There were also ravines like Babi Yar, which were packed with bodies and lime chloride, then sealed by dynamite.

These sites were not in remote areas, Lower points out. Very often, they “encroached on shortcuts and paths that connected towns.” They were locations of interest and of plundering. German men and women used the “meadows for picnics, the forests for hunting, and the swimming holes for cooling off and sunbathing.”

Dawidowicz concluded that “inside the Soviet Union … Babi Yar has come to represent more than the site of a Nazi massacre, one among dozens. It speaks as well to a whole range of Jewish experience in Russia, an often harsh and sometimes bloodstained history that reaches back to pogroms under the czars and on to the arrests and virulent propaganda attacks” in the former Soviet Union.

Dr. Alex Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and on the advisory board of The National Christian Leadership Conference of Israel (NCLCI). He lives in Jerusalem.

Israel Behind the News

The Problem with Lapid’s Weak Conditions for Establishing a Palestinian State

Past Discussions of Conditions for a Palestinian State

The Palestinians Remain Committed to Their Anti-Israel Narrative

The Intensification of Palestinian Terrorism

Does Israel Need to Strengthen the PA?

What Should Israel Do?

Former lone soldier David Morel seriously injured in Shuafat terror attack

Death of Sgt. Noa Lazar

Response of US embassy to attack at the UNRWA facility in Shuafat

Doubling Australian aid to UNRWA: A VITAL PERSPECTIVE

Rate of Illegal Arab Construction in Area C Increased by 80% in 2022

A nechtiker tog

Coalition for unrwa education policy change

Injustices at Berkeley

This is the report of an intelligence officer with decades of experience in the Russian world and deep insights into the Soviet mindset.

Babi Yar: Erev Yom Kippur September 1941

Column from the Director