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I have driven down the long, winding road between Neve Tzuf and Ofarim in the western Binyamin region countless times. It is one of the most beautiful routes in the country. This time, however, was different. Instead of enjoying the incredible, breathtaking view of the Binyamin hills, I spent it looking at electricity poles. They carried signs that I had never noticed before: The walls of the Old City of Jerusalem with the Dome of the Rock and the universal symbol for high voltage, a lightning bolt. Underneath the image, in English and Arabic, were the words “Jerusalem District Electric Company” (JDECO).
How Israel lets the Palestinians get free power while taking over land
The opening of a first completely Palestinian-owned and -managed electricity substation, outside of Jenin, West Bank. The station was built by Israel Electric Corporation, by Israeli and Palestinian workers, but owned by the Palestinian Electric Authority (PEA) and the PA. July 10, 2017. Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90 *** Local Caption *** ???? ???? ??????
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Time for an Israeli Victory; End 100 Year Rejections against Israel
A famous verse in Ecclesiastes says, “There is a time for everything.”
Perhaps, this is a time for an Israeli victory to finally end the over 100 years of violent rejectionism against Jewish sovereignty. A war started with one singular purpose: to prevent and then destroy the legitimate national aspirations of the Jewish people to statehood in their ancestral and indigenous homeland.
Time for the United Nations to Stop Funding Hate Groups
The world has long had a keen interest in and focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Part of this focus, for so many years, has been an unfair, microscopic attention to Israel’s actions and relationship with the Palestinians. Israel has been subjected to a standard that no other country in the world has had to endure. This has been the case for so many years, but it is now clear that the criticism of Israel is not about particular actions, or particular issues like borders, but about Israel’s very existence.
The United Nations, which voted to partition Palestine leading to the creation of the State of Israel 75 years ago this month, unfortunately has become over the years a major arena for anti-Israel propaganda. This has given aid and comfort and material support to Israel’s implacable enemies. The high point of this rhetorical abuse of Israel came in 1975, when the UN General Assembly passed a resolution which characterized Zionism, the legitimate national liberation movement of the Jewish people, as a form of racism. That obscene declaration was aptly referred to by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, America’s great UN ambassador, as an “infamous act.”
As it is often said: “words have consequences.” That shameful UN resolution, cooked up by the Soviet Union and pushed through the UNGA by the Islamic Conference and the Communist bloc, gave a false international credibility to the idea that Israel is a racist, illegitimate, uniquely evil state. In 1991, the United States, during the George H.W. Bush administration, led a successful effort to repeal the resolution. Unfortunately, two UN institutions that were created in the wake of that original resolution, and that have served to implement its message, continue to operate.
The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP), and the Division for Palestinian Rights (DPR) engage in a year-round effort to undermine and delegitimize Israel, all in the name of the international community! This mindset has permeated college campuses, social media, pockets of public opinion in Europe, and even in the United States. It also underlies the pernicious BDS movement. Such a negative, rejectionist view of Israel is based on ignorance, misinformation, and in some instances, antisemitism. It belies the fact that Israel is an enlightened democracy, the only one in the Middle East.
As it approaches its 75-year of existence, Israel is a world leader in high tech and innovation. In addition to Egypt and Jordan, which signed peace treaties with Israel decades ago, Israel is now also officially at peace with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, thanks to the Abraham Accords signed in 2020. More Arab and Muslim countries are sure to follow, as the taboo of dealing with and recognizing Israel is gone.
The Palestinians also deserve to be included in this new paradigm of peace and prosperity for the Middle East. For too long their corrupt leaders have misled them, incited them to violence and hatred, and prevented any peaceful accommodation with their Israeli neighbors.
At the end of November, the United Nations, as it does annually, will mark the “International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People.” It should more properly be called “Attack Israel Day.” On that date, a rash of one sided resolutions will be passed unfairly singling out Israel. This will include resolutions reauthorizing the mandates of and funding for the aforementioned Palestinian Committee and Division. Just as the U.S. led the way in repealing the “Zionism Is Racism” resolution 30 years ago, it should work to shut down the DPR and the CEIRPP.
If UN member states are interested in contributing toward ending the conflict, with benefits for Palestinians and Israelis alike, they should stop supporting the anti-Israel propaganda apparatus that makes peace impossible to achieve. CEIRPP and DPR do not promote peaceful coexistence but the destruction of Israel as we know it, and the creation of a Palestinian State “from the river to the sea.”
Responsible nations should not reauthorize the funding of these entities, which only push peace further away. Instead, they should start promoting the kind of peaceful dialogue, conflict resolution, and forward-looking arrangements that could bring the Palestinians into the Abraham Accords.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is a former member of Congress (R-FL) who was chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 2011-2013. She is now a senior advisor at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP.
Eliot Engel is a former member of Congress (D-NY) who was chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 2019-2021.
OPINION: Ben-Gvir’s appeal is based on security, not bigotry
2KAAN6X Jerusalem, Israel. 02nd Nov, 2022. Israeli far-right lawmaker and the head of "Jewish Power" party Itamar Ben-Gvir gives a statement following the exit polls of the 2022 Israeli general election, the fifth parliamentary election in just three and a half years. Credit: Ilia Yefimovich/dpa/Alamy Live News
I never thought that traveling to London one week after a general election in Israel would place me in the eye of a storm. As I landed, I met people from the Jewish community who were outraged at the electoral success of Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich and met others from the community who were outraged at the outraged.
Much has been written since the election in the British Jewish press, including in this publication, with loud panicked headlines on the perceived shift in Israel to the political far right.
As a liberal and a feminist I understand some of the concerns.
Yet, I feel that there has been little attempt to understand the context and reasons for the rise of the Religious Zionist and Otzma Yehudit parties. After all, we are talking about the same Israeli electorate that elected a very different government last year.
Jerusalem’s deputy mayor Fleur-Hassan-Nahoum.
There is one key reason for the success of these two parties. In recent years, Israelis have felt increasingly under attack in their own country.
Israelis have always voted with consideration for national security, however, this time they voted on the sorry state of internal security in the country.
Such insecurity was felt most acutely during the Gaza War in 2021 when pockets of Arab Israelis in mixed cities such as Lod and Acre turned on their neighbours. Images of burning cars, rioting and violence coming from Israeli Arab citizens caught us all off-guard and shocked the nation.
It seemed like Israel had lost control of law and order and the police appeared weak.
In the south, lawlessness has been going on for quite some time as Bedouin mafias run riot and have even been taking protection money from businesses around the Negev as well as stealing cattle from local farms.
Jewish News front pages before and after the recent election.
In in Arab towns and cities of northern Israel, lawlessness and gun use are major problems, predominantly for the Arab population, as they have become victims of gangland-style shootings and unregulated and excessive gun possession.
The police, for many years, has chosen to steer clear of such violence, which has taken the lives of innocent Arab women and children.
For the avoidance of doubt, most Arab Israelis are law-abiding citizens, many of whom are hugely successful professionals. Nevertheless, the pockets of criminal and extremist elements cannot simply be brushed aside because it is deemed politically incorrect to talk about them in the diaspora.
Israelis did not vote for Ben-Gvir because they are homophobic or racist, they voted for him because he was the only one talking about Arab violence.
Israelis did not vote for Ben-Gvir because they are homophobic or racist, they voted for him because he was the only one talking about Arab violence. To compound the pain, Palestinian terror remains omnipresent. Just last week, three Israelis were murdered and four others injured in a Palestinian terror attack.
Indeed, this year alone, over 4,700 terror attacks have taken place in Israel.
I am struck by the extent of criticism that we see towards the presence of Otzma Yehudit in the government as an affront on our liberal values, especially when one considers that just last year we had an anti-liberal Arab party in the government whose number three was virulently homophobic and held up legislation affecting the LGBTQ+ community. Where was the outcry then?
The Jewish community can ill-afford to fall into the trap of espousing the double standards deployed by Israel’s detractors and antisemites.
As the parties in the “never Bibi” camp have refused to join a broad government for two-and-a-half years, it seems that in all likelihood, Ben-Gvir will be given the internal security portfolio. Time will tell whether he manages to restore law and order in these communities and we all pray for improvement.
Ultimately, the Likud is a party based on right-wing and liberal values with many liberal-minded politicians, like myself. I have to trust Netanyahu will create the necessary balance in the new government so Israel continues to thrive as a beacon of freedom.
Israel and Jordan sign joint declaration to preserve the Jordan River
Israel and Jordan have agreed to cooperate on restoration, ecological rehabilitation and sustainable development of the Jordan River.
The nations signed a joint declaration at the COP27 environmental conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where they recognized that the Jordan River restoration requires transnational action as the water flow declines.
“The signing of this joint declaration is an expression of the close relationship between man and nature. A river free from hazards, clean and healthy, will provide health and prosperity for all the populations surrounding it and for all those who visit it,” Israeli Minister of Environmental Protection Tamar Zandberg said in a statement. “Cleaning up the pollutants and hazards, restoring water flow and strengthening the natural ecosystems will help us prepare and adapt to the climate crisis.”
The countries will work to remove pollution sources by building wastewater treatment facilities and connecting communities along the river to advanced sewage infrastructure as they work to improve freshwater flows in the river.
Mohammad Najjar, Minister of Water and Irrigation, signed the joint declaration on behalf of the Jordanian Government. Both Israel and Jordan acknowledge the rich cultural heritage of the Jordan River and its high ecological value.
For years the Jordan River has lost water flow. According to the Century Foundation, the Jordan River Basin “suffers from acute water scarcity” caused by regional population growth and climate change reducing the flow today to just 10% of its historical average.
The peace treaty between Jordan and Israel also includes a provision for joint cooperation on the Jordan River.
American Rabbis Blast Biden Admin for Funding Palestinian Terrorism
The United States’ largest rabbinic public policy organization says the Biden administration is facilitating terrorism against Israel by injecting nearly half a billion dollars into Palestinian government organizations that incite violence against the Jewish state.
Click here to read full article.
US Middle East Policy In practice
Nov. 14, 2022
The working assumption of US Middle East Policy is to foster mutual recognition between Israel and the nascent PA entity
That is not what we witness in the implementation of US policy on the ground in the Middle East, 2022.
- The Palestinian Security Forces (PSF), trained by the US to fight Arab terrorists, instead carry out daily attacks , fostered by a PSF unit, The Al Aqsa Brigades https://israelbehindthenews.com/2011/05/05/dangers-us-aid-palestinian-security-forces-2/
- The Palestinian Authority has enacted unprecedented legislation to provide a salary for life for anyone who murders a Jew. https://israelbehindthenews.com/2017/01/11/incentivizing-terrorism-palestinian-authority-allocations-terrorists-families/
Asked US Ambassador Nides if the US government would demand that the PA repeal its law which provides a salary for life for anyone who murders a Jew, which functions as an incentive to kill Jews. Answer: “no”
- The Palestinian Authority Education Ministry has fostered new curricula which indoctrinates children to make war on the Jews. https://israelbehindthenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Jerusalem-report-published-copy-PA-EDUCATION-NO-TWO-STATE-SOLUTION.pdfAsked US ambassador Nides if he would demand that that the PA drop their curriculum. Answer: No.
Asked if US would ask the PA to remove the PA textbook from 2018 which displays Dalal Al Mugrabi, who murdered 35 Jews, including 12 children, as a role model for the next generation. Response: No. https://israelbehindthenews.com/2021/11/30/dalal-al-mughrabi-a-murderous-terrorist-as-a-role-model-in-palestinian-authority-schoolbooks-used-by-unrwa-2/
- UNRWA allocates a $1.6 billion budget to service 6.7 million descendants of Arab refugees in 59 “temporary” refugee camps, while inculcating “right of return” to villages which existed before 1948… Asked US ambassador Nides if the US government US favors a change in UNRWA policy. Response: No
.https://israelbehindthenews.com/2019/04/02/six-policy-challenges-to-guide-unrwa-policy-ref
- Meanwhile, PA texts used by UNRWA now distribute 120 new maps which replace all Jewish cities with Arabic names –on both sides of the 1967 line- a new form of Judenrein The government of the US could ask UNRWA to use standard maps in schools which run under the auspices of the UN to depict geographic details of each UN member state, including Israel.
Asked Ambassador Nides if the US will make any such demand. The answer : no.
https://israelbehindthenews.com/2022/09/24/revealing-maps-the-palestinian-vision-as-taught-in-unrwa-schools/
Fake hysteria and fake history
Even though MK Itamar Ben-Gvir has yet to be officially appointed as public security minister, MKs from the incoming opposition are already busy trying to topple him. They are giving advance warning of what is likely to happen on the Temple Mount if the head of the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) faction does assume the role, with their chief concern being the potential nightmare of the government possibly deciding to permit Jewish prayers on the Mount. The most outspoken opposition to this has been voiced by Mr. “Civil Agenda”, head of the Ra’am (United Arab List) party, MK Mansour Abbas, one of the key pillars of the outgoing coalition, who has warned that Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount will spark a war.
Before we continue, let everybody calm down and take a deep breath! This is the year 2022. Jews have been praying on the Mount for five years now; quiet prayers, without provoking anyone, in the south-eastern corner of the Mount, with police authorization, and under police supervision! Have you forgotten? This took time and was implemented gradually, after endless shakeups and material changes on the holy Mount initiated and executed by the Muslims, until the status quo there turned into a fake status quo.
What this raucous bunch of protesters is currently trying to achieve, faced with the return to power of Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu, is to exploit the hysteria surrounding Ben-Gvir to lead us all backwards in the time tunnel and warn of Jewish prayers on the Mount, as though they haven’t been taking place there for a number of years already. To put it in plain English: to put an end to Jewish prayers on the Mount.
Should we briefly recall what has occurred on the Mount since 1967, until the Jews too plucked up the courage to change something in the extremely elastic rules that apply there? So, here then is a brief summary: The Muslims turned the Dome of the Rock into a mosque, which of course originally was not a mosque, and paved large sections of the Temple Mount compound, which is in practice used as a mass prayer hall for tens of thousands. They established three additional mosques on the Mount: the Al-Marwani Mosque located in Solomon’s Stables, in the underground vaulted space along the south-eastern side of the Temple Mount; the ancient Al-Aqsa Mosque underneath the overground Al-Aqsa Mosque; and the Gate of Mercy compound.
The law is optional?
The Muslims have also made a mockery out of the planning, construction, and antiquities laws – which in the initial post-Six Day War period were enforced on the Mount – and have turned them into nothing more than a mere recommendation. To this day, they are enforced there only partially, indirectly and informally. Over the course of the years, they have damaged numerous antiquities on the Mount, on many occasions doing so intentionally, mainly, of course, Jewish antiquities. Former Jerusalem District police chief, Deputy Commissioner Nisso Shaham, when serving as the commander of the holy places, stated that “the Muslims are attempting to destroy any fragment of Jewish memory on the Temple Mount.” The late Shuka Dorfman (former Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority) stated that “Over the years, the Israeli governments have refrained from dealing with these breaches of the law in a proper manner, failing to exercise Israeli sovereignty pertaining to the Temple Mount.” Over the years, all the Temple Mount commanders have pointed out that the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf (the Jordanian-appointed religious authority charged with the administrative custody of the Islamic sites on the Temple Mount) never signs applications for submission to the planning authorities, but transfers them to the police, in a complex procedure that exists nowhere else in the State of Israel.
And that is not all, by a long chalk: Jordan, which at the start of this process was no more than an external contractor, which paid the wages of the Waqf employees on the Mount, has become Israel’s generally quiet, though on occasions extremely loud, partner in managing the Temple Mount (we have written much about this in the past); the Chain Gate and the Cotton Merchants’ Gate to the Temple Mount compound, which were once open to Jews, have now been closed off to them. The visiting times for Jews to enter the Mount have been reduced and restricted to only four and a half hours a day, Sunday to Thursday; a set, defined entrance route for (mainly religious) Jews visiting the Mount has been laid down, and they are prohibited from entering the mosques. The prohibition of raising flags on the Mount has been breached on numerous occasions over the years, as the flags of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and Hizb ut-Tahrir are proudly flown there for all to see.
The prohibition of flying flags on the Mount is enforced, but only if these are Israeli flags. Eventually, the Jews decided that if everything is allowed to change on the Mount, then it is time for a change to counter the blatant discrimination against them with regard to prayers on the Mount. This change has been a bottom-up initiative. Broad sections of the population could no longer bear the humiliating prohibition against Jews praying at the holiest site in their religion. The pressure succeeded. The change occurred. The state has come to terms with it.
When the entire Left was Zionist
And now it’s “Time for Ben-Gvir”, and the alarm bells are ringing out loud: A disaster will occur if Jewish prayers on the Mount are authorized. And indeed – there is no need to authorize this, but it is important to be precise: Jewish prayers on the Mount are already taking place.
And just as it would be inconceivable to remove Muslims praying from the Al-Marwani Mosque and the ancient Al-Aqsa Mosque – two world-changing and status-quo-breaking transformations set in motion by the Muslims on the Temple Mount – it should also be unthinkable to put an end to the quiet Jewish services on the Mount. If under the tenure of Omer Bar-Lev as minister of public security the police understood this well and Jordan has swallowed this bitter pill, then during the renewed tenure of Netanyahu and perhaps that of Ben-Gvir as the minister of public security – this is certainly something that should not be entertained. Now, when the government is just about to change, is not the time to make any declarations, but simply to carry on, and to politely – but emphatically – dismiss the scenarios of war and doom being bandied about by Abbas and his friends.
Once, when the entire Left in Israel was Zionist – people such as Ya’akov Hazan, the late leader of the socialist Mapam (United Workers) Party; Motta Gur, ex-IDF chief of staff and subsequently one of the leaders of the Israeli Labor Party, and perhaps no less important the commander of the IDF paratroopers brigade that liberated the Temple Mount in 1967; or the founder of the dovish religious Meimad Party Rabbi Yehuda Amital – it understood that any proper arrangement requires Jewish prayers on the Mount.
Gur, for example, said that when a final status agreement would be on the agenda with the Palestinians, “It is inconceivable that Jews will not be able to pray on the Temple Mount.”
The US State Department, during US President Barack Obama’s administration, did not wait for a final status agreement. In its 2012 Report to Congress on International Religious Freedom, it was clearly stated that Israel discriminates against Jews on the Temple Mount, preventing them from praying there. The “Deal of the Century” proposed by former US President Donald Trump in January 2020, also mentioned the option of exercising the right to Jewish prayer on the Mount. Yehiel “Hilik” Bar, the former secretary general of the Labor Party, initiated together with Likud MK Miri Regev a bill to enact formal regulation of Jewish prayers on the Mount, but he withdrew his support for it under strong pressure from the Israel Security Agency (the Shin Bet).
So, don’t change history just because of the hysteria or only because Ben-Gvir might be coming. If something needs to change regarding the Temple Mount as a result of the change of government, it should be on something else: a response to the virulent incitement spurring on the modern blood libel of “Al-Aqsa is in danger”.
In recent years and indeed in the last few months, this fabrication has been the excuse used by hundreds of terrorists, whether by shooting, stabbing, or vehicle ramming attacks, to justify their desire to go out and murder Jews.
The preachers on the Mount, and those elsewhere too, who brainwash these terrorists with this barefaced lie, bear the responsibility for the acts of terrorism no less than the perpetrators themselves. They are turning this pernicious blood libel into a serial generator of terrorism.
It is for this reason that they should be in jail. This could, by the way, be one of the more welcome changes to be put into effect by Ben-Gvir, if he is indeed appointed.
The quiet, unobtrusive Jewish prayers held on the Mount – the prized possession that the Jews managed to procure only a few years ago after the Muslims made strategic changes on the Mount – should of course be left alone, and nothing should be done to reverse the course of history or for that matter to distort it.
The reason for this message is that Mercaz USA has decided to involve itself in the moral issues of the day in Israel.
November 11, 2022
Attn: Sarrae Crane
Executive Director, MERCAZ USA
New York, NY 10018
Tel. 212.533.2061
info@mercazusa.org
In that context:
1.Will Mercaz USA issue a statement calling for the Palestinian Authority to repeal its law from 2015 which awards a salary for life for anyone who murders a Jew?
https://jcpa.org/pdf/salaries_kuperwasser_12dec2016_nomarks_covers.pdf
2.Will Mercaz USA demand that the Palestinian Authority nullify its school curriculum which teachers the next generation to strive for total war?
3.Will Mercaz USA demand that the Palestinian Authority remove the recent textbook which presents a murderer of 35 Jews as a role model for Arab children to emulate?
