Monday, November 25, 2024
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The PLO-PA-Iranian Terror Alliance

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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The Dome of the Rock atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, with the lights of missile interceptions visible in the night sky, early on April 14, 2024, after Iran fired ballistic missiles at Israel. (Times of Israel, Social media/X; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

The silence of the Palestinian leadership in the face of the Iranian missile attack on Israel is further proof that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is again aligning itself with the enemies of Israel and the West. Even as Israel was joined by an international coalition, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Jordan, and others, to repel the attack, the Palestinian leadership chose to remain quiet. There was no condemnation of the attack that could have just as easily killed Palestinians as it could Jews. There was even no condemnation of the missiles fired toward Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

In 1991, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and attacked Israel, Yasser Arafat and the PLO cheered him on. Initially, the result was disastrous for the Palestinian cause. The PLO had reinforced its image as a terrorist organization, and Yasser Arafat became an international pariah. In the aftermath, when Kuwait was liberated, the Kuwaitis expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Then, deus ex machina, along came Ron Pundak, Yair Hirschfeld, Yossi Beilin, and their patron, Shimon Peres, to pull the terrorists from the depths of despair with their new Oslo process.

The PLO was meant to renounce terror and accept Israel’s right to exist. But in truth, having been thrown a lifeline, the PLO leadership used the Oslo Accords as a means to establish a forward beachhead west of the Jordan River from which they would continue their terror attacks.

Warring Sunni and Shiite Islam Unite on One Thing

Within Islam, the Sunnis and the Shiites have been killing each other for 1,400 years. But when it came to the destruction of Israel, even these fundamental gaps were bridged when the Shiite Ayatollahs adopted the deceptive approach of the Sunni PLO.

One of the most significant expressions of that partnership was the 2002 Karine A affair, a ship full of weapons intercepted by the IDF. At the time, the PLO and the PA were at the height of the terror war initiated by Arafat after he rejected the Clinton-Barak peace deal. To wage the war, the Palestinians needed weapons. Arafat sent his long-time confidant, Fouad Shubaki, to Tehran to secure support. The Iranians donated 50 tons of weapons. All Arafat had to do was purchase the ship – the Karine A – to transport the arsenal. When IDF commandoes boarded the ship in the Red Sea, the Ramallah-Tehran connection was exposed for all to see.

The weapons from the Karine A on display on an Israeli dock
The weapons from the Karine A on display on an Israeli dock. (IDF)

In 2014, the IDF intercepted yet another huge Iranian shipment of arms and two million kilograms of cement on board the Klos-C, this time destined for Hamas in Gaza.

 

Long-range rockets unloaded from the Klos-C
Long-range rockets unloaded from the Klos-C. (IDF)
The Kloc-C’s manifest listing 2,000,000 kilograms of cement. Years later, the strategic use of this cement for tunnels was recognized
The Kloc-C’s manifest listing 2,000,000 kilograms of cement. Years later, the strategic use of this cement for tunnels was recognized. (IDF)

October 7 Alliance of Terror

Fast forward to the October 7, 2023, massacre when Hamas terrorists from Gaza launched the deadliest assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Terrorists belonging to PA Chairman’s Fatah were also involved in the October 7 attack, as shown in this screen grab from the attack on Kibbutz Nahal Oz. Note the yellow Fatah headband.

A terrorist from Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades fires into a kibbutz near Gaza, Oct. 7, 2023
A terrorist from Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades fires into a kibbutz near Gaza, Oct. 7, 2023. (Screenshot by Palestinian Media Watch)

Israel responded with crushing force not only in Gaza but also against the resurgent Palestinian terrorists in Judea and Samaria. Iran responded by activating its proxies in Lebanon (Hizbullah) and Yemen (the Houthis), attacking Israel from the north and the south.

As the fighting raged on different fronts, in March 2024, the IDF intercepted yet another substantial Iranian weapons cache destined for the Fatah – i.e., PLO/PA – terrorists in Judea and Samaria. Officials affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, linked to the Quds Force in Syria, were the masterminds of the operation.

Shortly after, Israel targeted and killed the IRGC Quds Force commander, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was reportedly responsible for the unit’s operations in Syria and Lebanon. Glorifying their dead commander, a mouthpiece for the Iranian regime added that Zahedi had been involved in the planning and execution of the October 7 massacre.1

In response to the assassination, on the evening of April 13, Iran launched an unprecedented attack, firing 185 drones, 36 cruise missiles and 110 surface-to-surface missiles at Israel.

The Iranian attack put the PLO/PA in an awkward position.

On the one hand, the longstanding PLO/PA/Hamas relationship with the Iranian Ayatollahs, who have devotedly supplied the terrorists with weapons and training, meant that the PLO/PA leadership would not join the international coalition fighting the Iranian axis of terror for fear of annoying their terror patrons.

On the other hand, the PLO/PA is trying to prove (without any factual basis) that it has embarked on the revitalization process required by the Biden administration.

While the PLO/PA wants to enjoy U.S. legitimacy, the fact of the matter is that they support the Iranian aggression. The PLO/PA, on this issue, is no different from Hamas and the other Palestinian terror groups, all of whom, like Iran, seek Israel’s destruction.

As in the first Gulf War, the Iranian attack should be a watershed moment for the PLO/PA. Either the Palestinian leadership stands with the international coalition, or it stands with the axis of evil. There is no middle ground. In the same way, as the PLO/PA has never condemned the October 7 massacre, the PLO/PA’s failure to condemn the Iranian attack is not indicative of indifference but instead of real, palpable support that should carry real consequences.

The writer is the Director of the Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform in the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and served for 19 years in the IDF Military Advocate-General Corps. In his last position, he served as director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria.

Note

  1. https://jcpa.org.il/article/%d7%9e%d7%9b%d7%95%d7%9f-%d7%9e%d7%97%d7%a7%d7%a8-%d7%94%d7%91%d7%9b%d7%99%d7%a8-%d7%94%d7%90%d7%99%d7%a8%d7%90%d7%a0%d7%99-%d7%a9%d7%97%d7%95%d7%a1%d7%9c-%d7%91%d7%93%d7%9e%d7%a9%d7%a7-%d7%94%d7%99/↩︎

Iran’s attack on Israel stirs admiration among Gaza Palestinians

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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CAIRO, April 14 (Reuters) – Iran’s attack on Israel drew applause from many Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday as rare payback for the Israeli offensive on their enclave, although some said they suspected Tehran had staged the assault more for show than to inflict real damage.
“For the first time, we saw some rockets that didn’t land in our areas. These rockets were going into the occupied Palestine,” said Abu Abdallah, referring to land that became Israel in 1948 rather the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
“We are hopeful that if Iran or any other country enters the war a solution for Gaza might be nearer than ever. The Americans may have to resolve Gaza to end the roots of the problem,” said Abu Abdallah, 32, using a nickname rather than his full name.
Many in Gaza have felt abandoned by Middle East neighbours since Israel began an offensive that has killed more than 33,000 people in response to attacks on Israeli soil by Hamas, who killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostage on Oct. 7.
However support has come from Iran and its regional proxies, who are allies of Gaza’s Hamas Islamist rulers. Syria and Yemen’s Houthi group called the Iranian strike legitimate. Iran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon praised the attack as “brave”.
Footage circulated from the enclave showed many residents, including inside displacement tents, whistling and others chanting Allah Akbar (God is the Greatest) in joy as the skies were lit up by Iranian rockets and Israeli interceptions.
“Whoever decides to attack Israel, dares to attack Israel at a time when the whole world acts in its service, is a hero in the eyes of Palestinians regardless of whether we share their (Iran’s) ideology or not,” said Majed Abu Hamza, 52, a father of seven, from Gaza City.
“We have been slaughtered for over six months and no one dared to do anything. Now Iran, after its consulate was hit, is hitting back at Israel and this brings joy into our hearts,” Abu Hamza added.
Iran launched the attack over a suspected Israeli strike on its embassy compound in Syria on April 1 that killed top Revolutionary Guards commanders and followed months of clashes between Israel and Iran’s regional allies, triggered by the war in Gaza.

NATURAL RIGHT

Hamas, which has been locked in a war with Israel in Gaza since Oct. 7, defended Iran’s attack, saying in a statement the assault was “a natural right and a deserved response” to the strike on the Iranian embassy compound.
The Palestinian Popular Resistance Committee (PRC), an armed group that fights Israel alongside Hamas in Gaza, said the Iranian engagement could boost the Palestinian cause, saying that for Israel it was “the final nail in its coffin.”
Islamic Jihad, which like Hamas receives financial and military support from Iran, defended the Iranian attack and condemned countries whom it said acted as a “protective shield” for Israel.
Not everyone was supportive. Some Palestinians saw the attack as an attempt by Iran merely to preserve its dignity.
“Curtains down on the face-saving piece of theatre … The Palestinian people are the only ones who pay the price with their flesh and blood,” Munir al-Gaghoub, a resident of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, wrote on his Facebook page.
Some others on social media said they believed the assault was agreed with the U.S. in order to cause no harm, pointing to the hours it took for Iranian drones to get close to Israel, and saying this gave Israel plenty of time to shoot them down.
Meanwhile, Israel kept up its military strikes across the Gaza Strip, killing 43 Palestinians and wounding 62 others in the past 24 hours, according to the territory’s health ministry.
In the latest incident, a Palestinian woman was killed and 23 others were wounded when Israeli forces opened fire on dozens of people who tried to cross back into northern Gaza areas from the south, medics and residents said. There was no immediate comment from Israel on the woman’s death.

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Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Editing by David Holmes and William Maclean

American calls for Israeli restraint won’t make either nation safer

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Israelis take cover in a safe room in Jerusalem after a Red Alert siren sounds as a barrage of missiles, rockets and drones are launched by Iran towards the Jewish state on April 14, 2024. Photo by Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90.

In the view of the Biden administration, restraint, like virtue, is its own reward. Having helped Israel fend off an unprecedented Iranian missile and drone attack on Saturday night, President Joe Biden reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he should consider the successful interdiction of almost every one of the projectiles hurled at the Jewish state to be enough of a victory to satisfy his country and made it clear that Israel should refrain from ordering a retaliatory strike on the Islamist regime. Those calls were echoed by America’s European allies and others in the region.

Much like the world’s reaction to the atrocities perpetrated by Iran’s terrorist proxy Hamas in southern Israel on Oct. 7, the international community firmly believes that the best thing for Israel to do is exercise restraint.

There are reasonable arguments to be made for Israel to think carefully about the kind of response to Iran’s decision to escalate the ongoing conflict between the two countries. But the notion that Israeli security is best served by doing nothing or as little as possible—always Washington’s advice whenever Israel is attacked—is not as reasonable as both Biden’s apologists and Netanyahu’s critics seem to think.

More importantly, the assumption that needs to be rethought is that the most serious issue facing Israel and the United States in the Middle East right now is the danger of escalating the conflict with Iran. The relief felt by Israelis and those who care about the Jewish state the day after the Iranian attacks should not obscure the real problem behind this incident, as well as the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza. It’s not that Israel has been too aggressive in seeking to force Iran to scale back its support for its terrorist allies and auxiliaries. It’s that years of Biden administration appeasement of Iran have led that rogue regime to believe that it can act with relative impunity. Requiring Israel to stand down merely grants an unearned and dangerous victory to Tehran.

Perceiving American weakness

Biden’s weakness and the clear evidence of the growing distance between Israel and the United States encouraged Iran and its allies to believe that attacks on the Jewish state—whether Hamas’s cross-border attacks on Oct. 7 or the weekend missile launches—would not merely be tolerated but also further expose Washington’s fecklessness.

Biden’s attempt to revive former President Barack Obama’s misguided diplomatic efforts to effect a rapprochement with Iran has, like the disastrous 2015 nuclear deal, enriched and empowered Iran. They also convinced many in the region that Tehran is the “strong horse,” rather than the alliance of Israel, the United States and Arab states like Saudi Arabia. Having gone a long way towards achieving its long-term goal of regional hegemony by exercising decisive influence, if not control, over Iraq, Syria and Lebanon along with its Hamas client in Gaza, Iran has engaged in a pattern of consistently aggressive behavior. That has not only strengthened its hold on these countries but also helped it deal with a restive population at home that longs to overthrow the abusive and corrupt theocratic regime.

There is a kernel of truth in the spin that some who want to downplay the Iranian attacks on Israel have been putting out since they failed to do any real damage or cause massive Israeli casualties. It’s not true that Iran hoped that they would fail. Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and as such, aims to intimidate and kill its opponents—be they Israelis, Jews, Americans, Europeans or Arabs.

But it is true that the regime’s Hezbollah auxiliaries in Lebanon—with a massive arsenal of missiles and rockets pointed at Israel—pose a far greater threat to the Jewish state than anything that could be launched from Iranian soil. The sheer volume of Hezbollah’s weaponry would overwhelm Israel’s air defense, causing grievous casualties and damage.

Iran’s decision not to give the orders to their Lebanese henchmen to open fire on Israel—both after Oct. 7 and now—is not a sign of goodwill or an attempt to de-escalate the conflict. Rather, it is more evidence that Tehran’s leaders regard Hezbollah as their last recourse of defense against an Israeli or American attack on their country or nuclear facilities. Their reasoning is if such an arsenal is used against Israel now, then they won’t be able to employ it if and when the survival of their tyrannical regime is at stake.

It’s also not true that Jerusalem escalated the conflict with its recent successful attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus that supposedly precipitated Tehran’s firing of all those missiles. Iran has been attacking Israel continuously by one means or another for years, especially since its intervention in the Syrian civil war to save the Bashar Assad regime that was enabled by Obama backing down on his “red line” threat to the barbarous leader.

And since Oct. 7, Iran’s Hezbollah terrorists have been firing at northern Israel, rendering communities on the border uninhabitable and adding to the number of Jews who have been made refugees in their own country since the war with Hamas began. That is a problem that was created by Biden’s insistence on appeasing Iran—and by forcing the Israeli government led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid to cede some of its natural-gas fields in the Mediterranean to Lebanon. Washington has also been seeking to prevent Israel from doing much to alleviate the threat from the north so as to avoid annoying Tehran.

Don’t expect sympathy

But even if there are strong reasons for Israel to avoid another exchange with the Islamic Republic while still fighting Hamas in Gaza, there are two widely prevalent misconceptions about this subject that need to be unwrapped.

The first is the belief that Israel gains diplomatically when it doesn’t strike back at its foes after it has been attacked.

Many on the Israeli left and elsewhere are now claiming that the current priority is to take advantage of the sympathy Israel is getting from being the intended victim of the Iranian attack. They believe that striking back will cost the Jewish state vital political support it would otherwise receive in the coming months from Americans and Europeans, who have been reminded about the dangerous neighborhood that surrounds it. By placidly standing down and closing this chapter, it will, we are told, earn Biden’s gratitude and regain some of the international goodwill it has lost because of the war against Hamas and the ensuing hardships caused to Palestinians in Gaza.

It is a mistake to think that Israel gains anything by allowing itself to play the victim or the role of the pliant American client state. To the contrary, any perception of Israeli weakness or a belief on the part of its foes that it can be held in check by American advice or threats is merely an invitation to up the ante and increase attacks, whether by terrorist forces or other means. The sight of dead Israelis and Jews inflames antisemitism rather than marginalizes it.

Israelis are grateful for the help that they received from the United States and other nations in defeating the Iranian attacks. However, the foreign assistance it got was not an act of philanthropy. Successful Iranian strikes on Israel endanger the entire region and make it even harder to achieve Biden’s goal of engaging with Tehran.

Nor should anyone believe that Iranian attacks will increase sympathy for Israel in its war in Gaza. If the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre—the worst mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust—did nothing to make Israel more loved around the world, then Iranian missile strikes weren’t going to change anyone’s opinion. In the aftermath of those unspeakable acts, the media and anti-Israel activists were already condemning the Jewish state even before it began its counteroffensive against the terrorists. International opinion may mourn dead Jews, whether in the Holocaust or today, but it doesn’t have much sympathy for live ones, especially when they are armed and can defend themselves. While other wars, such as Iran’s in Syria, were ignored or tolerated, Israeli efforts at self-defense are always called disproportionate or wrong no matter how justified.

Israel won’t gain a single friend for not sending a strong message to Iran that the price of harming Jews will be more than it wants to pay. On the flip side, the spectacle of Israel meekly obeying American orders and holding its fire will only encourage Tehran to continue provoking the Israelis and undermining the strategic interests of the West in the region.

Biden’s political interests

Equally obvious is that American calls for restraint have far more to do with Biden’s political interests than U.S. security.

The president is convinced that the main obstacle to his re-election this year stems from anger in the left wing of the Democratic Party about his initial support for Israel after Oct. 7. He believes that intersectional activists, as well as Arab-American or Muslim voters, will abandon him if he doesn’t prevent Israel from completing the job of destroying Hamas. That’s a mistake since his problems stem from the widespread perception of his weakness and failed economic policies that led to inflation and the opening of the southern border that encouraged a massive wave of illegal immigration.

As a result, the administration is determined to end the war against Hamas, even if it means a genocidal terrorist group allied with Iran is allowed to get away with mass murder. And those who agree with the false premise that Israel is at fault in the war or the big lie that it is committing genocide won’t like its leadership more if it doesn’t punish Iran. Biden’s eagerness to appease Iran is only matched by his desperate efforts to bend the knee to the extremists in his own party. That’s why he wants no further military action.

An American president who was serious about deterring an enemy and halting global terrorism wouldn’t be counseling restraint. He would be actively seeking to aid Israeli efforts to combat Iran and its allies, including supporting the eradication of Hamas. Biden should be ramping up sanctions on Tehran to force its economy to its knees, rather than continuing to try to seduce it with bribes, like the $10 billion in frozen funds it recently freed up for them.

Instead, Biden is—as he has done since taking office—continuing to send mixed messages that have only encouraged Iranian adventurism in the region. Israel should do what it needs to do in its own way and at a time of its choosing to make Iran back down. But the more we hear talk of American pressure for Jerusalem to exercise restraint, the more certain it is that the long-term result will only be more bloodshed and Iranian-backed terror.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.

Addressing UNRWA Policy: Key Questions For Donor Nations

By
David Bedein
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Despite Canada’s temporary withdrawal of funding from UNRWA between 2011 and 2015, recent developments have seen Canada resume its role as one of the top funders of UNRWA. (Photo: JNS.org)

Despite Canada’s temporary withdrawal of funding from UNRWA between 2011 and 2015, recent developments have seen Canada resume its role as one of the top funders of UNRWA. (Photo: JNS.org)

Israel Resource News Agency, operating as an independent news agency and research center under the Nahum Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research, has been at the forefront of scrutinizing UNRWA’s activities since its establishment in 1987.

Amid ongoing conflict, our agency has uncovered concerning findings regarding UNRWA’s conduct, including the use of its facilities to store weapons and facilitate violence. Despite Canada’s temporary withdrawal of funding from UNRWA between 2011 and 2015 due to these revelations, recent developments have seen Canada resume its role as one of the top funders of UNRWA.

To hold policymakers accountable and ensure responsible use of taxpayer funds, we present a series of questions for Canadian government and parliament:

  1. What measures will be implemented to ensure UNRWA donations are used exclusively for peaceful purposes?
  2. Will there be ongoing monitoring of UNRWA schools to eliminate any content promoting violence or incitement?
  3. Is there a plan to increase transparency regarding the allocation of UNRWA funds, especially cash donations?
  4. Will there be efforts to conduct regular inspections of UNRWA facilities to prevent the storage of lethal weapons and ammunition?
  5. How will UNRWA youth clubs be monitored to prevent involvement in activities promoting violence?
  6. Will there be support for the expulsion of Fatah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad affiliates from UNRWA?
  7. Is there a plan to remove murals depicting violence from UNRWA facilities?
  8. Will there be advocacy for UNRWA summer camps to focus on non-violent programs?
  9. Is there a request for UNRWA maps to accurately represent all members of the UN, including Israel?
  10. Will there be efforts to remove maps from UNRWA materials that rename Israeli communities with Arabic names?

By addressing these questions, donor nations can uphold their commitment to humanitarian aid while ensuring accountability and transparency within UNRWA’s operations.

Hamas has always had and still has grandiose plans to enslave and slaughter Israel’s Jews

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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During World War II, the Nazis envisioned enslaving and eventually exterminating the Jewish race. Muslims in the Middle East and Central Europe were happy to make common cause with the Nazis as Nazi goals aligned with Mohamed’s mandateIt turns out that Hamas has the exact same plans this time around. In the 1940s, the civilized world stopped the Muslim and Nazi plans; this time, the world is no longer civilized and is abetting this great evil.

I’m going to lead with a personal anecdote here. From December 1941 through August 1945, my mother was a civilian prisoner of the Japanese in Java. She weighed 75 pounds at war’s end. What’s interesting for the purposes of this essay is how she ended up in that situation.

Mom was born in Java, which was then a Dutch colony. In 1935, when she was 12, her father, a Zionist who was concerned about Hitler’s rise (the family was in Austria by then), relocated to British Mandate Palestine (“BMP”).

Life in Tel Aviv was hard in the 1930s but got easier once World War II started. That was because the British started pouring resources into BMP. Troops flooded in, many with money to spend, and the military built up an infrastructure. My grandfather, an architect, got work with a British government paycheck attached.

Image: Hitler and the Mufti of Jerusalem. Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1987-004-09A / Heinrich Hoffmann / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Image: Hitler and the Mufti of Jerusalem. Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1987-004-09A / Heinrich Hoffmann / CC-BY-SA 3.0

To a man, in the early years of the war, the British officers told my grandfather that they were dubious about their chances against Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. If Rommel’s forces prevailed, they said, the Nazis would give the local Arab population permission and weapons with which to slaughter every Jewish man and boy while either slaughtering or sexually enslaving the Jewish women and girls. (Think: ISIS on a grander scale.)

My grandfather, therefore, had the bright idea to send my mom to Java, far from the war. He never could have predicted the Japanese entry into the war.

My point with this family history is that it shows that the Arabs have long dreamed of slaughtering and enslaving the Jews who live on the land that is now Israel. That’s why I was completely unsurprised to learn that Hamas really believes that it can prevail in this war and that, when it wins, it can slaughter and enslave the Jews.

‘Will not allow U.S. to use our land to attack Iran’, Qatar, Kuwait say

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Amid a fresh warning that Iran will attack Israel within 48 hours, the United States of America has said that Iran should not engage in any provocative actions.

“They will have to respond. It is directly state involvement. They bombed our embassy in Syria and they will have to pay for this. The U.S. and the western countries rather than condemning the action are lecturing us. We will respond,” Iran Foreign minister has said.

Meanwhile, several countries including India have issued warnings to their citizens asking them not to travel to Israel.

Russia and China have issued a stern warning to America and Israel to condemn the action and not launch attacks on Iran, if they retaliate.

‘West is destine to fail, no matter how much blackmail they use’ – Lavrov,  Russian Foreign Minister said. He accused the US to destabilize the situation in several countries.

Meanwhile, Qatar and Kuwait have jointly said that they will not allow their lands to be used as bases to attack Iran.

According to multiple reports, “Qatar and Kuwait just told the US that they cannot use bases on their territories to attack Iran”.

Canadian Universities and Anti-Israel Activities on Campus: Concordia as a Case in Point

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

Editorial Note

Universities in Canada saw a spike in anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incidents. IAM discussed this issue before.

IAM reported in September 2020, “Canada’s Battles on anti-Israel Activities” on the battle over the directorship of the International Human Rights Program (IHRP) at the University of Toronto. Pro-Palestinian activists support the nomination of Dr. Valentina Azarova, known for her anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian views. Not surprisingly, Azarova had previously taught at Birzeit University, Palestine. Azarova’s nomination has been rescinded. However, the administration of the University of Toronto announced that Azarova was not officially a candidate.

IAM reported in July 2022, “New Book on Anti-Israel Advocacy in Canada,” concerning several Canadian scholars who co-authored a book, Advocating for Palestine in Canada Histories, Movements, Action. IAM stated that, as has been the norm in pro-Palestinian academic circles, the book mainly focused on attacking Israel rather than discussing Palestinian issues.

However, since the Black Sabbath of October 7, 2023, the amount of anti-Israel and antisemitic cases has skyrocketed in Canada and elsewhere. Concordia University has recently decided to tackle this issue. A few days ago, President Graham Carr informed the students by email that a new Task Force was created as a result of increasing identity-based violence on campus. Standing Together Against Racism and Identity-based Violence (STRIVE) was formed after a long period of tension on campus. For example, on Nov. 8, 2023, there was an altercation on campus between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students.

According to the Concordia website, the STRIVE Task Force “aims to counter identity-based violence through campus engagement, consultations with all members of our community, open dialogue, education, and awareness.”

According to the Concordia website, “Academic freedom and freedom of expression, core Concordia values, can only thrive when we make clear the distinctions between open and challenging discourse and expressions of threats, violence, and hatred against identifiable groups. Central to this task is the differentiation between identity-based violence, systemic discrimination, hate, and controversial speech. Racism and identity-based violence undermine the university’s commitment to respect, inclusion, and equality within our community. As a center of learning and production of knowledge, Concordia has a crucial role in addressing how identity-based violence creates barriers to full participation in our university community.”

President Carr promised to notify the student body of STRIVE’s progress.

A further examination of the Concordia website, however, finds a big surprise. Rachel Berger, Associate Dean, Academic Programs & Development, School of Graduate Studies, who is also a historian of medicine, food and the body in South Asia, is on the steering committee.

Berger has a long history of anti-Israel activism. For example, on October 26, 2023, she signed a petition by “Artists & Academics in Canada: Statement of Solidarity with Palestine,” who pledged our “support for the Palestinian people in the face of over 75 years of Israeli apartheid, settler colonialism, military occupation, and ethnic cleansing.” The petition repeats the anti-Israeli tropes of Gaza being an “open-air prison, a place of brutal massacres and weapon testing“ and so on. Most egregiously, the petition notes that, “The militant reaction from Palestinians in Gaza on October 7, 2023, is a result of decades of cruel and oppressive treatment.” In other words, the savage attack of Hamas on Israeli civilians in which residents were killed, raped, dismembered, and burnt, in addition of being kidnapped, was justified. As the saying goes, “Israel made us do it.”

The petition even blames Canada’s founders: “Understanding the settler-colonial nature of Canada and its foundations on the theft of Indigenous land and life, it is not entirely surprising that Canada would defend siege, slaughter, and the theft of land. Yet, this has created an atmosphere of increased racism, policing, intimidation, and fear for Palestinians and their supporters in the settler colony of Canada.”

In the Spring of 2021, Berger was among a group “Jewish Faculty Against the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.” As IAM reported, after the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) came out with a Working Definition of Antisemitism, which was widely accepted in the West, groups of pro-Palestinian academics mobilized to fight it.

In 2016, Berger was one of the initiators of the BDS call at Concordia, titled, “Simone de Beauvoir Institute’s Statement of Feminist Solidarity with the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement.” It stated that the representatives of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute (SdBI) “voted in unanimous support of the following resolution on the Palestinian call for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement: As feminist scholars, activists, teachers, and public intellectuals we recognize the interconnectedness of systemic forms of oppression. In the spirit of this perspective, we cannot overlook the injustice and violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, perpetrated against Palestinians and other Arabs in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, within Israel and in the Golan Heights, as well as the colonial displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 Nakba.”

The signatories of the imitative went on to state: “We share and are inspired by the values expressed by the December 2015 U.S. National Women’s Studies Association in their declaration of support for BDS and call for feminist solidarity with Palestinians. They state: “As feminist activists, scholars, teachers and intellectuals who recognize the interconnectedness of systemic forms of oppression, we cannot overlook the injustice and violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, perpetrated against Palestinians. Following their lead, we similarly regard our resolution in support of BDS as ‘an act of transnational solidarity aimed at social transformation for a better world’.”

On March 14, 2015, Berger signed an “Open Letter: Defend Freedom of Speech,” which addressed the “university community regarding Palestinian Rights and Canadian Universities.” The letter argued that there have been “increasing efforts to limit advocacy of Palestinian rights in Canadian universities, amounting to a pattern of the suppression of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.” The undersigned, “Defend the right to freedom of speech about Palestine for all members of the university community, including freedom to use the term ‘apartheid’ to identify and debate certain policies associated with the state of Israel and the freedom to support, facilitate and participate freely in activities under the rubric of “Israeli apartheid week.” They also “Call for an end to the silencing of speech around Palestine, removing extraordinary requirements for security clearance and fees for security services.” And “Support increased ties to Palestinian institutions and scholars, and activities to support the right to education and academic freedom of Palestinians.”

She signed another Letter on August 10, 2014, published by a group named Canadians 4 Gazans, titled “Canadians for Justice and Human Rights in Gaza,” which stated that “Canadians call on the Government and federal political parties to condemn violations of international law in Gaza.” The group stated “We, the undersigned academics, professors, lawyers, community leaders, and prominent community members, are profoundly perturbed by the unbalanced and partisan position adopted by the Canadian Government and federal political parties regarding the current violence in Gaza… While Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket firings are illegal under international law, Israel is still bound by basic international humanitarian law principles protecting civilians during times of war and prohibiting collective punishment. Indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilian life and infrastructure in Gaza violate fundamental norms of international law… Multiple human rights groups have documented and condemned likely Israeli war crimes in Gaza… As a country claiming to champion universal human rights and dignity, Canada’s foreign policy must align with international law, and reflect the equal value of Palestinian and Israeli life. The callous devaluation of Palestinian life communicated by our political leaders does not represent us.”

Berger was among the signatories of “Historians’ Letter to President Obama and Members of Congress” on August 28, 2014, demanding that the US change its policy toward Palestine/Israel, “In the face of the ongoing carnage in Gaza, members of Historians Against the War are circulating the letter.” It stated, “We deplore the ongoing attacks against civilians in Gaza and in Israel. We also recognize the disproportionate harm that the Israeli military, which the United States has armed and supported for decades, is inflicting on the population of Gaza. We are profoundly disturbed that Israeli forces are killing and wounding so many Palestinian children. Desperate conditions in Gaza resulting from Israeli policies have made effective evacuation of war zones virtually impossible. We regard as unacceptable the failure of United States elected officials to hold Israel accountable for such acts. As we watch the death toll mount and observe the terror of the trapped inhabitants in Gaza, we call upon you to demand a cease-fire, the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, and a permanent end to the blockade so that its people can resume some semblance of normal life. We urge you to suspend US military aid to Israel, until there is assurance that this aid will no longer be used for the commission of war crimes. As historians, we recognize this as a moment of acute moral crisis in which it is vitally important that United States policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict change direction.”

Canada adopted the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism, which would consider much of the content of Berger’s activism as antisemitic. This is deeply troubling because Concordia’s president created STRIVE to fight antisemitism. Therefore, Rachel Berger should not be allowed to serve on the Task Force.

Open season

By
Michael Kuttner
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“A period of time when an individual or group is exposed to criticism, condemnation, attack or recrimination.

This definition entirely encapsulates the frenzied fury being currently generated by all and sundry against Israel and its supporters worldwide.

At the best of times, the barrage of bombastic recriminations issued forth on a daily, almost hourly basis. However, when yet another situation arises that necessitates drastic action, the volume of howling hate ramps up.

This is exactly the situation which now exists.

There is one overriding fact that friends and critics alike prefer to overlook or, more probably, deliberately sweep under the carpet.

Ever since the return of Jews to their ancestral historical homeland, they have faced an unremitting campaign of terror designed to deny their inalienable rights to settle there. In other words a total state of war has existed and continues to exist with all those whose agenda is the murder and elimination of the Jewish State.

It is important in these woke times that we do not mince words and succumb to meaningless diplomatic mumbling.

In a war situation, there unfortunately are occasions when human error and unintentional missteps cause collateral casualties, such as in the recent targeting of an aid convoy in Gaza. These situations, tragic as they may be, must be seen for what they really are, namely, mistakes as opposed to deliberate targeting of innocent individuals or groups.

This is where the current explosions of fake righteous wrath by so-called friends and long-time haters alike must be challenged for the hypocritical convulsions they represent.

As soon as the news broke, it was a given that all and sundry would be straining to unleash all their pent-up fury and frustrations against Israel. Sure enough, the torrent of unsolicited demands immediately gushed forth. At the same time, the media onslaught cracked into high gear. One could almost hear journalists and editors salivating at the prospect of being able to bludgeon Israel and by extension, Zionists in their editorials and reports.

In their eagerness to smear Israel and find it guilty of the worst crimes known to humanity its evil intentions and deliberate deceitfulness must be hammered home. Like the libels of the Middle Ages, the masses must be conditioned to believe that Jews/Zionists are the reason that innocents are being targeted.

It does not take much effort for the lies to spread and stick as can be seen from the masses who mindlessly participate in weekly demonstrations vilifying everything and everyone connected to Israel.

One of the most obviously transparent deceptions being swallowed is the accusation that portrays Israel as the only country in the world that has bombed innocent civilians. Pompous politicians from the four corners of the globe are falling over themselves in order to show that they alone hold the moral high ground. The hypocritical condemnations and demands made by leaders of non democratic nations can be dismissed and ignored. It is the mealy-mouthed democracies that quiver in the face of Islamic terror threats that raise the hackles of most Israelis.

Preaching morality and scolding Israel is galling when it issues forth from the very countries that themselves have been complicit in killing innocent civilians during military action.

When the current UK Foreign Minister, Lord Cameron, was Prime Minister in 2011, he enthusiastically supported the NATO-led bombing of Libya, during which numerous Libyans died as a result of misaimed bombs. Included in the civilian casualties were ambulance workers. Neither worldwide convulsions nor Cameron’s resignation followed. That has not stopped Cameron from demanding “a full and frank explanation and admission of Israel’s guilt” with a threat of impending UK sanctions.

As though this nauseating British pomposity is not bad enough we are now subject to the same rhetoric from the Biden White House and State Department. Anyone would think that not a single innocent civilian was ever killed by American actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. Women and children were bombed “by mistake” at wedding parties and other collateral fatalities occurred during the campaigns to eliminate Saddam Hussein, the Taliban and the Vietcong. Did those responsible find themselves hauled in front of the International Court of Justice or pilloried on a daily basis at the UN? How many innocent men, women and children did the US abandon to the merciless savagery of the Taliban when they fled from Afghanistan?

The French and Belgians have a similar sordid history in their colonial wars yet none of this is thrown in their faces. These countries and other democracies prefer to forget their own much more heinous actions in preference to concentrating their double standards on Israel.

The media, of course, are more than willing partners in this campaign of vilification, condemnation and delegitimization. I saw an excellent cartoon in which someone reading a newspaper said to his companion that “newspapers are much smaller these days.” His friend responded by saying “yes, that’s because they only report half the news.”

Penny Wong, Australia’s Foreign Minister, has been working overtime in lecturing, hectoring and threatening Israel. Contrast this with her refusal to visit the sites of the 7 October pogrom. Now, she is preparing the ground for recognition of “Palestine”, which, in her professional opinion, is the only way that peace and tolerance can be achieved. Anything more removed from reality would be hard to find, but that is the prevailing ignorant political mantra that exists. Israel is already investigating the tragic incident but despite this the Australian Government has felt compelled to appoint its own investigator. It seems that, according to Albanese and Wong, Israel cannot be trusted to carry out an impartial inquiry.

This sick thinking has infected large swathes of so-called “progressives” worldwide. US Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats are insinuating that Israel is “likely” complicit in genocidal war crimes. This steady drip feed of ill will has spread to every continent with French, Irish, Scandinavian, South African and South American politicians and media joining the feeding frenzy of hate. It explains why some one like the Spanish Prime Minister can assert that “Israeli attacks on Hamas threaten world safety.” Not so long ago Jews were accused of world domination. Now it seems the Jewish State is guilty of destroying world peace because it is prepared to deal with jihadists who threaten civilization.

Sadly, this malady has also affected many Jews who join the mindless mobs as they demonstrate, demonize and shout ignorant slogans.

One gets a sense of how the US has capitulated to Islamic terror threats when looking at the reaction to Iranian-sponsored attacks. The Houthi terrorists in Yemen are engaging in piracy on the high seas while their citizens starve to death. The US & UK have refused to deal seriously with this. Despite feeble attempts at countermeasures, the piracy continues. Now, the US State Department has proclaimed “that we favour a diplomatic solution because we know that there is no military solution. If they stop attacking ships, we could remove their terrorist designation.”  Does anyone hear the echoes of Chamberlain’s appeasement policies towards the aggression of Germany & Italy in the 1930s?

It is obvious that nothing has changed and that the refusal to stand up to bullies and genocidal plotters will inevitably lead to the same disastrous results as in the past.

The son of Hamas’s founder articulated what should be obvious but, unfortunately, escapes the logic of all of Israel’s detractors. He declared that there is no difference between Hamas and Palestinians. Unless and until Islamic jihadists are deradicalized there is no possibility of any sort of peaceful coexistence.

It is a pity that that all those who have declared open season on Israel/Zionists/Jews and have succumbed to the ancient virus of hate refuse to internalise this basic truth.

Michael Kuttner is a Jewish New Zealander who for many years was actively involved with various communal organisations connected to Judaism and Israel. He now lives in Israel and is J-Wire’s correspondent in the region.

Revealed: secret letters that show Iran’s £200m payments to Hamas

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Addressed to a man called Abu Ibrahim, known to the rest of the world as Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief in Gaza, the typed letter is matter of fact. “Attached is a table of payments from Iran between 2014 and 2020,” it states.
Yet what follows in correspondence discovered during the war in Gaza is what Israel’s military believe is compelling evidence of a complex series of payments, which sheds light on the extent of Tehran’s continued funding for the Palestinian fighting group.
The two letters, the second of which was handwritten, were written by the chief of staff of the Hamas fighting wing, Marwan Issa, who signed them as Abu al-Baraa. They appear to detail at least $222 million received from Iran and have been shared exclusively by The Times. Issa is believed to have been killed last month in an Israeli strike on his compound in Nuseirat in central Gaza.
Addressed to a man called Abu Ibrahim, known to the rest of the world as Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief in Gaza, the typed letter is matter of fact. “Attached is a table of payments from Iran between 2014 and 2020,” it states.
Yet what follows in correspondence discovered during the war in Gaza is what Israel’s military believe is compelling evidence of a complex series of payments, which sheds light on the extent of Tehran’s continued funding for the Palestinian fighting group.
The two letters, the second of which was handwritten, were written by the chief of staff of the Hamas fighting wing, Marwan Issa, who signed them as Abu al-Baraa. They appear to detail at least $222 million received from Iran and have been shared exclusively by The Times. Issa is believed to have been killed last month in an Israeli strike on his compound in Nuseirat in central Gaza.
A letter from Marwan Issa, chief of staff of the Hamas fighting wing, to Sinwar
Sinwar, Issa and the overall military commander of Hamas, Mohammed Deif, were the masterminds of the surprise attack on Israel six months ago.
The first of the letters dates from 2020 and shows monthly payments from Iran, starting in July 2014, while Hamas was fighting a previous war with Israel. In total, $154 million was transferred during this six-year period. In the comment section of the letter appear allocations, from the total sum, that were handed directly to Sinwar in cash and in one case to an Abu al-Abed, who is believed to be Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas political bureau.
Issa signed the letter as Abu al-Baraa
The second, from November 2021, begins: “In the name of Allah the merciful. To my dear brother Abu Ibrahim, Allah protect him. Warm greetings, peace, Allah’s mercy and blessing upon him.” It then details payments from Iran following the war fought that year, which Hamas called Operation Sword of Jerusalem, which is mentioned in the letter.
After the war, Iran transferred the largest single sum, $58 million. Two further sums of $5 million are mentioned as having been received as well as additional expected. The letter also details how most of the money was allocated to “the apparatus” — the fighting wing of Hamas — as well as a smaller sum to the political wing and $2 million directly to Sinwar.
A breakdown of money transfers from Issa to Sinwar
The money is believed to have arrived in Beirut from Iran, in cash, where it was given by officers from Iran’s Republican Guard to their Hamas contacts. Saeed Izadi, who is mentioned by Issa in the letters as Haj Ramadan and was allegedly the source of the money, is head of the Palestinian division office in Iran’s Quds Force, co-ordinating and funding from Beirut operations with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant movements.
Until last week, his direct commander was Brigadier-General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon. Zahedi was the most senior of seven men killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike on April 1 which hit a consular building in Iran’s diplomatic compound in Damascus.
Iran has yet to retaliate for the attack, which Israeli officials privately say was aimed at demonstrating to Tehran that it can no longer hide behind their proxies in the region. Intelligence services in the west and the Middle East believe Iran will retaliate and that Tehran’s dilemma is whether to do so through one of its proxies, as it has in the past, or to launch a rare direct attack on Israeli targets.
After United States intelligence on Wednesday warned that a strike by Iran or its proxies was imminent, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said his country was prepared “defensively and offensively” for “scenarios involving challenges in other sectors”.
Israeli intelligence officers believe Zahedi would have passed the money on to Saleh al-Arouri, the Hamas military leader in Beirut who was assassinated in another Israeli strike in January during a meeting in the Dahya neighbourhood, a US Treasury Department stronghold. From Beirut, the funds would be transferred to Gaza through a network of money-changers using either crypto-currency accounts or a system of credits to traders in Gaza, who would then pass the money over to Issa or his representatives.
One of the main Lebanese money-changers allegedly involved in the transfers, Mohammad Surur, was found dead with several gunshots to his legs this week in a small town near Beirut. Surur, who was known to have close ties to Hezbollah, was designated by the US Treasury Department for being involved in funding terrorism. More money-changers have been designated in recent months.
Hamas is considered a proxy of Iran but is relatively independent in comparison to Hezbollah, which was founded by Iranian agents and shares their Shia faith, or Palestine Islamic Jihad, which is fully funded and directed by Tehran. Israeli intelligence believes Iran was not informed in advance of the surprise attack and massacre in Israel on October 7.
The founder of Hamas, Ahmed Yassin, who was a disciple of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood movement, had ties with the Iranians and even visited the previous Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, in Tehran, preferred not to receive Iranian funding. Hamas leaders since Yassin have changed tack, accepting hundreds of millions of dollars from Iran.
In that time, the alliance has had ups and downs. For example, the former head of the political bureau, Khaled Mashal, decided in 2012 to close the Hamas headquarters in Damascus and distance Hamas from the Iranians, following their backing of the bloody suppression of the uprisings against the Assad regime, in which many members of the local Muslim Brotherhood were murdered.
For years there remained deep disagreements over whether to re-establish ties with Iran and Syria, but as the documents captured by the Israelis seem to prove, by 2014, payments had resumed.
This is almost certainly connected to the fact that in the summer of 2014, Hamas fought a seven-week war against Israel from Gaza, Operation Protective Edge. The Iranian payments are believed to be “encouragements” for Hamas to continue fighting Israel.
In 2017 and 2018, the breakdown prepared by Issa shows, there were no payments “at our request”, which could be connected to the fact that Hamas was concentrating at the time on trying to rebuild Gaza rather than directly confront Israel. It may also reflect the lingering differences among senior Hamas members regarding the group’s ties with Iran.
The bump in payments after the 12-day war in 2021 would indicate Iranian appreciation and encouragement. Israeli intelligence believes the payments continued at least until the October 7 attack and helped finance the arsenal of rockets and weapons used in it.

Ibn Saud, FDR, and the Future of the Jewish State

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivering his Fireside Chat

On Feb. 14, 1945, President Franklin Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz Al Saud, or Ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia, on the USS Quincy, a warship parked in the Suez Canal. Together, they transformed the Middle East and ushered in decades of close U.S.-Saudi ties. That conclave remains a cherished lodestar for the Saudis to this day, with pictures of it adorning their government offices, while the United States still calls its ambassador’s residence in Riyadh the Quincy House. However, less well-known is that bilateral bonding came at the expense of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s quiet efforts to fashion a postwar regional settlement that included a Jewish state.

Roosevelt’s meeting with Ibn Saud on his return from the Yalta conference came at a critical time for Zionism. Through the 1917 Balfour Declaration, Britain had initiated a pro-Zionist policy committed to establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine. As colonial secretary in 1921-22, Churchill implemented policies to fulfil that pledge, marking the zenith of British Zionism. Britain’s commitment then waned, and in 1939 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain effectively nullified it with a White Paper that did not envision a Jewish national home, and limited Jewish immigration into Palestine to 75,000 over five years, restricting a refuge for European Jews facing Nazi genocide.

Churchill fiercely led the parliamentary opposition to the White Paper, despite Chamberlain being his (Conservative) party leader, but when he became premier in May 1940, Churchill shied away from overturning it. Instead, he worked to establish a postwar settlement that included a Jewish state, which he imagined controlling all of Palestine west of the Jordan River. At the same time, he thought it practical that the Jewish state would initially comprise part of a larger Arab confederation headed by Ibn Saud, the tribal leader who founded modern Saudi Arabia in 1932. There had been growing Zionist support for such a structure and Churchill was informed, incorrectly, that Ibn Saud was interested in heading it.

Churchill initially began exploring this postwar vision in 1941. Always philo-Semitic, Churchill became a true Zionist in 1921 while colonial secretary, and while his Zionism fluctuated depending on larger interests, it deepened in the 1930s, when both he and the Zionists languished in the British political wilderness. He was keen to do right by the Jews and redeem their suffering at this most precarious moment in their history. He also became increasingly concerned about German advances in the Middle East, and he hoped his pursuit of a postwar regional Arab confederation that included a Jewish state would rally support for Britain’s cause among the Arabs, the Jews of Palestine, and American Jews—with the latter holding, he believed, considerable influence in then-neutral America.

Churchill’s view of Ibn Saud evolved over time. In the 1920s Churchill thought him a Muslim extremist, but now considered him the “greatest living Arab,” who should be “Boss of the Bosses” or “Caliph” of his conceived confederation. “As the custodian of Mecca, his authority might well be acceptable,” over Iran and Transjordan, who were both ruled by British-allied Hashemites whom Churchill didn’t respect. Saudi Arabia’s newfound oil wealth evidently influenced his thinking as did, uncharacteristically, the pro-Ibn Saud views of government officials he usually disdained. Those government officials were generally anti-Zionist, and his plan was widely opposed by the Colonial and Foreign offices, and most of the War Cabinet. His own foreign secretary, the antisemitic and anti-Zionist Anthony Eden, thought with good reason that a federation including both Ibn Saud and the rival Hashemites would be unstable.

Despite this opposition, Churchill eventually managed in January 1944 to convince his anti-Zionist War Cabinet to approve “in principle” a postwar plan for an “Association of Levant States” comprising a small “Jewish State,” a British-controlled Jerusalem state, a truncated Lebanon, and a Greater Syria encompassing southeast Lebanon, Transjordan, and certain Arab areas of Palestine. This plan was proposed by the Cabinet Committee on Palestine, headed at Churchill’s behest by the pro-Zionist Labourite Home Secretary Herbert Morrison. Churchill didn’t agree with the entire plan, but it marked a tremendous achievement for his Zionist quest.

In November 1944 the Morrison committee revised the plan. As long as the Hashemite British ally Abdullah headed Transjordan, it recommended that Arab Palestine and Transjordan join an Abdullah-ruled “Southern Syria” that would also include the Galilee. The committee also recommended a Jerusalem-based state controlled by Britain, which would “safeguard for ever the Holy City.” Britain would also control the Negev. Yet the committee still remained committed to a rump Jewish state.

Churchill was not keen on the size or even existence of the proposed British-controlled, Jerusalem-based state. Also, he wanted a larger Jewish state comprising all of western Palestine, including the Negev. He even expressed to Roosevelt and Britain-based Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann in 1943 that the Zionists should also get Transjordan. For years, Churchill viewed the initial size of a Jewish state as simply a starting point for Israeli expansion. The report gave Churchill the minimum of what he needed—namely, a War Cabinet proposal for a postwar Jewish polity.

On Nov. 4, 1944, the day after he received the latest Morrison committee report, Churchill had a long lunch with his old friend Weizmann. He mentioned the existence of a pro-Zionist cabinet committee but cautioned it would not lead to any statement about Palestine policy until after the war with Germany and probably not until after a postwar general election, presumably given the plan’s political sensitivity. Churchill was unequivocal about U.S. involvement in solving the Palestine problem, asserting, “If Roosevelt and I come together to the Conference Table, we can carry through all we want.” He evidently believed American support could overcome Arab opposition, thereby also circumventing anti-Zionists in his own government, as Eden feared.

Yet Churchill also expressed concern that Washington was not sufficiently pro-Zionist. Indeed, he often felt compelled during the war to persuade Roosevelt to be more sympathetic to European Jewish suffering, which gave him cause to wonder if the Zionists had as much political clout in the United States as he had avowed to his anti-Zionist colleagues. Several times during their meeting he expressed his surprise to Weizmann at the anti-Zionism of some prominent American Jews.

Both Churchill and Weizmann came away from their meeting emboldened. That very day Churchill urged War Cabinet consideration of the new Morrison report. The following day he wrote Roosevelt recommending their upcoming summit with Stalin be held in British-controlled Palestine: “I am somewhat attracted by the suggestion of Jerusalem. Here there are first-class hotels, government houses, etc., and every means can be taken to ensure security.” In this setting, Churchill likely would have pressed his plan for a postwar pro-Zionist regional settlement. But Roosevelt demurred, and the meeting was held instead at Yalta in Soviet Crimea.

Two days later, Churchill’s pro-Zionist efforts hit a significant roadblock. On Nov. 6, 1944, in Cairo, members of the extremist Zionist organization, Lehi, or Stern Gang, assassinated Lord Moyne, Britain’s resident minister in the Middle East. Churchill told the House of Commons it represented a personal betrayal, but he expressed his outrage in measured words and tone. The Foreign Office recommended suspending Jewish immigration into Palestine and the British military requested postponing redeploying troops from Palestine to Italy in order to search for illegal arms held by Palestinian Jews. This wasn’t the first time the British military and bureaucrats prioritized confronting Zionists to Nazis. Churchill rejected those requests but decided, given the toxicity of the subject, to postpone War Cabinet debate on the Morrison committee’s plan, even though it already was on the agenda and the report had been circulated to War Cabinet members. The War Cabinet never did debate the final plan. Although becoming exasperated with the region—privately noting, “We are getting uncommonly little out of our Middle East encumbrances and paying an undue price for that little”—Churchill turned his attention to persuading Roosevelt and Ibn Saud of his pro-Zionist diplomatic solution.

While intrigued by Churchill’s ideas, Roosevelt became aware of Ibn Saud’s hostility to a pro-Zionist settlement. In 1943, the Saudi leader wrote Roosevelt that Palestine was a “sacred Moslem Arab country” that “belonged to the Arabs,” accused the Jews of seeking to “exterminate the peaceful Arabs,” and hoped the Allies would not “evict” the Arabs from Palestine and install “vagrant Jews who have no ties with this country except an imaginary claim which, from the point of view of right and justice, has no grounds except what they invent through fraud and deceit.” Roosevelt replied to his “Great and Good Friend” Ibn Saud, expressing his wish for a friendly Arab-Jewish understanding over Palestine before the war was over, and pledging to forgo important decisions about Palestine “without full consultation with both Arabs and Jews.”

Two presidential envoys confirmed Ibn Saud’s fierce antisemitism and anti-Zionism to Roosevelt. In 1943, General Patrick Hurley conveyed Ibn Saud’s opposition to a Zionist state and quoted the Saudi king declaring: “I hate the Jews more than anyone. My religion and my Islamic belief make it inevitable that I should.” Roosevelt got a similar report that year from Lieutenant Colonel Harold Hoskins. Churchill was informed of both these reports, but noted, when rebuffing a Foreign Office request to meet Hoskins: “My opinions on this question are the result of long reflection and are not likely to undergo any change.”

Roosevelt, who enjoyed the overwhelming support of American Jews in all his elections, remained less enthusiastic about Zionism, and about Jews in general. In the 1944 campaign, the Republican political convention endorsed a strong pro-Zionist plank, and the Democrats, with Roosevelt’s support, followed with the same. But as Cordell Hull, Roosevelt’s secretary of state, noted, “In general the President at times talked both ways to Zionists and Arabs, besieged as he was by each camp.”

Having just won his fourth term, Roosevelt seemingly was not overly concerned about American Jewish opinion. Instead, Roosevelt and other U.S. officials were increasingly preoccupied with Saudi Arabia’s promising petroleum potential as American energy reserves appeared to be in decline. He still hoped and felt confident he could convince Ibn Saud to come to some agreement on Zionism, even as the State Department informed him that the Zionist issue inhibited friendly U.S.-Arab relations. Ibn Saud made clear his frame of mind when he told a U.S. delegation a few days before the Yalta conference, “If America should choose in favor of the Jews, who are accursed in the Koran as enemies of the Muslims until the end of the world, it will indicate to us that America has repudiated her friendship with us and this we should regret. The choice, however, is for America.”

Asked by Stalin at Yalta if he intended to make concessions to Ibn Saud at their upcoming meeting, Roosevelt said he might offer to give the Saudi leader the 6 million Jews in the United States. (One journalist writing in these pages argued Roosevelt was keen that Jews be settled thinly across the world.) Roosevelt made other antisemitic jokes during the war to Churchill, who didn’t reciprocate.

When Roosevelt and Ibn Saud finally met on the USS Quincy on Feb. 14, 1945, Roosevelt set an accommodating tone by suspending his chain-smoking in Ibn Saud’s presence, in accordance to the Saudi king’s preference. According to his translator, the ardently pro-Saudi U.S. minister to Saudi Arabia, William Eddy, who remains one of the primary sources for what transpired, Roosevelt expressed hope that Arab countries would permit 10,000 European Jews to immigrate into Palestine after the war. Ibn Saud flatly rejected even that small request, noting, “Arabs and the Jews could never cooperate, neither in Palestine, nor in any other country.” He blamed Arab-Jewish turmoil in Palestine solely on Jewish immigration and Jews purchasing land.

Roosevelt then tried ingratiation. He reacted positively to Ibn Saud’s recommendation that surviving European Jews return to their homes or move to Axis countries, with the president noting there was now a lot of space in Poland after 3 million Jews had been killed by the Germans. According to U.S. minutes of the meeting, Roosevelt also “wished to assure His Majesty that he would do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and would make no move hostile to the Arab people.” The president further distanced himself from pro-Zionist remarks made by other U.S. politicians and suggested the Arabs do a better job of making their case because “many people in America and England are misinformed.”

The president also confirmed British suspicions by disparaging America’s close wartime ally and now growing rival for Middle Eastern oil. Roosevelt reportedly told Ibn Saud, “You and I want freedom and prosperity for our people and their neighbors after the war. How and by whose hand freedom and prosperity arrive concerns us but little. The English also work and sacrifice to bring freedom and prosperity to the world, but on the condition that it be brought by them and marked ‘Made in Britain.’” Ibn Saud later told U.S. Minister Eddy, “Never have I heard the English so accurately described.” Ibn Saud was understandably ecstatic after this meeting and told a prominent sheikh upon his return to Saudi Arabia, “The high point of my entire life is my meeting with President Roosevelt.”

Roosevelt gave conflicting reports of his meeting and the conclusions he drew, based on his audience. He told his friend, the American Jewish investor Bernard Baruch, and Rabbi Stephen Wise, that he did not like Ibn Saud and was displeased with the meeting. Yet he also told the anti-Zionist Hoskins that he was unimpressed with Jewish development of Palestine beyond the coastal plain (which he observed from his airplane), that the more numerous Arabs in Palestine and neighboring lands would triumph over the Palestinian Jews, and that he supported a State Department draft plan for making Palestine an international territory for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Perhaps most definitive was his off-the-cuff, post-trip assessment to Congress: “On the problem of Arabia I learned more about that whole problem, the Moslem problem, the Jewish problem, by talking with Ibn Saud for five minutes than I could have learned in the exchange of two or three dozen letters.”

Roosevelt’s appeasement of Ibn Saud completely undercut whatever Churchill sought from the Saudi leader. Three days after the USS Quincy meeting, Churchill arrived in Egypt and drove to meet and host Ibn Saud at a desert oasis hotel for lunch. Churchill immediately raised the issue of the Saudi king’s opposition to smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol in his presence. Churchill records telling Ibn Saud with his characteristic humor, “I must point out that my rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.” That likely didn’t go over well with the fundamentalist Muslim leader.

At risk of compromising some of Britain’s interests in Saudi oil, Churchill pressed Ibn Saud to accept a Jewish state, apparently along the lines of the federation scheme that he had promoted since 1941, even though the Morrison committee did not emphasize Ibn Saud’s role. Churchill reported to the War Cabinet that he “pleaded the case of the Jews with His Majesty but without, he [Churchill] thought, making a great deal of impression, Ibn Saud quoting the Koran on the other side, but he [Churchill] had not failed to impress upon the King the importance which we attached to this question.” Understandably, Churchill did not want to belabor his failed meeting with Ibn Saud in his War Cabinet report.

We learn more about the meeting from Ibn Saud’s account to the American envoy Eddy, Hoskins’ cousin, who later worked for the Arabian oil company Aramco. In this telling, Churchill was “confidently wielding the big stick. Great Britain had supported and subsidized me for twenty years, and had made possible the stability of my reign by fending off potential enemies on my frontiers. Since Britain had seen me through difficult days, she is entitled now to request my assistance in the problem of Palestine where a strong Arab leader can restrain fanatical Arab elements, insist on moderation in Arab councils, and effect a realistic compromise with Zionism.” Ibn Saud asserted Churchill was demanding “an act of treachery to the Prophet and all believing Muslims which would wipe out my honor and destroy my soul. I could not acquiesce in a compromise with Zionism much less take any initiative. Furthermore, I pointed out, that even in the preposterous event that I were willing to do so, it would not be a favor to Britain, since promotion of Zionism from any quarter must indubitably bring bloodshed, wide-spread disorder in the Arab lands, with certainly no benefit to Britain or anyone else. By this time Mr. Churchill had laid the big stick down.”

Churchill thought he could leverage what he considered Ibn Saud’s obligation to him and Britain; believed a British-supported Arab confederation headed by Saudi Arabia would offer an important inducement; and, perhaps most importantly, hoped that Roosevelt would press the Zionist cause. The Saudi king was unimpressed with past British support, as Britain continued to support his Hashemite rivals in Transjordan and Iraq, and embraced the ascendant United States over the descendant Britain. Meanwhile, the ailing American president had other goals, and sold out the Jews, and the British, to appease the Saudi leader.

Of course, even if Ibn Saud was inclined to agree to Churchill’s proposal, it is unclear if it would have mattered much. The Saudi leader had little money (the petrodollars did not roll in until after the war) and only a weak hold over the religious tribes across the vast Arabian desert, let alone over Palestinian Arabs, whom Churchill hoped the Saudi leader would restrain. It might have been more practical for Churchill to focus on achieving American support for a Jewish state, and then impose it on the Palestinian Arabs and the region, as he was willing to do for years. But he was wedded to the 1920s’ pan-Arab views of many British officials, even though the Arabs had become more fractured, and less accommodating to Zionism and Britain. But, again, U.S. support was lacking. For Roosevelt, the budding relationship with Saudi Arabia came first.

Churchill’s wartime quest to ensure a postwar Jewish state had failed. Several months later in July 1945, he wrote to some British officials, “I am not aware of the slightest advantage which has ever accrued to Great Britain from this painful and thankless task.” He wanted the United States to deal with Palestine, thus extracting Britain from the challenging situation while pulling America into the Mediterranean.

Eight decades later, even with waning influence and appetite, America has become an even more critical country for regional peace and stability than it was in 1945. The Jewish state, which was founded in 1948, has become, as Churchill (and very few others) projected, a strong military, cultural, and economic force closely aligned with the United States and the West. Equally dramatic, Saudi Arabia’s current de facto leader, 37-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, is trying to modernize the country, moderate its Islamic orientation, liberalize the role of women, and diversify the state’s reliance on oil revenue. And, as authoritative Saudi leaders told me and colleagues last year, MBS is prepared to normalize relations with Israel, with which his country now has many fundamental common strategic, security, and economic interests—if, critically, he gets certain U.S. guarantees related to security, weapons, and a restoration of close bilateral relations. And there’s the rub: America is now, alas, chilly to the Saudis, disengaged, fearful of conflict and still keen for an Iran nuclear deal that threatens Saudi Arabia’s and Israel’s existence.

U.S. ambivalence, flawed thinking, or worse, contributed in the 1940s to delays and complications in the establishment of a Jewish state and in the search for Israel-Arab entente. Ibn Saud’s vehement anti-Zionism certainly influenced the U.S. attitude. But nearly 80 years later, with large parts of the Arab world increasingly looking for some kind of accommodation with Israel, and the de facto Saudi leader declaring his readiness to normalize relations, it would be tragic indeed if American ambivalence, or faulty thinking, again contributed to a failure to achieve entente between the world’s only Jewish state and the world’s leading Arab power.

Michael Makovsky, PhD is President and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), and author of Churchill’s Promised Land (Yale University Press).

Originally published in Tablet Magazine.

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