The way to “improve our image” is to exercise our power

Posted on October 21, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

The UNESCO resolution which referred to Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem by their Muslim names alone that passed this week made me think that we – the State of Israel – are taking the wrong path, at least if the destination is to survive and thrive.

The implication of the resolution is to deny the connection of the Jewish people to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. Despite our attachment to them, the resolution suggests that the sites ‘belong’ to Islam.

I am not going to discuss the historical or archaeological evidence, or the religious traditions in Judaism, Christianity or even Islam that the resolution contradicts. Rather, I am concerned with the political implications; what we can learn from it about our position in the world and our possible diplomatic and even military strategies.

There are 58 nations on UNESCO’s board, and 56 of them voted. Six opposed the resolution: Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States. 23 voted in favor, and 27 abstained (Mexico changed its vote before the final approval from in favor to abstain). All the Muslim-majority nations that voted were in favor except Chad and Guinea, which abstained. To Israel’s chagrin, the ‘advanced’ European nations of France, Italy and Spain abstained on a resolution which many saw as an expression of pure Jew-hatred.

Despite the recent improvement in relations between Israel and Egypt, including military cooperation, Egypt not only voted for the resolution but was also one of the seven Arab nations that proposed it. And apparently Israel’s “close” ties with Russia did not carry over to this arena, where Russia too voted for it.

In April, UNESCO passed a very similar resolution. The same six countries voted against it, but then there were 33 in favor and only seven abstentions. The changed votes were probably due to feverish lobbying by Israel, possibly with some help from friendly countries. I am not sure why there was less public indignation in April – probably because the vote was so unbalanced as to be embarrassing.

What are the lessons to be learned from this?

One is that while we might be successful in cooperating with some Muslim nations in limited ways on limited issues, there is unlikely to be an ideological breakthrough. Where the legitimacy of a Jewish state on ‘Muslim land’ (which happens to include all of our country) is concerned, there can be no compromise, even if there might be pragmatic – and temporary – acceptance. The day that Egypt will not be poisoned by Jew-hatred is far off.

Another is that, at least in the international forums associated with the UN, we can’t win. It is not paranoia to say that there they are “all against us” with only a few exceptions (and those exceptions are not guaranteed). This does not augur well for the UN Security Council resolution that is expected to be proposed immediately after the American elections to outlaw Israeli settlements across the Green Line.

We can also note the degree of cynicism – or perhaps extreme anti-Zionism or even Jew-hatred – that would cause a country like France, Spain or Italy, with a Christian tradition, to in essence deny the connection between the Jewish people and the historical Temple. From where do they believe Jesus threw out the money-changers? A mosque, some 600 years prior to Mohammad? It is not as though they were not aware of the implications of abstaining – our diplomats made sure that they did understand.

All this is just  more evidence, as if more is needed, against the strategy of accommodation, the idea that if Israel would be a good “world citizen,” then its conflicts will end. Ha’aretz, in a typical editorial following the vote, said that improving Israel’s standing in the world will require “meaningful steps to moderate the occupation and serious negotiations to establish Palestine.” Really? Do you think that any such “steps” short of total surrender will satisfy the Muslim world, which almost unanimously believes that Jews have no rights to any land in the Middle East? We allowed Hamas to “establish Palestine” in Gaza, and the result is plain to see.

Yes, we need a better-organized Foreign Ministry, better direct diplomacy and better hasbara. But those things will not change the basic dimensions of the problem, which can be defined as follows: they are (more or less) all against us, and the reason is that we are Jews in a world where we are a tiny minority, non-Muslims in a Muslim region; we are considered “European colonialists” despite our truly indigenous status and the fact that half of us are not from Europe; and we are nationalists in a world where nationalism is only permitted to “people of color.”

Trying to convince the world that this isn’t so, especially through international institutions where Sudan, for example, has the same vote as the US or the UK, is not a workable strategy. Trying to be a good citizen isn’t enough, because what they demand as proof of our goodness we can’t afford to give (as Ayaan Hirsi Ali is reported to have said “even if you give them Jerusalem, there will be no peace”).

But trying to do these impossible things not only fails, it has a negative impact. Begging the world to recognize that Jerusalem belongs to us implies that we aren’t strong enough to hold onto it. Keeping Jews from praying on the Temple Mount implies that it is not ours at all.

The only strategy that might succeed is one that calls for the exercise of power. We should use our power – and we have more economic, political and military power now than at any time in the past – to hurt our enemies and help our friends. A straightforward application of power is the best way to achieve our security and other goals, as well as to “improve our image” in the only way that counts: to make our friends trust us and our enemies fear us (the American President might do well to learn this lesson too).

We are not doing this when, as the strongest military power in the region, we allow Hezbollah to establish deterrence that constrains our actions. We are not doing this when, as a sovereign state, we allow our foreign enemies to pump millions of dollars into subversive organizations here, or to interfere in our elections. And we are not doing it when we allow Muslims more rights on the Temple Mount than Jews.

Updated [21 Oct 2016 1211 IDT] for clarity and to fix typos.

Posted in Information war, Middle East politics, The UN | 3 Comments

UNESCOs moral infirmity

Posted on October 18, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions. – Abba Eban

What’s next? A UNESCO decision denying the connection between peanut butter and jelly? Batman and Robin? Rock and roll? – Binyamin Netanyahu

או”מ שמום  (UN, shmoo-en) – David Ben Gurion

It seems like everyone in the country is talking about the Palestinian-prompted UNESCO resolution which calls the Temple Mount and Western Wall only by their Muslim designations, implying that there is no Jewish connection to these sites. Not only does the phrase “Temple Mount” not appear, but the document refers to the “Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif,” suggesting that the entire Mount is part of or identical to a mosque.

Israelis have responded with wall-to-wall condemnation of the resolution; even Israel Radio’s pre-holiday music program played numerous songs about Jerusalem, which the DJ carefully noted were “dedicated to UNESCO.” The resolution crossed a red line, the one that separates the supposed “political criticism of Israel” from outright Jew-hatred, although everybody knows that unofficially that line was crossed long ago. But people are angry, and want action. They don’t want to hear, yet again, “it’s the UN, what do you expect?” The feeling is that we don’t have to take this abuse, not the physical abuse of terrorism and not the delegitimization that pours from the “international community” on a continuous basis. We know that the purpose of delegitimization is to set the stage for the destruction of our state and the Jewish nation.

The reality and importance of the connection of Jerusalem and the holy sites to the Jewish people doesn’t need to be proven; no one halfway literate can honestly ignore the historical and archaeological evidence; no one can deny that the texts of Judaism and Christianity – and even Islam for that matter – refer to the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Only “Palestinians,” a people that created itself with the help of Soviet psychological warfare experts some 50 or so years ago, have ever had the chutzpah to say that all this is false.

But we know what to expect from “Palestinians,” masters of the made-up narrative, inventors of “Pallywood.” We are not surprised that Pakistan, Iran, etc. voted for it. What is harder to understand is why, out of 56 nations voting on the UNESCO resolution, only 6 – Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States – voted against it. Among the 26 abstentions were Italy, France and Spain, countries surely familiar with the history and traditions surrounding the Jewish Temple. Are we to believe that these countries, with their Christian traditions, didn’t understand the significance of the resolution?

And those who voted for it, including some countries that recently had supposedly improved their relations with Israel significantly, like India, Russia and China – or Chad, where the Director-General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry traveled in July to meet with its President – don’t they understand that their vote is more than a conventional and unexceptional slap at Israel, but a viciously anti-Jewish act? Are they really historically illiterate enough to believe the implication of the resolution, which is that the Jewish people have no connection – and even more, no right – to their holiest places?

I don’t think all of the abstainers or those who voted ‘yes’ are too ignorant to understand this. Certainly they get it in France, Spain and Italy! The explanation has to be that arguments against the resolution from Israel and the US, were counteracted by pressure to vote for it. But pressure from whom?

Not the “Palestinians,” who have no persuasive leverage. I think the most likely main culprit is Iran itself, which today unashamedly carries the banner of Hitlerist Jew-hatred in the world. Iran is selling large quantities of oil in the Far East, and the slavering greed of Europe to do business in the newly-unsanctioned Iran is well-documented. Russia (the folks who gave us the word ‘pogrom’) is now allied with Iran in the Syrian war, and perhaps prefers not to strain relations with it.

Today, the delegitimization of Israel, combined with the promulgation of “traditional” Jew-hatred, is a major project of Iran, which incidentally also finances much of the physical terrorism carried out against Israel. Iran also created and supports Hizballah, today Israel’s major conventional military threat.

Regardless of the pressure that may have been exerted, the fact that many “culturally advanced” nations could take part in an expression of pure Jew-hatred, which they must have understood as such, tells us much about the lack of moral backbone of their leaders – and must be a warning to us for the future.

The resolution is scheduled to come up for final approval in UNESCO’s Executive Board today (Tuesday). Although UNESCO’s Director-General, Irina Bokova, and other staff members oppose it, it is hard to imagine enough votes changing to result in a different outcome. The pressure from Iran will not let up regardless of what “moral” arguments are made.

I expect that a few more votes might be moved from “for” to “abstain,” and a few abstainers switch to the opposition, but it will pass. We can expect similar challenges in the near future.

Why is this happening? Part of it is our failure to use our power to obtain diplomatic objectives, and part is that we have never succeeded in maintaining a positive image of Israel in the world public. Both our direct diplomacy and our “public diplomacy” or “hasbara” efforts have been failing for years.

This is a massive screw-up, and there isn’t a simple solution. Our Foreign Ministry is in disarray. The Director-General just quit for unspecified “personal reasons,” and we haven’t had a Foreign Minister in some time (the PM is in charge of it in addition to his other duties). The Europeans and Iran spend heavily on anti-Israel propaganda and subversion, while our public diplomacy budget is minuscule.

Fixing this is a long-term task, which will require attention at the highest levels of government. But a response to UNESCO’s challenge is needed now. Israel has a responsibility, not just to itself, but to the Jewish people of whom it aspires to be the protector, to force  UNESCO members to override this resolution with another that explicitly recognizes the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and its holy sites.

Israel has leverage – what about the technology that the PM has recently promised to African nations? What about the natural gas that is about to become available? What about security and counterterrorism cooperation? Egypt, that is struggling with our help against Da’esh and the Muslim Brotherhood, is taking a leading role in promoting this resolution. Why shouldn’t it have to pay a price?

The muscles are there. Flex them. And then begin to make the changes to our diplomatic apparatus that will prevent us from being blindsided like this in the future.

Posted in Information war, Israel and Palestinian Arabs, The UN | 3 Comments

No more carrots

Posted on October 14, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

Two Israelis – a beloved grandmother and a young policeman, married only a few months – were murdered and six wounded in Jerusalem on Sunday, by a Palestinian terrorist. This isn’t surprising, since 42 Israelis have been killed and some 500 wounded in similar attacks over the past year. Jerusalem has been the focus of many of these attacks, only exceeded by Judea and Samaria.

For some reason, this particular attack made us furious. People have had enough, not that murder is ever acceptable. That’s it, we are saying, we won’t take it anymore. It must not be that Jews can’t walk the streets of our cities without fearing that they will be shot, stabbed or run down. We want something done, something more than just placing more police and soldiers on the street.

Meir Turgeman, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem spoke for many:

“We have reached the moment of truth. Let’s put all the cards on the table: the people in eastern Jerusalem want to kill us and destroy us. Why should we give them yet another opportunity?” Turgeman said in an interview with Radio Jerusalem, calling on Jerusalem Arabs to take responsibility.

“We lived under the false hopes that these people would change their animal-like behavior if we help them. But it turns out that nothing helps. Why do people have to die in Jerusalem? Where is that written? Who said it?” he added.

“We need to take responsibility here. And I’m going to set an example. I removed all construction plans in eastern Jerusalem from the agenda [of the planning and building committee]. I cancelled all the plans. They say stick and carrot, but there are no more carrots, only sticks,” Turgeman said.

Mayor Nir Barkat said that he hadn’t been consulted and that the statement didn’t represent city policy, but my guess is that the Jewish population of Jerusalem overwhelmingly agrees with Turgeman.

One of the key aspects of the wave of terrorism is the degree of support for it by the Palestinian leadership and the population, both in the territories and in Jerusalem:

Hamas referred to the terrorist as its “son” who “died a martyr.” The group called the attack “heroic” and “a normal reply to the crimes of the Israeli occupation.” In a Facebook post, Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, also praised Abu Sbeih: “The one who carried out the operation today in Jerusalem is a pilgrim [to Mecca] martyr, one of the most prominent people in Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and a released prisoner.” The Jerusalem branch of Fatah called for a general strike “in Jerusalem in memory of the souls of the martyrs of Palestine and this morning’s martyr.” Abu Sbeih’s teenage daughter said in a video, “We deem my father as martyr…I am proud of what my father did. We’re very happy and proud of our father.” Hamas handed out candy and baklava in celebration of the attack and sweets were passed out in East Jerusalem as well.

Incitement to violence by the Palestinian leadership has driven an ongoing wave of terrorism for the past year, which has killed 42 Israelis and wounded more than 500. Fatah boasted in August that it has “killed 11,000 Israelis.” Abbas praised a Jordanian who was shot while attempting to stab Israeli Border Police officers as a “martyr” in a condolence letter to his family last month. He has consistently refused to condemn acts of terrorism. A senior adviser to Abbas stated this past June, “Wherever you find an Israeli, slit his throat.” When a Palestinian terrorist went on a stabbing spree in Jaffa that killed American army veteran Taylor Force in March, the PA’s official TV news station called the terrorist responsible a “martyr” and on Twitter, Abbas’s Fatah party hailed him as a “martyr” and a “hero.” Last February, Abbas met with families of terrorists who carried out attacks against Israelis, telling them: “Your sons are martyrs.

Social media is even more aggressive and insistent with its incitement. In fact, Sunday’s terrorist (who, I am happy to report, died in the firefight with police he provoked) had been imprisoned for inciting murder on Facebook.

The PA also does its part by paying large salaries to the families of jailed terrorists. Bomb-maker Abdallah Barghouti, serving 67 life sentences for the bombing of the Sbarro pizza restaurant and others, has received about $150,000. Amjad Awad, one of the cousins who slaughtered the Fogel family, received $23,000. This has become such a scandal that even the usually supportive government of the UK is having second thoughts about continuing to fund the PA.

So what to do? Deputy Mayor Turgeman had some ideas, including deporting supporters of terrorism to Gaza and unilaterally divesting of some of the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan says that the social networks must do more to remove inciting posts. Others have suggested blocking social media in the PA and Arab neighborhoods (I don’t know if this is technically feasible).

It seems to me that before anything else, the educational and media system set up by Yasser Arafat that produces generation after generation of Palestinians who are little more than walking, protoplasmic containers for the most vicious anger and hatred – e.g., Abu Sbeih’s daughter or any of the several 13-year olds that have tried to murder Israelis – must be ended. The PA has promised to stop incitement on several occasions since the Oslo accords created it, but they have never done anything, since they understand that “popular resistance” – murder carried out by ordinary citizens with no centralized control – is one of their best weapons. Perhaps this will require ending the reigns of the PA and Hamas.

In the face of this, the Israeli Left, as personified by the Ha’aretz newspaper, displays its remarkable, even psychotic, disconnect with reality. “Instead of understanding that only bold moves to end the occupation are likely to reduce the violence, Netanyahu is turning Israel into a hopeless place that endangers the lives of its people,” they write, in an editorial published Monday. It continues,

The government’s consistent blocking of any option for a diplomatic process, at the end of which a glimmer of hope for an agreement might emerge, is what’s causing the feelings of suffocation and frustration, and later the barbaric acts like Sunday’s attack.

If you ask them, the Palestinians will tell you that what suffocates and frustrates them is the presence of Jews between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. Nothing makes this clearer than their refusal to accept offers of almost all the land outside of the Green Line for a sovereign state, while they refuse to admit that even the pre-1967 Israel belongs to the Jewish people, and demand to flood it with Arab ‘refugees’. Anyone who doubts this need only look at their maps of ‘Palestine’, pay attention to what their leaders say in Arabic, or the Palestinian in the street tells pollsters. What would an “agreement,” as Ha’aretz demands, with these people be worth?

This should have been obvious to everyone since the terror attacks of the mid-1990’s, and if not then, from the Second Intifada, and if not then, from the Hamas takeover of Gaza and consequent rocket attacks, and if not then, from the currently ongoing “popular resistance.” But for Ha’aretz and its ilk, all the violence just means that we havn’t been bold enough in our concessions, even though every concession has brought more violence.

I don’t know precisely what the solution is, but I can say for certain that it won’t be found in trying to make things better for the Palestinians or giving them hope, because what they hope for is our destruction. The answer lies in the opposite direction, in “bold moves” to increase, not decrease, our control of the land of Israel, and to reduce its Arab population.

As far as ending terrorism is concerned, Turgeman had the right idea: no more carrots, only sticks.

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Terrorism | Comments Off on No more carrots

Goodbye, Barack

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

At last, after eight long years during which Barack Obama a) applied almost unrelenting pressure on Israel, much more obsessively than anything else he did, and b) taught us the painful truth about American liberal Jews – that for them, Israel is just another foreign country – he is leaving the White House. What comes next could be better or worse, but who here won’t be happy to see his particularly offensive brand of hypocrisy and hostility disappear?

But the game isn’t over until January 20, and soon there will be nothing to restrain him from acting on his obsession.

Last Wednesday, the State Department issued a press release in which it “strongly condemn[ed]” Israel’s plan to build 98 homes inside an existing settlement in order to house families that will be displaced by the demolition of another settlement, which has been ordered by Israel’s Supreme Court.

“Strongly condemn” is language normally used for terrorism or, for example, Russian and Syrian air strikes on hospitals in which dozens of civilians die.

The State Department claimed that Israel was violating its assurances to the US that it would not build “new settlements.” Israeli officials called the statement “disproportionate” and argued that it was neither a “new settlement” nor an obstacle to peace.

Administration lackeys like the New York Times and J Street echoed the criticism. The Times, in language that could have been (and probably was) written by NSC staffer and Obama confidant Ben Rhodes, blasted Israel and called for a Security Council resolution to “set guidelines” for Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. An administration official said that “the White House boiled with anger” (more Rhodesian rhetoric) over Israel’s plan.

The flap created anxiety in Israel that Obama plans to refrain from vetoing a Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal or take some other anti-Israel action once the election is over and he is insulated from any electoral consequences.

Dear Barack Obama,

I am tired of your crap and so is my country.

This isn’t the first time – maybe the fourth or fifth – that you and your friends have manufactured a crisis, some horrible “insult” so that you can “boil with anger” and then pressure Israel in one way or another. Do you really think anyone outside of your echo chamber actually believes that freezing construction in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem will cause the Palestinians to suddenly agree to the existence of a Jewish state anywhere from the Jordan to the Mediterranean? Poor old Mahmoud Abbas merely attended the funeral of a Jewish leader, indeed, the one that brought him and his vicious PLO back from exile to go on the murder spree that continues even today, and his people are ready to lynch him.

Anyway, 81-year old Abbas, who just underwent a heart procedure, is about to leave the stage and his unpopular Palestinian Authority is disintegrating. Hamas is waiting in the wings. So we should trade land for paper with these people?

The other day Bibi Netyanyahu finally called a spade a spade and noted that the Palestinians were calling for ethnic cleansing, like the Jordanians carried out in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem in 1948. Oh, you went ballistic, “livid” and “seething.” How dare we, colonialist Jews, appropriate the language owned by “people of color?”

Your continuing unjustified obsession with Jews living across the Green Line illustrates the blatant double standard that you apply to Israel. And not just about settlements. I am still waiting to hear that you are “boiling” or “furious” or “seething” or “livid” or whatever at real war criminals Putin and Assad, not to mention your Iranian friends who play you for the fool day in and day out. Where are your anger-management issues when we need them?

I don’t think that you believe your own talking points. You know damn well that they are bullshit. You want Israel as weak and vulnerable as possible so that she can’t fight back when they try to wipe her off the map. Your dislike of Israel is both personal and political. You are happy trying to help your Palestinian friends achieve their hearts’ desire of finally getting rid of the Jews. Back in 2003 your friend, former PLO operative Rashid Khalidi, promised Palestinian-Americans at a dinner party where you spoke that “You will not have a better senator under any circumstances.” Did you also promise them something?

Your anger is obviously carefully scripted, but it won’t make us do what you want. Maybe some psychologist told you that that’s how to deal with Jews, but that approach has been outdated for the past 68 years or so. And don’t bother yelling at our PM, a former combat soldier twice wounded in action. You don’t scare him, and Israel is not interested in committing suicide in order to help you keep your promises.

The State Department’s condemnation of Israel mentioned the $38 billion military aid package and suggested a linkage between it and Israel’s “decision [to build 98 homes] so contrary to its long term security interest in a peaceful resolution of its conflict with the Palestinians.” You should know that many of us think that accepting aid creates an unhealthy dependence, and would like to see it phased out. But if you get really boiling mad, livid, furious and seething, then go ahead and cut us off (if Congress and your defense contractors will let you). It will be painful like any cold turkey detox treatment, but we’ll survive and come out stronger and safer.

It will be a fine day here in the Middle East when you climb into that helicopter on the White House lawn for the last time and fly off into retirement. My advice is not to get too angry at your golf clubs, because it will only hurt your game.

Sincerely,
Abu Yehuda

Posted in American politics, US-Israel Relations | 2 Comments

Who’s afraid of the Minister of Sport and Culture?

Posted on October 7, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

Recently, as seems to happen on a regular basis, rumors spread about the Yitzhak Herzog’s Zionist Union (Labor + Tzipi Livni) party joining Netanyahu’s government. Supposedly there were negotiations over the Rosh Hashana holiday, and the deal was said to include eight ministerial portfolios for the center-left ZU, including the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Sport and Culture post that is currently held by the Likud’s Miri Regev.

Both sides denied it, which only means that if there were discussions they did not come to a conclusion – yet. Herzog pointed out that he couldn’t have been negotiating since he had spent the last four hours in the synagogue. Given that there are 24 hours in a day and several days that can reasonably be called the “holiday weekend,” this is a remarkably weak argument.

Last week Netanyahu asked some members of his cabinet how they would feel about adding the ZU. The ones who were present didn’t voice any objections, although Naftali Bennett of the Beit Yehudi party and Avigdor Lieberman of Israel Beiteinu, who might be likely to object, weren’t there.

There were several different stories about how the portfolios would be distributed, but in all of them Regev gets a new job. One wonders why “Sport and Culture” is so important – one would think the Foreign Ministry is much more significant, and normally it would be. But there are two special circumstances: first, Netanyahu runs foreign policy himself no matter who the minister is (as Lieberman found out when he was FM in the previous government); and second, the ZU is really interested in putting an end to the culture war being waged against them by the tough-as-nails Regev. Moving her out is doubtless one of their conditions for a deal.

In Israel, most artistic and cultural activities – art, music, theater, film – get subsidies from the government. From before the founding of the state, these areas were dominated by the Left, specifically a narrow, politically extreme segment of the old Tel Aviv Ashkenazi elite. They get the grants, run the theater groups, make the films, write the reviews, teach the courses, and give each other the prizes. Although the Left’s Knesset representation has been on a steady decline since the historic victory of Menachem Begin in 1977, its control of the cultural establishment is still solid.

Current Israeli films tend to reflect the world-view of the artistic elite. Many are anti-war and even anti-Israeli; some are pro-Palestinian/anti-occupation, and those that are not explicitly political are often about deviance and dysfunctionality in Israeli society. Naturally, foreign audiences eat up anything negative about Israel, and they often win prizes at European film festivals; but they don’t do that well here outside of North Tel Aviv.

Regev is definitely not one of the elite, and doesn’t share their values. A former army spokesperson who achieved the rank of Brigadier General in the IDF and has a Master’s degree in business administration, she was born in “development town” Kiryat Gat to parents who immigrated from Morocco. The left-wing champions of tolerance who care so much for Arabs and illegal African migrants hate her passionately.

In several high-profile cases she used her position to withhold government funds – in one case to a theater that produced a play whose protagonist was a terrorist who committed a murder, in another to a group that would not perform in the territories. Recently, as the presenter of the Ophir Awards (Israel’s equivalent to the Oscars), she walked out of the auditorium after an Arab actor and rapper read a poem by Palestinian “national poet” Mahmoud Darwish that included the lines

But if I starve
I will eat my oppressor’s flesh
Beware, beware of my starving
And my rage

Later, she returned and explained to the booing, rowdy audience that she intended to appoint a committee to “examine the management of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television as well as funding for films.”

Regev is pushing hard on the content of radio and television programs too. She feels that taxpayer money should not be used to support artistic endeavors that are anti-Israel. Her opponents insist that she is “anti-democratic” and “suppressing free speech,” to which she replies that they can speak all they want as long as the country isn’t paying for it. As you can probably guess, I’m on her side.

Although I have no inside knowledge of the discussions that may or may not be going on between Netanyahu and Herzog, I would guess that there are other ministers that the ZU would like to see sidelined. Both Naftali Bennett (Minister of Education) and Ayelet Shaked (Minister of Law), of the right-of-center Beit Hayehudi party, have consistently irked the establishments that have controlled their respective areas forever, just like the arts. In particular, Shaked wants to limit the power of the very activist, left-leaning Israeli Supreme Court.

What would Netanyahu gain from doing this? After bringing in Lieberman’s party, he has a coalition of 67, much better than the one-seat majority of 61 that he started with. One theory is that he expects Barack Obama to support  a coercive resolution in the UN Security Council, and he wants to head it off by establishing a “regional commission” with several Arab states in order to restart talks with the Palestinians. Bibi knows, says the theory, that some of the right-wing members of the government will quit if he talks about relinquishing territory, and so he wants to add a number of ZU people as a cushion for his majority.

This brings me to the main criticism that many people on the Right make against Netanyahu, that he is so focused on staying in power and so ideologically flexible as to lack any ideology – or any plan other than to improvise. There’s some truth in this, but on the other hand, his supporters may believe that the opposition is so dangerously naïve and incompetent that perhaps keeping him in power really is top priority.

Regev was one of the top vote-getters in the Likud primary, number 5 on their list, so whatever happens she will be a minister in the government if she wishes. But I admit that I will be very sorry if she doesn’t keep her position as the nemesis of the egotistical, narcissistic, decadent and not-as-talented-as-they-think cultural establishment.

Posted in Israeli Politics, Israeli Society | 1 Comment

The White House crosses out Israel

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

This is at the same time laughable and insulting. The White House issued a press release about Barack Obama’s speech at the funeral of Shimon Peres. The funeral was held at the cemetery on Mt. Herzl in western Jerusalem, and the press release initially noted that it was in “Jerusalem, Israel.”

Now, for some reason it is a conceit of the White House and State Department that none of Jerusalem, both the western part that has been under Israel’s continuous control since 1948 and the eastern part that was occupied by Jordan from 1948-67, belongs to Israel. Perhaps this dates back to the partition resolution of 1947 – which was never implemented because it was rejected by the Arabs – that suggested that Jerusalem should not be part of either an Arab or a Jewish state, but rather should be placed under UN control.

In any event, the White House felt that it was unacceptable to let the “error” in its press release stand, so it issued a “correction” – with the word ‘Israel’ crossed out.

Photo courtesy of Brian of London

Photo courtesy of Brian of London

Yes, I know. That’s the convention for press releases. But you know, here in Israel we are a little sensitive about being crossed out, or not appearing on maps, or even being wiped off maps. And after all these years that Jerusalem has been our capital – since 1948 – don’t you think the White House and State Department ought to face reality?

That isn’t even all. In whatever country he thought he was in, Barack Obama gave a speech. Here is just a little bit of what he said:

Out of the hardships of the diaspora, [Peres] found room in his heart for others who suffered. He came to hate prejudice with the passion of one who knows how it feels to be its target. Even in the face of terrorist attacks, even after repeated disappointments at the negotiation table, he insisted that as human beings, Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews, and must therefore be equal in self-determination. [my emphasis]

In other words, according to Barack Obama, the reason the Palestinian Arabs do not have a state is that we are prejudiced. Racists. Apartheid-niks. With Obama, it always comes down to this. The guy who grew up in a privileged family, who went to the best schools and universities, who was elected to national political office with the absolute minimum of qualifications, has a massive racial chip on his shoulder.

Never mind that the Palestinian Arabs want to create a state that will have no Jews in it, or that they insist that there is no such thing as a Jewish people (from the representative of a ‘people’ whose peoplehood dates to the 1960s), or that their media makes a habit of inciting their youth to go out and stab or run over Jews. Nope, no prejudice here – just “frustration” and “despair” that they haven’t been able to realize their “dreams,” which happen to be about killing Jews and taking their country.

One wonders if it might be possible to take the President and State Department – which as far as I know do not refuse to recognize the capital of any other country in the world –  more seriously when they talk about prejudice if they stopped applying their offensive double standard to Israel.

Posted in US-Israel Relations | 3 Comments

Foreign leaders eulogize Peres – for the wrong reason

Posted on September 30, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

As I write, the funeral for Shimon Peres is in progress at Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem.

Numerous “world leaders” like Barack Obama, Prince Charles, Justin Trudeau, Francois Hollande, Bill Clinton, Ban Ki-Moon, Tony Blair, the EU’s Donald Tusk, and many other important and not-so-important personages are there. Even Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah movement demonized Peres as recently as yesterday, is present. Obama will be the last foreign speaker.

The main roads between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv will be closed before and after the event. Many streets in Jerusalem are closed, and traffic on alternate routes is expected to be nightmarish. Hamas has declared today a “day of rage” in honor of “criminal” Peres. I can imagine that every policeman and security person in the country is on duty. Arab and Jewish “extremists” have been preventively detained. The funeral itself will be closed to the Israeli public for security reasons.

I am sure that this is what Peres wanted – enjoying adulation was a weakness of his – but personally, I find it distasteful, even offensive.

The funeral should have been held on the day that he died, as is customary in Judaism. Then it would have been impossible for most of these political celebrities to be here, and that would have been as it should be. The people of Israel who actually care for Peres would have come, the Israelis who know about his tireless work in the 1950s and 60s when he managed the relationship with France that got Israel military hardware that no one else would sell us, when he created the Israeli arms industry and spearheaded the development of Israel’s nuclear deterrent. There are even some that remember and appreciate Peres’ support for the settlement project in the 1970s.

The foreign guests don’t know much about Peres’ contributions to our security, and I suspect he wouldn’t be quite so popular with them if they did. What they admire about him was his leading role in the Oslo Accords, which several commentators have called “the greatest strategic mistake in Israel’s history,” and his continued support of the “peace process,” despite its profound and bloody failure. They are sorry to see him go because he could be used to support their objective of piecemeal dismemberment of the land of Israel.

Future historians will decide whether Peres’ early successes cancel his later disastrous failure. But there is no doubt of his sincerity. He did his almost superhuman best, sacrificing his personal life for his work. He dedicated himself to the state of Israel and the Jewish people. And there is no doubt that many of our guests would like to see that state disappear and that people finally leave the stage of history, which is why they laud Peres’ worst hour as his finest.

I wish they weren’t here, not the ones responsible for the millions that European nations give to subversive Israeli NGOs, or the one who freed Iran to develop nuclear weapons and gave them billions for terrorism. We don’t need to listen to another lecturing, self-serving Obama speech, or to Bill Clinton comparing Shimon Peres to John Lennon. We certainly don’t need more traffic and security headaches.

But all things pass. Later today, the politicians that are praising Peres for the wrong reasons will go home. Hotel guests that were kicked out of their rooms to accommodate their entourages will be able to return, and the traffic jams will finally thin out. Soon it will be Shabbat, and then the Jewish people will mourn their loss among themselves.

Posted in 'Peace' Process, Israeli Politics, Israeli Society | Comments Off on Foreign leaders eulogize Peres – for the wrong reason

Thoughts on the new year

Posted on September 30, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

This week I would like to wish all of my readers the very best possible year, in the personal, spiritual and economic realms. I would like to thank the Elder of Ziyon for the opportunity to appear on his pages, and wish him continued success. And I beg the pardon of those I have offended.

There are also some other people, most of whom are not my readers, for whom I also have wishes. In no particular order, here they are:

For Barack H. Obama, may Hashem (or Allah as the case may be) grant you the humility to understand the mistakes that you have made; and may he keep you from making any more during the coming lame duck period. May you leave Israel alone and work on becoming the next UN Secretary-General.

For Amos Schocken, Gideon Levy, Rogel Alpher, and Amira Hass, may you learn that despite your distaste for the Jewish people and especially the Israeli public, you are and will remain Jews and Israelis, even if you move to Berlin, and there is still time to do tshuvah for your treason. May your ‘newspaper’ line a thousand cat boxes and wrap ten thousand fishes.

For Ari Shavit, may you be healed of the irrational feelings of Jewish guilt that plague you. We belong here, we did what was necessary to keep from being murdered or expelled, and in the words of Naftali Bennett, we don’t need to apologize.

For Liberal American Jews, may you learn that Israel is not the US, Palestinians are not African-Americans, and you really don’t have a clue about how things work here.

For Union for Reform Judaism President Rick Jacobs, may it dawn on you that Israelis are not bothered by threats that your membership will stop supporting Israel, because they know that by and large it already doesn’t.

For the New Israel Fund, may you merge with Peace Now.

For Peace Now, may you merge with J Street.

For J Street, may you merge with Jewish Voice for Peace.

For Jewish Voice for Peace, may you merge with Students for Justice in Palestine.

For Students for Justice in Palestine, may you become recognized as the US campus wing of Hamas.

For Peter Beinart, may you realize in time that you will not be comforted in later life by the realization that you have built a career out of helping the enemies of your people.

For those who have uttered the phrase “only a two-state solution can bring peace,” may you be required to study the Palestinian Media Watch website for an hour a day for the next year.

For Bashar al-Assad, may you be swallowed by the earth and may it close over you without leaving a trace.

For Vladimir Putin, may you start worrying about those Iranian missiles that can reach Moscow.

For Minister Uri Ariel, may you continue to fight for Jews settling the Land of Israel, while leaving the stray cats alone.

For Ehud Barak, may you continue to enjoy your complete retirement from politics.

For Ehud Olmert, may you enjoy your additional 8 months in prison. Use it to think about what it means for a mayor of Jerusalem to sell out his city for envelopes of cash.

For Minister Miri Regev, may you become even more annoying to the self-styled cultural elite in Israel.

For University professors and administrators, may you remember the difference between politics and academics, and grow the necessary balls to keep them separate. And understand that as the permanent adults on campus, you have a responsibility to maintain the ideals of the academy.

For Israel’s extreme Left, may you get an opportunity to demonstrate your proletarian principles by losing your jobs as professors, columnists and directors of cultural institutions, and being forced to move from North Tel Aviv to the periphery and work as taxi drivers, farmers and security guards.

For Yossi Beilin, in the absence of Shimon Peres, may you make an official announcement that Oslo was an absolutely terrible idea, that you should have known Arafat couldn’t be trusted, and that you are really, really sorry for being such an idiot.

For Neturei Karta and other anti-Zionist Haredim, may you practice what you preach and leave the Jewish state that you oppose.

For Jeremy Corbyn, may you merge with Ken Livingstone.

For European Jews, may you stay safe, and may you think seriously about aliyah. Although most of you will not obtain the standard of living here that you are used to in Europe, your children will thank you in the long run.

For the Kurdish people, may you obtain the independence you have fought for so long and so richly deserve.

For the American people, may you somehow – and it’s not obvious how – get the kind of leadership you need to restore your country to great power status, and reverse the accelerating economic and social decline that it is experiencing.

For the Arab citizens of Israel, may you experience growing prosperity as a result of your partnership with the Jewish people. May you get Members of the Knesset to represent you that don’t want to wreck it.

For the Palestinian Arabs, may you understand that the Jews aren’t leaving or committing suicide. May you banish the ghost of Yasser Arafat, his henchmen and his vicious system of inciting racist hatred. May you learn that only death will come from confrontation and rejectionism, and that dignity and self-rule are possible by taking a different path.

For Mahmoud Abbas, may you be prosecuted as the vicious war criminal and murderer that you are.

For Hamas, may your tunnels collapse and your rockets blow up in your faces.

For the whole gang down at the UN, may Barack H. Obama be your next Secretary-General and run the organization into the ground.

For Benjamin Netanyahu, may your own people finally understand that despite everything that irritates them about you, you are a better leader than they deserve, and they should be grateful for the superhuman job you do.

And for all the rest, they should only have a sweet, charitable and peaceful year.

Posted in Academia, American Jews, American politics, Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Israeli Arabs, Israeli Politics, Media, The UN | Comments Off on Thoughts on the new year