Salaam
This needs to be confirmed but if true shocking.
Comment.
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Salaam
This needs to be confirmed but if true shocking.
Comment.
Astagfirullah. But translated quran is not Quran. The original Quran is Arabic, when it was revealed 1400 years ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by Junon
Allah knows best
jazakAllah khair
Salaam
Like to share, a wider look at the current situation.
Blurb
In the following video Dr. Olsi Jazexhi discusses with Dr. Michael Jones from Culture Wars the conflict between the United States and Israel and Iran. They discuss the impact that this conflict is having in Albania, a country that hosts the Mojaheden el-Halk organization. At the end they discuss the future of the American Empire: will it survive China's advance or will the 21st century be a Chinese century?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7Qf2_w8QdY
Salaam
Another update on the Holy Quran translation controversy. Questions the claims made by the accusers.
I agree but we have to remain vigilant now that the Americans are transferring ownership of the Arab regimes to the Zionists, wouldn't put anything past them :hmm:Quote:
Originally Posted by taha_
Salaam
Like to share, another discussion on the development of Zionism.
Blurb
Today on TruNews, Dr. E. Michael Jones joins us to talk about the influence of modern Christian Zionism upon the American Church, and how that has led to a dramatic radicalization of US foreign policy in favor of one nation, Israel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QMHzuVnO5k
Salaam
Another update
How top Labour officials plotted to bring down Jeremy Corbyn
Leaked report shows that staff worked relentlessly to damage the party’s leader, including by exploiting antisemitism
Investigated for antisemitism
In short, Labour’s own party bosses not only secretly preferred a Conservative government, but actually worked hard to bring one about.
The efforts to destroy Corbyn from 2015 through 2018 are the context for understanding the evolution of a widely accepted narrative about Labour becoming “institutionally antisemitic” under Corbyn’s leadership.
The chief purpose of the report is to survey this period and its relation to the antisemitism claims. As far as is known, the report was an effort to assess allegations that Labour had an identifiable “antisemitism problem” under Corbyn, currently the subject of an investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
In a highly unusual move, the commission launched an investigation of Labour last year. The only other political party ever to be investigated is the neo-Nazi British National Party a decade ago.
The Labour report shows that party officials who helped the Tories to victory in 2017 were also the same people making sure antisemitism became a dark stain on Corbyn for most of his leadership.
No antisemitic intent
Confusingly, the report’s authors hedge their bets on the antisemitism claims.
One the one hand, they argue that antisemitism complaints were handled no differently from other complaints in Labour, and could find no evidence that current or former staff were “motivated by antisemitic intent”.
But at the same time, the report accepts that Labour had an antisemitism problem beyond the presence of a few “bad apples”, despite the known statistical evidence refuting this.
A Home Affairs Select Committee – a forum that was entirely unsympathetic to Corbyn – found in late 2016 that there was “no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other political party”.
Even that assessment was unfair to Labour. Various surveys have suggested that Labour and the left have less of a problem with all forms of racism than the ruling Conservative Party.
For those reasons alone, it was highly improper for the equalities commission to agree to investigate Labour. It smacks of the organisation’s politicisation.
Nonetheless, the decision of the report’s authors to work within the parameters of the equalities watchdog’s investigation is perhaps understandable. One of the successes of Corbyn’s opponents has been to label any effort to challenge the claim that Labour has an antisemitism problem as “denialism” – and then cite this purported denialism as proof of antisemitism.
Such self-rationalising proofs are highly effective, and a technique familiar from witch-hunts and the McCarthy trials of the 1950s in the United States.
‘Litany of mistakes’
The report highlights correspondence between senior staff showing that, insofar as Labour had an “antisemitism problem”, it actually came from the Blairites in head office, not Corbyn or his team. It was party officials deeply hostile to Corbyn, after all, who were responsible for handling antisemitism complaints.
These officials, the report notes, oversaw “a litany of errors” and delays in the handling of complaints – not because they were antisemitic, but because they knew this was an effective way to further damage Corbyn.
They intentionally expanded the scope of antisemitism investigations to catch out not only real antisemites in the party, but also members, including Jews, who shared Corbyn’s support for Palestinian rights and were harshly critical of Israel.
Later, this approach would be formalised with the party’s adoption of a new definition of antisemitism, proposed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), that shifted the focus from hatred of Jews to criticism of Israel.
The complaints system was quickly overwhelmed, and delays worsened as officials hostile to Corbyn cynically dragged their heels to avoid resolving outstanding cases. Or, as the report stiffly describes it, there was “abundant evidence of a hyper-factional atmosphere prevailing in Party HQ” against Corbyn that “affected the expeditious and resolute handling of disciplinary complaints”.
The report accuses McNicol of intentionally misleading Corbyn about the number of cases so that “the scale of the problem was not appreciated” by his team – though the scale of the problem had, in fact, also been inflated by party officials.
The report concludes that Sam Matthews, who oversaw the complaints procedure under McNicol, “rarely replied or took any action, and the vast majority of times where action did occur, it was prompted by other Labour staff directly chasing this themselves”.
Amplified by the media
Both McNicol and Matthews have denied the claims to Sky News. McNicol called it a “petty attempt to divert attention away from the real issue”. Matthews said the report was “a highly selective, retrospective review of the party’s poor record” and that a “proper examination of the full evidence will show that as Head of Disputes and Acting Director, I did my level best to tackle the poison of anti-Jewish racism which was growing under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.”
But there is too much detail in the report to be so easily dismissed and there remain very serious questions to be answered. For example, once Matthews and McNicol had departed, Labour rapidly increased the resolution of antisemitism cases, dramatically stepping up the suspension and expulsion of accused party members.
The earlier delays appear to have had one purpose only: to embarrass Corbyn, creating an impression the party – and by implication, Corbyn himself – was not taking the issue of antisemitism seriously. Anyone who tried to point out what was really going on – such as, for example, MP Chris Williamson – was denounced as an antisemitism “denier” and suspended or expelled.
The media happily amplified whatever messages party officials disseminated against Corbyn. That included even the media’s liberal elements, such as the Guardian, whose political sympathies lay firmly with the Blairite faction.
That was all too evident during a special hour-length edition of Panorama, the BBC’s flagship news investigations programme, on Labour and antisemitism last year. It gave an uncritical platform to ex-staff turned supposed “whistleblowers” who claimed that Corbyn and his team had stymied efforts to root out antisemitism.
But as the report shows, it was actually these very “whistleblowers” who were the culpable ones.
‘Set up left, right and centre’
The media’s drumbeat against Corbyn progressively frightened wider sections of the Jewish community, who assumed there could be no smoke without fire.
It was a perfect, manufactured, moral panic. And once it was unleashed, it could survive the clear-out in 2018 of the Blairite ringleaders of the campaign against Corbyn.
Ever since, the antisemitism furore has continued to be regularly stoked into life by the media, by conservative Jewish organisations such as the Board of Deputies, and by Israel partisans inside the Labour Party.
“We were being sabotaged and set up left, right and centre by McNicol’s team, and we didn’t even know. It’s so important that the truth comes out,” one party source told Sky News.
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2020-0...-antisemitism/
Related.
Keir Starmer received £50K from pro-Israel lobbyist
New Labour Party leader Keir Starmer received a £50,000 donation from a pro-Israel lobbyist, parliamentary data shows.
The Register of Members’ Interests reveals that Starmer received a £50,000 donation from Trevor Chinn, a member of the executive committee of the Israel lobby group the British Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM).
From 1973 to 1993 Chinn was Chairman of the Joint Israel Appeal (now United Jewish Israel Appeal), the major fund-raising organisation for Israel.
Chinn, who is also a Vice President of the Jewish Leadership Council, has enjoyed a long and lucrative business career and was awarded a knighthood in 1990 for his charitable activities.
He has also previously donated to former Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) chair Joan Ryan and former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, as well as Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy on numerous occasions.
Starmer consistently refused to name the full list of those who donated to his ultimately successful campaign, despite being challenged by fellow candidates to do so.
He stated that he was following “Labour Party process” and that: I’ve got a compliance team in place who are checking every donation is in accordance with the rules. Once they’ve done that they pass it to the Parliamentary authorities for them to publish it. So two lots have gone up, another lot is with the Parliamentary authorities as of today, I’m following the rules.”
During the Labour leadership campaign Starmer said: “I support Zionism without qualification.”
https://5pillarsuk.com/2020/04/17/ke...rael-lobbyist/
More comment.
Subversion may bankrupt Labour
The recent ascendance of the philosemitic wing of the Labour Party may be very short-lived:
I've read the report. It's very damning, although not necessarily in the way one might think. Basically, the report is a put-up job written to support the false narrative being pushed by the (((Blairites))) who recently unseated the Corbynites and took over the party leadership. It turns out that more than HALF of the anti-semitism complaints were filed by a single invididual; the whole thing is little more than an amplified variant on the rabbi painting swastikas on the synagogue.Quote:
Labour faces multi-millionpound lawsuits over a leaked antisemitism report that could 'bankrupt' the party.
Sources close to whistleblowers and complainants whose identities were revealed by the leak say Labour could face a legal bill as high as £8million – effectively putting it out of business.
They say more than 30 individuals, including general secretary Jennie Formby, may sue the party over breach of privacy and for putting their safety at risk. The dire warning came as Labour officials were hastily forced to delete addresses from party membership databases to protect some people now apparently receiving death threats after their identities were made public....
The threat of massive legal bills has sparked panic among senior party figures that they could be personally liable.
It appears that the Corbynites have decided that if they're going to be pushed out of the party, they're going to leave their successors with nothing but scorched earth. To put it in American terms, it's as if the John Birch Society burned down the Republican Party instead of permitting the neocons to take it over.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2020/04/s...pt-labour.html
He was right.
In this extract from the 'Labouring Under Anti-Semitism’ episode of Renegade Inc, Norman Finkelstein addresses the claims of anti-semitism against the UK Labour Party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEX5OGmXLz4
Salaam
Another update.
Ramadan TV dramas signal shift in Arab-Israeli relations
Two popular Middle Eastern series stir surprise with pro-Israel messages backed by Saudi Arabia
Nightfall during Ramadan in the Middle East is drama time, when Arab soap operas accompany evening feasts with fare of feuds, historical heroes and villains and forbidden love. This year though, programmers have broached new ground using the popular shows to highlight a normalisation with Israel.
Two series broadcast across the region in the first three days of the Muslim holy month have stirred both surprise and contention – one by daring to explore the Jewish history of the Gulf, the other by suggesting that Israel may not be an enemy and that Palestinians have been ungrateful for Saudi Arabia’s support.
The unusually pointed messages have both aired on the Saudi-controlled satellite channel MBC, offering little doubt that they had been sanctioned by the country’s leaders. The broadcasts have left some viewers reeling at the spectre of Ramadan becoming a forum to showcase political shifts and others claiming they belatedly addressed issues that had been airbrushed from Saudi culture.
When satellite TV took hold across the Middle East from the early 1990s, the appeal of Ramadan TV drama shows as a forum to project soft power soon became apparent. Leaders recognised their potential to shape debate as the popularity of the soaps surged.
The Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has included the dramas in his clampdown on free expression, putting pressure on filmmakers to emphasise approved themes such as the glory of the military and perfidy of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. A 2016 series lauded as the first “political drama” produced in the United Arab Emirates also focused on the “evils” of the Brotherhood.
Judaism has received warmer treatment in recent years, even as Israel was still portrayed with hostility. A 2015 drama sympathetically depicted Egypt’s Jewish community while emphasising them as staunchly opposed to Israel’s creation.
If the first days of this year’s Ramadan are any guide, 2020 breaks new ground. The characters in both series, Exit 7 and Umm Haroun, are depicted debating not whether Israel should exist but whether doing business with Israelis should override concerns.
The stances taken in both shows are aligned with Saudi government positions, which have drawn the two countries closer than at any time since the state of Israel was formed in 1948. Mutual security concerns about Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood have been instrumental in the shift, which have also led to ties with Saudis Gulf allies thawing to the point that Israelis can now enter the UAE, and previously undisclosed trade ties are public.
The Israeli prime minister’s approach has been to promote relations with the Gulf and Saudi Arabia, while at the same time marginalising the Palestinians. “What is happening with Arab states has never happened in our history, even when we signed peace agreements,” Benjamin Netanyahu has said on more than one occasion. “Cooperation in different ways and at different levels isn’t necessarily visible above the surface, but what is below the surface is far greater than at any other period.”
Israeli media reported in January that Riyadh was formally allowing Israeli citizens to visit the kingdom for the first time, provided they were Muslims performing pilgrimages to Mecca or invited by the government and looking to do business.
That month, the US president, Donald Trump, unveiled his peace plan for the region in Washington in front of diplomats from Oman, Bahrain and the UAE. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a friend of the heir to the Saudi throne, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was instrumental in drafting the plan, which offered a markedly reduced deal to the Palestinians than any earlier package and has since gone nowhere. Riyadh was officially non-committal, though some former Saudi officials sharply criticised the plan’s outline.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...aeli-relations
Arabs are just showing their true face and the reality of their faith. They've destroyed the religion on Pakistan, Bangladesh, India. Filled our countries with extremist salafi madrasahs, trained terrorists, bombed our graves, dragged islam through the mud.Quote:
Originally Posted by Junon
Not a day goes by that the followers of Arabism in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh bicker about Tawheed, murtad, kafir, mushrik. Bicker, fight and takfir those who they don't like and constantly engage in sectarian nonsense. All because of Saudi Arabian funded madrasahs.
What a wonderful fate it is, that the followers of Tawheed are the quickest ones who sold off Jerusalem to the Jews. This is just the beginning, the show must go on.
Salaam
Another update, don't think this will make much of a difference, still. . . . . .
127 MPs demand UK impose sanctions on Israel if it annexes Palestinian land
One hundred and twenty seven British MPs have written to the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary urging them to make clear publicly to Israel that any annexation of Occupied Palestinian territory “will have severe consequences including sanctions.”
The politicians, including former cabinet members, ministers and senior diplomats, demanded actions not words in opposing any Israeli annexation.
They said this would be “a mortal blow to chances of peace between Israelis and Palestinians based on any viable two-state solution.”
The letter came after the new Israeli coalition government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, pledged to annex around a third of the West Bank, starting in July.
The Council for Arab-British Understanding organised the letter and its director, Chris Doyle, said: “Annexation has the potential to be a watershed moment. On the ground Israel will gobble up ever more Palestinian territory and ride roughshod over international law. Internationally major European powers like Britain, who as these leading politicians show, will have to have the courage to go far further than anyone might have imagined to defend the international rules-based order.
“Sanctions should not be entered into lightly but such an action would more than warrant it, just as we did with Russia over Crimea. For too long we have stood and watched as Israel violated Palestinian human rights.”
The letter reads:
https://5pillarsuk.com/2020/05/04/12...estinian-land/Quote:
We are writing to you to express our outrage at the new Israeli Government’s declared plan to annex areas of territories it occupied in June 1967. This action is the key plank of the agreed Israeli coalition platform. It states that the Government can advance legislation on annexation after 1 July. It is already clear that the Israeli Government will use the cover of the Covid-19 pandemic to seek to implement this egregious plan. It is vital that the UK does everything in its power to prevent this.
Annexation of occupied territory violates several UN Security Council Resolutions including UNSCR 242 and 2334. It is a mortal blow to chances of peace between Israelis and Palestinians based on any viable two-state solution. The joint statement by the UK Government, together with France, Germany, Italy and Spain, on 12 September last year could not have been clearer. Unilateral annexation of any part of the West Bank would be “a serious breach of international law.”
International law is crystal clear. The acquisition of territory through war is prohibited. The Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 is a recent example where Britain quite properly opposed such acts with appropriate measures, including robust sanctions.
Britain upholds the international rules-based system, as you as Prime Minister have affirmed repeatedly. If we are to prevent other states with territorial ambitions from copying Israeli illegal behaviour, the UK must take a lead in standing up to this aggression. The international community is duty-bound to protect Palestinians under occupation.
We ask you to take the lead in bringing our international partners together to prevent this illegal action. Our Government has stated that any annexation “cannot go unchallenged”. The Government must now make clear publicly to Israel that any annexation will have severe consequences including sanctions. Words are not enough: Prime Minister Netanyahu has ignored our words. We need to prevent his Government from setting this alarmingly dangerous precedent in international relations.
Salaam
Another update.
Jewish Characters Star in Saudi TV Show, Igniting an Arab Debate
Fans have praised a hit TV series for promoting religious diversity. Critics say it encourages “normalization” with Israel and betrays the Palestinian cause.
In a mud-walled village in the Persian Gulf, a Christian woman sheds tears of love for a Muslim merchant. But he is stuck in a miserable marriage to a woman who longs for another Muslim man. But she can’t have him, because he is crazy about the local rabbi’s daughter.
These tangles of interreligious intrigue unspool in a new blockbuster television series that has set off heated debates across the Arab world about the region’s historical relationships with Jewish communities and the shifting stances of some of its current leaders toward Israel.
Fans laud the program, set in the 1940s and 1950s, for highlighting an often overlooked aspect of the region’s past — Jewish communities in the Persian Gulf — while providing a much-needed example of coexistence among different faiths.
But critics have blasted it as a blatant effort to reshape Arab views of Israel to pave the way for formal relations, or what many in the Arab world call “normalization.”
With the coronavirus shuttering mosques and the holy city of Mecca, this year’s Ramadan, which began last week, was already bound for the history books.
But the virus’s effect on the Islamic holy month is just one aspect that will be long remembered, a prominent Palestinian journalist, Abdel Bari Atwan, wrote this week.
The other reason this Ramadan won’t soon be forgotten is because “it witnessed the largest normalization campaign, driven by the Saudi media, with help from the government, and coordinated with the Israeli occupation state,” Mr. Atwan said.
Suspicions that the historical TV drama, “Um Haroun,” or “Mother of Aaron,” is part of a state-sponsored push to sway opinions are widespread. The show airs on MBC, the Arab world’s largest private broadcaster, but one ultimately controlled by the Saudi state.
The same network is also broadcasting a comedy program that has made light of Arab attitudes toward Israel, further fueling a sense that both shows are mixing entertainment with propaganda.
The two shows will run through Ramadan, when television viewership skyrockets as families binge-watch programs over the evening meals that break the dawn-to-dusk fast.
While MBC denied that including positive depictions of Jews was part of any government mandate, this year’s shows do coincide with a quiet but clear warming toward Israel among governments in the Persian Gulf.
Historically, animosity toward Israel and sympathy for the Palestinians were some of the few sentiments able to unite Arabs across the Middle East. But in recent years, wars, insurgencies and economic crises have left many Arab governments focused on domestic issues, pushing the Palestinian cause down the priority list.
At the same time, some Persian Gulf leaders have come to see Israel not as an eternal enemy, but as a potential ally against the shared threats of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia has spoken of overlapping trade and security interests between the kingdom and Israel, and an Israeli delegation is expected to participate in a world expo in the United Arab Emirates next year, although both Saudi Arabia and the Emirates lack formal diplomatic relations with the country.
Michael Stephens, who studies Gulf politics at the Royal United Services Institute, said the shows appeared to be part of that shift by countering a history of anti-Jewish rhetoric and showing a new openness toward the possibility of official ties with Israel.
Given the level of state control in Gulf countries, he was confident that the show’s messaging must have been officially sanctioned.
“They would not have done this unless there was some guidance from the top that it was OK,” Mr. Stephens said.
The comedy show, Makhraj 7, or “Exit 7,” a Saudi slang term used to avoid unwanted conversation, pokes fun at contemporary views of Israel in Saudi society.
In one episode, a father discovers his son playing an online video game with an Israeli child and fumes about his offspring fraternizing with “the enemy.” In other scenes, one relative suggests using the boy’s new connection for spy work while another wants to exploit it for Israeli business contacts and accuses the Palestinians of being ungrateful for the support received from Saudi Arabia over the years.
Those scenes have enraged Palestinians, who long counted on Saudi backing.
“Even in my political nightmares, I did not expect an Arab to dare to speak so openly and comfortably about normalization with Israel,” said Ziad Khaddash, a Palestinian writer and journalist in the West Bank. “It is frightening, shameful and strange that this is happening.”
“Um Haroun,” which is drawing a huge audience, centers on an elderly Jewish nurse in an imaginary village in the Gulf around the time of the creation of Israel in 1948.
The show, all of whose actors are Arab, chronicles the lives and intrigues of the community’s Muslim, Christian and Jewish families, who run shops next to each other in the market, visit each other’s homes, and attend each other’s weddings and funerals.
In one scene, a Muslim man gets engaged and his Jewish friends wish him “mazel tov,” or congratulations in Hebrew. In another, a group of Muslim, Christian and Jewish women cook together before the start of the Jewish Sabbath.
Religious tensions flare now and then, for example, when a Muslim declines to drink tea from the same glass as a Jew, or when a group of children taunt the rabbi. And some incidents play off Jewish stereotypes.
But in general, the show lays itself out as an idealistic, fictional prequel to the last seven decades of Middle Eastern history, during which Israel was created, most Jews fled or were kicked out of Arab states, and a string of regional wars followed.
The village’s idyllic and largely ahistoric life is shaken early in the series, however, when the news of Israel’s creation is broadcast on the radio and a Jewish man is murdered by an unknown assailant. Interreligious tensions mount, which will play out for the rest of the show’s episodes, airing one per night throughout Ramadan.
The show’s creators and distributors insist it has no relation to contemporary Arab politics.
In a statement, MBC, the Saudi-controlled channel, said the show focused on “tolerance, moderation, openness and coexistence, showcasing a region before sectarianism.”
In an interview, Ali Shams, the Bahraini who co-wrote the script with his brother, Mohammed, said its main character was inspired by a Jewish nurse known as Um Jan who worked in Bahrain in the middle of the last century.
The show, he said, was “as far as possible from what people have said about Zionist politics. Our goal was to bring people together on the idea of mutual acceptance.”
Reactions around the region have been fierce and varied.
Writing in the Saudi-owned Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Hussein Shobokshi, a Saudi, described the show as a “qualitative shock” to Arab audiences who were unaccustomed to seeing Jewish symbols such as the Star of David and the menorah, not to mention hearing Hebrew monologues.
He praised the show as “daring” by talking about the history of Jewish presence in the Arab world.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/w...roun-jews.html
Salaam
Another update. The new narrative is being created.
Death of a dogma? After annexation, world likely to abandon two-state paradigm
Process may take years, but officials and analysts accusing Israel of killing option for future Palestinian state have started calling for a unitary state with equal rights for all
For years, Israeli officials have insisted that reports of the death of the two-state solution are greatly exaggerated, and that the option of a Palestinian state is still alive, despite ongoing settlement expansions.
Now, many proponents of a two-state solution are worried that Israel’s planned unilateral annexation of large parts of the West Bank would bury that possibility once and for all. Advocates of an Israeli annexation, on the other hand, say the move, if carried out in accordance to the US peace plan, would actually advance a “realistic two-state solution.”
Either way, an Israeli annexation as envisioned by the deal of the century is likely to erode the international consensus behind the two-state paradigm, and may cause the world to start backing the idea of a unitary state in which Israelis and Palestinians enjoy equal rights.
“Annexation will end the debate about Israel’s borders. It will also start a debate on a one-state outcome,” posited Evan Gottesman, the associate director of policy and communications at the Israel Policy Forum, a dovish think tank based in the US, on Wednesday.
How one assesses the fallout of a possible annexation, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to advance this summer, depends to a large extent on one’s pre-existing politics: right-wingers dreaming of Greater Israel are convinced that the sky will not fall, while doves in favor of territorial concessions and Palestinian statehood argue that it would the beginning of the end of the Zionist project.
Advocates of annexation predict very little to change. An assertive Israel, they argue, can easily weather the international opprobrium, which they expect to fade away quickly, just like the world eventually forgot about Israel’s annexations of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
Critics, by contrast, anticipate not only condemnations but sanctions, and not only from Europe but also from 50 percent of the American body politic. They also worry about further alienating Diaspora Jewry, fear for the peace agreement with and the internal stability of Jordan, fret over the recent rapprochement with the Gulf states, and predict increased wrath from the International Criminal Court.
Some have argued that the plan will make a future separation from the Palestinians nearly impossible in the long-run, which eventually would turn Israel into an apartheid state in which Israelis and Palestinians share the same space but have unequal rights.
One counterargument is that the currently envisioned annexation — which the Israeli government agreed would only occur in full coordination with the US administration and along the lines of President Donald Trump’s peace proposal — would apply Israeli sovereignty to about 30 percent of the West Bank.
The rest remains reserved for a future Palestinian state — hence, in this thesis, annexation in the framework of the plan would not presage the end of the two-state solution but rather a step toward a “realistic two-state solution.” Indeed, the so-called deal of the century mentions the term “two-state solution” a whopping 86 times.
But rather than embracing the plan as an outline to reach a two-state solution, many in the international community consider it the final nail in the coffin of a two-state solution. And while few officials are currently ready to depart from the decade-old diplomatic dogma sanctifying the two-state solution, there are growing indications that sooner or later they will embrace a one-state outcome.
Because once the world determines that the old “two states for two peoples” paradigm is no longer relevant, it will likely draw the logical conclusion and start advocating for one bi-national state, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, with equal rights for all.
“We agree that the annexation of the Jordan Valley would mean the end of the two-state solution,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on April 30 after speaking to Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.
If annexation kills all prospects for a Palestinian state next to Israel — then what’s the alternative?
For now, most governments cling to the two-state doctrine, which has been affirmed as the “best and the only realistic chance for peace” in countless resolutions and declarations. But some officials have started saying the hitherto unthinkable.
“The principle of ‘two states for two people’ was the motto and official condition of the peace process. Let’s face it, time is running out and the situation has changed,” Radek Vondráček, the speaker of Czech Republic’s Chamber of Deputies, wrote Monday in an op-ed. The world, he added, should not force its “old schemes and the frustration that results from not fulfilling them” on the parties on the ground if they want to explore new ideas.
“The existence of the state of Israel shows that the realization of the human dream of freedom is extremely difficult,” Vondráček wrote. “The dream was not based on the dogma of a two-state solution. It is therefore time to revive the idea of the coexistence of all in one common state.”
As opposed to Vondráček — who is known as a friend of Israel — even those critical of the Israeli government say annexation would make any other outcome impossible.
“This decision will kill the two-state solution, making a one-state solution inevitable,” Safadi, the Jordanian foreign minister, said Wednesday.
“Right now, the two-state solution is dead… Wouldn’t it be great if we actually had a democratic state for Jews and Palestinians between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean?” Irish member of the European Parliament Mike Wallace asked Borrell this week.
Earlier this month, dovish Israeli columnist Gideon Levy endorsed annexation as “the only way out of the deadlock, the only possible shake---up that could end this status quo of despair we’ve gotten stuck in, which can no longer lead anywhere good.”
“Maybe,” responded Nick Westcott, the former director of the EU’s Middle East department. “But only as part of a coherent one-state solution with equal rights for all citizens.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/death-...tate-paradigm/
Before everybody forgets.
Blurb
Palestinian peace offensives
I'd go as far as saying Israel fears peace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y38SJ-tJzNk
Salaam
Like to share.
Douglas Reed started writing his book “The Controversy of Zion” in 1951 and completed in 1956 but it remained unpublished until two years after the author's death in 1986. Despite being a top selling author, he could not find a publisher.
But why?
https://www.islamicboard.com/images/...XgAAm5Bg-1.jpg
The author traces the origin of Zionism back to 458 BC when the tribe of Judah produced a racial creed, “disruptive effect of which on human affairs may have exceeded that of explosives or epidemics”.
It's important to understand the difference between Israelites and Judah.
The Hebrew people who took possession of the Land of Canaan (Palestine) under the leadership of Yusha after Prophet Moses and his tribes were exiled from Egypt are known as the twelve tribes of Israel including Judah.
After Prophet Solomon's death, the Kingdom was split.
https://www.islamicboard.com/images/...WAAApWO2-1.jpg
In 930 BC the 10 Tribes formed the independent Kingdom of Israel in the north and tribes of Judah and Benjamin formed the Kingdom of Judah which later became identified with the landless tribe of the Levites.
The racial creed which was given force of daily law in Judah in 458 BC was then and still unique in the world. It rested on the assertion, attributed to the tribal deity (Jehovah), that ― (the Judahites) were his chosen people who, if they did all his judgments would be...
...set over all other peoples and be established in a ―promised land. The hereditary priests of Judah established the worship of Jehovah as the god of racialism, hatred and revenge. In the two centuries leading up to 458 BC, Judah had been disavowed by the Israelites.
The Israelites (the northern confederation of ten tribes established by King Jeroboam) from all the evidence, never knew this racial creed which was to come down through the centuries as the Jewish religion, or Judaism. It stands, for all time, as the product of Judah.
In 721 BC, Northern Kingdom of Israel was attacked and conquered by Assyria, the Israelites were carried into captivity and later disappeared. Judah was spared for that moment and for another century remained an insignificant vassal, first of Assyria and then of Egypt.
The Judaist claim, on the other hand, is that Israel was totally and deservedly lost, because it rejected the Levitical creed and chose rapprochement with neighbouring peoples. Today‘s Zionists do not believe that the Israelites vanished without leaving a trace.
As Dr. Kastein says that the Israelites were pronounced dead, in the way that a Jew marrying out of the fold today is pronounced dead (for instance, Dr. John Goldstein); they were excommunicated and only in that sense ―vanished.
Peoples do not become extinct; the North American Indians, the Australian Blackfellows, the New Zealand Maoris, the South African Bantu and others are the proofs of that. For that matter, the Israelites could not have been taken away captive, had they been physically......exterminated. Their blood and thought survive in mankind, somewhere, today. The true meaning of the assertion that Israel ―disappeared is to be found in the later Talmud, which says:
“The ten tribes have no share in the world to come.
Thus, the children of Israel are banned from heaven by the ruling sect of Judah because they refused to exclude themselves from mankind on earth”
Chief Rabbi of the British Empire in 1918, the Very Rev. J.H. Hertz, in answer to an enquiry on this point said explicitly:
“The people known at present as Jews are descendants of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin with a certain number of descendants of the tribe of Levi”
This statement makes perfectly clear that Israel had no part in what has become Judaism
Therefore the use of the name Israel by the Zionist state which was created in Palestine in this century is in the nature of a forgery.
More on this topic some other day.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...694045184.html
Salaam
Another update. Busy selling out.
Top UAE official urges greater cooperation with Israel
The Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates has called for increased cooperation with Israel, saying the UAE wants to separate disagreements with Tel Aviv over the Palestinian issue from the mutual benefits of cooperation in other fields.
Addressing a major U.S.-Jewish online conference on Tuesday, Anwar Gargash advocated for “open lines of communications” and increased liaison with Tel Aviv in various areas, such as technology and health.
The conference was organised by AJC, which is a leading global Jewish, pro-Israel advocacy organisation.
During his address Gargash did reiterate Abu Dhabi’s opposition to Israel’s planned unilateral annexation of parts of the West Bank, but underlined his country’s policy of “decoupling the political from the non-political.”
“Can I have a political disagreement with Israel but at the same time try and bridge other areas of the relationship? I think I can. I think that is fundamentally where we are,” Gargash said.
He added there was no reason not to cooperate with Israel on efforts to bring medical aid to Palestinians suffering from the coronavirus pandemic.
Such collaboration, which last week led to the second of two Emirati airliners landing in Tel Aviv, does not affect his country’s opposition to Israel’s planned annexation, he stressed.
Gargash noted that decades of Arab hostility toward Israel has only bred animosity that now makes it harder to work together for the common good.
“The UAE is clearly against any annexation as is being proposed by the current Israeli government. Having said that, that is the political domain. Do I have to really look at all the other domains and make them almost static because of the political domain? We have tried that, as a group of Arab countries, over many years, and I don’t think it has really led to what we want in terms of bringing stability to the region,” he told the interviewer.
“I think we can come to a point where we come to a given Israeli government… and say, we disagree with you on this [annexation], we don’t think it’s a good idea, but at the same time there are areas, such a COVID, technology and other things, where we can actually work together.”
“What we see today is that negotiations, and having lines of communications open, actually will yield better results for us and for the Israelis,” he added.
The traditional Arab policy of “stonewalling and closed lines of communications” has only radicalised the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, the senior diplomat opined.
“The idea of demonising Arabs by radicals on the Israeli side, or the idea of demonising Jews by radicals on the Arab side, has not helped anybody. We need to take that element out and we need to come and say we do have lines of communications.”
In March 2019, Gargash publicly called for a “strategic shift” in Israel-Arab ties, saying the Arab world’s decades-old decision to boycott the Jewish state had been a mistake.
The Palestinians oppose any attempts by the Arab world to normalise ties with Israel, saying it amounts to treachery. The Palestinian Authority has also refused to accept the UAE supplies on the planes.
https://5pillarsuk.com/2020/06/17/to...n-with-israel/
Their minds are so colonised this statement wouldnt look out of place if it was released by the UK government.
Salaam
Like to share.
Blurb
Meet our new friend, Dr Norman Finkelstein, as he opens up to Salman and Ahmed to speak about a range of juicy topics including his upbringing and politics, his friend and mentor Noam Chomsky, and anti-semitism to Israel's proposed annexation and MORE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MdhYrX4TqI
Related.
Salaam
More antisemitism. How quickly they ditch you when you dont follow the approved script. Comment from an American nationalist perspective.
Palestinian Lives Matter
And in a blink of an eye, all that massive funding for Black Lives Matter suddenly began to disappear:
Notice the way the juxtaposition of their definitions exposes their word spells:Quote:
UK Jewish activists have lashed out at the British chapter of Black Lives Matter over its pro-Palestinian tweets. They say the anti-racist movement's criticism had anti-Semitic undertones.
BLM UK posted a series of tweets on Sunday, criticizing Israel over its plans to annex occupied Palestinian territories and calling for solidarity with the Palestinian cause. One of the earlier posts stated that “mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism, and Israel’s settler colonial pursuits”.
As Israel moves forward with the annexation of the West Bank, and mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism, and Israel’s settler colonial pursuits, we loudly and clearly stand beside our Palestinian comrades. FREE PALESTINE.
#BlackLivesMatterUK
That particular part prompted a furious backlash from the British NGO Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA). “Zionism is the movement for the self-determination of Jews,” CAA tweeted in response. “So-called ‘anti-Zionism’ exclusively denies Jews that universal right and is therefore anti-Semitic.”
Denying Americans the universal right of self-determination = anti-racism.
Denying Jews the universal right of self-determination = anti-Semitism
The movement for the self-determination of Jews = Zionism
The movement for the self-determination of Americans = White Supremacy
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2020/06/p...es-matter.html
Salaam
Another update. The new narrative is being created.
Saudi academic cites Prophet Muhammad in bid to normalise ties with Israel
Small gestures have hinted at the development of a closer affinity between Saudi Arabia and Israel, but an academic article on the Prophet Muhammad confirms it further.
As Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Israel warms up, its people-to-people ties are supplementing its diplomatic gestures. Now, for the first time in history a Saudi academic has published a paper in an Israeli journal, with the aim to 'bring the two nations closer'.
Professor Mohammed Ibrahim Alghbban from King Saud University in Riyadh, published a Hebrew article in Kesher, the journal of the Shalom Rosenfeld Institute for Research of Jewish Media and Communication, at Tel Aviv University.
Professor Raanan Rein, head of the Shalom Rosenfeld Institute, said the move was unprecedented and was driven by Alghbban’s aim to improve relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The Jerusalem post writes, "The Saudi professor said he wrote the article to improve Muhammad’s image among Israelis."
“I hope that this academic cooperation is another step towards economic and political cooperation,” Rein added.
Alghbban’s article, “Contribution to Prophet Muhammad’s Image Improvement in the Eyes of the Israeli Public: Muhammad’s Alliances and Mail Exchanges with Jews from the Arabian Peninsula,” argued that the prophet had good relations with the Jewish people, and his clashes with them were political, not religious.
Islam, Judaism and Christianity have historically co-existed in synergy with each other and according to Rabbi Ben Abrahmson of the Al Sadiqin Institute, there is a clear process that can lead the way to reclaiming that historic synergy.
The normalising of ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel show no signs of a deeper process of mediation which requires forming credible bodies of mediation that all parties (including Palestinians) can trust and establishing a just judicial system and clear definition of citizenship.
Palestinians have so far not been a factor in the warming of ties between the two countries.
A wave
The Saudi academic’s paper comes after an increasing volume of calls in Saudi Arabia, along with those from other Gulf countries, to improve relations with Israel. Despite the fact that the Gulf States and Israel have no official diplomatic ties, the relationship between them has grown closer recently, mostly over their common enemy: Iran.
Another indication of the warming association, is the cooperation between Israeli and Emirati companies in the fight against coronavirus.
In June, reports emerged that Israel and Saudi Arabia met secretly last December regarding various issues, including Saudi representatives in the Islamic Waqf Council at the Al Aqsa Compound in Jerusalem.
The Islamic Waqf Council is a Jordanian-appointed body, which oversees Muslim sites in Jerusalem and claims exclusive authority over the Al Aqsa Compound - not subject to Israeli jurisdiction.
The talks took place following US President Donald Trump’s controversial Israel-Palestine plan, the so-called “deal of the century”.
Talking to Israel Hayom, senior Saudi diplomats said; “These are sensitive and secret discussions conducted with ambiguity and low intensity with a small team of diplomats and senior security officials from Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia as part of negotiations to progress the Deal of the Century.”
Although Saudi Arabia opposed the formation of Israel in 1947, and voted against the UN Partition Plan, in the last few years, the country has sought to achieve better relations with Israel.
In the spring of 2018, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) said, "There are a lot of interests we share with Israel and if there is peace, there would be a lot of interest between Israel and the GCC."
February 2019 saw the leaking of a video by Netanyahu’s office during the Warsaw Mideast Summit. It was of a closed session in which the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates can be seen defending Israel's right to exist and defend itself, and in one case saying that confronting Iran is more pressing than solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, praised the summit organised by Trump, defining it as a "historical turning point" in the region's history regarding the evolving nature of the Israeli-Gulf relationship.
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/sa...h-israel-38148
Some comment.
Salaam
the mask continues to come off.
Blurb
Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced a peace deal to normalise diplomatic ties. Palestinians criticised the agreement and called it a ‘conspiracy against the Palestinian people’ while Israelis in #Jerusalem praises.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaVH_i0xZmY&t=21s
Israel signs historic deal with UAE that will 'suspend' West Bank annexation
Trump hails US-brokered pact as ‘peace agreement’ but cracks quickly appear as Netanyahu denies change of plan
Israel and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties in a historic Washington-brokered deal under which Israel will “suspend” its plans to annex parts of the Palestinian territories.
However, cracks in the deal became quickly apparent after its announcement on Thursday, with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying there was “no change” to his annexation plans, while the UAE insisted that it “immediately stops annexation”.
After Jordan and Egypt, the UAE is only the third Arab country to announce formal diplomatic relations with Israel, and the announcement will reverberate across the Middle East, which has a turbulent history with the Jewish state.
Donald Trump, who is facing a tough presidential election on 3 November, played up the deal as a significant foreign policy win.
“Everybody said this would be impossible,” the US president told reporters at the White House. “After 49 years, Israel and the United Arab Emirates will fully normalise their diplomatic relations. They will exchange embassies and ambassadors and begin cooperation across the board and on a broad range of areas including tourism, education, healthcare, trade and security.”
He said the tenor of the three-way phone call he had with Israeli and UAE leaders “was like love”. Similar agreements were being discussed with other countries in the region, he added, without giving details.
Israel has also cultivated ties with Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain. Asked about who might be next in line to establish diplomatic relations, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, said: “We have a couple who are upset that they weren’t first.
“I do think that this makes it more inevitable, but it’s going to take hard work and it’s going to take trust being built and dialogue being facilitated in order for people to cross that line as well,” Kushner told journalists. “So hopefully this makes it easier for others; many are watching to see how this goes.”
Surrounded by his top aides in the Oval Office, Trump described the pact as a “peace agreement”. However, the UAE’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan later tweeted that the country had agreed instead to “cooperation and setting a roadmap towards establishing a bilateral relationship”.
For Netanyahu, Israel’s hardline and longest-serving prime minister, the announcement is also a significant boost. For years, Netanyahu has attempted to build relationships in the Middle East while at the same time entrenching Israel’s control over Palestinians. Now, despite having threatened to permanently seize occupied land, he has won a hugely symbolic victory. “A historic day,” the 70-year-old leader wrote on Twitter.
Even Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, congratulated the prime minister.
For the Palestinians, who have long relied on Arab backing in their struggle for independence, the development will be seen as a big setback in their attempts to increase international pressure on Israel until a full peace deal has been agreed.
The official Palestinian news agency reported the Palestinian ambassador to the UAE was being recalled.
The Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi accused the UAE of abandoning the Palestinians. “May you never experience the agony of having your country stolen; may you never feel the pain of living in captivity under occupation; may you never witness the demolition of your home or murder of your loved ones. May you never be sold out by your ‘friends’,” she wrote on Twitter.
Announced in a joint statement by Israel, the UAE and the US, the deal will see Israeli and Emirati delegations meet in the coming weeks. The statement said they would sign agreements on investment, tourism, direct flights, security, telecommunications, technology, energy, healthcare, culture, the environment, the establishment of reciprocal embassies, and “other areas of mutual benefit”.
At Trump’s request, Israel “will suspend declaring sovereignty” over parts of the West Bank, it said.
The UAE’s ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, said in a statement: “The agreement immediately stops annexation and the potential for violent escalation. It maintains the viability of a two-state solution as endorsed by the Arab League and international community.”
In contrast, Netanyahu said in a Hebrew-language televised announcement there was “no change in my plans for annexation, with full coordination with the US”, suggesting it was only temporarily on hold.
Despite the UAE not formally recognising Israel, the two countries have increased ties significantly over the years, in part due to their shared enmity towards Iran, but also because Abu Dhabi craves Israeli security and intelligence technology.
The UAE ambassador to the US infuriated Palestinians when he attended Trump’s unveiling of his vision for Middle East peace at the White House in January. It granted Israel a wishlist of its long-held demands and was rejected by the Palestinians, who were promised a broken-up “state”.
Palestinian leaders and several other Arab countries have watched the budding alliance with concern it could fragment a once-unified voice. The deal came as a surprise even to some countries with a clear stake in the Israel-Palestine issue. And while diplomatic ties with its neighbours have long been argued to be an incentive for Israel to end the occupation, that theory is now being tested.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said the deal was a long time coming. “So it’s been many years obviously that this has been in the works, but certainly over the last few months we’ve been working diligently to find a place where everyone could get comfortable that this was the right way to move forward,” he told reporters.
In his Oval Office announcement, Trump repeatedly stressed the political significance of the agreement for the US, contrasting his achievements with the shortcomings of his predecessor, Barack Obama, and his Democratic challenger in the November election, Joe Biden.
His aides took turns to praise Trump for his role in sealing the agreement, beginning with Kushner, who said his father-in-law worked to “unite people”.
Robert O’Brien, the national security adviser, claimed Trump had transformed the region. “You came into office with a region that was really aflame, and you brought peace to that region and there’s more to come,” O’Brien said. “So it’s an honour to be part of your team and to serve under your leadership.”
Trump’s aides then broke into sustained applause.
Biden welcomed the agreement as historic. “The UAE’s offer to publicly recognise the state of Israel is a welcome, brave, and badly needed act of statesmanship,” the presidential contender said.
The announcement was equally lauded by several pro-Israel voices, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), an influential US-based lobby group, which described it as a “breakthrough”.
However, IfNotNow, a more progressive, anti-occupation movement of American Jews, said there was “nothing to celebrate”.
Its political director, Emily Mayer, said the deal was an attempt by Trump and Netanyahu “to distract from their catastrophic failures in leadership as they face an ongoing pandemic, economic crisis, civil unrest, and plummeting support from the public in the US and Israel”.
She added: “Once again, Palestinians, who are not mentioned in this document, are treated as political pawns and excluded from decision-making about their own future.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...s-donald-trump
More comment.
Israel will continue to demolish, confiscate and annex - without having to announce it on a megaphone. The UAE merely normalizes the status quo.
Abbas is probably throwing things around his office at the Muqata at the moment, swearing at his arch nemesis Mohd Dahlan, who most probably had a hand in this.
In the meantime, Netanyahu gets a way out of the whole annexation quagmire he threw himself into - while Trump pats himself on the back for getting at least one peace deal right.
Palestinians on social media are already wondering how long it will take Saudi to follow suit?
So the UAE will have to open an embassy now in Israel. Will it open one in Jerusalem (the “eternal capital”?) Will cars with Emirati license plates become a mainstay of Tel Aviv’s streets?
Annnndddd of course Egypt’s Sisi lauds the UAE-Israel normalization deal
Like so many moves on the ground, this makes the Arab Peace Initiative moot and the two-state solution more irrelevant and unattainable as ever. A Palestinian state is not even mentioned. The charade is over.
I simply must add that my phone autocorrected “charade” to “shatafeh” and I am dead.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...362499072.html
Israel didn't "halt" the annexation for the West Bank (annexation is ALREADY a de facto reality on the ground). Israel merely "suspended" its announcement of a reality it has already illegally imposed on Palestinians. It is FALSE to say Israel suspended it at the UAE's request
Israel suspended (put off) its annexation announcement after realizing it was going to be costly to Israel, with many US Democrats threatening for the first time to cut off military aid to Israel. The suspension came long before this UAE deal was reached.
The claim that the UAE deal is responsible for halting Israel's annexation announcement is merely a PR stunt for the UAE government, which knows full well that normalization with Israel WHILE Israel continues to brutalize Palestinians is extremely unpopular in the region.
The Arab Peace Initiative already promised full normalization of relations between Israel and all Arab countries in exchange for ending Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories to allow a tiny Palestinian state to exist. Israel rejected this generous offer.
Some Arab governments see "the Palestinian cause" as a burden, feigning concern for their human rights while secretly working with Israel on "more important" partnerships: economic, intelligence, undermining Iran's influences in the region...etc.
Israel may be able to normalize w/these dictatorial governments w/out treating Palestinian like human beings who deserve basic rights, but Israel will never be truly accepted by the PEOPLE of the region so long as Palestinians live without freedom under the boot of occupation.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...698389508.html
Zios are pleased.
More comment.
MBZ bootlickers spring into action.
And what better way to commemorate the new relationship between UAE and the Zios
Salaam
More opinion.
Gulf’s ‘Little Sparta’ asserts its role with Israel deal
How and why UAE’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed decided to establish diplomatic relations with Israel
When Benjamin Netanyahu began a fifth term as Israel’s prime minister this year pledging to annex nearly a third of the occupied West Bank, his plans drew the time-honoured criticism from the Arab world. But the United Arab Emirates, a powerful Gulf state that has for years been covertly cultivating ties with Israel, was surprisingly outspoken in its condemnation.
Senior Emirati officials, including Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE’s influential ambassador in Washington, warned that claiming Israeli sovereignty over Palestinian land would upend the Jewish state’s hopes of improving relations with Arab nations and spark violence. But with each warning came a carrot: lines of communication with the Jewish state would “yield better results for us”. There would be benefits to normalising relations.
The message resonated in the US and Israel. In the weeks that followed, Israeli and Emirati officials held meetings that led to the US-brokered deal announced on Thursday that the two powers had agreed to establish full diplomatic relations. In return, Mr Netanyahu agreed to “suspend” annexation, although he insists it is still his policy.
The Israeli prime minister is hailing it as a victory of his diplomacy; Emirati officials are selling the deal as a bold decision that has put a brake on annexation and kept alive the notion of a viable Palestinian state.
But analysts say the Palestinian issue is a secondary factor for Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince and the UAE’s de facto leader whose assertive foreign policy has earned the Gulf state the nickname “Little Sparta”. The UAE wants to solidify its role as a leading regional power, strengthen alliances at a time of increasing competition, notably from Turkey, and earn credit with both the Trump administration and the Democratic party as the US heads towards elections, analysts said.
Both Israel and the UAE have long shared the view that Iran and Islamist extremism pose grave threats to regional stability but, during the coronavirus outbreak, co-operation between the two has become more public.
“I never thought it would get to this point, this soon at least. But if there’s one trigger, it’s the last six months of coronavirus. It’s caused a grand rethink of many, many issues,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent Emirati commentator. “The UAE wants to make sure, loud and clear, that it’s a major league player, it’s a regional leader. And this will keep the UAE momentum [going].”
In July, it was announced that an Abu Dhabi technology company, Group 42, would collaborate with two Israeli companies, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, on research related to Covid-19. It was the first time the UAE — widely suspected of using Israeli security equipment — had openly admitted working with Israeli companies.
In the background, Israeli and Emirati officials held talks on broader regional issues. In July, Israeli officials were hosted at the US state department for three-way talks with Emirati envoys, a follow-up to a US-sponsored security conference in Warsaw last year on countering Iran’s influence, a former Israeli official with knowledge of the talks said. Sheikh Mohammed, and his ambassador to the US, Mr Otaiba, both developed strong ties to Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, who spearheaded the Middle East plan.
The talks between Israel and the UAE were handled directly by Mr Kushner and Avi Berkowitz, his former special adviser who was promoted to presidential adviser to run the Middle East dossier, according to US officials.
“Annexation is not like moving the embassy [from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem],” Mr Otaiba told Mr Kushner and Mr Berkowitz, according to officials briefed on the matter, referring to Mr Trump’s contentious 2017 decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Mr Otaiba instead proposed reinvigorating a 2019 effort to conclude a non-aggression pact with Israel in exchange for holding back on annexation. Israel instead pushed for full normalisation, which it achieved. “I never saw this agreement coming until annexation started happening,” Mr Otaiba said to the FT.
In May, Etihad, Abu Dhabi’s national carrier, made its first flight to Israel, carrying aid for Palestinians. In June Mr Netanyahu said Israel and the UAE would co-operate in the fight against coronavirus.
A small delegation of Israelis have been hosted in the UAE over the past two months. Emirati officials were told that Mr Netanyahu’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank could be delayed if the UAE were able to convince Palestinian officials to engage with Mr Trump’s peace plan.
Palestinian negotiators, who have derided the peace plan as being heavily biased in Israel’s favour, rebuffed the Emirati request, the former Israeli official said. Two Palestinian officials said they did not know their conversations with the UAE were part of a negotiation between the Emiratis and Israel.
Palestinian officials have accused the UAE of betrayal for agreeing to an accord with Israel. The move will be dispiriting for Arab nationalists, including Gulf citizens passionate about the Palestinian cause.
But Sheikh Mohammed is unlikely to be deterred. “It’s full of costs and benefits, and the UAE will try to minimise the costs, which could be huge politically, reputationally among some sections in the Arab world,” Mr Abdulla said. “But there are a lot of gains economically, militarily and strategically.”
The UAE under Sheikh Mohammed is no stranger to foreign policy risks. It intervened in the war in Yemen, is at the forefront of a regional embargo against Qatar that has gone on for more than three years, and has been one of the staunchest backers of Khalifa Haftar, the renegade Libyan general behind its latest civil war. The adventurism has attracted criticism in the US, particularly among Democrats.
It was also the first Gulf state to reopen its embassy in war-torn Syria, giving a boost to President Bashar al-Assad.
“The Israel deal is classic MBZ . . . he will do whatever he thinks is right for him,” said an Arab official. “It will give him a lot in terms of co-operation with Israel and he gets to be back in the good books in the US. It might give him a free pass on certain things in the future.”
Explaining the Israel deal, while also offering an insight into the UAE’s broader policy, Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s state minister of foreign affairs, said: “We have come out and argued that in every difficult trial in the region, when you do have bridges and you do have contacts, you are more important and more influential.”
But the Gulf’s muscular foreign policy, backed by tens of billions of dollars of aid, has put it at odds with some regional powers. In recent months, tensions have become particularly fraught with Turkey, which has intervened in the Libyan war on the opposing side to the UAE and which Abu Dhabi accuses of supporting Islamist groups.
The timing of the Israeli deal “reflects the changing agenda and the changing balance of power in the Middle East”, said Emile Hokayem, senior fellow for Middle East security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Turkey’s intervention in Libya led to a string of humiliating defeats for Gen Haftar, delivering a setback for the UAE, and has escalated tensions in the eastern Mediterranean where a race is on to secure oil and gas resources.
“The competition is much more intense, and this helps them consolidate not only an anti-Iran front, but also a de facto alliance with Israel, Egypt, Greece and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean,” Mr Hokayem said. The “so-called Israeli concession on annexation” provided political cover for the deal, he said. “The sad reality is the Palestinian issue is secondary.”
https://www.ft.com/content/6d85caa5-...2-b9c956b24448
Zios are celebrating.
Trumps other reason for this move?
Salaam
Another update
Saudi Arabia the big target in US efforts to smooth Israel relations
Despite Kushner’s close ties, Riyadh unlikely to follow UAE in normalising relations with Jewish state
No sooner did the United Arab Emirates make a historic decision to normalise relations with Israel than the US spotlight turned to a more significant — and elusive — target: Saudi Arabia.
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and the man who helped broker last week’s deal, has set his sights on convincing America’s chief Arab ally to take the landmark step. Yet despite his close relations with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, it remains a much tougher ask.
“Saudi Arabia is the game,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who specialises in the Gulf kingdom. But with King Salman “a true believer in the Palestinian cause”, it is unlikely to happen any time soon.
Since Mr Trump entered the White House, his son-in-law has forged close relations with a new generation of Gulf leaders: the UAE’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince. Mr Kushner has shared long late-night talking sessions with Prince Mohammed, and stood by him after intense personal criticism levelled at him in the wake of the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“I’ve had many discussions now with MBS about . . . [the possible normalisation of relations], and also with King Salman,” Mr Kushner, the US president’s Middle East adviser, told reporters on Monday, and said it would be “very good” for Saudi business and defence. He argued it would also help the Palestinian people.
Prince Mohammed, who is pushing ahead with plans to reform the kingdom’s economy, was perceived to be willing to push the Palestinians to accept the US Middle East peace plan, as part of his efforts to cement his relationship with the Trump administration and with the wider US political establishment, western diplomats and analysts in the region have said.
But he is believed to have been overruled by his father, who is understood to have the final say on some key issues. The king told Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in a phone call in January that the kingdom remained committed to the Palestinian cause and Palestinian rights, according to a readout published by the state news agency.
When Mr Trump in January rolled out his peace plan, which foresees Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and which was rejected by the Palestinians, it was publicly repudiated by King Salman. Even with the close relationship between Mr Kushner and Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia was a notable absentee from a flagship economic conference organised by Mr Kushner to support the peace deal.
Saudi leadership in the Islamic world also makes it much less likely the kingdom will follow in the UAE’s footsteps. The kingdom hosts Islam’s two holiest sites and portrays itself as the leader and defender of Sunni Islam. King Salman, whose official title is Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, told the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation last year that the Palestinian cause remained a core issue and that the kingdom “refuses any measures that touch the historical and legal position of East Jerusalem”. Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of any future state.
“King Salman has a very strong place in his heart for the Palestinian people and for the cause, and MBS does as well,” Mr Kushner told reporters on Monday. “They do want to see the Palestinian people have a state.”
The Saudi government has yet to publicly express an official position on the UAE-Israel agreement.
A person familiar with Riyadh’s thinking said Saudi Arabia was “very different” to the UAE, despite their close ties.
“It’s smaller and doesn’t have that religious element. What the UAE has to lose is much less than us, and what they have to offer Israel is much less," the person said. “If you ask a 30-year-old Saudi, they may say ‘Why not have relations with Israel? They have great technology and academia.’ But they would care if we actually did because the whole Muslim world would lambast us.”
Two hashtags trending on Saudi Twitter shortly after the UAE announcement reflected polarisation around the decision: opponents of the deal used the hashtag “Gulf citizens against normalisation” while those who support it tweeted under the hashtag “Screw you and your cause”. The latter reflects Saudi nationalism and the perception that Palestinians, some of whom are critical of Saudi policy in the region, are ungrateful for the longstanding support from Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia, like the UAE, is believed to have increased its covert co-operation, particularly in security and intelligence, with Israel in recent years, as it shares the Jewish state’s concerns about Iran’s role in the region. Brian Hook, the US’s Iran envoy, told the Financial Times that “Iranian aggression” had helped unite some countries in the face of a common enemy.
A senior Trump administration official has tipped Bahrain and Oman as most likely to normalise relations with Israel next, with Morocco also on the cards. Israeli foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi spoke with his Omani counterpart on Monday about the need to strengthen relations between the two countries.
Mike Singh, who led Middle East affairs at the US National Security Council under President George W Bush, said Bahrain, which is dependent on financial assistance from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, would want to negotiate their terms and first gauge regional reaction to the UAE initiative. He said Oman might also hesitate to antagonise Iran.
Other countries outside the region, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, might also consider initiating diplomatic relations with Israel, Mr Singh said. Israeli officials have also touted Sudan as a possible contender.
A senior administration official told the FT that “no one knows” if Saudi Arabia would take the breakthrough step. “Each step increases the confidence this is the direction the region needs to go,” said the official.
Most remain sceptical that the Saudis will follow the UAE’s lead. “There is no incentive to do it with annexation [of occupied territories] already off the table [as part of the UAE/Israel deal],” said Mr Riedel.
https://www.ft.com/content/738e3ee1-...3-e905c572546e
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'Palestinians consider Pakistan our second homeland': Embassy thanks PM Imran for 'strong response' on Israel
The State of Palestine on Wednesday thanked the premier for his "strong response" on Israel, besides expressing gratitude to the government for extending support to the Palestinian cause.
A statement issued by the Palestine embassy in Islamabad also thanked the government for condemning Israeli aggression towards Palestine.
"Palestinians consider Pakistan as our second homeland and Pakistanis as our dearest brothers, who always supported Palestine on every forum of the world," it said.
The press release comes a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan categorically said that Pakistan could not recognise Israel as a state unless it gave freedom to Palestine.
In a two-hour late-night interview aired on Dunya TV, the prime minister stated: “Quaid-i-Azam had said in 1948 that Pakistan could not recognise Israel unless it gave freedom to Palestinians.
“If we recognise Israel and ignore [the] tyranny faced by Palestinians, we will have to give up [the cause of] Kashmir as well, and this we cannot do.”
In the context of the United Arab Emirates, which has recently established ties with Israel, the prime minister said every state had its own foreign policy.
In a statement issued today, the Palestine embassy noted that the Pakistani government had always supported their cause. "The embassy heartily appreciates the stance of [PM Imran] when answering to a question about Israel."
It is only because of the love of Pakistanis towards Palestine that Israeli and Pakistani relations have never been established, it added.
"The embassy thanks the prime minister for such a strong response and also appreciates every individual of Pakistan, including political parties, media, and civil society, who is observing solidarity with Palestine in any possible way.
"We are hopeful that this support will be with us until we get an independent State of Palestine with Jerusalem Al-Quds as its capital," the statement concluded.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1575282
UAE-Israel deal is a “Zionist occupation”, must be rejected: Kuwait lawmakers
Thirty-seven Kuwaiti lawmakers on Tuesday called on their government to reject a normalization deal between Israel and the UAE.
Thirty-seven Kuwaiti lawmakers on Tuesday called on their government to reject a normalization deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
In a statement, the members of parliament affirmed their solidarity with the Palestinian people, “recalling the parliament’s stable and continuous position against normalization [with Israel] in all its forms”.
Crimes of the Zionist occupation cannot be removed: Kuwaiti MP’s
“The crimes of the Zionist occupation cannot be removed by normalization from the souls of our children,” the statement said.
The statement referred to the incursions of Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque and Israeli attempts to Judaize the holy city.
The Kuwaiti government has maintained silence regarding the UAE-Israel normalization deal.
More than 30 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Kuwait issued a joint statement Sunday condemning an agreement between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel to normalize relations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as an “advanced democracy”, days after a deal between the two countries to normalize their relations.
Kuwait. According to Al-Qabas, a Kuwaiti newspaper, government sources affirm that “Kuwait maintains its position and will be the last country to normalize with Israel.” Beyond Kuwaiti officials, analysts and academics, few have addressed Kuwait’s position on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Adam Hoffman and Moran Zaga acknowledged in February that Kuwait is “the only Gulf state that opposes even discrete normalisation with Israel.”
In January 2019, Giorgio Cafiero wrote that “Kuwait has become the one GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] state that refuses to see warmer ties with Israel as prudent.” Even White House senior adviser Jared Kushner said to Reuters that Kuwait is “out there taking a very radical view on the conflict to date in favour of the Palestinians.”
Netanyahu was hosted by the UAE-run Sky News Arabia on Monday to tout the normalization agreement between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi.
“The deal connects the UAE with Israel; both of them are advanced democracies and their societies are advanced,” Netanyahu was quoted by Haaretz as saying when asked about how the deal will serve regional peace.
https://www.globalvillagespace.com/k...ject-uae-deal/
Malaysia’s Mahathir: UAE-Israel deal divides Muslim world into ‘warring factions’
The two-time prime minister, a long-time defender of the Palestinians, has criticised the US-brokered agreement as a step backwards for peace
Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama, has warned the deal could trigger terror attacks there and in the Middle East
Malaysia’s former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad on Friday threw cold water on the landmark accord reached by the United Arab Emirates and Israel, warning it was a step backwards for peace and would divide the Muslim world into “warring factions”.
He was joined in his criticism of the United States -brokered agreement – which will see Israel suspend a controversial plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank in return for full diplomatic ties with the UAE – by Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama, which said the deal could trigger terror attacks in the Southeast Asian nation and the Middle East
Mahathir, a long-time defender of the Palestinians, who are locked in a decades-old conflict with Israelis, told This Week in Asia the agreement would “divide the Muslim world into warring factions and in this, the Israelis will add fuel to the fire”.
“They will increase the ability of the contestants to fight each other and there will be no peace even between Muslim countries,” said Mahathir, 95, who had two stints as the premier of the Muslim-majority nation, his most recent one ending earlier this year.
“It bolsters the stand taken by Israel that Palestine belongs to Israel. Of course there will be a reaction from the Palestinians and those who are sympathetic towards the Palestinians. This will mean prolonging the war in the Middle East,” he said.
Neither the Indonesian nor the Malaysian government have officially responded to the UAE-Israel accord.
The agreement saw Israel pledge to suspend its annexation of Palestinian land, although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that did not mean it was abandoning plans to annex the Jordan Valley and Jewish settlements across the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinians, Turkey and Iran have decried it as a “betrayal”, while the UAE defended it as an initiative that gave more time for a peace agreement to be reached.
Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian movement that runs the Gaza Strip, is regarded as a militant group by some countries, including the US. It called the deal “a stab in the back of the Palestinian people and a desperate attempt to negatively affect the resistance path aiming to defeat the Israeli occupation and restore Palestinian rights”.
In Indonesia, Nahdlatul Ulama – which claims more than 60 million followers – warned that Islamic radical groups “clearly hate this agreement”.
“[These groups] may be provoked to launch terror attacks in Muslim countries, especially the Middle East,” said secretary general Yahya Staquf, a Muslim cleric.
In March 1979, Egypt’s then president Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel after fighting four wars with its neighbour, with terms including the normalisation of relations and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops and civilians from the Sinai Peninsula, which had been captured from Egypt in 1967.
In October 1981, Islamic extremists, angered by the treaty, assassinated Sadat at a military victory parade in Cairo.
Staquf said the UAE appeared to be “sufficiently protected” from terror attacks, more so if it had the security backing of the US and Israel.
“Indonesia should always be on the alert because such groups are still here,” said the Muslim cleric and scholar. An advocate of interfaith coexistence, he visited Israel in 2018 to meet with religious leaders there, drawing heavy criticism at home for the trip.
Staquf said the Indonesian government held the view that “the phenomenon of the Israeli state is a phenomenon of colonialism”, and the majority of the people, whether they followed Islam or otherwise, shared the same view.
More than 90 per cent of Indonesia’s population of 270 million identifies as Muslim, making it the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
TIES WITH ASEAN
Only three members – Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei – of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) bloc do not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel, though analysts have pointed out that ties are not as strained as previously thought.
Retired Singaporean diplomat Bilahari Kausikan said the city state would likely welcome the “farsighted decision” by the UAE, which becomes the first Gulf state to normalise ties with Israel – one of Singapore’s oldest and most important military partners.
Following Singapore’s split from Malaysia in 1965, Israel helped it build up its defence forces, a role larger powers including India and Egypt chose not to play. The presence of Israelis in Singapore was largely hidden from the public, with the island nation referring to the advisers as “Mexicans” to avoid the anger of its Muslim-majority neighbours.
“In fact, most of the Gulf states have been quietly developing unofficial relations with Israel. Since Israel is now accepted by much of the Middle East, why should Southeast Asia not accept Israel?”
He said he hoped the UAE’s recognition of Israel would lead the three Asean members who did not have formal ties with Israel to reconsider their decision, while acknowledging they would “make their own sovereign decisions”.
On the UAE-Israel accord, which US President Donald Trump has claimed as a foreign policy win, Bilahari said it demonstrated that the US was still “the most influential external power in the Middle East and indeed in other regions as well”, and that talk Washington was retreating from the region was not true.
“China, the EU or Russia could not have brokered this deal between Israel and the UAE,” he said. “Only the US could do it.”
John Langmore, professorial fellow from the University of Melbourne’s school of social and political sciences, was less convinced.
“It doesn’t sound like a deal at all since both sides are saying that it isn’t settled,” he said. “Israel is saying that the settlements will go ahead anyway; and the Emirates that the negotiations aren’t completed. It sounds more like spin in Trump’s election campaign than a decision.”
Mustafa Izzuddin, senior international affairs analyst at management consultancy firm Solaris Strategies Singapore, said Malaysia and Indonesia looked at the Palestinian cause as one of “Muslim brotherhood”.
“They will find this deal makes it more difficult now for the Palestinians to have their own state,” he said, adding that Putrajaya and Jakarta would have to balance their economic ties to the UAE with their support for the Palestinian cause.
Bilahari – who was the Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ most senior civil servant before he retired – pointed out that Muslim nations such as Egypt and Jordan had maintained diplomatic relations with Israel for some time.
He added that the UAE’s link to the US was important in protecting it geopolitically, “particularly with Iran in the neighbourhood”.
“The UAE is one of the smaller countries in the Middle East; they are geopolitically vulnerable so they have to have strong alliances,” he said, adding that Abu Dhabi also wanted the technological benefits from joint ventures with Israeli companies.
In Japan, the government welcomed the UAE-Israel agreement as the first step towards easing tensions and stabilising the region.
“The Middle East peace issue should be resolved by negotiations between parties concerned and not through violence or unilateral acts,” said press secretary Tomoyuki Yoshida, who added that Tokyo appreciated Washington’s efforts in brokering the deal.
He reiterated Japan’s stance “to continue to support a two-state solution whereby Israel and a future independent Palestinian state live side by side in peace and security”.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/polit...-world-warring