Multiple Middle Eastern markets have banned the Disney/Pixar animated movie &#8220;Onward&#8221; for featuring an explicitly lesbian character.
&#8220;Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have all banned the film due to the reference,&#8221; reports <a href="https://deadline.com/2020/03/disney-onward-banned-multiple-middle-east-markets-lesbian-lgbt-reference-1202876168/">Deadline</a>. &#8220;The film, released regionally this week, is nowhere to be seen on cinema schedules in those territories. Other Middle East markets such as Bahrain, Lebanon and Egypt are showing the film.&#8221;
Last month, after Disney successfully kept it under wraps, reports surfaced that &#8220;Onward&#8221; would be breaking new ground by being the first animated movie to feature an openly LGBTQ character voiced by Lena Waithe. The character is reportedly a lesbian police officer whose sexuality gets explicitly pointed out in the movie as opposed to just being implied, such as the alleged lesbian couple in “Finding Dory” or the “exclusively gay moment” in the “Beauty and the Beast” live-action remake.
Here’s how <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2020/02/pixar-onward-exclusively-gay-moment-mission-accomplished.html">Slate</a> described the moment:
<blockquote>
But we don’t need to speculate about Waithe’s Officer Spector. We know because she tells us. When she and her partner, voiced by Ali Wong, pull over a driver who claims he was distracted because his girlfriend’s sons have been acting up, she commiserates, “My girlfriend’s daughter got me pulling my hair out.”
That line isn’t the point of the scene. In fact, it goes by so fast you could barely notice it. But that’s why it works so well. The film doesn’t pause to let it sink in or isolate the moment with a cut for emphasis. It passes unremarked, because in this world, it’s accepted as a fact of life. Some babies have two daddies, and some babies have two mommies, even if those mommies happen to be centaurs or elves.
</blockquote>
Russia, a country known for censoring LGBT content in movies, switched out the word &#8220;girlfriend&#8221; for &#8220;partner.&#8221;
Though &#8220;Onward&#8221; has been banned in certain Middle Eastern markets, Disney has occasionally obliged censorship demands in those countries, such as when the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lesbian-kiss-in-rise-of-skywalker-cut-for-middle-east-release">lesbian kiss was edited out</a> of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker&#8221; this past December.
The inclusion of Waithe’s character comes amid a wave of LGBT representation at Disney via the studio’s various intellectual properties and distribution platforms. In just a few months, Marvel’s “The Eternals” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/marvels-the-eternals-will-feature-franchises-first-gay-onscreen-kiss">will be breaking new ground</a> by not only featuring the first openly gay superhero, but also the franchise’s first gay kiss.
“It’s a beautiful, very moving kiss,” said actor Haaz Sleiman. “Everyone cried on set. For me, it’s very important to show how loving and beautiful a queer family can be. Brian Tyree Henry is such a tremendous actor and brought so much beauty into this part, and at one point I saw a child in his eyes, and I think it’s important for the world to be reminded that we in the queer community were all children at one point. We forget that because we’re always depicted as sexual or rebellious. We forget to connect on that human part.”
LGBTQ representation at Disney started in 2014 on the show “Good Luck Charlie,” <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/good-luck-charlie-lesbians_n_4675943">which featured</a> a lesbian mom couple.
“In the storyline, parents Amy and Bob Duncan (Leigh-Allyn Baker and Eric Allan Kramer) set up a playdate for preschooler Charlie (Mia Talerico) and one of her new friends,” TV Guide reported at the time. “When the kid arrives, the Duncans learn that Charlie’s pal has two moms. That’s fine, but the potential new friendship is put to the test as one mom chats with Amy, and the other is stuck listening to Bob’s dull stories.”

UK Premiere Of Disney And Pixar&#8217;s &#8220;Onward&#8221;

Disney’s ‘Onward’ Banned In Middle East Over Lesbian Character

Disney

Middle East

Onward movie

Pixar

Celebrations today mark the 41st anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran. On this day in 1979, the shah&#8217;s monarchial rule was abruptly quashed, as fundamentalist Shiite clerics seized power under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
While President Hassan Rouhani will boast about the regime’s perceived successes, military might, and dominance in his annual anniversary speech today in Tehran, the reality of the Islamic Republic’s 40th year is grim.
Each year around the anniversary, Iranian officials typically unveil technological advancements in their armed forces, nuclear, and space arsenals. On Saturday, Ayatollah Khamenei <a href="https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1226081823610081280" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1226081823610081280&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1581529523479000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF92tKqfv5E6W9UUgkO_sTep8BfUQ">claimed</a> Iran’s air force capabilities, once weak under the Pahlavi dynasty, were thriving under the Islamist mullocracy. Over the weekend, Iran tried and failed to put a satellite into orbit. This failure came after two failed launches last year of the Doosti and Payam satellites and a botched rocket explosion over the summer.
Iran’s nuclear program has faced similar deterioration this year. The 2015 nuclear deal between Iran, the U.S., the U.K., China, Russia, Germany, and France is close to collapse. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States first from the flawed deal in May 2018, insisting any new deal must curb Iran’s ballistic missile program as well as hinder uranium enrichment. Iranian leadership unsurprisingly refused, leading to economic disaster in the country. Last month, Iran declared it will no longer fulfill its uranium enrichment commitment, compelling Germany, France, and Britain to prompt the deal’s dispute resolution mechanism. If international sanctions are indeed reinstated, the worsening economic crisis in Iran will become catastrophic.
Iran also suffered blows to its military and proxy power this past year. On January 3, a U.S. airstrike outside Baghdad, Iraq, killed Iran’s top military commander, Qassem Soleimani. Leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps&#8217; Quds Force, Soleimani was a critical player in Iran’s terror regime. President Trump ordered his killing following months of attacks on American troops by Iran proxies in Iraq. In response to Soleimani’s death, Khamenei <a href="https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1212998634264027136" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1212998634264027136&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1581529523479000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEYdHWRB7U2ca3aOkJNu_LNA5I4nA">assured</a> his Twitter followers that “jihad of resistance will continue with more motivation” as Iran <a href="https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1212991721954578432" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1212991721954578432&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1581529523479000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGL2Y7VINtjMcTIyiU5mnXfnKfU9A">must</a> “congratulate Soleimani’s pure soul and condole the Iranian nation on this great martyrdom.”
Hezbollah, Iran’s most successful export, faced protest long before Soleimani’s killing in January. Since October, fed-up demonstrators have taken to the streets of Lebanon and Iraq to voice their grievances against Iran’s infiltration in and influence upon both governments. According to the U.N. special envoy to Iraq, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/21/world/middleeast/Iraq-protests-Iran.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/21/world/middleeast/Iraq-protests-Iran.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1581529523479000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGP5zOmnYYipy_TNN3CpWeOpTVQpQ">over</a> 500 demonstrators have been killed and 19,000 wounded — the majority at the hands of Iranian-backed militias. As the Iranian regime continues to dismiss these protests as inauthentic and foreign-led, their weakening grasp on the Middle East accelerates.
Despite the propaganda Iran’s regime will put forth on today’s anniversary, the world has witnessed its monumental failures. Blows to Tehran’s nuclear arsenal, economic durability, technological development, proxy strength, and military power prove Iran is indeed losing its grip on the Middle East.
 
Maya Carlin is an M.A. candidate in Counter-Terrorism and Homeland Security at IDC Herzliya’s Lauder School of Government in Israel. She is also an Analyst at the Center for Security Policy, located in Washington D.C.

Iran&#8217;s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei meets students in Tehran

CARLIN: 40 Years Of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Riddled With Failures

Foreign Policy

Iran

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Khamenei

Nuclear Weapons

The Trump administration secured a key victory yesterday at the hostile United Nations, as Holocaust-denying, kleptocratic, jihad-subsidizing Palestinian Authority (PA) chieftain Mahmoud Abbas failed to rally sufficient support to merely force a U.N. Security Council vote on a Palestinian draft resolution that would have rejected the Trump administration&#8217;s recently unveiled <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trumps-deal-of-the-century-for-israel-palestinians-a-realistic-plan-with-arab-states-backing-it">&#8220;deal of the century&#8221; peace plan</a>.
The Security Council vote assuredly would have been vetoed by the United States, a permanent member, but the failure to even successfully garner support to stage a symbolic vote represents a monumental embarrassment for Abbas, the PA successor to unrepentant terrorist Yasser Arafat — himself a mentee of <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-official-record-what-the-mufti-said-to-hitler/">Hitler ally Haj Amin al-Husseini</a>, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem. The diplomatic effort to stymie the symbolic vote, halting it dead in its tracks, thus also represents a clear win for the Trump administration&#8217;s United Nations diplomatic team. The United Nations, of course, is a body <a href="https://unwatch.org/2019-un-general-assembly-resolutions-singling-out-israel-texts-votes-analysis/">infamously hostile to the Jewish state</a> and infamously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-palestinian-frauds-unrwa-called-out-lying-josh-hammer">mollycoddling of the Palestinian-Arab cause</a>.
Abbas is speaking today at a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council. He had initially hoped to stage a Security Council vote on the &#8220;deal of the century&#8221; to follow his speech.
&#8220;This is a significant setback for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,&#8221; Barak Ravid <a href="https://www.axios.com/palestinian-mahmoud-abbas-security-council-vote-81c12553-d692-4a77-a122-10dd7cc141ff.html">opined</a> yesterday for Axios. &#8220;The postponement follows efforts from Jared Kushner and other administration officials over the last few days to dilute the text of the resolution and prevent a vote.&#8221;
&#8220;U.S., Israeli, and Palestinian officials say the text had to be softened because several Security Council members wanted to avoid a confrontation with the U.S.,&#8221; Ravid continued. &#8220;Several sentences that referred directly to the Trump plan were removed.&#8221;
According to Ravid, PA officials still hope to bring the condemnatory resolution up for a Security Council vote later this week.
&#8220;There was immediate speculation that the delay was a backhanded way of pulling the resolution because it lacked the requisite support of nine members for passage,&#8221; The Jerusalem Post <a href="https://www.jpost.com/International/US-suggests-amendments-for-UNSC-resolution-on-Trump-peace-plan-617115">reported</a>. &#8220;Otherwise, it would have been considered that the resolution had failed. The delay comes amid U.S. pressure to soften the language of the resolution towards the U.S. and Israel. A U.S. source with direct knowledge of the negotiations between the members of the Security Council told the Post earlier on Monday that if the resolution would get a vote, a number of countries are expected to abstain.&#8221;
&#8220;The softening of the language comes after U.S. special envoy Jared Kushner’s briefing with [Security Council] members last Thursday,&#8221; the Post continued. &#8220;Kushner was accompanied by Trump&#8217;s assistant and special envoy for international negotiations Avi Berkowitz, and U.S. envoy Brian Hook. The source added that &#8216;there are numerous countries who are considering abstaining&#8217; if the wording is not changed.&#8221;
The U.S. has historically often used its permanent seat the Security Council to veto anti-Israel measures — a trend <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/choosing-not-to-veto-obama-lets-anti-settlement-resolution-pass-at-un-security-council/">notably bucked in December 2016 by the outgoing anti-Israel Obama administration</a>, with respect to U.N. Security Council Resolution 2234.
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RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-pairagraph-trumps-israel-palestinian-peace-plan-is-fair-and-just-part-1">Hammer At ‘Pairagraph’: Trump’s Israel-Palestinian Peace Plan Is Fair And Just (Part 1)</a>
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-pairagraph-trumps-israel-palestinian-peace-plan-is-fair-and-just-part-2">Hammer At ‘Pairagraph’: Trump’s Israel-Palestinian Peace Plan Is Fair And Just (Part 2)</a>

United Nations Building

Abbas Embarrassed: Trump Admin Secures Key Victory At Hostile United Nations

Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel

Jared Kushner

Mahmoud Abbas

Palestinians

Trump Administration

United Nations

Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who frequently opines on issues pertaining to Israel, Zionism, and anti-Semitism, has agreed to take part in a <a href="http://www.pairagraph.com/dialogue/8c47026d6af148588f3ad8f4c1c2935d">debate</a> about the Trump administration’s new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan at the new website <a href="http://www.pairagraph.com/">Pairagraph</a>, which <a href="http://www.pairagraph.com/about">describes itself</a> as “a platform for written dialogue between pairs of notable individuals” and “an online meeting place for the world’s most prominent figures across government, industry, academia, religion, and the arts.”
Hammer was previously scheduled to <a href="http://www.pairagraph.com/dialogue/b155455f1bf04a71a596bf1b8cb0cf13">debate</a> Palestinian-Arab activist <a style="font-style: italic;" href="https://twitter.com/Issaamro">Issa Amro</a>, but Amro <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.pairagraph.com/dialogue/b155455f1bf04a71a596bf1b8cb0cf13/2">refused to respond</a> to Hammer after his <a href="http://www.pairagraph.com/dialogue/b155455f1bf04a71a596bf1b8cb0cf13/1">initial response</a>. Pairagraph then secured Omar Baddar as a new debate opponent, and Baddar <a href="http://www.pairagraph.com/dialogue/8c47026d6af148588f3ad8f4c1c2935d/2">responded</a> to Hammer on Sunday. The Pairagraph debate format consists of dueling 500-word entries. 
Here is Hammer&#8217;s <a href="http://www.pairagraph.com/dialogue/8c47026d6af148588f3ad8f4c1c2935d/3">rebuttal to Baddar</a>.
<div>
An old lawyer maxim goes: &#8220;If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table.&#8221;
Omar Baddar is pounding the table. He has doused a field of straw men in gasoline and applied an industrial-grade blowtorch.
Baddar embraces countless obfuscations and outright lies. There was no &#8220;ethnic cleansing&#8221; in 1948 — only the fateful Arab rejection of November 1947. Blame for the 1967 war lies squarely with Gamal Abdel Nasser, who repeatedly vowed to exterminate Israel and militarized the Sinai in defiance of the 1956 demilitarization. U.N. S.C.R. 242 has never been internalized by the Palestinian Authority, but Israel has frequently offered a generous Palestinian state (e.g., 2000 and 2008) hewing closely to 1948&#8217;s harrowing &#8220;Auschwitz borders.&#8221; Israel did not instigate the civilizational jihad that was Arafat&#8217;s Second Intifada; rather, the mentee of Hitler ally Haj Amin al-Husseini planned it while rejecting the peace offered at Camp David in July 2000. (“[Arafat] did not negotiate in good faith; indeed, he did not negotiate at all,&#8221; President Clinton said.)
Baddar and his ilk nonsensically shout &#8220;apartheid,&#8221; but if the Palestinian-Arabs wanted peace, they would have negotiated one of the sundry times Israel has offered statehood. Instead, the PA has become the laughingstock of the Arab world. The vile 1967 Khartoum Resolution is now the very distant past; following Trump&#8217;s peace plan unveiling, Saudi Arabia said it &#8220;appreciate[d] the efforts of President Trump’s administration to develop a comprehensive peace plan.&#8221; The UAE&#8217;s foreign affairs minister approvingly tweeted a Bret Stephens column decrying Palestinian rejectionism.
Historically, separatist movements are rarely successful. Those separatist movements — Tibetans, Kurds, etc. — that might be offered a state by the &#8220;international community&#8221; would gladly accept. That the PA, which names parks after suicide bombers and directly subsidizes murderous jihad via &#8220;pay to slay,&#8221; rejects such offers gives the game away. The PA&#8217;s ultimate goal is not peace, but to kill all the Jews. &#8220;From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free,&#8221; a rally cry frequently associated with terror-sympathizing hate groups, is nothing short of a call to genocide.
The Arab world, sobered by Iran, finally sees the Palestinian ruse. It wants to finally resolve this issue. Accordingly, the Trump peace plan is emphatically reasonable. That the plan&#8217;s bare-bones preconditions to full Palestinian statehood — cease indoctrinating Palestinian-Arab children in Jew-hatred, oust Hamas, etc. — are viewed as non-starters in Ramallah says all one needs to know about the moral midgets of the PA.
There is zero — zero — compelling U.S. national security interest in carving out a PLO/PA jihadist state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The PA is fortunate that it has enough addlebrained leftists to carry its flag and keep viable the &#8220;two-state&#8221; solution paradigm. Israel has yet again stretched out its hand, but the PA is again poised to throw its own people under the bus.
</div>
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RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-pairagraph-trumps-israel-palestinian-peace-plan-is-fair-and-just-part-1">Hammer At ‘Pairagraph’: Trump’s Israel-Palestinian Peace Plan Is Fair And Just (Part 1)</a>

Israel : Illustration

Hammer At ‘Pairagraph’: Trump’s Israel-Palestinian Peace Plan Is Fair And Just (Part 2)

Donald Trump

Hamas

Radical Islam

Radical Islamic Terror

Students for Justice in Palestine

“Jerusalem is ours, our weapon is our Islam, and our ammunition is our children. And you, O my son, are meant for martyrdom.” 
This <a href="https://palwatch.org/page/16939">statement</a>, uttered by a Palestinian mother to her son, was posted on the official Facebook page of Fatah, the political party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Unfortunately, the sentiment expressed in this Facebook post is not a rare one. The use of Palestinian children as child soldiers and terrorists has been prevalent in the Levant for decades — and not just by Fatah. Hamas, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other organizations indoctrinate children and regularly send them to their deaths. With more light being shed on the issue recently, it is time for all people of good conscience to stand up and tell these children what their leaders will not: They deserve life.
The practice of using children in warfare and terrorism is immoral and contradicts the norms outlined in the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx">U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child</a> in 1989. The U.N. articles ban the use of children in any military capacity — such as combatants, laborers, and support staff. Thankfully, many countries have signed and ratified the convention, thereby committing to the protection of the most vulnerable amongst us. However, this ban means nothing if the international community fails to speak up against violations of this norm, or even address the issue in any serious way.
There are roughly <a href="https://www.un.org/youthenvoy/2015/02/4-10-child-soldiers-girls/">300,000 estimated child soldiers</a> around the world in over 20 countries. About 40% of the children are girls, sometimes as young as eight years old. While there has been much attention and even some <a href="https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/2020/02/south-sudan-comprehensive-action-plan-to-end-prevent-all-grave-violations-against-children-signed-by-government/">successes</a> in addressing the issue in African countries (though of course, much more is necessary), the issue of Palestinian-Arab child soldiers, specifically, has thus far failed to grasp the world’s attention. Worse, it is sometimes even excused.
For too long, the systemic abuse that Palestinian minors suffer at the hands of their oppressive leaders has gone largely ignored by the international community. Far too many children have been sent to their deaths, either as suicide bombers or while carrying out stabbing attacks. The abuse extends from &#8220;traditional&#8221; combat roles to every imaginable dangerous auxiliary capacity. Children are used by Gaza-based terror groups as <a href="https://nypost.com/2015/05/02/un-report-outlines-how-hamas-used-kids-as-human-shields/">human shields</a>, whether it’s protecting adult terrorists on the front lines of violent riots, or protecting weapon stores and rocket launching silos intentionally placed in proximity to, or even inside, Gaza schools.
Indoctrination in violence frequently begins in the Palestinian-Arab education system. Countless reports of inflammatory material propagated on official Palestinian Authority- or Hamas-run media have been published, yet have received little condemnation internationally. It took until August 2019 for the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to issue its first ever <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-first-un-panel-calls-on-palestinians-to-halt-hate-speech-against-israelis/">condemnation</a> of incitement and anti-Semitism found in Palestinian Authority textbooks. The textbooks included glorification of terrorists like <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5161024,00.html">Dalal Mughrabi</a>, who viciously slaughtered 38 civilians, including 13 children, during the 1978 &#8220;Coastal Road massacre.&#8221; Even <a href="https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/Data/articles/Art_20997/E_080_16_1749675127.pdf">kindergarteners</a> are not off limits from Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Gaza-based terror group, even runs terrorist <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/100000-children-attend-radical-Hamas-summer-camps">summer</a> boot camps for about 10,000 children.
The tragedy of Palestinian child soldiers — or any child soldier, for that matter — does not end once the child takes off the uniform. Those who survive their ordeal often exhibit severe psychological trauma that hinders their ability to adjust to civilian life. The evil people who turn children into tools of war for their own political gain do not merely rob children of their childhoods; they rob them of the joy of living normal lives.
On February 12, 2020, the word commemorates the annual “Red Hand Day,” which is meant to draw attention to child soldiers. There is no better time to shine a light on the plight of Palestinian-Arab children suffering at the hands of their oppressive, corrupt leaders.
Indeed, some have already to take matters into their own hands. A <a href="http://www.pcsweek.org/">multi-NGO campaign</a> is underway on social media and college campuses to raise awareness about the nightmare that so many Palestinian-Arab children are forced to endure. This campaign encourages citizens to send open letters to their governments and public leaders. Yet this is merely the first step.
We all have a duty to raise awareness and pressure Palestinian-Arab leaders to cease these exploitative practices. Palestinian-Arabs must know that they can have more to life than death and murder — and are worth more than ammunition. Even if no one else will tell them this, we must.

FISCHBERGER: Palestinian Child Soldiers Can No Longer Be Ignored

Anti-Semitism

In a now-viral clip, 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was caught on camera, while campaigning in New Hampshire, affirmatively agreeing with a questioner&#8217;s utterly vile depiction of prominent bipartisan pro-Israel organization American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
&#8220;I&#8217;m an American Jew,&#8221; the leftist begins, &#8220;and I&#8217;m terrified of the unholy alliance that AIPAC is forming with Islamophobes and anti-Semites and white nationalists. And no Democrat should legitimize that kind of bigotry by attending their annual <a href="https://event.aipac.org/PolicyConference">Policy Conference</a>. I&#8217;m really grateful that you skipped the AIPAC Conference last year. And so my question is if you&#8217;ll join me in committing to skip the AIPAC Conference this March.&#8221;
All along, Warren is seen visibly and passionately nodding. She then simply responded to the interlocutor: &#8220;Yeah.&#8221;
Trump re-election campaign Deputy Director of Communications – Research Zach Parkinson tweeted out the following accurate description to accompany the video: &#8220;Tonight, Elizabeth Warren nodded along and smiled as a questioner slandered AIPAC as &#8216;an unholy alliance&#8217; of &#8216;Islamophobes,&#8217; &#8216;anti-semites, and white nationalists&#8217; that perpetuates &#8216;bigotry&#8217; Without blinking, Warren then agreed to boycott next year&#8217;s AIPAC conference.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Tonight, Elizabeth Warren nodded along and smiled as a questioner slandered AIPAC as &quot;an unholy alliance&quot; of &quot;Islamophobes,&quot; &quot;anti-semites, and white nationalists&quot; that perpetuates &quot;bigotry&quot;
Without blinking, Warren then agreed to boycott next year&#39;s AIPAC conference <a href="https://t.co/U2MJ6DCTdZ">pic.twitter.com/U2MJ6DCTdZ</a>
&mdash; Zach Parkinson (@AZachParkinson) <a href="https://twitter.com/AZachParkinson/status/1225619091739881472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 7, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Warren has been consistently anti-Israel, in terms of both policy and personnel, throughout her entire campaign.
“It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution,” Warren <a href="https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1186052533405528067?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1186052533405528067&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Fwatch-elizabeth-warren-says-shes-open-to-cutting-off-aid-to-israel">intoned</a> back in November, “and if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, then everything is on the table.”
&#8220;Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) revealed on Saturday that she is open to withholding billions of dollars in military aid to Israel until the government ceases building settlements in the country’s West Bank,&#8221; The Daily Wire similarly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-elizabeth-warren-says-shes-open-to-cutting-off-aid-to-israel">reported</a> at the time.
Sounds a lot like a quid pro quo, no?
The Daily Wire has also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/where-does-elizabeth-warren-stand-issues-heres-josh-hammer">criticized</a> Warren&#8217;s naive foreign policy views with respect to Israel and her mollycoddling of anti-Semitic congresspeople: &#8220;She supports a &#8216;two-state solution&#8217; to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has often been critical of Israel’s need to robustly defend itself amid a sea of existential enemies surrounding it. Warren has disingenuously implied that congresswoman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has merely engaged in criticism of Israel’s present government, rather than also engaging in overt anti-Semitism.&#8221;
Perhaps worst of all, last summer Warren <a href="https://www.jta.org/2019/07/29/united-states/meet-max-berger-the-jewish-anti-occupation-activist-on-elizabeth-warrens-campaign">hired Max Berger</a>, a co-founder of vehemently anti-Israel, self-hating &#8220;Jewish&#8221; group IfNotNow, to be a top campaign operative. Amazingly, Berger was actually <a href="https://myemail.constantcontact.com/ANTI-SEMITE-OF-THE-WEEK--MAX-BERGER--ELIZABETH-WARREN-S-NEW-STAFFER--WANTS-TO-BE-FRIENDS-WITH-HAMAS.html?soid=1131491229186&amp;aid=9lf-XdrU8EU">once named &#8220;Anti-Semite of the Week&#8221;</a> by the organization <a href="http://StopAntiSemitism.org">StopAntiSemitism.org</a>: &#8220;<a href="https://canarymission.org/individual/Max_Berger" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Max Berger</a> is a co-founder and one of the most prominent leaders of the radical &#8230; group IfNotNow. The groups calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, idolizes terrorists and spreads lies and false propaganda against the Jewish State. &#8230; This week, Berger caused outrage for a now-deleted 2013 tweet in which he confesses he would &#8216;totally be friends with Hamas&#8217; — a designated terror organization in the U.S. which is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.&#8221;
AIPAC, of course, is not exactly a fiery right-wing group. Last March, following its 2019 Policy Conference, I wrote a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-what-exactly-current-role-aipac-josh-hammer">Daily Wire op-ed</a> entitled, &#8220;What Exactly Is The Current Role For AIPAC?&#8221;:
<blockquote>And yet AIPAC is hardly a particularly conservative group. Indeed, many of us in the more traditional, Eretz Yisrael-inspired camp of Zionism tend to view AIPAC as a nuisance at best and a counterproductive gadfly at worst. AIPAC stubbornly continues to lend <a href="https://www.aipac.org/news-hub/articles/25-years-since-oslo">de facto</a> support to the Oslo Accords — the single biggest geopolitical blunder in Israel’s national history. Two bloody intifadas, countless thousands killed by Islamist extremism, and one <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44732/hammer-israel-must-destroy-hamas-once-and-all-josh-hammer">outrageous</a> Gaza unilateral withdrawal later, AIPAC <a href="https://www.jta.org/2018/03/04/politics/aipac-launches-conference-appeal-progressives">continues</a> to support a <a href="https://www.aipac.org/learn/issues/issue-display/the-peace-process">“two-state solution”</a> entailing the carving out of a new PLO terrorist state somewhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. AIPAC’s institutionally self-aggrandizing support of mass U.S. military aid to Israel, furthermore, actually <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/09/04/support-israel-which-why-don-support-aid-israel/SXvLm92jTazjoV33k7Y65L/story.html">redounds against</a> the <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/rand-paul-is-right-about-aid-to-israel/">long-term interests</a> of Zionism.</blockquote>

Elizabeth Warren Holds Get Out The Vote Event In Derry, NH

WATCH: Elizabeth Warren Nods Along While Questioner Calls AIPAC An ‘Unholy Alliance’ Of ‘Islamophobes, Anti-Semities, And White Nationalists’

2020 Election

American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)

Democratic Party

Elizabeth Warren

Islam

Leftism

Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who frequently opines on issues pertaining to Israel, Zionism, and anti-Semitism, has agreed to take part in a <a href="http://www.pairagraph.com/dialogue/b155455f1bf04a71a596bf1b8cb0cf13">debate</a> about the Trump administration&#8217;s new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan at the new website <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.pairagraph.com">Pairagraph</a>, which <a href="http://www.pairagraph.com/about">describes itself</a> as &#8220;a platform for written dialogue between pairs of notable individuals&#8221; and &#8220;an online meeting place for the world’s most prominent figures across government, industry, academia, religion, and the arts.&#8221;
Here is Hammer&#8217;s <a href="http://www.pairagraph.com/dialogue/b155455f1bf04a71a596bf1b8cb0cf13">opening salvo in his debate</a> against Palestinian-Arab activist <a href="https://twitter.com/Issaamro">Issa Amro</a>. The Pairagraph debate format consists of dueling 500-word entries.
In the entire history of human civilization, there has never, ever been an independent Arab state situated between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Never.
At the same time, there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the historical Land of Israel — including the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, which &#8220;international community&#8221; ignoramuses nonsensically call the &#8220;West Bank&#8221; — for thousands of years.
The modern 20th/21st-century history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not difficult to grasp. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, San Remo Resolution of 1920, Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant, and the Peel Commission all laid the pre-World War II positive law foundation for what we all already knew from Genesis: The Jews are entitled to our land. In November 1947, the U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine proposed a pro-Arab partition that would have given the Jews a tiny, unworkable state. The Jews accepted; the Arabs rejected and instead launched a genocidal war to kill the Jews. The Arabs lost. The Arabs tried in 1967 and lost again. They tried in 1973 and lost yet again. The unrepentant terrorist Yasser Arafat and his Holocaust-denying kleptocratic Palestinian Authority successor, the brutish Mahmoud Abbas, have similarly never been nearly as interested in negotiating peace as they have been in killing Jews and inciting bloody jihad. In a sign of good will, even after Arafat&#8217;s Second Intifada murdered over 1,000 Jews and grievously maimed many thousand more, Israel in 2005 unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip — forcibly uprooting its own citizens en route. Jihadist outfit Hamas took over and turned the Strip into an Iran-subsidized terrorist enclave.
Again, the history is not difficult to understand. As Dennis Prager has said, if the Israelis were to lay down their guns, Israel would be destroyed tomorrow. But if the Palestinian-Arabs were to lay down their guns, there would be peace tomorrow.
All the Palestinian-Arabs have to do is accept Israel as a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders, pursuant to U.N. Security Resolution 242, and there will be immediate peace. But they have not done so because the sprawling Arab world, with devastating rapacity, has never abided a Jewish state that is smaller than the state of New Jersey.
The Trump administration soberly recognizes that under properly construed international law, Israel has (by far) the best legal claim to all of Judea and Samaria. Jordan illegally occupied the territory after the failed 1948 Arab war of aggression, after all, and Israel won it back only in the defensive war of 1967. Israel has always been willing to make political concessions of the land for peace, as no less conservative a prime minister as Benjamin Netanyahu&#8217;s acceptance of the Trump peace plan demonstrates.
The Trump plan deals with the reality on the ground — the reality of inveterate Palestinian-Arab intransigence, rejectionism, and glorification of jihad. The U.S. cannot be &#8220;neutral&#8221; as between stalwart moral/strategic ally Israel and a thuggish Palestinian Authority. Good for Trump for recognizing that.

Western Wall, Jerusalem, Israel

Hammer At ‘Pairagraph’: Trump’s Israel – Palestinian Peace Plan Is Fair And Just (Part 1)

Zionism

It takes time for attitudes to change, and changing attitudes in the Middle East is a tough proposition. Moving the Europeans may prove harder.
An Israeli general once told this story (I was there):
<blockquote>The Israeli general commanded a unit that crossed the Suez Canal in 1973 after repulsing Egypt’s surprise Yom Kippur War attack. In his headquarters, he received a message that purported to be from an Egyptian general, telling him to come — alone — in a jeep to a certain spot in the desert and “hear something.” The general told the group, “I was sure I was going to die, but I did it.” The Egyptian proved to be the chief of the Egyptian general staff and he, too, was alone.
The Egyptian said, “The war is over.”
The Israeli general said, “Yes. I know.”
The Egyptian general sighed, “Not this war. In 1948, Egypt was within 11 miles of Tel Aviv and you pushed us back. In 1956, you drove through Sinai — but it wasn’t fair because you had the French and the British. In 1967, you did it again — by yourselves. Now you have crossed the Suez Canal and are 99 kilometers from Cairo. I’m here to tell you that you won’t get any closer. The war is over.”
He got back in his jeep and left.
The Israeli returned to his headquarters and told the story to the general staff in Tel Aviv. “No one believed me,&#8221; the Israeli said.</blockquote>
But it was true. The Egyptian government had determined that fighting, losing, and regrouping was not a plan. In 1979, Anwar Sadat went to Jerusalem, and in so doing met Israel’s primary condition for peace — recognition of Israel as a legitimate and permanent state in the region, entitled to “secure and recognized boundaries, free from threats or acts of force” (the language of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242). Today, Egypt and Israel cooperate on energy, security (including for the Gaza Strip), and trade.
In the broader Arab world, it is taking longer. Unable to countenance Jewish sovereignty in the region, the Arabs went to war in 1948 to erase it. They failed. They tried again in 1967. They failed again. After that war, an Arab League Summit convened in Sudan and issued what became known as the Khartoum Resolution: &#8220;No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.&#8221;
Then there were the conflicts of 1973 and 1982, intifadas, and rocket wars with Gaza.
President Trump called them on it in announcing his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bryen-donald-trumps-vision-for-the-middle-east">“Vision” for the Middle East</a>. “It is time for the Muslim world to fix the mistake it made in 1948, when it chose to attack instead of to recognize the new state of Israel. The Palestinians are the primary pawn in this adventurism, and it is time for this sad chapter in history to end.” Three Arab ambassadors were in the room.
The <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/arab-league-holds-emergency-meeting-trump-plan-200201105251740.html">Arab League hastily convened a summit</a>, responding to the flat rejection of the plan by Palestinian Authority strongman Mahmoud Abbas, who had declined to read or even discuss it. This was not a “three noes” meeting. While the bloc as a whole rejected the Vision, the head of the Arab League said that there was time only for an initial study of the plan, adding that the Palestinian response would be key in shaping a &#8220;collective Arab position.” It should be noted that a day after announcing it would scrap security cooperation with the U.S. and Israel, the Palestinian Authority announced that, in fact, it <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Palestinians-wont-halt-security-ties-with-Israel-US-Ramallah-officials-616503">would not do so.</a>
<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/oic-hold-emergency-meeting-trump-middle-east-plan-200203064919675.html">Al Jazeera</a> wrote, “The announcement of Trump&#8217;s plan drew mixed responses from Arab states.” While joining in the vote, Egypt and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-jewish-journal-saudi-arabia-is-now-more-pro-israel-than-the-democratic-party">Saudi Arabia said separately that they “appreciated”</a> Mr. Trump’s efforts and called for renewed negotiations. Sudan’s leader announced a “principled stance on the Palestinian issue and the right of its people to establish its independent state &#8230; in accordance with the Arab consensus and Arab League decisions,” even as in a bit of irony — having hosted the Khartoum Declaration meeting — it established a mechanism for <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Israel-Sudan-set-up-normalization-teams-616526">opening diplomatic relations with Israel.</a>
OK, yes, the <a href="https://www.memri.org/reports/qatar-qatar-backed-international-union-muslim-scholars-blast-trumps-peace-plan-it-belongs">International Union of Muslim Scholars</a> (IUMS) consigned the Vision to the “dust heap of history,” but the IUMS is a creation of Qatar and Qatar is a puppet of Iran.
And speaking of Iran, European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Josip Borrell met with Iranian leaders and shortly afterward tried to <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/eu-reportedly-blocked-from-resolution-condemning-trump-plan-annexation/">ram a condemnation</a> of the Vision though the EU. But EU statements have to be unanimous and, of its 27 countries, six refused — including Italy, Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Borrell then issued the statement in his own name.
The interim commissioner-general of UNRWA said, “The plan … is extremely unsettling for the Palestine refugees living under occupation, under blockade and through conflict after conflict and crisis after crisis, hoping for justice and human rights. The international community must send a clear message to Palestine refugees and to the world at large that the international community stands firmly behind them.”
Rightly, Israel chose to <a href="https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/02/04/israel-harshly-criticizes-eu-over-rejection-of-trump-middle-east-peace-plan/">respond more harshly</a> to the EU and <a href="https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/02/03/israel-slams-unrwa-head-for-attacking-trump-peace-plan/">UNRWA</a> than it did the Arab League.
It has been hard for Arab states to move on from decades of adamant rejection of Israel to talk and trade, and generally accept the nation-state of the Jewish people. That is the reality, not an excuse. But for the EU and UNRWA, to encourage Palestinians in outmoded, fanatical, and dangerous thinking is inexplicable.
Except it isn’t.
&nbsp;
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/">The Jewish Policy Center</a> in Washington, and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly.

President Trump Meets With Israeli PM Netanyahu At The White House

BRYEN: The Arabs And Europeans React To Trump’s Middle East ‘Vision’

Egypt

Europe

European Union

Jerusalem

In the United States, “The Cognitive Campaign to Co-opt Zionism” is in full force. This is a movement, sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional, consisting of one simple goal: The complete separation of Judaism and <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/a-definition-of-zionism">Zionism</a>, which is the belief in the right of the Jewish people to a state in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel.
But what exactly is a cognitive campaign?
In the information era, war is often not waged in any physical space. Instead, the battlefield lies inside peoples’ hearts and minds — where influence is the weapon of choice. As Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser and David Siman-Tov of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) <a href="https://www.inss.org.il/publication/the-cognitive-campaign-strategic-and-intelligence-perspectives/">explain</a>: “The purpose of the cognitive campaign is to cause target audiences to adopt the perception of reality held by the side wielding the effort, so that it can more easily advance the strategic and/or operational objectives that it sees as critical.”
Campaign activists accomplish this via a wide array of tools, ranging from traditional diplomacy, mass media, social media, grassroots efforts, and so forth. Cognitive campaigns have become such powerful weapons in both domestic and international affairs that governments have created entire agencies to operate exclusively in the field of public perception.
However, the cognitive campaign to co-opt Zionism is one that is seldom discussed, likely due to the sensitivity surrounding the subject within the Jewish community. Jewish identity has many different characteristics. Some emphasize the community aspect of Judaism, others the religious aspect, and others the Zionist aspect. And in a society that puts such an emphasis on personal identity, it is galling to see broad swaths of the public, Jews included, disparage Zionists because of their beliefs. Many American Jews simply do not see Zionism as a legitimate component of Jewish identity. Unfortunately, it is often Jews themselves who take prominent roles in the campaign against Zionism.
The cognitive campaign to separate and redefine Zionism from Judaism is longstanding. For decades, Zionism has been compared, in some quarters, to colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy. In 1975, a shameful <a href="https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/InternatlOrgs/Issues/Pages/40-years-since-UN-resolution-equating-Zionism-to-racism-10-Nov-2015.aspx">resolution</a> was passed at the U.N. declaring that Zionism is racism (it was later reversed in 1991, but by then the damage was done). Today, this cognitive campaign is led by anti-Israel activists, such as <a href="https://ukmediawatch.org/2016/08/25/guardian-again-whitewashes-the-extremism-of-students-for-justice-in-palestine-sjp/">Students for Justice in Palestine</a>, <a href="https://www.camera.org/article/jewish-voice-for-peace-jvp-what-the-media-is-concealing/">Jewish Voices for Peace</a>, and BDS supporters, who relentlessly promote misinformation that Israel is a non-democratic, oppressive, apartheid state.
In the digital age, almost everyone spends time on social media, where cognitive campaigns thrive, and where people live in echo chambers that oftentimes expose them to only one perspective on a given issue. When combining this one-sided social media exposure with the blatant lies constantly told about <a href="https://israelforever.org/israel/reading/industry_of_lies_media_academia_and_the_israeli_arab_conflict/">Israel in the media and academia</a>, people fall victim to the <a href="https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/illusory-truth-effect/">“illusory truth effect,”</a> which causes them to believe misinformation due to repeated exposure. If someone ignorant of the facts were to stumble upon all the terrible things said about Zionism and Israel, it’s no wonder he might distance himself.
This brings us to President Donald Trump’s recent Israel-related moves. Part of the controversy surrounding the president’s actions is that they amplified the already fraught tension inside the Jewish community about the connection between Judaism and Zionism.
Take, for example, the Trump administration’s <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-pompeos-statement-on-settlements/">declaration</a> that Israel’s &#8220;settlements&#8221; in Judea and Samaria do not necessarily violate international law. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit the nail on the head when he <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Benjamin-Netanyahu-Mike-Pompeo-speak-at-Kohelet-Policy-Forum-WATCH-613535">stated</a> that the declaration “establishes the truth that we are not strangers in our land.&#8221;
Then there’s President Trump’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-combating-anti-semitism/">executive order</a> (EO) combatting anti-Semitism on college campuses — an EO that many <a href="https://www.heritage.org/religious-liberty/commentary/trumps-executive-order-against-anti-semitism-will-protect-us-jews">erroneously claimed</a> would &#8220;redefine&#8221; Jews as a race or nationality. In fact, the EO merely enshrines that Jews will enjoy the same protections under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act as other racial, ethnic, or national groups. It also implicitly links Zionism with Judaism, by relying on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s <a href="https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/working-definition-antisemitism">Working Definition of Anti-Semitism</a>, which stipulates that “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” (i.e., Zionism) is inherently anti-Semitic.
Of course, one cannot forget President Trump’s statement regarding the American embassy move to Jerusalem, when he <a href="https://il.usembassy.gov/statement-president-trump-jerusalem/">reminded the world</a> that Jerusalem was “the capital the Jewish people established in ancient times” — a fact which he reinforced in his newly unveiled vision for a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/peacetoprosperity/">comprehensive peace agreement</a> between Israel and the Palestinians.
All these actions by President Trump not only reaffirm the connection between Jews and Zionism, but also subvert decades of the cognitive campaign’s attempt to separate the two.
Make no mistake — the cognitive campaign to co-opt Zionism is consequential for the Jewish people. Will large sectors of Jewish society continue to distance themselves from Zionism? Or will they re-embrace it?
The most effective way to combat this campaign is through what can be described as a “Counter-Cognitive Campaign.” Obviously, this campaign must spread some much-needed truth about Zionism as a legitimate national movement. Equally important, the campaign must clarify that although Judaism and Zionism need not always be conflated, they must not be disassociated from each other. Of course, not every Jew needs to consider Zionism a core part of his individual identity. We do, however, need to recognize that every Jew enjoys the right to identify as a proud Zionist — and nobody can demonize him or her for that.

Israeli flag

FISCHBERGER: The Cognitive Campaign To Co-Opt Zionism

Judaism

President Donald Trump appears to have added another name to the list of terrorists that his administration has killed as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reportedly launched a drone strike that killed the leader of Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen.
&#8220;The officials expressed confidence that the Qaeda leader, Qassim al-Rimi, was killed in a January airstrike in Yemen but were awaiting confirmation before making a public announcement,&#8221; The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/world/middleeast/qaeda-yemen-alrimi.html">reported</a>. &#8220;If confirmed, his death could represent a significant blow to the Qaeda affiliate, which remains one of the most potent branches of the terrorist group. The Yemen branch, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has tried to attack the United States and Europe and is thought to still want to.&#8221;
The Times reported the CIA learned about al-Rimi’s location in November from an informant in Yemen and then started to track him using drones and other technology.
Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Times: “He was an Al Qaeda veteran whose career started in the camps in pre-9/11 Afghanistan. After he was busted out of prison, he was part of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s relaunch management team, becoming their military commander.”
The news comes after a Trump-authorized drone strike killed Iranian terrorist leader Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF), in early January.
In October, Trump authorized a raid targeting ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria which resulted in al-Baghdadi&#8217;s death when he detonated a suicide vest as he was running from U.S. forces.
The day after al-Baghdadi was killed, U.S. forces conducted another attack that resulted in the death of al-Baghdadi&#8217;s likely successor, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, when an airstrike took him out as he was being &#8220;smuggled across northern Syria in the back of an oil tanker truck,&#8221; the Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/world/middleeast/al-baghdadi-successor-reported-killed.html">reported</a>.
Another terrorist that the Trump administration took care of was Osama bin Laden’s son, Hamza bin Laden, who had repeatedly threatened to attack the U.S. and who was believed to be in line to taking over Al Qaeda.
&#8220;Details of the strike that killed him were scarce, including when and where,&#8221; The Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/us/politics/hamza-bin-laden-al-qaeda.html">reported</a>. &#8220;The United States government played a role in the operation, but it was not clear how, according to the officials, who discussed his death on the condition of anonymity because it involved sensitive operations and intelligence gathering. Mr. bin Laden was killed sometime during the first two years of the Trump administration, officials said.&#8221;
Not quite making the list was Abdul Reza Shahlai, an official with Iran’s Quds Force, who the Trump administration attempted to take out with a drone strike on the same day that they took out Soleimani.
“The disclosure of a second mission indicated that the Trump administration was attempting to target a larger set of Iranian military and paramilitary leaders than was previously known,” The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/world/middleeast/trump-iran-yemen.html">reported</a>. “The unsuccessful airstrike in Yemen was aimed at Abdul Reza Shahlai, an official with Iran’s Quds Force, a potent paramilitary organization. He was known as a key financier for Iran’s proxy wars.”
The Washington Post reported that the details surrounding the plan remained “highly classified” and suggested that Shahlai could be re-targeted again in the future.
“Another senior official said the two strikes were authorized around the same time and that the United States did not disclose the Shahlai mission because it did not go according to plan,” the Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/on-the-day-us-forces-killed-soleimani-they-launched-another-secret-operation-targeting-a-senior-iranian-official-in-yemen/2020/01/10/60f86dbc-3245-11ea-898f-eb846b7e9feb_story.html">reported</a>. “The official said Shahlai may be targeted in the future, though both countries have signaled an interest in de-escalating the crisis.”
Refresh the page for updates.

President Trump And First Lady Melania Depart White House For Florida

Trump Takes Out Another Top Terrorist In The Middle East

Al Qaeda

Qassim al-Rimi

Terrorism

Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who frequently opines on issues pertaining to Israel and anti-Semitism, has the following piece at the <a href="https://jewishjournal.com/columnist/310128/saudi-arabia-is-more-pro-israel-than-the-democratic-party/">Jewish Journal</a>, the Los Angeles-based Jewish weekly. 
For decades, Saudi Arabia — a territorially expansive nation and home to Islamic holy cities Mecca and Medina — represented a symbolic epicenter of the Arab world’s systemic anti-Zionism. That anti-Zionism dates back to the Arab world’s fateful rejection of the U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine in November 1947, and reached its zenith with the vile Khartoum Resolution in September 1967, decreed in the aftermath of Israel’s Six-Day War victory: “No peace [with Israel],” “no recognition,” and “no negotiations.”
Yet in the year 2020, <a href="https://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&amp;newsid=2027848#2027848" data-reader-unique-id="3">Saudi Arabia</a> — along with the <a href="https://twitter.com/GreenblattJD/status/1222227819033518083" data-reader-unique-id="4">United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman</a>, <a href="https://news.qna.org.qa/lang/en/w/article/1580250375011598800" data-reader-unique-id="5">Qatar</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/1452664425061142/posts/2592875164373390/?d=n" data-reader-unique-id="6">Egypt</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/1021964141227620/posts/2670012913089393/" data-reader-unique-id="7">Morocco</a> — seems to be more pro-Israel than the leading luminaries of the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/democratic-candidates-censure-trump-peace-plan-warn-against-annexation/" data-reader-unique-id="8">Democratic Party</a>. We may come to this troublesome conclusion because of the various Democrat reactions to the Trump administration’s formal unveiling of its “<a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/The-Deal-of-the-Century-What-are-its-key-points-615680" data-reader-unique-id="9">Deal of the Century” plan</a> for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Per the Saudi government’s <a href="https://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&amp;newsid=2027848#2027848" data-reader-unique-id="11">official release</a>, the kingdom “appreciates the efforts of President Trump’s administration to develop a comprehensive peace plan between the Palestinian and the Israeli sides, and encourages the start of direct peace negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli sides.”
By contrast, the 2020 Democrats were dismissive. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the purported “moderate” in the party’s presidential primary field, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/democratic-candidates-censure-trump-peace-plan-warn-against-annexation/" data-reader-unique-id="13">decried</a> the President’s plan as a “political stunt that could … set back peace even more.” Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), borrowing the same talking point, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/democratic-candidates-censure-trump-peace-plan-warn-against-annexation/" data-reader-unique-id="14">lamented</a> that “Trump’s so-called ‘peace plan’ … will only perpetuate the conflict.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/democratic-candidates-censure-trump-peace-plan-warn-against-annexation/" data-reader-unique-id="15">called</a> it a “rubber stamp for annexation” that “offers no chance for a real Palestinian state.” Former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/democratic-candidates-censure-trump-peace-plan-warn-against-annexation/" data-reader-unique-id="16">dubbed</a> it a “political green light for … unilateral annexation.”
The 2020 Democrats were joined across the pond by the loathsome Jeremy Corbyn. The iconic leftist and proud <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/03/jeremy-corbyn-has-a-soft-spot-for-extremists-ira-hamas-hezbollah-britain-labour/" data-reader-unique-id="18">“friend”</a> of jihadist outfits Hamas and Hezbollah <a href="https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1222303875593637891" data-reader-unique-id="19">excoriated</a> Trump’s plan as a “travesty” that “lock[s] in illegal Israeli colonisation.”
The reality is that in the post-Iran nuclear-deal era — where “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” logic reigns supreme — the Sunni stalwarts of the Islamic world have all but abandoned their traditional role as the patrons of and international community provocateurs on behalf of the Palestinian cause. The thawing of relations between Israel and the Sunni Arab world has seeped from the realm of the surreptitious into the realm of the highly visible.
“Realpolitik” now is the name of the game in the Middle East, and non-Islamist Arab rulers soberly recognize Israel’s utility in countering the Islamic Republic of Iran’s hegemonic ambitions and harrowing pursuit of a nuclear arsenal. The Palestinian cause — always just a hobbyhorse to which an Arab leader could point and distract his restive populace — necessarily takes a back seat to the more important goal of regime survival.
<a href="https://jewishjournal.com/columnist/310128/saudi-arabia-is-more-pro-israel-than-the-democratic-party/">Read the rest of the piece here</a>.

RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-stark-choice-facing-jewish-democrats-josh-hammer">The Stark Choice Facing Jewish Democrats</a>
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-us-must-side-saudi-arabia-against-iranian-josh-hammer">The U.S. Must Side With Saudi Arabia Against Iranian Aggression</a>

Hammer at ‘Jewish Journal’: Saudi Arabia Is Now More Pro-Israel Than The Democratic Party

Progressivism

Saudi Arabia

After the unveiling of President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan in the Middle East, numerous Senate Democrats took time out of their busy schedule to lecture him about Middle East politics. <a href="https://www.vanhollen.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Van%20Hollen%20Letter%20MidEast%20Peace%20Plan.pdf">The letter they wrote</a> is historically ignorant and dangerous, which is compounded by the fact that it was signed by three leading current presidential candidates; Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
“Dear President Trump,” the letter begins, “We write to express our profound concern regarding your decision to release a one-sided Israeli-Palestinian plan forged without any Palestinian involvement or support.”
Right off the bat, Senate Democrats ignore the fact that the Palestinians have been invited to the negotiations on numerous occasions. The most prominent one was June 2019, when there was a U.S.-led peace conference in Bahrain that was boycotted by the Palestinians. They thought that a boycott would stop the conference, but Jared Kushner, the point-man for the Trump administration in this process, pushed forward.
Trump&#8217;s peace plan would ultimately give the Palestinians a state, as well as funds to help get that state up and running. The 1947 U.N. partition plan, which the Arab world outright rejected in choosing instead to declare all-out war on the nascent Jewish state, did not include $50 billion. In fact, the world mostly stood by and watched while the Jewish state was attacked from every direction.
Senate Democrats&#8217; letter espouses significant falsehoods, claiming that this plan “paves the way for full or partial Israeli annexation of the West Bank.” But there has never been much support for a call to fully annex Judea and Samaria, as that would include giving citizenship to millions of Palestinian-Arabs — many of whom call for the destruction of the state of Israel.
Senate Democrats also, un-ironically, claim that this plan “undermine[s] existing U.S. policy regarding the unilateral annexation of Crimea, eastern Ukraine.” In case the Democrats forgot, Russia invaded Crimea when the Obama administration withheld crucial military aid to the Ukranians. That was not a defensive war; it was an attack by Russia. Comparing that act with Israel winning territory in the 1967 Six-Day War, which was a defensive war, is patently insane. Additionally, Russia immediately annexed Crimea, whereas Israel limited its annexation to the city of Jerusalem — the eternal capital of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hill-the-jewish-nation">Jewish nation</a>. Contrast that to 1948, when Jordan took over that same territory, annexed it, and left the Palestinian people in refugee camps to linger and suffer until Israel militarily defeated Jordan in 1967&#8217;s defensive conflict.
Senate Democrats also conveniently ignore the last 73 years of history when they claim that “this proposal violates the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.” The Palestinians could have asserted their right to self-determination any time from 1947 through today. They can declare a state and nobody will mind. In fact, many Israelis would welcome it. In 2000, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to Yasser Arafat the Gaza Strip, 95% of the West Bank, 5% of Israel, half of Jerusalem (including the Temple Mount), and Israeli citizenship for 50,000 Palestinians. Arafat walked away without a counteroffer and instead <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-vox-lies-about-israel-again">launched the Second Intifada</a>. Democrats ignore that the Palestinians could have exercised their “right to self-determination.” Instead, they are choosing to stay as they are.
The Democrats complain about the proposed borders, referring to it as a “disconnected series of Palestinian islets.&#8221; They claim that this “would betray the vision of a sovereign Palestinian state.” Again, Palestinians could have had a say in this process. They chose not to. Additionally, the only “vision” that the Palestinians have of a Palestinian state is one that encompasses all of Israel and does not include any Jews.
The Democrats then have the audacity to accuse President Trump of interfering in the upcoming Israeli election, claiming that the timing “raises disturbing questions about [Trump&#8217;s] intention to intervene in the Israeli election process.” This accusation is audacious for multiple reasons. First, the Democratic Party at-large is currently in the middle of an impeachment of President Trump that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-impeachment-manager-admits-that-impeachment-is-about-2020-election">Democrats themselves claim</a> is intended to prevent him from winning re-election. Second, this is the third Israeli election in the last year, so this wouldn’t affect much of anything. Third, Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s chief political rival, endorsed this plan and <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-says-hell-bring-trump-peace-plan-before-knesset-for-vote-next-week/">is bringing it up for a parliamentary vote</a>. Finally, it is ironic that Senate Democrats are accusing Trump of interfering with Israeli elections when <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/236565-netanyahu-pollster-obama-role-in-election-larger-than-reported">Obama did that</a> in 2015 — and nobody cared.
Democrats continue their letter with their old and tiresome “President Trump isn’t a normal president” routine. “Your administration has already reversed decades of bipartisan U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” it reads. “Previous presidents of both parties successfully maintained the respect of both Israelis and Palestinians for the United States’ role as a credible player in difficult negotiations.” But policies that haven’t worked for 50 years should be changed. Democrats think that if they try the same thing over and over — that &#8220;thing&#8221; being caving to terrorists — there will be different results. That is the definition of insanity. Trump’s only change from the standard “two-state solution” is that it recognizes the fact that Israel is the only actor that actually wants peace.
The Democrats are making the same mistakes with the Palestinians that they did with the Iranians: The assumption that everyone wants the same thing. They do not. Palestinian leadership wants to destroy Israel. Democrats either don’t know that, or simply don’t care.
 
Moshe Hill is a political analyst and a Chovevei Zion Fellow. His work can be found on <a href="https://www.ahillwithaview.com">aHillwithaView.com</a>, <a href="https://facebook.com/aHillwithaView">facebook.com/aHillwithaView</a>, and on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TheMoHill">@TheMoHill</a>.

HILL: Senate Democrats’ Response To Trump’s Peace Plan Is Historically Ignorant

Amy Klobuchar

Bernie Sanders

Perhaps the sole silver lining of the otherwise-harrowing capitulation to fundamentalist jihadist evil that was President Barack Obama&#8217;s Iran nuclear deal was the fact that the leading Sunni Arab states — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt chief among them — began to warm up to the Jewish state of Israel. The enemy of my enemy, as the venerable maxim goes, is indeed my friend. And these Sunni stalwarts have found common cause with Israel in opposing the Islamic Republic of Iran&#8217;s decades-long hegemonic ambitions, which were only augmented by the capitulatory cash influxes provided by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
To date, however, the thawing of relations has generally taken a clandestine form — mostly on the intelligence and counterintelligence level. But the unveiling yesterday of President Donald Trump&#8217;s &#8220;Deal of the Century&#8221; peace proposal for Israel and the Palestinian-Arabs represents the clearest public sign yet of just how far this thawing has progressed.
It is nothing short of remarkable just how far we have come, when considering the &#8220;Three No&#8217;s&#8221; of the infamous 1967 Khartoum Resolution, decreed in the aftermath of Israel&#8217;s miraculous Six-Day War victory: &#8220;No peace [with Israel],&#8221; &#8220;no recognition [of Israel],&#8221; and &#8220;no negotiations [with Israel].&#8221;
For starters, as The Daily Wire&#8217;s Hank Berrien <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trumps-deal-of-the-century-for-israel-palestinians-a-realistic-plan-with-arab-states-backing-it">reported</a> yesterday, &#8220;Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba of the UAE, Ambassador Abdullah bin Rashid Al Khalifa of Bahrain, and the Ambassador Hunaina al-Mughairy of Oman <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Bahrain-UAE-envoys-come-to-White-House-for-Trump-Deal-of-the-Century-615706">were in the East Room</a> of the White House on Tuesday as Trump announced his plan.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Three great friends of peace &#8211; you, your countries &amp; your leaders are courageous. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being at the event at the <a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@WhiteHouse</a> today &amp; thank you for your encouragement &amp; support! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UAE?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#UAE</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bahrain?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bahrain</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Oman?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Oman</a> <a href="https://t.co/N3LvtQufvz">pic.twitter.com/N3LvtQufvz</a>
&mdash; Jason D. Greenblatt (@GreenblattJD) <a href="https://twitter.com/GreenblattJD/status/1222227819033518083?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
It is unprecedented to have such leading representatives from Sunni Arab governments effectively recognizing Israel&#8217;s right, under U.N. Security Council <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-meaning-of-un-security-council-resolution-242">Resolution 242</a>, &#8220;to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.&#8221; It is even more unprecedented for such Arab governments to effectively recognize this international law right in the context of what is quite clearly, on the underlying merits, the <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-Trump-Plan-How-Israel-Should-Respond-615681">most pro-Israel peace plan ever offered</a> by an American president — and one that is offered by a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-jerusalem-matters-ben-shapiro">historically pro-Israel American president</a> and a conservative Likud party Israeli prime minister, no less.
Numerous Arab governments, furthermore, have offered public endorsements of Trump&#8217;s plan that invariably refer to it as a welcoming or promising development.
From the <a href="https://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&amp;newsid=2027848#2027848">Kingdom of Saudi Arabia</a>, home to the Islamic holy city of Mecca and the centuries-long epicenter of the Sunni Muslim world: &#8220;The kingdom appreciates the efforts of President Trump&#8217;s administration to develop a comprehensive peace plan between the Palestinian and the Israeli sides, and encourages the start of direct peace negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli sides, under the auspices of the United States, and to resolve any disagreements with aspects of the plan through negotiations.&#8221;
From (<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-al-jazeeras-disgraceful-holocaust-denying-josh-hammer">deeply problematic &#8220;ally&#8221;</a>) <a href="https://news.qna.org.qa/lang/en/w/article/1580250375011598800">Qatar</a>: &#8220;The State of Qatar welcomes all efforts aiming towards a longstanding and just peace in the occupied Palestinian territories. It also appreciates the endeavors of President Trump and the current U.S. administration to find solutions for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, all solutions should be consistent with international law and the relevant U.N. resolutions.&#8221;
From <a href="https://www.facebook.com/1452664425061142/posts/2592875164373390/?d=n">Egypt</a>: &#8220;The Arab Republic of Egypt appreciates the continuous efforts exerted by the U.S. administration to achieve a comprehensive and just settlement of the Palestinian issue, thereby contributing to the stability and security of the Middle East, ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.&#8221;
From the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/1021964141227620/posts/2670012913089393/">Kingdom of Morocco</a>: &#8220;The Kingdom of Morocco expresses the wish that a constructive peace process be launched from now on, with a view to a realistic, applicable, equitable and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian question, satisfying the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, for an independent, viable and sovereign State, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and enabling the peoples of the region to live in dignity, prosperity and stability.&#8221;
Contrast that with the leading 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidates, who have <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/democratic-candidates-censure-trump-peace-plan-warn-against-annexation/">all assailed</a> the plan. Or contrast it with Hamas/Hezbollah-loving Jeremy Corbyn of Britain, who calls it a &#8220;<a href="https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1222303875593637891">travesty</a>.&#8221;
The Arab world is desperately trying to move on and finally resolve the Palestinian issue once and for all. But the American and European Left will not let them do so.
Kudos, nonetheless, to the Trump administration and the main actors/former actors there responsible for crafting the plan — including but hardly limited to Jason Greenblatt, Jared Kushner, and Avi Berkowitz — for their work in this very <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/eugene-kontorovich-trump-israeli-palestinian-peace-plan-is-fair-and-just-but-palestinians-wont-compromise">fair and thoughtfully devised</a> peace plan.

Donald Trump at White House with Benjamin Netanyahu

HISTORIC: Arab States Welcome Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan

Barack Obama

On a recent trip to Israel, I met a Palestinian student who studies at a diverse international school. I asked her if any of the Palestinian groups believe in Gandhian non-violence to redress their grievances. She knew of only one group — the small communist party to which she belonged. Only one.
If this sounds like an exaggeration, it is not by much. Nor is it surprising. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has inculcated a culture of violence and hatred of Jews in each successive generation of Palestinians since it was founded by Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1964.
Israeli journalist Eliezer Whartman <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/When-Egypt-was-in-Gaza">wrote</a> that when he visited Gaza in 1967, after Israel had driven out the Egyptian army, he found that:
<blockquote>&#8220;Indoctrination to hatred of Israel started at the very tenderest years. I saw pictures which children had drawn, with the encouragement of their teachers, depicting themselves killing Israeli children. The textbooks dripped venom. One text for the third grade, entitled Arabic Islamic History read: &#8216;The Jews are always the same, in every time, every place. They live only in darkness. They secretly plan to do evil; they fight only from hidden places because they are cowards. We must purify holy Palestine from their filth in order to bring peace back to the Arab homeland.'&#8221;</blockquote>
This trend has continued, unbroken, to the present day.
In Lebanon in 1982, Israel encountered hundreds of preteen and early teenage Palestinian boys specially trained by the PLO to use rocket-propelled grenades.
In 2016, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of this phenomenon:
<blockquote>&#8220;I want you to imagine a day in the life of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy, I&#8217;ll call him Ali. Ali wakes up before school, he goes to practice with a soccer team named after Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian terrorist responsible for the murder of a busload of 37 Israelis. At school, Ali attends an event sponsored by the Palestinian Ministry of Education honoring Baha Alyan, who last year murdered three Israeli civilians. On his walk home, Ali looks up at a towering statue erected just a few weeks ago by the Palestinian Authority to honor Abu Sukar, who detonated a bomb in the center of Jerusalem, killing 15 Israelis.&#8221;</blockquote>
&#8220;Imagine your child undergoing this brainwashing,&#8221; Netanyahu said. &#8220;Imagine what it takes for a young boy or girl to break free out of this culture of hate. Some do but far too many don&#8217;t. How can any of us expect young Palestinians to support peace when their leaders poison their minds against peace?&#8221;
The PLO has signed peace agreements before, each time with forked tongue. One notable occasion was the 1993 Oslo peace process, which earned PLO head Yasser Arafat the Nobel Peace Prize. While he spoke of peaceful coexistence at the White House, he was singing a very different tune to Arab and Muslim audiences. On May 10, 1994, Arafat was secretly recorded speaking at a mosque in Johannesburg, South Africa. He <a href="https://iris.org.il/arafats-johannesburg-speech/">said</a>:
<blockquote>&#8220;This agreement, I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Mohammed and Koraish, and you remember the Caliph Omar had refused this agreement and [considered] it a despicable truce.
But Mohammed had accepted it and we are accepting now this peace offer. But to continue our way to Jerusalem, to the first shrine together and not alone. We are in need of you as Moslems, as warriors of Jihad.&#8221;</blockquote>
(The treaty with the Koraish, known as the Treaty of Hudaybiya, was a peace treaty Mohammed signed with the Koraish tribe of Mecca at a time when his army was not strong enough to conquer the city. Two years later, however, Mohammed&#8217;s forces had gained in strength, so he abrogated the treaty and conquered Mecca.)
A few years later, when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat everything he asked for as part of the agreement, Arafat rejected the offer and subsequently launched one of the bloodiest waves of terrorism in modern Israeli history.
In 2015, Palestinan Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas said: &#8220;We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah. With the help of Allah, every shaheed (martyr) will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward.  &#8230; Al-Aqsa is ours, and the (Church of the) Holy Sepulcher is ours, everything is ours, all ours. They (the Jews) have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet and we won&#8217;t allow them to.&#8221;
The PLO is poison. It has destroyed the prospect of peace and it holds hostage the aspirations of the Palestinians. If there is to be peace someday, it will be when the legacy of the PLO is undone.

Mahmoud Abbas at U.N.

MITSOTAKIS: The PLO’s Poison

Yasser Arafat

President Donald Trump’s Middle East &#8220;Deal of the Century&#8221; peace plan — The Vision — is 180 pages long and meticulously detailed. <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/peacetoprosperity/">Read it</a> if you like. But the president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu covered the high points Tuesday before an enthusiastic, pro-Israel audience at the White House.
Regardless of how future negotiations go, the president’s management of The Vision and meetings with the prime minister and, separately, with Netanyahu’s chief political rival (Benny Gantz), were masterful in two ways. First, it allowed the Israelis to demonstrate that there are areas in which their two major political parties can agree, and that both can agree with Mr. Trump. Second, it allowed the president to erase the mistaken assumption that the United States has to be neutral between Israelis and Palestinians in order to make progress.
The United States can only be an “honest broker” if it eschews neutrality, which accepts all the positions of both parties as equally compelling. The Vision, and the East Room ceremony, address American interests, the first of which is that Israel is a friend and ally by its very nature. Human rights, rule of law, free elections, freedom of religion and the press, security interests, and a high-tech, open economy are built in. While the president was extraordinarily sympathetic to the Palestinian people — particularly young people whom he lamented are “growing up with no hope” — there are some things the Palestinian Authority (PA) does that are unacceptable not only to Israel, but also to the United States.
Giving up those unacceptable things before the U.S. will support Palestinians&#8217; desire for an independent state is what some people call “preconditions.” Yes. Precisely. Neutral parties don’t do that — honest brokers do. The PA has to be an acceptable interlocutor and at the moment, it is not. But, said the president, “It is never too late. It is time to rise up and meet the challenges of the future. If they do it, it will work.”
What, exactly, does the president require?
In exchange for recognition of Palestine as the nation-state of the Palestinian people with a capital in Jerusalem (which will remain undivided and under Israeli sovereignty), “where the U.S. will proudly open an embassy,” plus massive international investment, he asked them to “meet the challenges of peaceful coexistence.”
<ul>
<li>Adopt basic laws ensuring basic human rights and protecting against financial and political corruption;</li>
<li>Stop malign activities of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad;</li>
<li>End incitement against Israel; and</li>
<li>Permanently halt financial compensation to terrorists</li>
</ul>
Let’s face it, these constitute a very low bar for civilized behavior. If the Palestinians can’t or won’t do those things, how much “peace” will any “process” provide? (One Twitter used asked, “Anyone think the Kurds would reject a deal that gave them a path to a state and $50 billion if they just behaved like human beings?”)
In addition, the president changed the timeline.
Life/conflict for Palestinians and Israelis did not start with Israel’s acquisition of Judea and Samaria in the course of defending itself from a combined multi-national Arab attack in 1967. “It is time for the Muslim world to fix the mistake it made in 1948, when it chose to attack instead of to recognize the new state of Israel. The Palestinians are the primary pawn in this adventurism, and it is time for this sad chapter in history to end.” By recognizing that the Palestinians were left hanging by their Arab brothers between 1948 and 1967, he made the solution to the Palestinian plight the Arab states&#8217; responsibility, as well. Three Arab ambassadors were in the room.
Trump noted that Qassem Soleimani’s organization, the Quds Force, was, translated in English, the Jerusalem Liberation Organization. “To have Jerusalem be free [Soleimani said] we have to be at war with Israel. But, in truth, Jerusalem is liberated. Jerusalem is a safe, open, and democratic city.”
The president was fulsome in his praise of Israel, pleased that Israel had agreed — for the first time — to produce a map of what two states would look like. It would be useful to ask the Palestinians to produce a map with THEIR proposed settlement — but not until they come to the table.
And he was clear in his determination to ensure Israel’s security. “There will be no incremental risks to the state of Israel.” “Peace,” he added, “requires compromise, but we will never ask Israel to compromise its security.”
That is a far cry from prior administrations that demanded Israel take “risks for peace.” Those risks resulted in the so-called “intifada” after Israel signed the Oslo Accords and allowed the PA to have an armed security force; the entrenchment of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon after Israel departed there in 2000; and the rise of Hamas after Israel departed the Gaza Strip in 2005. Trump will not ask Israel to take more of those risks.
The Israelis know how rare it is to have an American president who sees the world the way they do. The Palestinians can take advantage of a president who wants to improve their future.
“America,” said the president, “cannot care more about peace than the stakeholders,” but he also was careful to mention that “this part of the world is forever connected to the human soul and the human spirit.”
Amen.
&nbsp;
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/">The Jewish Policy Center</a> in Washington, and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly.

BRYEN: Donald Trump’s Vision For The Middle East

On Monday, President Donald Trump, who is hosting at the White House today both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his leading political foe at the moment, former Israel Defense Forces Chief of General Staff Benny Gantz, confirmed that he will unveil tomorrow his administration&#8217;s much-anticipated &#8220;Deal of the Century&#8221; peace plan proposal for Israel and the Palestinian-Arabs.
&#8220;It’s something they should want,&#8221; Trump said following a meeting with Netanyahu, Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-touts-upcoming-mideast-peace-plan-following-meeting-with-netanyahu-despite-palestinian-objections">reports</a>, while adding that Trump confirmed he will announce the plan on Tuesday. “They probably won&#8217;t want it initially. I think in the end they will. I think in the end they&#8217;re going to want it. It&#8217;s very good for them,” Trump continued.
“We&#8217;ll see what happens,” Trump speculated. “Without them, we don&#8217;t do the deal. That&#8217;s OK. &#8230; We think that there is a very good chance that they&#8217;re going to want this.”
“This is an opportunity for peace,” Trump also said while standing alongside Netanyahu, as <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Trump-to-unveil-Israeli-borders-map-for-first-time-in-peace-plan-rollout-615541">noted</a> by The Jerusalem Post. “We’ll show a plan that has been worked on by everyone. We’ll see if it catches hold. If it does, that’d be great. If it doesn’t, it’s okay.”
Trump &#8220;said he invited Gantz to the White House so that the timing of the plan’s release wouldn’t be seen as political, in order to help Netanyahu win the upcoming election,&#8221; the Post reported. &#8220;He called Netanyahu and Gantz &#8216;two good competitions, fighting it out.'&#8221;
The Post, which is very well-sourced on this issue, also speculated on the contours of the soon-to-be-rolled-out plan: &#8220;The plan is expected to include the annexation of all Israeli settlements to Israel, along with most of the Jordan Valley, in a way that would allow for maximum territory with minimum non-Israel residents, such that the Palestinians would live in their own, demilitarized state.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.jewishpress.com/news/eye-on-palestine/settlers-launching-deal-of-the-century-pushback/2020/01/26/">reported</a> by the Jewish Press over the weekend, some so-called &#8220;settlers&#8221; — otherwise known as Jews <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-trump-administration-is-absolutely-correct-to-call-israeli-settlements-legal">legally</a> living in the biblical Jewish heartland of Judea and Samaria — have already launched a preemptive pushback against the fact that the &#8220;Deal of the Century&#8221; is reputed to include an independent Palestinian-Arab state.
&#8220;Samaria Regional Council Chairman Yossi Dagan left for Washington, D.C. Saturday night to meet with members of Congress and GOP officials who are close to President Donald Trump, as well as with evangelical leaders he has befriended in recent years,&#8221; the Press wrote. &#8220;His goal is to present to these allies of the settlements enterprise the red lines of the Jewish settlements which must not be crossed in any future arrangement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.&#8221;
&#8220;[W]e should also pay attention to the asterisks and small print [in the plan],” Dagan said, as the Press noted. “We must be careful not to allow the words ‘applying sovereignty’ become a smokescreen that covers our eyes from seeing the true meaning of the Deal of the Century, according to the spirit of those parts of the plan which have already been published. The plan is also rife with danger.”
In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-yes-palestinian-state-far-more-dangerous-josh-hammer">Daily Wire op-ed</a> last August, I wrote strongly against the creation of any new, independent Palestinian-Arab state:
<blockquote>The “two-state solution,” the misbegotten Oslo Accords-initiated process by which the liberal Jewish state of Israel is expected to carve an Iran/Muslim Brotherhood-funded stronghold out of its tiny New Jersey-sized nation-state, has always been nothing other than a left-wing Ivory Tower fairy tale. According to the (<a href="https://mosaicmagazine.com/response/israel-zionism/2019/07/the-many-incoherences-and-hypocrisies-of-international-law-on-jerusalem/">legally meaningless</a>, under settled international law) “1967 borders,” around which Oslo is effectively based, the Jewish state is to be nine miles wide at its narrowest point — a wildly indefensible result that has led many in Israel’s military and political establishment to deride it as “Auschwitz borders.” Moreover, Judea and Samaria — the biblical Jewish heartland which would be transferred to the terrorist PLO (and thereby made fully Judenrein), pursuant to Oslo — is geographically indispensable for the Jewish state’s security. The hilly terrain of Judea and Samaria provides a direct means to look down upon Jerusalem and Israel’s Tel Aviv-centric coastal plains alike.</blockquote>

President Trump Welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu To White House

Trump Confirms Much-Anticipated Middle East Peace Plan Will Be Unveiled Tomorrow

Israel Defense Forces (IDF)

We have to wait until President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan is unveiled to discuss it; those already discussing are likely to be wrong. But it is worth reviewing where Israelis, Palestinians, Arab states, and Americans have been — and why this time may be different.
The central flaw in the “Palestinian-Israeli peace process” has never been addressed. There has not been — and there is not now — a shared goal toward which Israelis and Palestinians can be induced to work. Instead, each side has three specific and irreconcilable objectives.
The Palestinians — both Hamas and Fatah — seek:
<ul>
<li>An independent state without recognizing a legitimate and permanent state of Israel in any territory. Both factions are willing to accept a temporary agreement with Israel on the way to the fulfillment of the <a href="https://iris.org.il/plochart.htm">PLO Charter</a> to which both are committed. (Reading the Charter will tell you what else they are committed to, and it isn’t a “two state solution.”)</li>
<li>Sovereign control of East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.</li>
<li>The right of entry for all remaining 1948–1949 Arab refugees from Britain’s Mandatory Palestine, as well s their descendants, to any place within pre-1967 Israel in which they or their antecedents claim to have lived.</li>
</ul>
Israel seeks three different things:
<ul>
<li>Recognition of the legitimacy and permanence of Israel within finalized “secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force”: U.N. Resolution 242’s security promise to Israel.</li>
<li>The capital of Israel in Jerusalem and Israeli protection for Jewish patrimony in the eastern part of Jerusalem.</li>
<li>“End of conflict; end of claims.” After an agreement, the Palestinians will not be able to press additional claims against Israel for territory or other “rights.”</li>
</ul>
Beyond the issue of objectives, all previous “Palestinian-Israeli peace processes” were doomed because they operated as if the protagonists were on an island in the middle of the sea rather than in the middle of the Middle East. Until recently, the Palestinians counted on lip service, at a minimum — guns and money in better cases — from the so-called “Arab world” and a variety of African and Middle Eastern states. This broad, if shallow, support covered up the fact that the Palestinians were the weakest link in regional politics. It was impossible for Palestinian Authority (PA) strongman Mahmoud Abbas — let alone Hamas — to recognize the legitimacy of Jewish nationhood and accept a split, rump state squeezed between Jordan and Israel if the Arab states with the money and the guns didn’t go along.
The more the U.S. pressed for Palestinian concessions that would rile the bankers, the more the Palestinians retreated. Intransigence and violence were their defense against being told to defy their Arab state patrons.
The core issue was never jobs or civil society or drinking water — or even a state — for the Palestinians; it was never about Palestinians at all. It was about the failure of the Arab states to accept the reality of 1948 and their losses in 1949, and recognize the legitimacy and permanence of the state of Israel in the region. “Secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force,” says U.N. Resolution 242, and that is the obligation of Arab States to Israel.
And finally, they’re getting there. Anwar Sadat’s bold move has never been the vision of conservative Arab leaders; Sadat, after all, died. But today, Israel’s relations with the Sunni Arab world are closing in on something real. Yes, it is based on threat perception on both sides. Yes, it is tentative. Yes, it has a lot to do with the price of oil. No, it isn’t closeness borne of shared values and governing systems. OK, let’s not get carried away. But this is the Arab-Israeli process. It doesn’t need Palestinians, but maybe they can benefit. If not, not.
Palestinians patrons today are Iran, an increasingly bellicose and Islamist Turkey, and weak European states with little to contribute.
And finally, the Americans.
The PA appears to have mistaken America as an “honest broker” for America as a “neutral party.” Between Palestinians and Israelis, the United States is not, and should not, ever be &#8220;neutral.&#8221; With Israel we share goals, values, and history; with the Palestinians we do not. &#8220;Honest broker&#8221; is something else. The U.S. has an obligation to state clearly the requirements of peace and ensure that both players understand the consequences of breaking the rules.
Pursuit of arrangements between Israel and the Palestinians is not for the faint-hearted. The parties deserve honest brokerage — American &#8220;neutrality&#8221; would be a betrayal of an ally.
Now, let’s see what the Trump administration has in mind.
&nbsp;
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/">The Jewish Policy Center</a> in Washington, and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly.

US President Donald Gives A Speech At Israel Museum

BRYEN: Running Up To The Peace Process

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Visiting Jerusaelm for the World Holocaust form, French President Emmanuel Macron used the site of a holy church to <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/macron-yells-at-israeli-security-to-leave-french-church-during-jerusalem-visit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.timesofisrael.com/macron-yells-at-israeli-security-to-leave-french-church-during-jerusalem-visit/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1579878466728000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGd1lyLaA_FJ-ZMS6QNqiuEPliWKw">yell at the Israeli Police</a> who were protecting him.
This is just another episode of French antagonism to Israel’s presence in Jerusalem. In 2016, France supported a ludicrous UNESCO resolution that implied Jerusalem has no Jewish or Christian historical connection. The French prime minister at the time, Manuel Valls, subsequently expressed regret for his country’s action, but it did not stop France from doing it again: A year later, it abstained on a similar UNESCO resolution.
The following year, when President Trump announced that the United States will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy, France was at the forefront of the passionate and angry European opposition — itself more aggressive than the Palestinian and Arab reactions. Macron repeatedly claimed that the recognition would have negative security repercussions well beyond Jerusalem, stating that “the status of Jerusalem is a question of international security which concerns the entire international community.&#8221;
Such European position is based on a 1949 U.N. resolution that designated Jerusalem and Bethlehem as a “corpus separatum” to be placed under an international legal regime — essentially a European colony.
Macron did not stop there, and tried to link the May 2018 Hamas-led &#8220;Nakba day&#8221; Gaza riots to the opening of the new U.S. embassy: “Experience shows that whether you like it or not, things like that provoke violence in response. … This leads to people dying.” He said.
French disruptive meddling in the Middle East is not new. In 1920, French actions triggered the first shots in what became the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. France invaded Syria in order to dethrone the pro-Zionist Arab Emir Faisal and to instill a French regime instead (nominally posing as a League of Nation mandate). While Jews attempted to stay neutral in the French-Arab conflict, local Arab commanders suspected French soldiers were hiding in the Jewish village of Tel-Chai and a deadly battle ensued.
The residue of French colonialism was very much on display in Macron’s visit to Jerusalem on January 22. Indeed, it traces back as far as the inter-colonialist dealings of the 1850s, when the Ottoman Empire gave the Church of Saint Anne to France as a reward for France’s support in the Crimean War.
“Get out,” Macron yelled at Israeli Police as they entered that church with him. Analysts view this as an orchestrated show directed at Macron’s Muslim and far-left anti-Israel voters. Previous French President Jacques Chirac pulled a similar stunt during his 1996 Jerusalem visit. Walking through the narrow alleys of the Old City — a venue of multiple stabbings and other terrorist attacks — Chirac confronted his Israeli security detail for their tight protection.
What is alarming about the January 22 incident is not that Macron, like Chirac, decided to take a shot at Israel for seemingly internal political grains, but that he chose to do so in one of Christianity’s holy sites, located right on the Via Dolorosa. As Macron ordered Israeli Police out, he yelled at them that those rules have been in place for centuries and “that will not change with me.” Macron got it wrong. This colonialist-era arrangement could have only been in place for one century and a half.
While Macron might wish for Jerusalem and Bethlehem to be taken away from the locals and given to the “international community,” this particular part of Jerusalem should apparently belong to France. His spokesperson even clarified this point. Israeli Police stated that Macron’s team later apologized for the incident, and Macron went on to shake the hands of his security detail as they continued their tour of the Old City.
Notwithstanding the apology, one cannot ignore the disturbing pattern. This week’s actions come just a year after Macron outraged the world in announcing his plans to honor Marshal Petain, murderer of the Jews of France and head of the collaborative Vichy government, for his role in World War I. Macron later retracted the plan. Symbolically, the Macron incident occurred as he gathered along with 45 world leaders in Jerusalem to remember the Holocaust — a genocide for which France is still in the early stages of recognizing its previous occupied government&#8217;s complicit guilt. For example, a recent <a href="http://www.claimscon.org/france-study/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.claimscon.org/france-study/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1579878466728000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEVIoRCH-fCTziIpPRiSTN_v0QSVQ">study</a> showed that 45% of French millennials are unaware of the occupied French government’s collaboration with the Nazi regime during the Holocaust.
Let us be clear — France is an important ally of both Israel and the United States, and Macron is a friend. He is a courageous fighter against anti-Semitism, including in his repeated proclamation that there is no difference between anti-Zionism and anti Semitism. But friendship requires honesty and France should be told that it is time to take a deep look inside.
France’s repeated episodes of opposition to Jerusalem should not be taken lightly, even if followed by some sort of retraction or apology. Moreover, anti-Semitism in France is rising yet again and trickling up into the mainstream of French society. This was just as it did in the 1890s during the Dreyfus Affair — a stunning case of state-sponsored anti-Semitism spanning multiple levels of French government and society — and just as it did in the 1940s with the Vichy government&#8217;s collaboration with the Nazis.
Rather than yell at Israeli Police that things &#8220;will not change with me,&#8221; it is time for Macron and France to enact radical changes that will put an end to the French government&#8217;s stance against Jerusalem. This should not be done to please Jews or Christians. It should be done for the sake of France itself.
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Gol Kalev analyzes trends in Zionism, Europe and global affairs. For more of his articles: <a href="http://europeandjerusalem.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://europeandjerusalem.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1579878466728000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFitK7ujW6YkWYwdOOdDlab9h_iRg">europeandjerusalem.com.</a>
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Emmanuel Macron

KALEV: Macron Must End France’s Colonialist-Like Stance Against Jerusalem

France

During a recent interview with Fox News&#8217; Brian Kilmeade, retired U.S. Navy SEAL Jocko Willink — who was a former commander of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/navy-seal-jocko-willink-top-lesson-dont-quit-2018-6">most decorated</a> special operations unit of the entire Iraq War — described President Donald Trump&#8217;s recent ordered strike on top Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–Quds Force general Qassem Soleimani as a &#8220;gamble&#8221; that nonetheless clearly &#8220;paid off&#8221; for the president.
&#8220;Retired Navy SEAL and author Jocko Willink applauded the &#8216;gamble&#8217; taken by President Trump in ordering the killing of top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, which was followed by anti-regime protests that erupted on the streets of Tehran,&#8221; Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/navy-seal-jocko-willink-trump-iran-soleimani-killing">reported</a>.
“When you look at it from that perspective you could say that this was a brilliant move to kill a person that was an enemy of America and an enemy of the Iranian people,” Willink said on “The Brian Kilmeade Show,&#8221; Fox News wrote.
“Was it a risk to do this operation?&#8221; Willink continued. &#8220;Absolutely. And if you were to poll everyone that had knowledge about what the conflict is like over there, &#8216;Hey should we do this or not?&#8217; There would have been mixed feelings.”
Willink then explained how such operations are always a risk, analogizing to the famous Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan to take down 9/11 mastermind jihadist Osama bin Laden of al-Qaeda.
“It was a risk to do this just like it was a risk when Obama sent SEALS in to go kill [Osama] bin Laden. That was huge risk,” Willink continued, as also reported by Fox News. “He’s going into Pakistan, he didn’t tell Pakistan what we’re doing. There was massive risk. You know the whole building could have been bombed. That’s a massive risk to do that operation. Pulled it off. Bravo. Outstanding.”
“We don’t know what could have happened. Trump took a gamble and did this, and you know what? From what it looks like right now the gamble paid off,” Willink said as he wrapped up his remarks.
In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-just-and-proper-strike-of-mastermind-iranian-jihadist-qassem-soleimani">Daily Wire op-ed</a> published the day after President Trump&#8217;s successfully ordered strike of Soleimani, I wrote approvingly of the &#8220;just and proper strike&#8221; of &#8220;mastermind Iranian jihadist&#8221; Qassem Soleimani:
<blockquote>The world has awoken today a safer and more just place. And the unraveling of former President Barack Obama’s pro-Iran regional Middle East realignment, which began with President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-trump-just-shredded-iran-deal-here-are-5-ben-shapiro">thunderous exit</a>from his predecessor’s pro-ayatollah nuclear capitulation, has now reached its logical conclusion.
The Obama Middle East foreign policy legacy is dead. As is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s infamous jihadist mastermind, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-responds-to-u-s-military-killing-2-top-iranian-military-leaders-involved-in-terrorists">Qassem Soleimani</a>.
Good riddance to both. &#8230;
Qassem Soleimani was a monstrous thug. In addition to the hundreds of Americans killed in Iraq via Iranian-supplied roadside IEDs, Soleimani personally oversaw the jihad-led destabilization of all nations within Tehran’s coveted <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2019/09/03/the-shiite-crescent-and-regional-disaster/">“Shiite crescent”</a> of desired regional hegemony. He likely is responsible, on net, for tens of thousands of deaths. He was a relentless and unceasing foe of Western civilization, more broadly, though he held a special disdain for the mullahs’ “Little Satan” of Israel and “Great Satan” of the United States.</blockquote>
As The Daily Wire&#8217;s Emily Zanotti <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ted-cruz-dares-democrats-offers-senate-resolution-praising-soleimani-mission">reported</a> earlier this month, Iran hawk Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a formal Senate resolution praising the Soleimani strike. &#8220;Senator Ted Cruz wants Democrats to publicly declare their feelings on the Trump Administration’s mission to kill Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani,&#8221; Zanotti wrote.

President Donald J. Trump Watches Raid On Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Compound

Retired SEAL: Trump’s ‘Gamble’ On Soleimani Strike ‘Paid Off’

Fox News

Military

Osama bin Laden

Qassem Soleimani

We in the pro-Israel community are certainly accustomed, by now, to the myriad of pro-Palestinian activists and political leftists who engage in rank hypocrisy when it comes to the Jewish state. In fact, the U.S. State Department&#8217;s <a href="https://www.state.gov/defining-anti-semitism/">working definition of anti-Semitism</a> actually includes such hypocrisy as one example of anti-Semitic behavior: &#8220;Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.&#8221;
Alas, someone ought to notify the folks at far-left <a href="https://www.hrw.org">Human Rights Watch</a>.
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-selective-opponent-of-settlers-11579046287?mod=opinion_lead_pos9">Writing today</a> at The Wall Street Journal, international law expert and law professor Eugene Kontorovich — scholar at the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem, professor at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School, and director of that law school&#8217;s new <a href="https://cilme.gmu.edu">Center for International Law in the Middle East</a> — opines that Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch, &#8220;promot[es] boycotts and international prosecution [of Israel] for the supposed crimes of occupation and settlement,&#8221; but &#8220;elsewhere &#8230; strongly supports settlements in occupied territories.&#8221;
&#8220;The settlements Ms. Whitson supports are in Nagorno-Karabakh, an area that was within the borders of post-Soviet Azerbaijan until 1994, when Armenia occupied the region after a protracted war,&#8221; the international law scholar continued. &#8220;Since then, the Armenian leadership in Yerevan has actively encouraged the movement of settlers into the area. Many Armenians regard Karabakh as their historic homeland. But the United Nations, international courts and the U.S. all consider it occupied Azeri territory.&#8221;
Kontorovich then unraveled the precise nature of Whitson&#8217;s hypocrisy. In response to Kontorovich asking Whitson about her work with Armenian National Committee of America, which Kontorovich labels a &#8220;pro-settler charity,&#8221; Whitson responded to the professor: &#8220;My personal support for Armenian diaspora organizations pertains to their charitable and educational work in Armenia and their efforts to advocate for recognition of the Armenian Genocide.&#8221;
But having none of it, Kontorovich then ripped Whitson for trying to have it both ways.
&#8220;This explanation is at odds with [Human Rights Watch&#8217;s] approach to Israel, where the group calls for boycotts of entire companies — including unrelated divisions — because some of their work is in settlements,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;It is also at odds with the record: Ms. Whitson’s fundraising appeals for pro-settlement groups are in no way limited to educational issues. She has celebrated the work of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, which supports new settlement construction to encourage &#8216;young families to set down their roots.&#8217; She specifically <a href="https://agbu.org/news-item/sarah-leah-whitson/?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="15">praised the group for helping Syrian Armenians who have &#8216;resettled in Armenia&#8217;</a>; many or most such refugees have been resettled in the occupied territory.&#8221;
&#8220;If [Human Rights Watch] were serious about its opposition to &#8216;settlers&#8217; and &#8216;occupation,&#8217; it wouldn’t have a supporter of them heading its Middle East division,&#8221; the professor continued.
Reached by The Daily Wire for exclusive comment, Kontorovich elaborated on leftist hypocrisy on the nexus of Israel, international law, and the law of &#8220;occupation.&#8221;
&#8220;It is not news that progressives, in the name of international law, target Israeli obsessively and exclusively for boycotts and delegitimization,&#8221; he told The Daily Wire. &#8220;But they dismiss such observation as &#8216;whataboutism,&#8217; saying their efforts to enforce international law must start somewhere.&#8221;
&#8220;My revelations show that Rashida Tlaib [who is co-sponsoring a bill to normalize relations with Armenian settlements], Sarah Leah Whitson, and others are not simply ignoring situations of occupation around the world — they are promoting them, without having their progressive bona fides revoked. All of their talk about enforcing international law is just a euphemism for creating a Judenrein zone in Judea and Samaria.&#8221;
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-trump-administration-is-absolutely-correct-to-call-israeli-settlements-legal">The Trump Administration Is Absolutely Correct To Call Israeli &#8216;Settlements&#8217; Legal.</a>

Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW

HYPOCRISY: Human Rights Watch Opposes Israeli ‘Settlements,’ Supports Settlements Elsewhere

Lawfare

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