Iran Beginning To “Crack”

 

Iran's Hard-Liners Are Starting to Crack - Reuel Marc Gerecht & Ray Takeyh

This time is different. The Iranian people have been protesting in the streets for more than a month. Now even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's allies are distancing themselves from the government, putting unprecedented stress on the regime. For four decades, regime loyalists have united in times of crisis. It's telling that today many influential conservatives display little compunction about criticizing Mr. Khamenei and his henchmen.

The security services have been hesitant to use lethal force. That conservatives are now critiquing Mr. Khamenei shows that the regime is losing its core strength. They seem to realize that Tehran can't kill its way to success. These men either don't have the stomach to murder thousands of women, or they believe - rightly - that doing so would only lead to mass confrontation with hundreds of thousands of angry men.

The demonstrators aren't interested in compromise. Conservatives now face a choice between joining the protest or being left behind. The Islamic Republic's rulers, like the shahs before them, know that their regime ultimately rests on the awe of unchallengeable power. That neither teenage girls throughout Iran nor foundational figures of the theocracy see this majesty any longer suggests that Mr. Khamenei's time is running out.

Mr. Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

(Wall Street Journal)

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“Hocus-Pocus Political History”

Phantom Fantasia in the Middle East -Thane Rosenbaum

Decades of impeccable PR and global gullibility have enabled many to bizarrely believe there once was an Arab nation called Palestine, with the people in it known as Palestinians. Yet there never has been an Arab nation-state called Palestine. At the time of Israel's founding, in 1948, the word Palestinian did not describe a distinct Arab people. In fact, the word, created by the ancient Romans, referred to Jews. Jews have been living continuously in what is today Israel since the time of the Jewish patriarchs of the Old Testament.
    

Palestine is more an idea than an actual place, the magical thinking of a country that never existed. Hocus-pocus political history. Palestinian inclusion within the vortex of intersectional grievances is laughable given how Sharia-observant Palestinians, especially in Gaza, feel about women, gays, the transgender, cultural and academic freedom, religious diversity, free speech, and the rule of law. Palestinian rejection of five separate offers of statehood since 1947 is never mentioned.
    

Nothing was stolen from the Palestinians. They are stateless because they never had a state - not because they were denied one, or had one taken away. Indeed, it's not at all clear whether they actually want one. For a people with no national currency, political history, sustained leadership, defined borders, or even a gross national product aside from terrorism, Palestinians have nonetheless created the illusion of a homeland lost to Jewish land-grabbers. 

But hate does not a nation make.
The writer is a law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro College. 

(White Rose)

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Misunderstanding The MidEast

Daniel Pipes, PhD

Why is Muslim society lagging? - Daniel Pipes, PhD 

A barrage of statistics makes clear that contemporary Muslims have fallen behind other peoples, whether the topic be health, corruption, longevity, literacy, human rights, personal security, income, or power. But why? 

[T]he global Left and Islamists blame Western imperialism. For them, today's tribulations follow inevitably on the two centuries after 1760 when nearly all Muslims fell under the control of 16 majority-Christian states.  

But this accusation ignores two key facts. First, Muslims lagged behind much of the rest of the world in those indices long before 1760 – which helps explain why they came under Western control in the first place. Second, Western control ended about seven decades ago, affording plenty of time to blossom and succeed, as so many non-Muslim peoples have; compare Singapore/Malaysia, India/Pakistan, Israel/Palestinians, or North/South Cyprus.

[The Washington Times] 

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Ben & Jerry’s Gets Creamed!

 

Ben & Jerry’s factory in Be’er Tuvia in southern Israel

Ben and Jerry's Forced to End Israel Boycott - Hannah Boland

Consumer giant Unilever has blocked Ben & Jerry's from boycotting Israel by selling the ice cream brand's operations in the country to its local manufacturer, Avi Zinger, who has been making and selling the ice cream under license for the past 34 years. Unilever slapped down efforts by Ben & Jerry's to take a political stance, saying it "rejects completely and repudiates unequivocally any form of discrimination or intolerance."

Last summer, Ben & Jerry's said that it would not be renewing its license agreement with its franchise partner. However, owner Unilever said it had overruled its subsidiary and sold the ice cream maker's local operations, following consultation with the Israeli government. 

(Telegraph-UK)

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TikTok Features Arab Burning Mezuzah Scroll

Arab setting fire to mezuzah scroll

Double Standards: Video of Palestinian Who Destroyed a Mezuzah Went Viral - Foreign Minister Yair Lapid

A video that went viral on TikTok shows a young Palestinian who destroyed a mezuzah - which contains Hebrew verses from the Torah and is affixed to the doorpost of Jewish homes. When you watch this video, think about what would happen if there was a similar video of a young Israeli who did exactly the same thing to a Koran or to a picture of the Prophet Muhammad. 

(Twitter)

Footage of Palestinian Burning Mezuzah Sparks Social Media Firestorm - Hanan Greenwood

A Palestinian sparked a social media firestorm on March 21 when he posted footage of himself setting a mezuzah parchment on fire on TikTok. The man is shown tearing the mezuzah off the doorframe, removing the parchment inside and setting it on fire - all with a big smile on his face. 

(Israel Hayom)

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Biden Tries to Crush Abraham Accords

 

Blinkin [center] is doing his best to neutralize The Abraham Accords in order for Biden [left] to realign the US toward Iran

The Negev two-state summit

The so-called two-state solution has a hundred-year history of uninterrupted failure. In 1920, the League of Nations gave Britain the mandate for Palestine, which they were legally required to administer as the future homeland of the Jewish people. In 1922, the British carved out the majority of the land set aside for the Jews and established the Arab state of Transjordan—now known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Britain’s initial two-state solution was supposed to end the Arab conflict with Israel. But of course, it didn’t. The Arabs pocketed Transjordan and expanded their war, as they have with every subsequent attempt to implement the two-state solution.

Many Israelis and friends of Israel assumed the so-called two-state solution had finally been exhausted in 2000, when PLO chief and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat rejected the Palestinian state that Israel offered him at the Camp David Summit and launched a terror war against the Jewish state. Israel won Arafat’s terror war by the skin of its teeth in 2004. 

Like the establishment of Transjordan and the failed Oslo peace process before it, Israel’s surrender of Gaza and establishment of what became Hamastan in Gaza did not placate the Arabs of the land of Israel—or even in Gaza. They pocketed the concession and used the territory they had received to escalate their war against Israel. Since the failed Gaza withdrawal, we have seen dozens more plans, peace conferences and envoys all committed to advancing the two-state solution.

There was a sense that the long nightmare with the failed policy paradigm had finally and permanently died during Donald Trump’s presidency and Benjamin Netanyahu’s premiership. But now that Trump has been replaced with Biden and Netanyahu with the Bennett-Lapid-Gantz-Abbas government, last week it came roaring back.

Blinken’s visit to Israel last week was a challenging moment for him. Like his Biden administration colleagues, Blinken is committed to implementing the Obama administration’s plan to realign the United States away from Israel and the Sunni Arab states and towards Iran. 

To block criticism of the nuclear deal the United States is now [colluding] with the Iranians, Blinken’s challenge last week was to neutralize the Israeli-Arab anti-Iran strategic alliance. And he used the two-state solution to achieve this goal.

Before Blinken arrived at the Negev Summit on Monday night, he held another summit in Ramallah with PLO chief and P.A. chairman Mahmoud Abbas. When he arrived in Sde Boker, Blinken used his meeting in Ramallah to make the Palestinians the main subject of conversation. 

Blinken’s two-state solution offensive enabled him to ignore whatever protests Lapid and the Arab foreign ministers expressed at the Negev Summit. It also allowed him to change the subject. In their final statements at the end of the summit on Tuesday, the Arab foreign ministers ignored Iran and joined Blinken in voicing their support for the two-state solution.

[The Jerusalem Post]

The Negev Summit: Groundbreaking & Underreported

Foreign ministers of Bahrain, UAE, Morocco and Egypt arrive for Negev Summit

The foreign ministers of Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Egypt landed on Sunday evening in Israel ahead of a landmark regional summit in the southern Negev Desert, where they were joined by their Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid.

The UAE’s Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Bahrain’s Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, Morocco’s Nasser Bourita, and Egypt’s Sameh Shoukry all landed at the Nevatim Air Base in southern Israel.

Shoukry, whose country was the first country to sign a peace agreement with Israel in 1979, joins the three Arab countries that signed the US-brokered normalization agreements known as the Abraham Accords in 2020.

From the airbase, the senior diplomats headed to the Isrotel Kedma Hotel in Sde Boker, where Lapid — who is hosting the two-day event — greeted them.

An official close to Lapid told journalists that the Israeli top diplomat and the Arab dignitaries were discussing “advancing a regional security architecture.”

The official added that the meetings so far have been “very warm, including embraces and friendly conversation.”

The focus of the summit, according to officials, will be on regional threats, challenges, and opportunities. Among the issues expected to be at the center of the meetings are the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna, and the Russia-Ukraine war.

The summit is also seen as a display of diplomatic unity intended for Tehran.

[The Times of Israel]

Israel & Ukraine: Lessons in History

 

The Ukrainians Are Learning a Lesson that Israel Has Already Learned 
- Dr. Dan Schueftan (Israel Hayom)

• The Ukrainians are learning today what the Czechs learned in 1938, and what the Jews vowed never to forget: Western democracies cannot be relied upon in the face of a threat from an authoritarian regime willing to turn to military measures to enforce its will. A country that cannot defend itself will be left to its own devices at a time it needs support the most.
• Israel's War of Independence victory was achieved only thanks to the mobilization of full human potential and the massive arms smuggling that took place despite the U.S. embargo. Amid the pan-Arab threat, shaped under Egyptian President Nasser's leadership, Israel was left to its fate for almost 20 years.
• In the 1950s, Israel faced a critical threat when the USSR supplied Egypt (and later other Arab countries) with massive quantities of frontline weapons, while Washington refused to supply Jerusalem with defensive weapons. France, which had helped Israel deal with these dangers, betrayed Jerusalem after the Six-Day War and supported its enemies.
  

• 

  President Zelenskyy at Israel's Western Wall

  When Arab countries declared war on Israel again in 1973, the rest of Europe turned its back on Jerusalem by refusing to allow American planes that carried supplies for the IDF to refuel in its territories. Europe continues to support efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state in international organizations, and generously funds groups that undermine it.
• Israel became a success story not only because of its freedom and innovation, but also because it chose to base its national security on self-defense. Its survival, progress, and prosperity were made possible by its strong military and determination to defend itself on its own.
• Israel receives assistance due to its determination to survive without it. It prevents war through deterrence, for it has learned that what triggers the aggression of authoritarian regimes is democracies' hesitance to use their power even if the avenues of diplomacy and economic means have been exhausted.
  
  The writer is head of the International Graduate Program in National Security at the University of Haifa.

Palestinian Apartheid

There's Apartheid in the Holy Land, but Not in Israel 

- Prof. Eugene Kontorovich

There are reasons to be concerned about the emergence of apartheid in the Holy Land but not the ones Amnesty cites. The defining characteristic of apartheid - what distinguishes it from generic racial discrimination - is the rigid separation of groups in public spaces and positions of power. Thus, a sign of apartheid could be a government policy that bans real-estate sales or transactions to the disfavored group.
    

Apartheid is suggested by policies that carve out massive zones where the disfavored group cannot live or work, create ethnically homogenous zones, and restrict the disfavored group to ghettos. One might consider it apartheid if a government enforced a policy of extrajudicial execution of members of a disfavored group.
    

All these policies are practiced in the West Bank and Gaza by the Palestinian Authority government against Jews. The "Israel apartheid" meme is not just a lie, it is an inversion of the truth. In all areas controlled by Israel, Jews and Arabs mix openly. Yet all the areas under PA jurisdiction are Jew-free. Palestinian law makes selling land to Jews a crime punishable by death, often without trial. The South African government used death squads against blacks. The Palestinian government pays terrorists for killing Jews.
    

In all the territories controlled by the Palestinian government, Jews are prevented from worshipping at their holy sites, despite explicit provisions in the Oslo Accords requiring the Palestinian Authority to protect such worship.

The writer is a professor at George Mason University Law School and a scholar at the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem. 

(Wall Street Journal)

Israel Cannot Be An “Occupier” Of Her Own Land

Succinct, clear, compelling and short video from PragerU debunking the notion that Israel is an “occupier” in the West Bank