Before normalization with the Jewish state, we were safe and secure, far away from the deception of the Jews and the ambitions of the Jewish moneylender, who the English writer Shakespeare was able with great ingenuity to draw the features of his character and his bloody desire for revenge against anyone who stands before his limitless ambitions, as stated in the play "The Merchant of Venice."

"...In the two months since I arrived in New York, I have witnessed a jarring dissonance between what this council chooses to focus on and what is actually happening in the Middle East. During this short period, I witnessed the council ignoring opportunities to promote peace while simultaneously choosing not to act in the face of grave threats...

In a debate titled 'The Situation in the Middle East, Including the Palestinian Question,' one would expect the council to focus on the most important issues facing the Middle East.

However, once a month, for 20 years – over hundreds of debates – members of this council routinely overlook critical issues and focus only on the 'Palestinian Question'.

Today's debate is a perfect example. Shouldn't we be discussing the momentum of peace between four countries in a turbulent region?...

Now everyone can see that the Palestinians incite against any country that seeks peace in the region, even its fellow Arab League members. The fact that the Palestinians attack those who make peace with Israel, demonstrates that, for years, the council has been applying pressure to the wrong side....

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is also, of course, an important issue and should be a part of the debate. Yet, while discussing it every month for the last 20 years, key elements have been neglected. If you are looking for the real obstacle to peace, look at the Palestinian's long record of incitement and hate. PA textbooks incite to violence and promote terrorism and antisemitism. Through its "Pay to Slay" program, the PA rewards terror attacks against Israeli civilians. Maybe part of the answer to the Palestinian question can be found here.

The PA spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on its 'pay to slay' program. Just think how that money could have been spent this year fighting COVID-19.

The United Nations Security Council must embrace the Abraham Accords if it wants peace and stability in the Middle East, both Israeli and US envoys urged the international body on Monday. “This council should embrace the Accords and use them as a catalyst to promote peace and security in the region,” Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan said. His speech marked the first time he has addressed the UNSC since his arrival in New York to replace former ambassador Danny Danon.

“For decades, many in the international community have fixated on a single solution to the conflict. They vote for the same anti-Israel resolutions, recycle old talking points and ignore issues that are crucial for ending the conflict. They also ignore the fact that this approach has only emboldened Palestinian rejectionism,” Erdan said, during the UNSC monthly meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

US Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft said, “History will judge how this Council responds to this historic moment – it can either shrink from the challenge or rise to the occasion.”

Both envoys spoke in the aftermath of the historic weekend announcement that the US had brokered an agreement between Sudan and Israel to establish ties, under the auspices of the Trump Administration’s Abraham Accords. It follows Israel’s ratification this month of a peace deal with the United Arab Emirates and its pending ratification of a normalization deal with Bahrain.

The new-look Middle East—Sunni Arabs and Jews against Shiite Iran and its many proxies—is rooted in both of those Obama and Trump policies, but in the region, there are fears worse is to come. The election is weeks away, but Arab leaders are already fretting about what a Biden presidency could mean for them. More than the Biden-Harris campaign promises to “reassess our relationship with the Kingdom, end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil,” the greater fear is of the pendulum swinging back to the pre-Trump status quo, and a rebalancing of American policy in the region to favor Iran. As much as anything else, the fear of a renewed American-Iran alliance is driving Sunni Arabs to Israel. Could they be wrong?

Team Biden has made it clear that if Iran comes back into compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or Iran deal, they will rejoin. But it seems unlikely that anyone from a Biden administration would conduct the aggressive lobbying campaign for Iran that Obama’s hapless Secretary of State John Kerry embraced. Indeed, the more serious risk is not that Biden’s Middle East advisers fall hopelessly in love with the Islamic Republic, as too many of Obama’s negotiators did. It is that they will do nothing in the face of Iranian efforts to dominate the Middle East and that America’s erstwhile allies take their security into their own hands, to dangerous effect.

With an America that ignores both Iranian predations against its own people and turns it back on supporting Washington’s traditional allies among Israel and the Sunnis, the odds are that regional powers will take it upon themselves to protect their interests in the best way they know how. That began with a new alliance with Jerusalem, but where it could end is anyone’s guess. The last time such fears were in the air, the Saudis escalated their conflict with Yemen, and began dabbling in opposition politics and worse in the neighborhood. This time they may well turn to other interested global players—Saudi Arabia is now China’s top oil supplier—for weapons and more.

In short, while a rekindling of the Democratic love affair with Tehran promises rough seas ahead in the Middle East, the larger problem may be that both a Trump second term or a Biden administration will likely wash their hands of the region, feeling that the mission as they defined it has been accomplished.

Arguing for the motion: Hen MazzigArguing against: Yishai FleisherModerator: Joseph Cohen

Hen Mazzig, is an Israeli born international speaker, writer, activist and a social media enthusiast. He was in the IDF for almost five years serving as a humanitarian affairs officer in the West Bank. @HenMazzig

Rabbi Yishai Fleisher, is the International Spokesperson for the Jewish community of the Biblical Hebron. He is also an Israeli broadcaster on the Land of Israel Network and a frequent columnist for Breitbart, Jerusalem Post, and the NYTimes. @YishaiFleisher

Joseph Cohen, British bloke with a ginger beard.

For the past several decades, the United Nations General Assembly has dutifully approved the funding of the so-called specialized “Palestinian committees,” each of which advances only one side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The UN has an opportunity to cut off this funding supply by year-end, thereby righting a decades-long wrong and in turn, ending a long-standing charade.

Created in the aftermath of the infamous 1975 Zionism=Racism resolution, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) and the Division for Palestinian Rights (DPR) are powerful, enduring vestiges of a discredited policy that has seen the world body largely aligned against Israel, not only in New York, but at UN agencies such as the Human Rights Council in Geneva, and UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in Paris.

The CEIRPP organizes conferences, photo exhibitions and other programs around the world aimed at undermining, discrediting and demonizing Israel. It does so with the active cooperation of the UN’s Department of Global Communications.

The DPR actually sits inside the UN Secretariat, giving the Palestinians a UN home no other people or sovereign state has. DPR sits alongside regional units such as the Asian, the African and Latin American, and the Caribbean groups of the UN system. The DPR works together with CEIRPP to organize an annual International Day of Solidarity for the Palestinian People, and maintains UN web-based information systems devoted to the Palestinian side of the conflict.

A Palestinian child can walk to school along a street named after Abu Jihad, who planned a bus hijacking that killed 38 Israelis, including 13 children, spend the day learning in a school named after Hamas founder Ahmad Yassin, and end the day in a youth center named after terrorist Abu Iyad, responsible for killing the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich.

“Do you think it is beautiful?” a male host asks an 11-year old girl on a popular Palestinian TV program.

“Shahada is very, very beautiful,” answers the girl. “Everyone yearns for Shahada. What could be better than going to Paradise?”

“Every Palestinian child aged, say 12, says ‘O Lord, I would like to become a shahid,’” says another girl.

Children from an early age are taught to identify with the Islamist death culture of shahidism, catalyzed by Goebbels-style antisemitic memes that forge irreversible hatred toward Jews and Israel.

Over the past decade, entire volumes of examples depicting a reality of hard-core incitement in mainstream culture and schoolbooks have been published by international media and civil society, exposing this choreography of hate. None of this is new.

Neither is the Palestinian leadership’s material incentivizing of terrorist attacks against Jews by paying special stipends to terrorists or their families in return for the atrocities committed. In 2018 alone, the Palestinian Authority’s terrorist salaries amounted to around €180 million, based on a perverted progressive formula: the more Jews you kill, the more money you get.

The powerful polemic provoked strongly mixed reactions from different Arab media outlets in accordance with their political alignment. The Palestinian Authority instructed its personnel and ambassadors all over the world to abstain from commenting on the interview. But whether the PA responds or not, the message is clear: Saudi Arabia is showing its public it no longer can afford to stand idle.

The last segment of the interview was dedicated to the rising threats of Turkey and Iran, and their exploitation of the Palestinian cause. Prince Bandar mocked both countries' claims to want to liberate Jerusalem through dominating Arab countries. But for Prince Bandar, this is not a new position, nor is it representative of the position of the entire Saudi family. In a classified US telegram dated back to 2007 and published by Wikileaks, it was reported that the Saudi royal family is split on the issue of Israel as Prince Bandar, then Saudi National Security Secretary, headed the faction wanting to reconcile with the Jewish state in order to focus on the emerging Iranian threat. On the other side, there were the princes that see the Saudi commitment to the Palestinians as paramount. But during 2007, the Saudis were still hoping they could keep Sunni Hamas close to Saudi Arabia and prevent the Islamic Resistance from entering into their then-nascent alliance with nuclear-ambitious Iran.

Prince Bandar's own explanation of his appearance might as well be completely accurate, an attempt to show the Saudi public that the royal family brought the Palestinians to the river so many times, but the Palestinians could not be made to drink from it. His message is enforced through the inflammatory utterances of Palestinian leaders condemning the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia because of their new position on Israel. On social media, Palestinian activists hurled curses at Arab royal families, calling them traitors. Needless to say, such insults do not sit well with Arab audiences. The message of Prince Bandar is especially important as Saudi Arabia decided to officially allow Israeli flights to go through its airspace on their way to Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Manama.

One salient message from Prince Bandar's exposé is that he – and presumably an entire Saudi establishment of foreign relations behind him – sees no possible hope for the Palestinians under their current leadership. This damning judgment, in effect, puts the Palestinian leadership on notice: The days of Saudi unconditional support are over. However, another important implication for Prince Bandar's interview has less to do with Israel and more to do with the divide inside the royal family itself. As Bandar came to the aid of the crown prince, it has shown that bin Salman is able to win the support of some of the most powerful royal figures and the chief Saudi foreign-relations veteran.

Meanwhile, the traditional pro-Palestinian position of his father, King Salman, remains unchanged as the official position of the Saudi foreign ministry as repeated many times by the kingdom's foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan. That is the commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state prior to any normalization effort with Israel. If one must speculate, it seems that the Saudi-Israeli agreement is both a matter of time and a changing of the guard, as it is a cooling-off of old enmities.

Starting this Thursday, wines from the Golan Heights Winery will be stocked on shelves of stores in the United Arab Emirates, a result of the recent normalization deal with Israel.

The wines will be sold through the local marketing company African + Eastern (A&E). The company is considered a major importer and distributor in the field of wine and alcohol in the Emirates and the Persian Gulf, and represents some of the leading wine and alcohol brands in the world.

The winery's wines will be marketed in wine shops, hotels, leading restaurants and many other popular centers where there is a great demand for wine. They will be available first in Dubai, and will soon afterward be distributed to other emirates. A&E will market a variety of wines from the winery's leading series - Yarden, Gamla and Mount Hermon.

For over three decades, the Golan Heights Winery has been exporting wines to many countries around the world and is considered the leading Israeli wine exporter to various worldwide markets.

This distribution agreement – with a market that, until now, was completely blocked for Israeli wines, especially those made in the Golan Heights region – is unique and is expected to lead to breakthroughs for other Israeli wineries as well.

i24NEWS' Adi Koplewitz sits down wth Dharur Bel Hol El-Flash, a member of the Federal Council of the UAE. discussing UAE's role in solving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Why I am optimistic about the future? This. Because of inspiring Emirate leaders like @omaralbusaidy! Was so great speaking to him on behalf of @ZC_NSW, discussing #Israel - #UAE, our hopes & dreams, and growing peace in the Middle East! 🇮🇱🤝🇦🇪 https://t.co/eHmUyVx4pl

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 27, 2020

The soccer leagues of Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday to bolster cooperation, the state-run Emirati news agency WAM reported.

Erez Kalfon — chairman of the Israel Professional Football Leagues — stated, “Football is the most popular sport not only in the world, but also in both Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The passion for football transcends religions, nations and races, and we have the ability to use it as a tool to build relationships and break down walls between people, of all genders, and of all races.

“The teams of the two organizations have been working for some time on plans for future collaborations in the fields of football promotion, sports technologies and social and commercial collaborations alike and it seems that there’s more that unites us than divides us,” he added.

Abdulla Naser Al Junaibi — chairman of the UAE Pro League — commented, “Football has always been the most important and fast path to bring people together. These are the cooperation pillars we aim at through this agreement, through which we hope to achieve gains for both parties.”

He continued, “Over the decades, the UAE has proven to be a homeland of tolerance and a melting pot of the world’s peoples. This memorandum of understanding will contribute towards the promotion of peace and strengthen cooperation and friendship in a way that serves the interest of football in both countries.”

Remember when the Palestinians and @JibrilRajoub tried to kick #Israel out of FIFA? Yeah, how'd that all work out? https://t.co/sp3bTM03to

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 27, 2020

Sudan’s leader said Monday that the decision to normalize ties with Israel was an incentive for US President Donald Trump’s administration to end Sudan’s international pariah status.

Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of the ruling sovereign council, told state television that without the normalization with the Jewish state now, Sudan would have had to wait until deep into next year to be removed from the US’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Trump’s administration has tied the de-listing of Sudan to a deal to normalize ties with the Jewish state. The African country is the third Arab state — after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — to move to normalize relations with Israel in recent months. The administration was eager to achieve diplomatic victories in the run-up to the US presidential election November 3.

“If the candidate [Trump] wanted some gains, we also wanted some gains… We would have waited for August or September,” he said. “We are more winners than any other party.”

Trump announced Friday that Sudan would start to normalize ties with Israel after pledging that the African country would be removed from the terror list after it agreed to put $335 million in an escrow account to be used to compensate American victims of terror attacks. The attacks include the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by the al-Qaeda network while its leader, Osama bin Laden, was living in Sudan. In exchange, Trump notified Congress on Friday of his intent to remove Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

On October 23, US President Donald Trump called the White House press corps into the Oval Office to announce a “historic” and “very special” peace deal between Israel and Sudan.

“This is an incredible deal for Israel and Sudan,” Trump said. “For decades, Sudan has been at a state of war with Israel… and boycotted Israeli goods. There was no relationship whatsoever.”

The next day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who had been on the call, together with Sudan’s Sovereign Council president General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, when Trump made the announcement — appeared on Israeli television and declared enthusiastically: “This is a new era, an era of true peace.”

But on the afternoon of October 25 in South Tel Aviv’s Neve Sha’anan neighborhood, which is home to several thousand asylum seekers from Darfur and other parts of Sudan, the reaction was decidedly less optimistic.

This reporter walked around Neve Sha’anan speaking to asylum seekers from Sudan, who make up about 20 percent of the 33,000 African migrants currently in Israel, about the news of Sudan-Israel ties.

Some individuals declined to be interviewed by name. But The Times of Israel spoke to four men — three from Darfur and one from Gezira — who expressed remarkably similar views.

The two neighbors are in talks to demarcate the maritime border between them. Beirut has stood by its position that the talks are a technical issue signify nothing beyond this.

During his visit to the exercise Gantz warned Lebanon of dire consequences if the Iranian-backed militia were to launch another attack.

“The citizens of Lebanon must remember that Hezbollah, not Israel, is their problem, because if Hezbollah attacks the state of Israel, Lebanon will pay the price for any aggression. We are here to be ready for the moment that I hope, will not come,” he said.

The exercise was taking place with tensions high along the border with Lebanon and the IDF has been bracing for a possible attack by Hezbollah after an alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria on July 20 killed one of its members.

“Our enemies do not rest – not in the north, not in the south, not close by or far away – and we will continue to protect the citizens of the State of Israel, we will continue to deter our enemies, we will continue to harm their intensification processes and we will be ready for any battle,” he said.

Claudine Aoun Roukoz, daughter of Lebanese President Michel Aoun and head of the National Commission for Lebanese Women, stressed that she would "not mind" if Lebanon makes peace with Israel, in an interview with Al-Jadeed TV on Sunday.

Roukoz stated that border disputes with Israel and Palestinian refugee issues needed to be resolved, stressing that Lebanon is "counting on solving these problems to advance our economy."

"After these problems are solved, I do not mind that the Lebanese state makes peace with Israel, after the demarcation and the guarantee of resources," said the Lebanese official to Al-Jadeed. "I defend the interests of my country, Lebanon, first. Are we required to remain in a state of war? I do not have an ideological dispute with anyone, but my dispute is political."

"I defend the sovereignty and independence of my country, but today we ask who is the victim? They are the Lebanese people," she said.

Roukoz reiterated part of the comments on her Twitter account.

Her views of the matter seems to be similar to those of her father.

Lebanese President's Daughter and Advisor Claudine Aoun Roukoz: I Do Not Object Peace with Israel Once our Disputes Are Resolved; Did France and Germany Remain Enemies after WWII? pic.twitter.com/VesugW1YqW

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 27, 2020

The Palestinian foreign minister is calling for an international peace conference arguing it is the only way to generate momentum to bring Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate a peace agreement. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter

Riad al-Malki strongly backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ call for an international conference early next year, telling the UN Security Council on Monday: “Anything else is volatile, and it is futile.”

Abbas called for the conference in his virtual address to the UN General Assembly’s annual meeting of world leaders in late September to launch “a genuine peace process.”

He called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to undertake preparations along with the so-called Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., UN, European Union and Russia.

Israel’s new UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan opposed the Palestinian call, accusing Abbas of refusing “every peace offer made by the State of Israel” and attacking Israel’s recent agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan instead of viewing them as “a new opportunity to kick-start negotiations.”

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said the Trump administration has “no objection” to meeting international partners.

U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft was skeptical that a conference would produce results, but said the Trump administration was open to the possibility raised by Abbas.

“We have no objection to meeting with international partners to discuss the issue. But I have to ask, how is this different than every other meeting convened on this issue over the past 60 years?” Craft asked the council.

The Palestinians must renew ties with Israel and accept tax transfer or risk economic collapse, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov told the Security Council on Monday.

“The viability of the Palestinian Authority is being severely undermined by an economic and fiscal crisis that has been exacerbated by the Palestinian decision to end civilian and security coordination with Israel,” he told the United Nations Security Council during its monthly meeting on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

He blamed the crisis on the drop in tax revenues due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the PA’s refusal to receive those revenues collected on its behalf by Israel.

The PA stopped accepting such revenues to protest pending Israeli plans to annex West Bank settlements, but it continued that protest even after Israel agreed to suspend such plans.

“I appeal to the Palestinian leadership to resume its coordination with Israel and accept its clearance revenues – money that belongs to the Palestinian people and cannot be replaced by donor funding,” Mladenov said.

“The UN stands ready to mediate solutions to the fiscal crisis and to get the Palestinian economy on better footing. I reiterate the secretary-general’s call for both sides to re-examine the nature of their economic relationship and improve it for the benefit of both peoples,” Mladenov said.

A Hamas military court convicted three Gazans on Monday who had been charged with “weakening revolutionary spirit” for a public Zoom call with Israelis in April, the Gaza-based human rights group representing them announced.

As the activists were charged under military law, the three could have faced years in prison and harsh labor. But the court handed down relatively lenient sentences resulting in their immediate release, according to their legal team from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

Rami Aman, a 39-year-old peace activist and Gaza resident, was detained in early April after holding a public “Skype With Your Enemy” video call in which Israelis participated. He has said his organization seeks to empower young Palestinians and that many in Gaza share his view that speaking to Israelis should not be forbidden.

“If I were to go into the streets and tell people, ‘Let’s talk with an Israeli,’ thousands of people would be here,” Aman said during the videoconference, which was conducted in English.

In Aman’s case, the court sentenced him to a suspended sentence of one year in prison, including time served. The other two prisoners — an unidentified man and Manar al-Sharif — the court sufficed with time served. Al-Sharif was already out of prison, PHCR said, having been released on bail in June.

“Our lawyer asserted that the charges lacked both factual and moral elements of the crime to permit a conviction based on the pressed charges; thus, the Court released them,” PCHR said.

A Palestinian man was indicted Monday for illegally carrying a loading gun and planning to carry out a shooting attack with it in the central Israeli town of Rosh Ha’ayin in late September, police said.

A gag order was placed on the case, but it was rescinded after the suspect, Moataz Musa Hussein, was charged in a military court on Sunday.

According to police, officers were tipped off about Hussein’s plans to carry out an attack in Rosh Ha’ayin on September 29.

“Officers conducted searches during which they spotted the suspect. The officers approached him, subdued him and noticed that a loaded pistol, ammunition magazines and a box of bullets were hidden on him… Their effort effectively prevented the terror attack,” police said.

According to the charges against him, Hussein’s wife had recently died in a car accident and he decided to carry out an attack with the hope that at the end of it he would be killed by Israeli security forces.

Hussein entered Israel through a gap in the security fence and on September 29, he walked through Rosh Ha’ayin over the course of some two hours. He considered, but decided against shooting at least three different targets — a mother and her child, a father and his child, and a group of men — before he was eventually arrested, according to the indictment.

The result of the upcoming US presidential election on Nov. 3 could conceivably determine the extent of the threat Hezbollah poses to Israel, former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren says in an interview to The Media Line.

Oren highlighted that the IDF should be preparing for Hezbollah responses to both a victory by incumbent US President Donald Trump, which Hezbollah does not want, and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

"Hezbollah takes its orders from Iran and Iran is waiting to see what happens with the election, because if Donald Trump wins, Iran can do one of two things. It can negotiate under Trump's humiliating terms or it can pick a fight with Israel," Oren told The Media Line.

The former ambassador noted that if Iran did pick a fight, it would not do so using either conventional Iranian forces or even its Revolutionary Guard Corps. Instead, it would almost certainly opt to mobilize a proxy force – in this case, Hezbollah.

Assessment of Hezbollah's missile arsenal put its stockpile at some 130,000, many of which are precision-guided.

🆕VIDEO📺 #JusticeForMalki. @arnoldroth’s turmoil at daughter’s loss to suicide bomber.
🗣Prisoner swap freed 500+ killers including Tamimi
🗣BBC “should apologise to Arabic viewers for “toxic distortions” of Tamimi
🗣“Won’t allow Malki to be forgotten” https://t.co/haELPq8MrH

— Jonny Gould (@jonnygould) October 26, 2020

Claiming that the US and Israel are planning to “redesign” the Middle East via “normalization” and US President Trump’s peace plan, the PA threatened “anarchy, violence, and instability” in an editorial in its official daily. The PA lashed out at the Arab states that have recently signed peace agreements with Israel, while stating that “a fire [will burn] generation after generation” unless the PA gets “Palestine”:

“Let the American administration and those doing its bidding not be deluded that it is possible to erase the strong Palestinian number from the equation of the conflict, whether by alternatives (!!) [parentheses in source] or by other means. This is because the option of ‘I’m taking my enemies down with me’ remains a Palestinian option regarding which there is no disagreement, if the battle becomes a battle of life or death. The meaning of ‘I’m taking my enemies down with me’ will only be as follows: Either peace for everyone, or anarchy, violence, and instability. We have always emphasized, and we still emphasize: ‘Either [we get] Palestine, or a fire [will burn] generation after generation.’” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida editorial, Oct. 13, 2020]

The PA defines “Palestine” to include all of the State of Israel – regardless of their claims to the international community that they are only interested in the West Bank and Jerusalem. This has been documented many times by Palestinian Media Watch and was repeated recently by PA Chairman Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs who is also the PA’s Supreme Shari’ah Judge, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, who posted maps of British Mandate Palestine with the text: Posted text: “It was called Palestine, it is called Palestine, and it will be called Palestine until the promise of Allah arrives” [Facebook page of Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Sept. 19, 2020]

The Qatari government will reportedly send a desperately needed cash infusion to the struggling Gaza Strip to provide economic relief to needy families in the coming days, Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on Tuesday.

The sum, which was not disclosed but will reportedly come in two installments, is being donated with Jerusalem’s consent after discussions between Israeli and Qatari officials.

Last week, Hebrew-language outlet Ynet revealed Qatar’s decision to extend its regular cash donations to the Gaza Strip throughout 2021, in an effort to alleviate economic pressure accumulating in the coastal enclave exasperated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Qatar has regularly distributed millions of dollars to underprivileged families in Gaza over the past several years, half of whom live below the poverty line, with the approval of the Jewish state.

In addition to assisting the inhabitants of the Palestinian territory, the initiative also aims to ease tensions between Hamas and Israel, according to Al-Akhbar.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 5,594 Gazans have been infected with the coronavirus since the outbreak of the epidemic in March.

Ramallah, October 27 – The Palestinian national movement has seldom seen darker days. Arab nation after Arab nation has announced normalization with the Zionist entity, even as our cause languishes and we remain powerless as ever to stem the ugly tide of peace. Circumstances have deteriorated to the point that the very survival of the movement hangs in the balance. In such a dire situation, under my leadership the movement has decided to take the drastic step of refusing to budge from our position that we must liberate every last inch of Palestine from the filthy clutches of the Jewish usurpers, no matter how disastrous our situation has become precisely as a result of maintaining that view for the last century.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain – those traitorous snakes represent just the tip of the normalization iceberg; we must face facts. In my eighty-four years I have never seen our cause this close to defeat. The severity, the precariousness, of our condition must prompt introspection, sober reexamination of what elements of our vision must we retain in order to preserve the essence and the survival of the cause, lest further attempts to hold on to extraneous ambitions compromise the entire endeavor. In my assessment we reached that stage when Donald Trump was elected, though the repercussions of that event took some time to emerge. Now we must make the difficult choices of what to jettison to keep our ship afloat. The answer: nothing.

Contrast this responsible attitude with the capricious behavior of the Jewish leadership in 1947 Palestine. The United Nations voted in favor of a plan to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab one. The Jews sought all of the land west of the Jordan for a state, in keeping with post-WWI British guarantees; the partition plan “deprived” the Jews of more than half that territory, but the Jewish leadership in Palestine, knowing the political limitations they faced, fecklessly accepted the plan. Look where it has led them! Now all they control is all the land to the west of the Jordan except for our divided rump state, plus an economy and military that far outstrip any of the countries around them.

A Hamas military court convicted three Gazans on Monday who had been charged with “weakening revolutionary spirit” for a public Zoom call with Israelis in April, the Gaza-based human rights group representing them announced.

As the activists were charged under military law, the three could have faced years in prison and harsh labor. But the court handed down relatively lenient sentences resulting in their immediate release, according to their legal team from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

Rami Aman, a 39-year-old peace activist and Gaza resident, was detained in early April after holding a public “Skype With Your Enemy” video call in which Israelis participated. He has said his organization seeks to empower young Palestinians and that many in Gaza share his view that speaking to Israelis should not be forbidden.

“If I were to go into the streets and tell people, ‘Let’s talk with an Israeli,’ thousands of people would be here,” Aman said during the videoconference, which was conducted in English.

In Aman’s case, the court sentenced him to a suspended sentence of one year in prison, including time served. The other two prisoners — an unidentified man and Manar al-Sharif — the court sufficed with time served. Al-Sharif was already out of prison, PHCR said, having been released on bail in June.

“Our lawyer asserted that the charges lacked both factual and moral elements of the crime to permit a conviction based on the pressed charges; thus, the Court released them,” PCHR said.

According to sources from al-Quds newspaper, Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders Khaled al-Batsh, Daoud Shehab and Muhammad al-Harazin have contracted #COVID19. #Gazapic.twitter.com/t1FnslEjrd

— Joe Truzman (@Jtruzmah) October 26, 2020

PFLP militants launched explosive-laden balloons toward southern #Israel earlier today. Some of the balloons carried a picture of Khalida Jarrar, a PFLP activist currently in Israeli custody. #Gazapic.twitter.com/VWzvhDkZFx

— Joe Truzman (@Jtruzmah) October 26, 2020

In 2012, [Nasrin Sotoudeh] received the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for her work, which included representing dissidents arrested during mass protests in 2009, an effort for which she previously served three years in prison. She has also represented convicts on death row for offenses committed as minors. She is perhaps most famous for her defense of women's rights, including the defense of several women who protested against wearing the headscarf, or hijab....

There seems to be little hope for the political prisoners of Iran today. Even despite a global outcry, the young wrestler Navid Afkari was executed on September 12 by the Iranian regime. US President Donald J. Trump had also appealed to Iran to let him live: the wrestler's "sole act," he said, "was an anti-government demonstration on the streets"

Meanwhile, the international community rewarded Iran. On August 14, the UN Security Council voted against a US resolution to extend the 13-year arms embargo against Iran indefinitely. Instead, the embargo will expire in mid-October, allowing Iran to buy and sell conventional weapons without UN restrictions. Perhaps it is time for the US to defund the UN, rather than bankroll and be complicit in these crimes against humanity.

The United States on Monday imposed fresh Iran-related sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic’s oil sector, including the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum, in Washington’s latest action to increase pressure on Tehran.

The US Treasury Department in a statement said it was slapping sanctions on key actors in Iran‘s oil sector for supporting the Quds Force, the elite foreign paramilitary and espionage arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) blacklisted by the United States.

The minister of petroleum, the National Iranian Oil Company and National Iranian Tanker Company were also blacklisted, alongside other individuals and entities in Washington’s move, as were four people the Treasury accused of being involved in the recent sale of Iranian gasoline to the government of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.

“The regime in Iran uses the petroleum sector to fund the destabilizing activities of the IRGC-QF,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran have soared since Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal struck by President Barack Obama and began reimposing US sanctions that had been eased under the accord.

Is this The Onion ? 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/vhjchrGRYR

— Fred Martin (@fred_connection) October 27, 2020

WE ALL AGREE that a crucial part of Zionism is maintaining a clear majority of Jews in the Jewish state; yet CIS [Commanders for Israel’s Security] insists on claiming that any act of applying sovereignty over areas that are inhabited by Jews and don’t include the Palestinian Authority necessarily mean that we must “annex” the Palestinians and endanger our Jewish majority. This is simply not true.

CIS completely ignores that the “Deal of the Century” suggests Israel can apply sovereignty over Jewish communities, have full security responsibility over the whole of the Land of Israel, and that there will still be an option for a Palestinian state to be formed, in a format similar to San Marino, Lesotho or Luxembourg. A demilitarized Palestinian state was also Yitzhak Rabin’s vision when he initiated the Oslo Accords. The original two-state solution was far from what it became later on.

We all aspire to have a Jewish state that will be secured for generations to come. Knowing that we can’t afford a third exile from the land of our forefathers, we understand we can’t afford to lose even one war. However, the plan CIS is aggressively promoting, while falsely claiming that the Jewish majority is in danger, is devastating for Israel’s security.

CIS’s suggestion means that in the long-term, our security should be placed in the hands of the Arabs and international forces. This suggestion is coherent with former president Barack Obama’s plan, which CIS has endorsed since its very foundation. While they talk about “security arrangements,” we know there is no sustainable option other than all aspects of security being solely in the hands of the IDF, along with defensible borders and a strong civil infrastructure. Without Judea and Samaria, Israel simply cannot defend itself from the narrow nine mile-wide coastal plain. This isn’t an ideological opinion; it’s a military fact.

When Zionists came to the Land of Israel in the 19th century, they realized they must acquire three abilities: to establish a Jewish entity in the largest territory possible; to become farmers and grow their livelihood from the land; and to be able to defend themselves without dependence on the good will of the Arabs or the international community. A core value of Zionism is that Israel will never place its citizens’ lives and in someone else’s hands. The Jewish people must be able to defend itself in our homeland and defend every Jewish community around the world when called upon.

In summary, the Zionist movement and the State of Israel have fought from the very beginning against all the odds, and won. Trying to find practical solutions to our complex situation with the Palestinians cannot be done by rejecting our core values and spirit.

Leading French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy has called for a renewal of the Zionist vision, arguing that the notion that the Jewish national liberation movement had already fulfilled its mission was sorely mistaken.

“Zionism is only at the beginning of its history,” Lévy declared in a virtual address to the 38th World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem last week.

“Israel is such a young nation,” he noted. “And in another way, it is ancient, as old as the history of the world. What we call Zionism today must continue to maintain its spirit as long as we are alive. Let us not say today that Zionism has exhausted its message, that’s completely untrue.”

Lévy also argued that Diaspora Jewish communities had to remain at the core of the Zionist movement’s vision.

“The Diaspora is not some kind of remainder or remnant, cast away by history,” the philosopher said. “On the contrary, it is something that should be integrated quickly into the mainstream of Zionism.”

Lévy continued: “In Diaspora life, Jewish existence, let’s say someone who’s Romanian, Italian, American or French, there is something very noble in the existence of these Jews, something that cannot be reduced to the expectation of going to Jerusalem. I don’t think that existence in the Diaspora, in exile, is somehow less-than.”

Nearly half of Americans don’t know what the phrase “antisemitism” means.

That’s one takeaway from two surveys published Monday by the American Jewish Committee. The surveys asked Jews and the general American public about antisemitism in the United States.

The Jewish survey found that a large majority of Jews consider antisemitism a problem, and that most see it as a problem on the right and in the Republican Party. Those findings were in line with what the AJC, a nonpartisan advocacy organization, found when it surveyed American Jews last year.

The new surveys found that, in a year when 88% of American Jews say antisemitism remains a problem in the United States, 21% of Americans overall — more than one in five — say they’ve never even heard of the term. An additional 25% of Americans overall have heard the term but are unsure of what it means.

But nearly half of Americans overall say they have seen antagonism against Jews either online or in person during the past five years, suggesting that respondents may be familiar with the reality of anti-Jewish bigotry but unfamiliar with the term “antisemitism.”

A new survey shows that more than 8 in 10 American Jews believe antisemitism has risen in the US over the past five years.

The State of Antisemitism in America 2020 survey — conducted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) — also found that 85% of American Jews viewed the statement, “Israel has no right to exist,” as antisemitic, with 84% feeling the same about the statement, “The US government only supports Israel because of Jewish money.”

Another 76% considered the idea, “American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to America,” as antisemitic.

Furthermore, a combined 80% said the BDS movement was “mostly antisemitic” or had “some antisemitic supporters,” with only 15% saying it was “not antisemitic.”

Asked how much of a problem antisemitism was in the US today, 88% said it was a “very serious problem” or “somewhat of a problem.”

However, 97% said they had not suffered a physical antisemitic attack, 75% said they had not been the target of an antisemitic remark and 77% had not been targeted over their religion on social media.

Of those who were targets of such abuse, however, 76% said they had not reported the incidents.

Occurrences of antisemitism on social media were overwhelmingly clustered on Facebook, at 62%; with Twitter at 33%.

On October 27, 2018, I felt a deep sense of wrongness – grief in the very depths of my spirit. Killing innocent, defenseless, seniors on the Sabbath, in the synagogue, while worshiping God, is profoundly wrong. Though cable news proclaimed it as such, I did not think the Tree of Life mass shooting was the worst thing that had happened to Jews in America. I thought that distinction went to not letting the passengers of the St. Louis disembark in 1939, damning the 900 Jewish refugees aboard to return to the hellfires of the Holocaust.

For me, this was different from the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting in South Carolina. As an African-American, I’m familiar with America’s history of church bombings and arson. I almost expect something like that to happen to African-Americans, but I didn’t want to see what was happening to us happen to another group.

Discovering the killer’s motivation — that the synagogue supported HIAS, a non-profit organization providing humanitarian aid to support refugees on the Mexican Border — made it even worse. Tree of Life Congregation was working to make the world a better place by “loving the stranger.” Deut. 10:19.

I want to share my story of discovering Judaism. It is like learning you are adopted and finally meeting your birth mother. In my case, I discovered my spiritual roots. I am sharing ten reasons I continue, in the hopes some good can arise from even the greatest of tragedies.

Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. – Jesus

The beginning of my journeyAfter the tragedy, I felt the need to show my solidarity with the Jewish community. The only way I knew how was to attend the next Shabbat service. To my embarrassment, I didn’t know a Jewish person who regularly attended temple. I was apprehensive and uncertain. After all, I wasn’t invited, nor did I see the service promoted. I went to Temple Beth Elohim not far from where I live near Boston out of a sense of obligation and a desire to be found on the right side of history.

I could imagine getting to the door and hearing, “At this difficult time, we ask that you respect our privacy and understand that this is a private service.” I would have completely understood.

But no such thing happened.

On the morning of October 27, 2018, an anti-Semitic white supremacist armed with a semi-automatic weapon entered the Tree of Life synagogue in the Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood during Shabbat services. He killed 11 Jews (members of the three congregations housed in the building) and injured six people, including four police officers.

The tragic event — the deadliest attack in history on the American Jewish community — left a profound mark on people all over the US and around the world. The deep shock and sorrow felt by the local Pittsburgh community is still being processed.

A new anthology of essays titled, “Bound in the Bond of Life: Pittsburgh Writers Reflect on the Tree of Life Tragedy,” allows local writers to engage with their sorrow, and to share their personal perspectives on how the shooting affected them, their families, friends and neighbors. It will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press on October 27, the second anniversary of the shooting.

The anthology’s editors are Eric Lidji and Beth Kissileff, whose husband Rabbi Jonathan Perlman, spiritual leader of New Light Congregation, survived the attack by hiding and escaping.

Individual Pittsburghers had published pieces on the tragedy, and national and international media had covered the story as outsiders looking in. However, Kissileff and Lidji believed there was a clear need for a collection of essays by members of the local community.

In memory of the 11 Jews murdered 2 years ago in a Pittsburgh synagogue:

Joyce Fienberg, 75
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
Cecil Rosenthal, 59
David Rosenthal, 54
Bernice Simon, 84
Sylvan Simon, 86
Daniel Stein, 71
Melvin Wax, 88
Irving Younger, 69 pic.twitter.com/Sb6GxyIvD9

— David Harris (@DavidHarrisAJC) October 27, 2020

To mark the second anniversary of the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue shooting, the Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs held a roundtable discussion on anti-Semitism in the United States for MKs and representatives of leading US Jewish organizations.

Joining in the discussion moderated by committee head David Bitan were a handful of MKs, Jewish Agency head Isaac Herzog, Israeli desks of several US-based Jewish organizations and, via Zoom, the heads of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Anti-Defamation League in the US. The meeting also served as the Knesset’s observance of Aliya Day, which was marked in Israeli schools this week.

Bitan, who himself immigrated to Israel from Morocco as a child, opened the meeting by reading out the names of the murdered Jews from the recent attacks in the United States, including the 11 murdered at Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018; the April 27, 2019, attack at the Chabad of Poway in Poway, California; and the twin December 2019 murderous attacks on Orthodox Jews in New Jersey and Monsey, New York. Bitan tasked those present to envision a memorial to the fallen and implement an annual national ceremony in Israel.

Pittsburgh Jewish Federation head Jeff Finkelstein told the committee, “In 2.5 hours it will be exactly two years since I found myself at the Tree of Life shooting.”

“The trauma still presents a dark cloud over all of us,” Finkelstein said, noting that the coronavirus crisis is doubly difficult for the three now-homeless congregations that had been housed in the synagogue, given temporary accommodations elsewhere, and now find themselves scattered online.

Two years ago, 11 innocent people were murdered in the Pittsburgh massacre. After the attack, over 1,000 people came together in support of the Jewish ceremony of Havdallah, which marks the end of Shabbat. Today we remember the spirit of Squirrel Hill. We remember the victims. We remember the day that an entire community united against blind hate.

May the memory of the victims forever be a blessing.

All over the Western world Jews are experiencing a resurgence of antisemitism. Synagogue doors are being reinforced; Jewish businesses are being attacked; Jewish monuments have been defaced; people are careful not to wear anything that can identify them as Jews, and those who do are in danger of verbal or even physical attacks. It happens now predominantly in European cities, as well as in Jewish areas in the United States.

Members of Antifa, the supposedly anti-fascist organization, have been known to support the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. And in Germany, where antisemitism was suppressed after the defeat of Nazi regime, it is again unashamedly raising its ugly head.

In a few days Jews all over the world will be commemorating the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, “The Night of Broken Glass,” named after the shattered windows of Jewish businesses and homes during the night from November 9-10, 1939. That night, most synagogues throughout Germany, Austria and the annexed Czechoslovakian Sudetenland were plundered and set alight. Thousands of Jewish businesses were damaged and 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps.

It was the most horrendous anti-Jewish pogrom in Germany prior to the policy of extermination that was formulated On January 20, 1942, when 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” Among them were SS General Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the Reich Security Office and one of SS chief Heinrich Himmler’s top deputies; SS Maj.-Gen. Heinrich Müller, chief of the Gestapo; and SS Lt.-Col. Adolf Eichmann, chief of the Department for Jewish affairs.

The trigger for the atrocities of Kristallnacht can be found in March 1938, following the annexation of Austria into the German Reich.

Antisemitic graffiti was found on a campaign sign for a Jewish candidate in Arizona.

Seth Blattman, a Democrat running for the Arizona State Senate, told a group of local TV stations that “it was extremely sad” to see a swastika drawn on his forehead and the word “killer” written in all capitalized letters across his neck on the sign.

“Someone that I’ve never met, never seen, hates me for a reason I can’t control, because of who I was born to be,” he said.

Blattman mentioned that he lost family members in the Holocaust.

“I had a great aunt that I remember as a kid asking what the number on her arm meant,” he said.

As of Saturday, Blattman had said he’s considering filing a police report. In Arizona, vandalizing a political sign is a crime.

Antisemitic graffiti was found on a campaign sign for a Jewish candidate in Arizona.

Seth Blattman, a Democrat running for the Arizona State Senate, told a group of local TV stations that “it was extremely sad” to see a swastika drawn on his forehead and the word “killer” written in all capitalized letters across his neck on the sign.

“Someone that I’ve never met, never seen, hates me for a reason I can’t control, because of who I was born to be,” he said.

Blattman mentioned that he lost family members in the Holocaust.

“I had a great aunt that I remember as a kid asking what the number on her arm meant,” he said.

As of Saturday, Blattman had said he’s considering filing a police report. In Arizona, vandalizing a political sign is a crime.

{Shocking, I know.}They say that I am too right-wing.Right-wing?I support a woman's right to choose an abortion.I favor Gay marriage.I favor equal pay for equal work.I oppose racism and ethnic or gendered favoritism of any sort.I favor freedom of speech.I marched against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from Delores Park to Civic Center in San Francisco a dozen times, even under the banner of the A.N.S.W.E.R coalition.I was a Green Party member for a number of years and voted Ralph Nader for president.Aside from that brief stint as a Green, I was a Democrat for 25 years. I even phone-banked for Barack Obama.Right-wing, my ass.What I am is a liberal critic of the Left because the progressive-left is not the same movement that it once was. In fact, it reminds me of nothing so much as the conservative movement from the 1950s and 1960s. So moralistic and self-righteous and humorless.

Unbelievable! NY state inspectors admit on camera that the @NYGovCuomo administration gave them a list of Jewish schools they need to give summonses to regardless of compliance with the State’s COVID-19 red zone regulations!

The school is empty, they wrote a summons anyway. https://t.co/Db4Zb2eG7D

— Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) October 26, 2020

Turkey has sought to leverage a crisis that Ankara largely invented with France to push its influence in the Islamic world by portraying Ankara as a “defender” of Islam. The manufactured controversy hinges on claims that France is “Islamophobic” and that France’s President Emmanuel Macron has defended cartoons that are offensive to Muslims. The cartoon controversy dates back half a decade and only arose because an extremist murdered a teacher in France. Rather than condemn the extremist and the murder Turkey’s president and media contrived to use the murder to bash France. The latest moves by Turkey include comparing Muslims in Europe to Jews before the Holocaust and calling for a boycott of French goods. The move is coordinated with Qatar and being pushed by Iran’s regime as well.

The way Ankara invented this crisis is similar to other manufactured crises pushed by Turkey’s far-right government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his regime’s support for Muslim Brotherhood affiliates across the Middle East, such as Hamas. Since last year Turkey has created a new crises every month, with the US in Syria in October 2019 and then with Libya and then Egypt, then Europe, Russia, the Syrian regime, Libya again, Greece, Cyprus, Iraq, then Armenia, Greece again, then Armenia and then Greece yet again and then with France. Turkey has bombed Iraq, invaded and ethnically-cleansed Kurds in Syria, invaded Libya, challenged the French navy at sea, harassed Greek F-16s, used Russia’s S-400 air defense system and prodded Azerbaijan into a war with Armenia, while sending Syrian mercenaries paid by Ankara to fight in Libya and Azerbaijan and using drones to attack Kurdish activists in Syria and Iraq, all while claiming Turkey is fighting “terrorism.” Turkey hosted Hamas twice for high level meetings and has threatened to “liberate Al-Aqsa” in Jerusalem and said that “Jerusalem is ours,” in reference to Israel’s capital, all while also threatening US Democratic President candidate Joe Biden and bashing the Trump administration for supporting Israel.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan invoked the Holocaust in condemning France’s crackdown on radical Islam, calling it part of Europe’s history of criminality against members of minority religions.

In a speech Monday in Ankara, Erdogan slammed French President Emmanuel Macron’s recently announced plan to combat radical Islam by banning home schooling and dissolving some nonprofit organizations, among other measures.

“The rising Islamophobia in the West has turned into a wholesale attack on our book, our prophet, and everything we consider holy,” Erdogan said. “Relocations, inquisitions and genocides toward members of different religions is not a practice that is foreign to Europe. The crimes against humanity committed against Jews 80 years ago, the acts against our Bosnian siblings in Srebrenica just 25 years ago, are still in the memory.”

He also said: “You are in a real sense fascists. You are in a real sense the links in the chain of Nazism.”

Erdogan’s comments came just days after he said Macron “needs mental treatment” and called for a boycott of French products at a meeting of his Islamist AKP party, Le Figaro reported. In response, France recalled its ambassador from Ankara over what the French foreign minister called an “insult.”

With the media abuzz over a major diplomatic feud between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, many outlets such as CNN and The Washington Post have been noticeably, and inexcusably, mum on one aspect of the confrontation: namely, Erdogan’s blatant antisemitism.

On October 26, CNN reported that French officials had denounced the Turkish leader for his actions:

The network described the impetus for the row while noting Erdogan’s accusation that Macron was mistreating Muslims by vowing to uphold France’s post-Enlightenment commitment to the principle of separation of church and state.

Macron has vowed to crack down on radical Islamism in France after the country was shaken by the beheading of Samuel Paty on October 16. Paty was a history professor who had taught a class on freedom of expression during which he used controversial caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed from satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The killing of the teacher by a suspected terrorist in a Paris suburb reignited tensions over secularism, Islamism and Islamophobia in France.

On the same day that CNN published its report, the Tel Aviv-based Times of Israel online news site ran a version of the same story under this headline:

Both outlets reported on Erdogan’s displeasure with Macron’s plan to combat radical Islam, which includes banning homeschooling and dissolving various not-for-profits such as the Hamas-linked group that was “directly implicated” in the teacher’s murder.

Note, however, that CNN failed to mention the Turkish president’s comparison of France’s decision-making process to that of the Third Reich:

You [the French] are in a real sense fascists. You are in a real sense the links in the chain of Nazism.

The leader of Russia's Muslim-majority Chechnya region said on Tuesday that French President Emmanuel Macron was inspiring terrorists by justifying cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad as protected by free speech rights.

Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, made the comments after France warned its citizens living or traveling in several Muslim-majority countries to take extra security precautions because of anger over the cartoons.

The row has its roots in a knife attack outside a French school on Oct. 16 in which a man of Chechen origin beheaded Samuel Paty, a teacher who had shown pupils cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in a lesson on freedom of speech.

The caricatures, first published by a satirical magazine whose Paris offices were attacked by gunmen killing 12 people in 2015, are considered blasphemous by many Muslims.

Saudi Arabia condemned cartoons offending the Prophet Mohammad, but held back from echoing calls by other Muslim states for action against images being displayed in France of the Prophet.

A foreign ministry official also said in a statement that the Gulf state condemns all acts of terrorism, an apparent reference to the beheading of a Paris teacher who showed cartoons of the Prophet in a class on freedom of speech.

"Freedom of expression and culture should be a beacon of respect, tolerance and peace that rejects practices and acts which generate hatred, violence and extremism and are contrary to coexistence," said the statement carried by state media.

Saudi Arabia's daily Arab News on Tuesday cited the head of the Saudi-based Muslim World League, Mohammed al-Issa, as cautioning that an over-reaction "that is negative and goes beyond what is acceptable" would only benefit "haters."

Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the Bangladesh capital on Tuesday in the biggest anti-France rally since President Emmanuel Macron defended cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Muslims across the world have reacted furiously to Macron’s robust defense of the right to mock religion following the murder of a French schoolteacher who had shown his pupils cartoons of the prophet.

In the West Bank and in Syria people burned pictures of France’s leader, tricolor flags were torched in the Libyan capital Tripoli, while French goods have been pulled from supermarket shelves in Qatar, Kuwait and other Gulf states.

In Pakistan demonstrators burned effigies of the French leader, while in Turkey Macron was depicted with an Adolf Hitler mustache. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday invoked the Holocaust in condemning France’s crackdown on radical Islam.

Erdogan joined calls for a boycott of French goods which Paris said had had minimal impact so far.

On October 20, 2020, French-Tunisian Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, the President of the Conference of Imams of France, gave an interview to the press, including CNEWS (France), in response to the beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty in a recent terror attack. Imam Chalghoumi strongly denounced Paty's murder, saying that he is a "martyr of freedom" and that the murderer was a criminal terrorist. Saying that Islamism is a disease and a poison, he called on the French government to ban Islamism and to protect France and its Muslims from civil war. Imam Chalghoumi further said that anybody who does not support France's laws and values is a threat to French society.

MEMRI JTTM reported that following the interview, on October 24, a Telegram bot operated by English-speaking supporters of the Islamic State (ISIS) posted a call for followers to kill Imam Chalghoumi (see MEMRI JTTM report Pro-ISIS Telegram Channel Calls For Murder Of French Muslim Cleric.) The post accused Chalghoumi of defending the publication of cartoons insulting the Prophet Muhammad, and of describing teachers who use these cartoons in their lessons as "heroes." The bot praised the 18-year-old Chechen Muslim who murdered Paty, and addressed Muslims in France, with a call to "execute" Imam Chalghoumi, saying: "Your new target is this old man." The post further described Chalghoumi as "more [filthy] than the French [infidels]."

It should be noted that jihadis have escalated their incitement against France and especially against Muslim scholars who are presented as misguided in recent weeks. An Al-Qaeda-affiliated media group called upon Muslims in France to kill "imams of misguidance" in a statement released in recent days. It should also be noted that the pro-ISIS Telegram bot that issued the call to attack Imam Chalghoumi has since been deleted.

"We Are All Samuel Paty; He Is A Martyr Of Freedom; His Assassin Is A Criminal Terrorist... I Apologize To All The Teachers Of France Who Educate Our Children..."

In an October 17, 2020 article in the Egyptian daily Al-Watan, liberal journalist Khaled Montaser referred to the gruesome murder of Samuel Paty, the French history teacher who had shown his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson on freedom of speech and was later beheaded by a young Muslim of Chechen origin. In the article, titled "Our Backwardness Is the Worst Insult to the Prophet," Montaser condemned the radical Arab reactions to the Muhammad cartoons and claimed that it is the backwardness, violence, and extremism in the Muslim world that harm the image of Islam and the Prophet.

It should be noted that Montaser expressed similar sentiments in a 2006 article following the furious Arab and Muslim reactions to the publication of the Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper. He claimed that the backwardness and underdevelopment of the Muslim world, and its economic, security, medical, and technological dependence on countries that are viewed by Muslims as infidel, were a much greater insult to the Prophet Muhammad than any mocking cartoons could be.[1]

The following are translated excerpts from Khaled Montaser's recent article:[2] "When [French President] Macron said that Islam is in crisis, many were angry and condemned [his words], especially [Muslim] clerics.[3] Are they still condemning and feeling the same fury after the beheading of the history teacher in a Paris suburb by a Muslim Chechen student, only 18 years old, who shouted 'Allah Akbar' before slaughtering him? He didn't play jazz or dance the Macarena, he slaughtered, cut and chopped off his head, convinced that by doing so he was defending his religion and responding to the degradation of the Prophet Muhammad. [But if the Prophet] were to witness the backwardness of the Muslims today, he would say, 'Oh Muslims, your situation, your backwardness and your position at the bottom of the [ranking of] nations are the greatest insult to me as a prophet,' when the first word that came down to [me] from Allah was "read"!!!'

A federal judge on Monday threw out a lawsuit in which a Muslim civil rights group sought to block the state of Maryland from enforcing its ban on contracting with businesses that boycott Israel.

U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake didn’t reach a decision on whether the executive order that Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed in October 2017 is constitutional. The judge ruled that a software engineer who is named as the lawsuit’s plaintiff hasn’t shown he has suffered any “direct injury” giving him the legal standing to challenge the order.

Hogan’s order requires contractors to certify in writing that they don’t boycott Israel. The order was called “Prohibiting Discriminatory Boycotts of Israel in State Procurement.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations sued Hogan and state Attorney General Brian Frosh on behalf of software engineer Syed Saqib Ali, a former state legislator. CAIR argued the order has an unconstitutional chilling effect on First Amendment-protected political advocacy supporting the Palestinians.

The executive order says a boycott based on religion, national origin or ethnicity is discriminatory. A business boycott of Israel and its territories “is not a commercial decision made for business or economic reasons,” it says.

“Contracting with business entities that discriminate make the State a passive participant in private-sector commercial discrimination,” the order says.

Ali’s lawsuit said Hogan’s order bars him from bidding for government software program contracts because he supports boycotts of businesses and organizations that “contribute to the oppression of Palestinians.”

But Ali hasn’t submitted any bids, so Blake ruled Monday that he cannot proceed on the basis of a “direct injury.”

Disgusting #antisemitic little cartoon - on a disgraceful bitter article about Left wing #antisemitism - horrendous by Asa #Winstanley for Memo @Campaign4Tpic.twitter.com/jMM87d2Bn3

— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) October 27, 2020

Former @UF SJP vice president Farah Khan is definitely not a fan of diplomacy: "There is nothing pragmatic about compromising our right to resist... We must resist the Zionist entity at ever turn..."https://t.co/BWvaRzUpPxpic.twitter.com/G5VsK6OhUx

— Canary Mission (@canarymission) October 26, 2020

Hey @Wellesley your student, Anais Amer, is calling for death to Zionists (aka 97% of Jews) and Zionism (the right for Israel to exist).

Is this type of hatred now the norm on your campus?!

(Thread 1/2) pic.twitter.com/dQRkgnY5Qw

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) October 26, 2020

Spotify has declined to take down French rapper Freeze Corleone’s songs containing anti-Semitic lyrics, Digital Music News (DMN) reported.

Corleone, born Issa Lorenzo Diakhaté, released an album on September 11 called LMF [The Phantom Menace] that featured lyrics such as “I arrive determined like Adolf [Hitler] in the 1930s” and “Like Swiss bankers, everything for the family so that my children live like Jewish pensioner.”

An unidentified individual told DMN that he or she contacted a Spotify representative about possibly taking down Corleone’s songs containing anti-Semitism. According to a screenshot in the DMN article, the representative replied “We make music available as the artist intends it to be heard, and that sometimes includes explicit content. Based on the information they provide, we tag explicit releases with EXPLICIT or E.”

Jewish groups denounced Spotify.

“Social media companies, especially during the continuing pandemic have an outsized and dominating role in delivering and shaping culture—especially to younger generations,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and director of Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement to the Journal. “Whether its Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or Spotify, if anti-Semitism and hate have been delivered by one or more of the social media platform, those companies have an obligation to remove the hate. Yes it is that simple, no matter how much money Spotify makes from a particular artist. If they don’t, they can expect an influx of hate music from both sides of the Atlantic.”

A Reuters caption this week accompanying a photograph of a Palestinian shoemaker displaying shoes embellished with the words “Trump” and “Balfour” misrepresented his anger over Israel’s existence as anti-Trump sentiment. The Oct. 25 caption states:

The Palestinian shoemaker Imad Haj-Muhammad displays shoes he embellished with Arabic words reading “Trump” and ” “Balfour” to channel his anger against U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies towards the Palestinians, at his workshop in the Israeli-occupied West Bank October 6, 2020. Picture taken October 6, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

But the word “Balfour” has nothing to do with Trump’s recent policies, such as the relocation of the American Embassy to Jerusalem in 2018, the cutting of U.S. funds to Palestinians in 2019, or the 2019 recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli, for example.

“Balfour” refers to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, nearly a full century before Trump assumed office, issued by then-British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour, which endorses British support for a national home for the Jewish people in the British Mandate of Palestine.

Thus, Haj-Muhammad’s “Balfour” shoe inscription does not signify anger at this or that Trump policy, but at the very notion of a national home for the Jewish people in what was British Mandate Palestine.

“Everyone was against us. Everything in the MSM [mainstream media] was anti-Israel, and we had a responsibility to show the other side,’” Joel Carmel, a former Israel Defense Forces soldier and now English content coordinator for the Breaking the Silence NGO, said of the zeitgeist characterizing his Zionist upbringing in London’s suburbs. In a Business Insider article this past July showcasing his story, Carmel claimed: “That meant saying what Israel did was always a security issue and Israel had to do whatever it had to defend itself” (“A young man left London to join Israel’s army because he wanted to defend the Jewish people but now believes the treatment of Palestinians is morally wrong,” July 26).

“In this bubble, all of Israel’s critics were biased, Carmel, the son of a rabbi, said” reported Business Insider’s Julian Kossoff about Carmel, the 2009-2010 winner of “The Ambassador,” a prestigious Israel advocacy program at the renowned JFS School.

The notion that Ambassador participants were always expected to defend Israel “come what may,” as Carmel, 28, put it in a Times of Israel blog post last May entitled “Israel and the Diaspora: A Call for Honesty,” is a central part of his narrative, one which he earlier emphasized in a Zoom session last June. “We, as diaspora Jews, had a job to defend Israel no matter what and at all times,” was the message he said he imbibed from his Israel education, both formal and extracurricular, at JFS, he said.

But this “come what may” approach of absolutes, which perhaps characterizes the personal path of Carmel, who transformed from an avid pro-Israel advocate into a Breaking the Silence content coordinator who fails to acknowledge any security or political justification whatsoever for Israel’s presence and policies in the West Bank, does not resemble the Ambassador program during Carmel’s time.

🔴 WATCH: AJ+ provide cover for a terrorist.

If you're sick of AJ+ pretending to be a progressive news outlet, watch this video. We expose why Maher al-Akhras was arrested and why AJ+ try to keep this from you. pic.twitter.com/8vnGFfNazm

— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) October 27, 2020

The Canadian premier has condemned the desecration of the country’s National War Memorial after an antisemitic hate symbol was carved into it on 16th October.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the “antisemitic desecration” of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, as “completely unacceptable”.

In a statement on Twitter he said: “I strongly condemn this hateful act.” He urged anyone with information to contact police.

The Hate Crimes Unit of the Ottawa Police is looking for the man suspected of carving the antisemitic symbol. The suspect is believed to have rode a bicycle to the city-centre National War Memorial – site of Canada’s annual, national Remembrance Day ceremony – and scratched hate graffiti onto the tomb before riding away.

Canada’s Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said that the “hateful” desecration of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier “with an antisemitic symbol” was “despicable,” declaring: “The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier represents the gallantry and the sacrifices of all those who fought for our freedom. Its desecration with an antisemitic symbol is despicable.”

A man imprisoned for antisemitic incitement has apologised for his actions after being required to learn about the Holocaust during his jail term.

Michael Graves, 21, of Anchorage, Alaska, was jailed last year for posting hate messages calling for violence against Jews and Muslims and for illegally owning a machine gun and silencers. As part of his eighteen-month prison sentence, he was required to take classes and read books about the Holocaust and other forms of race-hate and was then required to write essays about what he learned.

At a hearing on Wednesday, Mr Graves apologised for his comments and acknowledged that he was part of a group that expressed vile views.

Prosecutors said that Mr Graves had the means “and the mentality” to commit a violent act. The classes were described as a creative way to “stop potential mass shooters” who spew hate-speech.

“I’m sorry for what I said. I do not believe in prejudice or violence of any kind,” he declared.

Senior government officials and industry leaders from the US and Israel converged online on Monday to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement.

In a web forum hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce’s US-Israel Business Council, speakers highlighted the historic nature of the 1985 agreement and emphasized future growth in trade, investment and innovation between the two countries.

“I believe Israel is going to be the most important ally of the United States in the 21st century,” said Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the US. “And that’s a big statement to make from an ambassador of a country the size of New Jersey, that has all of nine million citizens.”

Dermer said this has nothing to do with a particular US administration or its policies, like on Iran and on peace, but has has everything to do with security and technology, referencing Israel’s capability in both sectors.

Amir Peretz, Israel’s economy minister, praised US-Israeli cooperation in security and economic development that has blossomed as a result of the agreement.

A 1,700-year-old boundary stone inscribed with the name “Kfar Nafah” in Greek was uncovered in an archaeological excavation by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Golan Heights near the Nafah army base.

The IAA found this stone during excavations ahead of the installation of a water pipeline by the Mekorot Water Company. The excavation was directed by Dina Avshalom-Gorni and Yardenna Alexandre of the IAA, with the participation of pre-military academy (mechinot) students from Maayan Baruch and Kela Alon, as well as volunteers from the community.

The deciphering of the inscription by Dr. Danny Syon, together with Prof. Haim Ben-David from the Kinneret Academic College, pleased researchers who realized it showed that Nafah has been the name of this site for nearly two thousand years. According to researchers, "The inscription, which mentions the name Kfar Nafah, (Nafah village) was inscribed on a boundary stone. Under the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian (around 300 CE), these stones were placed as the boundaries of villages, for the purpose of collecting taxes.

"This is the first boundary stone in the center of the Golan Heights, on which appears the name of a place that has been preserved to this day. Nafah was the name of the Syrian village that existed here until the Six Day War in 1967, and now Nafah is the adjacent military base." Researchers added that, "Usually, ancient names are preserved as a result of settlement continuity, which preserves ancient names from generation to generation. However, at Nafah, the ancient remains have not revealed such settlement continuity," they said.

Yad Vashem mourns the death of Jewish resistance fighter and Holocaust survivor Zvi Aviram

Read this recent interview with him in which he discusses growing up in Berlin during the Holocaust: https://t.co/45OFrnEmYdpic.twitter.com/Ue1G7kSemk

— Yad Vashem (@yadvashem) October 26, 2020

The United States and Israel will eliminate territorial restrictions for bilateral agreements in a ceremony on Wednesday.

The move will build upon a policy shift made by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this past November, in which America no longer recognizes Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria as illegal under international law.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman are slated to participate in a signing ceremony at Ariel University in Samaria.

The agreement will immediately expand scientific and academic cooperation to include projects within Judea and Samaria, and the Golan Heights—disputed territories under Israeli control. The United States recognized Israel’s full sovereignty over the Golan Heights in March 2019.

Israel captured Judea and Samaria, in addition to the Golan, from Jordan and Syria, respectively, during the defensive Six-Day War in 1967.

Israel formally annexed the Golan Heights in 1981. Judea and Samaria remain disputed territories and were divided into non-contiguous zones (“Area A,” “Area B” and “Area C”) of varying Israeli or Palestinian administrative and security control under the 1993 Oslo Accords

'In the spirit of the #AbrahamAccords, we place great value on academic, cultural, commercial and diplomatic engagement as the best path to peace,' David Friedman, @USAmbIsrael, at signing ceremony of Israel-US scientific research cooperation pic.twitter.com/mE0pmkNjU2

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) October 28, 2020

And to those malevolent boycotters, I have a simple message today: You are wrong and you will fail. You are wrong because you deny what cannot be denied, the millennial connection between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel—it's over three-thousand years old.

— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) October 28, 2020

Extending agreements between the US and Israel to the West Bank, Golan and east Jerusalem bolsters the ties between the countries, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said in a ceremony removing the only territorial limitations in agreements between Washington and Jerusalem on Wednesday.

“We are righting an old wrong and strengthening yet again the unbreakable bond between our two countries,” Friedman said at a signing ceremony with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Ariel University in Samaria.

Netanyahu and Friedman signed new versions of three agreements on research cooperation, which erase a line that says "cooperative projects sponsored by the Foundation may not be conducted in geographic areas which came under the administration of the Government of Israel after June 5, 1967, and may not relate to subjects primarily pertinent to such areas.”

The first agreement, signed in 1972, was the Binational Science Foundation, followed in 1976 the Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD), and then the Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund (BARD) in 1977. All three had large endowments that provided grants to American and Israeli academics and companies for research and technology.

They also signed a new Science and Technology agreement, meant to increase government-to-government cooperation at the highest levels, which also does not have geographic restrictions.

Friedman said that BIRD, BARD and BSF, as originally written, “were subject to political limitations that did not serve the goals sought to be achieved.”

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that there are up to 10 countries that he expects to soon normalize relations with Israel, but that the developments would largely happen after next week’s presidential elections.

Asked if there were more countries in the Middle East that would follow the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan who all recently opened diplomatic relations with Israel, Trump said there were more on the way, without specifying exactly how many or which countries they were.

“We have five, but really have probably nine or ten that are right in the mix, we’re going to have a lot, I think we’ll have all of them eventually,” he told reporters at Andrews Air Force Base before hitting the campaign trail.

“The beauty is there’s peace in the Middle East with no money and no blood,” he continued. “There’s no blood all over the sand. We have five definites and I think we’ll have another five pretty much definites. And all of them, the big ones, the smaller ones.”

Asked if agreements would come before or after the November 3 election, Trump said “largely after.”

"Peace in the middle east with no money and no blood." #Trumphttps://t.co/tvhusK7gPu

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 27, 2020

Donald Trump came along and managed to “do the unthinkable” by brokering peace between the Israelis and the Arabs by simply bypassing the Palestinians, according to Sky News host Rowan Dean. President Donald Trump has recently brokered a third historic peace deal this time between Israel and Sudan, after previously negotiating deals between Israel and the UAE, and Bahrain. Mr Dean said bypassing Palestine to broker these deals is the “genius of Donald Trump”. "The Democrats have no solutions for the problems in the world,” he said. “You need people like Donald Trump who just cut through all the sort of red tape and get to the bottom of the nut of the problem and solve it.”

Last week, two former Obama administration officials, Eric Lynn and Daniel Shapiro, took to the pages of The Miami Herald to claim that President Donald Trump’s policies have been harmful to Israel and indeed “endangered the Jewish State in many ways.” As Israelis and high-ranking retired military officers who have worked for decades on the nation’s security, we cannot think of a more baseless claim. Whatever one thinks of Trump, his record on Israel outshines not only that of his predecessor, but of all previous U.S. presidents.

Lynn and Shapiro’s piece relies on an extraordinarily selective history—not mentioning some of Trump’s most significant actions or former President Barack Obama’s most destructive ones. So let’s directly compare the record of the Trump administration with that of its predecessor.

Trump recognized the unified city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a historic shift whose magnitude can be appreciated from the fact that several prior presidents promised to do it, but none had the courage to follow through. Other countries are continuing to follow Trump’s lead, and thus Israel’s sovereignty over the Western Wall and Temple Mount is now more secure than ever.

Under the Obama administration, Vice President Joe Biden threw a much-publicized fit when Israel announced plans to build some apartments in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem (but across the magical “Green Line”). Our right to build anywhere in our capital must be respected.

Trump did what prior presidents did not even dream of and recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, thus ensuring this strategically vital territory would not fall into the hands of Iranian proxies. Obama insisted that Israel accept negotiations based on the “1967 borders,” pushing a plan that would have put Israel’s security in United Nations and Arab hands and would deny Israel a defensible border—the Jordan Valley. Obama allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass its infamous Resolution 2334—opposed by almost every Democratic senator—that encourages a boycott against any Israeli presence in these territories.

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley in a weekend speech in Pennsylvania portrayed President Trump as a leader willing to do what he believes to be the right thing and to keep his word, even in the face of opposing advice and decades of precedent, citing as an example his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital against the counsel of most of his national security team.

As presidents of both parties had done before him, Haley said in Reading, Trump had pledged to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Unlike them, he kept his word.

Haley said she was in the room when the Jerusalem decision was made, and of the dozen or so advisors in the discussion she was one of just three who supported the embassy move.

“So the majority of the people in his National Security Council told him not to do it, just like every president before,” she said. “And [while campaigning for the White House] he had done what every president had done before: He had promised the American people he was going to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”

“And in spite of everything, when they all said ‘the sky's going to fall, war will break out, people will die,’ he said, ‘If not me, then who? If not now, then when?’”

“And he made the call,” she recalled. “And the sky is still up there.”

1. President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel 2. President Trump moved the American Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem 3. President Trump closed the Jerusalem consulate and made it an Embassy branch 4. President Trump has never publicly criticized Israel 5. President Trump pulled America out of the Iran deal 6. President Trump raised military aid to Israel by $400 million 7. President Trump raised sanctions on Iran as soon as pulled out of the deal 8. President Trump recognized the sovereignty of Israel on the Golan Heights 9. President Trump designated IRGC (Iranian special forces) a foreign terrorist group10. President Trump banned BDS head Omar Barghouti from America

Israel is a stabilizing influence in an unstable region of the world. It is a democracy, a military and technological innovator, an economically advanced country. It can assist its new allies in each of these areas, as it has already begun to do even in the short time since normalization began.

This may be their last opportunity to achieve a reasonable two state solution. Israel's Arab neighbors have demonstrated that the Palestinian cause is not as high on their agenda as it appeared to be in the past. These nations understand that the situation the Palestinians now find themselves in have been the result of self-inflicted wounds -- most importantly an unwillingness to take yes for an answer when the Israelis have offered them statehood.

Even now, the Palestinian leadership refuses to sit down and negotiate with Israel. They must understand that they will not get a state as the result of the boycott movement, protests on university campuses or meaningless resolutions of the United Nations. Recent developments make it clear that statehood for the Palestinians will come only through negotiations with Israel.

Maysoon Hameed comes home from work as a vice president at First Abu Dhabi Bank, spends time with her family — and then begins a 90-minute live Hebrew class online.

“After the UAE signed [the Abraham Accords] with Israel, there are a lot of investment opportunities” for both sides, said Hameed. “To make connections and build relations, you need something in common with the other party no matter where in the world they are. You have to find a common comfort zone.”

“If I have colleagues from Israel, we don’t have to speak English all the time, even though that is the international business language,” said Hameed. “We will feel closer speaking in a mother tongue.”

Hameed is one of nine Emirati students of Tel Aviv’s Citizen Café — six from Abu Dhabi and three from Dubai — plus four from Bahrain.

“We have always had ambassadors and diplomats from around the world, so we barely noticed a few businesspeople from the UAE before,” said Tamar Pross, who founded the Citizen Café Hebrew language and Israeli culture school in 2015.

“But when the peace agreement happened, an article in Israel about Emirati diplomat Omar Saif Ghobash mentioned that he’d been studying with us. Suddenly we noticed a huge amount of people contacting us. So we started to promote Citizen Café in the UAE and in Bahrain as well.”

Building ties between some of the most economically dynamic parts of the Middle East will provide big commercial and trade opportunities. Direct flights and access between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain will link Israel's technological prowess with the financial, logistics and investment hubs of the region, a win for both sides.

There will also be a strategic windfall for the region. Open diplomatic relations and exchanges between Israel and these two Gulf states, and onwards to the rest of the Gulf, will improve communication and allow increased coordination on security issues.

These new diplomatic channels will provide a vehicle to exchange assessments, coordinate positions, and if necessary address misunderstandings and de-escalate tensions. It is a vital piece of security infrastructure in a volatile region.

The White House and President Trump personally played an important role in helping broker this agreement, and deserve credit for this.

But the agreement itself speaks to a growing recognition amongst the Middle East’s major actors that they can no longer rely on Washington alone to keep the peace in the region.

Aware that the United States will no longer always be prepared to underwrite security in the Middle East, as the conflict in Syria has shown, the agreement demonstrates a greater degree of self reliance and strategic maturity.

Most significantly, these new agreements with Israel speak to a shift of mindset underway in the Middle East.

Rather than seeing Israel as a problem to be wished away, the UAE and Bahrain have recognised that Israel is here to stay, and have decided to make the most of this opportunity.

If the Palestinians could bring themselves to take a similarly enlightened and pragmatic approach, and drop the zero-sum attitudes, they might find that a similar peace with Israel is within their grasp.

Dave Sharma is the Federal Member for Wentworth and a former ambassador to Israel.

#HappeningNow: Fascinating discussion about #AbrahamAccords between 4 outstanding diplomats & spokespeople, who are truly helping make history:@statedeptspox, USA 🇺🇸@LiorHaiat, Israel 🇮🇱@hend_mana, UAE 🇦🇪
Arwa Alsayed, Bahrain 🇧🇭

You can watch here: https://t.co/jd4TLdIJUzpic.twitter.com/JjWx9OaLIh

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 28, 2020

Every day brings new updates in the UAE-Israel relationship, whether it is new business ventures or people-to-people conversations (@Ostrov_A ) or other elements; so I've updated my post; https://t.co/eYsZGtAJdQ

— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) October 27, 2020

As the excitement following the signing of the Abraham Accords continues to reverberate around the world, we are already seeing the underpinning of not just peace, but a warm peace between our two nations. One byproduct of this is the surge in interest from Israelis and the broader global Jewish community in coming to visit Bahrain, and we are looking forward to welcoming you.

Bahrain is known for its warmth and hospitality, our centers of art and culture and education institutions. One thing you will encounter throughout your stay is our commitment to interfaith dialogue and peaceful coexistence, a core principle that is important to His Majesty, King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa.

For decades, His Majesty has personally backed a policy of interfaith engagement. Notably, Bahrain has been the only Gulf Arab state with a small, yet vibrant, Jewish community, which plays an integral role in the country’s social, economic, and political scenes. His Majesty has provided our community with a seat on the Shura Council so that our voice can be heard. He is proud of Manama’s synagogue — the first in a Gulf country — and his grandfather provided the land for the Jewish cemetery, currently the only one in the Gulf. For decades, our Jewish community has enjoyed a climate of religious freedom in Bahrain, where various religions and sects have coexisted for centuries, and where one can find a synagogue a few meters away from mosques and matams, the Hindu temple, and churches.

What some may not know is that the Jewish community of Bahrain dates back about 140 years to the late 1800s, when a group of Iraqi Jews arrived in search of economic opportunities and made their way to Bahrain. At its height in the 1920s and 1930s, the community had about 1,500 members. Today, we still have an active community, but it is considerably smaller. Our synagogue is under renovation, and is slated to open next year as both a synagogue for prayers and as a Jewish museum — the first of its kind in the Arabian Gulf.

Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council: Reconciliation with Israel Serves the Interests of Both Parties; Many Other Arab-Israeli Agreements Have Been Signed Since the 1967 "Three No's" Khartoum Summit pic.twitter.com/ZCjlrD2hSe

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 28, 2020

Here’s a surefire way to start a good relationship with the new administration should Democratic candidate Joe Biden is elected next Tuesday: Likud MK Shlomo Karhi told Reshet Bet radio Wednesday morning about the possibility that the majority of US polls are proven right this time: “If Biden wins, we will know how to cooperate with the administration. Netanyahu and the State of Israel have cooperated with a democratic administration in the United States, we will know how to get along with this one as well. We survived the Pharaoh, we’ll survive this, too.”

Ouch.

Shortly afterward, when his unfortunate quip was picking up speed and popularity across the social networks, MK Karhi became busy trying to lock the barn doors with the horses galloping all over the hills out there, claiming he was misunderstood.

“The misinterpretation they give to ‘we survived Pharaoh we will also survive this’ is that the ‘this’ is a particularly problematic event reminiscent of Pharaoh … But it’s not. And I made that clear in the interview as well. Quite the opposite. It was an emphasis that ‘this’ is such a minor event that if we have passed Pharaoh we will pass it as well.”

Karhi was placed twenty-fifth on the Likud list for the April 2019 elections, the slot reserved for candidates from the Negev region. He was subsequently elected to the Knesset after Likud had won 36 seats. He serves as chairman of the Knesset subcommittee on Negev Affairs.

'As the U.S. presidential election approaches, and in light of the polls indicating a lead for Democratic candidate Vice President Joe Biden, the Saudi press is publishing numerous articles about the election and each candidate's chance of winning. Most Saudi journalists hope for the reelection of the incumbent President Donald Trump, inter alia because of his aggressive position vis-à-vis Iran. Many of the writers expressed negative views regarding the era of President Obama, when Biden was vice president; they condemn that administration's policies, including the JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran that Obama promoted and what they said was the Democrats' support for the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), and warned that these policies could be revived under a Biden presidency.

In this spirit, on October 15, 2020, Saudi journalist Badr bin Sa'ud warned, in the Saudi Al-Riyadh daily, that a Biden victory would mean a replay of what he called Obama's highly flawed presidency. Harshly criticizing the latter, bin Saud stated that the Obama administration had made a pact with Qatar and with the MB, and had supported the "so-called Arab Spring," thus wreaking havoc and destruction in Arab countries. He also argued that Obama had allowed MB members to attain senior positions in his administration and to take part in setting U.S. policy against the Arab countries and in favor of their enemies Iran, Turkey, and Qatar. The MB's Machiavellianism, he added, and the Democratic Party's phony idealism join together in an alliance that serves both their interests.

Other articles in the Saudi press sought to allay concerns and downplay what they called the danger of a possible Biden win. For example, Saudi journalist Muhammad Aal Al-Sheikh wrote in his column in the Al-Jazirah daily that while a Trump victory is definitely in Saudi Arabia's interest, a Biden win would not necessarily be a catastrophe, because some think that Biden is more of a moderate than Obama was. A President Biden would not be able to disregard either the regional terrorist activity of Iran and its proxies such as Hizbullah or the consolidation of the European view opposing Erdogan's conduct, he said. Stressing that a President Biden would also not be able to ignore the fact that Saudi Arabia is an important and influential country with a strategic relationship with the U.S., he downplayed the significance of the current criticism of it and of other Arab countries in the U.S. media. He noted that this criticism was aimed more at President Trump than at the countries themselves, and stressed that such criticism is part and parcel of a populism that will dissipate after the election.

Netanyahu has long championed "peace from strength," whereas Israel's leftist military establishment signs onto the Left's "land for peace" motto. For a generation, the generals have insisted that Peace Now and the EU are right. The only way to achieve peace is by giving the PLO whatever it demands.

Retired generals Amos Gilad and Matan Vilnai are a case in point. The two men are among Netanyahu's most vocal critics. They argue that Israel would have been better off rejecting peace with the UAE to prevent the F-35 sale. Vilnai, a former Labor Minister who now heads the left-wing Commanders for Israel's Security, which supports an Israeli withdrawal from the Jordan Valley, and Gilad, who was an aide to Netanyahu's most outspoken political enemy former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, insist their positions have nothing to do with politics.

The "apolitical" criticism of the F-35 deal emanating from the security establishment is strongly resonant of the same retired generals' violent opposition to Israel's recent purchase of upgraded submarines from Germany. For years the generals have insisted that a stench of corruption exudes from the sale and from Netanyahu's support for the deal specifically. But repeated criminal probes of the submarine deal have come up empty. And this makes sense.

The generals' opposition to the submarine sale isn't rooted in concern over corruption. It is rooted in the IDF's longstanding opposition to Netanyahu's strategic vision which seeks the upgrade of the navy to the level of a strategic force comparable to the air force. For the generals, the battlefields of the future will be little different from those of the past: They will be dominated by air and ground forces, while naval forces will play a mere supporting role. For decades they have fought Netanyahu's moves to upgrade the navy because they don't want to upgrade the navy. They oppose it not because it's a bad idea, per se. They oppose it because it isn't their idea.

From the time news broke of the peace deal with the UAE, the media and the generals have used the F-35 sales to oppose it. Every news broadcast includes some new "exclusive interview" with yet another retired general insisting that the F-35 deal is the greatest calamity to befall Israel, perhaps ever.

The F-35 deal may or may not be a blow to Israel's strategic capabilities. We'll have to wait to see what the US intends to do to offset the damage it does to Israel's strategic position. But what is absolutely clear is that to maintain its qualitative edge, Israel needs to keep its politicized, and strategically blind security establishment away from decision-making circles now and into the future.

According to senior Israeli officials, if the defense establishment had known that the US was in talks with Israel and the United Arab Emirates on normalization, they would have seized the opportunity and negotiated for the F-22 as an amendment of the old aid package which is due to end in 2028, or a new and improved deal.

Senior Israeli defense establishment believes that the purchase of the most advanced fighter jet in the world would be key to maintaining the IDF’s technological superiority in the region (it’s also the shiniest toy on the shelf, don’t knock the psychological effect of such a purchase – DI).

“Our qualitative advantage is diminishing in aircraft, mortars, armaments and air defense systems,” a senior security official said in a recent closed hearing, according to Haaretz. He added: “The rate of change in the Middle East is high, it is a different Middle East than it was in the previous decade, and many countries that are not in direct conflict with Israel are investing huge sums to build the most advanced air forces and air defense systems in the world.”

Can’t have that.

Like every state-of-the-art warplane, the F-22 has been plagued by accidents, starting in 2004, at least one of which ended with the pilot getting killed. The most recent one took place on May 15, when an F-22 from Eglin Air Force Base crashed during a routine training mission. The pilot ejected safely, and the aircraft crashed in a remote part of Eglin Air Force Base reservation.

The IAF has a reputation for taking over sensitive US warplanes and ridding them of the kinks.

Top Palestinian diplomat Riad Malki on Monday called for an international peace conference as the only way to renew talks with Israel, AP reported.

According to the report, this comes on the heels of a similar call last month by Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in his speech to the UN General Assembly.

During his speech, Abbas called for such an international conference to take place in early 2021, and for UN Secretary-General António Guterres to prepare for the event with the Quartet of Middle East mediators, made up of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft did not rule out the idea, but expressed doubt that it would be successful.

“We have no objection to meeting with international partners to discuss the issue. But I have to ask: How is this different than every other meeting convened on this issue over the past 60 years?” she reportedly posed.

Damning findings by U.N. internal ethics investigation: U.N. Human Rights Office approved handing over names of Uighur activists to China because they were "primarily interested in good relations" with Beijing.

Office was led by Jordanian Prince & now HRW Vice-Chair @raad_zeid. https://t.co/mJAvqhm8uC

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) October 28, 2020

Israel and Lebanon concluded the first day of a second round of US- and UN-mediated maritime border talks on offshore energy exploration on Wednesday, which included discussions described by one Lebanese television station as “very heated.”

The talks were held at the headquarters of UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL in the Lebanese border town of Naqoura, guarded by army roadblocks and with UN helicopters circling above.

The Israeli delegation updated Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz on the details of the discussions and he instructed them to continue with the talks on Thursday, the Energy Ministry said in a statement.

Lebanese media described the talks as “serious” as the two sides got down to technicalities and the Lebanese delegation pushed for an additional 1430 square kilometers (550 square miles) to be included in Lebanese territory.

The Lebanese English-language Daily Star reported that the Lebanese side was adopting a “maximalist stance.”

It said Lebanon was pushing for the additional square kilometers to be included in Lebanese territory on top of the already disputed 860 square kilometer- (330 square mile-) area of the Mediterranean Sea which each side claims as being within their own exclusive economic zones.

The Al-Jadeed station called the talks serious and “very heated,” adding that the Lebanese delegation’s ceiling is the highest it has been and that there are “fundamental disputes on the starting point.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the IDF "Lethal Arrow" exercise site in northern Israel on Wednesday and expressed his confidence in the military and its offensive capabilities, in light of recent tensions between the IDF and Hezbollah.

During his visit, Netanyahu received various briefings about the latest efforts being carried out by the IDF on Israel's northern fronts.

His visit was accommodated by IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, head of the IDF Intelligence Directorate Maj.-Gen. Tamir Heyman and other IDF senior officers.

"Even during coronavirus, our enemies will not cease acting – and neither shall we," Netanyahu said during his visit.

"I'm impressed by this exercise and see great improvement in the IDF's offensive capabilities. Hezbollah and the State of Lebanon should take that into consideration," Netanyahu added. "Those who attack us will meet fire and a steel fist that will destroy any enemy."

The Czech parliament called on the government to designate Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist group, in a resolution passed on Wednesday.

The Czech Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the parliament in Prague, voted 63-7 to adopt the motion calling the Lebanese Shi’ite group “an indivisible whole and a terrorist organization that significantly destabilizes the Middle East region and, through its global network, also threatens all democracies.”

The Czech Republic does not currently have its own list of terrorist organizations, and the legislature called to establish one and put Hezbollah on it.

The resolution added that the parliament “rejects the misleading division of this organization into military and political parts, as this organization acts as an internally interlinked structure.”

🗣@arnoldroth: @BBCArabic put “lipstick on a pig” of @FBIMostWanted killer Ahlam Tamimi and should apologise to Arabic viewers for “gross distrotion”. His daughter Malki died in the suicide attack she planned. @James_J_Marlow was eyewitness
🎧FULL EPISODE https://t.co/aqSlbnTxxVpic.twitter.com/C6e43gRNsM

— Jonny Gould (@jonnygould) October 28, 2020

Arab society in Israel, mostly its Muslims, is up in arms amid the growing protest waves washing over the Arab-Muslim world against France and French President Emmanuel Macron. "We will fight Islamic extremism," and "won't give up our right" to satire, Macron said in commemoration of French teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by an Islamist extremist earlier this month after showing his students cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a civics class on freedom of expression.

The situation is particularly combustible because this week over one billion Muslims mark the birth of the symbol of Islam, the Prophet Mohammad. Across the Arab world, people are voicing their outrage, threatening to boycott French goods, and are demanding an apology for offending their religious sensibilities.

This outcry has spread to Israel in recent days. Arab municipalities declared public protests against the French president, whose photograph was pasted onto dumpsters, and published a list of French goods to boycott – although despite the heated tones, there's been little response to the boycott initiatives.

Clear and loud voices against the horrific murder – which does not and never will be a reflection of Islam – weren't prominent, regretfully, at the local demonstrations. More prevalent, instead, were conspiracy theories that the West is at war with Islam and the Palestinian people. On social media, it's easy to find baseless accusations against Macron, who is portrayed as the operative arm of global Zionism. Arab-Christian Israelis are also being targeted for failing to show solidarity with the Muslims and for not condemning the French president or his purported support for disrespecting Islam and religious sensibilities.

Underneath the top layer of these protests, however, which supposedly are an expression of anger and frustration over religious offenses, lies another layer: The Joint Arab List is also the focus of harsh criticism. Yes, some members of the faction have issued their own personal messages of condemnation, but the Joint List itself, as a political party, hasn't adopted any clear-cut stance against France or the debasement of religious symbols. (h/t Zvi)

A new coronavirus commissioner was appointed to replace Prof. Ronni Gamzu on Tuesday, the Health Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office announced. The selection of Prof. Nachman Ash comes ahead of an expected vote on Thursday about whether to open street shops, and as the infection rate declines.

Ash, 59, was the former chief of the IDF Medical Corps from 2007 to 2011, and was the head doctor for the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit. He is expected to start Wednesday and transition into his new role though November 13, when Gamzu will officially step down and return to his position as director-general of Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center.

Gamzu took the role in August and had committed to work for the country through November 1.

Ash is becoming commissioner at a time when the infection rate is on the decline, but is also expected to face challenges from the government and society, who will want to open up fast and risk an increase in morbidity.

During a briefing he gave from Ziv Medical Center in Safed on Tuesday, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein thanked Ash for “agreeing to take on this challenging role” and wished him success. He shared that Gamzu had agreed to stay on for a few days “to transfer the role in an orderly manner.”

The number of new daily cases continues to decline, hitting the lowest percentage of positive test results since June on Tuesday.

There were 780 people diagnosed with coronavirus on Monday, the Health Ministry reported Tuesday - just 2.1% of the 36,605 people screened.

Of the sick, only 467 are in serious condition - also the lowest number in months. The death toll stands at 2,452.

The news of the decline comes against the backdrop of several decisions made Monday night by the coronavirus cabinet, including allowing first through fourth graders to return to school on Sunday. They will learn in small groups and wear masks.

The cabinet agreed to allow after-school programs to operate with students from up to three classes.

Iran’s judiciary chief, Ebrahim Raisi, told Syria’s ambassador to Iran that it supports the “resistance” to retake the Golan Heights from Israel.

The Syrian regime views the Golan as part of Syria, but the US recognized it as part of Israel. In the past week, Defense Minister Benny Gantz warned Iran and its ally Hezbollah against entrenching near the Golan.

The meeting comes as Iran claims it has put its top air defenders on notice in northwest Iran that Iran will not allow any type of aggression. A visit by a major general to Tabriz showed that Iran was closely watching the developments in Azerbaijan, which is fighting Armenian forces in a disputed area.

Raisi, a key figure and former presidential candidate, was quoted in Tasnim News in Iran about his comments about Israel. He was meeting Ambassador Adnan Mahmoud. He praised Syria and said that Iran and Syria must work together to accelerate the “demise of the fake Israeli regime” using what is called a “resistance strategy.” This usually refers to using Hezbollah or other proxies. But Iran says it wants to see “active resistance” against Israel, perhaps setting the stage or hinting at new operations. Iran says all the “occupied” areas must be “liberated.”

The “resistance” is how Iran refers to its efforts against the US, Israel and “takfiri” militias, which means terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. Iran is also pushing new policies to threaten Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain.

The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday denounced the decision to expand US funding of Israeli scientific cooperation to include research projects in the settlements as “a serious precedent that is condemned, rejected and could not be tolerated.”

The PA was reacting to a decision by the US administration to lift a ban that had prohibited US taxpayer funding for Israeli scientific research conducted in the settlements.

“This step indicates an active US complicity in the occupation of the Palestinian territories and a consolidation of [US President Donald] Trump’s administration of violating the international law and the United Nations resolutions which have condemned settlement activities in all their forms, most recently of which was [UN] Resolution 2334,” said Nabil Abu Rudaineh, spokesman for the Palestinian presidency. “All settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, and any US action in this respect is illegal and constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

Abu Rudaineh accused the Trump administration of attempting to “help Israel cement its occupation of the Palestinian territories” and said that “such policies would never give legitimacy to anyone as Israeli settlements are doomed.”

Throughout his career, Erekat has denied the presence of the Jewish nation in the ancient land of Israel and has attempted to minimize the historic connection of the Jewish people to that land. His efforts to negate the connection are so warped that he even goes so far as to claim that a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount is a fabrication, and that the first-century rabbi known as Jesus was not Jewish, but Palestinian. Throughout his career, he has sought to deny reality precisely because he knows the past validates something he cannot accept — Israel’s claim to the land.

Erekat has been one of the loudest voices in the Palestinian leadership to express support for terrorists and payments to their families, and to justify terrorist attacks against Israelis as legitimate acts of resistance. He turned to the United Nations and other international agencies and forums not out of frustration, or to pursue peace or sovereignty, but because he found there a willing platform and receptive audience where he could voice Palestinian prevarications and denunciations of the State of Israel.

It would be informative to read not just what Rudoren learned from Erekat about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but what his seeking treatment in an Israeli hospital — and Israel’s willingness to treat him — teaches us about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We would learn about hypocrisy in the Palestinian leadership, the difference between what is said in Arabic and to Western reporters in English, and about the true nature of Israel.

Rudoren somewhat wistfully and almost romantically notes that the peace process has been Erekat’s life’s work. But had he not opposed and rejected all of Israel’s offers and proposals to resolve the conflict, he would have something to show for his life’s work.

A week and a half later, she finally mentions Hadassah hospital by name. Albeit, she still can’t bring herself to say the word ‘Israel’. https://t.co/oX5seE8YtZ

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 28, 2020

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar expressed sharp skepticism that his group would reconcile with the rival Fatah movement in the near future in an interview Tuesday, in a public break with the friendly rhetoric that has dominated recent statements by both parties.

The firebrand deputy Gaza chief for the Hamas terror group told the Iranian Al-Alam TV that the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Liberation Organization had “tied their fate and their existence to the occupation.”

“If you’re asking whether the PLO will change its orientation, the answer is no. They’ve embarked upon this project, or it came upon them, and they won’t change. They can’t change. If they change, the Israeli occupation will finish them off,” al-Zahar said.

“Can this organization, which is dependent on Israel and external actors for financial support — can this organization do without such support?” al-Zahar asked rhetorically.

Senior officials in both Hamas and Fatah claimed in late September to have made major strides toward bridging the gaps between them. The two main Palestinian political parties have been at odds since a bloody struggle for control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, which led to Hamas expelling Fatah from the coastal enclave.

Political divisions in the United States may be widening on a broad range of political and policy concerns, but the country is still relatively united on at least one issue. Since the Islamic Republic of Iran’s revolutionary ascent in 1979, Americans of nearly all political stripes have viewed it as a hostile and threatening actor — and sometimes even an evil one. Of course, this sentiment has not always been expressed in policy; Obama White House Deputy national-security adviser Ben Rhodes famously bragged about the way he and his team manipulated the mainstream media and other “outside groups” who then “validated what [they] had given them to say” about the controversial Iran nuclear agreement.

Yet there is still an American consensus on what the Iranian regime was and is. A Gallup poll released March 3 found that no country is held in as much contempt by Americans as Iran. Among those polled, an astonishing 88 percent have a “very” or “mostly” unfavorable view of the country, a negative impression exceeding even that of Kim Jong-un’s totalitarian North Korea. A 2019 poll also reflected this consensus: 93 percent of Americans designated the Iranian regime’s development of nuclear weapons as a “critical” or “important” threat, and 90 percent placed Iran’s military power as a threat rising to those same categories of urgency. It is true that Americans have reasonable differences on what to do about the Iranian regime’s threatening militancy and sponsorship of terror. But it matters that they do not disagree on the present nature of the regime itself.

Thus one might think that the possibility of the Iranian regime’s having companionable spokesmen in American politics — or, even more outrageously, having a whole Washington, D.C.-based organization with a history of echoing the regime’s positions on the most crucial components of U.S.-Iranian relations — would rightfully concern most Americans. Yet that appears to be precisely what is taking place.

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) was founded in 2002 by Trita Parsi, an Iranian-born dual citizen of Iran and Sweden, former employee at the Swedish mission to the United Nations, and a vocal champion of President Obama’s controversial Iran nuclear agreement. Parsi has consistently diminished the magnitude of the threat of the Iranian regime while simultaneously blaming most of the Middle East’s troubles on U.S. policies in the region.

Swiss and German economic deals might be aiding Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program.... The Swiss firm Ceresola TLS reached an agreement [in 2010] with the Rahab Engineering Establishment in Iran to deliver tunneling technology as part of a subway project. This is precisely the type of heavy earth-moving equipment Iran's rulers need to burrow away nuclear facilities underground, as the regime did with the Qom and Natanz nuclear enrichment plants.

The German company Krempel delivered to two Iranian companies insulating pressboards that were incorporated into Iranian missiles armed with chemical warheads, which were used by the Syrian regime in a chlorine gas attack in January 2018. The attack resulted in 21 injuries, including six children.

The Association of Iranian Banks in Europe wrote in July: "45 percent of the EU exports to Iran came from Germany, which delivered goods worth 555 million Euro, with an increase of 31 percent compared to last year."

Europe's most powerful economic engine, Germany, and the rest of the EU have sadly opted to align themselves with the Islamic Republic of Iran on the pressing issues of Iran's nuclear program, and its stomach-turning human rights record.

Iran has begun construction at its Natanz nuclear facility, satellite images released Wednesday show, just as the UN's nuclear agency acknowledged Tehran is building an underground advanced centrifuge assembly plant after its last one exploded in a reported sabotage attack last summer.

The construction comes as the US nears Election Day in a campaign pitting US President Donald Trump, whose maximum pressure campaign against Iran has led Tehran to abandon all limits on its atomic program, and Joe Biden, who has expressed a willingness to return to the accord. The outcome of the vote likely will decide which approach America takes. Heightened tensions between Iran and the US nearly ignited a war at the start of the year.

Since August, Iran has built a new or regraded road to the south of Natanz toward what analysts believe is a former firing range for security forces at the enrichment facility, images from San Francisco-based Planet Labs show. A satellite image Monday shows the site cleared away with what appears to be construction equipment there.

Analysts from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies say they believe that site is undergoing excavation.

"That road also goes into the mountains so it may be the fact that they're digging some kind of structure that's going to be out in front and that there's going to be a tunnel in the mountains," said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert at the institute who studies Iran's nuclear program. "Or maybe that they're just going to bury it there.'

Only in 2020 has Iran finally mastered IR-4 and IR-6 centrifuges, which can enrich uranium at much higher rates than the IR-1 and IR-2Ms, which have made up nearly all of its around 20,000 centrifuges for more than a decade.

Until July 2, there was concern that Iran could sneak out to a nuclear program by using advanced centrifuges, even in smaller numbers, to weaponize uranium so fast that the US, Israel and others would not be able to prevent it either diplomatically or militarily.

Even without the advanced centrifuges, the ayatollahs currently have enough low-enriched uranium for between two and three nuclear bombs, and they may be only three to four months away from a weapon, if they decided to try to start weaponizing that uranium with their older and slower centrifuges.

Iran advertised months ago that it would rebuild the destroyed Natanz facility.

Now those theoretical plans are moving forward and getting noticed.

While building the new facility will take time, especially underground, Israel, the US and others must already start to adjust to the possibility that in a year or a few years, the Islamic Republic may regain the ability to sneak out to a nuclear weapon – and that hitting the facility will have become much harder.

As with every aspect of the rivalry with Tehran, they adapt with the best, and they know how to modify tactics to reach long-term goals.

All eyes will need to be on this facility going forward.

By liberating the districts south of Karabakh, Baku blocked Tehran's direct access to the disputed territory. Its military success excited AZ nationalism inside Iran. Tehran seeks to 1) regain influence; 2) pretend before its own Turks to be a mediator, not Armenia/Russia's ally. https://t.co/AGSHF9InBS

— Mike (@Doranimated) October 28, 2020

The US must confront Turkey’s increasing extremism under Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime. As the US election nears, it is essential that whoever wins the White House on November 3 will not appease the continual threats from Ankara, and instead, condemn its hosting of Hamas terrorists, its continued attempt to destabilize the Middle East, and its repeated threats against European allies.

On Sunday, Turkey’s regime launched another tirade against Europe, claiming that Muslims in Europe were being treated like Jews prior to the Second World War. Turkey’s president did not use the term “Holocaust” because Ankara has used the example of Jewish suffering throughout history in trying to portray Israel as a “Nazi” country while depicting Muslims as Jewish victims.

This ideology pushed by Ankara is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood’s ingrained antisemitism that can be found in the Hamas covenant, which blends antisemitic conspiracies with modern-day terrorism. Invoking the Holocaust to condemn Israel and Europe, rather than commemorating Jewish victims, is part of the propaganda that Ankara pushes to whip up tensions.

Turkey has become increasingly hostile to Israel in recent months and Erdogan has vowed to “liberate al-Aqsa” and has issued statements saying “Jerusalem is ours.”

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Western countries attacking Islam want to "relaunch the Crusades" as a row flared between Turkey and France about cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. Erdogan said in a speech to lawmakers from his AK Party in parliament that standing against attacks on the Prophet Mohammad was "an issue of honor for us."

Earlier today, Turkey's Communications Directorate said that Turkey will take all legal and diplomatic steps needed in response to a caricature of Erdogan in the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

Top Turkish officials condemned the caricature, calling it a "disgusting effort" to "spread its cultural racism and hatred." State media later reported that Turkish prosecutors had launched an investigation into Charlie Hebdo's executives.

"Our people should have no doubt that all necessary legal and diplomatic steps will be taken against the caricature in question. Our battle against these rude, ill-intentioned and insulting steps will continue until the end with reason but determination," the directorate said.

As the French government rolls out a controversial plan that amounts to its most robust crackdown on religious activity in decades, it is enjoying broad support from at least one of the country’s faith communities: French Jews.

Jewish community leaders have applauded President Emmanuel Macron’s effort to counter what he calls “Islamist separatism” with a plan that would require children to attend state-recognized schools from the age of three, effectively barring the practice of Muslim home-schooling, and mandate an oath of allegiance to the state from religious associations.

The new plan would also increase oversight of foreign funding for mosques and end a program that allows the children of immigrants to receive subsidized lessons in their parents’ native language. While the new measures do not explicitly target French Muslims, which would be barred by the French constitution, Macron has made clear that they are aimed at “isolating radical Islam.”

“We need to reconquer all that the republic has ceded, and which has led part of our youth and citizens to be attracted to this radical Islam,” Macron said in an Oct. 2 speech near Paris.

“We will act starting today, with a lot of force and determination on the ground. It’s underway,” he said.

Al-Aqsa Mosque Address by Sheikh Ali Abu Ahmad: Boycotting French Products Is Not the Answer to Macron; We Should Establish a Caliphate, Crush Paris with Our Armies pic.twitter.com/WNsTyVJ5Eg

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 28, 2020

I haven't always been fan of #CharlieHebdo, but anyone who so mercilessly pokes fun at #Erdogan, has my full respect! pic.twitter.com/WWimfvPkOK

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 28, 2020

When we talk about influence - there's a big campaign, both Democrats and Republicans talking about the influence of China, the influence of Russia, yet it seems when it comes to Israel and Israeli funding of institutions in the United States and campaigns to target professors such as yourself and others who are critical of Israel, there doesn't seem to be a problem with that role of Israel in the United States and operating through Jewish community councils and others it seems like a double standard.

Khaled Abu Toameh won a victory in a small Jerusalem courtroom this week when Ted Belman at last agreed that his defamatory articles, social media posts, and newsletters were factually baseless. Belman is now required to make public apology to Abu Toameh within 14 days. If Belman again defames the award-winning Israeli Arab journalist and distinguished senior Gatestone fellow, he will have to pay 5000 shekels per defamatory item published, in compensation to Khaled.

By way of disclaimer, there was a personal victory here as well, as Belman’s countersuit against Abu Toameh, this author and Bat-Zion Susskind-Sacks was rejected out of hand by the court. The interesting thing about this is that I was approached by the 86-year-old Belman in court on Monday. “Who are you?” Ted asked me. “Are you the enemy?”

He was suing me, but didn’t even know me.

Here we must go back and explain why Ted was suing me. Ted Belman, you see, asserted that Khaled was running a spy ring in Israel for the Jordanian king, and that I was one of his operatives, the other being Bat-Zion Susskind Sacks. Well goodness I’m relieved. An Israeli court has rejected a lawsuit accusing me of working on behalf of His Majesty, King Abdullah of Jordan. Not guilty! Acquitted.

But I digress. The main thing is that all three of us—me, Batzi, and of course, Khaled—are victorious.

So ends this courtroom saga that began in late 2017, when Abu Toameh had finally had enough of the defamatory campaign of words and memes waged against him since at least 2013. Readers of this column will recall my exposé of self-proclaimed “putative prime minister of Jordan” Mudar Zahran (see for instance, HERE, HERE, and HERE). Zahran, banned from entering Israel as a security risk, tried to enlist me in his smear campaign against Khaled Abu Toameh. I refused, but Ted Belman apparently did not.

What followed was an endless campaign of baseless defamation, an ongoing attack that lasted seven full years. Articles were published in numerous publications, all smearing Khaled. The defamation of Khaled was an ongoing theme in newsletters, Belman's personal website, and on Facebook, too. The worst part of this defamation, of course, is that Khaled Abu Toameh is a fine person: the only Israeli Arab journalist I know of who writes the honest truth about Israel and the Middle East.

Khaled is one of the good guys. And everyone on our side knows this. Which is why Khaled Abu Toameh has won plaudits and numerous awards by distinguished bodies. From Wikipedia:

Recognition and awards

·         Abu Toameh received the 2014 Daniel Pearl Award. Abu Toameh shared Israel Media Watch's 2010 award for media criticism with the satirical Israeli website Latma.

·         On 10 May 2011, Khaled Abu Toameh won the Hudson Institute Award for Courage in Journalism.

·         Canada's Toronto Sun columnist Salim Mansur praised Abu Toameh for his courage and knowledge of the politics of the Arab world.

·         Abu Toameh is the 2013 recipient of the Emet award given by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA).

·         He was chosen on the Algemeiner Journal's 2013 list of The Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life.

All during this trying time, while Khaled was being smeared, important people came to the fore to defend the embattled journalist. People like Caroline Glick, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Ruthie Blum, and Harold Rhode, couldn’t offer enough praise for Khaled. And still, this creep Zahran spread horrible lies about Khaled to all and sundry through anyone he could rope into his web.

Well, all’s well that ends well, and in that small Jerusalem courtroom on October 26, 2020, justice won out with victory on many counts:

1. Ted Belman finally admitted that he has no evidence to support the libelous publications.

2. Ted Belman agreed to publish an apology and retraction, admitting that what he published was factually baseless.

3. Ted's main witness, the Jordanian fraudster Mudar Zahran, who is banned from Israel for security reasons, never got a chance to testify before the court, not even by video.

4. Ted's counterclaim against Khaled Abu Toameh, Varda Meyers Epstein, and Bat-Zion Susskind-Sacks, was rejected.

5. The court ruled that if Ted republishes the same material against Khaled Abu Toameh, he will pay 5000 shekels in compensation per piece.

After three years of refusing to do so, Ted will finally apologize and admit that what he published about Khaled Abu Toameh was factually baseless. Assuming Ted fulfills his promise to the court, he now has 14 days to issue the apology and retraction. This is good because Ted’s own lawyer admitted in court that Belman had no proof to back up any of the nasty things he published about Khaled. It’s icing on the cake that Belman’s counterclaim was rejected. And if he tries to republish the defamatory items, he’s going to get slapped with a fine of 5000 shekels per article. Pretty nifty.

Judge Moriah Cherka, addressing Belman, said that what he did was unethical and against journalistic standards, because Ted never sought Khaled's response before publication. Judge Cherka also noted that Khaled Abu Toameh is a renowned and respected journalist, therefore it is inconceivable that his credibility should be questioned or harmed.

Nadav Haetzni, representative for the plaintiff, Khaled, said, "At long last, this grievous smear campaign against one of Israel's leading journalists is over. This was a campaign aimed at destroying this man's reputation; it caused him great damage and suffering, but in the end, this was a victory and we hope others will learn from it."

“For me,” said Khaled Abu Toameh, “The lawsuit was never about money, but about getting Belman to publicly admit that every bit of what he published about me was factually baseless. I initiated the lawsuit as a matter of principle, to defend ethical standards in journalism, and to serve as a deterrent to others,” said Khaled.

The judge made a point of rebuking Ted Belman in court, for behaving in an unethical manner. Which is as it should be. Journalists, and bloggers like Ted Belman, need to check the facts before they publish, to ascertain the truth, and to seek a response from the person in question, when preparing to publish something that might be defamatory.

Let us hope that this lawsuit will underscore this point for anyone who takes to the blogosphere to randomly and without proof, trash-talk and damage others. This is wrong and should not be countenanced in a country ruled by law. And on Monday, in that small Jerusalem courtroom, a judge did in fact, determine that such baseless defamation would not be countenanced in Israel.

Twitter boss Jack Dorsey sowed further confusion over the social media platform’s Holocaust denial policy during an angry grilling at the hands of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Wednesday.

Facing questioning from Republican senators who alleged that Twitter was censoring information from conservative outlets while permitting posts that deny the fact of the Holocaust, Dorsey appeared to backtrack on a statement issued by his company on Oct. 15, when a spokesperson for Twitter had condemned “antisemitism and hateful conduct,” emphasizing, “We also have a robust ‘glorification of violence’ policy in place and take action against content that glorifies or praises historical acts of violence and genocide, including the Holocaust.”

But at Wednesday’s hearing, Dorsey said that Twitter did not “have a policy against misinformation.”

He explained: “We have a policy against misinformation in three categories. That is all we have policy on for misleading information.”

He then added that tweets denying the Holocaust could be removed if they were considered to incite violence.

Dorsey’s answer infuriated Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), who countered by invoking Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s constant use of Twitter to engage in Holocaust denial.

“It’s strange to me that you’ve flagged tweets from the president [of the United States] but haven’t hidden the ayatollah’s tweets on Holocaust denial or calls to wipe Israel off the map,” Gardner said. “Millions of people died and that’s not a violation of Twitter?”

Responded Dorsey: “It’s misleading information, but we don’t have a policy against that type of misleading information.”

This is astonishing: Jack Dorsey says that Holocaust denial is not “misinformation” according to Twitter policy. pic.twitter.com/GhVn3u9ow8

— Alexander Nazaryan (@alexnazaryan) October 28, 2020

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Wednesday said his platform allows Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to fulminate against “cancerous” Jews because he wanted to “respect” his “right to speak.”

“We believe it’s important for everyone to hear from global leaders, and we have policies around world leaders,” Dorsey said in testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee, responding to a question from Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) about the messages. “We want to make sure we are respecting their right to speak and to publish what they need. But if there is a violation of our terms of service, we want to label it.”

Wicker interjected to note the messages still appear on Twitter without a label. Dorsey said he found them permissible because Khamenei was threatening citizens of other countries rather than citizens of Iran.

“We did not find those to violate our terms of service, because we considered them saber-rattling, which is part of the speech of world leaders in concert with other countries,” Dorsey said. “Speech against our own people, or our country’s own citizens, we believe is different and can cause more immediate harm.”

Khamenei has used Twitter to write numerous messages that have drawn attention this year. He used the platform in July to promise a “reciprocal blow” to the United States for the January killing of Qasem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, and previously referred to Israel’s “Zionist regime” as a “cancerous tumor” that needed to be “eliminated.”

I meant the fact this enormous tool is still tweeting, I'm guessing if I were to post an illustration of the prophet, my account would probably be reported and banned. Should tell you something. pic.twitter.com/c8GT3Co5xA

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 28, 2020

That Beinart has made a career of blaming Israel for everything from Palestinian Authority (PA) intransigence to Hamas terrorism is not news. Nor is it surprising that many of his admirers in Israel and abroad are miffed that the Abraham Accords exposed the conventional wisdom about Mideast peace-making as folly.

But it takes a special kind of vicious creativity to concoct a universe in which peace, if forged by or with Israel, is evil. Beinart’s main method is to twist facts to fit his false version of reality. One such revision of history includes the idea of widespread Muslim-Arab support for the Palestinians. The latter would be the first to scoff at the notion that they have received much more than lip service from their Arab League “brethren,” particularly of late.

Nevertheless, Beinart concludes his piece by warning against the danger of additional peace deals with the Jewish state.

“In the coming months, Israel may succeed in normalizing relations with additional Arab states,” he writes. “Over the long run, however, its warming relations with oppressive regimes will likely provoke even greater hostility from the broader Arab public. In the past, Arab citizens mostly resented Israel for oppressing Palestinians. In the future, they may also resent it for helping their own governments to oppress them.”

For someone so concerned about oppressive regimes, Beinart is curiously silent about the suffering of Palestinians at the hands of their own corrupt and despotic leaders in Ramallah and Gaza. Indeed, he has nothing to say about the blatant human-rights abuses committed by Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas and his henchmen against critical journalists, academics, novelists, and even average social-media users.

Nor does he bother wasting ink on the absence of free speech or the persecution of gays that are the norm in the PA. No, if Israel can’t be called out as the culprit, Beinart’s not interested.

He can’t even pause to acknowledge the flurry of preparations being made in the Gulf for Israeli tourists, from kosher-catered airplane food to Jewish-holiday hotel packages. But then, doing so might cast a shadow on The New York Times-approved convictions that pay his bills.

One of the best insights in the AJC survey was the fact that the general public was willing to ascribe anti-Semitism to the two political parties in equal numbers. The poll revealed that 42 percent of Americans believed “some” or “a lot” of Republicans “hold anti-Semitic views” with the exact same percentage believing the same about Democrats.

Fully 69 percent American Jews think Republicans are anti-Semitic, while only 37 percent think that about Democrats. The explanation for that discrepancy is obvious. About the same numbers of Jews generally vote for Democrats as they also think Republicans are anti-Semites.

Assuming that hate only comes from one group or ideological belief is false. The rise of anti-Semitism on the left, with its intersectional beliefs identifying Jews as “white oppressors” and support for BDS, hasn’t generated the same random violence; however, it does seek to delegitimize both Jews and Israel in ways that the isolated groups of white supremacists can’t. Nor should we underestimate the enormous influence of hatemongers like the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan in the African-American community.

The willingness of the mainstream media to treat politicians like Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who promote anti-Semitism as legitimate figures to be admired rather than extremists to be despised, is a problem... The willingness of the mainstream media to treat politicians like Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who promote anti-Semitism as legitimate figures to be admired rather than extremists to be despised, is a problem few even in the Jewish community are willing to address. The same is true of the anti-Semitism and support for Farrakhan among some in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Yet because most Jews identify with the Democrats and despise President Donald Trump, they have largely steered the debate about anti-Semitism into a sterile effort to blame it on the political right. The Anti-Defamation League, with its left-wing tilt and descent into partisanship under CEO Jonathan Greenblatt deserves much of the blame for this.

This kind of misguided analysis has also infected the thinking of even otherwise sober observers like New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who, while rightly pointing to anti-Semitism on both the left and the right, still claimed that conservatives who oppose illegal immigration or think unlimited free trade hurts American workers as somehow also connected to anti-Semitism—a position that is both untrue and deeply unfair.

Two years after Pittsburgh, Americans are still struggling to understand how to cope with the reality of the threat of violence to Jews without either inflating it out of proportion or to assign blame more on the basis of our political preferences than a coherent analysis of where the danger lies.

It ought to be possible to be wary of hate on the right and the left without treating all of our political opponents as being responsible for enabling Jew-hatred. Until we learn how to do that, the result of our ruminations on both the lessons of Pittsburgh and the sources of anti-Semitism will cause more confusion than understanding.

On October 17th, the New York Times published an op-ed celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Million Man March that neglected to mention the anti-Semitic history of its organizer, Louis Farrakhan. In response, former Times editorial board member Bari Weiss tweeted that the institution had adopted “a worldview in which Jew hate does not count.” The author of the Times op-ed, Howard University professor Natalie Hopkinson, replied that “ppl who have become white”—that is, Jews like Weiss—“should not be lecturing Black ppl about oppression.”

Exposing and objecting to racial disparities became the purpose of the New York Times around August 2019, when executive editor Dean Baquet called a town hall meeting attended by the paper’s staff. He announced that, with the Mueller probe winding down, the paper needed to “regroup, and shift resources and emphasis” from Russiagate to the story of “race and class” and “what it means to be an American.” A few months later, the Times published “The 1619 Project” which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize, and the paper’s editorial and ideological focus has been consistent ever since.

When Weiss left the Times in July 2020, she published a resignation letter on her blog in which she claimed that management indifference to harassment from progressive staffers had created an intolerable work environment. She has since argued that progressive ideology is increasingly hostile to Jews and other successful minorities because they undermine the narrative of systemic racism pushed by antiracist activists.

Jews came to America, often as refugees fleeing persecution, and were able to flourish here precisely because opportunities weren’t closed off to them on the basis of identity. The story of minority immigrant success is inconsistent with the progressive narrative of the United States as a country founded upon and organized around racism. If it is true that oppressed groups have had historically unprecedented access to opportunity in modern, liberal societies then it cannot also be true that pervasive oppression explains lingering disparities. So progressives have become hostile to successful minorities, and have begun speaking about them in ways that echo the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of the far-Right.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden touted an endorsement from a group of leading Muslim officials who have accused Jews of dual loyalty to America and praised anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

A group of nearly 50 Muslim elected officials across the country expressed support for Biden in a late-July letter sponsored by Emgage, an anti-Israel Muslim-American group funded by liberal billionaire George Soros. Emgage has drawn scrutiny in recent years for defending terrorist groups and collaborating with Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations.

Biden, in a July video message to Emgage and its supporters, said he was honored to receive the endorsement and inspired by the group’s "one million Muslim voters" campaign, a nod to Farrakhan’s 1995 Million Man March on Washington, D.C. Biden also said he wished "we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith" during his video message.

The Emgage letter is signed by local, state, and federal officials who have endorsed Israel boycotts and come under fire for anti-Semitic rhetoric. This includes Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), who claimed that Israel and its American supporters have "hypnotized the world."

While Biden has vowed to govern as a pro-Israel president, the Democratic Party’s alliance with anti-Israel leaders has complicated Biden’s message, as evidenced by his pledge to confront Israel over the building of Jewish homes in disputed areas. The Washington Free Beacon reported on concerns Biden would be pulled left from pro-Israel voters earlier this month, when it was revealed that Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, worked with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the nation’s top anti-Israel groups and advocates for boycotts of the Jewish state.

"With Joe Biden, we will have a seat at the table and will address and heal the deep wounds that fracture our country," the Muslim officials wrote in their letter to supporters of Emgage PAC, which claims to be the largest Muslim PAC in the country.

In this one interview, @edballs has proven that @UKLabour will not be a safe space for Jews for a long time to come. He epitomises the cowardice of @Keir_Starmer and the other non cranks in the Party. I love his tv shows and am desperately disappointed with him. https://t.co/zjS9Wzh6Lb

— Jonathan Glass (@JonathanSGlass) October 28, 2020

Chris Williamson Begs for more cash “both Ken Livingstone and Chris Williamson commenced a judicial review over the EHRC report’s publication. Now the rumour going around is that the Judge is set to dismiss their case” https://t.co/rh7s1Lyn3b

— lindi 🔺❤️🌈🌟🌸🐶😍🤩#NoSafePlaceForJewHate (@Lyndagee49) October 26, 2020

Ex-Corbyn aide Karie Murphy says she is proud of record on antisemitism https://t.co/59qWWLNzfY

— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) October 26, 2020

Ahmad Daraldik, a student government leader at Florida State University who had been criticized for making antisemitic statements, has been removed as Senate president after the Student Supreme Court voted to reinstate his predecessor in a ruling unrelated to Daraldik’s remarks.

Daraldik’s predecessor, Jack Denton, has been reinstated as Senate president as of Monday, following the student court’s finding that a June no-confidence vote in his leadership violated his rights under FSU’s regulations and the US Constitution.

Daraldik has appealed the decision to FSU’s Division of Student Affairs, he told the Tallahassee Democrat on Monday.

Denton had drawn ire from students after criticizing groups such Black Lives Matter and the American Civil Liberties Union in private comments to members of FSU’s Catholic Student Union. Denton sued Florida State University in federal court over his removal, alleging that the university failed to protect his First Amendment rights.

A federal judge ruled earlier this month that FSU did not need to reinstate Denton as Senate president, but had to continue paying him for the remainder of what would have been his term in office.

Daraldik had been serving as Senate president since Denton’s ouster. He has been harshly criticized by Jewish groups on campus and throughout the South Florida Jewish community for past antisemitic comments.

More than 10,000 people signed an online petition calling for Daraldik’s removal, citing social media posts that used the phrases “stupid jews” and “f**k Israel.”

Aren’t academics supposed to be able to define a word? How is it then that university professors and administrators are incapable of defining “antisemitism?” They can’t do this — but also refuse to do it, because they would have to acknowledge the extent of antisemitism on their campuses.

The academic world cannot even manage to apply Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s “I know it when I see it” definition of pornography to antisemitism. Instead, they allow antisemites to determine the definition.

Moreover, unlike every other form of bigotry, the university permits antisemitism under the masquerade of academic freedom. The concept itself has been rendered meaningless by failing to require anything seeking this shield to be “academic,” and selectively applying this freedom based often on political correctness.

If the US Department of Education (DOE) announced it was going to be taking steps to crack down on racism directed at Blacks on campus, it would be applauded. When it focuses on antisemitism, however, hysteria ensues in large measure because of the inability and unwillingness to define the word.

The United Kingdom is taking a position long overdue in the US. That country’s education secretary accused universities of disregarding antisemitism and threatened to suspend funding if they do not adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s definition of antisemitism by the end of the year.

UK politician Gavin Williamson called out British universities for doing exactly what the Americans are doing, “dragging their feet” in responding to antisemitism on campus. He could have been speaking to administrators in the United States when he wrote, “The repugnant belief that antisemitism is somehow a less serious, or more acceptable, form of racism has taken insidious hold in some parts of British society.”

A lecturer who teaches at Hebrew University responded to a recent PMW report with the following curse sent by email:

“You do not deserve to be counted as human beings, as part of mankind. If there existed a place like hell, I would have wished you to burn in hell.”

The curse was sent to Palestinian Media Watch by Dr. Maya Rosenfeld from her Hebrew University email address.

Rosenfeld cursed PMW in response to PMW’s exposure of the PA’s hypocritical behavior, which causes significant suffering to the Palestinian population by prohibiting them normalization with Israel. Yet the PA permits its top official Saeb Erekat to receive medical treatment by Israeli doctors in an Israeli hospital, while the same has been denied ordinary Palestinians because it is “normalization.”

While everyone is entitled to his or her own opinions, no one should be spewing out evil hate speech and curses at people they disagree with.

It is unclear whether Rosenfeld’s curse was meant only for PMW’s senior analyst Nan Jacques Zilberdik who wrote the report, or whether Rosenfeld wishes for the entire PMW staff to “burn in hell,” (- of course only if hell existed, as Rosenfeld pointed out.)

While Rosenfeld’s curse directed at PMW is horrifying, it is all the more disturbing if this behavior is reflective of Rosenfeld’s treatment of students who express opinions different from hers in the classroom. If so, this is a tragic environment for the Hebrew University.

"The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) blasted the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in a statement on Monday after the ADL condemned a State Department plan to label so-called 'human rights' organizations that routinely condemn Israel as anti-Semitic.

Last week, it was reported that the State Department was considering condemning several international 'human rights' NGOs that criticize Israel. It planned to ask other countries to stop supporting those groups' activities.

The groups included some of the biggest names in the 'human rights' game, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam.

In a surprise move, the ADL, which under the direction of its CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, has been accused of becoming a Democratic mouthpiece and abandoning its primary mission 'to stop the defamation of the Jewish people,' condemned the State Department decision.

In a press release, the ADL said 'applying the anti-Semitism label to these human rights organizations . . . is neither accurate nor helpful to the fight against anti-Semitism.'

'The ADL is frighteningly wrong on both counts,' the ZOA said..."

Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry on Tuesday released its periodic report on the manipulation of social media networks to delegitimize the Jewish state.

The report, named “Manipulating Social Media: The effort to delegitimize Israel through coordinated inauthentic behavior online,” examines 250 suspicious Twitter accounts—170 of which were found to have carried out “inauthentic activities” with the aim of stirring anti-Israel sentiment online and manipulating the discourse against Israel.

According to the report, the findings indicate that anti-Israel operatives set up false Twitter profiles in preparation for an International Criminal Court ruling on the Israeli-Palestinian issue and the application of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, both of which were anticipated in July.

The investigation was first triggered by certain shared characteristics noted in a raft of anti-Israel social-media posts that month, according to the ministry. The hashtags included: #ICC4Israel, #ICCPalestine and #StopAnnexation.

The analysis examined major trends in the network—based on key hashtags—from mid-June to mid-August. The fake accounts were discovered through a combination of technological tools used to identify and analyze inauthentic activity online and examinations by experts.

At the height of their activities surrounding the ICC decision on Israel, more than 15,000 tweets were posted under the “#ICC4Israel” hashtag, with just 39 accounts creating at least 21 percent of the posts and reaching 180 times the engagement rates of normal accounts, according to the report.

The two large networks (30-plus users each) of fictitious profiles identified maintained strikingly similar behavior patterns, used profile pictures of young females and claimed to be volunteers in one of two Gazan NGOs.

The New York Times is seizing on the coronavirus pandemic to push the idea of easing American economic sanctions on Iran, notwithstanding Iranian interference in American elections.

A staff editorial the Times published earlier this month was headlined, “Iran’s Covid-19 Death Toll Is Rising. Show Mercy, Mr. Trump.” It argued for relaxing the sanctions against Iran, calling them “particularly cruel during a pandemic.” The Times followed up days later by publishing an opinion piece describing Iranians as “crushed” by “extreme US sanctions.” And by publishing a follow-up editorial inaccurately claiming “Sanctions against Iran are opposed by allies and threaten a humanitarian disaster.”

Here are nine reasons the Times editorial line is misguided:

1. It relies on a discredited expert. The Times editorial says: “Barbara Slavin, director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council, calls the American ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Iran ‘sadism masquerading as foreign policy.’” Slavin had to apologize in 2017 after being photographed making an obscene gesture to protesters against the Iranian regime. Back in January 2020, Slavin wrote a Times op-ed headlined “Qassim Suleimani’s Killing Will Unleash Chaos.” The chaos she predicted failed to materialize. The Times fails to mention that the Atlantic Council’s funders include foreign governments and foreign individuals, oil companies, a nuclear power company and undisclosed “anonymous” donors, some of which may want to do business in Iran or have commercial interests affected by the sanctions. The line about “sadism masquerading as foreign policy” is clever, but sending money to an enemy country, as the advocates of eased sanctions want to do, is masochism masquerading as foreign policy.

2. It would erode trust in government and thus undermine democracy. President Trump campaigned in 2016 as a critic of the Iran nuclear deal and has followed through on his promise to get out of it. The Times editorialists should like it when politicians do what they promise. When politicians say one thing and do another, it erodes trust in government. How are voters supposed to make rational choices when politicians abandon the policies they campaigned on? It’s one thing to urge a vote for Biden, as the Times has, in part on the grounds that Trump ripped up the Iran nuclear deal. It’s another thing to urge Trump to abandon the stance that got him elected and instead pursue a course that is the opposite of what he promised the voters who elected him.

Often times when reviewing an article about Israel in the British media, a claim evokes a mental red flag not because we know for certain that it’s false, but because it just seems, on simply an intuitive level, to be extraordinarily improbable.

That was our reaction to the following sentence in a Telegraph article about efforts to locate and neutralise landmines and unexploded ordinances in Lebanon (“Deminers of Lebanon: Destroying explosives – and returning the land to its people”, Oct. 26) by Jessie Williams.

If the IDF dropped four million bombs on Hezbollah targets during the 34 day war, that would come out to an average of over 117,000 bombs each day!

Sure enough, after researching the matter, it seemed clear that the writer conflated two separate statistics – the number of (cluster) bombs dropped and the number of sub-munitions emanating from those bombs.

Even according to figures in a deeply flawed report by the anti-Israel NGO Human Rights Watch (that the writer evidently relied upon), the IDF dropped 962 bombs during that war, not over 4 million – an error by a factor of 4,000. The 4 million Human Rights Watch estimate relates to the number of sub-munitions – not the number of individual bombs.

On Sunday, Oct. 25, CAMERA UK co-editors Hadar Sela and Adam Levick discussed British media bias against Israel during a live Zoom event hosted by Glasgow Friends of Israel.

According to the settlement watch group Peace Now, additional communities over the Green Line (Israel’s pre-1967 armistice line with the West Bank) include Karnei Shomron, Einav, Peduel, Yakir, Ma’ale Shomron, Yitzhar, Efrat, Ma’ale Mikhmas, Nili, Psagot, Beit El, and Kerem Reim, Shim’a, Telem and others.

The VOA article itself goes on to acknowledge that the new plans apply to units in settlements, as opposed to settlements: “The U.N. said about 85% of the units are in settlements in outlying locations, deep inside the West Bank, and all are in areas that would impede the contiguity of a future Palestinian state.”

In response to communication from CAMERA, VOA agreed that a correction is in order, and noted that the error apparently originated in the editing process, and not with the reporter. Editors immediately amended the text to refer Israel’s “announcement that it is advancing 5,000 settlement housing units.” In addition, VOA commendably appended the following clarification to the bottom of the article:

For the first time an individual in South Africa has been convicted in a criminal prosecution of antisemitic abuse.

Randburg Magistrates Court found Matome Letsoalo guilty of “crimen injuria” for threatening and abusive messages targeting the Jewish community in a verdict handed down last Friday.

Letsoalo was convicted for hateful messages he issued over Twitter towards the South Africa Board of Deputies (SAJBD). On June 21, 2018, Letsoalo tweeted “@SAJBD The #Holocaust Will be like a Picnic When we are done with all you Zionist Bastards. F*** All of You.”

The text was accompanied by an image of Holocaust victims.

Later that morning, Letsoalo sent a second message to the SAJBD, reading, “@SAJBD Must get Decimated. We Can’t have Scandanavian Rats, Fake Jews, Zionist Bastards Running our Economy,” and he continued towards Jewish community members who challenged him on Twitter following his initial outburst.

The SAJBD responded by filing charges against him.

SAJBD national director Wendy Kahn described the court’s ruling as a vindication of over two years of effort by the SAJBD and its legal advisers to call Letsoalo to account for his actions.

“This outcome sends a strong message that threatening and hate-filled attacks on our community will not be tolerated and that the SAJBD will do everything necessary to bring those responsible to justice, no matter how long it takes” said Kahn.

Supporters of the United Hebrew Temple in Benton, Ill. have raised nearly $6,000 in under a week to repair damage the synagogue sustained in recent acts of vandalism. There have been three incidents in less than a month.https://t.co/uJyx9aro0O

— Canary Mission (@canarymission) October 27, 2020

For nearly half a century, they were blowin’ in the wind: lost interviews that contained surprising new insights about celebrated singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.

Transcripts of the 1971 interviews with the late American blues artist Tony Glover — and letters the two friends exchanged — have surfaced at a Boston auction house. They reveal that Dylan had anti-Semitism on his mind when he changed his name and wrote “Lay Lady Lay” for singer and actress Barbra Streisand.

Some of the 37 typed pages contain handwritten notes in Dylan’s own scrawl, said R.R. Auction, which is selling Glover’s trove of Dylan archives. “My work is a moving thing,” Dylan scribbled in one spot. Elsewhere, he used a blue marker to strike through passages he evidently didn’t like.

“In many cases, the deletions are more telling than the additions,” said Bobby Livingston, the auction house’s executive vice president.

Dylan, 79, was close friends with Glover, who died last year. The two men broke into music on the same Minneapolis coffeehouse scene. Glover’s widow, Cynthia Nadler, put the documents up for auction, with online bidding to start Nov. 12 and run through Nov. 19.

The reclusive Dylan, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 2016 after giving the world “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “The Times They Are a-Changin’” and other anthems of the ’60s, was born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota. And his rambling chats with Glover help explain the name change.

Israeli startup monday.com, which has created a workplace collaboration and management platform, is planning an initial public offering of shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the first half of 2021, at a valuation of at least $3.5 billion to $4 billion, Calcalist reported on Wednesday.

The firm has requested international investment banks to set up meetings on the plan in November, the report said, though the board of directors hasn’t yet made a final decision on the matter.

With COVID-19 scattering employees to their respective homes, monday.com has seen a boost in activity as working teams try to maintain productivity, ensure accountability and avoid communication breakdowns.

The company has more than 100,000 paying customers across the world and, according to a Bloomberg report in May, saw its valuation jump from $1.9 billion to $2.7 billion during the pandemic.

The firm is expected to post revenues of some $250 million this year, Calcalist said, and by year’s end it is expecting to have over 700 workers, from some 600 today. In 2019 revenues came in at $120 million, and in 2018 they totaled $50 million.

Israel's Meat-Tech 3D MEAT.TA, a company that is developing technology to create 3D-printed meat, said on Tuesday it has confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering.

The company did not specify the size of the offering, and said in a filing that the IPO would commence when market conditions would permit, following a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission review. (prn.to/34xttd9)

Meat-Tech is developing an alternative to meat farming by producing industrially cultured meat, the company said on its website.

The filing comes amid increasing interest in the meat-substitute industry and scrutiny of traditional meat sources over ethical and environmental concerns.

A group of international researchers from Israel and Scotland have made a breakthrough that may improve the treatment preventing metastatic leukemia spreading to the brain.

Experts from Schneider Children’s Medical Center and Tel Aviv University, along with scientists from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the University of Glasgow discovered in their research, published in Nature Cancer, a drug that thwarts the production of fatty acids, used by leukemia to spread, thereby blocking the spread of the disease to the brain by only affecting the leukemia cells and not the brain cells.

Their research focuses on acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common type of cancer among children. Since one of the main risks of ALL is that the cancer will metastasize to the brain, children diagnosed with this disease receive a prophylactic treatment that protects the brain from metastasized cells.

Although the recovery rates for this disease are relatively high, the harsh treatment for this cancer - consisting of injecting chemotherapy drugs into the spinal fluid, and sometimes also radiation to the skull - carries the risk of side effects of damaged brain function that can persist for years after the patient is cured, since these drugs also harm healthy brain cells.

For the first time ever, the current research reveals that the solution lies in fatty acids, which are an essential resource for cells, especially leukemia cells. (h/t Zvi)

One of the earliest churches in Israel has been unearthed at the foot of breathtaking waterfalls in the scenic Banias Nature Reserve in Israel’s north. The rare circa 400 CE Byzantine church was build on top of a Roman-era temple to Pan, the Greek god from whom the park takes its name.

The 4th-5th century Christian builders adapted the Roman pagan temple to fit the needs of the relatively new religion, said University of Haifa Prof. Adi Erlich in a brief Hebrew-language video announcing the find.

Erlich hypothesizes that the church was built to commemorate Jesus’s significant interactions with Peter — who recognized his teacher as the Messiah — that are documented to have taken place in the area, called “Caesarea of ​​Philip” during Jesus’ time.

According to some Christian traditions, it is in this region that Jesus tasked Peter with establishing Christianity and said the famous phrase, “You are Peter and, on this rock, I will build my Church… I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven,” which is recorded in Matthew 16:18.

The location of the excavation is unique in that it combines a cliff, a cave, springs and a terrace created in ancient times from the collapse of part of the cliff on which the temple was built, according to a press release. Erlich said that in circa 3rd century BCE, worship of the god Pan began near the cave and the spring. The temple was built in circa 20 BCE. It became an important Christian center with its own bishop from 320 CE.

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed in a commemoration ceremony held in honor of the 11 people who's lives were lost on October 27, 2018, during an attack on three Pittsburgh synagogues: Congregation Dor Hadash, New Light Congregation/Tree of Life and Or L’Simcha Congregation.

Maggie Feinstein, director Healing Partnership, explained the purpose of having the ceremony despite the social distancing required as a way to reflect on the lives of the people who died and the impact the event had on the community itself.

Yo-Yo Ma spoke about what one should say during times of crisis, citing his friend Mister Rogers, who said: "When there's a crisis, you can always look to the helpers," before playing a song dedicated to those who've been helping others since the day of the shooting.

The ceremony also included several prayers, both for the souls of the deceases and for healing the community.

The event was held virtually on Tuesday, and was organized by the NGO Healing Partnership, which provides support for and connections between individuals and their loved ones who were impacted by the 2018 attack, as well as others suffering from similar hate-induced trauma.

A day after the Tree of Life massacre, a Jewish women’s event in RI produced a reading of Washington’s letter to the Jews in Newport, where Washington reiterated that Jews in America would be treated as free citizens, something unprecedented in Jewish history: pic.twitter.com/buPbmELrKV

— The Conspiracy Libel (@ConspiracyLibel) October 27, 2020

Some 240 immigrants arrived on an aliyah charter flight from Ukraine to Israel on Monday, which welcomed the 3.3 millionth oleh into the country since the founding of the state.

The flight was sponsored by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), which has been working heavily with the Jewish Agency for Israel throughout the coronavirus pandemic to bring Diaspora Jews to Israel.

The olim were met at the airport by the Aliyah and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata alongside IFCJ president Yael Eckstein, who commemorated Aliyah Week with the newfound Israelis.

"During this Aliyah Week, we are proud to salute both new and veteran olim," said Tamano-Shata. "As Minister of Aliyah and Absorption, it is my privilege to welcome immigrant number 3.3 million, at this symbolic and essential time for Israeli society as a whole, including olim who make a significant contribution to the advancement and development of the State of Israel."

The 240 olim arrived on three separate Israir flights, marking a daily record since the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, and joined the dedicated class of 11,000 other new immigrants who moved to Israel amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Among the olim were Karina and Yevgeny Ushkov. Yevgeny proposed to Karina during a visit to the Western Wall while vacationing with local relatives about a year back.

The United States will now allow US citizens born in Jerusalem to list Israel as their country of birth on passports and other consular documents, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Thursday.

The declaration marked the reversal of a decades-old policy that refrained from identifying the city as part of the Jewish state in an effort by the US to remain neutral on a key final status issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Pompeo said in a statement that the policy change would be “effective immediately” and was “consistent” with US President Donald Trump’s 2017 decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and subsequently move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv.

The new policy will allow US citizens to choose between “Jerusalem” or “Israel” as their place of birth; those who refrain from choosing will by default continue to be issued documents with their place of birth listed as “Jerusalem.”

US policy until Thursday allowed American citizens born in Jerusalem to identify only the city as their birthplace in their passports, unless they were born before Israel’s creation in 1948, in which case their country of birth was listed as “Palestine.” The State Department policy was challenged in the Supreme Court but ultimately upheld in 2015.

Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump's policy, I am happy to announce U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem can now elect to list their place of birth as either "Jerusalem" or "Israel" on their passports. We remain committed to lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) October 29, 2020

Allowing the reopening of the Palestine Liberation Organization's diplomatic mission in Washington or restoring much of the aid to projects that directly benefited the Palestinian Authority would require overcoming a number of legal obstacles, some of which might require Congressional approval. And re-establishing the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, which until 2019 functioned as the American diplomatic mission to the Palestinians, would require Israel's permission. "These are all possible but they would require heavy political lifting," said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

What PA President Abbas may wish for most - that a new U.S. president would prioritize the Palestinian cause, pressure Israel to make concessions, and even move the U.S. Embassy back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem - seems highly unlikely at best. Former Vice President Joe Biden has made clear he has many higher priorities and has signaled that he does not want to clash with the Israeli government. "The idea that everything will go back to the way it was before is somewhat of a fairy tale," said Mouin Rabbani, an expert on Palestinian politics.

How then can the United States get around the Iranian regime's adamant opposition to any restrictions on its nuclear or missile ambitions and secure a sound nuclear deal?

Even if the United States secured a new nuclear agreement with Iran, or resuscitated the old one, what makes anyone think that Iran would honor a deal any more than it honored the last ones?

Given the seriousness of these issues and the lack of trust in the mullahs, all provisions must not have "sunset clauses" but be permanent.

Even if these six factors may now make it possible to give "diplomacy a chance," it might be advisable only to try that route if it is reinforced with resolute military force.

The JCPOA it is not only a fraud, it is camouflage for the appeasers of the world to pretend they are doing something about Iran's nuclear ambitions when in fact they are not doing anything but allowing Iran, after a short delay, to have nuclear weapons.... The mullahs will not change on their own. Diplomatic options are poor and unrealistic.

The JCPOA deal not only fails to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them, it also hides Western inaction in confronting Iran's missiles, nuclear sites and terrorism.

A knife-wielding attacker shouting "Allahu Akbar" beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a suspected terrorist incident at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday, police and officials said.

The attacker was confirmed by French police to have been a 21-year-old Tunisian national, who entered the country via Italy. However, further details regarding his identity remain unclear.

Within hours of the Nice attack, police killed a man who had threatened passersby with a handgun in Montfavet, near the southern French city of Avignon. He was also shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest), according to radio station Europe 1.

France's Le Figaro newspaper quoted a prosecution source as saying the man was undergoing psychiatric treatment, and that they did not believe there was a terrorism motive.

Nice's Mayor Christian Estrosi, who described the attack as terrorism, said on Twitter it had happened in or near the city's Notre Dame church.

Estrosi said the attacker had repeatedly shouted the phrase "Allahu Akbar," or God is greatest, even after he had been detained by police.

One of the people killed inside the church was believed to be the church warden, Estrosi said, adding that a woman had tried to escape from inside the church and had fled into a bar opposite the building.​ "The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained, he is on his way to hospital, he is alive," Estrosi told reporters.

"Enough is enough," Estrosi said. "It's time now for France to exonerate itself from the laws of peace in order to definitively wipe out Islamo-fascism from our territory."

A Saudi man was arrested in Jeddah after attacking and injuring a guard with a "sharp tool" at the French consulate on Thursday, Saudi state TV reported.

The French Embassy said the consulate was subject to an "attack by knife which targeted a guard," adding the guard was taken to hospital and his life was not in danger.

"The French embassy strongly condemns this attack against a diplomatic outpost which nothing could justify," an embassy statement said.

The attack happened after a knife-wielding man shouting "Allahu Akbar" beheaded a woman and killed two other people in the French city of Nice earlier on Thursday. Nice's mayor described the attack as terrorism.

France is still reeling from the beheading earlier this month of a school teacher by a man of Chechen origin. The attacker had said he wanted to punish the teacher for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a civics lesson.

Since Paty's killing, French officials have re-asserted the right to display the cartoons, and the images have been widely displayed at marches in solidarity with the killed teacher.

A terrorist attack at a church in France on Thursday followed a week of Turkish incitement, including the use of mass media in Turkey to push for “retaliation” against France, such as boycotts, attacks on French President Emmanuel Macron, insults and rants directed against a French magazine and comparing France to the “Crusades.”

Ankara apparently succeeded in radicalizing at least one person to attack the churchgoers.

A “man wielding a knife on Thursday killed three people and injured several others in an attack at the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Nice in southern France,” France24 reported. Nice’s mayor called it an act of terrorism.

The methods used to murder one of those in the church were “those used against the brave teacher,” according to The National, a private English-language daily newspaper published in the UAE. This is a reference to Samuel Paty, a teacher who was decapitated almost two weeks ago by a teenager after the father of a student incited against him for allegedly showing cartoons in class.

Turkey has launched an incitement campaign against France that is run by its ruling AK Party and driven by its pro-government media machine, such as Daily Sabah, Anadolu Agency and TRT (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation). Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has incited against Macron, claiming he is mentally deranged, even as Turkey threatened legal action against the Charlie Hebdo magazine for publishing cartoons.

Islamists have declared war on France, a senior leader of French Jews said following multiple assaults, including the murder of three people at a church in Nice.

Gil Taieb, the vice president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, made the comments Thursday in reference to the fatal knife attacks outside the Notre Dame church of the Mediterranean coastal city.

The perpetrator was shouting “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for Allah is the greatest — before he was shot and rushed to the hospital, Le Monde reported.

Also on Thursday, another man shouting about Allah attempted to stab police officers in Avignon, another southern French city situated about 120 miles west of Nice. He was shot and died from his wounds, Europe1 reported. Initial reports did not say whether authorities believe the incidents were linked.

“The Islamists are waging war against us!” Taieb wrote on Twitter. “We stand united against Islamist barbarism.”

Malaysia's former premier Mahathir Mohamad said on Thursday Muslims have a right to "kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past" but he did not approve of the killing of a French teacher over his use of cartoons of the Prophet.

In a blog post Mahathir, 95, a respected leader in the Muslim world, said he believed in freedom of expression but that it should not be used to insult others.

"Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past. But by and large the Muslims have not applied the 'eye for an eye' law. Muslims don't. The French shouldn't," Mahathir said in a blog post, which he also posted on Twitter.

"Since you have blamed all Muslims and the Muslims' religion for what was done by one angry person, the Muslims have a right to punish the French," he said.

Twitter said the message violated its rules about glorifying violence, but it determined that it may be in the public's interest for the post to remain.

Several Muslim-majority countries have denounced remarks by French officials, including President Emmanuel Macron, defending the use of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a French school classroom. The caricatures are seen as blasphemous by Muslims.

Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the head of the Palestinian Islamic Supreme Council, called for a “day of rage” on Friday to protest “attempts to harm” the prophet Mohammed.

The call came as Palestinians continued to protest against French President Emmanuel Macron for his recent remarks about Islam.

On October 2, Macron spoke before a crowd gathered in the Paris suburb of Bois d’Aulne where teacher Samuel Paty had been beheaded by a radical Islamist assailant after he displayied cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson on freedom of speech, and the French president said that “Islam is a religion which is experiencing a crisis today, all over the world.” He has also publicly defended cartoons of the prophet and pledged to tackle extreme Islamism in France.

At several protests in the West Bank, Palestinians burned French flags and trampled on pictures of Macron, accusing him of spearheading a campaign against Islam and Muslims.

Sabri, who also serves as preacher of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, said that Muslims “reject the offensive drawings of the prophet Muhammad and will express their rejection of these uncivilized transgressions.”

He added that the “offensive cartoons contradict freedom of speech and expression” and are intended to ridicule and insult the prophet.

France-Based International Law Expert Dr. Abd Al-Ilah Al-Rawi: Macron Insists on Offending Islam, Muhammad Because He Was Brought to Power by the Rothschilds pic.twitter.com/yQvwUqNx2E

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 29, 2020

Prominent American Islamic Scholar Dr. Yasir Qadhi: The “Unfortunate” Beheading of Samuel Paty Is a Pretext for a Campaign against the Prophet Muhammad pic.twitter.com/6B1DjZ9HNu

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 29, 2020

While Burhan remained tight-lipped about normalization in public, Hemeti campaigned for it at gatherings all around the country, arguing that engagement with Israel was in Sudan’s best interests. The main objections came from Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who heads a civilian cabinet created by the partnership formula reached between the military chiefs and the “Freedom and Change” political coalition. As late as September, Hamdok was still attempting to delink the Israel issue from Sudan’s U.S. terrorism designation. Yet his position softened once Washington firmly conditioned the end of sanctions on peace with Israel.

Meanwhile, developing cooperation between Hemeti and Hamdok brought about a breakthrough in efforts to restore internal peace, with rebel groups represented by the Sudan Revolutionary Front signing the Juba Agreement early this month. All of these groups support rapprochement with Israel and oppose political Islam. Abdel Wahid al-Nur—the Paris-based leader of the strongest rebel faction, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), which is still negotiating its own peace agreement—has already made a public statement welcoming normalization. Another key rebel figure, Abdelaziz Hilu of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), is expected to follow suit. Hamdok, an experienced economist, apparently concluded that he could use the practical benefits of normalization to overcome opposition from communists, Nasserites, Baathists, and Islamists. Indeed, these groups have not managed to stage meaningful protests against the deal so far, nor have they left the government.

Through Foreign Minister Omar Qamar al-Din, Hamdok is now promising that the Israel deal will be ratified by parliament. Yet the legislative assembly that was supposed to be formed for the transitional period until elections in 2022 has not been established. According to arrangements between Sudan’s military chiefs and civilian politicians, a joint meeting of the Sovereignty Council and the government’s ministers may exercise the powers of the absent parliament. This mechanism may allow Israel and Sudan to activate their coming normalization protocols without a parliamentary vote.

For now, Sudan has granted Israel the right to use its airspace for shorter flights to Latin America—one of Netanyahu’s longstanding priorities for boosting trade ties. The Sudanese are also seeking Israeli know-how and technologies for agriculture, among other sectors. With drastic reforms and substantial investments, the country could eventually become a breadbasket for the Arabian Peninsula and beyond—the Emiratis and Saudis have already expressed great interest in this potential. Moreover, cheap electricity from Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam, only a few miles from Sudan’s border, would further enhance the prospects of igniting an economic recovery in the not-too-distant future.

It is unclear at the moment how quickly Israel and Sudan will sign each of the individual protocols and establish mutual embassies. Yet it is safe to assume that Burhan is keen to move as fast as possible—certainly before January, when a new president may enter the White House.

PROSPECTS FOR FURTHER NORMALIZATION DEALS? Most Arab states are waiting for the results of the U.S. election before making any public overtures toward Israel. Morocco, Oman, and Qatar are weighing the possible advantages of upgrading their relations—though all three may be overtaken on the bumpy road to Jerusalem by Djibouti, whose president has been urged by the UAE to consider a move. Eventually, Abu Dhabi’s great influence down the East African coast may lead to some form of cooperation between Israel and the two de facto states of Somaliland and Puntland. Israel will also intensify efforts to establish relations with the Muslim-majority states of the Sahel, including Mauritania, which recognized Israel in 1999 but severed formal relations a decade later.

Sudan TV Debate - SLM Official Saleh Mansour: We Need Peace; People Are Tired; We Have Gained Nothing from Hostility towards Israel; Ba'ath Politician Al-Bakheet Omar: The Zionists Are Implementing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion pic.twitter.com/f5iUUhcpcn

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 29, 2020

The first round of negotiations between Israel and Lebanon on the demarcation of their shared maritime border concluded on Wednesday. The talks were held at the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) base in Naqoura (Nakura) in southern Lebanon. The next round of talks is expected to continue on Thursday.

There are reports that the Lebanese side are not talking directly with the Israelis in the room, but rather via the mediators in the same room.

What’s at stake is the ability to welcome in international gas companies to explore and pump a tremendous amount of natural gas out of the ocean floor in the disputed region.

What was originally under discussion was an 860 square kilometer region that both sides claim is theirs, the dispute stemming from where and from which exact angle the maritime border line is drawn from shore. But, apparently to the surprise of everyone else at the meeting, the Lebanese negotiators demanded an additional 1,460 square kilometer area further south, that was previously an undisputed section of Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The Lebanese are now claiming ownership of Israel’s Karish gas field and Block 72, where additional drilling was expected to take place.

The Karish field was discovered by Noble Energy in 2011, and is located near the offshore Leviathan gas field, but at deeper water depths at 1738 meters.

This is the first time that Lebanon is directly negotiating with Israel. After Hezbollah blew up the Port of Beirut, the Lebanese government collapsed from corruption and ineptitude, and of course Hezbollah interference, not to mention the collapse of the Lebanese economy, the Lebanese side isn’t exactly negotiating from a position of strength.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday condemned the US-Israel agreement to extend scientific cooperation to areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, describing it as a first step toward American recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.

“This is a dangerous and unacceptable precedent, which we cannot stay silent,” Abbas’s official spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement.

“We reject this American policy which attempts to help Israel consolidate its occupation of Palestinian lands. None of these policies will give any legitimacy to anyone. The settlements will one day disappear,” Abu Rudeineh added.

Israel and the US on Wednesday signed an agreement that removed all previous geographic restrictions from their scientific cooperation, a move that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called “a victory over all the organizations and countries that boycott Judea and Samaria,” using the Biblical term for the West Bank.

During a festive ceremony at Ariel University in the heart of the West Bank, Netanyahu and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman signed a protocol that amended three 1970s agreements that form the basis for bilateral scientific cooperation.

An astonishing level of criticism from Arab commentators, intellectuals and journalists has been leveled at the Palestinian leadership in recent weeks in response to its condemnations against countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, which have just signed normalization agreements with Israel. Five years ago, it seemed that the Palestinians could never fall out of grace with Americans, the Arab world or even the Europeans. These days, all this seems to have changed.

Uzi Rabi, head of the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, sat down for a discussion with US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman to discuss the peace agreements and the future of the Middle East.

Referring to the recently signed agreements, said Rabi, “this is definitely a breakthrough and has the potential of a game-changer. What should we expect on top of it? What is your prospect with regard to the geopolitical architecture in this region after or post the agreements with the UAE and Bahrain?”

Friedman said he believes the normalization agreements have proven that “the sky’s the limit.”

He expressed hope that “in our lifetimes, God willing, we will see an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict as we’ve traditionally thought of it—the notion of a 22-member Arab League that is united in their opposition to Israel. I think it will come to an end.”

“It doesn’t mean all 22 Arab League nations will come on board,” he added. “It will be incremental. But I have no doubt it will grow five, 10, maybe more countries over time. And we are having discussions with many of them now. Each one has their own issues, their own population dynamics. It’s not a one-size-fits-all type of arrangement. I’m enormously optimistic.”

Rabi noted that while the United States left the 2015 Iran nuclear deal—officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA—and placed enormous financial pressure on Iran, the question remains “whether this is enough to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. What more can be done to that effect?” he asked.

While the judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) are still considering the request of the ICC Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to invent a “State of Palestine,” and approve opening an investigation against Israel, the Palestinian Authority Minister of Justice, Muhammad Al-Shalaldeh, has inadvertently made a public statement, which proves that the ICC lacks any jurisdiction over Israel.

Presenting the PA plans to open the PA courts for the first time to allow for both the prosecution of Israelis and for private Palestinians to sue Israelis who allegedly caused them harm, Al-Shalaldeh made remarkable statements.

On the subject of the criminal prosecutions, Al-Shalaldeh clarified that the PA is:

“currently working to gather criminal evidence in order to submit the first lawsuits.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 15, 2020]

On the subject of the civil claims, Al-Shalaldeh added:

“The Palestinian courts will examine the issuing of rulings and sentences against settlers, in a demand for civil liability for damages, which is connected to providing civil compensation. This is in order to establish the perception of state sovereignty over an occupied area, and as continuation of Palestine being accepted as a UN non-member state, in addition to strengthening the perception of judicial authority over the occupied Palestinian area.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 15, 2020]

Why do these statements by the PA Minister of Justice himself prove what PMW argued in its submission to the ICC that the ICC lacks jurisdiction over Israel?

The ICC is not a regular national criminal court. Rather, it works solely on the basis of “delegated jurisdiction.” Membership in the ICC is limited to “states,” whose national jurisdiction could be delegated, in given circumstances, to the ICC.

The Palestinian national movement is "celebrating" 100 years of anarchy. You don't need to be the Zionist enemy to judge it so harshly. Arabs, and even many Palestinians, know it, and recently have even been saying so in public.

The Palestinians should be condemned not for their opposition to Zionism, and not even because of their violence. They see their struggle as a post-colonialist liberation, which has always entailed violent elements. Their enmity to Israel is understandable: they have been beaten, oppressed, and a large part of their people exiled.

The ongoing lawlessness of their national movement has to do with its consistent evasion of responsibility for the fate of its people. The movement has become addicted to a pattern of behavior that combines failed aggression with serial whining. It's important to remind those who insisted on pitying the Palestinians because of their wretchedness that this behavior is what has brought most of their misfortunes down upon them. It's hard to respect them as a national collective.

Their attempts in the 1920s and 1930s to uproot the Zionist enterprise was effective. As Jews, it's hard for us to admit, but the widespread Palestinian terrorism did bring them closer to their goal. Every round of violence brought them closer to the desired result, in the form of British restrictions to aliyah, until Britain effectively dumped its support for the Zionist enterprise with the White Paper of 1939.

But even back then, the inherent lawlessness of the Palestinian national movement was laying the groundwork for its destruction 10 years later. Its leaders recruited the people into widespread violence against Jews (and the British) by legitimizing anarchy and terrorism. By doing so, they brought disaster to Palestinian society, which explains more than anything else their mass escape in 1948 and their ineffectual resistance in cases where they were expelled. In the 100 years the Palestinians have been a people, this is their main disaster, and they are the ones who created the conditions for it.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is witnessing one of its worst financial crises as it finds itself unable to fulfill its obligations toward the Palestinians with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Many reasons are behind the current crisis. Chief among these are the local economic repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic that led to a decline in the domestic revenues collected by the PA. Prior to that, US aid to the PA was halted due to the PA’s rejection of the US president’s peace plan in the Middle East, known as the “deal of the century.” Also, the PA stopped accepting clearance funds collected by Israel since its decision in June to end all agreements signed with Israel. And most recently, there has been a decline in Arab financial grants and aid allocated to the Palestinian state budget.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Finance, Arab financial aid and grants for the Palestinian budget decreased by 81.6% during the first eight months of the year. This year, according to the ministry, the total grants and aid amounted to 132.3 million Israeli shekels ($39.2 million) from the beginning of the year until late August compared to 716 million shekels ($212 million) during the same period last year.

Remarkably, the Saudi support declined by 77.2% according to the ministry, as the total support since the beginning of this year amounted to 107 million shekels ($31.7 million), compared to $130 million last year. Meanwhile, Algeria has not provided any financial aid since the beginning of this year.

The Palestinians attribute the reason behind this decline to the economic repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic on some countries such as Algeria on the one hand, and to some countries’ responsiveness to the US decision to stop aid to the PA on the other.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is demanding the White House take action to sanction Hezbollah leaders following the disclosure of new evidence indicating the Lebanese terror group is manufacturing and stashing weapons beneath residential buildings in Beirut.

Lawmakers recently were made aware that Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group, is storing precision-guided missiles and related components under civilian buildings in and around Beirut, endangering those who live in these areas. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are now petitioning the Trump administration to take immediate action against Hezbollah, according to a letter sent to the White House on Wednesday and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The letter comes just after a Hezbollah-linked explosion in southern Lebanon last month as well as a massive explosion in Beirut that killed hundreds and wounded nearly 7,000 civilians in August. Many blamed the explosion on Hezbollah and its practice of storing arms and explosives in highly populated areas to maximize civilian casualties if the facilities come under attack by the United States, Israel, or other Western nations. The volatile nature of these weapons means that Hezbollah operatives working at these illicit missile factories could make a mistake that pulverizes the building above.

"These factories could be viewed as military targets and therefore put at risk the civilians living above them," the lawmakers wrote in a letter led by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee. "The September 22, 2020, explosion at a facility in southern Lebanon underscores the risks posed by Hezbollah's habitual and purposeful positioning of weapons in civilian areas. The chance of a disaster at sites such as this is far too high to allow this practice to continue unchecked."

Hezbollah missile depots have been located in Beirut's Laylaki and Chouaifet neighborhoods, according to information seen by the lawmakers.

The Arab Coalition supporting the Yemeni government said on Tuesday it had seized a Hezbollah-linked shipment of drugs destined for the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen.

A security source in Aden told The National that the coalition, in co-ordination with the security authorities in Aden, foiled drugs smuggling to the Houthi-held areas in Yemen’s north.

“The shipment was sent by a smuggling network linked with Lebanese Hezbollah,” Saudi news channel Al Arabiya reported, quoting a coalition source.

Col Mohammed Al Qommaly told The National that coalition forces “seized a half tonne of cocaine and heroin hidden within sugar sacks shipped in containers”.

“Based on the intelligence we received, we kept tracking the ship for more than a month until it docked in Aden harbour carrying tonnes of the sugar bags in which the drug shipment was hidden,” Col Al Qommaly said.

“The drugs shipment was entirely collected and officially handed over to the Public Prosecution in Aden to carry on the investigation process."

Security officials in Yemen have thwarted several similar attempts to smuggle large quantities of drugs to Houthi-held territory in recent years.

According to a report issued by the Yemeni Interior Ministry in July 2019, massive drug smuggling operations were under way in the northern provinces of Al Jawf, Hajjah, Marib and Al Baydha.

There, pro-government security forces have captured hundreds of smugglers and seized large amounts of cannabis and other drugs.