To my Dearest Love of the Land/An Eye That Gazed Towards Zion Readers, Subscribers and Friends,

To my Dearest Love of the Land/An Eye That Gazed Towards Zion Readers, Subscribers and Friends,

First of all, wishing one and all, a Shana Tova, an amazing year ahead, a year of health and growth, a year where more and more light shines forth in the world, where love becomes the significant driving force for our fulfilling our purpose in this world. May G-d's blessings rest upon our efforts to make this happen.

After 10 years, almost 18,000 posts and a little over 4 million reads, I am going to be putting aside my blogs, Love of the Land as well as An Eye That Gazed Towards Zion as there are now many others doing an excellent job out there, more proficient with the changes in social media and general audience. The blogs themselves will remain available to read, so much material still relevant and new to many future readers.

Thank you once again for all your encouragement over the years, and of course I will still be staying active on Facebook and Twitter both as an admin and poster.

Last but not least, in the world of who to follow, I have never ceased being amazed by Elder of Ziyon.(http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/)  Both in quality and quantity, first in my world as the #1 go to.

                                                                             All My Love   Shana Tova

                                                                                          Yosef

They see the Arab world turn against them - and don't learn a damned thing - by Elder of Ziyon

It sounds like Mr. Ramini might be close to getting it. But, no, the antisemitism that he grew up with is more powerful than actual self-assessment.

Elder of Ziyon..
11 September '20..

Countercurrents has an opinion piece by Jafar Ramini, a Palestinian who lives in London:

I believe that for us Arabs to survive and progress we must have in common more than religion, language and rhetoric. We need unity, transparency and honesty.
We Palestinians are teetering on the edge of a precipice. Until very recently, every Arab leader, politician, cleric and pundit, given half a chance, would mount the platform and raise the Palestinian flag promising to do what is necessary to liberate the land and restore what is rightfully ours. Not any more.
The language has changed totally from support of the Palestinian cause to condemnation of us Palestinians, accusing us of being ungrateful architects of our own demise. The schism between some Arab regimes, especially in the Gulf and the Palestinians has been widening ever since the two Mohammads – Bin Zayid in the UAE and Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia took control.

...This schism became even more apparent during yet another meeting, this time in Cairo two days ago. The Foreign Ministers of the Arab League opposed a proposal put forward by the Palestinian side to condemn the UAE/Israel peace treaty. So, where is the unity? Where is the transparency? Where is the honesty.?
There is none.
You might think that this recent betrayal and open rejection should serve to bring the Palestinian leaders of all persuasions to a realisation that Palestine is not the core subject of most of the Arab regimes.

It sounds like Mr. Ramini might be close to getting it. But, no, the antisemitism that he grew up with is more powerful than actual self-assessment.

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The NY Times uneasily admits that the "West Bank" is Judea - by Elder of Ziyon

No one had ever heard of the "West Bank" before the 1950s, yet that Jordanian name is now considered the most accurate for media like the New York Times while "Judea" is considered a right-wing Israeli term created to supplant it. Articles like this are awkward precisely because they highlight that the land has always been associated with Jews, not "Palestinian" Arabs.

Elder of Ziyon..

09 September '20..

The New York Times has an interesting article about Israelis managing to harvest dates from the famous Judean date palm, planted with seeds that are over 2000 years old: 

The plump, golden-brown dates hanging in a bunch just above the sandy soil were finally ready to pick. 

They had been slowly ripening in the desert heat for months. But the young tree on which they grew had a much more ancient history — sprouting from a 2,000-year-old seed retrieved from an archaeological site in the Judean wilderness. 

“They are beautiful!” exclaimed Dr. Sarah Sallon with the elation of a new mother, as each date, its skin slightly wrinkled, was plucked gently off its stem at a sunbaked kibbutz in southern Israel. 

They were tasty, too, with a fresh flavor that gave no hint of their two-millenium incubation period. The honey-blonde, semi-dry flesh had a fibrous, chewy texture and a subtle sweetness. 

These were the much-extolled but long-lost Judean dates, and the harvest this month was hailed as a modern miracle of science. 

  Where was the seed found again? 

Hannah’s seed, which came from an ancient burial cave in Wadi el-Makkukh near Jericho, now in the West Bank, was carbon dated to between the first and fourth centuries B.C.E., becoming one of the oldest known seeds to have ever been germinated. 

The phrase "now in the West Bank" is awkward - did the cave somehow move from Judea to the "West Bank"? But for the Times to more accurately say "now called the West Bank" would be problematic for a paper that chose to embrace that term only in the 1970s.

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The media fiddles while Israel burns - by Sean Durns

The press is failing to provide readers with coverage of a developing and dangerous situation in a country that is frequently the subject of disproportionate, and sometimes trivial, news coverage.

Sean Durns..
JNS.org/CAMERA..
09 September '20..

For weeks while communities in Israel burned, many major U.S. news outlets kept silent. Hamas, the U.S.-designated terror group that rules the Gaza Strip, has been intermittently launching firebombs into the south of Israel for years. Yet Hamas’s terrorism by fire was largely ignored during the summer of 2020.

By repeatedly launching incendiary devices into Israel, Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups have violated numerous ceasefires. The damage has been extensive.

According to an Aug. 28 press release by Jewish National Fund-USA, almost “600 fires caused by incendiary and explosive-laden balloons sent by terrorists in the Gaza Strip have plagued Israel’s Gaza Envelope region over the past 19 days as thousands of acres have been destroyed.” On Aug. 23 alone, more than 28 fires were started by devices launched from Gaza. Nor is it merely balloons; as the Times of Israel reported “rockets have also been fired on multiple occasions at Israeli cities and towns, including over a dozen projectiles” on Aug. 20.

JNF-USA has helped to combat the fires by investing in firetrucks and firewagons. The threat to many communities in Israel’s south has been so pervasive that JNF-USA has helped develop “new, often fortified playgrounds, schools, parks and other amenity-enhancing projects.” Keith Isaacson, the head of security for Israel’s Eshkol region, lamented: “You can see that the forests are suffering. The wildlife is suffering. Instead of green behind our houses, we have black.”

As Ynet news previously reported, in February 2020 explosives-laden balloons landed in a preschool in the southern Israeli Kibbutz Sa’ad. More recently, others have landed near playgrounds. On several occasions, terrorists have attached the balloons with Disney characters—a tactic meant to entice unsuspecting children.

Israel, meanwhile, has responded with targeted strikes aimed at the terror network and its infrastructure.

Terrorist groups targeting children with balloon bombs and causing massive ecological damage is certainly newsworthy. Yet many major Western news outlets have completely ignored the story.

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Realizing the dream of friendly coexistence between the Jews and their Middle Eastern neighbors - by Yonatan Green

The UAE agreement constitutes the first such voluntary peace not achieved directly by military success. It marks a true and fundamental divergence from past Israeli relations with Arab-Muslims countries. And it may be said to be the first-ever such agreement that truly reflects Herzlian Political Zionism, fulfilling a dream of friendly coexistence between the Jews and their Middle Eastern neighbors. One can also be certain that the UAE did not decide to do so unilaterally; such a radical shift requires coordination with other Muslim-Arab powers and approval in advance.

Yonatan Green..
JNS.org..
08 September '20..

The recent agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, along with the Trump “Peace to Prosperity” vision that many consider to have been the catalyst for the normalization of relations between the two countries, together mark the most significant and resounding achievements of “Political Zionism” since the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan vote, and perhaps since the 1920 San Remo conference.

Since 1947, Israel has been in a continuous diplomatic limbo with regard to her borders and territory, and in her relations with her Arab-Muslim neighbors in the Middle East. Since that time, there have been no purely diplomatic breakthroughs of consequence that can be said to have altered this fundamental reality—until now. The Trump administration “Peace to Prosperity” plan marks the first serious acknowledgment of Israel’s territorial claims by a global power since 1947; while the UAE peace deal marks the first voluntary commencement of friendly relations with an Arab state, not in the immediate aftermath and shadow of defeat in armed conflict. These developments ought to be considered in the context of the different strategic attitudes that characterized Zionism from its inception as a modern national movement.

Since its very beginning, the Zionist movement diverged into multiple approaches towards achieving the common goal of establishing a homeland for the Jewish people. Perhaps the two most dominant of these were Practical Zionism and Political Zionism. While Practical Zionism focused on the physical immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel and other direct measures, Political Zionism (initially lead and inspired by Theodor Herzl) stressed the importance of obtaining international recognition and sanction of the Zionist objectives and working within a framework of international and legal cooperation. This is manifest in the Basel Program set out in the 1897 First Zionist Congress, which aimed for a “publicly and legally assured” home for the Jews, as well as the attainment of “government grants” to enable Zionist activity.

One can argue that until recently, Political Zionism can boast of (only) three major milestones.

The first is the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which the British government stated that they “view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object ….” This was the first time a world Power publicly endorsed and supported the Zionist project, a policy coordinated with other Allied Powers and pre-approved by the international community.

The second was the post-World War I 1920 San Remo conference and the ensuing 1922 Mandate for Palestine assigned to Britain, both of which explicitly endorsed and incorporated the 1917 Balfour Declaration. If the declaration was merely a letter between the British Foreign Minister and the Jewish Lord Rothschild, the San Remo Resolution and League of Nations Mandate were the unambiguous and formal commitments of the international community to further the Zionist cause. The Mandate went a step further in the preamble by recognizing “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and by referring to “the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”

Both of the above were enormous victories for Zionism at a time when its success was far from certain. There is no doubt these diplomatic coups significantly affected the course of history for the Zionist project.

The third achievement of Political Zionism was the 1947 U.N. General Assembly vote on the partition plan. This vote by the international community constituted a clear reaffirmation of the Zionist cause of establishing a Jewish state, in the new post-World War II global order. One may rightly consider this as a lesser achievement—at that point, an independent Jewish state was an almost final and irrevocable reality that could have been challenged only by its violent annihilation (which was, of course, duly attempted). As such, the U.N. vote may be seen as a result of the success of Practical Zionism, and the acceptance of “facts on the ground,” at least as much as that of Political Zionism.

Since that time, the State of Israel and the Zionist movement have not secured significant diplomatic achievements of any magnitude approaching those listed above.

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Yonatan Green is the executive director of the Israel Law & Liberty Forum.

The continuing distortion of Western discourse on Israel - by Amb. Alan Baker

Distorting and presenting Israel’s creation as a “catastrophe” serves to falsify and overturn the historical narrative from one of inherent denial of the right of existence of a Jewish state through aggression and rejectionism, to one of victimhood and denial of rights.

Amb. Alan Baker..
JNS/JCPA..
07 September '20..

Regrettably and increasingly, Western intellectual discourse regarding anything connected to Israel has been taken hostage by pseudo-intellectual, radical leftist extremists who, using distorted information, flawed facts, “progressive” language and accepted buzzwords, seek to enhance and expand existing efforts to deny and undermine Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish and democratic nation-state.

This ideological goal of dismantling Israel is particularly evident in a curious July 9, 2020, article published in radical leftist Australian literary journal Overland, titled, “Fighting against a Racist’s Peace: What It Means to Oppose Annexation.” The author is the child of Palestinians, Tasnim Mahmoud Sammak, whose doctoral research project at Melbourne’s Monash University seeks to explore what she describes as the “emergence of radical political subjectivities and imaginaries.”

Her ultra-radical language indicates a thought process based on misconceptions and flawed assumptions. The abundant use of extreme, radical leftist buzzwords indicates an inherent lack of seriousness and intellectual honesty.

What is perhaps even worse is an apparent linkage that emerges in this article between pseudo-intellectual leftist modes of thinking and extreme, fanatical Palestinian terror and incitement to Israel’s destruction.

The following are some examples of such exaggerated, illogical and inciting terminology used in the article.

“Zionism is a settler-colonial, ethno-nationalist project”

This is an often repeated and meaningless cliché using pseudo-intellectual terminology intended to appeal to extreme ultra-liberal, leftist elements that are opposed to the very existence of Israel as a state and deny, as a matter of principle, the claims and rights of the Jewish people.

Israel has valid historical, legal and political claims to its sovereign territory and land, as well as to the land it presently administers.

In addition to the long-term historical evidence of Jewish presence, as set out in the writings of Persian, Greek, Roman and other historians who visited the area in the early centuries, and in biblical sources, extensive archeological evidence, publicly available, affirms the existence and presence of a Jewish national population in the area for over 3,000 years. The “return to Zion” has been a central theme of Jewish prayers for two millennia.

These Jewish claims have been acknowledged legally and internationally by the 1917 Balfour Declaration affirming the right of the Jews to reestablish their national homeland, the 1921 San Remo Declaration, which transposed the Balfour Declaration into an internationally recognized document and reaffirmed in the subsequent League of Nations Palestine Mandate and the United Nations Charter.

This land has never been part of any sovereign entity since the termination of the Ottoman Empire more than 100 years ago, and as such, Israel has not colonized and is not colonizing the land of any other state or entity.

For more than 120 years, the Zionist movement has been universally recognized as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and is no different from other ethno-national movements.

To single out and condemn Zionism in such a manner is tantamount to singling out the Jewish people and denying them a fundamental right that is possessed by all other national peoples.

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Why is the Media Mum on Israeli Special Needs Captives? - by Gidon Ben-Zvi

One of the media’s primary functions is to identify and report injustices being perpetrated around the world. This, in turn, keeps the pressure on serial human rights violators while ensuring that the victims are not forgotten. As such, news outlets should be shining a bright spotlight on Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed.

Gidon Ben-Zvi..
Honest Reporting..
03 September '20..

September 7, 2020 marks the sixth anniversary of when Avera Mengistu was taken captive by the Hamas terrorist group. The then-32-year-old, who had immigrated to Israel with his family from Ethiopia, developed severe schizophrenia following the death of his older brother and crossed into the Gaza Strip on his own volition.

Since then, he has not had access to treatment for his mental illness and has not been afforded the privileges guaranteed by international law. Kidnapping an innocent civilian is an egregious human rights violation; yet, even with all the recent media coverage about the weeks-long confrontation between the IDF and Hamas, there has been little, if any, attention paid to Mengistu’s plight.

Civilian Hostages: The Media’s Selective Coverage

From a media standpoint, securing the release of hostages has over the past few years been big news. According to the White House, more than 50 Americans have been released from 22 countries during President Donald Trump’s tenure. Peter Bergen, a vice-president of the Washington, D.C.-based New America think tank who has written extensively on terrorism, has described the Trump Administration’s efforts to rescue hostages as “an area of significant foreign policy success.”

Meanwhile, the US Department of State recently announced that it would intensify its campaign to bring home three citizens being held in Iran.

Much of the public has been following these stories closely, with media organizations generally providing information about any relevant developments. However, when it comes to Mengistu, these same outlets focus almost exclusively on the recurring tit-for-tat military exchanges between Israel and Hamas without raising the latter’s gross disregard for international norms.

Hisham al-Sayed: Another Mentally Ill Civilian Hostage

Hamas is also holding hostage Hisham al-Sayed, an Israeli Bedouin from the southern town of Hura who entered Gaza in 2015. He also has a history of mental illness. To date, Hamas has refused to release any information about Mengistu or al-Sayed, nor has the terrorist organization granted permission to rights groups to visit them in order to determine their respective conditions.

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Is the true tragedy when an Arab expresses willingness to make peace with Israel? - by Khaled Abu Toameh

By extreme contrast [to Syria and Iraq], the UAE and other Gulf states have long opened their doors to Palestinians and provided them with jobs and high living standards. Puzzlingly, Palestinian leaders have plenty of time to castigate the UAE, but no time at all to comment on the systematic abuse and killing of Palestinians in Syria and Iraq.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
04 September '20..

Palestinian leaders are so committed to condemning the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for its normalization agreement with Israel that they have no time left to notice the horrific suffering of their people in some Arab countries, particularly Syria and Iraq. Specifically, these leaders seem unperturbed that in some in Arab countries, Palestinians are mysteriously disappearing.

Unlike their leaders, however, Palestinians living in Syria and Iraq do not appear to be worried about the Israel-UAE accord. These Palestinians have more existential concerns -- such as providing shelter for their children and safe drinking water for their families. They are disturbed about the homes they have lost, and they are in a state of anguish about fate of their missing sons.

In the past two weeks, leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas have focused their attention mainly on the Israel-UAE deal and how to persuade other Arab states from following in the UAE's footsteps.

Peace between Israel and the UAE, nevertheless, seems to be the last thing on the mind of the Palestinians residing in Syria.

In Syria, since the beginning of the civil war there in 2011, 4,048 Palestinians have been killed and thousands wounded. Tens of thousands of others have fled their homes, some to other areas in Syria and others to neighboring Arab countries and Europe.

In addition, 1,797 Palestinians have been detained by the Syrian authorities and are being held in harsh conditions, while another 333 have gone missing and their families know nothing about their fate.

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Highlighting the Israel-UAE Agreement’s Greatest Achievement: Little Arab Protest - by Prof. Hillel Frisch

To the surprise of Iranian and Palestinian leaders, the Arab public did not protest the Israel-UAE peace agreement—but they continue to protest Iranian meddling in Iraqi and Lebanese affairs. The lack of protest against the Israel-UAE breakthrough is a sign of political maturity as Arab and Muslim populations clamor for reform at home rather than destructive ideological visions.

Prof. Hillel Frisch..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,729..
03 September '20..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-uae-peace-protest/

Lively analysis has taken place over the possible ramifications of the Israel-UAE peace agreement. Some have rightly noted that while this is the third peace treaty Israel has signed with an Arab state, it is the first to contain the promise of a warm peace. This is in sharp contrast to Israel’s relations with prior accord partners Egypt and Jordan, which are limited to very narrow personal, diplomatic, and security relations. With Egypt, the peace treaty has rarely reached even that threshold.

Hosni Mubarak, throughout his 30 years of ruling Egypt, never made an official visit to Israel, which is less than an hour’s flight away. Nor has King Abdullah of Jordan. In over a decade of rule, Abdullah has abstained from visiting Israel despite meeting several times with PA head Mahmoud Abbas in nearby Ramallah.

Israel has been at peace with Egypt for nearly a half a century, but not one Egyptian soccer team has ever played against an Israeli team either in Israel or anywhere else. Not one delegation from an Egyptian university has ever visited an Israeli counterpart, let alone engaged in a joint program. Not one Egyptian cultural ensemble or group has ever visited Israel. On the rare occasions when individual Egyptian artists have come to Israel, they did so primarily to appear before Israel’s Arab citizens. For that gesture they were met with opprobrium and threats. Such was the power of the Arab world’s boycott against “normalization.”

Many have noted that the UAE peace treaty, unlike the treaties with Egypt and Jordan, was signed under quite different conditions. There is a wide expectation that it will be followed by one or more similar pacts with other states, especially other Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. No such expectations accompanied Israel’s peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan.

One major accomplishment has already been achieved by the UAE-Israel agreement. It has been largely overlooked, perhaps because it is a case of what did not happen rather than what did. Even as an El Al plane flew over Saudi Arabian territory carrying a bevy of Israeli officials, businessmen, and investors to the Emirates with the aim of promoting a warm piece, there were no demonstrations of consequence in the Arab world. Amman, Beirut, Tunis, Algiers, and Rabat, where demonstrations against the Israeli “occupation,” the “desecration” of al-Aqsa, and other charges against Israel are generally well-attended, were silent, at least on the street level.

There was, of course, a din of voices castigating the UAE for normalizing ties with Israel, but they emanated mostly from dinosaur institutions that dominate the landscape of the Arab world and against which there are frequent popular demonstrations. These include organizations linked with the Arab League, official professional unions, and various political movements whose common characteristic is a fossilized leadership that has been in place for 25 years or more.

Even among ordinary Palestinians, protests were miniscule. In photos taken in both the PA and Hamas-dominated Gaza, only a dozen or so demonstrators are shown burning effigies of Netanyahu, Trump, and UAE head Sheikh bin Zayed. The demonstrators were not only paltry in number but mostly members of the older generation.

Truth be told, the Israel/UAE accord proves Europe's absolute irrelevance to the Israel-Arab conflict - by Elder of Ziyon

Europe, pretending to be relevant, is happy to fund organizations that actually hurt any chances for peace. This massive funding has perverted the Palestinian economy itself - the best paying jobs outside Israel come from these anti-Israel NGOs, which contribute nothing towards actual productivity and make it unappealing for Palestinians to become productive and independent citizens, creating and exporting useful goods and services.

Elder of Ziyon..
02 September '20..

Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor makes some excellent points about the irrelevance of Europe to the Israel/Arab conflict and how their outdated views of the region are actually anti-peace.

The EU was notably absent on the El Al plane from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi. There were no EU officials and no EU flags, either on the plane or on the face masks of the Arabs who greeted the Israelis. Why not?

As Steinberg writes,

Almost all EU diplomats, foreign policy officials and 'experts', operate through simplistic misguided prisms based on post-1945 images of normative (soft) power, rules-based international order, and other thinking that is .totally inapplicable to the Middle East. As a result, Europe has little credibility.

The Israel-UAE agreement is based on realpolitik and national interests -- security (the Iran threat), economic, cyber threats and others. European diplomacy in 21st century has no capacity for contributing in these dimensions.

Europe's foreign policy on Israel offers nothing positive and tangible. Their main tools are threats of sanctions (aimed at Israel only), ritual anti-Israel UN votes, and massive funding to fringe anti-Israel NGOs under the facade of aid and human rights. This is in total contrast to the US.

For Palestinians, Europe is a very reliable cash cow and amplifier of slogans, including their supposed powerlessness and victimhood. No matter what Palestinians do - terror, incitement, ICC lawfare - European money keeps flowing. But for substance, Palestinian leaders have (until very recently - EoZ) turned to the US.

Europe is narrowly focused on the Palestinian issue (and stuck in the 1970s); they treat Israel condescendingly, and their "peace proposals" and frequent declarations consist entirely of empty slogans. Systematically stuck in the 1970s (or 1950s), Europe is blind to Israel's role as a major regional actor, interacting with other countries on the basis of significant capabilities and shared interests.

Opposition to the Iranian strategic threat is a major catalyst for Israel-Gulf cooperation. In contrast, Europe's policy on Iran is based on slogans and reviving the ill-conceived JCPOA, allowing the regime to acquire nuclear weapons. These policies are non-starters.

To play any useful role in the region, Europe needs an entirely new approach to Israel, Iran, the UAE and other Gulf states. The people and myths that have dominated Europe's approach for decades need to retired and replaced by diplomats and experts with both feet on the ground.

Steinberg is correct. It is no coincidence that each one of Israel's peace agreements with Arab countries have been facilitated by the US with no European involvement. The Europeans treat the Palestinians as spoiled children with no responsibility for their actions, and one cannot make peace with irresponsible toddlers.

Gulf countries have, in recent years, given the Palestinians the message that they are not the center of the universe and they can no longer assume reflexive support and unlimited cash from their fellow Arabs.

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The Old: "Nothing in the Middle East can be solved without Israel/Palestinian peace." The New: "How dare.... !" by Elder of Ziyon

This is a new Middle East, and the people who preferred the old Middle East are having a bad day.

Elder of Ziyon..
01 September '20..

Remember "linkage"?

It was the opinion of supposed Middle East experts that all problems in the region could only be solved if Israel gave in to Palestinian demands for "peace."

Jimmy Carter said in 2006, "I don’t think it’s about a linkage policy, but a linkage fact. There is no doubt: The heart and mind of every Muslim is affected by whether or not the Israel-Palestine issue is dealt with fairly. ...Without doubt, the path to peace in the Middle East goes through Jerusalem."

Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski similarly said, “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the single most combustible and galvanizing issue in the Arab world.”

The idea lasted even into the 2010s, even as the Arab Spring and ISIS and the Syrian civil war erupted, with the New York Times keeping the flame alive: "While resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the magic bullet for the region that some once thought, it still resonates widely, whether among the crowds in Tahrir Square or the militants of Hezbollah, who cite Israel in rallying around President Bashar al-Assad of Syria."

The Palestinian leaders quickly realized that this false theory works to their advantage, as they would routinely say that if Israel doesn't give in to their demands, the entire Middle East would erupt into chaos and terrorism against the West would return. Mahmoud Abbas' spokesperson ludicrously claimed that ISIS would cease to exist if Israel just did what Palestinians demanded.

The Israel/UAE agreement has proven all of these theories wrong.

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Excellent question. Does the UAE/Israel agreement allow Jewish worship on the Temple Mount? - by Elder of Ziyon

Of course, to normal people, the idea of Jews praying on their holiest site while not disrupting the prayers of any Muslims should be considered quite fair and uncontroversial, even desirable.

Elder of Ziyon..
31 August '20..

In Palestine reports:

Normalisation of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) could have significant impacts on the sensitive status of Al-Aqsa Mosque, a report by Israeli NGO Terrestrial Jerusalem has warned.

The report challenged the wording in reference to Al-Aqsa in a joint statement by US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, on 13 August.

The statement, which has been condemned by Palestinians across the political spectrum, says that “all Muslims who come in peace may visit and pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque, and Jerusalem’s other holy sites should remain open for peaceful worshippers of all faiths”.

After the 1967 war, Israel and Jordan, the custodian of Al-Haram al-Sharif compound, agreed that while Jews are allowed access to the site, they are not allowed to pray there.

That status quo has withstood many challenges since.

However, Terrestrial Jerusalem, an organisation that tracks developments in Jerusalem that could impact political processes or spark violence, argues that the terminology used in the joint statement is an intentional attempt to open up the Temple Mount for Jewish prayer and ultimately change the status quo.

“It is not too late to insist that this wording be removed and that there be a renewed commitment, unambiguous in its clarity, by both Israel and the United States to the traditional interpretation of the status quo, and specifically regarding Jewish prayer on the Mount,” the report said.

Al-Aqsa, the third-holiest site in Islam, is housed in the 14-hectare Al-Haram al-Sharif compound (Noble Sanctuary), known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

The joint statement, the report said, speaks of access to “Al-Aqsa Mosque,” rather than Al-Haram al-Sharif, and while Israel defines Al-Aqsa as the structure of the mosque, Muslims define it as the entire esplanade of Al-Haram al-Sharif.

“Consequently, according to Israel (and apparently to the United States), anything on the Mount that is not the structure of the mosque is defined as ‘one of Jerusalem’s other holy sites’, and open to prayer by all and open to prayer by all – including Jews.”

The NGO might be right - but for different reasons than they say.

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