Sorry, but ‘Counting to 10’ won’t bring peace to the Middle East - by Stephen M. Flatow

Palestinian Arabs are not children throwing a temper tantrum who need to calm down. They are Arab nationalists and devout Muslims who see their war to destroy Israel as a national and religious obligation.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
30 April '20..

One of the main authors of the Trump Mideast peace plan is appealing to Palestinian Arab leaders to “count to 10” before rejecting the plan. Despite spending years observing Palestinians and negotiating with Palestinian officials, he still believes that peace is possible if Mahmoud Abbas would just take a deep breath.

Writing last week in The Jerusalem Post, former U.S. special envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt pleaded with Palestinian Arab leaders to “see the advantages of counting to 10 before officially reacting to the proposed peace plan.”

Greenblatt’s article was co-authored by Bishara Bahbah, a former Palestinian negotiator. I get why Bahbah likes the plan: It would create an independent Palestinian state in three-fourths of Judea and Samaria, with a capital in part of Jerusalem and a corridor to the Hamas state in Gaza. But the leadership of the Palestinian Authority has obviously decided that they will hold out of a better deal.

My concern is with the premise that apparently lies at the heart of the Trump administration’s approach. Greenblatt’s appeal for the Palestinians to “count to 10” follows a similar statement at the United Nations the previous week by a senior U.S. representative, Cherith Norman Chalet. “When this [coronavirus] disease passes,” he said, “we will be able to point to the cooperation we’re seeing now and say that dialogue between the Israelis and Palestinian is possible. We will be able to say that achieving mutually beneficial solutions is possible.”

The P.A. “cooperates” with Israel only to the extent that of its immediate, practical advantage. It’s like when P.A. officials quietly go to Israeli hospitals for medical treatment. They don’t mind exploiting Israel’s kindness or benefiting from Jewish-led innovations. But that has no effect whatsoever on the unending Palestinian war against Israel.

Anybody remember the Israeli greenhouses in flames in Gaza? The diplomats and pundits and peace activists all insisted that Israel should hand them over intact when it pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005.

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2020 Edition - Proud to Be a Zionist by Elder of Ziyon

I wrote the original essay around 2002 and I have been modifying it since then. Here is this year's version:
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Elder of Ziyon..
29 April '20..

I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.

I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, at least as much as any other country. Given Israel's unique history and the resurgence of antisemitism worldwide, Israel arguably has more moral legitimacy than any other nation on Earth.

I am proud of how the IDF conducts itself during its never ending war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet that tries to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened, shot at, mortared, rocketed, stabbed and murdered in cold blood. At times there are discussions whether the IDF's moral standards are too high and end up being counterproductive - and what other army could one even have that conversation about?

I am also proud that Israel investigates any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keeps trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the people that the enemy is hiding behind. This is not done because of pressure from "human rights" organizations - it is done because it is the right thing to do. Even when everyone knows that the world will accuse it of "war crimes," the IDF retains incredibly high moral standards, which can be easily proven for anyone who wants to investigate the situation impartially. (People willing to do that are, regrettably, few and far between.) It would be so easy for Israelis to say that since the world will accuse them of atrocities anyway, then why bother with holding themselves to such standards - but young Israeli soldiers do, day in and day out. The rare exceptions prove the rule.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while on a constant war footing. One only needs to read the hateful articles in Israel's left-wing publications on Israel's Independence Day to fathom how far press freedom goes in Israel.

I am proud of how Israel responds to seemingly intractable problems. In the early days of the intifada there seemed to be no solution - but the IDF found one, managing to bring deadly suicide attacks from 60 in 2002 down to practically none today. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous. The 'knife intifada," car rammings, and other violent "innovations" by Israel's enemies have largely died down because of Israeli defensive actions and innovative pro-active work on social media. Hamas has been reduced to celebrating attacks that cause only minor injuries because most of their major attacks, thank God, are foiled. Today there are new challenges, but each one is met and solved with brains and creativity.

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San Remo in International Law: The Jewish People's Charter of Liberation - by Amb. Dror Eydar

In the historiography of Zionism, the San Remo conference – which anchored the Balfour Declaration in international law – has been neglected. We must study it, and celebrate it.

Amb. Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
24 April '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-jewish-peoples-charter-of-liberation/..

1

A moment before the world was turned upside down by a tiny virus and our lives became one long day, I managed, at the start of February, to visit the little town of San Remo on the Italian Riviera. We in the Israeli Embassy had been planning to hold a big event there on Sunday, April 26, to be attended by world leaders, to mark the 100th anniversary of the famous conference. The mayor had even put the symphony orchestra of the famous San Remo Festival at our disposal.

The idea was to highlight, in the global discourse, the main insight of all those who take an interest in the decisions made at the conference: in contrast to the conventions I frequently hear voiced in the world, international law is absolutely on our side.

We also planned an exhibit that would be shown in the Italian Senate, the European Parliament, and the Israeli Knesset, and display documents and items from that period. We visited the archives at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I saw files that bulged with documents from back then that might not have been opened since.

2

For a week, the Villa Devachan in San Remo hosted representatives of the powers that were victorious in World War I: British Prime Minister Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Alexandre Millerand, Italian Prime Minister Francesco Nitti, Japanese representative Keishiro Matsui, and the US Ambassador to Rome, Robert U. Johnson. They, along with their aides, ushered in the decisions that led to the birth of the Jewish state.

In the archives at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, my eyes caught a telegram to "His Excellency Nitti" sent directly to San Remo, titled "The Peace Conference," which stated "We hope that the Supreme Council will resolve the question of Palestine in accordance with the Balfour Declaration." It was signed by the Community of Achim Neamonim and the Rabbi Benjamin Cohen. There were other similar telegrams that teach us about the tense anticipation in the Jewish world and how importantly the conference was perceived, even at the time.

3

From a Zionist historical perspective, the San Remo Conference was of much greater importance than the Balfour Declaration -- the difference between a non-binding declaration and anchoring it in law. Oddly, Zionist historiography has forgotten this major event. We haven't really studied it. It's time to correct that.

(Excellent) The true original "Deal of the Century" was the 1920 San Remo Conference - by Yishai Fleisher

Let us cast off the contrived U.N. narrative in which Israel was born into the inevitability of two states on this year's Independence Day.

Yishai Fleisher..
en.hebron.org.il
26 April '20..
Link: http://en.hebron.org.il/blog/51/1177

One hundred years ago this week, the British Balfour Declaration—which recognized the Jewish rights to the land of Israel—became international law.

The Allies, the countries that defeated the Ottoman Empire in World War I, gathered in San Remo, Italy, in late April 1920 to carve up the Middle East. Basing their outlook on Woodrow Wilson’s principle of self-determination, they set out to establish new would-be countries through a mentoring program called “mandates.” The Arabs, now free of the Turks, would get Syria, Lebanon and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Jews would get “Palestine” (Palestine was a Jewish thing back then).

The language of the 1917 Balfour Declaration was put directly into the San Remo accords: “[T]he Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

This decision was soon unanimously ratified by 56 member states of the League of Nations, and later became part of the United Nations Charter, thus paving the way for the third Jewish commonwealth, reborn on its ancestral soil after 2,000 years.


Yet this momentous occasion, on which the international community recognized and then ratified the inalienable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel for the first time in modern history, is often forgotten. Instead, attention is diverted to the radio broadcast of the U.N. vote for Partition on Nov. 29, 1947, where the U.N. General Assembly voted in favor of a resolution adopting the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) partition plan of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states and for which 33 states voted in favor, 13 against and 10 abstained.

Legally speaking, the two events cannot be put on the same scale. The San Remo Accords were binding law, ratified by member states, which took quick effect. Even the United States, which was not a member of the League of Nations, took measures to recognize the accords.

Conversely, the UNSCOP Partition Plan was merely a non-binding resolution, voted on in the toothless General Assembly (not the Security Council), and was immediately rejected by the Arabs—in other words, the whole exercise of the partition plan vote was null and void.

The U.N. bundle narrative

The U.N. partition vote does have the distinction of being the immediate precursor to Israel’s declaration of independence. While David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency accepted the partition plan—ready to take what they could get for the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Holocaust—other Zionists rejected the plan outright as an abrogation of previous agreements. At the time, the U.N. resolution was instrumental, but that is a far cry from the portrayal of the U.N. partition vote as the foundational moment of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state.

So why does the empty U.N. partition resolution get so much play as compared with the real law of San Remo Accords? The answer lies in who is presenting the history—what they want Israeli policy to look like and what they want to say about Israel’s legitimacy.

Surprise? Israel and ‘Palestine’: It’s All the Same For The Irish Times - by Simon Plosker

Did Juliet Casey use the opportunity of a platform in the Irish Times to push an anti-Israel agenda? Given the failure of editors to notice the appalling and confusing errors as well as the libelous claim, it appears that the consistently hostile media outlet was only too happy to go along with it.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
24 April '20..




Update: 26 April '20 Irish Times’ Abysmal Attempt at a Correction - by Simon Plosker

As part of a series looking at personal experiences under the coronavirus in different parts of the world, the Irish Times interviews Juliet Casey “originally from Walkinstown, Dublin, but now lives in Palestine, where she teaches ballet.”

Casey is asked “Where do you live now?”

I live in Palestine with my fiancé Fadi, who is from Jerusalem. We first met in Belgium and eventually I decided to visit him over here for three weeks. Almost four years later I’m still here. Fadi is a circus artist so his projects take him all over the country and overseas fairly regularly. I started teaching ballet and we moved to Haifa, which is a seaside city with a big Palestinian population.

Haifa, as we ascertain from the rest of the article, is where Casey lives. Haifa, Israel’s third largest city. Not “Palestine” as Casey states. So begins what looks like a deliberate effort either on the part of Casey or the Irish Times (or both) to confuse readers and conflate Israel with “Palestine.”

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One Hundred Years - From San Remo to its 72nd birthday, Israel survives the virus of political and moral collapse - by Melanie Phillips

Unlike Israel, its Middle Eastern neighbors were artificial creations through which the model of the nation-state was imposed upon unruly tribal areas in the hope and expectation that this would give them order, stability and prosperity.

Melanie Phillips..
JNS.org..
23 April '20..

One hundred years ago this Sunday, the four principal allied powers involved in World War I signed a resolution at San Remo. Next week, Israel celebrates Yom Ha’atzmaut, the 72nd anniversary of the state’s declaration of independence.

Typically, the world thinks that the key step towards the establishment of the State of Israel was the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the statement in which the British government committed itself to work for the establishment of a Jewish home in what was then called Palestine.

Relatively little attention has been paid to the more important milestone in that story: the San Remo resolution signed on April 26, 1920.

For it was at San Remo that Britain, France, Italy and Japan turned the Balfour Declaration into an internationally binding treaty to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine, with Britain being given the mandate to facilitate Jewish immigration there.

A few months after the San Remo conference, for reasons of realpolitik, Britain hived off some three-quarters of Palestine to create Transjordan.

The scope of what was left for the Jewish national home, however, is something that Israel’s enemies don’t want to acknowledge—and is the reason that San Remo is conspicuously ignored. For in that resolution lie the roots of Jewish legitimacy, not just in Israel but also in the disputed territories.

That’s because the Palestine within which the Jews were legally entitled to settle as their designated national home included not just the Israel that emerged in 1948, but also Judea and Samaria. That legal right given to the Jews to settle the entire land of Mandatory Palestine has never been abrogated.

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Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for “The Times of London,” her personal and political memoir, “Guardian Angel,” has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, “The Legacy,” in 2018. Her work can be found at: www.melaniephillips.com.

Israel Memories - by Jerold Auerbach

...With hesitation, I entered. Seated behind a table at one end, surrounded by shelves filled with cartons, was a husky middle-age man dressed in a short-sleeved shirt, wearing a kippa. He pointed to a nearby chair, where I dutifully sat and waited. At his initiative we began a conversation that lasted for thirty years.

Jerold Auerbach..
Algemeiner..
22 April '20..

Warmly greeting my family at Ben Gurion airport in September 1974 was Haggai, a Tel Aviv University history professor who would become my mentor and dear friend during my year as Fulbright professor. He had come to help my family navigate our entry as strangers in a strange land. I had visited Israel for the first time one year earlier with a group of “disaffected Jewish academics,” chosen by the American Jewish Committee in an effort to counter the rising tide of anti-Israel sentiment that had begun to spill across college and university campuses. I knew that I was amply qualified. So did the Committee.

The few days that I spent in Jerusalem during that two-week journey convinced me that I must return. The Fulbright professorship became my ticket. Haggai, understandably assuming that we would want to live near the university, went out of his way to guide us through the airport maze to our new home. When I told him that we had already rented an apartment in Jerusalem he was clearly disappointed.

Haggai faithfully attended my weekly seminar (ironically entitled “The American Promised Land”), followed by lunch together. There I became the student, learning about Israel from a superb teacher. A Haganah soldier during the Independence War when he had just turned 18, Haggai chose Kibbutz Revivim, close to the border with Egypt, as his postwar home. A decade later he came to Columbia University for his PhD in American history. With degree in hand he had returned to Israel to teach at Tel Aviv University. Our year together, first as colleagues then as friends, taught me about Israel.

I had other teachers that year. One of my students, Rafi Amir, had been the Kol Israel radio newscaster during the Six-Day War. Arriving at the Western Wall with the first wave of IDF soldiers, he broadcast with palpable excitement the return of Jews to their ancient holy site for the first time since Jordan had destroyed the Jewish Quarter during the Independence War. Rafi became my Jerusalem guide and teacher, taking me to hidden corners in the Old City that I never would have found by myself.

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Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel, 1896-2016, chosen for Mosaic by Ruth Wisse and Martin Kramer as a best book of 2019.