Democratic Senate Candidate Raphael Warnock’s Anti-Israel Track Record: Arielle Davidson, RealClearPolitics, Nov. 20, 2020______________________________________________________
What is Going to Change in the Middle East Under Biden?
Yossi Kuperwasser
JNS, Nov. 23, 2020
President Donald Trump’s policies in the Middle East contributed significantly to changes in the rules of the game in the region, both in the Palestinian and regional contexts.
The primary change was the breaking of the paradigm in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was at the heart of the Middle East impasse. The peace and normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan illustrated the exact opposite. The agreements denied the Palestinians the veto they supposedly held on relations between Israel and the Arab world.
Another major change was the overturning by the Trump administration of the claim that Israel’s sovereignty over territory it had seized in the Six-Day War should not be recognized. In a precedent-setting move, the United States under Trump acted according to the opinion that U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from “territories” it had seized, rather than “all territories.” The U.S. acknowledged Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan Heights, and Israel’s claim to sovereignty in eastern Jerusalem and 30 percent of Judea and Samaria, including the Jordan Valley.
Other rules of play that changed during Trump’s term were the rejection of allegations that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria were illegitimate or illegal, that an agreement would require the evacuation of some of the settlements and that the security arrangements that would be established in the future between Israel and a future Palestinian entity would be based on Palestinian responsibility for security. The United States recognized the legality of Israeli settlement in Judea and Samaria, as well as Israel’s security needs, which require Israeli control of the Jordan Valley and overriding Israeli responsibility for security in the entire territory.
The previous paradigm demanded that Israel choose between two problematic alternatives. The first was maintaining the status quo. In order to convince Israel to disavow this alternative, it is portrayed by many as inevitably forcing Israel to choose between being a Jewish state or a democratic one. The second alternative is a return to the 1967 lines with minor changes and territorial swaps, so as to enable the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank that remains committed to defeating Zionism.
Instead, the alternatives put forth were implementing the Trump peace plan in its entirety or Israel expanding normalization agreements with the Arab states while maintaining the status quo in the territories and suspending the application of its sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria.
Implementing the Trump plan would have allowed the extension of Israeli sovereignty over territories vital to Israel’s security (the Jordan Valley and much of the settlements), while potentially establishing a Palestinian state in Palestinian-populated territories, conditional on the Palestinians meeting certain conditions. In both of these scenarios, Israel’s Jewish and democratic nature is preserved.
A change in Palestinian Policy?
Some of these demands have already been translated by the United States and Israel into legislation, notably the Taylor Force Act, which secured wall-to-wall support in Congress and declares that the United States will not provide aid to the Palestinian Authority as long as it pays salaries to terrorists and their families. Israel passed a similar law, which also received broad support in the Knesset, and has determined that Israel will deduct the amount the Palestinian Authority pays in salaries to terrorists and their families from the taxes it collects for the P.A. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Biden-Harris and the US-Israel Relationship: the Jury Is Still Out
Micah Q. Jones
Algemeiner, Nov. 22, 2020
In the days leading up to the 2020 presidential election, the MirYam Institute hosted a debate titled: “Which Presidential Ticket Is Best for the US-Israel Relationship?” At the debate’s conclusion, the Biden-Harris ticket was declared the winner. Perhaps this was prescient, as Biden and Harris went on to win the November 3 election.
The future Biden administration will usher in a new era of American governance and politics. Although this proposed agenda seems popular amongst one-half of the American public, I nevertheless remain skeptical as to whether the Biden administration will be the best for the US-Israel relationship. My skepticism stems from the Biden campaign’s recent actions and the embrace by some in the Democratic Party of ideologies that view Israel as an “oppressor” state.
Over the summer, some in the Biden campaign reportedly privately apologized to former Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour following public condemnation of her anti-Israel rhetoric. At the beginning of November 2020, it was reported that the Palestinian Authority established direct lines of communication with the Biden campaign — though this has never been confirmed. Most troubling, Kamala Harris’ chief of staff, Karine Jean-Pierre, stated this summer that Democratic candidates had “made the right call” in boycotting the annual AIPAC conference. Jean-Pierre declared that AIPAC’s values were “not progressive.” Although none of these actions by the campaign are determinative of the future Biden-Harris administration’s policies, they indicate that the US-Israel relationship may become much less amicable than in previous administrations.
Biden has called for unity and renewed cooperation with historic American allies. But the skeptic in me does not believe that such rhetoric or policy will apply to the State of Israel. The far-left of the Democratic Party has embraced the collective ideologies of “Critical Race Theory,” “intersectionality,” identity politics,” and “wokeness.” Although each of these ideologies warrants its own unique discussion, there is significant overlap in their respective world view. In short, these ideologies divide the world into “oppressors” and “oppressed,” predominantly along the distinctions of race and class. These ideologies believe that “white people” occupy the positions of oppressors within the United States and the West. “Black, brown, and indigenous peoples” are viewed as being oppressed victims at the mercy of the oppressor class. And, as it turns out, Jews do not fit neatly into this bifurcated framework.
At first glance, it should appear that Jews would clearly fall within the victim category. After all, Jews have been oppressed for millennia. But in the world view of the radical left, Jews are not victims, but rather members of the oppressor class. Their perceived economic success in the United States, and the presumed but wrong belief that all Jews are of Ashkenazi heritage, places Jews at the apex of the oppressor hierarchy. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Biden’s Foreign-Policy Appointments And What They Might Mean for Israel
Israel Kasnett
Cleveland Jewish News, Nov. 23, 2020
Former U.S. Vice President and President-elect Joe Biden has announced his choices for some of the key positions in his administration when he takes over in January. Biden’s victory has created a wave of murmurs in Israel’s halls of government that he would follow what was seen as Obama’s hostile stance with regard to Israel, and his efforts to create daylight between the U.S. and the Jewish state. The question, therefore, is whether or not these key appointees will work to assuage Israeli fears.
According to Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, U.S. Secretary of State appointee Tony Blinken “is not a newcomer to the Middle East.”
“This is good news,” said Inbar.
He noted Blinken’s record with regard to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saying he is “on record” demanding an extension of the sunset clause that determined when international restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program would end—an issue Israel was strongly concerned with as well.
Inbar pointed out that Blinken is the adopted son of Holocaust survivors, and perhaps as a result, is also “sensitive to Israel’s concerns.”
Eytan Gilboa, an expert on American politics and foreign policy, as well as a senior research associate at the BESA Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, expressed more concern. He told JNS that while Blinken is an expert on national security, “there are two problems for Israel.”
The first, he said, is that Blinken was involved in the JCPOA negotiations. The second is that he worked as deputy secretary of state together with former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on the failed 2014 effort to bring the Palestinians and Israel together at the negotiating table.
Both of those issues are viewed by Israel’s right-wing establishment as having been wrongly handled by the Obama administration and not keen to see a Biden administration revisit them with the same foreign-policy approach.
“The question is whether the lessons of Kerry’s failed efforts will have carried over,” said Gilboa. He noted that Biden is building a team of people in whom he trusts, can rely on and can work together as a team.
At 43, National Security Advisor appointee Jake Sullivan would become the youngest-ever to fill the key position. Sullivan is considered an expert in national security; he succeeded Blinken as Biden’s national security adviser. He was also former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff during Obama’s second administration. According to Gilboa, Blinken and Sullivan “both have the same ideas and experience.”Sullivan was involved in the secret talks with Iran, “so this is something to be concerned about,” noted Gilboa.
Michele Flournoy, Biden’s likely appointee for Secretary of Defense, served as under-Secretary of Defense during the Obama years. In the last four years, she worked closely with Blinken.
Thus, Blinken, Sullivan and Flournoy have all worked together in the past on the same issues, a key advantage from Biden’s point of view.
Gilboa said Israel should be concerned with these appointments “since all three were heavily involved in the Iran issue and the failed Palestinian negotiations.”… [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Democratic Senate Candidate Raphael Warnock’s Anti-Israel Track Record
Arielle Davidson
RealClearPolitics, Nov. 20, 2020
The upcoming Senate runoffs understandably have captured the attention of the country — and for reasons beyond control of the Senate. Last week, it was revealed that Raphael Warnock, a Democratic Senate candidate in one of Georgia’s two special elections, had signed a 2019 statement declaring the wall surrounding Israel’s West Bank to be “reminiscent of the Berlin Wall” and the “militarization of the West Bank” to be “reminiscent of the military occupation of Namibia by apartheid South Africa.” These analogies are not only profoundly incorrect but are also indicative of a growth in more radical anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments on the left.
The apartheid trope is a common line of attack used by those eager to delegitimize Israel through reductionist, acontextual analogies. It’s also become the battle cry of the insidious Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to facilitate the economic isolation of Israel on a global scale by encouraging all foreign parties from engaging in business with the Israeli government and Israeli companies.
Understanding why the apartheid analogy is false requires understanding the racial subservience and persecution that defined South African apartheid — and why analogizing such circumstances to those in the West Bank is malevolently belittling. The purpose of apartheid was to subjugate anyone who was non-white in all facets of society, from living quarters to employment to health care. It was a racialized system, premised on white supremacy, that wrought devastating effects on South Africa’s nonwhite population.
Conversely, while the situation in the West Bank is far from perfect, it is emphatically not South African apartheid. The security barrier that separates Palestinian neighborhoods in the West Bank from Israeli ones is not designed to segregate or demean either population. Israel built the security barrier to stem the infiltration of Palestinian terrorists following the bloody Second Intifada of 2001–04, which claimed 1,000 Israeli civilian lives and another 5,000 civilians wounded. The barrier’s general success has enhanced security by greatly reducing the incidence of terrorism.
The Berlin Wall analogy similarly fails, for it ignores that the wall’s purpose was to inhibit East Berliners from reaching freedom, not a mechanism for protecting the lives of West Berliners. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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For Further Reference:
Algemeiner Editor-in-Chief Urges Biden to Continue Trump’s Policies in Middle East: Algemeiner, Nov. 23, 2020 — US President-elect Joe Biden should seek to preserve the foreign policy accomplishments of the outgoing Trump administration in the Middle East, the editor-in-chief of The Algemeiner said in a television interview last week.
Can the Democratic Center Hold?: Yascha Mounk, WSJ, Nov. 20, 2020 — In January 2020, when the Democratic primaries were gearing up, most pundits and political consultants believed that the party’s base was longing for a very progressive candidate. After picking Hillary Clinton in 2016 because she was supposed to be the safer choice, the theory went, Democrats were fed up with moderation. They sought an uncompromising leftist who would vow to take the fight to Donald Trump.
Antony Blinken’s Track Record: Yoram Ettinger, The Ettinger Report, Nov. 24, 2020 — Dr. Albert Ellis, one of the world’s top psychologists, suggests that the study of past track records is an essential undertaking for an effective assessment of the future: “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.”
The Democratic Party Is Often Violent, Divisive and Hypocritical; If It Doesn’t Change, Trump Will Be Back | COMMENTARY: Ronald P. Boone, The Baltimore Sun, Nov. 20, 2020 — Democrats ask why millions of Americans repudiated their party in favor of repugnant and divisive Donald Trump.
