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Contents: | Weekly Quotes | Short Takes | On Topic Links
A Flood of Gallic Gall in Paris: Zalman Shoval, Israel Hayom, June 6, 2016
The Expulsion That Backfired: When Iraq Kicked Out its Jews: Edwin Black, Times of Israel, May 31, 2016
Iran’s Chess Board: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, June 6, 2016
Obama Will be Neck-and-Neck With G.W. Bush as the Most Incompetent U.S. President of our Time: Conrad Black, National Post, June 3, 2016
WEEKLY QUOTES
“You don’t need to go to Paris in order to solve a conflict between neighbours…The only way to get a stable regional arrangement that will allow us to create real peace in the Middle East is if the parties of the region come to understandings between them…We believe the Arab states would give backing to direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians…Therefore we prefer a Middle Eastern process and not a process that somebody is trying to create in Paris.” —Director-General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry Dore Gold. World powers meeting in Paris said they would develop a package of incentives in the coming months to push Israel and the Palestinians to make peace. Top diplomats from 26 nations, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, said they would work to organize an international conference before the end of the year. (Jewish Press, June 2, 2016 & Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2016)
“If the nations meeting in Paris this week really want to advance peace they should join me in calling on Abu Mazen (PA President Mahmood Abbas) to come to direct negotiations of this kind. This is the way to peace – there is no other…We have not stopped looking for paths to peace – including with the assistance of important developments in the region. The way to peace does not go through international conferences that seek to impose agreements, make the Palestinians’ demands more extreme and thereby make peace more remote.” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Jewish Press, June 2, 2016)
“This decision is huge! It means that Jewish concerns are respected with all others, and that antisemitism is also recognized as bigotry, as well as something that triggers macro-aggressions… And while normally, from an ideological standpoint, I would prefer to see such battles fought out democratically, the BDS forces have continually ignored, disrespected and undermined the democratic process — repeatedly raising the issue despite losing…I hope this wise decision will allow McGill to return to the civility and reason that has been the general tone on campus for most of my 20-plus years with this world-class institution.” — McGill University history professor Gil Troy. Troy was among 150 academics at McGill who recently signed an open letter lauding the principal of the University for condemning BDS and calling on faculty everywhere to do the same. Troy was responding to the “Reference re Legality of the BDS Motion and Similar Motions” — a long, detailed “legal” document issued by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Judicial Board, which reached what it called a “unanimous” decision to eliminate efforts to promote anti-Israel boycotts at the Montreal-based school, asserting that such activities are discriminatory, unconstitutional and in violation of SSMU’s “equity policy.” (Algemeiner, June 2, 2016)
“For the first time in a court decision, the court said the BDS declaration in the city was discriminatory, anti-Semitic, broke human rights and needed to be canceled…Historically we have encountered the same BDS as the rest of the world with calls for academic boycotts and the like…Over the last year and a half there was a tectonic movement in Spain as the far Left gained access to public institutions and local government…We saw a sudden increase in the intention and the quality and ambitions of BDS activities in Spain.” — Angel Mas, chairman of ACOM, an Israel lobby group working to combat BDS in Spain. In January, the City Council of Langreo, a city of 43,000 in northern Spain, passed a declaration boycotting both Israel and any person or company that might support the Jewish state. ACOM filed a lawsuit against the city council’s actions and the court accepted the merits of its case, that the boycott brings discrimination and is tantamount to incitement to hate crimes. (Jerusalem Post, June 2, 2016)
“We let our actions do the talking…And our soldiers are presently sharpening their knives to slaughter the atheists, the mockers of the prophet and every other apostate in the region.” — Shaykh Abu Ibrahim Al-Hanif, who was identified in the latest edition of the I.S. propaganda magazine Dabiq as the “emir” of its branch in Bangladesh. After the near-decapitated body of a 68-year-old Hindu priest was found in western Bangladesh on Tuesday, the local I.S. affiliate claimed responsibility in a communiqué that vowed to “cleanse” the country of “filth.” It was the latest in a wave of sectarian killings in Bangladesh — many of them attributed to a regional franchise of I.S. that is reportedly led by a Canadian and former southwestern Ontario resident named Tamim Chowdhury. According to a report in the Bangladesh newspaper The Daily Star, Chowdhury now uses the alias Shaykh Abu Ibrahim Al-Hanif. Although not large, the Bangladeshi I.S. branch is believed to have committed more than two dozen murders over the past 18 months, according to the Daily Star, which said some members were veterans of the Syrian conflict. (National Post, June 8, 2016)
"This total victory against IS in Sirte is near. We will be able to also take control of all these zones it has occupied. We also hope that this war against terrorism can unite Libya. But it will be long. And the international community knows it." — Fayez al-Serraj, the prime minister of Libya's U.N.-backed government Fayez al-Serraj told France's Journal du Dimanche newspaper that his government needed international intelligence and technical assistance, but "not airstrikes." The comments came a day after a spokesman for forces allied with his government said they captured a military base about 30 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Sirte. According to Ziad Hadia, the Sirte representative in the parliament based in eastern Libya, more than 2,000 IS fighters are thought to be based in the city. Foreign fighters, mostly from Tunisia and sub-Saharan Africans, account for more than 85 percent of the fighters, he added. (National Post, June 5, 2016)
“The shah was no Jeffersonian democrat, but can anyone seriously argue that 35 years of authoritarian rule by religious extremists have been more favorable to human rights in Iran? And can anyone doubt that Iran’s seismic shift from being a strategic ally of the United States to being a terrorist-sponsoring nuclear proliferator has not left the Middle East and the wider world a more dangerous and unstable place? The new documents, sadly, reveal how gullible an American president can be, how naïve and otherworldly and how oblivious to the real-world consequences of his decisions. Apparently, we have learned precious little from the shah’s overthrow.” — John Bolton. According to State Department cables relating to the fall of the Shah of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, in January 1979, secretly sought U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s assistance in overcoming opposition from Iran’s military, still loyal to the shah. Khomeini promised that if he could return to Iran from exile in France, which the U.S. could facilitate, he would prevent a civil war, and his regime would not be hostile to Washington. What Carter did in response to Khomeini’s pledge is not entirely clear from the newly declassified materials, but Khomeini did return; the military either fell into line or was ruthlessly purged; and Iran switched 180 degrees from being a strategic US ally to being one of our most implacable adversaries. (New York Post, June 4, 2016)
“A central predicament of 2016 continues. GOP elites and intellectual cadres may be clueless about America right now, but they have an informed and appropriately elevated sense of the demands of the presidency. They fear Mr. Trump’s temperament and depth do not meet its requirements. Trump supporters have a more grounded sense of America and its problems but too low a sense of what the presidency can demand in regard to personal virtues. If this problem is to be resolved, it is Mr. Trump who will resolve it. He shows little interest. This space said in February that his political fortunes would hinge on whether America came to think of him as a good man and a fully stable one. It is still true.” — Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2016)
SHORT TAKES
BOMB IN ISTANBUL KILLS 11 NEAR TOURIST DISTRICT (Istanbul) — A car bomb destroyed a police vehicle near a central tourist district in Istanbul on Tuesday morning, instantly killing 11 people and wounding dozens more. Explosives in a parked car were detonated by remote control as a police shuttle bus passed through the historic Beyazit district during rush hour. Seven of the dead were police officers. Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, militants from two groups Turkey is currently fighting — I.S. and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K. — have staged major suicide attacks in urban areas this year. (New York Times, June 7, 2016)
NETANYAHU IN RUSSIA AS TIES WITH MOSCOW STRENGTHEN (Moscow) — Prime Minister Netanyahu headed to Moscow for his third visit to the Kremlin in nine months, as Israel-Russia ties continue to burgeon. The meeting is the fourth one between Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the same period, after the pair also met at the sidelines of the UN climate change conference in Paris. The pretext for this visit is to mark 25 years of official diplomatic relations between Israel and Russia. Last year, Netanyahu and Putin reached a landmark agreement to coordinate all Israeli and Russian forces in and over the skies of Syria. (Arutz Sheva, June 6, 2016)
RUSSIA TO RETURN ISRAELI TANK USED IN ’82 BATTLE WITH SYRIANS (Moscow) — In a sign of growing cooperation, Putin has agreed to return to Israel a tank that was seized during a disastrous 1982 battle with Syrian forces in southern Lebanon, an episode that left three Israeli soldiers missing in action and has haunted Israel for more than 30 years. The gesture of good will was announced before a visit to Moscow by Netanyahu. Netanyahu said last week that Putin had signed an order to return the tank, which the Syrians sent to Moscow for examination, and which has been on display at the armored corps museum in Moscow. The three Israeli soldiers — Zachary Baumel, Zvi Feldman and Yehudah Katz — were in two tanks when they were ambushed. Israeli officials could not immediately specify which tank the Russians had pledged to return. (New York Times, June 5, 2016)
FIVE DEAD IN TERROR ATTACK ON JORDANIAN INTELLIGENCE HEADQUARTERS (Amman) — Five members of the General Intelligence Department (GID) were killed early Monday in an attack at the headquarters of the secret police in Baqa’a, a suburb of Amman. The attack on the security office, about 21 kilometers north of Amman, took place on the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Three of the five victims were intelligence officers; the others were a guard and a receptionist at the office. More than 100,000 people live in Baqa’a, including many who fled the 1948 war against the newly reborn State of Israel by its Arab neighbors, and the generations of descendants. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. Earlier this year, a number of I.S. supporters were killed in a security operation carried out by Jordanian government troops in the city of Irbid. (Jewish Press, June 6, 2016)
U.N. WILL REQUEST SYRIAN PERMISSION FOR AID AIRDROPS (Geneva) — The United Nations said it will seek Syria’s permission to conduct air drops of humanitarian aid to more than a dozen besieged areas of the country because the regime repeatedly was denying full access by land to convoys carrying food, medical and other emergency supplies. The announcement Friday at an emergency meeting of the Security Council came after a June 1 deadline set by a group of countries that support the Syrian peace process passed without notable improvement in aid deliveries. On Friday, an expected delivery of emergency food aid to the rebel-held town of Daraya didn’t arrive, dashing the hopes of thousands of hungry and malnourished civilians in the Damascus suburb. (Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2016)
HAMAS RELEASES NEW PROPAGANDA VIDEO FEATURING 10-YEAR-OLD CHILD (Gaza) — “There is no place for you here,” a child proclaimed in a new Hamas propaganda video that was delivered in broken Hebrew. In the video, the child threatens Israel. “The right of return is holy,” the child declared while dressed in a military uniform. “This is our homeland. Your homeland is abroad.” The child calls the State of Israel “criminal murderers. I won’t forget and I won’t forgive.” The child appears in the video clip with a weapon and is chasing after IDF soldiers. He promises Israel: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a difficult massacre.” At the end of the video clip, the boy holds his knife over the body of a dead IDF soldier and then looks at the camera while holding a pistol. (Jerusalem Online, June 7, 2016)
PLOT TO ATTACK EURO 2016 SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIP THWARTED (Kiev) — The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) says it had thwarted a plot to attack soccer's European Championship in France by arresting a Frenchman attempting to cross from Ukraine into the EU via Poland armed to the teeth. The SBU said it had been following the 25-year-old, and allowed him to purchase machine-guns, rocket propelled grenades, TNT and other weapons before he was arrested on the border between Ukraine and Poland. The SBU didn't identify the man, but said he was driven by ultra-nationalist views and that he had spoken out against France's immigration policy and the spread of Islam. The suspect planned a series of attacks on bridges, railways, Jewish and Muslim places of worship, French government buildings, and buildings connected to the 2016 European Championship, the SBU said. (CBC, June 6, 2016)
THREE SOMALI-AMERICANS FOUND GUILTY OF TRYING TO JOIN I.S. (Minneapolis) —
Three Somali-American friends were found guilty on Friday of federal charges that they tried to travel to Syria to join I.S. The verdicts against the three men — Guled Omar, 21; Abdirahman Daud, 22; and Mohamed Farah, 22 — came after a 17-day trial in which onetime friends from Minnesota’s large Somali community testified against one another. The convictions capped an investigation that has led to six other young men pleading guilty to terrorism charges, and once again shined a harsh light on radicalization among young men in the country’s largest Somali community. More than 20 young men from Minnesota have left to join the Shabab militant group in Somalia and that more than 15 have tried or succeeded in leaving to join I.S. (New York Times, June 3, 2016)
AAA REJECTS BDS RESOLUTION (Washington) — the American Anthropological Association (AAA) voted to reject a resolution for the academic boycott of Israel. The resolution, which sought to officially adopt a boycott to refrain from formal collaborations with Israeli academic institutions – not including collaborations with individual academics – was narrowly defeated by 2,423 votes against and 2,384 votes in favor. The full body of the association, comprising some 10,000 members, was encouraged to vote on the resolution over the course of the past six weeks. The association reported that 51 percent of its eligible members voted, the largest turnout in the organization’s history. (Jerusalem Post, June 7, 2016)
CUOMO TO HALT STATE BUSINESS WITH GROUPS THAT BACK BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL (New York) — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York ordered agencies under his control on Sunday to divest themselves of companies and organizations aligned with a Palestinian-backed boycott movement against Israel. Cuomo set executive-branch and other state entities in opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or B.D.S. Cuomo made his announcement at the Harvard Club in Manhattan, describing the B.D.S. movement as an “economic attack” on Israel. “We cannot allow that to happen,” the governor said, adding that, “If you boycott against Israel, New York will boycott you.” imilar bills have been introduced in both houses of the New York Legislature, and a Republican-sponsored bill passed the State Senate, which the party leads, in January. (New York Times, June 5, 2016)
40,000 DISPLAY SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL IN NEW YORK (New York) — Forty thousand Americans marched on Sunday in the pouring rain to celebrate the annual Israel parade in New York City. Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue was transformed into a blue and white spectacle as participants waved the Israeli flag and tens of thousands more stood and cheered. The parade, first founded in 1964, is takng place for the 52nd year. Representatives from more than 250 organizations marched along Fifth Avenue from 57th Street to 74th Street. Joining the parade were also Broadway actors starring in the classic ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ who sang excerpts from the show. (Ynet, June 6, 2016)
JUSTICE MINISTRY ISSUES LIST OF NGOS THAT MUST DISCLOSE THEY WORK FOR FOREIGN ENTITIES (Jerusalem) — The Justice Minsitry NGO Registrar published the official document detailing the 27 NGOs and Associations which would be compelled to mention in all their official literature that the bulk of their funding comes from foreign countries, and their representatives would have to wear special ID tags while visiting the Knesset — should the “NGO Law” be passed. The list notes the names of the NGOs, the amount they received from foreign entities and the percentage of their income those foreign funds constitute. Attorney Talia Sasson, President of the New Israel Fund, said that about half the NGOs on the list receive funding from NIF. (Jewish Press, June 2, 2016)
FRENCHMAN ON TRIAL FOR FRAUD SAYS HE GAVE NETANYAHU 170,000 EURO (Paris) — French tycoon Arnaud Mimran on Monday said that he gave Prime Minister Netanyahu €170,000 ($193,000) in 2001. Speaking with Israel's Channel 10, Mimram said that the actual amount was much larger than the €35,000 ($39,700) that Netanyahu admitted to earlier in the day. Netanyahu acknowledged earlier in the day that he had received contributions from the French tycoon on trial for alleged fraud, but said they were not political and were used for promoting Israel. The allegation has received widespread attention in Israel, with the country's attorney general examining Mimran's testimony. (I24, June 6, 2016)
ISRAELI MKS ON OFFICIAL VISIT TO TAJIKISTAN (Dushanbe) — Knesset Members Sharren Haskel (Likud) and Yoseph Yonah (Zionist Camp) concluded an official visit to Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, where they held a series of meetings with senior state officials. The visit marked the first time that members of Israel`s political echelon visit Tajikistan in an official capacity. Relations between the countries were established in 1992, and they are defined as “friendly relations.” Israel is represented in Tajikistan by a non-resident ambassador. Tajikistan, formerly a part of the Soviet Union, is a relatively small country (though its territory is seven times larger than Israel`s), and its total population is estimated at 8.6 million. (Israel Foreign Affairs, June 5, 2016)
75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FARHUD (Baghdad) — June 1-2 was the 75th anniversary of the Farhud, the 1941 pogrom by pro-Nazi Arabs attempting to exterminate the Jews of Baghdad. Hundreds were murdered and raped, and many Jewish homes and business looted and burned during a two-day orgy of hate and violence orchestrated by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. In Arabic, Farhud means “violent dispossession.” The Holocaust-era pogrom was the first step toward the extinguishing the 27 centuries of Jewish life in Iraq. It led to the eventual mass expulsion of some 850,000 Jews from Arab lands into Israel. At a ceremony in Washington, 27 candles were lit, one for each of the centuries of Iraqi Jewish existence abruptly terminated shortly after Israel was created. Then the candles will be abruptly snuffed out. Eight and a half shofar blasts followed, symbolizing the 850,000 Jews forcibly evicted from Arab lands, mainly into Israel. (Jewish Press, June 1, 2016)
FRITZ STERN, REFUGEE AND LEADING HISTORIAN OF GERMANY, DIES AT 90 (New York) — Fritz Stern, who fled Nazi Germany as a boy and became a leading historian of the nation, illuminating the forces that shaped the German state from its founding through the Holocaust to modern times, died May 18 in New York City. He was 90. Dr. Stern spent half a century as a professor at Columbia University, where he was educated after arriving in New York City on the eve of World War II. He was 12 years old when his family left Germany in 1938 and took with him the memory of a society on the brink of the darkest chapter in its history. In decades of scholarly pursuits, “no country, no society, is shielded from the evils that the passivity of decent citizens can bring about,” he wrote. “That is a German lesson of the twentieth century — for all of us.” (Washington Post, May 20, 2016)
A Flood of Gallic Gall in Paris: Zalman Shoval, Israel Hayom, June 6, 2016—Paris almost drowned in the floodwaters of the overflowing Seine River, and the French initiative for peace in the Middle East appears to have met a similar fate.
The Expulsion That Backfired: When Iraq Kicked Out its Jews: Edwin Black, Times of Israel, May 31, 2016—After Adolf Hitler’s defeat in May 1945, many Nazis melted away from the Reich, smuggled out by such organizations as the infamous Odessa group and the lesser-known Catholic lay network Intermarium, as well as the CIA and KGB. They ensured the continuation of the Nazi legacy in the postwar Arab world.
Iran’s Chess Board: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, June 6, 2016 —Strategic thinking has always been Israel’s Achilles’ heel. As a small state bereft of regional ambitions, so long as regional realities remained more or less static, Israel had little reason to be concerned about the great game of the Middle East.
But the ground is shifting in the lands around us. The Arab state system, which ensured the strategic status quo for decades, has collapsed.
Obama Will be Neck-and-Neck With G.W. Bush as the Most Incompetent U.S. President of our Time: Conrad Black, National Post, June 3, 2016 —Gary Mason wrote in the Globe and Mail on May 27 a column presumably entitled by his editors “Obama’s Imperfections Already Fading.” The contents of his piece justify the title, and my subject here is that column, not Mason himself.
