Briefs
Saturday, October 2nd, 2021
As rather beautifully cogently introduced by The Center For Peace Communications, Yossi Klein Halevy has written a book that invites replies, and which serves, uniquely as far as I know, as the exquisite Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor: A New Conversation About Narratives and Peace website.
Tuesday, September 28th, 2021
Graffiti at Melbourne IKEA: NO JEW JAB FOR OZ, as reported by The Algemeiner. People can be so demented.
Sunday, September 26th, 2021
It’s tough living in a place where everyone think it’s ok to be an asshole.
Gavriel Peretz [on Israel]
Friday, August 13th, 2021
What’s with Bahrain’s DERASAT thinktank signing an agreement not just with an Israeli counterpart, Jerusalem’s JCPA, nor even with two, also Herzlia’s AEI Abba Eban Institute for International Diplomacy at the Interdisciplinary Center, but now with three, adding Tel Aviv’s INSS. That doesn’t seem right to me; pick a counterpart.
On the INSS web site, the visit warrants not just the top story position but the heading “Special Announcement”. At JCPA it’s no longer the top story but the headline is prefixed “History:”. The Abba Eban Center doesn’t seem to have a news facility. Yet over at DERASAT, the post about the agreement with the JCPA (which a few days later is no longer even discoverable on their website) did not contain the word “Israel”. And there’s no mention at all of the two more recent agreements.
Wednesday, August 11th, 2021
On an Israeli TV news panel, here is Issawi Frej in career-defining, full-throttle top-flight impassioned co-existence mode, making religious Yesh Atid MK and former Minister of Education Shai Piron choke up on air.
An introduction to Issawi Frej, Israel’s Minister for Regional Cooperation, on YouTube by The Khaleej Times.
Thursday, August 5th, 2021
Is this a new method of diplomatic forum? Israel seems to have hosted its own mini-United Nations Security Council meeting by presenting to a gathering of ambassadors from the sitting UNSC countries; it’s bloody genius. Is that Lapid taking his current job seriously and imaginatively? Looks like it.
Wednesday, August 4th, 2021
As Israel finally passes a budget, Mansour Abbas, leader of the Islamist Raam party, appears to have been the kingmaker, is budgeted an unprecedented $16b for infrastructure, crime, healthcare, education and transport.
Saturday, July 17th, 2021
A mandate for President Isaac Herzog. It soars to this:
During the COVID-19 lockdowns, I found myself thinking: How can we set a new Guinness World Record and bring the largest number of Jews together for a show of solidarity and support on Zoom? My conclusion was that only the president – regardless of who that is – can gather the different backgrounds and denominations to the same “room.”
Friday, July 9th, 2021
A voice new to me, David E. Bernstein, gives a fresh and concise viewpoint on the tired topic of why so many love to hate on Israel, providing separate reasons for the disparate groups. For Christians:
Christian critics of Israel so often accuse Jews of not learning anything from the Holocaust; in their mind, the Holocaust is a story about Christian sin and possible redemption via the actions of the victims; the fate of the Jewish people as a people is at best irrelevant.
For Muslims:
Mohammed started his empire with limited territory and a small army, only to expand throughout the Middle East and North Africa. There is undoubtedly some latent fear that Israel is a camel’s nose under the tent for Jewish expansionism. This of course misunderstands Zionism and Judaism, but the average Muslim knows little about Judaism.
Sunday, July 4th, 2021
Thursday, June 24th, 2021
The Biden Administration appears to be walking back recognition of Golan and Jerusalem sovereignty. How dangerously and unsurprisingly lame.
Friday, June 11th, 2021
Jordan and Israel need to exchange electricity for water. Jordan can produce green solar-powered electricity at 60% of the cost that Israel can, while Israel is the world leader in processing sea water into drinking water. Jordan is in dire need of more water due to a massive influx of refugees who aren’t going anywhere, while Israel needs green electricity to power those desalinization plants.
Saturday, June 5th, 2021
The US State Department will no longer use the term Abraham Accords, Arutz Sheva reports. This sucks.
Wednesday, May 26th, 2021
The Lebanese are warming to Israel. I believe that one day there will be more than convivial relations between the two Levantine nations.
After some throat-clearing, Thomas Friedman promotes Trump’s Deal of the Century between Israel and the Palestinians. He writes regarding the Palestinian capital:
Biden should reshape U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian relations by opening a diplomatic mission to the P.A. — as the nascent Palestinian state government — near its headquarters in Ramallah.
That’s Ramallah, not Jerusalem, which is for Israel:
The U.S. should encourage the six Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel (Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates) to simultaneously move their embassies from Tel Aviv to West Jerusalem…
And then this:
Biden should propose negotiations on peace with Trump’s plan as the starting point.
Golly.
Saturday, May 22nd, 2021
In “The Realignment” authors Michael Doran and Tony Badran are forthright about the egregious and insensible Iran-appeasement policy that the Biden Administration is continuing from the Obama era, despite years now of experience both bitter (Syria) and sweet (Abraham Accords) demonstrating its utter folly.
Monday, May 17th, 2021
A sober-sounding Thomas Friedman argues that the Israeli-Hamas war broke out to derail the Lapid-Bennet-Mansour Abbas coalition that was being formed. Now, I would have thought that the unprecedentedly egregious Jewish-Arab tensions within Israel would be all the more reason to bring an Arab party into a governing coalition. Instead — and demonstrating how much I consistently misunderstand the Israeli mindset — Naftali Bennet explicitly ruled out such a coalition, returning to Netanyahu.
Sunday, May 16th, 2021
Jerusalem Post editor Yaacov Katz argues that Israel’s rough treatment of the international media during the current conflagration — duping them to entice Hamassholes into their tunnel network before bombing it, then razing the building that housed the AP and Al-Jazeera — will bite us in the behind.
I’m not so sure Katz is correct — it could be the media needed to stop taking Israel for granted, that they required a little fear put in them in order to finally do their job properly and aim for truth — but at at any rate the issue he raises is a real one.
Friday, May 14th, 2021
This feels important — Austria flies Israel’s flag alongside its own and the EU’s over the Chancellory in Vienna.
Excellent piece by Haviv Rettig Gur explaining that the current conflagration between Israel and Hamas is more about internal Palestinian power struggles.
Wednesday, May 12th, 2021
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defence in action, in a series of videos compiled by the UK’s The Sun.
Friday, April 9th, 2021
Israel’s INSS thinktank believes it’s time to more firmly oppose Assad’s Syria. Israel’s mostly hands-off approach towards this horrendous conflict on her borders may well go down in history as the main stain on Netanyahu’s record. Yet if Israel could have tipped the scales of civil war at some point to get rid of Assad, would things have been any better? We know from other interventions, eg Libya, the vacuum and chaos that would most likely have ensued. Very hard.
Tuesday, January 26th, 2021
Ra’anana-based Vertical Field signed with Emirates Smart Solutions & Technologies (ESST) to build a pilot of its vertical farms in the United Arab Emirates. Major cool.
Friday, January 1st, 2021
2020, the good news, by Doron Peskin at Israel’s Calcalist
Friday, December 25th, 2020
The potential for warm relations between Israel and Morocco may be more than with the Gulf nations, this piece argues, as relations have been significant for some time.
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2020
This lengthy interview with Secretary-General Sayyid Nasrallah may be useful for insight into Hezbollah’s perspectives. There are some bizarre connections, such as the notion that Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 because of deep concern regarding Iran’s “liberation of Khorramshahr” in the Iran-Iraq War.
Wednesday, December 16th, 2020
Good old Speccie:
For Britain, there are many lessons to be learned from the IDF, a democratic military machine that relies heavily on technology to engage enemies on various fronts and in diverse contexts.
This from “Britain is right to pursue closer military ties to Israel” by Jake Wallis Simons. I had not known that the source of Israel’s tip-off regarding Syria’s North Korean nuclear reactor was a British spy.
Israel intercepts a cruise missile in a test of its 3-tier missile defence system.
Thursday, December 10th, 2020
Monday, November 30th, 2020
Sunday, November 15th, 2020
Wow, after 5 years Yehuda Halevi St. is reopening, complete with underground light rail station. Will I still love you? Even more?
Sunday, November 8th, 2020
Seeming US President-elect Joe Biden “has said openly for a long time that “he will go back to the nuclear agreement,” warns Israel’s Settlements Minister and long-time soothsayer Tzachi Hanegbi. “I see that as something that will lead to a confrontation between Israel and Iran.”
Wednesday, November 4th, 2020
“How Israel Helped Win the Cold War” by Joshua Muravchik in Commentary Magazine. Great piece, great service. How I wish every American who writes anti-Israel comments in online threads all over — remember the Liberty, stop making us fight your wars for you, etc — would read this — very slowly.
Wednesday, October 28th, 2020
“Dubai is gulping the dividends of the peace with Israel with great thirst … there is mutual inspiration without the typical, regrettable condescension on our part.” Israeli journalist Ben Caspit spends four days in Dubai. Wawaweewa, the stuff of fondest fantasy!
Wednesday, September 30th, 2020
Some nice detail here about the business players poised to first benefit from the Abraham Accords.
The first big winner is Israel’s foremost venture capitalist and investment banker, Edouard Cukierman. Cukierman, who has the largest portfolio of Israeli biotech and technology startups through his Tel Aviv-based Catalyst Investment Fund, is also Israel’s leading mid-market M&A banker through his family’s Cukierman & Co Investment House.
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2020
In a rather fine essay for Commentary Magazine, Hussein Aboubakr writes:
Palestine was never merely a disputed geographical territory, it was a claim to the absolute fulfillment of the Islamic political vision, an eternal moral truth, secularized in Arab nationalism and sanctified in Islamism.
He then proceeds to show us a hopeful vision for what the post-Palestine Middle East might look like senza this murderous Arab dream.
Sunday, September 20th, 2020
Obvious yes but still worth a quick read: the people likely to benefit most from Israeli-Gulf relations are Arab Israelis.
In due time, they stand to serve as excellent mediators for any further economic and tourism ties between the UAE and Israel.
Friday, September 18th, 2020
“Recognizing that the Arab and Jewish peoples are descendant of a common ancestor…” — Let us savor the text of the Treaty of Peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Blessed are the peacemakers…
Thursday, September 17th, 2020
Tuesday, September 1st, 2020
Israel and UAE sign their first agreement in the normalization talks: on banking and finance.
Monday, August 31st, 2020
UAE president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan signs an order cancelling the boycott of Israeli goods. May they acquire a taste for Osem soup almonds and Beit Hashita pickles!
Dore Gold explains that Arab nations have long held common cause with Israel. This is part of Mosaic Magazine‘s symposium on the Israel-UAE peace accords, and contains links to the other essays.
Sunday, August 16th, 2020
“A juggernaut of creativity, innovation and high-tech:” US national security advisor Robert O’Brien provides Hugh Hewitt with inside baseball on the American angle of the magnificent Israel-UAE Abraham Accords.
Saturday, August 15th, 2020
“From left field, a world-changing moment executed by the executive branch…” The Commentary Magazine podcasters speak to the historic Israel-UAE deal.
Friday, August 14th, 2020
Like the more insightful Thomas L. Friedman of yore, full-throated congrats regarding the Israel-UAE agreement.
Friday, August 7th, 2020
Shamefully kowtowing to China, Israel has withdrawn a Ministry of Health public service video that humorously refers to the coronavirus as “Made in China (yet works properly)”. This isn’t going well is it?
Tuesday, August 4th, 2020
This is gold. For Bar-Ilan University’s BESA Center, Kenneth S. Brower pens a blunt bracing comprehensive assessment “Israel Versus Anyone: A Military Net Assessment of the Middle East” with conclusions aplenty. Here’s one:
The Israeli political-military leadership has over-responded to the current tactical threat posed by Iran and its non-state forces and has all but ignored the looming potential strategic threat of renewed hostility with Sunni Arab nations.
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2020
In their respective theatres of the Middle East, Europe and Eurasia, the prime strategic directive for liberal bulwarks Israel, Britain and the United States is to block aspiring authoritarian hegemons.
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