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Video Of The Week -Israel and Sudan Normalise Ties - https://tinyurl.com/y3o2rnxp
For the full article go to - https://tinyurl.com/y4fryba4
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Video Of The Week -3,200-Year-Old Canaanite Fortress https://tinyurl.com/y32a3g7v
Saeb Erekat repeatedly libeled Israel, aided terrorists and was an obstacle to peace. But Jewish values will always dictate that Israelis help those in need.
(October 19, 2020 / JNS) It’s the kind of story that drives a lot of friends of Israel nuts. One of its chief opponents, Palestinian Liberation Organization senior leader Saeb Erekat recently fell ill with COVID-19. Faced with the decision as to where to be treated, it was only natural that instead of going to a Palestinian hospital or even one in neighboring Jordan, he chose to go to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.
This is, after all, the same person who spent
his career lying about Israel, and smearing it as a nation of oppressors and
war criminals. He’s part of a government that spends far more on paying
salaries and pensions to terrorists and their families than on hospitals.
Indeed, in March of this year, he actually went as far as to falsely allege
that Israelis were spitting on Palestinian cars so as to spread the coronavirus
to them. And though he has served as the P.A.’s chief peace negotiator, he’s
spent his tenure in that position working to make peace negotiations
impossible, swearing that he will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state and
end the ongoing conflict.
However, when faced with the question of where
was the best place in the region to seek help, Israel was the obvious answer.
One of the region’s pre-eminent health-care facilities, Hadassah and its doctors
took him in.
Some Israelis and friends of the Jewish state can’t understand it. They see this willingness to help even enemies as a particular form of weakness. They cite the passage from the Midrash of the sages that says, “He who becomes compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate” as a good reason to turn Erekat down.
Others think that it was wrong of the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to exact concessions from the Palestinians in exchange for what may well be the best chance of saving Erekat’s life. And it wasn’t just right-wingers saying that. Michal Cotler-Wunsh, a moderate member of the Knesset from the Blue and White Party, asserted that prior to admitting him, Israel should have gotten the P.A. to agree to reciprocal humanitarian gestures, such as returning the bodies of slain Israeli soldiers being held by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip or freeing two Israeli Arabs who wandered over the border in that terrorist enclave.
That sounds only fair; still, the supposedly hardline government led by Netanyahu didn’t try to extract such concessions or at least didn’t try very hard to do so quietly. Why not?
One pragmatic answer is that for all of the antagonism between Israel and the P.A., in addition to the latter’s refusal to make peace, the day-to-day working relationship between them continues. Contrary to the incessant talk about the occupation, almost all Palestinians live under the dictatorial rule of P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas and his corrupt Fatah Party. There is a fair amount of security coordination going on that is partly aimed at reducing Palestinian attacks on Israelis, yet also focused on keeping Abbas alive against threats from his Hamas rivals.
Doing favors for Palestinian leaders is part of
this uneasy relationship, so it’s hardly surprising that Israel would reserve a
bed at Hadassah for the use of a person who has done so much to hurt the Jewish
state.
But the real reason goes far deeper than that.
As much as Israel is depicted as a modern day Sparta—a militarized state that is dominated and governed by its security establishment—Jewish values still play a crucial part in its decision-making. Being a Jewish state necessarily involves considerations that a purely utilitarian approach to life would reject.
Much like Netanyahu’s highly controversial
decision to trade more than 1,000 convicted Palestinian terrorists, including
many with blood on their hands, for the freedom of a kidnapped young soldier,
Israeli leaders often wind up doing things that objectively make little sense.
The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange let murderers of children walk free;
however, the obligation to redeem a captive took precedence and rather than
suffer politically for the decision, Netanyahu was applauded by voters even as
security experts deplored the precedent he had set.
By the same token, the generally tough-minded premier likely felt that it was impossible for him to refuse a humanitarian request, even from a bitter foe.
It’s doubtful that any other country would be so generous to an enemy, yet somehow, the notion that Israel would turn away a person in need is inconceivable. Unlike the English common-law tradition, there is a specific Jewish obligation to help others rather than to stand by only watching their plight.
Israel isn't perfect but it is often unfairly judged by a double standard about its conduct towards enemies that is not applied to any other democracy at war. Though it is far more scrupulous about trying to avoid hurting civilians when it fights its foes, it is continually blamed for any casualties in ways that others are not.
Like the peace offers that Erekat and his comrades have repeatedly rejected, no one will give Israel credit for its unilateral humanitarianism. But it’s entirely natural, if also frustrating, that Netanyahu would help a Palestinian leader in need even when we know that if the shoe were on the other foot, Israel’s foes would not do the same.
The instinctual application of traditional
Jewish values by the Jewish state’s secular government should not surprise
anyone. Even when it will not advance Israel’s cause, behaving decently to
those who would not reciprocate such a gesture is still the default position of
any government of the Jewish state.
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Video Of The Week - Lebanese Journalist - Peace with Israel Is Coming -https://tinyurl.com/y6o58zjo
By Stanley Reed, 9-10-2020 NY Times - https://nyti.ms/2Fk0q36
Until recently, the deal would have been unlikely, if not unthinkable — because what distinguishes Noble is the large natural gas business it has built in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, especially in Israel, an area that major oil companies had until now avoided.Chevron’s move is the latest milestone in a remarkable shift in perceptions about a relatively newregion for the petroleum industry in the eastern Mediterranean. Once a dead sea for the oilindustry, this area, reaching from the Nile Delta in Egypt up to Israel and Lebanon and around Cyprus, has come alive with exploration vessels, drilling rigs and production platforms in recentyears thanks to a series of large natural gas discoveries.
Those finds are drawing major oil companies into the area, attracted not only by the prospect of further undiscovered resources but by improving relations between Israel and its former foes Egypt and Jordan.
International oil giants previously steered clear of Israel, partly, to avoid alienating large Arab oil producers like Saudi Arabia. The move by Chevron, which this week edged ahead of Exxon Mobil to become America’s largest oil company by market value, indicates that thedays when Persian Gulf states bristle about business with Israel may be over. Recently, the UnitedArab Emirates and Bahrain established relations with Israel with apparent Saudi blessing.
“It is opening up the Israeli market to the world,” Nati Birenboim, a former Israeli energy official said of Chevron’s arrival. “Everyone knows when they bought Noble, they bought Israel.”More than 20 years ago, Noble came to Israel to hunt for petroleum. It has produced major natural gas finds that turned Israelcinto an exporter with long-term contracts worth an estimated $25 billion.
“I think what Chevron sees is the opportunity” to buy into “massive natural gas resources located in the center of a region with a lot of demand”
Along with the
drilling sites off the coast of Israel, a major discovery called the Zohr gas
field, found by the Italian energy company Eni in Egyptian waters in 2015, has
drawn development in the area.Total, the French oil firm, and Eni have even
extended the hunt into the sea off strife-torn Lebanon “It is a very attractive
region,” said Wayne Ackerman, a former adviser on gas to Saudi Aramco, who has
studied the area’s geology. “I am convinced there will be more discoveries
there.”
More
than 20 years ago, Noble helped put the region on the energy industry’s map.
Delek Drilling, an Israeli firm, brought the company to Israel to hunt for
petroleum. The partnership, which began in 1999, has produced major natural gas
finds that not only reduced Israel’s
dependence on imported
coal and oil but turned Israel — with some helpful nudging from American
diplomats — into an exporter with long-term contracts worth an estimated $25
billion to help power the neighboring economies of Jordan and Egypt.
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Based
on an Article from the “Algemeiner”
Erekat, also the secretary
general of the Executive Committee of the PLO, said in a 2014 interview with Al
Jazeera that “I will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state.”
Saeb Erakat has been extensively involved in all negotiations with Israel, including those conducted at Camp David (2000) and in Taba (2001). In 1991, he was the Vice-Chair of the Madrid Peace Delegation and was later the Vice-Chair at the Washington negotiations of 1992. Previously, he served as the Minister of Local Government for the Palestinian National Authority and is also Head of the Palestinian Side of the Steering and Monitoring Committee. He is the author of fourteen books on foreign policy, oil, conflict resolution, and negotiations.
His
brilliant diplomatic skills have succeeded in turning much of the Arab world
from pro-Palestinian to lukewarm or hostile.
He has a
long history of the most egregious lies, denying Jewish history, and justifying terror attacks. He’s even lied about his own life and his family’s history.
And that
is only scratching the surface.
Erakat
is not at all a “respected global leader.” He is a failure at everything he has
ever done.
Why
would Harvard hire a proven, serial liar, a failed negotiator, and politician
who has not helped his own people in any real way, and who is not really even
popular among Palestinians, to teach its students?
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