Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Israel and Sudan to Normalise Ties

 Video Of The Week -Israel and Sudan Normalise Ties - https://tinyurl.com/y3o2rnxp

For the full article go to - https://tinyurl.com/y4fryba4

 Israel and Sudan agree to normalization of relations between the countries and to end state of belligerence between them

 US President Donald Trump announced on Friday that Sudan will normalize ties with Israel, becoming the third Arab country to do so in recent months, after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

 During a call with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Sovereign Council president General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and civilian leader and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, Trump brought reporters into the Oval Office and announced, “The state of Israel and the Republic of Sudan have agreed to make peace.” “It’s peace in the Middle East without bloodshed,” Trump added.

 The President indicated that at least five additional countries want to join in a peace deal with Israel.

 Netanyahu told Trump, “We are expanding the circle of peace so rapidly with your leadership. Trump responded by saying, “There are many, many more coming.”

 "The leaders agreed to the normalization of relations between Sudan and Israel and to end the state of belligerence between their nations," said a subsequent joint statement issued by the three countries.

 The statement added that Sudan’s transitional government has “demonstrated its courage and commitment to combating terrorism, building its democratic institutions, and improving its relations with its neighbors.”

 As a result, “the United States and Israel agreed to partner with Sudan in its new start and ensure that it is fully integrated into the international community,” it continued.

 A signing ceremony is expected to be held at the White House in coming weeks, said officials quoted by Reuters.

 "Today Khartoum says yes to peace with Israel, yes to recognition of Israel and yes to normalization with Israel," he added.

 “This follows on Sudan’s recent agreement to resolve certain claims of United States victims of terror and their families. Yesterday, in fulfillment of that agreement, the transitional government of Sudan transferred $335 million into an escrow account for these victims and their families,” the statement said.

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Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Why Israel Chose to aid an Ailing Enemy

 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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Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Chevronʼs Purchase Could Unlock Israelʼs Natural Gas Bonanza

 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

 Chevron, the American oil giant, wrapped up the acquisition on Monday of a relatively small Houston-based company called Noble Energy, paying about $4 billion.

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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Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Serial Liar and Failed Diplomat Erekat to Lecture on Diplomacy

 

Video Of The Week - BBC smears Roman Abramovich https://tinyurl.com/y6qoqxvn

Based on an Article from the “Algemeiner”

 Erekat will mentor students and give virtual seminars as a fellow in The Future of Diplomacy Project at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

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.

 What diplomatic victory has Erakat ever achieved? He has been instrumental in painting the Palestinians into a corner, stopping negotiations with Israel even after “annexation” is off the table, which only hurts his own people.

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 liesdenying 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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