Biden Scraps Israeli Flag in East Jerusalem

 Video Of The Week - Nikki Haley Warns Biden - https://tinyurl.com/3curzm6v

For the full Article By Callie Patteson From NEW YORK POST 15-7-2022 - https://tinyurl.com/4y3yzje6

The Israeli flag was notably absent from President Biden’s limousine as he traveled to East Jerusalem Friday morning, a move critics said represented an insult to the Jewish state.

The removal of the Star of David flag — which was first reported by the Jerusalem Post — also undercut the administration’s insistence that Biden’s visit to the Augusta Victoria Hospital was not political in nature. The White House made the claim to justify turning down a request from the Israeli government that its officials be allowed to accompany Biden.

Since Biden’s arrival Wednesday, the presidential motorcade had flown the Israeli flag while traveling through Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in keeping with traditional protocol. Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, recognized the latter city as Israel’s capital in 2017, and the current administration has not formally withdrawn that status.

On Thursday, the president said he was “honored to be back” in Jerusalem, which he described as the “capital of Israel” during a news conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid.

Later in the presser, Biden was asked about his trip to East Jerusalem, which has long been floated as the potential capital of a future Palestinian state.

“You’ll visit, tomorrow, East Jerusalem, and you won’t be accompanied by an Israeli official,” one reporter said. “Does this represent a change in your administration’s view regarding the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and if East Jerusalem is part of it?”

“The answer to your last question is no,” Biden answered, without elaborating.

Israel captured East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War in 1967 and formally annexed it in 1980. Successive governments have insisted that the entire city — sacred to Christians, Muslims and Jews alike — is part of Israeli territory and that partition cannot be part of peace talks with the Palestinians.

“Today’s pictures of his [Biden’s] limousine on its way to east Jerusalem, without the Israeli flag that has been flying at its helm until now, highlights the message he is trying to send; that the sovereignty of Jerusalem, Israel’s eternal capital, is on the table for negotiation,” Danny Danon, a member of the opposition Likud party and Israel’s former representative at the United Nations, said in a statement to the Jerusalem Post.

“On this, I say to the President; President Biden, this move only spreads false hopes and sows discord instead of peace,” Danon added. “Just as no leader would request that Washington or any world capital be divided, so too Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people, will forever remain united.”

uring his trip, Biden has reiterated US support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling it the “best way” to ensure “a lasting negotiated peace.”

“Both states fully respecting the equal rights of their citizens; both people enjoying equal measures of freedom,” he said Thursday. “And any more that takes us further from that outcome — I believe — anything is detrimental to the long-term security of Israel.”

On Friday, the White House said Biden had insisted on the importance of negotiations to create an “independent, sovereign, viable and contiguous Palestinian state” during a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

However, Biden admitted to reporters following the meeting that “the ground is not ripe at this moment to restart negotiations.”

“I do believe in this moment, when Israel is improving relations with its neighbors throughout the region, we can harness that same momentum to reinvigorate the peace process between the Palestinian people and the Israelis,” he added.

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West Bank Security Fence - Israel's Lifesaver

Video Of The Week - Underground Barrier Stops Gazan Terrrorists - https://tinyurl.com/acrx3nvb

By HERB KEINON 9-7-2022

For the full article go to - https://tinyurl.com/4m6pw4rj 

Semantics matter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Is it the West Bank or Judea and Samaria? Are the areas Israel gained control over in the Six Day War “occupied” territories or “disputed” ones? Do Jews beyond the Green Line live in “settlements” or “communities?”

More often than not, the word selection reflects a worldview 

In the same vein, how one refers to the meandering fence built close to the Green Line at the height of the second intifada says much about a person’s politics. Call it the “separation barrier,” and you likely believe in a two-state solution and want to “separate” from the Palestinians. Call it the “security fence” or “security barrier”  and you likely see it as a defensive barrier meant to save lives.

Refer to it as the “Apartheid Wall,” and it is abundantly clear where you stand. Roger Waters calls it the apartheid wall, as does – most likely – the chairperson of Ben & Jerry’s board of directors.

Numbers are useful in deflating claims  and the numbers are straightforward.

There were more than 3,000 attacks that originated from Judea and Samaria from September 2000 until the end of 2006 that resulted in the deaths of 1,622 people killed inside the Green Line in terrorist attacks.

From 2007, when most of the existing fence was up, until today, he says there have been 141 attacks from Judea and Samaria inside Israel, that led to the killing of some 100 people.

Those numbers tell the whole tale. The fence wasn’t set up as a border or as a means of suppressing the Palestinians, but rather to save lives. And the numbers show it succeeded in fulfilling that objective.

The decision to build the fence was part of three pronged approach to the wave of terror.

The first prong was a military operation – Defensive Shield. This was an offensive military campaign that brought the IDF back into the Palestinian cities from which it had withdrawn under the Oslo accords.

The second prong was to prepare a security barrier as a defensive tool.

And the third prong was to prepare a political horizon, which culminated in a speech by then-president George W. Bush delivered at the end of June 2002, in which he said that if the Palestinians changed their leadership, reformed their institutions and fought error, then the US would work toward the creation of a two-state solution.

There were hardships , but great efforts were made to ease the hardships. Also, he notes, not one Palestinian home was demolished in building the barrier.

“The fence is only a temporary security route that will be changed the minute we sit and negotiate and agree on a border,” he says. “Israel has always said, even after negotiations with the Palestinians after the fence was built – at Annapolis [in 2007] – that the fence is not a border, but a defensive measure.

The fence, like the other obstacles, is a security measure. It does not establish a border, political or otherwise.”

Some 470 km. of the barrier has been erected. Various routes of the fence have been proposed, with the original route planned to be some 740 km. The route was modified several times over the years by the High Court of Justice following petitions from human rights groups representing Palestinians.

For most of its length, the barrier is a chain-linked fence with sensors, surveillance cameras, barbed wires and patrol roads. Only some 5% of the barrier is actually a 9-meter tall concrete wall, and most of that is in urban areas – such as Jerusalem – where a wall takes up much less space to build.

Tellingly, the mini-wave of terror earlier this year, during which 19 people were killed in six weeks starting in late March, led to a decision to repair the barrier where it had been damaged, and plug holes through which some of the terrorists who carried out those attacks moved across the Green Line.

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BDS Licked!!

 Video Of The Week - UN Abuses its Power to Demonise Israel https://tinyurl.com/mpc6zm8f

Lessons of Ben & Jerry's: Boycotting Israel isn't Low-Risk

For the full article by Emily Schrader go to https://tinyurl.com/5bf87j4v

This past week the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s, Unilever, made a major announcement effectively nullifying the 2021 decision by the board of Ben & Jerry’s to boycott Israel (and Palestinians) in the West Bank. But while this was absolutely the right economic and moral decision by Unilever, and really should have happened much sooner, it doesn’t mean the war, even over ice cream, is won.

The official response of Ben & Jerry’s again confirmed its opposition to its parent company’s decision, in a stunning display of hypocrisy. The ice cream brand wrote in a tweet, “We are aware of the Unilever announcement. While our parent company has taken this decision, we do not agree with it.... We continue to believe it is inconsistent with Ben & Jerry’s values for our ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

Values?  Ben & Jerry’s sells ice cream, not defense technology. Its self-righteous statement also neglects the fact that both Israelis and Palestinians pay the price for the ridiculous policy of boycotting the West Bank. Even more absurd, Unilever operates in Iran, heavily in China, and as of April 2022 was still selling ice cream in Russia while Putin’s forces were committing war crimes on a daily basis.

Ben & Jerry’s has always presented itself as a progressive company, taking positions on many issues within the US, such as police conduct. But Ben & Jerry’s also openly supported the Iran deal – while being silent on the violent oppression of Iranian dissidents.

The company hasn’t issued any statement of condemnation or boycott of China for its ethnic cleansing of Uighur Muslims, its illegal organ harvesting, its oppression of journalists, or its antidemocratic takeover of territories such as Hong Kong. In fact, the company sells ice cream in China. Most recently, Unilever even invested $112 million in a new ice cream factory in China.

Why?  Because Unilever cannot risk upsetting the Chinese Communist Party with how deeply entangled they are. But Israel? Low risk, high social reward – at least in some progressive circles that believe Israel is the be-all and end-all of everything wrong with society.

What Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s have now learned, however, is that attempts to boycott Israel are not as low-risk as they may have thought.  In the months following Ben & Jerry’s announcement to boycott selling ice cream over the Green Line, lawsuits were filed over the illegal termination of their contract with Ben & Jerry’s Israel. Additionally, multiple US states, including New York and Illinois (where boycotting Israel is illegal), began divesting pension funds from Unilever in response. Unilever’s stock also paid a heavy price, dropping 25%.

And that is the most important lesson for companies considering taking similar steps to selectively target Israel: It is no longer low-risk to promote antisemitic ideologies in the name of social justice, nor should it be. The economic pressure on Unilever worked because it was forced to, literally, pay the price.

Unfortunately, this won’t be enough to stamp out the antisemitic sentiment behind the BDS movement and the attempts to sanitize and repackage Jew hatred by companies like Ben & Jerry’s. The ice cream manufacturer’s response to the entire ordeal demonstrates that it has learned nothing, and will continue to promote misleading ideas of what’s happening in Israel.

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Unprecedented Meeting With Arab States Re Iranian Threat

Video Of The Week -Israel’s Iron Beam Even Better Than Iron Dome - https://tinyurl.com/bpbhk43y

The Wall Street Journal reports that top military officials from Israel, Egypt, Jordan Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as representatives from the U.S., Bahrain and UAE, discussed the shared Iranian threat

Israel took part in a secret, U.S.-initiated meeting of top military officials from throughout the Middle East in Egypt in March in order to discuss combatting the shared threat of Iran’s missile and drone capabilities, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The talks, held at Sharm El Sheikh, included senior military officers from Israel, Egypt, Jordan and two countries with whom Israel does not have relations: Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain sent officers to the meeting as well, the report said, and Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of the U.S. Central Command, represented the United States, which convened the gathering.

The Wall Street Journal report said that this meeting was the first time that such a range of senior Arab and Israeli officers were gathered by the United States to talk about a shared threat.

According to the report, it was made possible by a series of regional shifts: fears of Iran shared by the states, strengthened ties under the Abraham Accords as well as Arab states’ desire to acquire Israeli arms and defense technology.

Biden's Mideast visit could advance Israel-UAE-Saudi defense alliance

An Israel-Gulf defense pact won't solve Israel's greatest challenge

U.S. lawmakers aim to help integrate Israel, Arab states' air defenses against Iran

The recent attacks by Iran and its proxies against Saudi infrastructure and other targets in the Middle East have prompted the coalition of Israel and a number of Arab countries in the region to develop a joint mechanism for detecting and intercepting missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. 

There has already been security coordination on this matter between the Israeli defense establishment and its peers in some of these countries. This cooperation includes operational coordination, the exchange of relevant intelligence about threats, visits by delegations and joint training between Israeli and foreign air forces.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz told lawmakers last week that what he dubbed the "Middle East Air Defense Alliance" is already operational. "Over the past year I have been leading an extensive program, together with my partners at the Pentagon and in the U.S. administration, that will strengthen the cooperation between Israel and countries in the region," he said, according to an official transcript. "This program is already operative and has already enabled the successful interception of Iranian attempts to attack Israel and other countries."

Part of the United States’ plan to strengthen Israeli military cooperation with other regional states includes air force cooperation "against Iranian attempts to harm countries in the region with rockets, cruise missiles, and drones,” Gantz said.

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Half of UNHRC Members Opposed Action for Victims

 Video Of The Week - Col. Richard Kemp Blasts U.N.'s Pillay Commission https://tinyurl.com/y398td75

For the full Article from UN Watch go to - https://tinyurl.com/bddbnx86

Nearly half the countries on the UN's top human rights body—which the U.S. is now seeking to rejoin, and which opens a 3-week session on Monday, June 21st—are using their membership negatively, opposing instead of supporting action for victims of arbitrary detention, torture and other abuses, according to a new report released by UN Watch. UN Watch's scorecard measured all 47 UN Human Rights Council member states based on their 2020 votes on resolutions concerning victims in such places as Belarus, Burundi, Eritrea, Iran and Yemen, as well on resolutions that define human rights concepts. Thirteen countries were rated as having “Destructive” voting records, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Libya, Namibia, Nigeria, Qatar, Senegal and Somalia. Another 10 council members were rated as having “Very Destructive” records, including Eritrea, Mauritania, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sudan and Venezuela. When 60 percent of the UN Human Rights Council is composed of tyrannies and other non-democracies—absurdly, China, Cuba and Russia this year joined existing members such as Libya, Pakistan and Venezuela—it's no surprise that so many use their votes to oppose action against the world’s worst abusers, or to support counterproductive resolutions that legitimize dictatorships and terrorists. Even worse, most of the world’s worst situations of widespread abuse never even come to a vote, with major violators of human rights such as China, Cuba, Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Zimbabwe enjoying complete impunity at the UNHRC, escaping any censure or scrutiny in the form of council resolutions, inquiries or special sessions. Only 24 of the 47 Council members had mixed or positive records. Twelve countries received a “Constructive” score: Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, and Ukraine. These countries contributed constructively to the council’s work between 70% and 89% of the time. Four countries received a “Very Constructive” score: Australia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Marshall Islands. This means that these countries contributed constructively to the Council’s work more than 90% of the time by supporting key council actions that promoted human rights and democracy, and opposing those that were counterproductive. Eight countries received a “Mixed" score—Argentina, Armenia. Bahamas, Chile, Fiji, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay—meaning that their contribution was positive only some of the time, and they also supported counterproductive council actions or abstained. According to the UN Watch scorecard, more than a third of key council resolutions that were adopted last year were prejudicial and counterproductive. These include two Cuban-led resolutions categorizing Western sanctions on Syria, Russia, Venezuela and other dictatorships as human rights violations, a Chinese-sponsored resolution “promoting mutually beneficial cooperation” which erodes protection of individual rights in deference to “the priorities set by the states concerned,” and a series of resolutions on the Arab-Israel conflict, sponsored by Islamic states, which promote the narrative of Hamas and of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime.

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How Ol' Blue Eyes Tricked the FBI

 Video Of The Week - Secret Saudi Arabia Israeli Talks - https://tinyurl.com/2p9n3x5d 

For the full article by Nati Gabbay go to; https://tinyurl.com/2bt7d4xc 

It was March, 1948 – in a few weeks, the State of Israel would declare its independence.

The Haganah organization was working back channels in order to arm the Jewish population in what was still officially Mandatory Palestine. Fighting was already underway.   At a room in a New York hotel that served as the Haganah’s de-facto local HQ, Teddy Kollek planned his next moves: His mission, on David Ben-Gurion’s orders, was to transfer funds to the captain of an Irish ship, docked not far away and loaded with ammunition. Once the transfer was made, the ship was set to sail to the Land of Israel.  But Kollek, who years later would become famous as an iconic mayor of Jerusalem, faced a difficult problem: as a known Haganah operative, U.S. federal agents were monitoring his every move. Every member of his team was being watched as well. He knew there was no way he could get the money out of the hotel on his own to pay the captain. The fate of the arms delivery the Haganah so desperately needed was unclear.

Next to the Haganah’s secret headquarters, in the very same building, was the famous Copacabana nightclub. Haganah agents would sit at the bar and drink alongside the cream of New York’s entertainment scene. One of the establishment’s frequent visitors was none other than Frank Sinatra.

“I went downstairs to the bar and Sinatra came over, and we were talking,” Kollek later recalled. “I don’t know what came over me, but I told him what I was doing in the United States and what my dilemma was.”

The next day, in the early morning hours, Teddy Kollek left the building holding a bag. FBI agents followed him. At the same moment, Frank Sinatra left out the back exit, carrying a million dollars in a paper bag. He went down to the pier, made the delivery to the captain, and waved goodbye to the ammunition ship as it sailed on its way.

“It was the beginning of the young nation, I wanted to help.” Sinatra later told his daughter Nancy.

Well after Israeli independence was declared, Frank Sinatra would continue to accompany the young country for many years. And everything he did, he did with love. His way.

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Watergen makes Water from Air for Syrian Medical Facility

Video Of The Week - Israel's Watergen makes Water from air for Syrian Refugees - https://tinyurl.com/bdhexcbj 

For the full article from 21c, By Sarah Levi go to - https://tinyurl.com/bdhexcbj 

The first unit, installed last month, provides fresh drinking water to 500 internally displaced people per day. A second unit will soon be installed.

Israeli company Watergen has provided one of its water-from-air generators to a medical facility in the Syrian city of Raqqa in a collaborative partnership with the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees (MFA), a humanitarian organization comprised of faith-based and secular supporters aimed at supplying aid to Syrian refugees.

The ongoing civil war in Syria has left some four million Syrians internally displaced in the country’s northern region where they lack access to clean drinking water, electricity, healthcare and education.

According to UN Security Council report, “people in Syria’s north and northeastern regions remain unable to reliably access sufficient supplies of safe water for reasons both environmental and man-made.”

Raqqa, a former ISIS stronghold, has suffered severe infrastructure damage from Syria’s civil war, along with severe weather conditions that have left the city in need of a sufficient supply of clean drinking water.

Watergen, based in Petah Tikva, manufactures atmospheric water generators that produce clean, fresh drinking water from the moisture in the air without having to connect to a water source. The generators use a standard connection to electricity or solar panels and can produce up to 6,000 liters of drinking water per day.

The generator in Syria is powered by solar energy and was the first of several installed in Raqqa’s medical facility.

According to MFA Executive Director Shafi Martini, “The first unit, installed last month, has been providing fresh drinking water to 500 internally displaced people per day. A second Watergen generator will soon be installed in another area medical facility, and MFA plans to set up additional units in hospitals and schools throughout northern Syria.”

While Israel does not have diplomatic ties with Syria, Watergen President and CEO Michael Mirilashvili said, “Throughout history, conflicts have often been centered around controlling water sources. Today we are doing the opposite: building peace and a common future around a groundbreaking Israeli technology.”

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