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What is behind the triptych Putin – Erdogan – Rouhani

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The signing of the Russia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral agreement to end the war in Nagorno-Karabakh marked a historic turning point, which must also be consolidated diplomatically. Moscow is behaving with caution so far.

Stanislav Tarasov ,
28 November 2020 , 14:37 – REGNUM

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a videoconference meeting with permanent members of the Security Council. In particular, he reported on his regular telephone contacts with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, during which the activities of the Russian peacekeepers and the work of the humanitarian mission in Nagorno-Karabakh were discussed.

In turn, Pashinyan somewhat detailed the situation. According to him, “such negotiations are carried out on a regular basis, sometimes several times a day,” although “we do not always disseminate information about these discussions, given their nature and frequency.” Among the topics discussed, he named issues related to the settlements of the Lachin corridor, missing persons, search operations, the bodies of the dead, the exchange of prisoners, the deployment and delimitation of peacekeepers, as well as the unblocking of transport communications in the region. As for the Azerbaijani side, Aliyev, in a telephone conversation with Putin, “expressed satisfaction with the fact that” the ceasefire is observed in Nagorno-Karabakh and the Russian peacekeepers continue to successfully carry out their mission. ” From the latest messages: the peacekeepers provided, as stated in the information of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, “the organized transfer of the Kelbajar region under the control of the Azerbaijani forces, observing the safety of civilians.” Nevertheless, the situation in the conflict zone remains somewhat fragile, Moscow is forced to use the “manual control” regime in this direction in order for the current course of events to become irreversible.

Russian peacekeepers control the movement of civilian vehicles along the Lachin corridor in Nagorno-Karabakh

Mil.ru

The fact is that after the signing of the Russia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral agreement on ending the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, an acute diplomatic intrigue, initiated by France, begins to unfold in the West. She is concerned that in the future, when determining the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, “Russia and Turkey may conclude an agreement in order to cut off Western countries from future peace negotiations.” And now Paris believes that the implementation of the ceasefire agreement “must take place under international supervision” in order to start negotiations on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, meaning, apart from Russia, other OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries. Recall that Moscow, along with Washington and Paris, is the co-chair of the Minsk Group for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, but they did not participate in the conclusion of the agreement, signed by Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan and ended six weeks of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh. And Turkey was the first to react to this, which France seeks to exclude from the Karabakh settlement process in any form.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that “the fears expressed by some of the co-chairs of the Minsk Group have no basis.” On the other hand, after a telephone conversation with Putin, he said that he had discussed with him the possibility of involving other countries of the region in efforts to maintain the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh. At the same time, Erdogan did not specify which countries were being discussed, although everyone understands that this is Iran. Let us note in this regard that Tehran, like Ankara, supported the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh, believing that only in this way it will be possible to achieve sustainable peace in the conflict region. Moreover, Iran put forward the initiative to sign the so-called Caucasian pact with the participation of Russia, Turkey and Iran without involving Western countries in solving the problems of the Transcaucasus. With this mission I recently traveled to Baku, Yerevan, Moscow and Ankara, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Erakchi. Ankara is satisfied with this project because it can relieve tension in Iran arising in connection with the strengthening of Turkey’s military presence in Azerbaijan. At the same time, the participation of Tehran and Ankara in the Karabakh settlement can fundamentally change the geopolitical situation in the region, which is considered a zone of political interests only for Russia. This is the first thing.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Erakchi

Tasnim News Agency

Second, an act of political expulsion of the West from Azerbaijan and Armenia will take place. Europe has already reacted to this. The ruling coalition in Germany issued a statement stating that “Turkey is pursuing a policy in the Caucasus that does not contribute to the peace process in Nagorno-Karabakh at the diplomatic level and, through isolated agreements with Russia, is trying to promote the interests of individual parties in the region.” There is a call to Moscow and Ankara “not to use third countries to achieve their political interests in this region”, that is, not to involve Iran in the Karabakh settlement, but to focus only on participation in the Minsk Group settlement process. But in fact, if the group does work, it will build on the agreement on November 9, since her early developments on the settlement of the conflict are now of interest only to historians. Iran also responds. As the Tehran newspaper Hamshahri writes, the West’s desire to preserve the OSCE Minsk Group proceeds from the fact that “during further negotiations on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, a situation will arise when the conflicting parties will not abandon their claims to each other, they will consider the current truce to be temporary, at best. calculated for several decades ”.

It is still difficult to say whether the designated political and diplomatic intrigue will lead to any results. Something may appear when the new administration in the US starts working, however, it is not known whether it will coordinate its efforts in the Karabakh direction with the EU. In any case, a historic turning point has taken place, which in Nagorno-Karabakh will have to be consolidated also diplomatically. Moscow is behaving cautiously in this regard. Major decisions are ahead.


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Killer Robot? Assassination of Iranian Scientist Feeds Conflicting Accounts

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Killer Robot? Assassination of Iranian Scientist Feeds Conflicting Accounts

The use of a remote-controlled machine gun was not out of the question. Israel’s military has such weapons and has deployed them elsewhere. Some Iranian reports said as early as Saturday that such a weapon was used in the attack on Friday, an afternoon ambush on a country road east of Tehran.

But early official Iranian reports and witness accounts reported a gun battle between Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguards and as many as a dozen attackers. And current and former Israeli officials have boasted that Israeli intelligence agencies have a track record of safely extricating assassins from hostile territories, including Iran.

Israel is thought to have killed at least five Iranian scientists between 2007 and 2012 as part of an effort to derail Iran’s nuclear program, which Israeli officials consider an existential threat. Tehran has credibly claimed to have caught only one of the perpetrators, an Iranian who confessed on television in 2010 that he had received training in Israel to plant a car bomb that killed a scientist as he was leaving his garage.

The agents behind the other assassination attempts and some larger operations are all believed to have escaped.

The role of a remote-controlled machine gun as part of a complex attack by a team of assassins was first reported over the weekend in an account of the killing posted online by Javad Mogouyi, a documentary filmmaker for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. His father and father-in-law are members of the wing of the organization charged with protecting Mr. Fakhrizadeh, and Mr. Mogouyi’s account was adopted as authoritative at the time by several Iranian news organizations.

Before the arrival of a dozen assassins, Mr. Mogouyi wrote, a Nissan had been parked at a roundabout, packed with explosives and armed with an automated machine gun. The remote-controlled gun opened fire first, distracting Mr. Fakhrizadeh and his bodyguards as the assassins lay in wait.

An autonomous machine gun that appears to match that description has been employed by the Israeli military since 2010. Developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, the weapon includes a built-in optical system for aiming and photographs. Its name, which rhymes in Hebrew, means “you see-you shoot.”


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Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince nominated for 2021 Nobel Peace Prize

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Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince nominated for 2021 Nobel Peace Prize

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan   |  Photo Credit: AP

Tel Aviv: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan have been nominated for the next year’s Nobel Peace Prize for their roles in establishing diplomatic ties between their countries, said the Israeli premier’s office on Tuesday.

“Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lord David Trimble today submitted the candidacy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the Nobel Peace Prize, together with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed,” the Prime Minister’s office said in a statement, as quoted by Sputnik.

According to Sputnik, Trimble, the former first minister of Northern Ireland, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 for his efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in northern Ireland. Since Trimble himself is the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, it gives him the privilege of nominating others.

The Nobel Prize Committee will review Natanyahu’s and Al Nahyan’s candidacies.

On September 15, United States President Donald Trump presided over a signing ceremony at the White House to establish the foundation of the peace agreements among Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

According to the Abraham Accord signed by the two Gulf countries, Bahrain and the UAE, they have now joined Egypt and Jordan as the only Arab nations to have full relations with Israel.

After the signing of the Abraham Accord by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Bahrain’s foreign minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani and Crown Prince Nahyan, Trump called on other Arab and Muslim nations to follow the UAE’s lead.

Along with the two heads of state, it was announced in September that US President Trump has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize following his efforts to broker peace between Israel and the UAE.

The nomination was submitted by Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian Parliament, citing his “key role in… creating new dynamics in other protracted conflicts, such as the Kashmir border dispute between India and Pakistan”. (


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Iran says Israel remotely killed military nuclear scientist

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Iran says Israel remotely killed military nuclear scientist

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A top Iranian security official on Monday accused Israel of using “electronic devices” to remotely kill a scientist who founded the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear program in the 2000s.

Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, made the comment at the funeral for Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, where Iran’s defense minister separately vowed to continue the man’s work “with more speed and more power.”

Israel, long suspected of killing Iranian nuclear scientists over the last decade, has repeatedly declined to comment on the attack.

Fakhrizadeh headed Iran’s so-called AMAD program, which Israel and the West have alleged was a military operation looking at the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon. The International Atomic Energy Agency says that “structured program” ended in 2003. U.S. intelligence agencies concurred with that assessment in a 2007 report.

Israel insists Iran still maintains the ambition of developing nuclear weapons, pointing to Tehran’s ballistic missile program and research into other technologies. Iran long has maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.

Shamkhani’s remarks drastically change the story of Fakhrizadeh’s killing, which took place on Friday. Authorities initially said a truck exploded and then gunmen opened fire on the scientist, killing him and a bodyguard. State TV even interviewed a man the night of the attack who described seeing gunmen open fire.

State TV’s English-language broadcaster Press TV reported earlier Monday that a weapon recovered from the scene of the attack bore “the logo and specifications of the Israeli military industry.” State TV’s Arabic-language channel, Al-Alam, claimed the weapons used were “controlled by satellite,” a claim also made Sunday by the semiofficial Fars news agency.

None of the outlets immediately offered evidence supporting their claims, which also give authorities a way to explain why no one was reportedly arrested at the scene.

“Unfortunately, the operation was a very complicated operation and was carried out by using electronic devices,” Shamkhani told state TV. “No individual was present at the site.”

Satellite control of weapons is nothing new. Armed, long-range drones, for instance, rely on satellite connections to be controlled by their remote pilots. Remote-controlled gun turrets also exist, but typically see their operator connected by a hard line to cut down on the delay in commands being relayed. Israel uses such hard-wired systems along the border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

While technically feasible, it wasn’t immediately clear if such a system had been used before, said Jeremy Binnie, the Mideast editor of Jane’s Defence Weekly.

“Could you set up a weapon with a camera which then has a feed that uses an open satellite communications line back to the controller?” Binnie said. “I can’t see why that’s not possible.”

It also raised the question whether the truck that exploded during the attack detonated afterward to try and destroy a satellite-controlled machine gun that was hidden inside the vehicle. Iranian officials did not immediately acknowledge that. It also would require someone on the ground to set up the weapon.

Shamkhani also blamed the Iranian exile group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq as well for “having a role in this,” without elaborating. The MEK, as the exile group is known, has been suspected of assisting Israeli operations in Iran in the past. The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Monday’s service for Fakhrizadeh took place at an outdoor portion of Iran’s Defense Ministry in Tehran, with officials including Revolutionary Guard chief Gen. Hossein Salami, the Guard’s Quds Force leader Gen. Esmail Ghaani, civilian nuclear program chief Ali Akbar Sahei and Intelligence Minister Mamoud Alavi. They sat apart from each other and wore masks due to the coronavirus pandemic as reciters melodically read portions of the Quran and religious texts.

Defense Minister Gen. Amir Hatami gave a speech after kissing Fakhrizadeh’s casket and putting his forehead against it. He said Fakhrizadeh’s killing would make Iranians “more united, more determined.”

“For the continuation of your path, we will continue with more speed and more power,” Hatami said in comments aired live by state television.

Hatami also criticized countries that hadn’t condemned Fakhrizadeh’s killing and warned: “This will catch up with you someday.”

Overnight, the United Arab Emirates, which just reached a normalization deal with Israel, issued a statement condemning “the heinous assassination.” The UAE, home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, warned the killing “could further fuel conflict in the region.”

Last year, the UAE found itself in the middle of an escalating series of incidents between Iran and the U.S. Though long suspicious of Iran’s nuclear program, the Emirates has said it wants to de-escalate the crisis. The UAE just started passenger air service to Israel and Israelis are expected to vacation in the country over Hanukkah in the coming days.

Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz has sent a cable to all Israeli diplomatic delegations around the globe urging diplomats to maintain “the highest level of readiness and awareness of any irregular activity” around missions and Jewish community centers.

Hebrew-language media in Israel reported that following the Fakhrizadeh’s killing, the Foreign Ministry ordered security beefed up at certain Israeli diplomatic missions overseas. The ministry declined to comment on diplomatic security matters.

___

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem contributed to this report.


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Netanyahu held secret meeting with Saudi Crown Prince, Israeli minister confirms | Us World News

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Netanyahu held secret meeting with Saudi Crown Prince, Israeli minister confirms | Us World News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Sunday in the Saudi city of Neom, in the first meeting between the two leaders, an Israeli minister confirmed.

Speaking on Israel’s Army Radio, Education Minister Yoav Gallant, a member of the Prime Minister’s Likud party, called the meeting an “incredible achievement” and congratulated Netanyahu.

“Let us say that the very existence of the meeting, the fact that it was put out publicly, even if it is only half-official at the moment, [is] a matter of great importance from any aspect and matter,” Gallant said when asked by the radio interviewer about the meeting.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was also in the city of Neom as part of his swing through the region, two days after he had been in Israel.

The Israeli and Saudi governments have not commented officially on the meeting, which was first reported by Barak Ravid of Walla! News and Axios. Netanyahu was joined by Mossad head Yossi Cohen, who has spearheaded the normalization efforts between Israel and the Sunni Gulf states.

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A private business jet often used by Israeli officials was tracked flying from Israel toward Saudi Arabia and the city of Neom on Sunday, according to flight tracking websites ADS-B Exchange, FlightAware, and others. The flight returned to Israel a few hours later.

The meeting is the first of its kind between the Israeli Prime Minister and the Saudi Crown Prince, and it comes just months after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalized relations with Israel. Bahrain almost certainly had tacit Saudi approval for the move, given the tiny kingdom’s reliance and closeness to Saudi Arabia, analysts have said.

A short time before the flight left Israel, Netanyahu foreshadowed the continued change in relations with more Gulf states.

Speaking at a memorial ceremony for Israel’s first leader, David Ben-Gurion, Netanyahu said, “Following the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, recently, within six weeks, we brought three new peace agreements and normalization agreements: with the UAE, with Bahrain, and with Sudan. If we continue down this path of strengthening Israel’s power, and strengthening the ties with the moderate Arab world that push toward stability and advancement — we will see more Arab states that widen the circle of peace.”


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Given America’s history in the Middle East, should Biden stay the course?

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Given America’s history in the Middle East, should Biden stay the course?

‘I can resist everything except temptation,” said once Oscar Wilde in a quip that American presidents rewrote thus: “I can resist everything except the Middle East.”

Now, as he prepares his game plan, President-elect Joe Biden had better recall his predecessors’ experiences and bury our sorry region at the bottom of his agenda.

A slew of American presidents surrendered to the Middle Eastern temptation only to emerge humbled, haunted and sometimes also humiliated.

Jimmy Carter made the Middle East a central part of his presidency by brokering the Israeli-Egyptian peace deal, only to be driven from office by a Middle Eastern revolution that exposed all his weakness, ineptitude and naiveté.   

Ronald Reagan sustained the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings, in which 220 Marines were killed, the worst blow to American prestige during his presidency.

George H. Bush defeated Iraq and redeemed Kuwait, but his Middle Eastern hyperactivity came at the expense of his attention to the domestic issues that ultimately cost him his job.

Bill Clinton hosted Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak for peace talks in his presidency’s twilight, hoping to depart as a great peacemaker whose diplomatic legacy would outweigh its scandals. Instead, he emerged from that initiative as the leader of a mighty empire who was snubbed by a guy with no army, treasure or state.

George W. Bush was set to learn from Clinton’s misadventure and avoid the Middle East when the September 11 attacks created his own Middle Eastern temptation, the war in Iraq, which became his presidency’s bane.

Barack Obama learned nothing from his predecessors’ traumas, and dived head on into the Middle East’s fray with his much-heralded Cairo Speech. The sermon, which assumed the Middle East was ready for his gospel of tolerance, freedom and peace, was soon followed by multiple civil wars, a massive refugee crisis, empty American threats toward a genocidal Syria, and a grand Russian comeback as Middle Eastern conqueror, power broker and supplier of arms.

Finally, Donald Trump’s Middle Eastern experience has actually been a catastrophic presidency’s one ray of light, but the outgoing president’s successes here, like the elder Bush’s in his time, proved irrelevant when it came to America’s electoral verdict.

American presidents, in short, can’t win in the Middle East, and this alone should be reason for Joe Biden to avoid initiative here. Yet there are even better reasons, both Middle Eastern and American, for him to push this region to the bottom of his agenda.

Nothing in the Middle East demands urgent American action.

In

Tehran

, the economy is battered, society is disillusioned and the ayatollahs’ popularity is in the doldrums. If Biden offers them concessions, the way Obama did, they will see in him a weakling, and if he further corners them, he might make them do stupid things. Best let them continue sinking in the swamp where they are trapped.

In Damascus, the regime is up to its neck with the devastation of its civil war, and Russia is at a loss to foot its reconstruction’s bills. Best for America is to let these trends persist until crisis erupts between Moscow and Damascus, as it ultimately will.

In Baghdad, sentiment has tilted against the Iranian hegemony. Helping its rivals would of course be wise, but that can be done from afar, through Jordan and Kurdistan. Sending American troops back to that hornets’ nest would be reckless.

In Cairo, Riyadh, and the rest of the Sunni capitals the regimes are pro-American, but they also recall Obama’s betrayal of Hosni Mubarak, and the backwind Obama gave Egypt’s short-lived Islamist rule. Winning back these regimes’ trust will therefore be imperative for the man they recall as Obama’s deputy, and the way to do that is not by lecturing to them foreign ideas, but by letting them be.

Lastly, Biden would also do well to initiate nothing vis-à-vis

the Palestinians

. Yes, it would be great if they finally struck a deal with Israel and finished off the Arab-Israel conflict once and for all. However, American presidents have already tried to make that happen, and their repeated failures were monumental. Why would Biden fare any better?

There are, in short, good Middle Eastern reasons for Biden to put the Middle East on his back burner. Yet American reasons to do that are even better.

The America that Biden inherits is socially traumatized, economically limping, and politically ill. Healing his own country is therefore Biden’s most urgent task, and that alone adds up to a four-year term’s full-time job.

Yes, some attention will have to be dedicated to select foreign issues, especially China and North Korea, but otherwise it should all be about the American people’s rehabilitation.

Judging by Biden’s initial appointments this is indeed his intention. Antony (Tony) Blinken, the designated secretary of state, is a veteran, balanced, and cautious diplomat. He will cultivate stability and won’t try to reinvent the wheel. Janet Yellen, his choice for treasury secretary, is a first-rate economist whose experience as chair of the Federal Reserve means Biden intends to seriously focus on the economy. The reported intention to include a Republican in his cabinet means Biden understands the need in nursing America’s wounds.

For the past four years American society has been abused. This abuse resulted from the American elites’ disproportionate presence – physically, economically, culturally and mentally – in the big coastal cities. The consequent neglect of what sprawls between the coasts created the vacuum into which Donald Trump marched unopposed.

That neglected hinterland is not in the Mideast; it’s in the Midwest.

Embracing the 74 million Americans who voted Trump because they feel economically insecure and politically alienated should be Biden’s main daily activity, and restoring their confidence in America’s ideals, norms and political system should be his presidency’s overarching aim. The Middle East can wait

<a href=”http://www.MiddleIsrael.net” rel=”nofollow”>www.MiddleIsrael.net</a>The writer’s bestselling Mitzad Ha’ivelet Ha’yehudi (The Jewish March of Folly, Yediot Sefarim, 2019), is a revisionist history of the Jewish people’s leadership from antiquity to modernity


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Should Joe Biden’s Jewish picks raise concerns?

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Should Joe Biden’s Jewish picks raise concerns?

The different reactions of American and Israeli Jews to US President-elect Joe Biden’s early appointment of four Jews to top positions in his administration provide a telling peek into the different ways the two communities view reality.

In this sense, the

appointments

of Antony Blinken as secretary of state, Janet Yellen as secretary of the Treasury, Alejandro Mayorkas as secretary of Homeland Security, and Ron Klain as Biden’s chief of staff are a Rorschach test of sorts.

Here is one reaction from American Jewry: “We are proud of the fact that this slate of nominees includes multiple Jewish Americans and others whose family history represents the rich tapestry of American society,” the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) said in a statement. “Their understanding of our past will help build a stronger future.”

That response reflects pride that Jews have risen high in the government ranks, and that the new appointees’ understanding of Jewish values will infuse policy.

Contrast that with a tweet from Makor Rishon editor-in-chief Hagai Segal: “There is no need to attribute too much importance to the appointment of Jews in Biden’s administration. There are also a lot of Jews in J Street,” Segal wrote, in reference to the left-wing lobby that has played a leading role in legitimizing and mainstreaming harsh criticism of Israeli policies by both elected and nonelected US officials.

Obviously, Segal, who edits a newspaper with a strong right-wing editorial tilt, does not represent all Israelis, any more than the JDCA reflects the entirety of opinion of American Jewry.

But their different takes on the appointment of Jews to the Biden cabinet, and what those appointments mean, reflect different ways Israeli and American Jews – as a result of their different experiences and different concerns – view the world.

American Jews, said Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington from 2009-2013, look at these appointments and feel pride. Israeli Jews, on the other hand, look at them and wonder whether the appointees’ religion will make them more sympathetic to Israel’s concerns.

“American Jews look at these appointments and say, ‘This is what we can achieve in this country, what a country,’” Oren said. “Israelis say they are going to understand us better, because they are Jewish.”

In addition to the pride that US Jews feel when their coreligionists rise to positions of great authority, there are two other emotions in their baggage that Israeli Jews don’t carry in this context: shame and insecurity.

“American Jews first of all feel pride,” Oren stressed. “But they could also feel shame.”

He said that some liberal American Jews looking at US President Donald Trump’s senior advisers Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller often feel shame because these men are Jewish, advocating policies – for instance, on immigration – that they are adamantly against.

And the other emotion triggered by high-level Jewish appointees among American Jewry is often insecurity.

“Because if the Jew in high office pursues policies that are highly controversial, or if that individual fails in office, that reflects on the entire community,” Oren said. Many in the Jewish community, he quipped, look at a non-Jewish official embroiled in controversy and say to themselves, “Thank God he is not Jewish.”

If that degree of insecurity reflects a shtetl mentality, American Jews are not the only ones to have it. Danny Ayalon, who was the ambassador to the US from 2002-2006, during the George W. Bush years, said that mentality also exists among Israelis when they look at Jews abroad in high places.

“I think Jews all over the world are conditioned, because of our 2,000 years of exile and all the tribulations, to always look and see who we can talk to, who we can do business with, whether he is a landsman, a member of the tribe. When you were the few against the many, it was always comforting knowing who you were dealing with, and whether he was your brother.”

Even though today Israelis are “strong, independent and proud,” Ayalon said “we are still in that sense – in that form of conduct – acting a little like we did in the shtetl: ‘Is the official Jewish or not? Is the landowner [paritz] a Jew?”

And what if he is? What if the landowner is a Jew? What if the senior State Department or Pentagon official is a Jew? Does it make a difference? Does it help Israel in any way?

Ayalon thinks not, and said that in his years as ambassador and foreign policy adviser to prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, the fact that there were Jews in prominent roles in the Clinton and Bush administrations did not make his job any easier. In fact, he recalls a time during the controversy over Israel’s selling Harpy drones to China in 2004 – something that the Bush administration wanted to stop – that top Pentagon officials Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz “gave me a dressing down and came down on me like a ton of bricks.”

Ayalon said that his experience over the years taught him that US Jewish officials are “first Americans, and then Jews,” and that this goes to the core of their identity.

Ayalon’s diplomatic career crossed paths with two Jewish US ambassadors to Israel – Martin Indyk and Dan Kurtzer – who were highly critical of the government policies that Ayalon was representing at the time.

“Certainly we did not get any favoritism because of the ethnicity or religion of US officials,” Ayalon said diplomatically. “If anything, it was quite the contrary.”

Ayalon said that “it is not inconceivable” that Jewish officials may feel more free in criticizing Israel “because they don’t risk being called antisemitic.”

Asked point blank if Israel is better or worse off having Jews in top positions affecting Israel in the US, Ayalon said “it depends on the person.” But, he added, he “never, ever, ever” felt that he was on easier ground if the official he was dealing with in Washington happened to be a Jew.

Former ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said that the only advantage in having a Jewish official sit across the table is that “it may enable small talk and the ability to connect better, but regarding the substance of policy it does not mean anything.”

Danon

said that while it is understandable that Jews may feel pride when another Jew rises high in any government around the world, “we can’t then come and say that as a result of this we have an insurance policy [regarding policy on Israel], and that everything will be OK. It is not. It may be a source of pride, but we can’t go on the assumption that there is a guarantee that policy issues will go in our direction.”

In fact, he warned, sometimes the opposite is true. “We saw in the past that there were Jews whose policies toward Israel were problematic, and whose being Jewish allowed them to be more critical.”

The example he gave was former president Barack Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, someone who Israeli officials who worked with him said “made our lives miserable.”

Oren advised Israelis not to get excited by the appointment of Jews to top foreign policy and national security positions in the Biden administration. “I think what you have to say is that these people are going to be loyal to the administration’s policies, and that their Jewish identity may make them a little bit more sensitive to our concerns – but at the end of the day they are going to follow policy.”

Oren said that to think otherwise would be a mistake that would only lead to disappointment.

“We can take pride that they are Jewish and have reached high office,” he said. “That’s wonderful, and it says a lot about America and about American Jews that such a high percentage of these officials are Jewish. But don’t think it’s going to affect policy [toward Israel]. And I can think of several examples of people who bent over backward to prove that they were going to be dispassionate about our issues.”

The glaring example he cited was Henry Kissinger, America’s first Jewish secretary of state. Oren pointed out that Kissinger – who infamously said it would be best if Israel “got bloodied” during the Yom Kippur War – opposed an arms airlift during the darkest days of the war, and that it was president Richard Nixon who ordered it.

Former Foreign Ministry directory-general Dore Gold, who also served during his career as ambassador to the UN and foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, took a position a bit more forgiving relative to Kissinger, saying that the former secretary of state believed “he was serving America’s and Israel’s interests in the actions he took by turning the Yom Kippur War into a springboard for Egyptian-Israeli negotiations, which didn’t exist before.”

Regarding whether Jewish officials in positions touching on Israel are good or bad for the Jewish state, Gold said, “I don’t distinguish between Jewish and non-Jewish American officials. They reflect the interests of the United States, period. However, I would expect that if Israel is dealing with an existential issue, in which our population is threatened, it might matter.”

Asked whether this really held up considering that so many Jews worked in the Obama administration, which entered the nuclear agreement with Iran, a country seen by Israel as an existential threat, Gold said “I don’t think American elites bought into the idea that it [the Iranian nuclear deal] was an existential issue.”

And as to Kissinger during the Yom Kippur War, Gold maintained that Kissinger did not believe Israel was in existential danger.

“I would not rely on somebody’s Jewish background to yield a more sympathetic understanding of Israel, particularly today, when the monolithic [US] Jewish community has been replaced with diverse organizations that pull in different directions,” Gold said. “I’ve had experiences both ways – members of the Jewish community who were strongly supportive, and members who were highly critical.”

 


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Iran’s top nuclear scientist has been assassinated, state media reports – CNN

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Iran’s top nuclear scientist has been assassinated, state media reports – CNN

Tehran, Iran (CNN)A top Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahavadi, was killed on Friday outside the capital Tehran, Iran’s state media IRIB and semi-official news agencies Tasnim said.

Despite a denial by the Iran’s Atomic Organization earlier, state media and semi-official news agencies said that Fakhrizadeh-Mahavadi was killed.
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From Nazi Germany to Nazi Israel to Nazi Netanyahu

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From Nazi Germany to Nazi Israel to Nazi Netanyahu

There was a time when the dirty business of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany was the reserve of “human rights” activists. The infamous declaration resulted from the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, that took place in Durban, South Africa, not only brought to light this NGO-style of antisemitism, it actually legitimized it.

Article 160 of that declaration, which opens the special section dedicated to “Palestine and Palestinians,” states that the forum is “appalled by the ongoing colonial military Israeli occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (the West Bank including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip), we declare and call for an immediate end to the Israeli systematic perpetration of racist crimes including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing.”

Article 162 reads, “We declare Israel as a racist, apartheid state in which Israel’s brand of apartheid as a crime against humanity has been characterized by separation and segregation, dispossession, restricted land access, denationalization, ‘bantustanization’ and inhumane acts.”

And Article 165, declaring that the forum is “appalled by the discrimination against…


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