A personal perspective of Israelis living with terrorism on their streets
By Jonathan Feldstein
At 9:34pm Thursday, I received a strange message from my daughter in our family WhatsApp group:
“For all those who asked, I am ok and alive”
Since nobody asked, her sarcasm coupled with a little fear was eerily palpable.
I had been recording a podcast and didn’t know what she was talking about. None of us did. It seems that there was another terrorist attack, this time in central Tel Aviv. I had not heard about it.
Surveillance camera footage shows the terror shooting attack in Tel Aviv this evening, outside a cafe on Dizengoff Street. Three wounded, including one critically. Video has been blurred by me. pic.twitter.com/wkXMJcSvfr
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) March 9, 2023
Three people were injured, one shot in the neck and as of this writing, is still in critical condition. One terrorist was killed on the spot but there are reports that another terrorist escaped. The last time this happened, much of Tel Aviv remained on lockdown until the terrorist was caught, as it was again.
I also didn’t know my daughter was in Tel Aviv. She is 26, I don’t need to know her every move. But she lives in Jerusalem and we live just south of Jerusalem so, while not far away, we’re not often there. It’s a strange paradox in Israel that our kids have such wide freedom, so much so that we don’t feel the need to keep track of them 24/7 or on an unusually tight leash, yet we live in a society in which this could happen.
Devastation on Dizengoff. The scene following the terror attack on Dizengoff street, in central Tel Aviv, March 9, 2023. (Avshalom SaassoniFlash90)
My daughter was out at a restaurant when it happened, fifteen minutes away by foot on Ben Yehuda St. They were just about to leave to walk to Israel’s first 7-Eleven on Dizengoff Street, right before it happened.
Fifteen minutes after her first note, she wrote that she and her friends had decided to return to where they were staying and had arrived safely. Thank God!
Forty-five minutes after her first message, another daughter wrote, “There was a terrorist attack?”
Fifteen minutes later, an hour after the shooting attack happened, my younger son came into the room announcing another attempted terrorist attack in a community nearby. A Palestinian Arab terrorist entered the largely ultra-Orthodox community of Beitar Ilit by bus, left a package on the bus which began emitting smoke but didn’t explode, and then fled at the second bus stop into the city of some 50,000 residents. The residents were put on lockdown while a bomb-squad arrived to detonate the explosive, accompanied by other security personnel who began the search for the terrorist.
While this was unfolding, several friends from overseas reached out to ask:
“Are you guys OK?”.
I assured them we were all fine, that my daughter who was fifteen minutes away from the attack was shaken but also fine. I explained that it’s sometimes surreal that things like this happen sometimes; that it’s close to home, sometimes closer, and sometimes too close. But we go about our lives.
Sitting Targets. Tables and chairs in disarray following lone gunman on a shooting spree at city restaurant on Dizengoff Street, Tel Aviv.
While we were watching the news unfold, three of my kids were out, going about life. I didn’t really think about it, but did want to stay up to be sure they got home safely. My youngest son went to a midnight movie with friends. Another daughter was out at a kosher Korean restaurant with her boyfriend (and didn’t bring me any), and my older son and his fiancé went to an engagement party for other friends.
One friend asked about mental health and trauma related issues, a logical and intuitive question. I explained that because of the reality of terror and the threat of terror and war that exists (though the impression is that Israel is unsafe like the wild-west which is not the case), people do suffer trauma but most just go about their lives.
Trauma like this, particularly impacts terror victims and families of terror victims, military and former military and at-risk youth who live in areas that might be particularly unsafe and/or come from homes where they have no parents or parents who are unable to care for them. These children need support. It’s one of the important projects that the Genesis 123 Foundation funds, to empower “at-risk” youth so that they can pursue – with security and confidence – successful lives.
Terror in Tel Aviv. One minute there are revelers enjoying the nightlife of Dizengoff street in central Tel Aviv, the next police at the scene of a terror attack on March 9, 2023. (Avshalom Saassoni/Flash90).
Both military and private civilian security in communities like mine which abut Palestinian Arab communities, go on high alert in situations like this as well. First responders must be trained in defense, able to confront a live terror incident, and take care of anyone injured from an attack before EMS personnel arrive. Providing resources for these rapid response civilian security teams saves lives, I know this, because my son-in-law is in one of the local teams and has actually saved people’s lives. It’s a reason that this is also a project that the Genesis 123 Foundation is proud to fund.
Friday morning, while running errands before the onset of, Shabbat (the Sabbath), I drove by Beitar Ilit, just 15 minutes away from my house by car. I went to the bakery where “Abed” and I always greet one another, as we did again. In another shop, another Palestinian Arab worker helped me professionally and politely. All as if nothing had changed. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe this is just the norm: on one day others try to kill us and the next day we’re being polite and respectful.
Targeting Busses. Israeli security forces scan the settlement of Beitar Illit, following an infiltration of a Palestinian terrorist who placed a bomb on a passenger bus that caught fire but failed to explode on March 10, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
All this comes on the heels of other civil strife in Israel that has been adding to the stress of increased terror attacks. Earlier in the day there were country wide protests over proposed sweeping judicial reforms. Roads were blocked to and at Ben Gurion airport, and main arteries in Tel Aviv. Hours later, Tel Aviv’s roads were clear of protestors, replaced by police and military securing the area and hunting for the terrorist who got away.
This is a taste of life here. There are injured people and their families who need your prayers. There are others for whom this creates trauma. And if these don’t hit too close to home, the rest of us just try to go about our lives.
About the writer:
Jonathan Feldstein - President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Jornal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Brought together by a love for music, it was love for country that would tragically separate them
By David E. Kaplan
I saw the article, then stared wide-eyed at the photograph.
I was reading a Ynet report and then, when I read the line that “Few Israelis have likely heard of the man named Meir Max Bineth”, I exclaimed:
“I’m not one of them.”
Being the Jewish festival of Tu B’Shevat (“The new year of the trees”) on the 5 February, the focus of the article was on this man from British Mandate Palestine whose passion for Jewish holidays pushed him to teach about the subjects to local Jewish communities abroad.1942 found him in Iran teaching about Tu B’Shevat – hence the article.
Max Bineth
What would follow next in his life is what I would write about in 2004, when his South African-born widow, Jane Bineth (née Davidow), passed away aged 83 in Savyon, Israel.
As a young woman out from Johannesburg in the late 1940s, Jane was trying to find her feet in Tel Aviv. Interested in classical music, she responded to a notice in the newspaper inviting music lovers to meet at a café in Shenkin, already a street ‘paving’ the way to what it is today, packed with cafes, restaurants and boutiques.
There she met Hungarian-born Meir, a cultured European who played a variety of musical instruments and who spoke six languages. They would marry, and in the few years that they would share together, they would dwell in the furtive world of deep undercover intelligence gathering.
New State; Young Love. Max and Jane Bineth marriage ceremony in Tel Aviv in 1950.
Prior to his marriage to Jane, Meir had been a secrete agent operating in Arab countries throughout the Middle East. It all started for him went he went to the UK in 1946 to study radio and electronics, believing these were the subjects of the future.
He used to use the bayit (club house) of Habonim – a Jewish youth movement – to train after hours. One of the members of the movement recalled that “he would pick up Morse broadcasts in English from Moscow and decode them at a speed of 60 words per minute and identify the different broadcasters.” It is no surprise that his skills attracted the attention of agents working for Aliyah Bet – the code name for illegal immigration to British Mandate Palestine – and in 1947 he was recruited. He operated as a communication technician building vital communication equipment for the voyages bringing the illegal immigrants as well as procurement of arms for the fledgling Jewish state as well as thwarting efforts of enemy Arab countries to acquire specialized military equipment. Max was a very busy man.
With the establishment of the State of Israel, Binet moved on to more dangerous missions. He joined the intelligence corps of the young IDF and in August 1949, he arrived in Iraq. Even though the decades have passed since then, there is no permission even today to reveal the details of his clandestine activities on Iraqi soil. However, one fact of history remains undisputed:
“The Iraqi government condemned him to death in absentia for his actions in its territory during this period.”
His final mission – now married with a child – was to Egypt, where he posed as a businessman representing various German firms, primarily ‘von Laufenberg’, a company manufacturing artificial limbs for the disabled.
Under Cover in Cairo. First leader of the Egyptian Republic, Mohamed Najib is seen here thanking Max Bineth (left) representing ‘Von Laufenberg’, the company that manufactured prostheses for Egyptian soldiers injured in the 1948 war with Israel. (Bineth Family Photo)
“How ironic,” his daughter Michelle Bineth-Dagan told me during the 2004 interview for Telfed Magazine. “Here was my father spying against Egypt and my mother had a 1953 photograph of my dad with the Prime Minister of Egypt, General Mohammed Naguib, who was honouring him for his contribution in rehabilitating Egyptian soldiers wounded in the war against Israel in 1948.”
‘Sign’ of Friendship. As a token of friendship, see the signature (top) of General Mohamed Naguib President of Egypt 1952-1954 in this postcard Max Bineth sends to his daughter Michelle. ( Bineth Family Photo)
Jane and her daughter Michelle, who was a child of two at the time of his posting to Cairo in 1951, joined Max and were part of the cover. Recalling conversations with her mother, Michelle described their life:
“as being very comfortable. My parents had a very hectic social life. They were part of the cocktail circuit, attending parties, where they mixed with foreigners in the diplomatic and business communities and of course Egyptians in government and the military. One of the primary tasks was to get close to the many former Nazis, who had found refuge in Egypt. Some of them were scientists, who were helping Egypt develop missiles that could threaten Israel.”
The Spy who Loved Me. While under cover in Egypt as a businessman representing German companies, Israeli spy Meir (Max) Bineth is seen here dancing with his beloved South African-born wife Jane at a cocktail party in Cairo. (Bineth Family Photo)
Max was passing on vital information to his Israeli contacts:
“until things went terribly wrong and set into motion a chain of event that ended tragically, leading to my mother’s bitterness to her dying day.”
The secrete lives of the Bineths came crashing down in what became referred to as the “Lavon Affair”, after Defence Minister Pinhas Lavon, who was forced to resign.
Conducted in Egypt in the summer of 1954, the Lavon affair was a ‘false flag’ operation, whereby Israeli military intelligence had setup a spy ring of young local Egyptians in the Jewish community with the purpose of blowing up US and British owned civilian targets – like cinemas and libraries – all timed to detonate several hours after closing time so there would be no casualties. The attacks were to be blamed on local nationalists with the aim of creating a climate of instability to induce the British government to retain its troops in Egypt’s Suez Canal zone. While the operation caused no casualties among the population, it did lead to the deaths of four of the Jewish operatives, one of whom was Max. It also led to a scandal that dominated Israeli politics for well over a decade.
The incident had been euphemistically referred to in Israel as the “Unfortunate Affair” or “The Mishap”(In Hebrew: HaEsek HaBish).
Israel publicly denied any involvement in the incident until 2005, when the surviving agents were awarded certificates of appreciation by Israel’s State President.
“My father,” said Michelle, “was not part of this spy network but was ordered by his senior officer in Israel to pass on money to them. He had met Marcelle Ninio, a young member of the group on a few occasions. She was the last to be captured and under torture, gave a description of my dad’s car, which led to his arrest.”
Michelle and Jane were in Europe at the time visiting family and so escaped the physical horrors that were to follow. “The psychological scars never left my mother until her last breath.”
After a few months of interrogation and torture, on December 24, 1954, “my dad slit his wrists in his prison cell on the day before his trial. He realised there was no way out for him and did not want to give the Egyptians the pleasure of hanging him,” the fate of two others, Dr. Moshe Marzouk of Cairo and Shmuel Azar of Alexandria.
Max in Court. One of the thirteen accused of spying, Max Bineth enters the Supreme Military Court in Cairo for the start of the trial in December 1954. This is the last known picture of Bineth alive before he committed suicide by slashing his wrists in a Cairo cell. (AP Photo)
Failure has no father and for many years this bizarre and embarrassing affair was shrouded in secrecy. Strict censorship ensured that the Israeli public was fed little or no accurate information and key protagonists were routinely referred to as “X” and “The Third Man”, a reference to the 1949 Orson Wells’ movie of the same name. To this day, the truth as to who gave the orders in the Lavon Affair remain a mystery.
In 1959, President Nasser agreed to transfer the body of Max (Meir) Bineth to Israel on condition that the arrangement would not be publicised. Max was secretly buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem in the presence of a few members of the family. “My mother was only told about the burial at the last moment.” The reburial only became public knowledge following the peace agreement with Egypt in 1979.
Jane, who passed away in 2004, never remarried. From his cell, he wrote to Jane before he ended his life. These were a few of the lines:
“My dear – there is no other way out. I came to this conclusion out of caution and consideration. It is becoming impossible to bear this… I am also thinking of you. …..Jane, you must remarry, Michelle needs a father, and I hope you live as planned. You and Michelle can plant a tree in our garden on my birthday. I love you, I love you… Of all the contributions I wanted to make for a better future for everyone – now Michelle is my only contribution. I wrap my arms around you and Michelle. May God bless you and grant you peace and happiness. Jane my dear, hold me tight….”
While Jane did fulfill what she believed was her dear husband’s dying request to bring up their daughter in the Land of Israel, she did not fulfill the part where he called on her to marry again. “ She had many suitors,” said Michelle her daughter, “but she never married again. Father was the only knight for her.”
Father and Daughter. Daughter Michelle Bineth-Dagan proudly holds up a photograph of her father Mair Max, who spoke six languages, loved music and played various instruments. He also painted and kept a diary of his experiences.
According to Michelle, her motherresented that the honour bestowed on other Israeli agents – such as Eli Cohen, (“Our man in Damascus”) – had been denied to her husband. Israeli Minister of Defense, Yitzhak Rabin tried to correct this injustice. Some thirty years later in September 1987, when Rabin, handed Jane, her husband’s Lieutenant Colonel rank, he said:
“It was an unusual, remarkable, high-risk mission that Max Bineth was running. Unfortunately, and to our great regret, he fell on duty, while on his watch. In the course of time, certain affairs got mixed and Meir was linked, by mistake, to another affair (referring to “The Lavon Affair),one he had nothing whatsoever to do with. Meir went on a separate security-intelligence assignment, which had nothing to do with the other events that took place that year. He fell while serving the State of Israel and for the State of Israel. Meir’s service improved Israel’s security capabilities greatly and they have become far, far better than they would have been, had Meir not performed so well on his mission.”
Sounds of Silence. Article following widow Jane meeting with Israeli President Chaim Herzog in 1986 notes that “The meeting with the President does not erase the bitterness of 32 years of silence.”
Later, a street in Kiryat Shaul in Tel Aviv was named Rechov Meir Bineth. Do people walking this street know who Max Bineth was or the contributions to Israel’s security he made and of his ultimate sacrifice?
Israeli journalist, author and military commentator Gad Shimron rightly asks:
“”How did it happen that a man who deserves to stand in the first row of the Israeli pantheon of heroism was forgotten on the fringes of the public consciousness of the country he served and for which he gave his life?”
It was thus heartwarming, that all these tumultuous years later in 2023 that Max is being remembered on Tu B’shvet. When Max was teaching in Iran in 1942 to the Jewish community about the ‘New Year of the Trees’ festival, the mass slaughter of six million Jews across Europe was taking place and a Jewish state was still a dream to be hard fought for.
Today, a region that was mostly arid desert has over 200 million trees and Jews have a secure and vibrant homeland – ISRAEL.
Like the trees he so loved, the legacy of Max Bineth is ‘rooted’ to this land.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
A good question for both Jews and Arabs in the wake of the deadly terrorist attacks in Jerusalem
By Jonathan Feldstein
In case you missed it, just over a week ago Israel suffered back- to-back terror attacks during Shabbat (the Sabbath) leaving seven dead and several more injured, some seriously. I was grateful for the many friends reaching out from all over the world, anxiously enquiring how we were. This has happened before, so my response was to write a series of updates of “How We Are”.
Taken by Terrorism. Only 14 years of age, Asher Natan, one of the victims of the terror massacre in Jerusalem’s Neve Ya’akov neighborhood. (Courtesy)
Palestinian Arab terror in Israel is not unique, and in the past year it’s been on the increase. However, there was something particularly disturbing about these recent attacks. Part of the reason that terror attacks like these can take place is that Jerusalem is a mixed Jewish/Arab city, roughly two thirds and one third respectively. Jews and Arabs interact widely with virtually no impediments. It’s the norm to see Jews and Arabs shopping together, working together, on public transit, in the hospitals as patients and medical personnel, and much more. So an Arab in a Jewish neighborhood is not new, and rarely suspicious.
Of course, all this debunks the lie of Israel practicing Apartheid against Arabs, but that matters little to Israel bashers when it’s Jews being attacked and killed!
For a few days at least, the attacks were an explosive topic of conversation. Terror attacks don’t take place every day. The norm is the intermingling of Arabs and Jews more than a terror attack, though the threat of an attack exists all the time. Nevertheless, these shook up many Israeli Jews maybe because:
– they took place on Shabbat, the day of rest or
– of the relatively high number of casualties or
– the bigger attack took place outside a synagogue or
– one of the Arab terrorists was just 13!
No Kidding! Out to kill, this was the gun used by a 13-year-old Palestinian in a shooting attack near Jerusalem’s Old City on January 28, 2023. (Israel Police)
And then again, maybe because for months now, there’s been a steady wave of terror attacks leaving dozens of Israelis dead and wounded, and each one takes its toll and tension is compounded.
In addition to being in the news in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, the attacks were the inescapable subject of many individual conversations.
Of course, there is the grief for an among the families of the victims, that played out on national media in ways that were very personal and heart wrenching. And then there immediately followed the inevitable exchanges of conversations, discussions and questioning between friends and colleagues. In speaking with one friend who works in a setting where many Arab and Jews work together, there was a sense of tremendous stress. My friend didn’t know whether her Arab colleagues were celebrating the deaths, or whether any of them might be the next terrorist to attack, either at her place of work or somewhere else. A colleague who noted that her demeanor was not her normal friendly engaging self, asked if she was okay. She opened up candidly. They discussed their mutual stress and concerns. What is noteworthy is that my friend is an Israeli Jew, and her colleague who expressed concern is a Palestinian Arab.
Another friend expressed tremendous tension in her academic setting which also has a demographic mix of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. On any average day, it was not uncommon for her to engage in intense conversations with her Arab colleagues; sometimes leading to understanding, while other times to prickly friction. But this was no ordinary day!
Driven to Kill. 21-year-old Alqam Khayri, the suspected gunman in a Jerusalem terror shooting on January 27, 2023, that killed seven people, is seen in an undated photo at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque. (Social media)
On the day immediately following the terrorist attacks, my friend reported that there was very little interaction between the Arabs and Jews. The Arabs largely kept to themselves speaking in Arabic rather than engaging their Jewish peers. The same was true with the Jews who were fearful and even angry that terrorist attacks take place at all, much less are celebrated with candy and cake being distributed in Arab communities.
Probably thousands of conversations like this took place with the undertone from an Israeli side that incidents like these make us feel unsafe even around Arab colleagues and peers with whom we interact regularly. In the news the same week, an Israeli Jewish woman reportedly protested being put in a maternity ward room with an Israeli Arab woman. Tension is thick.
Two days after the attack, I was pulling into a gas station to fill up my car. Ahead of me was a brand-new Mercedes E200 convertible. Stunning. It also had green and white Palestinian Authority license plates. At the pump, I commented to its owner, whose name I leant was Mohammed that he had a beautiful car. He smiled proudly. I asked him how much it cost. Also with pride he responded:
“300,000 shekels.”
That’s about $90,000.
I posted this interaction with a picture of the car on my social media,noting that despite the myth used to blame Israel for an array of suffering of Palestinian Arabs, not all Palestinian Arabs are poor refugees. This attracted a range of comments from calling Mohammed a terrorist (after all, where else would he get the money), and calling me out for playing on anti-Arab stereotypes. I pushed back, sorry that anyone would read that into my comments, but that in this case, I tried to poke a hole in some of the misperceptions that people have about Israelis and their relations Palestinian Arabs.
Often, when people have biases, they cannot consider anyone else’s position. That’s too bad. I also noted that it was too bad that my critics missed the human moment of me engaging Mohammed and his proud response. It’s easy to overlook and disregard the part about the Orthodox Jewish Israeli “settler” initiating a civil human conversation with a Palestinian Arab over his prized motor vehicle.
Conversing over a Convertible. Despite the tension and suspicions following terror attack, this brand-new Mercedes E200 convertible caught the attention of the writer to engage with Mohammed its proud owner at a gas station.
My conversation also debunks the misperception that there’s apartheid here; that Jews and Arabs don’t and can’t get along and that we dehumanize them. Someone unaware, or unwilling to be honest, would be surprised at the frequency of civil interaction and basic human respect and decency that really is the rule even where I live in the Judean mountains.
Despite the very real tension that people were naturally feeling in the wake of the Shabbat terror attacks that left Jews dead and injured, the personal engagement as I encountered, continues. How are we? It’s complicated.
About the writer:
Jonathan Feldstein - President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Jornal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Questioning the claims by the King of Jordan to Protect Christians in the Middle East
By Jonathan Feldstein
I was disappointed to read of Jordanian King Abdullah II warning Israel not to cross “red lines” on Jerusalem during a Christmastime interview on CNN. Curious as to the nature of King Abdullah’s warning, I decided to watch the interview rather than just comment based on the politicized reports, where the headlines look for click-bait.
By way of full disclosure, I have nothing against King Abdullah. I think he’s quite a rational, stable, and important leader, for Jordan and for Israel. A close alliance between our countries is important.
Interestingly, Abdullah II’s great grandfather, Abdullah I, moved to the region 100 years ago after he was appointed Emir of Trans-Jordan. He and his brother were rewarded with the territory of what’s today Jordan and Iraq for their loyalty to Britain. As Hashemites, they were moved from their native Mecca where the Saudi dynasty took control of the Arabian peninsula, to these new made-up entities. It was not considered an upgrade at the time, but they took what they could get. This was around the same time my grandparents came home to Israel ending, their and their descendants (my family’s) diaspora.
Twisted Tongue. Jordanian King Abdullah II in an interview with CNN claims to protect Christians in the Middle East. “But does he?” questions the writer. (Photo: Screenshot)
Regarding family, I have a lovely photo of the King’s late father, King Husseinbin Talal, and my father in the early 1990s, just before Israel and Jordan formalized a peace agreement. My father was overjoyed to meet the King, but also because peace was coming to our counties. I can see the skyline of Amman from my home, underscoring the geographical proximity and all the historical and modern security issues that go along with that, and I would very much like to meet King Abdullah as my father met his father. However, I must take exception with what he said.
Pursuing Peace. The writer’s father (right) on a UJA mission to Jordan, shakes hands with King Hussein at a reception hosted by the King shortly before the signing of the peace agreement between Jordan and Israel.
Indeed, King Abdullah did issue warnings. He cautioned against Jerusalem being “used by extremists on all sides,” an important comment placing himself in the middle. His criticism of Israel initially took a rare tone when he expressed, “If we continue to use Jerusalem as a soapbox for politics, things can get out of control.” Jerusalem, he continued, is a “tinderbox that if it flashes, we won’t be able to walk away from (in the near future).”
King Abdullah underscored how he wants to be perceived as a centrist, engendering sympathy by “living between Iraq and a hard place.” Yet, he warned from his own soapbox that:
“if people want to get into a conflict with us, we are quite prepared. I like to…look at the glass half full, but we have red lines.”
While he was not threatening a third intifada, he did toss that in as a possible consequence of crossing the “red lines”.
The “people” he was referring to were Israelis, and the red lines are related to Israel’s presence in and control of parts of Jerusalem, specifically those in which he sees himself as the ‘custodian’. The Jordan River that separates our counties is often brown and murky. So too, King Abdullah’s words were murky. He repeated a baseless claim he has made before, that as the Moslem Hashemite leader, he’s custodian of Christian and Moslem holy sites. In fact, he is not. Jordan’s custodianship only applies to Islamic sites.
King Abdullah spoke of the shrinking number of Christians in the region, noting that the number of Christians is dropping under “pressure.” He didn’t say it outright, but the pressure to which he was referring is supposedly from Israel. That too is false.
While indeed the situation of Christians in the region is dire, around the same time as King Abdullah’s CNN interview, Israel released demographics showing a 2% increase in the Christian population in Israel. Israel is the only area in the region where the number of Christians is actually growing. In fact, the actual pressure on Christians comes from the wider Islamic society in which they live.
But if the King is concerned about the well-being of Christians in the region, he should start in Jordan itself. Why, when I met a Christian woman visiting Jerusalem recently, she would not be photographed with me, or even in Jerusalem, for fear of herself and her ministry in Jordan being threatened. The same happened with a Christian Palestinian Arab from Bethlehem with whom I had the opportunity to do business recently. When I suggested taking a picture, he stiffened, and he told me that could be dangerous for him in the Palestinian Authority.
Birthplace of Jesus. Will ‘Silent Night’ one day take on a more literal and ominous meaning of the state of the Christian community in Bethlehem, which has dropped from 86% to 12% in the past 60 years, following a trend across the Middle East, except in Israel, where the Christian population is increasing.
One of the most remarkable comments King Abdullah made was in reference to Islam’s reverence of Jesus as messiah. It might be surprising if the King did not have to walk that back for fear of the charge of heresy. That could prove very dangerous for him and his kingdom where he constantly has to underscore his legitimacy as a Hashemite leader of a country that is predominantly Palestinian Arab. Fortunately for the security cooperation between Israel and Jordan where Israel’s intelligence helps keep the Hashemites on the throne.
Sitting on the east bank of the Jordan River, the King said that it was the third holiest site in Christianity being the location where Jesus was baptized. I asked many Christian friends if this was true, and if so, what the first and second most holy Christian sites were. Without exception, all said that a ranking of such sites is disingenuous, and if it were legitimate, there are other sites that would be in contention for third place, fourth, fifth, and even sixth, ahead of the King’s claimed third place. Then again, with Islam’s third holiest site being in Jerusalem but never once mentioned in the Koran, perhaps his use of the term is deliberately vague.
Others suggested that he was just pandering, trying to be perceived as the savior (pun intended), of Christians in the Middle East, placing a wedge between Jews and Christians and our shared Biblical understanding of the significance of the Land and people of Israel. His saccharine-sweet words “we are committed to defending the rights, the precious heritage, and historic identity of Christians of our region,” hardly stands up to the reality of the plight and persecution of Christians by Muslims in the Middle East.
The King’s warning about protecting the “status quo” in Jerusalem, undermines the rights of Jews and Christians who, by law, are denied the right to pray on the Temple Mount where Jordan has custodianship. Denying the Jewish right to pray at what’s arguably the most holy place in Jerusalem to Jews must be one of his red lines, and about which he sees no problem enforcing, while “defending the rights” of Christians.
Despite the Jordanian King’s claims to protect Christians and Christian sites, I was left feeling uneasy that his comments were more likely to exacerbate than ease tensions and create divisions between Israel’s Jewish and Christian communities, where there are none.
Disputing King Abdullah’s observations, a spokesperson for Christians United for Israel (CUFI) had it right when he said, “Jerusalem never knew true peace or prosperity until its liberation by Israel.”
About the writer:
Jonathan Feldstein - President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Jornal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
UN representatives downplaying terror when perpetrators are Palestinian and victims are Jews
By David E. Kaplan
“Words, words, words,” was Hamlet’s reply to Polonius’ question,
“What do you read, my lord?”.
By repeating the word three times, Hamlet suggests that what he is reading is meaningless.
Jews can never afford that luxury of dismissing ‘words’ as “meaningless”!
Take the relatively innocuous word “scuffle”. It seems such an insignificant word; hardly worthy of any analysis or concern. Generally speaking, if reported that there had been somewhere a “scuffle”, one might just as likely ignore the news item.
Yet its usage earlier this month was anything but insignificant and harmless. On the contrary, it exposed blatant antisemitism at high echelons of the United Nations that warranted a summons to Israel’s Foreign Office.
The individual so summoned was the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process- Tor Wennesland.
Blind to the Truth. UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, described a Palestinian terrorist attack as a “scuffle” and criticised the Israeli policeman who thwarted the attack.
After Palestinian Ammar Hadi Mufleh and two male accomplices failed in their attempt to carjack an Israeli couple on the 2 December 2022, they then tried to grab an Israeli police officer’s rifle, stabbing him before the officer responded by shooting Mufleh dead. The stabbing and shooting can be seen clearly on security camera video footage.
Terrifying Truth. Seeing it as a “scuffle”, UN ignores footage showing Ammar Mufleh trying to grab the police officer’s weapon during the struggle.
While this was a clear premeditated terrorist attack only thwarted by the quick action of the Israeli police officer, this was not the way the UN’s Wennesland saw it. Soon after the failed terrorist attack,
Wennesland, who not only should have known better but in fact did know better – tweeted that he was :
“horrified by today’s killingof a Palestinian man, AmmarMufleh , during a scuffle with an Israeli soldier near Huwara in the occupied West Bank. My heartfelt condolences to his bereaved family. Such incidents must be fully and promptly investigated and those responsible held accountable.”
On a Knife-Edge. The knife used by Amar Mufleh in his “scuffle” with Israeli border police on December 2, 2022.
A ”scuffle”?
Displaying no concern for the victims – only “heartfelt condolences”to the attempted killer’s family – how about the UN’s “horrified” Wennesland being “investigated” and held “accountable”?
Israel’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emmanual Nachshon had it right when he tweeted that Wenneland’s remarks are:
“a total distortion of reality” explaining that:
“This incident is a major terror attack, in which an Israeli policeman was stabbed in his face and the life of another police officer was threatened and consequently he shot his assailant. This is NOT a ‘scuffle’ – this is a terror attack!”
This devious twisting of facts exposing bias, prejudice and antisemitism is systemic within the United Nations. Not to be outdone by Wennesland, another UN official joined the fray expressing support for terrorist attacks on Israel. Addressing a Hamas conference in Gaza following the terrorist attack, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories said:
“You have a right to resist occupation….Israel says, ‘resistance equals terrorism’, but an occupation requires violence and generates violence.”
Fran’kly Speaking. A strong critic of Israel’s right to exist or defend itself from missile attacks, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories who compares Israelis to Nazis, addresses the UN, October 2022. (Photo: Screenshot)
Is this not the UN legitimizing and giving green light to violence against Jews?
If the UN has a nefarious track record when it comes to the Jewish state, Israel also knows how to respond.
When on the 10 November 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution equating Zionism with racism,Chaim Herzog, Israel’s current State President’s father – then Israeli Ambassador to the UN – responded concluding with these words:
“For us, the Jewish people, this resolution based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, is devoid of any moral or legal value. For us, the Jewish people, this is no more than a piece of paper and we shall treat it as such.”
Standing Tall. A resolute Chaim Herzog, Israel’s then Ambassador to the United Nations, addressing the General Assembly in 1975 following the iniquitous resolution equating Zionism with racism. (Photo/Michos Tzovaras)
With that Herzog – before the eyes of the world – tore the resolution in half.
In further response to that iniquitous UN resolution, the street names of “UN Avenue” in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv were switched to “Zionism Avenue“.
Whether thwarting terrorism or antisemitism, Israelis today are STREETSMART!
Chaim Herzog’s Speech in Opposition to U.N. Resolution Equating Zionism With Racism
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Isn’t it ironic that while the leadership of Iran threatens Israel with destruction, people in Iran are being inspired by the music of an Israeli, as they bravely take to the streets to protest against this very regime .
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has considered the Jewish state an enemy, making visiting – and even artistic cooperation – a punishable offense. Now that a song by an Israeli artist has now emerged as the Iranian “protest anthem”, I wonder if the self-proclaimed master of English irony – Jeremy Corbyn – appreciates Iranian ‘irony’?
Opening Doors. Liraz Charhi seen here photographed by Rotem Lebel in the Jaffa neighborhood of Tel Aviv for ROSE & IVY.
Resonating across Iran are Israeli Liraz Charhi‘s lyrics:
“Until when will we be silent, until when will we keep our head down?”
With the people no longer “silent” nor keeping their “heads down”, it is little wonder Liraz Charhi’s music has emerged as the soundtrack to Iran protests that were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police after being arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code.
Women are saying Eneough. Iran is witnessing one of its worst unrests after the country’s morality police physically assaulted a 22-year-old Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini to death for wearing her hijab inappropriately. Her death has sparked a global protest against restrictions on women in Iran
It makes little difference to Iranians of every class and culture who are protesting for a regime change that Chardi has worn the uniform of the Israeli army. As a conscript, music was Chardi’s weapon serving in the military band of the Education and Youth Corps.
Born in Ramla in central Israel to a family of Persian origin, the Israeli actress, singer and dancer is a niece to Israel’s internationally famous singer and actress – Rita. Frequently singing in her native Persian language, Rita has been referred to as a cultural ambassador between Israeli and Iranian citizens hoping to “puncture the wall of tension” between their countries. In this quest her niece Liraz Charhi has joined her.
Female Freedoms. ‘Zan Bezan’ translated to ‘Women, Sing’ is an invitation to join Liraz’s private revolution of song and dance, calling on women in the Middle East and around the globe to build on the positive language of female freedoms.
Charhi told Israel’s Channel 12 that her first album, “NAZ” – which featured Iranian artists – was well received in the Islamic Republic after it was released in 2018.
“Very quickly I received videos of women dancing in underground parties and removing their chador and dancing to these songs,” she said.
Clearly, Charhi was having an impact. She was as the headlines proclaimed:
“….. SINGING FOR HER SISTERS”
Inspired perhaps by the changes that came about in the 1960s fueled by the freedom-loving music of the period, Charhi observes events in Iran with a mixture of fear and hope as her “sisters” protest against the repressive regime by burning their headscarves. “I’ve always believed women can make the revolution in Iran – we have the force to create change!”
Singing for her Sisters. Iranian women demonstrate against repression, Israeli-Iranian singer Liraz Charhi’s new album was made for them.
Especially these days she asserts:
“I’m very proud of my sisters and I support them and am with them in every breath.”
While Charhi grew up in a traditional Iranian home with Farsi-speaking, Persian-Jewish parents, as an Israeli she has never been allowed to visit the land of her heritage. But profoundly connected she is.
If unable to visit Iran with her body, she does so with her personality and talent.
ROYA IS REALISED
The saga behind the production of her latest album ROYA is most revealing. It was something like out of the Israeli award-winning spy thriller ‘Tehran’ in which Charhi stars as a Mossad agent. Cutting the album ROYA became a covert mission necessitating to secretly meet with the Iranian musicians – including women – at a recording studio in Istanbul. It was so risky that Charhi only revealed to her family only the day before she left Israel. “Not evern my manager believed it would actually happen,” she says.
“Liraz, this is dangerous. Are you sure?’ he said to her to which she replied:
“It will happen.”
Tough Call. Liraz Charhi as Mossad agent Yael Kadosh in “Tehran.” (AppleTV+)
Turkey was selected as it’s one of the few countries Iranians can travel to without a visa. Nevertheless, the artists came on the condition that their faces would be blurred in any photographs taken and that their names would not be published anywhere.
It could have been out of the script of the ‘Tehran’ mini-series. While quietly buying the air tickets for her Israeli band members, Charhi then hired a Turkish company to look after the ‘unnamed’ Iranian musicians, who would be met by security at the airport in Istanbul and taken secretly to the studio.
“I knew that they would come,” she says. The fact that they were participating anonymously “meant they did not do it for money or publicity. They did it because we’re sharing the same dream and the same hope of meeting together and bringing our music and our love to the world.”
This resonated with the name of the album ROYA, which in Persian means ‘fantasy’ or ‘dream’. For all her conviction, until the minute the musicians landed in Istanbul and were united in the underground studio with her Israeli band of three women and three men, Charhi was more than anxious. “I kind of fainted in the recording,” she says. “I felt that I could not sing.” This fear permeated in the song recorded Tunha, meaning “alone”. It came through in a slight quiver in her voice lending authenticity to what these musicians were going through just to make a recording!
She could so easily have been “alone” – in the sense without her Iranians – but as Herzl wrote, “If you will it, it is no dream.”
It turned out it was no dream. ROYA had been realized.
Charhi was moved by their bravery.
“I waited all my life to meet my friends and family from Iran; the fact that you weren’t afraid and were brave is… WOW,” said Charhi as she welcomed the musicians on their safe arrival at the studio in Istanbul.
One of the musicians told Channel 12:
“I know this might be dangerous, but I do what I love.”
Message of the Music. The music of Israeli singer and actress Liraz Charhi, recorded in collaboration with Iranian artists, has become widely associated with recent protests in the Islamic Republic.
Music mission
Charhi’s cause-driven cultural mission continued unabated. Following the recording of the album, she went on tour over the summer when she was offered an opportunity by the Jewish Culture Festival to perform with her Iranian musicians at the Old Synagogue in Krakow, Poland.
Incredibly, the Iranians agreed as long as they were masked so golden hijabs were woven to conceal their identities. However, one of the artists insisted on showing part of her hair and was later identified and suffered repercussions in Iran for performing with an Israeli.
I Have a Dream
Since the outbreak of protests in Iran which have claimed over 200 lives so far – including over 28 children – at the hands of the security services, Charhi has received messages of support from fans in Iran over Instagram.
“Thank you for being our voice, I will never be forgotten,” one message read.
“I love your songs in Persian and hope that one day you will sing in beautiful Tehran,” another supporter wrote.
This second message brought back memories for me when I interviewed Charhi’s aunt Rita in in 2014 for Hilton Israel Magazine. Iranian-born Israeli pop singer and actress, Rita has mesmerized audiences globally from concert halls to Britain’s House of Lords and the United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York. Her message has always one of love – that music unites people irrespective of their religion and nationality.
Aunty Rita. “There’s no quarrel between Israelis and Iranians, just between governments,” says Liraz Charhi’s aunt, Israel’s premier female vocalist, Rita Jahan-Foruz seen here in 2014 with then US President Barak Obama and Israeli President Shimon Peres.
When I asked, “What’s next?” she replied:
.“There is a saying in Arabic that says, ‘Throw your heart forward and fetch it.’ It does not matter if the dream is realistic or reasonable but one has to chase it. My dream is to sing in Persian in Iran.”
“You really believe this will happen,” I asked
“Yes,” she said and then with a broad smile, “and still when I have my own teeth.”
Who knows, maybe sometime soon, niece and aunt will fulfill their dream of singing in Iran in Persian.
May the Tehran of tomorrow be the location not of spy thrillers but musical concerts.
As a plan it ‘SOUNDS’ GOOD!
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Observations and insights in chilling documentary about 2016 terrorist attack in the heart of Tel Aviv
By David E. Kaplan
It was 6 o’clock on Day 3 of the 21stWorld Summit of Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel. The morning session had been intense – a comparative panel discussion on the subject of ‘Terrorism Negotiations’ comparing Israeli and American modalities. Both countries have long histories of tough dealing with hostage-taking. The price one pays can lead to painful consequences. Israel knows this only too well.
The afternoon session hardly lightened up with ‘Perspectives from the United States” on how they are countering domestic terrorism.
With potential mass killers motivated by ideology, religion or frustration coupled with easy access to firearms, ordinary US citizens pose targets in schools, workplaces and places of worship. Once thought hallowed and safe – synagogues today remain only hallowed. They are no longer safe!
So, while Israel and the USA may share common values; its people also share something else in common today – FEAR!
So leaving these existential issues behind as I stepped out from the auditorium – cerebrally drained – I was already fantasizing about throwing back at home a well-earned soothing scotch when my eye suddenly caught on the information board something for the die-hards – pun intended! It was an invitation for a viewing of a new documentary on a deadly terrorist attack called “Closed Circuit” to be followed by a panel discussion moderated by the Founder and Executive Director of the Institute of Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University Prof. Boaz Ganor. The panelists included Tal Inbar, the director of the film, Shalom Ben Hanan, a former senior official from the #Shabak, and Hagi Klein, a survivor and hero who attempted to stop the attackers and was injured in the process.
Close Encounters. Following the showing of the documentary “Close Circuit” on the 3rd day of the World Summit of Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University, Prof. Boaz Ganor (left) moderates a riveting discussion with panelists (l-r) Hagi Klein, a survivor and the hero of the 2016 terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, Tal Inbar, the director of the film, and Shalom Ben Hanan, a former senior official from the Shabak (Israeli Security Agency also known as the Shin Bet). Photo: David E Kaplan.
The scotch would have to wait….
If the conference until then had been theoretical, what followed next, felt like the student in Counter-Terrorism’s “practical” as one transited from the “Ivory Tower” of academia to a real tower – the ground floor of a high-rise in Tel Aviv. This was the 2016 setting of terrorist attack in the city’s upscale Sarona Market and the locale of the documentary that I was about to experience as much as view
Serenity at Sarona. The tranquil setting prior to the terror attack that left four dead, many physically injured and ever more whose lives were shattered.
In introducing “Closed Circuit”, Prof. Ganor began with the analogy of how people of a certain age would know where they were, “when they first heard the news of the assignation of President John Kenney” or earlier “the Japanese attack on People Habour” or more recently “the attacks on 9/11,” so too Israelis, particularly residents of Tel Aviv when the news broke of this attack. I recalled when Breaking News came onto all the Israeli TV channels that evening of the 8 June 2016, it was believed that some terrorists were still at large. It was uncertain how many terrorists were involved. The appeal from law enforcement to stay indoors to allow the police to search the city and to not open front doors until you were certain who was there, only contributed to the panic.
“The city that never sleeps” was living up to its reputation but for different reasons.
All these recollections came back to me as the movie rolled.
Directed by Tel Aviv-based award-winning independent filmmaker Tal Inbar, the documentary uses security camera footage – much of it taken on the night of the 2016 terror attack. It captures the two Palestinian gunmen dressed in suits and ties, who soon after they sat down at a table at the chocolate restaurant ‘Max Brenner’in the Sarona Market, got up and opened fire on the patrons, killing four and injuring over twenty. I felt I was not only watching this movie but was in the movie – being part of the terrorist attack. The viewer is constantly confronted with how he or she would have reacted when the first shots were fired. There was one crazy scene when someone ran out still carrying his uneaten chocolate pancake, and when he met up with his friend, believing they were safe, asked:
“What shall we do?,
The friend incongruously replied, “Let’s eat the pancake!”
The comment in the audience behind me was, “Israelis!”
People laughed; they could just as easily have cried.
We know of the pancake response, because interspersed with the chilling security camera (CT) footage, survivors of the attack are interviewed at the very scene of the attack. They take you back six years earlier revealing why they were at Max Brenner that night; what followed, their thoughts during the attack and how all these years later, how their lives were affected. No on in the attack from patrons to waiters were unscathed.
There is 22-year-old Lihi Ben Ari, who was fourteen at the time of the attack who went with her father to Max Brenner that evening. Her parents were divorced and while her mother had argued “with my dad to postpone our outing, he was persistent in taking me out.” When the shooting started, he pushed me to a safer place but it cost him his life. He took a bullet in the back. As the events of that evening came back so rolled the tears. She no longer had a father!
Death and Destruction. Israeli policemen at Max Brenner chocolate restaurant in Sarona in the aftermath of the 2016 terror attack (Reuters/Baz Ratner)
Then there was the hero, Hagi Klein, who fought back instinctively by grabbing a chair and smashing it over one of the terrorist. In this way, he slowed the attack and saved many lives. Klein makes an interesting observation to a question from Prof. Ganor in the panel discussion that, “often in such terror attacks in Israel, the terrorist shouts Allah Akbar (God is great) to explain and justify their action. Here, they just started shooting. There was no warning.”
Honouring a Hero. Following the watching of the unnerving documentary “Closed Circuit”, Prof. Boaz Ganor (left) presents Hagi Klein with a special citation from the ICT for his brave conduct and quick action during the terrorist attack in 2016 at the Sarona Market in the heart of Tel Aviv. Injured as a result of gunfire, Klein’s action saved many lives. (Photo: David E Kaplan)
There is a message here – while there are profiles and patterns, every terrorist attack is different with its own characteristics.
Then there is the cop who unknowingly saves one of the terrorists who being dressed in a suit, thought him to be a patron. Restaurant workers – who are both Arab and Jewish – are interviewed and reveal how their lives were changed forever by their sudden encounter with death.
Breaking the Ramadan fast that fateful evening was an Arab family.
The father sadly recounts the events and the “complicated” feeling of being Arab caught up in a terrorist attack perpetrated by Arabs. No members of his family were lost that evening but he did lose his marriage. “My wife said I changed; I was never the same.”
What this documentary exposes is the complex anatomy of a terror attack. For one thing, don’t characterize a terror attack only by the number of fatalities – in this case four. The ‘survivors’ remain forever haunted. Some survive with scarred bodies, others with scarred souls.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
I did have my scotch later that evening. It was hardly soothing. I reflected on the discussions at the Conference up to that day, on how effectively countering terrorism required countries around the world to come together and agree on what constituted terrorism. After all, how does one devise counter terrorism strategies if you have ambiguity on what terrorism is and who the terrorists are. There has to be a consensus definition.
The Killers. Appearing on Facebook the day after the attack, Palestinian terrorists Khaled Makhamra on a visit to the Temple Mount (l) and Muhammad Makhamra.
The perpetrators in the 2016 attack at Max Brenner were Khalid al-Muhamra and Muhammad Ahmad MoussaMahmara, 21-year-old cousins from the West Bank who by their own admissions, had been inspired by Islamic State propaganda videos. Their attack actually began in Beersheba where they intended to catch a train to Tel Aviv and start shooting passengers. Their admitted reasoning was that there would be no escape on a train thus maximizing the carnage. Deterred by the visibly strict security at the Beersheba railway station, they switched plans and took a cab arriving at HaShalom Railway Station in Tel Aviv where they asked locals:
“Where are there good places to eat where there are lots of people?”
They were directed to Sarona. On arrival, they gravitated to the popular and crowded Max Brenner.
Shortly thereafter, the area was chaos with four people dead and many wounded.
Yes, this was obviously a terrorist attack but not so obvious to the world media if one goes by their initial headline reportage.
CNN on its Facebook page had in its its headline the word “terrorists” in quotations, as if the explanation for the carnage was up for academic speculation. Adding insult to injury, CNN failed to mention terrorism even once in the article reporting the ordeal.
Similarly, the British news network SKY also neglected to use the word “terror” or “terrorism” in their report of the attack at Sarona.
In keeping with not offending Arabs at the expense of Israeli sensitivities, the BBC‘s headline read:
“Tel Aviv shooting: Three killed in attack in shopping centre attack”.
Could the perpetrators be disgruntled shoppers unhappy with the customer service?
The BBC report markedly avoided the keywords that would have factually characterised what had horribly happened in the heart of Tel Aviv.
Clearly a pattern was all too evident.
Not to be outdone, The Telegraph as well as The Guardian also labeled the terror attack as “shooting” incidences in their headlines.
While CNN later – following a public outcry – issued an apology via Twitter calling their use of quotation marks around the word terrorist in their news headline “a mistake” and admitted in a subsequent press release that “The attacks were, without question, terrorist attacks,” the damage had been done.
Chaos to Comforting. A man and woman comfort each other following the 2016 terrorist attack at Sarona in Tel Aviv. (photo credit: REUTERS)
I look forward to future World Summits on Counter-Terrorism that see media personalities from top TV news network and senior correspondents from influential papers not merely covering the Conference but participating in the discussions. They need to be part of the conversation.
Afterall, the “mistakes” admitted to in 2016 still happen too frequently to be “mistakes”.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
The heaven reveal Jordan’s concern for Palestinians is a lot of hot air
By David E. Kaplan
Anything that could ease the lives of West Bank Palestinians should be welcome. Or so one would think!
Apparently not so for Jordanians if Israel is doing the ‘easing’ and the Hashemite Kingdom feels they are losing out economically.
Literally go figure, for this brouhaha is all about money not morality!
Jordan reveals its true colours as self-interest trumps any interests of the Palestinians.
Instead of West Bank travelers, when flying abroad, having to take the cumbersome, bureaucratic, time-consuming and costly route of going through the ever-crowded Allenby Crossing into neighbouring Jordan for international flights out of Amman, now have a much simpler and far less costly option.
Sparks Fly. A partial view of the international Ramon Airport located some 18 kilometers north of the southern Israeli Red Sea resort city of Eilat sparks crisis between Jordan and Palestinians. (MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)
They can fly out from Israel!
Compounding the Allenby Crossing is that it is not open 24 hours a day thus forcing many travellers to pay to stay in a hotel nearby before their flight. There are also travel costs and crossing fees that make the journey via Jordan an added financial burden.
The alternative is Israel’s offer of its relatively new international Ramon Airport near Eilat. Opened in 2019, tourists from abroad holidaying at Israel’s all-year sunshine resort now fly directly to Ramon Airport. The first group of West Bank Palestinians flew last week from Ramon Airport to Cyprus aboard a plan belonging to the Arkia Israeli Airlines.
Hopefully it will not be the last, but it might be if Jordan gets its way.
So why is Jordan upset? According to Jordan’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, some 255,000 Palestinians enter Jordan every year with each passenger spending at least 350 Jordanian dinars during his or her visit to the kingdom. Here’s the revealing truth:
Jordanian travel and tourism agents say that 45% of their clients are Palestinians.
Easing the lives of the Palestinians is the last thing on Jordan mind. First thing on its mind is not to lose out on this revenue. Hence Jordan is sadly in sabotage mode.
The rhetoric from Jordanians – across the board from government officials to activists on social media – has been threatening, frightening and scrapes away the false façade of caring for the wellbeing of Palestinians. The tone and tempo indicates also a callous disrespect towards Palestinians.
Several Jordanian activists launched a hashtag on Twitter titled “Palestinian normalization [with Israel] is treason”, #palestiniannormalizatioistreason, accusing the Palestinians of “stabbing Jordan in the back”. Ironically, many Palestinians feel it is Jordan that has stabbed them in the back, and have been reminding Jordanians on social media was it not their country that signed a peace treaty with Israel!
Where then is the “treason”?
This menacing reaction from Jordan permeates from the top. Chairman of the Tourism Committee in the Jordanian Parliament (National Assembly), Majed al-Rawashdeh, said that Israel’s decision to open Ramon Airport to the Palestinians posesto the kingdom:
“a great economic and social danger”.
Really? Israel offers a solution to ease Palestinian travel and Jordan seeing it causing “social danger”!
First Flight May Be Last. Making history, West Bank Palestinians fly to Cyprus from Ramon Airport Arkia flight to Cyprus from Ramon Airport, August 22, 2022. (photo credit: COGAT)
It gets even more vicious and libelous. Al-Rawashdeh added that the move was a “political decision par excellence” by the Israeli government to harm Jordan’s economy. The extent of this Jordanian parliamentarian’s lying was astounding when he claimed that the recent crisis of severe overcrowding at Allenby Bridge that saw thousands of Palestinian passengers stranded on the Jordanian side of the border crossing, was deliberately created by the Israeli government so that they could start flying from Ramon Airport.
In full throttle, Rawashdeh even castigated his own government for not taking any measures to thwart the Israeli move, and suggested that Jordan revoke the temporary (Jordanian) passports of Palestinians who travel through Ramon Airport.
Then steps in Jordan’s former Minister of Information, Samih al-Mayaita who accused the PA of collusion with Israel in opening the airport to Palestinian passengers. His Tweet read:
“Yesterday, the first flight from the Israeli Ramon Airport arrived in Cyprus carrying Palestinians from the West Bank. Flights will continue to other countries at the expense of Queen Alia Airport and transit through Jordan. [This is] an Israeli move to serve its own interests in agreement with the Ramallah authority, which provided a service to Israel at the expense of Jordan.”
The Jordanian narrative is now of an Israeli plot in collusion with the PA to damage Jordan’s economy. Can this hysteria get any more absurd? It can and does, and adding fuel to the fire is the Jordanian media.
Prominent Jordanian columnist Maher Abu Tair also accused the PA of being in cahoots with Israel to open Ramon Airport to the Palestinians. He writes:
“The Ramallah Authority was complicit with the occupation. The rhetoric of the officials in Ramallah was soft and they did not prevent the Palestinians from using the airport.”
With venom creeping into the now offensive rhetoric, the Jordanian columnist referred to the PA as that “miserable Ramallah Authority” who would not “dare prevent travel and tourism agencies from promoting travel through Ramon Airport.”
Smooth Landing, Political Uproar. Palestinians at Larnaca International Airport after arriving aboard the first flight from Israel’s Ramon airport, in Cyprus on August 22, 2022 (Iakovos HATZISTAVROU / AFP)
He continues:
“Most Palestinians travel by land to Jordan, and from Jordan they travel with the Jordanian airlines from Queen Alia Airport to Turkey and other countries. This means that opening Ramon Airport to them will negatively affect Jordan.”
This rhetoric was leading somewhere – a call for action.
That came from Jordanian parliament member Khalil Attieh who said that he would exert pressure on the Jordanian government to ban any Palestinian who uses Ramon Airport from entering the kingdom.
Long delays and Overcrowding. According to Palestinian sources, about 7,000 passengers cross daily from Jordan to the West Bank and from the West Bank through Jordan, reaching up to 10,000 passengers per day on holidays.
“My message to the Palestinians is that anyone who uses this airport will not be permitted to enter Jordan. In addition, travel and tourism agencies that cooperate with this issue should be subjected to legal measures. The Palestinians need to know that they either chose Jordan that has always stood with them or the Zionists …….”
Where this will now lead for Palestinians travelling abroad is very much up in the air!
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
The long arm of Iranian injustice takes out famed writer’s eye
By David E. Kaplan
Be warned – those that stab you in the eye will have no compunction to stabbing you in the back. This is the cautionary message to those participants in the Iran nuclear deal from the murderous attack on Sir Salman Rushdie!
Marked Man. Living with a bounty on his head since 1989, Sir Salman Rushdie was stabbed onstage multiple times as he was about to give a public lecture in 14 August 2022 at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua , New York. [File: Charly Triballeau/AFP]
There is no time limit on an Iranian threat to inflict harm; whether on an individual or a country. This is why Israelis are observing the ongoing Rushdie affair through a microscope and not rose-tinted spectacles. They understand clearly the razor sharp message delivered on August 12, 2022, in a place few outside the USA have ever even heard of – Chautauqua, New York and they worry about allowing a menace state to get hold of menacing weapons. Particularly when the intended recipient of Iran’s venom is the world’s only Jewish state. For a people that failed to heed the warnings in the 20th century are not going to make the same mistake in the 21st century. Jews today take it very seriously when Iran bellows “DEATH TO ISRAEL”, exhibits the Star of David on its paraded missiles and is HELL-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.
The Writing is on the Missiles. What could be clearer of Iran’s intentions when “Death to Israel” is plastered on its Islamic Revolution Guards Corps’ missiles?
While much of the ‘civilised’ world was horrified at the stabbing of Indian-born British-American novelist Salman Rushdie on a public stage, what was Iran response? Afterall, the attempted murderer, 24 year-old Hadi Matar, was specifically carrying out the fatwa (religious edict) delivered on the 14 February 1989 by the then world’s most prominent Shi’a Muslim leader and the Supreme Leader of Iran. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The edict called for the death of Rushdie and his publishers.
Words Kill. Born in the US to Lebanese parents who emigrated from Yaroun, a border village in Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon, Hadi Matar arrives for an arraignment in the Chautauqua County Courthouse in Mayville, N.Y.(Gene J. Puskar / AP)
Iran blamed the victim – Rushdie! He had it coming; he deserved it.
Extensively commenting on the attack, Iranian media were calling the attempted murder “divine retribution“, while the state broadcaster daily, Jaam-e Jam, highlighted the news of Rushdie might losing an eye with this tasteless admonishment:
“an eye of the Satan has been blinded“.
It was a play on words following Rushdie’s famed novel ‘The Satanic Verses’.
Matar’s Mug Shots. Facing charges of attempted murder and assault of author Salman Rushdie, Hadi Matar is reported in a New York Post interview saying that “I respect the Ayatollah. I think he’s a great person”.
So while Rushdie – widely regarded as one of Britain’s finest living writers – was knighted for his contribution to the arts in 2008 by Queen Elizabeth II by the traditional placing of a sword on his shoulder, the long arm of Iran instead inserted a knife into the esteemed writer’s eye.
Despite Iran’s fingerprints found glaring at the scene of the crime in Chautauqua, the Islamic republic not only denies any culpability but accuses the victim and his supporters. Is this a country we are seriously believing will engage honestly regarding the nuclear deal that has existential ramifications for Israel, the region and the world?
Marking the country’s first public reaction to the Rushdie attack, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said the following In a televised news:
“Regarding the attack on Salman Rushdie, we do not consider anyone other than [Rushdie] and his supporters worth of blame and even condemnation.”
Dead Set to Kill. Iranian women are seen on February 17, 1989, holding banners reading “Holly Koran” and “Kill Salman Rushdie” during a demonstration against British writer Salman Rushdie in Tehran. (Norbert Schiller/AFP)
Kanaani should have been reminded that on 14 February 2006, the Iranian state news agency reported that “the fatwa will remain in place permanently”. The following year, Rushdie reported that he was still receiving a “sort of Valentine’s card” from Iran each year on 14 February letting him know the country has not forgotten the vow to kill him.
It was a vow they kept – thankfully not successfully – on August 12, 2022, and Rushdie is thought likely to lose sight in one eye as well as suffering nerve damage in his arm and liver.
Is Iran’s theocratic leadership ever to be believed and trusted, particularly as the country wants to make good on its promises, not only to kill Rushdie but to wipe out Israel?
Rogues Gallery. A view of banners depicting Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in the Lebanese town of Yaroun, where the parents of the attempted killer of Rushdie emigrated to the US from. (August 15, 2022. REUTERS/Issam Abdallah)
Since being elected Supreme Leader in 1989 – taking over from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei has made it crystal clear he wants Israel – as a country – to disappear.
On December 4, 1990, he expressed:
“Regarding the Palestine issue, the problem is taking back Palestine, which means disappearance of Israel. There is no difference between occupied territories before and after [the Arab-Israeli war of] 1967. Every inch of Palestinian land is an inch of Palestinians’ home. Any entity ruling Palestine is illegitimate unless it is Islamic and by Palestinians. Our position is what our late Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] said, “Israel must disappear.”
Doubling down on Iran’s commitment to hasten the demise of the Jewish state, Khamenei on August 19, 1991, expressed:
“. . . Our view regarding the Palestine issue is clear. We believe the solution is destroying the Israeli regime. Forty years has passed [since establishment of the state of Israel], and if another forty years passes, Israel must disappear, and will.”
Iran’s obsessional determination to expunge Israel from the map has persisted unabated.
In the opening speech to an international conference in support of the Palestinians’ Intifada on April 22, 2001, Khamenei endeavours to mobalise the Muslim world to the mission of destroying “the Zionist regime”:.
He tells his listeners:
“rest assured that if even a portion of the Islamic world’s resources is devoted to this path [Intifada], we will witness the decay and eventual disappearance of the Zionist regime.”
“Israel must Disappear”. Ayatollah Khamenei has made it crystal clear he wants Israel to disappear having expressed: “Any entity ruling Palestine is illegitimate unless it is Islamic and by Palestinians. Our position is what our late Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] said, “Israel must disappear.”
A decade later in a Friday prayer sermon on February 3, 2012, the Supreme Leader addressing past and future Iranian involvement in anti-Israel activities, expressed explicitly that Israel must not be allowed to survive:
“We have intervened in the anti-Israel struggle, and the results have been the victories in the 33 days war [the 2006 war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon] and the 22 days war [Israel’s attacks on the Gaza strip in December 2008]. From now on we will also support any nation, any group that confronts the Zionist regime; we will help them, and we are not shy about doing so. Israel will go, it must not survive, and it will not.”
When it comes to ending Israel, there is no letup in warning signs. If the Nazi imagery of the Jew was that of the rodent, for the Iranian leadership it is a “cancerous tumor” that “must be removed”. Speaking at a meeting on June 4, 2013, about the steadfastness of his predecessor Ayatollah Ruhhollah Khomeini – the man who issued the apostasy fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the present Ayatollah said:
“our magnanimous Imam is the person who never changed his mind about the Zionist regime; that ‘the Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor that must be removed’.”
For Iran’s leadership, there will never be an acceptance of the Jewish state. It is in their words, “a tumor that must be removed.”
Is it any wonder that Israelis are warry of the future when they read recent headlines in The New York Times:
Some Glimmers of Optimism About Iran Nuclear Deal.
You won’t find too many Israelis feeling positive about an Iran that is as dead set on ending the existence of Israel as it is dead set on possessing nuclear weapons.
Iran Calling the ‘Shots’? Iran wants compensation if US pulls out of nuclear deal again.
And what is the current status of the deal that at best is little more than kicking the can down the road to confront a nuclear Iran later?
Well, instead of iron clad assurances from Iran, what is apparently holding up the deal is not a worried world seeking assurances but a Tehran seeking guarantees that it will be compensated if a future US president pulls out! For Iran it is all about resuscitating its economy and that means the removal of the sanctions regime.
Hadi Matar in court accused of attempting to murder Salman Rushdie
However, in the wake of the US withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Accord, Iran has increasingly violated the agreements it made under the deal and expanded its nuclear programme.
“If Iran wants these sanctions lifted, they will need to alter their underlying conduct; they will need to change the dangerous activities that gave rise to these sanctions in the first place,” the State Department spokesperson, Ned Price, said at a recent briefing.
Does anyone really believe that Iran will “change its dangerous activities”?
Would love to get Salman Rushdie’s take on this!
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Proposals of single-state arrangements have been presented to leaders from as early as the 19th century and consistently rejected by both the Jews and Arabs of the land. Therefore the notion that the conflict stems from attempts to partition the land is nothing short of ahistorical, and presenting the one-state idea as new, is nothing short of deceptive.
Over recent years, versions of single-state arrangements have been promoted in dozens of books and hundreds, perhaps thousands of articles and opinion pieces. These one-state arguments are often presented with an aura of sophistication and unconventionality, making them sound appealing. Yet, in truth, one-statism is more an expression of an ideological pursuit or political desperation than a well-reasoned proposal.
Searching for Solutions. ‘Two-State Solution’ may be arduous, but ‘One-State Solution’ appears both unwelcome and unworkable.
Those bursting at the seams of the one-state idea as if it is hot off the press are frequently disingenuous about the motivations that drive their intentions. The people puppeting this idea tend to drift within fringe elements of Western intellectual circles with an already unfavorable attitude toward the Jewish state or in the ideologically driven messianic Israeli right who seek sovereignty over the entire land due to religious dogma.
Both groups claim to despise the other, yet for differing but predaceous reasons, they have reached a consensus – the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot succeed, shouldn’t succeed, and that there should be no further attempts because the idea of partition itself is unjust. This is simply a lazy conclusion. Failure to deliver a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could only count as evidence of the infeasibility of the two-state solution if the process itself were not flawed. The peace process, however, has been so flagrantly flawed that finding fault in the proposed two-state solution amounts to the de-facto exoneration of Palestinian rejection and diplomatic mismanagement.
From Here to – hopefully not – Eternity. May a solution finally find favor.
In theory, the one-state idea is utopian. In actuality, it is disastrous. It has no support among the vast majority of Jewish-Israelis or Israeli-Arab leaders. In terms of the Palestinians, a study conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research found that only 6% support a single state with equal rights for all.
Young activists, favorable to the preaching of the Israeli messianic right, dress up their talk of the one-state paradigm as the only authentic way for both peoples to achieve justice and reach peace. Oddly, they have concluded that the maximalist vision of the Palestinians – a Palestinian state “from the River to the Sea” could find harmony alongside the Jewish maximalist vision of a Jewish state “from the River to the Sea”. But one could only reach this conclusion if they were to negate the core principle as to why these two maximalist visions exist.
From the Jewish-Israeli perspective, this vision is unique because it is held solely by a fractional minority of the population – Yesha, the settler movement, and their supporters. In this view, there is no acceptable Jewish sovereignty without the wholeness of the land and no acceptable sovereignty in the land unless it is Jewish. From the Palestinian perspective, this maximalist vision is the driving force behind what has always been the Palestinian cause – no Jewish state within any borders – “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
There is no synchronous element to the attitudes behind these two visions. Both movements are negative in nature, preferring to deny the other’s rights and sovereignty above advancing their own.
On the one hand, you have a movement of Israelis who want to settle the land to spur on the messianic dream. On the other, the Palestinians, who believe their claim to the land is exclusive and supreme over that of the Israelis. In both of these visions, neither side dreams of, nor is willing to concede political independence, power, and state-governance to the other.
This optimism surrounding the potential coexistence of Palestinians and Israelis in one state is particularly unwarranted as binational and multinational arrangements show strain elsewhere. If aspirations for self-determination are strong enough to currently challenge the cohesion of developed countries such as Belgium, Spain, and Canada, even without a backdrop of conflict, why try it between two belligerent parties who are actively engaged in conflict? The two peoples in Belgium have very few cultural, historical, and social distinctions between them. Jews and Arabs, on the other hand, do not share a religion, language, institutions, a common historical experience, model figures, or social structures. The failure of the binational model in Belgium is thus all the more damning to any reasoning for implementing this idea between Israelis and Palestinians. Given the profound animosity and distrust due to religious, political, and social divisions between Palestinians and Israelis, the internal ethnic violence that tore apart Yugoslavia and has caused perpetual strife in Lebanon and Iraq is more probable than this fantastical presentation.
On the opposite side of the fence, one encounters people such as Peter Beinart and his comrades who seek to mobilize a one-state movement on the Western left.
Ideological Cul-de-sac. Once an outspoken advocate of 2 states, Peter Beinart has abandoned the concept for a binational state, saying it’s time to ditch Jewish-Palestinian separation ‘and embrace the goal of Jewish-Palestinian equality’.
Why should Beinart be entertained with the technicalities of his unoriginal proposal when Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi presented the same plan in a 2009 New York Times essay. Nonetheless, it is critical to grasp what this idea might cause if it were to receive the desired mass backing under the prying prelude of ‘human rights’.
Beinart’s arrival at the one-state solution rests on the idea that Israeli settlements have extended too far into the West Bank for prospects of a peaceful two-state solution. Yet, this is nothing more than a deceptive ploy.
The Jewish settlement system included 451,257 Israeli residents as of 2020. In recent years, the nominal growth of the Jewish population in the West Bank has stabilized at around 13,000 people. The yearly growth rate peaked at 16 percent in 1991 and has since declined, hitting 2.24 percent in 2021. According to three recent surveys, extrapolated from Shaul Arieli’s report “Deceptive Appearances” – the majority of settlers are pragmatic. Even if they disagree with the evacuation of settlements, they will accept the decision if it is sanctioned by a government decision and/or referendum as part of a peace accord. The Israeli NGO Blue White Future’s 2021 Voluntary Evacuation Survey gives solid evidence that 30 percent of the settlers east of the barrier would be willing to leave if sanctioned by the government even without a peace agreement. Less than one-third of the settlers subscribe to the maximalist vision of Yesha’s Greater Israel ideology, of that one-third, only a fractional minority claim they would resist with violence. And yet, the same threats were shouted from the mountain tops by this radical minority regarding the Sinai exchange and the Gaza disengagement; decades later, everyone in Israel is still awaiting the proclaimed violent resistance.
Whenever Israel felt reasonably confident that negotiators grasped the security threat and believed in the moral necessity of a Jewish state, it has been most willing to make territorial concessions. This was evident in the peace offerings by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert in 2000 and 2008 which would have birthed a sovereign Palestinian state thereby ending the occupation, with no settlements, and a capital in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians rejected these offers.
Similarly, George W. Bush‘s administration achieved more territory withdrawals by keeping Israel near and appreciating the risks it faced than Barack Obama‘s government did by deliberately attempting to keep distance between his administration and Jerusalem.
Israel illustrated its willingness once again in the negotiations of the Abraham Accords. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came close to or at least threatened to unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank. The stipulations made by the UAE for normalization with the Jewish state were clear from the start – all attempts at annexation must be ended. Almost instantaneously, Netanyahu, whose support base tends to be more favorable to the settlement movement, flushed annexation down the toilet simply to open flight paths between Dubai and Tel Aviv. That’s all it took.
The rupture of the settler dream has always been the two-state solution, so by sinking their teeth into the one-state idea, Beinart and friends have unwittingly become concubines to the goals of the Israeli messianic right they purport to despise.
Continuing to drive the one-state idea also has a detrimental effect on the Palestinians. Over a hundred Palestinians were killed in clashes on the Gaza border in 2018 and 2019 as they demanded their “right of return” to pre-1967 Israel – an action indicative of the Palestinian maximalist vision. Unlike the surrender of settlements, which Israel has proved willing to forgo for peace, as in the cases of Sinai and Gaza, “return” is the one demand that no Israeli government can accept if the Jewish fabric of the country is to be safeguarded. It should be noted that there is no legal “right” for Palestinians, by any international standards, to settle within Israel’s sovereign territory. Anyone who demands that Israel withdraw from parts or all of the West Bank must therefore equally demand the Palestinians relinquish the so-called right of return. These one-state advocates achieve the exact opposite.
There is no precedent under international law to force Israel and Palestine into a single state framework without the consent of both parties. Seeming both have consistently rejected the idea for well over a century, any attempt to do so at a political level effectively violates international law itself.
Yet, if Israelis and Palestinians are to consent to a joint political venture, both would need absolute certainty that their rights as individuals and as a collective would be protected. If either of the peoples believe that the other is not their equal, they will merely use the state’s system as a means to oppress or push the other people out of the territory.
According to a recent study, the most significant component for Israelis to uphold and maintain is democracy. When Western intellectuals advocate for a one-state solution while demanding that Israel maintain its democratic fiber, despite Arabs quickly becoming the majority and Jews a minority in a combined Israel-Palestine, due to immigration and growth rates, the onus of responsibility lies solely with the Arabs.
Since Jews have never been recognized as equal to the Arabs in any country where they have resided as a minority, Jews have every right to wonder if they will be treated fairly and equally under a single Arab majority state. After all, the Jews would be relinquishing their universal right to self-determination in a nation state of their own to live in one-state with the Arabs.
Unfortunately, there is little in today’s Arab-Palestinian society which inspires confidence that they are yielding a path to progress that includes protecting minority rights.
Are one-staters capable of providing proof without a shadow of a doubt that Jews will not be treated as dhimmis (a non-Muslim “protected person” in the Ottoman Empire) or ethnically cleansed as they were for centuries under an Arab majority? No.
In the same study, democracy ranked as the least important element of the settler movement, with Jewish sovereignty over the entire land taking precedence above all. As a result, the Arabs have every reason to wonder how they, as the majority population, will be protected in the settler vision of Jewish control over the entire land. What would it mean for the majority Arab population if this vision came true? To retain Jewish political control, would they be denied the ability to vote? In practice, what does a minority population reigning over a majority population with an anti-democratic attitude sound like? – Apartheid
An additional argument made by the Palestinians are concerns that in a single state where Jews effectively hold all political and economic power, there will be zero incentive to improve the lives of the Arabs, as is the current case in Jerusalem.
Are the settler activists able to prove without a shadow of a doubt that in their vision this will not be the ultimate fate of the Arabs? No.
To this argument, one-staters choose to deflect and deny, either missing the boat entirely or aiming at the wrong target altogether. They make the case that no one can determine such outcomes while no actual political moves have been made towards the one state paradigm. Yet, that is precisely the point, no political moves have been made towards this “solution” despite endless proposals for well over a century, because Israel is not suicidal.
The advocates of the one-state “solution” are blinded by ideology, lack an articulate resolution program, geopolitical strategies, and any robust policy proposals. Because of that the one-state paradigm would merely act as a spring-board from which a mirror of the Balkan war would erupt and serve to change the name from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Jewish-Arab civil war. Despite its branding campaign, the one state paradigm is neither new nor a solution. It is simply fit to be dubbed the old and never ending delusion.
About the writer:
Samuel Hyde is a writer/research fellow at the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance, based in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is a contributing writer/editor of the book “We Should All Be Zionists” with former Israeli Knesset member Dr Einat Wilf.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
