How the Third Temple Movement in Israel Rebranded Theocracy as “Civil Rights”
By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | July 3, 2019
JERUSALEM — In a troubling trend that continues to be overlooked by international media, the Temple Activist movement that seeks to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and replace it with a Third Temple continues to advance its agenda. The movement’s forward progress is largely thanks to its successful efforts in recent years to rebrand as a “civil rights” movement — securing support from secular and religious Zionists alike — as well as to growing levels of support in Israel’s executive and legislative branches of government.
As was detailed in Part I of this series, the Temple Activist movement is now more mainstream than ever before and its effort to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, has advanced with great rapidity since the year began and has picked up precipitously in recent weeks. Yet this new face of the Temple Activist movement — one that claims that its quest is to wrest control of the holy site from Jordanian and Palestinian custody in the name of “equal rights” for Israeli Jews — obfuscates the troubling origins of this once-fringe yet now normalized campaign.
Beginning in earnest after the Six Day War in 1967, the Temple Activist movement within Israel was largely formed by two groups of people: 1) a small, then-fringe group of messianic religious Zionists led by Rabbi Shlomo Goren that supported the complete annexation of Palestine, particularly Jerusalem with the Al-Aqsa mosque; and 2) former members of the secular Zionist paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi, known for their penchant for massacring Palestinian civilians for political gain, who either became religious messianists following Israel’s 1967 victory or remained secular and felt that salvation for Israeli Jews necessitated the miltiary conquest of Palestine and the destruction of its mosques and churches — particularly the site of Al-Aqsa mosque, often referred to as either the Temple Mount or Haram El-Sharif (Arabic for “the Noble Sanctuary”).
The modern “friendly” face of the Temple Activist movement — embodied by figures like Yehuda Glick, former executive director of the Temple Institute and a member of Israel’s Knesset — hides the extremist and largely secular origins of this quasi-religious movement that — as Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of Neturei Karta, an international organization of ultra-Orthodox Jews opposed to Zionism, told MintPress in Part I — is ultimately colonial (i.e., Zionist) in nature and uses religious imagery and appeals “to excuse their occupation and to try to portray this [the occupation of Palestine] as a religious conflict.”
As this installment of this multi-part series on the current threats facing the historic Al-Aqsa Mosque compound will show, the Temple Activist movement’s extremist origins and increasing normalization in Israeli society parallels the rise of Israel’s political far-right, particularly of the Likud Party — whose roots, much like those of the Temple Activist movment, trace back to secular Zionist paramilitaries like Irgun.
Miko Peled, Israeli author and human-rights activist, described this trend to MintPress as “the resurgence of the ‘good old days’ when young zealots were the forefront of the Zionist project.” Peled pointed out that these zealots set up the foundations for actions that are later pursued and consolidated by the Israeli state, such as in the context of the settler movement where, as Peled noted:
The [Israeli political] establishment comes in and takes over and turns an ‘outpost’ [established by a small group of extremists] into a settlement and then a city. The Haram El-Sharif or Temple Mount compound will be the same. These zealots, young and old are the cutting edge of Zionist ideologues and they do the ‘dirty work.’ Now they do not seem so radical any more and soon the state will come in full force.”
For that reason, and as this report will show, there is a significant degree of overlap between the dominant parties of Israeli politics today and the Temple Activist movement, with a majority of current Israeli government ministers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself, and a large and influential lobby of lawmakers in Israel’s Knesset openly supporting the Israeli government takeover of Al-Aqsa mosque and its destruction and replacement with a Third Temple. Subsequent installments of this series will show how such an outcome is a grave threat to peace — not just in Israel/Palestine, but the entire Middle East — and a major yet widely overlooked motivation behind the foreign policy objectives of not only Israel’s current government but the Trump administration.
Shlomo Goren: The man who lit the match
The Israeli military’s conquest of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967 was seen by some of its soldiers as a sign from the divine that end-times prophecies were being fulfilled. Among those who were the first to arrive at the newly conquered historic district of Jerusalem were three men who — in distinct ways — would go on to lead a movement aimed at remaking this area of Jerusalem in the image of their specific, and then-fringe, interpretation of Biblical prophecy. They were Shlomo Goren, then-Rabbi of the IDF and later Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel; Geroshon Salomon, then-soldier and later founder of the Temple Mount Faithful; and Yisrael Ariel, Rabbi and founder of the Temple Institute.
Goren, center, carries a Torah and submachine gun during a 1956 Israeli assault on Gaza. Photo | AP
Shlomo Goren, euphoric after the Israeli military’s takeover of the Temple Mount, led the celebration, where both Ariel and Salomon were present. Per Ariel’s recollection, Goren’s words about the prophetic significance of the Israeli takeover of the Temple Mount gave meaning to the occasion and would go on to inspire Ariel, as well as Salomon, to found organizations devoted to Goren’s vision of a Third Temple in the place of Al-Aqsa mosque, which currently sits on the Temple Mount of Haram El-Sharif.
Soon after the celebratory mood had faded that fateful day in 1967, Goren — according to several accounts — pushed the IDF’s Chief of Central Command Uzi Narkiss to seize the opportunity to bring down the historic mosque with explosives, something Goren felt was best done under the cover of war. Narkiss’ rejection of Goren’s plea would subsequently be remembered bitterly by Goren and his allies, Ariel and Salomon among them, as a missed opportunity and, for some, an act of “treason.” Such bitter feelings were reserved, not just for Narkiss or then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, both secular Zionists, but also for the State’s rabbinical authorities who, following the 1967 capture and subsequent occupation of Jerusalem, maintained the centuries-old opinion that it was against Jewish religious law for Jews to ascend the Temple Mount.
While the 1967 war did not result in the destruction of the Al-Aqsa mosque or the Dome of the Rock as Goren and others had hoped, Goren dedicated much of his future career to advancing what is now often referred to as the Temple Activist movement, which aims to replace the Al-Aqsa mosque compound with a Third Temple. Goren specifically believed that the Third Temple must be built before the Messiah could be revealed, as opposed to after he is revealed, and that the conquest of the site in the 1967 war meant that the time had come to build a new temple where Al-Aqsa sits.
It is worth pointing out that Goren’s beliefs were, and remain, at odds with the rabbinical authorities both within Israel and abroad. As Motti Inbari, scholar of Jewish fundamentalism and messianism and associate professor of religion at UNC Pembroke, wrote for The Times of Israel in 2015:
According to halakha (Jewish religious law), anyone who enters the mount will be punished by karet — death sentence carried out by God. This decision has been reinforced in innumerable rulings. One was handed down by the chief rabbinate after the capture of the Mount during the Six-Day War in 1967… And this custom is followed by the vast majority of ultra-Orthodox rabbis.”
Goren’s rise to further prominence was meteoric after the 1967 war, and he became Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel, Israel’s most important state rabbinical position, just a year after retiring as the IDF’s first chief rabbi in 1972. Miko Peled, Israeli author and human rights activist, told MintPress that Goren’s role as chief Rabbi made him “a strong influence on the ‘Religious Zionist’ movement that sought to settle all of the ‘Land of Israel’” — meaning “Biblical Israel,” which includes all of occupied Palestine and large parts of territory of several neighboring countries.
Goren’s quick ascension to the most prominent position in Israel’s Rabbinate was dogged by accusations that he had cut a secret deal with the then-Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, and that Goren had promised to assist Meir in finding solutions to pressing conflicts that had arisen between Israel’s actions as a state and Jewish law. As chief rabbi, Goren would adapt Jewish religious law to scientific advances and military conflicts, solving many of the problems that had concerned Meir in the early 1970s.
As chief rabbi of Israel, Goren later developed a close relationship with Menachim Begin — former leader of the Irgun paramilitary and terrorist group, and Israel’s prime minister from 1977 to 1983 — who was denounced as a fascist and a terrorist by numerous Jewish American intellectuals and public figures – including Albert Einstein. Goren became an important liaison between Begin and U.S. President Ronald Reagan at a time when Begin was actively courting the American evangelical right, specifically Christian Zionists. Begin and Goren had both long advocated for complete Israeli control over the Temple Mount and both shared a vision of a “Greater Israel,” where the state of Israel would expand through all of the occupied Palestinian territories and into several surrounding countries.
Begin, right, bows his head to receive a blessing from Shlomo Goren in 1977 at Ben-Gurion Airport. Max Nash | AP
In one example, Goren claimed that he had been sent by Begin to the White House to personally deliver Reagan a message regarding the withdrawal of Israel from the Sinai Peninsula and “to provide Reagan with a sense of the moral and spritual feeling in Israel,” which included warning against the formation of a Palestinian state, keeping Jerusalem “united,” and recognizing the city as exclusively Israeli.
As chief rabbi of Israel, Goren’s “activism” regarding the Temple Mount continued unabated and arguably grew with his growing political influence, both within Israel and abroad. Having led extremists in ascending the Temple Mount since the Old City’s conquest in 1967, Goren’s stature as chief rabbi allowed him to continue and expand his efforts to push for an increased presence of extremist religious Zionists on the Temple Mount. Following the 1967 war, Goren also created detailed maps of the Temple Mount with the intention of delineating where the Third Temple should be built and where he believed the long-lost treasures of the Ark of the Covenant were hidden beneath the Temple. Those maps are still used by Temple Activists today.
Yet Goren’s “activism” on behalf of a Third Temple was much more far-reaching during his time as chief rabbi. In 1981, Goren along with Rabbi of the Western Wall Yehuda Getz, began excavating a series of tunnels under the Temple Mount, without archaeological approval, in an alleged search for the Ark of the Covenant artifact. They believed that finding the Ark of the Covenant would signal that the time to build a Third Temple had arrived. One of the volunteers aiding Getz and Goren was Gersh Salomon, who had founded the Temple Mount Faithful a few years prior.
The tunnels — conducted without archeological supervision, as is required by Israeli law — were dug with the support of Israel’s Religious Affairs Ministry. There was also another government connection to the illegal project, owing to the intimate involvement of Rafi Eitan in the project. Eitan was an influential counterterrorism and security adviser to three Israeli prime ministers (Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres), a former officer for the Mossad and Shin Bet, and a “personal and close family friend” of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He later gained notoriety for recruiting Jonathan Pollard, a former United States Navy intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel, and serving as his handler.
Goren, Getz and their group of volunteers managed to reach Warren’s Gate, an ancient subterranean passage leading to the Temple Mount. Accordig to Salomon, “We needed just two days more to come to the place where the Ark of the Covenant is located.” However, their ambitions were cut short when Palestinians guarding Al-Aqsa heard strange noises coming from below Al-Aqsa Mosque and quickly discovered the group’s excavations. A riot nearly broke out and Israeli authorities subsequently sealed the tunnel.
A few years later, in 1986, three years after leaving his position as chief rabbi, Goren, together with other prominent rabbis, issued a religious edict that called for the immediate construction of a Third Temple on the Temple Mount and for public Jewish prayers on the site, an act historically forbidden by Jewish law. Prior to the end of his life in 1994, Goren issued several other controversial religious edicts, such as one that ruled that IDF soldiers could disobey government orders in order to remove extremist settlers from the West Bank, and another stating that Jewish law compelled Jews to murder Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
The Temple Mount Faithful
Goren’s impact on the Temple Activist movement is unique, as his actions following the Israeli conquest of Jerusalem’s Old City were the spark that inspired the two other most notable forces in laying the ground for the Temple Activist movement of today: Gershon Salomon and Yisrael Ariel.
Salomon was one of the paratroopers who helped “liberate” the Temple Mount and the Western Wall in 1967 and he went on to found the Temple Mount Faithful soon after. Following the war, he “dedicated himself to the vision of consecrating the Temple Mount to the Name of G‑d, to removing the Muslim shrines placed there as a symbol of Muslim conquest, to the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount, and the godly redemption of the People and the Land of Israel,” according to the Temple Mount Faithful website. He worked directly with Goren for a number of years, and others who were greatly influenced by Goren, such as Ariel, later joined Salomon’s group.
Gershon Salomon, right, poses in front of al-Aqsa Mosque in 1967.
Goren participated directly with the Temple Mount Faithful on some occasions, such as in hosting a “conference” in front of the Temple Mount where Goren, Salomon and other attendees called on Israel’s government “to purify the Temple Mount from its Arab and Islamic presence and desecration,” as it was later described by Salomon.
The group attracted members from the messianic fringes of religious Zionism, as well as more secular, fascist elements that were associated with the precursors to the modern-day Likud Party. Indeed, Motti Inbari has noted that most of the Temple Mount Faithful’s membership during its “golden years” (from the late 1960s to 1987) were former members of the Irgun and Lehi Zionist paramilitary groups, both of which have deep ties to Israel’s Likud Party.
For decades, the Temple Mount Faithful’s main activities were demonstrations that Inbari, who attended several of the group’s demonstrations, states were intended to “cause provocations and riots bordering on hysteria among the [Palestinian] Muslim public.” These provocations center around the group attempting to physically place cornerstones they commissioned for a future Third Temple on the Temple Mount. One of the group’s cornerstone demonstrations led to what became known as the Al-Aqsa massacre of 1990, which resulted in rioting among Palestinian worshippers who were then at the mosque. Israeli police shot and killed over 20 Palestinians and wounded an estimated 150 more.
Yet, beginning in the mid-1980s, a rift started to emerge in the Temple Mount Faithful between the religious and secular Zionists within the group. The rift was initiated by Rabbi Yosef Elboim and saw religious Zionists, like Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, leave the Temple Mount Faithful en masse, as they felt the movement could only grow in influence if it focused more strongly on the Third Temple’s religious and ritual importance, as opposed to its importance as a nationalist and Zionist symbol, a view espoused by Salomon.
Though Salomon frequently uses religious and biblical imagery when discussing the Temple and sees the construction of the Temple as his divine mission, he ultimately viewed the Temple as a symbol of Israeli nationalism. This view of the Temple as a nationalist symbol was first articulated by members of the Zionist and fascist paramilitary group Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang. The view helped Salomon win over some influential secular Zionists to the Temple Activist movement, though it caused him to lose influence with religious Zionists. Yet this loss of support from religious Zionists led Salomon to reach out and forge ties with another group, the Christian Zionists of the West.
Temple Mount Faithful members step on a mock coffin symbolizing Palestine during a 2007 parade in Jerusalem. Alex Kolomoisky | AP
The 1987 rift with the Temple Mount Faithful resulted in the official creation of the Temple Institute, which was founded by Rabbi Ariel and has since become the most prominent organization of its type within Israel. Soon after its creation, the Institute joined an alliance of other Temple Mount Faithful splinter groups and associated groups, known collectively as the Movement for the Establishment of the Temple, but did not include the Temple Mount Faithful itself.
The Jewish Underground
While many former members of Irgun and Lehi joined the Temple Activist movement following its formation in the late 1960s, others chose an even more extreme approach than that offered by the Temple Mount Faithful. Shabtai Ben-Dov, a former member of Lehi who believed that the Third Temple and Jewish Messiah could only be achieved through violence and blood-soaked conquest, was one of the “guiding lights” of a group known as the Jewish Underground.
Ben-Dov is an obscure figure to most Israelis, but his impact on Jewish messianic groups in Israel was profound. He was an enthusiastic member of Lehi — or, as noted above, “the Stern Gang” — a Zionist paramilitary group known for its use of terrorism as well as its role in comitting several civilian massacres; the assassination of UN and British officials; its attempts to formally ally with the Nazis; and desire to create a Jewish state in Palestine based on “nationalist and totalitarian principles.”
Ben-Dov, who became increasingly more religious following the founding of the state of Israel and the dissolution of Lehi, turned to writing and argued that Lehi’s totalitarian vision for the state of Israel should be realized through the establishment of a theocracy, led by a king and the Sanhedrin, a council that served as the main political, judicial and religious force for Jews during the Roman period and was guided by the values of “conquest and holy war.” Furthermore, he believed — like Avraham Stern, who founded Lehi — that the Third Temple must be built as soon as possible and that doing so would solve all of the problems then facing the Jewish people.
Though his beliefs didn’t catch on — then, at least — Ben-Dov’s writings were dramatically inspirational to Yehuda Etzion, a settler activist who became profoundly disillusioned with the efforts to broker peace between Israel and Egypt that eventually resulted in the Camp David Accords in 1979. Shortly prior to Ben-Dov’s death and soon after the accords were formalized, Etzion sought out the former Lehi member, who successfully convinced the young Etzion to actively participate in the “messianic process.” When Etzion asked Ben-Dov if destroying the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque would catalyze the “redemption” process and usher in the coming of the messiah, Ben-Dov responded, “If you want to do something that will solve all the Jew’s problems, do that.”
With that, the planning of the now infamous plot of the Jewish Underground to destroy Al-Aqsa began, a plot that was narrowly foiled just a few years later in 1984. Indeed, Etzion and his co-conspirators, all of whom were later convicted of terrorism, had raided an Israeli military outpost in the occupied Golan Heights and had managed to steal over 2,000 pounds of explosives, which were used to build at least 27 bombs with which to commit the deed. For reasons that will become more relevant in a future article in this series, Etzion and his co-conspirators also believed that destroying Al-Aqsa mosque would first lead to a war with rival Middle Eastern nations, a war from which Israel would emerge victorious — and only then could the Third Temple and a theocratic Israel take shape.
Israeli police carry Yehuda Etzion after he breached the Temple Mount in 1997. Zoom 77 | AP
After his arrest, Etzion had lamented that the plot had failed only because “the generation was not ready.” As noted in Part I, he called for the building of “a new force that grows very slowly, moving its educational and social activity into a new leadership,” a force that — as this article and Part I of this series clearly show — has been spectacularly successful.
Though a convicted terrorist and a proponent of theocracy and “holy war,” Etzion today is considered “the most revered figure among patrons of the Temple Mount,” according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Etzion was even the subject of a rather sympathetic New York Times article in 2015, as the rebranding of the Temple Activist movement (discussed shortly) was in full swing. That article asserted that Etzion “laments violence now used against Palestinians,” despite noting that Etzion “does not regret, exactly, helping plant bombs in the cars of Palestinian mayors and plotting to blow up the Dome of the Rock in the 1980s, nor does he express remorse.”
Though Etzion’s ideology may once have been fringe and his embrace of violence odious, it has gone increasingly mainstream, much like the Temple Activist movement itself, and there is considerable overlap. A fitting example of such overlap was seen just a few months ago when Bezalel Smotrich — now Israel’s Transportation Minister, who has openly called for the construction of a Third Temple and incited settlers to violently attack Palestinains in the occupied West Bank — called for Israel to be ruled by Jewish law and to become a theocracy at a time when he was under consideration for the position of Justice Minister.
Smotrich is but one example of how the ideas promoted by figures like Etzion have found their way into Israel’s halls of power. Indeed, Israel’s current Minister of Strategic Affairs, Internal Security, and Information Gilad Erdan, former Minister of Education Naftali Bennett, and Speaker of the Knesset Yuli Edelstein are all close associates and supporters of Etzion and his Chai Vekayam (Alive and Existing) movement.
Carmi Gillon, former head of Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet, stated last year that the former members of Jewish Underground have become so influential that they have won the battle for Israel’s future. Gillon told Haaretz:
They are more devoted to their idea. It’s exactly what you see with Hamas or Hezbollah. A religious person who believes he is commanded from on high can’t compromise on that command. A secular person is more pragmatic to begin with. But they have one goal: to turn Israel into a Jewish state governed by religious Jewish law, to perpetuate the occupation and to rescind liberal laws.”
The “Moderate” facade of the Temple Institute
Today, the Temple Institute, founded by Yisrael Ariel, is treated by many media sources as the “moderate face” of the Temple Activist movement. Yet, Ariel — much like Salomon, Etzion and other prominent figures in the Temple Activist movement — has long been an extremist, making his institute hardly “moderate.” As the saying goes, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
After following Shlomo Goren to the Western Wall the day of its conquest in 1967, Ariel became deeply involved in the settler movement and became the “unofficial” rabbi of an Israeli settlement in the Sinai Peninsula. After that settlement was dismantled as part of the Camp David Accords, which saw the Sinai returned to Egypt, Ariel returned to Jerusalem and joined one of the most radical, racist political parties in Israel’s history, Kach.
Yisrael Ariel oversees a Temple Mount Faithful enactment of rituals for a rebuilt Third Temple. Tomer Appelbaum | Haaretz
The Kach Party was founded in 1971 by American-born Rabbi Meir Kahane, a convicted terrorist known for his racist, extremist positions that advocated Jewish supremacy, the expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied territories, and prison sentences for Palestinian men accused of having intimate relations with Jewish women. In addition, an often overlooked aspect of his radical platform was complete Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount.
In the 1981 elections, Ariel ran as Kahane’s number two right-hand man as a member of Kach, later served as Kahane’s deputy in the Knesset, and continued to be active in the party until it was banned from participating in Israeli elections in 1988. A few years after Kahane was assassinated in 1990, Baruch Goldstein, a Kahane follower and Kach member who murdered scores of praying Palestinians in a Hebron mosque, was praised by Ariel as a “martyr” and “our advocate in Heaven,” even as Goldstein’s actions led the Kach Party and its spinoffs to be labeled terrorist organizations by Israel, the United States and several other countries.
During his lengthy association with the Kach Party and Meir Kahane, Ariel founded the Temple Institute, registering it first as an association in 1984 and then creating a more formal organization in 1987 soon after other religious Zionist elements of the Temple Mount Faithful left that group en masse.
Ariel’s reason for doing so was based on his view that the Third Temple must be pursued at all costs. Ariel’s “Holy Temple Prayerbook” as cited on the Temple Institute’s website, summarizes his beliefs in his own words:
Through the years, the more I studied the more I began to understand that we had only ourselves and our own inaction to hold accountable: God does not intend for us to wait for a day of miracles. We are expected to act. We must accomplish that with which we have been charged: to do all in our power to prepare for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple, and the renewal of the divine service.”
Furthermore, Ariel feels that the Temple lies at the heart of Israel’s future as a state and as a panacea for all of its problems. He stated the following in 2005:
The State of Israel can be only one thing — a state with a Temple at its center. Otherwise it is no different from any other state. All of today’s troubles originate in the sin of abandoning the Temple Mount and the site of the Holy Temple… The Holy Temple is the solution to all of our problems.”
This same view that held that the Temple would solve all of Israel’s problems was also voiced by Shabtai Ben-Dov, the former Lehi member who advised members of the radical Jewish Underground terrorist group to blow up Al-Aqsa mosque in the early 1980s.
While the worldview of Ariel and his ideological allies can easily be dismissed as that of an extremist, the issue is that — over the past few decades — the Temple Institute he founded has taken a central role in the Temple Activist movement and has found growing levels of support from Israel’s government, including financial support.
Since its formation, the Temple Institute has created detailed blueprints of its vision for a Third Temple, based partially on the maps first made by Shlomo Goren in 1967, as well as 3-D computer animations and physical models of that Temple. In addition, it has created several artifacts for use in a future temple, including a golden menorah, incense altars, priestly garments and a variety of ritual vessels, among others. The menorah alone is estimated to have cost 5 million NIS (about $1.3 million USD).
These artifacts and models have allowed the Temple Institute to obfuscate its extremist origins by opening a museum dedicated to the Third Temple, a museum that enjoys Israeli government sponsorship. That museum, dubbed the “Disney Land for Temple fundamentalism” by the Times of Israel, receives hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.education
Beyond its creation of artifacts and structures to be used in a future temple, the Institute has also dedicated itself to training a new generation of Levite priests with the intention that they perform ritual sacrifices in the future temple, and has also attempted to recreate a “Red Heifer” for use in a purification ritual.
Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of Neturei Karta — an ultra-Orthodox group of Haredi Jews founded in Palestine in 1938, who believe Jews are forbidden from having their own state until the Jewish Messiah is revealed — told MintPress that these rituals cannot be performed because the red heifer, among other objects, is no longer available as these objects were when these rituals were practiced nearly two thousand years ago. Yet, the Temple Institute has made efforts to recreate a red heifer using advanced techniques in animal husbandry and artificial insemination and claimed to have produced a suitable red heifer in 2018.
Over the years, the Institute has received increasing levels of support from Israel’s government, even though the Institute’s activities run counter to official Israeli government policy in relation to the Temple Mount and also violate a 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan that explicitly forbids non-Muslims from praying on Haram el-Sharif (the Temple Mount), in keeping with Islamic theological doctrine regarding its most holy sites. According to Israeli non-profit Ir Amim, the Temple Institute has been receiving direct funding from Israel’s government since at least 2008 — receiving an estimated 412,000 NIS (~$114,775) annually from Israel’s Ministry of Culture, Science and Sports, headed by Miri Regev, as well as Israel’s Ministry of Education from 2008 to 2012. In 2012 alone, the educational arm of the Temple Institute, the Midrasha, received 189,000 NIS (~$52,650) from the Ministry of Education.
Prior to obtaining direct government funding, the Temple Institute received funding from “persons in different government ministries,” according to statements made by Ariel in 1992 when thanking members of the government for helping finance the Institute and offset its debts. Notably, government funding of the Temple Institute is a small portion of its estimated $1 million annual operating budget. However, direct government funding of the organization suggests that the current Likud government led by Netanyahu is relatively supportive, at least covertly, of its mission.
This is corroborated by the fact that recent years have seen overt support for the Institute and its objectives by prominent Israeli politicians. For instance, in 2013, Nir Barkat — then-mayor of Jerusalem and member of the ruling Likud Party — presented Ariel with an award for his work at the Temple Institute. It was subsequently revealed that the Temple Institute had received a government contract from Israel’s Ministry of Education. That contract paid the Temple Institute to develop a mandatory social studies curriculum that would instill a “longing for the Temple” in children at the kindergarten level and above. Critics argued that the curriculum “could drive students to take violent actions to advance the building of the Third Temple,” according to Haaretz. The Institute’s relationship with Israel’s government is further revealed by Israel’s allowing of women to perform their mandatory national service in lieu of mandatory military service by working as tour guides in the Institute’s Museum.
A schoolbook created jointly with Israel’s Ministry of Education depicts rebuilding of the Third Temple. Credit | Ir Amim
The combination of government support for the Temple Institute and the Institute working as a government contractor in developing a national educational curriculum has resulted in growing support for the Third Temple among religious and secular Israelis alike.
Miko Peled told MintPress that the type of material being taught and normalized in schools throughout the country had been a key factor in the Temple Activist movement’s goals becoming mainstream:
The mainstreaming of these fringe [Temple Activist] groups is possible only because within the mainstream in Israel there is a desire to see the Temple ‘restored.’ The mythical narrative of King David and King Solomon and his magnificent temple are taught as history, and so even secular Israelis see this as a symbol of their identity and a right. This is taught in schools, through Israeli folk songs, etc. Furthermore, among the ‘tour’ organizers and the Temple activists there have always been non-religious Israelis.”
As the Temple Institute’s influence has grown and as it has perfected the capacity to speak to more moderate as well as extremist factions within religious Zionism, Ariel has notably felt emboldened to articulate the controversial, extremist beliefs he has long held. In a video recorded in 2015, he made overt calls for genocide and murder based on his interpretation of the works of 12th-century Jewish sage Maimonides.
In that video, publicized by Canadian journalist David Sheen, Ariel makes several outrageous statements, including claims that Jewish law compelled religious Jews to assassinate then-President of the United States Barack Obama, and calling for a Jewish army to conquer the entire Middle East, specifically Iran, and to destroy all mosques and churches.
Ariel also called for the murder of all Muslims and Christians who do not renounce their religions in order to follow the “Noahide laws,” which Ariel and other extremists believe must be imposed on all of humanity, aside from practitioners of Judaism, as a condition of their existence. A year later, Ariel again garnered attention from Israeli media for claiming that the Temple Mount must be “flattened and cleaned” of the Al-Aqsa mosque so a Third Temple could be rebuilt.
From extremist to “civil rights” movement
Though Rabbi Yisrael Ariel is often considered the face of the Institute, the Institute’s increasing prominence has been aided by a somewhat younger generation of Temple Activists who have become influential in Israeli politics.
There is no better example of such a figure than Yehuda Glick, who was the Temple Institute’s executive director for five years and became a member of Israel’s Knesset for the ruling Likud Party in 2016. Largely thanks to the “affable” face Glick and some of his contemporaries have lent to the Temple Activist movement, it has been able to rebrand from an extremist colonialist project to a “civil rights movement” promoting “equal rights” for Jewish Israelis when it comes to praying on the Temple Mount. Yet Glick differs little, in terms of ideology, from the old guard, as evidenced by his personal beliefs and his close relationships with figures such as Etzion and Ariel.
Glick, through his prominent role in the Temple Institute and the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, had become a well-known figure in the Temple Activist movement by the time he was attacked and shot in early February 2014, almost losing his life to his assailant, who was alleged to have been a young Palestinian. Glick’s serious injuries, which he survived, became the basis for a subsequent and successful media campaign within Israel that helped paint the Temple Activist movement as a “civil rights” movement aimed merely at securing “equal rights” to pray on the Temple Mount, for both Jews and Muslims alike.
This narrative soon went beyond Israel, with prominent media outlets like the New York Times euphemistically describing Glick as an “agitator who has pushed for more Jewish access and rights at a hotly contested religious site in Jerusalem.” Left unmentioned was Glick’s history of arrests for participating in provocations at the Temple Mount, his assault of a Palestinian woman at the contested site, and the fact that he lives in an illegal West Bank settlement.
Yet, there is much to doubt about the narrative surrounding Glick’s attempted murder, leading some critics to suggest that the attempt on his life may have been a “false flag” aimed at creating enough public outrage so as to force Israel’s government to alter the current status quo on the Temple Mount. Indeed, just a week before he was nearly killed, Glick had told Haaretz that the situation on the Temple Mount would only change after a Jew was violently attacked by an Arab.
Yehuda Glick arrives to cast his vote during Likud party elections in Jerusalem, still healing from an alleged attack, Dec. 31, 2014. Oded Balilty | AP
“When will the change take place?” Glick told the Israeli newspaper, answering:
As soon as the Arabs harm someone on the Temple Mount, the prime minister will wake up and it will be too late… Violence is escalating every day, and the police are simply helpless. Police impotence leads to violence… Bibi is tying their hands and the Jordanians are tying their hands.” (emphasis added)
Soon after the murder attempt, Ali Abunimah detailed at Electronic Intifada many of the other discrepancies regarding the events that led to Glick’s injuries, including the swift extrajudicial execution of his alleged attacker before an investigation or trial could take place and some of the dubious claims made by witnesses at the scene, particularly witnesses known to be greatly involved in the Temple Activist cause. Two of the witnesses were none other than Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, founder of the Temple Institute, and Moshe Feiglin, then-Likud member of the Knesset and outspoken Temple Activist, each of whom later called the attack on Glick “inevitable” and “expected,” respectively.
A year and a half after the attack that threatened his life, Glick became a member of Israel’s Knesset for the Likud Party, occupying the post left by former Defense Minister Mosha Ya’alon, who had resigned. Though Glick had previously served a minor role in government, his ascent to the Knesset as a Likud lawmaker gave him a platform to continue to promote Temple Activism as an issue of “civil rights,” one that was received by outlets like Forward with great sympathy.
“The discrimination on the Temple Mount is obvious,” Forward quoted Glick as saying soon after he became a member of the Knesset. “[Under Jordanian control] the Temple Mount became a center of incitement and hate instead of a center of peace.”
Miko Peled described the effort to rebrand what was once a radical, fringe movement as a “civil rights” struggle that has been “very successful” and played a role in the increasingly mainstream status that the Temple Activist movement now enjoys. Peled told MintPress:
Their [the Temple Activists] entire discourse is now about their rights, and the denial of the rights of Jewish [people] to freedom of worship, etc. This works well in promoting them as more moderate and friendly and as victims of a reality that once again discriminates against Jews. They realize that what is working for the Palestinians is the fact that their narrative is framed as an injustice and they now do the same. You hear them complaining that while the world, and even the Israeli “Left,” stand for Palestinian rights, they — once again — don’t stand for the rights of Jews.”
Powerful mainstream proponents
Since the attack on Glick and the subsequent rebranding of Temple Activism as a “civil rights” movement, the decades-long effort to manufacture consensus among both secular and religious Israelis has grown dramatically. The growth of this movement, much of which is detailed in Part I of this series, has been most noticeable within Israel’s halls of power, with a large number of Israel’s most powerful politicians, and a majority of Israel’s current cabinet, now openly pushing for Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount and for the reconstruction of a Third Temple.
In the interest of brevity, MintPress has compiled the following list of current Israeli government ministers who have shown or expressed varying degrees of public support for the construction of a Third Temple, the destruction of Al-Aqsa, and/or complete Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Some of the individuals listed below hold multiple ministerial positions.
Current Israeli Government Ministers Supportive of Temple Activism
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- Miri Regev, Minister of Culture and Sport
- Rafi Peretz, Minister of Education
- Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Transportation
- Uri Ariel, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development
- Gilad Erdan, Minister of Strategic Affairs, Minister of Internal Security, Minister of Information
- Yisrael Katz, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy
- Yoav Galant, Minister of Construction
- Amir Ohana, Minister of Justice
- Ze’ev Elkin, Minister of Jerusalem, Minister of Environmental Protection
- Ofir Akunis, Minister of Science, Technology and Space
- Tzachi Hanegbi, Minister of Communications, Minister of Regional Communications
Those listed above account for more than half of all Israeli government ministers (11 out of 20) and nearly 60 percent of all ministerial positions (16 out of 27) that are not currently held by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is currently serving as the Minister of Health, Defense, and Diaspora Affairs in addition to being Prime Minister.
While it may come as a shock that more than half of all current Israeli government ministers are supportive of key aspects of Temple Activism, numerous other prominent Israeli politicians in the Knesset and other positions of political power are also strong advocates for altering the current Temple Mount status quo.
The strong presence of Temple Activist supporters in Israel’s halls of power has not been lost on leaders within the movement. Rabbi Chaim Richman, head of the Temple Institute’s International Department, told Christian Headlines in 2017 that:
Today there’s a lobby in the Knesset … many members of the Knesset that are constantly speaking about Jewish rights to pray on the Temple Mount. There are members of the Knesset that actually talk about rebuilding the Holy Temple. Do you realize that 20 years ago these people wouldn’t have been given a moment on prime time television to say these things. They would have been laughed out.”
Netanyahu’s dance
In addition to its increasingly strong hold on Israeli legislatures, the Temple Activist movement’s reach stretches all the way to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, given his role as prime minister, has long avoided any explicit endorsements of Temple Activism, though his actions over his decades-long political career offer enough insight to conclude that he is, at the very least, supportive of the movement and some of its objectives.
Netanyahu, from his prominent political position, has publicly maintained that his government seeks to maintain the current status quo on the Temple Mount, likely to avoid stoking unrest and protests. Yet, such claims are at odds with the fact that a majority of his ministers have publicly stated that they wish to wrest control of the holy site from its current custodians.
Furthermore, Netanyahu himself in 2017 told the Knesset the following: “To you, the members of the Knesset, the citizens of Israel, and to the entire world, I want to make it clear: The Temple Mount and the Western Wall will stay under Israeli sovereignty forever.” In that same speech, Netanyahu referred to Palestinian sovereignty over Jerusalem prior to 1967 as a “black cloud” that had hung over the city.
Though Netanyahu has been relatively mum on the subject of the Third Temple specifically, his practice of remaining silent after prominent members of his government and political party promote Temple Activism has not escaped the notice of Israeli media, which has repeatedly pointed out that the claims of government officials close to Netanyahu qualify as incitement under Israeli law, a punishable offense. Such silence has been taken by some Netanyahu critics as tacit support for Temple Activists, as has Netanyahu’s recent appearances at events where Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock have been edited out of the Jerusalem skyline, despite the compound’s iconic status.
Netanyahu attends an event back-dropped by an image of the Temple Mount with a dome-less mosque, June 13, 2019. Olivier Fitoussi | AP
Yet Netanyahu is silent not only about many of his closest political associates embracing Temple Activism, but about the considerable support that some of his most important political donors have given to Temple Activist groups. A 2015 Haaretz investigation found that top Netanyahu donor Kenneth Abramowitz — an American billionaire who also heads American Friends of Likud — had given more than $1.3 million to the Israel-based institution that funds all of Yehuda Glick’s Temple Activist organizations.
In addition to funding Netanyahu, Abramowitz has also donated to Yisrael Katz and Gilad Erdan — current Minister of Foreign Affairs and current MInister of Strategic Affairs, Internal Security and Information, respectively — both of whom support upending the current status quo on the Temple Mount. Palestinian academic and journalist Ramzy Baroud told MintPress that Gilad Erdan is “the main person advocating for this [Temple Activist] movement within Israel’s government and within Israeli politics.”
Another key financier of Netanyahu — U.S. casino magnate Sheldon Adelson — also appears to be supportive of Temple Activism. For instance, Israel Hayom — the Israeli newspaper that Adelson funds — has published numerous articles supportive of Temple Activism, including front-page stories that call for the destruction of Al-Aqsa mosque. Furthermore, Adelson has grown increasingly close to Israeli politician Naftali Bennett, who has increasingly pushed for increased Israeli control over the Temple Mount in recent years. Adelson even allegedly favored Bennett over Netanyahu for the position of prime minister at one point.
Bennett, who until recently was Education Minister, spent his tenure at that ministry inserting Temple Activist educational material into mandatory school curriculums, some of which were developed by the Temple Institute as part of a contract with the Bennett-led Education Ministry. In addition, Bennett — after failing to secure enough seats in Israel’s elections this past April — is mulling joining forces with Moshe Feiglin, one of the most pro-Third Temple Israeli politicians of all.
Beyond his close association with donors and politicians who support Temple Activism, Netanyahu’s relationship with prominent religious leaders have led to speculation that he supports the construction of a Third Temple on the Temple Mount. During a meeting in 1990 with Rabbi Mencahem Schneerson — then leader of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, an international Orthodox Jewish organization that has gained global prominence and also invited controversy — Netanyahu asked Schneerson, often referred to simply as “the Rebbe,” for advice on both personal and political matters.
Schneerson, who up until his death was a strong advocate for the religious messianic belief that physical actions could speed up the fulfillment of end-times prophecy and the coming of the Messiah, advised Netanyahu that he “do something to hasten his [the Messiah’s] coming.” Netanyahu responded, “We’re doing, We’re doing…,” at which the Rebbe interrupted him, saying “Apparently, it’s not enough,” urging him to do more still, and eventually garnering a “Yes” from Netanyahu. After that meeting, Schneerson stated that Netanyahu would later “hand his keys over to Moshiach [the Messiah],” suggesting that Netanyahu’s political career would culminate in the building of a Third Temple, a prerequisite for the appearance of the Messiah per Schneerson’s teachings.
Given that Schneerson heavily promoted the construction of a Third Temple during his lifetime and frequently received Third Temple models from devotees as offerings and gifts, this exchange has contributed to speculation that Netanyahu supports the same vein of religious messianism and vision propounded by Temple Activists.
However, leaked audio of a private meeting between Netanyahu and other Likud Party members provided evidence that Netanyahu does not personally approve of constructing a Third Temple, but turns a blind eye to those that do within his ruling coalition and among his donors purely out of political expediency. In that leaked audio, recorded in 2015, the prime minister stated that if Israel wanted to destroy Al-Aqsa “it would not require a great effort… but it goes against everything we stand for.”
Yet, in the years since that meeting took place, the prime minister has made some moves that have suggested that he may no longer think that destroying Al-Aqsa is “against everything we stand for,” especially given that Temple Activism is much more mainstream now than it was in 2015. Such claims of possession and right have increased following the beginning of the Trump administration in the United States, which — as the next installment of this series will show — also contains numerous figures who are committed to building a Third Temple on the Temple Mount, albeit for different reasons.
Netanyahu poses with Yehuda Glick, who is holding his Temple Activist “guide book” to the Temple Mount
During his speech last May at the dedication of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem — a political move heralded by numerous Temple Activists and Netanyahu himself as having “fulfilled prophecies” related to the Third Temple — Netanyahu made numerous references to the Temple and the Temple Mount and linked Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount to the presence of a physical temple.
According to Miko Peled, Netanyahu’s recent ministerial appointments following Israel’s recent elections in April reveal his private support for Temple Activism. Peled told MintPress:
Recently, Netanyahu brought two new members into his cabinet — Bezalel Smotrich and Rafi Peretz. They are from the heart of the settler, religious Zionist, messianic, Temple movement. They are clear about their political goals and are not shy about stating their goals.
They talk about giving the “Arabs of Israel,” as they call the Palestinians, three options: surrender and live without rights in a Jewish state, leave, or die. They make no secret of their desire to build a temple in place of Al-Aqsa. Netanyahu brought them in only because he agrees with them, shares their vision, but cannot express it as they do for fear of losing his international standing as a ‘statesman.’”
While Netanyahu may share their vision, as Peled asserted, other political moves he has made since the April elections suggest that he is likely not ready to enact such a vision, at least in regard to the Temple Mount. For instance, while he did include Smotrich in his cabinet, Netanyahu denied the controversial politician the ministerial positions he had desired, either Defense Minister or Justice Minister, precisely because of Smotrich’s comments about and stances regarding the Temple Mount.
Mainstreaming the apocalypse
As Yehuda Etzion had hoped back in 1985, writing from his prison cell after his failed effort to destroy Al-Aqsa, the “new force that grows very slowly, moving its educational and social activity into a new leadership” in the Israeli political establishment has now clearly manifested. Thanks to the efforts of Etzion and other Temple Activists like Yisrael Ariel and Yehuda Glick, the Temple Activist movement has become more mainstream within Israeli culture and politics than ever before, largely owing to the movement’s huge success since 2014 in rebranding itself as a “civil rights” movement, despite its origins steeped in religious extremism and terrorism.
In Part I of this series, the urgency with which the Israeli political establishment and Temple Activists are pursuing their agenda targeting Al-Aqsa and the Temple Mount was detailed, revealing – as Ramzy Baroud described it – that support for the Third Temple within Israeli society is now “greater than at any time in the past.”
Yet, as the next installment of this series will show, none of this would be possible without strong support from the United States government, where powerful politicians and individuals – particularly within the Trump administration – share the vision of the Temple Activists, although many of them, being Christian Zionists, do so for radically different reasons. The combination of strong support for using political force as a driver of eschatology — among certain groups, whether of Christians or Jews — has increasingly become a common denominator between U.S. and Israeli politics in recent years, one that has colored the foreign policy of both countries.
However, far from a benign influence, the end-times prophecies that are motivating these influential individuals are stocked with future events that portend untold suffering, mass loss of life and cataclysmic wars. Given that both Christians and Jews that favor this interpretation of the end-times believe that active steps must be taken to usher in these apocalyptic scenarios by those with the capacity to do so — e.g., politicians, political donors and so on — it makes understanding this often overlooked aspect lurking behind current Israeli and U.S. foreign policy both a critical and urgent task.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
Ethiopian Jews clash with Israel police over shooting
MEMO | July 3, 2019
Ethiopian-Israeli Solomon Tekah, shot dead by an off-duty policeman on 27 June, 2019
At least 47 police officers were injured and 60 people were arrested following protests across Israel after a police officer shot and killed an unarmed Ethiopian teen, Israeli authorities said Tuesday, reports Anadolu Agency.
Nineteen-year-old Solomon Tekah, a black Ethiopian Jew, was killed Sunday night when the off-duty officer fired at him in the Kiryat Haim neighborhood of Haifa. The incident triggered violent protests.
Protestors gathered in various cities and police intervened at times.
Protestors in the capital, Tel Aviv, the center of the demonstrations, blocked one of the main roads near Azrieli Tower, setting fire to the cars of drivers who wanted to pass through.
A kilometers-long traffic queue emerged in the capital following the protests.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the protestors to stop closing down roads and said he was saddened by Tekah’s death.
More than 140,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel. Between 1984 and 1991, some 80,000 Ethiopian Jews migrated to the country. Ethiopians – also called Falas – who lived isolated for years and were only recognized by Israeli religious authorities after a long while.
In previous years, Ethiopian Jews held demonstrations protesting against the racism and discrimination they allegedly faced in Israel. According to Israeli media outlets, 11 Ethiopians have died since 1997 during clashes with the police.
READ ALSO:
Israel Police close case against cop who killed mentally ill Ethiopian man
Trump Admin Dangles $50Bn Bribe for Palestinian Surrender
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 3, 2019
President Trump’s senior aide on Mideast affairs Jared Kushner tried last week to sell his much-vaunted “deal of the century” for a Palestinian-Israeli peace settlement. The core of it was a purported foreign investment plan worth $50 billion.
The sales pitch made at a conference in Bahrain amounted to a $50Bn bribe dangled at the Palestinians to accept permanent illegal occupation of their ancestral lands in exchange for foreign investment. Kushner rebranded it as the “opportunity of the century”.
He claimed that political peace depends on a viable economic plan. Others would see that formulation as back-to-front: economic development and prosperity depends on a political solution to decades of injustice against Palestinians.
American diplomacy has been an utter failure for decades with regard to settling this bitter dispute. It would therefore be impossibly naive to expect the Trump administration to succeed. More likely, its blundering and bias will only make this historic problem a whole lot worse.
That’s no doubt why so many regional players decided to give the Bahrain event this week a clunking big miss.
Like his father-in-law in the White House, Kushner comes from a real estate background before Trump appointed him as his top aide on the Palestinian-Israeli issue. For the past two years, Kushner has been working on a “master plan” to end the eight-decade-old conflict. That conflict has been at the center of most other disputes and tensions in the region. Trump has billed his son-in-law’s peace plan as the “deal of the century”.
In Bahrain, the Trump administration gave the first-ever preview of its peace plans. Skeptics of Kushner’s ability to deliver a realistic, workable framework were not to be surprised. The boyish-looking Kushner looked way out of his depth as he presented his vision of business and investment as the supposed key to peace. He invited the audience to “imagine” Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza bustling with enterprise and trade. That entrepreneurial “promised land” would arrive if the Palestinians accepted Kushner’s vision of a $50Bn foreign investor fund.
What that boils down to is Palestinians accepting the present status quo of illegal occupation by Israel and in effect surrendering their historic claims for sovereign statehood. Moreover, the $5oBn in investments that Kushner was swooning about are not existing funds. They are only promises of potential investment, which may never actually be delivered.
Nowhere in the Trump administration’s “deal of the century” is there any attempt to redress historical violations of Palestinian national rights. There is no mention of the right of return of millions of Palestinians displaced by the 1948 war that established the sate of Israel. Nor of returning land annexed during the 1967 war. Illegal occupation is merely a fact on the ground that needs to be officially recognized as Israeli territory, according to the Trump administration. In the same way that Trump earlier this year officially recognized the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel.
Kushner’s bias in a supposedly peace mediator role is flagrant. He is Jewish and a family friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Kushner’s wife, Ivanka, Trump’s daughter, is a convert to Judaism. Last year, she personally unveiled the controversial new American embassy in Jerusalem, which Trump had promised to Netanyahu on his election in 2016 in recognition of the city as the capital of Israel. That move was seen by Palestinians as a betrayal of their historic claim to East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
During the past two years, the Trump administration has cut off development aid and diplomatic links with Palestinian authorities. Respected Palestinian negotiators like veteran envoy Hanan Ashrawi have been denied travel visas to the US. The consultation conducted by Kushner with the Palestinian side in formulating his peace plan has been minimal.
During a recent interview in the US, Kushner revealed his colonial-type mindset when he asserted that the “Palestinians were not ready yet for self-government”. In other words, in this supposed mediator’s view, he is saying that there will be no foreseeable state of Palestine. That is, the Palestinians must accept their inferior status as an occupied people while the state of Israel is permitted to continue annexing more and more of their ancestral land. Indeed, Kushner is believed to have personal business investments in the construction of new Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
It’s no wonder then than his so-called “deal of the century” amounts to a shallow business plan bereft of any deep historical, political issues. Palestinians are expected to shut up and surrender their historic rights for statehood by accepting a quixotic vision of economic wonders descending on them while living under permanent marginalization and deprivation. A UN report last year found that Gaza will no longer be habitable in a few years due to water and power shortages.
The Trump-Kushner proposal is the sort of con job that real estate agents excel at. Everything is reduced to the value of money while prospects are talked up with the most ludicrous glamor. Unscrupulous real estate agents would have the temerity to sell a cardboard box as if it were a penthouse suite. Trump and his son-in-law would seem to be of that same wheeler-dealer ilk.
After two years of bragging about its big Middle East “vision”, what people saw this week was little more than a glossy brochure of hype over historical realities. Indeed, it would seem that the purpose of the hype is to bury the hard historical problems that underly the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The excessive emphasis on billions of dollars of investment by Kushner is an attempt to seduce Palestinians into relinquishing their political and moral rights.
This week, however, while the Trump administration was making its sales pitch in Bahrain, it was notable that there was no Palestinian delegation present. All across the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians shut their businesses in protest and took to the streets to burn effigies of the “deal of the century”.
Israeli government representatives were also not in attendance. That was only after the White House belatedly pulled their invitations in the weeks before the Bahrain conference took place. No doubt that hasty move by the White House was meant to minimize the embarrassing spectacle of a Palestinian boycott by also not having an official Israeli delegation.
Russia and China also gave the Kushner presentation a miss. Some Arab countries, such as Iraq and Lebanon, did not attend either. Iran, a major regional player and supporter of the Palestinian cause, was not represented. The European Union sent only technical-level officials; EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was not present.
The glaring absences reflect the lack of international credibility of this White House’s peace efforts for the Middle East. The “deal of the century” is more seen as the “con of the century”.
Penguin, Rothschild and Zionist Pressure
By Gilad Atzmon | July 2, 2019
Penguin announced this week that in response to claims of ‘antisemitism’ it has stopped printing Col. Pedro Baños’ best selling book, “How They Rule the World.”
The scandal erupted when it was revealed that passages in the original Spanish edition of the book related to the Rothschild dynasty were omitted from the Penguin Random House English translation. The meaning of this deletion is in itself devastating. It suggests that Penguin attempted to kosherize a book by editing and deleting sections so it would not offend Jewish sensitivities.
The publisher initially rejected allegations that the book which claims to reveal “the 22 secret strategies of global power,” is antisemitic. But after continued pressure from various organisations including the Campaign Against Antisemitism, Penguin commissioned an “external review” led by Rabbi Julia Neuberger.
The Jewish Chronicle (JC) ‘reveals’ that Col. Baños’ original Spanish edition makes several references to the Rothschild family, including a passage accusing the banking family of holding “gigantic” economic power and influence which has “led to multiple speculations about their capacity to intervene in key global decisions”. Needless to say, this an historical description of the family and its role in history.
The hypocrisy displayed here by the Jewish media and pressure groups is mind blowing. Jews, themselves, do not hide their pride and admiration for the Rothschild Dynasty and its global political power. In the following video you can watch a Zionist bragging about the Balfour declaration that “changed the course of history” and the power and influence the Rothschild family exercised behind the scenes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsRuB-Qw1b0
Most English speakers are familiar with the musical, Fiddler on the Roof, but not many Brits or Americans are aware that in Hebrew and in Yiddish the musical’s greatest hit ‘If I were a Rich Man’ is sung “If I were a Rothschild.” In the following video you can listen to ‘If I Were a Rothschild’ (in Yiddish) while viewing the many estates of this influential family.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUJcoWT_phQ
Penguin initially argued that while the book “clearly expresses robust opinions,” it was not anti-Semitic. However, persistent pressure from Jewish organisations led the publishing giant to commission a Rabbi to review the book. It came as no surprise that Rabbi Neuberger with the aid of two Spanish ‘antisemitism experts,’ reached the conclusion that the Spanish edition contains “echoes of Jewish conspiracy theories.” The phrase ‘Jewish conspiracy theories’ is confusing. It basically applies to events in the past which reflect badly on Jews in the present. It is there to suppress free discussion. Jewish power as I define it, is the power to silence criticism of Jewish power. Penguin Random House shamelessly succumbed to precisely this power last week.
In an attempt to justify his company’s decision, Penguin’s chief executive declared that “Penguin Random House UK publishes for readers of all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities.”
One may wonder what Penguin’s next move will be. Is the compromised publishing house going to remove George Orwell from its catalogue because some Jews insist that deep inside, Orwell was a vile ‘anti-Semite’? Maybe Penguin should provide us with the list of titles that are fit for “all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities.” Out of interest, is Penguin planning to delete Deborah Lipsdat’s books because they may offend ‘Aryan sensitivities?’ Will Penguin delete Salman Rushdie’s titles because he once offended a few Muslims? For some reason, I‘m guessing that T. S. Eliot will be the first to go.
For my part, I welcome Penguin’s shameless decision. It affirms every warning I have produced for the last two decades. The fact that a publisher omitted innocent factual segments from a book simply to appease one Jewish group or another reveals a gross lack of intellectual integrity and commitment to truth. In the Britain of 2019, a leading publishing house doesn’t trust readers to think for themselves. This exposes how radically Britain has changed. It is no longer an open society. Britain is now an authoritarian society. It is, in effect, an occupied zone.
To buy How They Rule the World. on Amazon UK click here.
Oman rejects claims it’s establishing diplomatic relations with Israel
Press TV – July 2, 2019
Oman has dismissed as “baseless” Israel’s claims that the Persian Gulf sultanate is establishing diplomatic ties with the Tel Aviv regime.
In a statement published on its official Twitter page on Tuesday, the Omani Foreign Ministry reacted to comments by the head of the Mossad intelligence service, who had said a day earlier Israel was renewing ties with Oman.
“The Sultanate is keen to exert all efforts to create favorable diplomatic conditions to restore contacts between all international and regional parties to work towards achieving peace between the Palestinian Authority and … Israel, leading to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” the Omani Foreign Ministry said in the statement.
The Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, had claimed at the Herzliya Conference on Monday that, “Just recently, renewal of formal relations with Oman was declared and the establishment of a representative office of the foreign ministry in that country.”
“That is only the visible tip of a much broader secret effort,” he added. “We do not yet have with them (Arab states) official peace treaties but there is already a communality of interests, broad cooperation and open channels of communication.”
Jordan and Egypt are the only two Arab states that have diplomatic ties with Israel. However, reports have indicated that several of them, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have had secret relations with Tel Aviv.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late November last year visited Oman, where he met Sultan Sayyid Qaboos bin Said Al Said at the Bait al-Barakah Royal Palace in the coastal city of Seeb near the capital Muscat.
The Jerusalem Post daily newspaper reported that the two men had discussed ways to advance the so-called Middle East peace process as well as other matters of mutual interest.
The Omani Foreign Ministry announced on June 26 that it will open an embassy in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
The decision was made “in continuation of the sultanate’s support for the Palestinian people,” it said.
“A delegation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will travel to Ramallah to initiate the opening of the embassy,” the foreign ministry noted, without providing further details.
Cuomo Announces Sweeping Series of Economic Development Partnerships Between New York and Israel
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo Press Release, July 1, 2019
As a Result of Solidarity Trip Last Week,
Partnerships to Focus on UAV/Drones, Transportation, Energy, Cybersecurity, Financial Technology and Health Care Technology and Research
17 Israeli Entities Will Work with Six New York State Agencies and Other Partners to Bolster Innovation and Economic Ties Between the Two States
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a wide ranging series of economic development partnerships between New York State and Israel that are the result of the Governor’s recent trip to Israel. The administration and several major New York health care institutions have signed a series of agreements with Israeli entities in the UAV/drones, transportation, energy, cybersecurity, financial technology and health care industries.
“Our economy is stronger than it’s ever been and our message during this trip was simple: New York is open for business,” Governor Cuomo said. “On our solidarity trip, we focused on key areas that present real opportunities for collaboration with Israeli companies because when Israeli startups choose New York, there is tremendous potential for growth for both economies. I am confident the initiatives announced today will build on the current partnerships that exist between businesses in New York and Israel, and bring our people even closer together.”
“We have worked to ensure New York maintains a strong relationship with Israel, and these latest initiatives will further our shared economic progress,” said Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul. “The collaboration between our agencies will foster innovative ideas to grow key segments of our economy, ensuring an even brighter future for the people of New York and Israel.”
These announcements build on the agreement signed last week between Empire State Development and the Israel Innovation Authority for a $2 million partnership that will further strengthen economic development ties between New York and Israel. The agreement includes cooperation on the co-development and commercialization of innovative solutions in the fields of cybersecurity, supply chain, smart cities, energy, unmanned aerial vehicles, life sciences and other areas. As part of the agreement, New York and Israel will establish a Smart Cities Innovation Partnership, a new initiative that will share innovative technologies, research, talent and business resources between cities in New York and Israel. The Governor also announced that New York’s Hot Spot and Incubator programs will now implement a new focus on Israeli companies who want to invest in the Empire State.
Among the many strides and agreements made during this week’s trip, the Governor is announcing several collaborations for economic development in the following sectors:
Three Israeli Companies Locating at Unmanned Aircraft Center of Excellence in the Mohawk Valley
New York-Israel Partnership to create UAS Center of Excellence: Empire State Development will provide a $250,000 planning grant to establish a new Unmanned Aerial Systems Research and Testing Center of Excellence in New York State. It will be led by the NUAIR Alliance, an organizational partner of CenterState CEO. The organizations are strategically aligned in their efforts to build public and private partnerships to advance leading edge UAS and UAS traffic management technologies, and create a hub for the industry that will attract investments and business development. New York and Israeli companies will use the new Center of Excellence to focus on advancing technologies, which will bring Israeli technology and R&D to the New York drone market and open Israeli’s markets to New York State UAS companies. Three Israeli tenant companies – Vorpal, Flytrex and CivDrone – have already committed to working with NUAIR and utilizing this new Center of Excellence. This week, the parachute system equipped on Flytrex’s package delivery drones was validated as compliant with industry standards for parachutes, after testing completed by NUAIR at the New York UAS Test Site at Griffiss International Airport in Rome, New York.
UAS Company Civdrone to Host Demonstration Day as Part of Further New York State Expansion: Civdrone’s success in the GENIUS NY program has stimulated investment interest that will allow the company to expand even further in New York State than previously planned. Civdrone CEO Tom Yeshurun will tour the state to select an appropriate construction site to stage a demonstration day for contractors and civil engineering firms, as one of the most important applications envisioned for the Civdrone UAS product is to assist in coordinating physical construction with its blueprint design. The Demonstration Day will take place in mid-August. Civdrone develops fast, reliable and autonomous marking solutions on enterprise drones for the construction industry. Digitalizing and automating land surveying services increases productivity and shortens construction time while lowering costs.
Cornell Tech to Lead Effort to Modernize MTA Technology
Future of Mobility Conference with Cornell Tech and the MTA: Cornell Tech, a joint academic venture between Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and the MTA will bring national and international thought leaders from academia, business, government and technology to explore solutions to the most vexing challenges facing transportation in New York City. By advancing the spirit of collegiality and cooperation generated over just a few hours in Israel to two full days of discussion about new technologies and methods for modernizing the MTA’s century-old infrastructure, the conference will move the transit innovation discussion to the next level. Globalizing the conversation on topics both cutting edge and conventional will allow the MTA to expand its network of partnerships and deliver a better service to New Yorkers.
Five Israeli Energy Companies Entering New York State
The new relationships outlined below support New York’s state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, the most aggressive climate program in the nation, which is driving the state to a carbon-neutral economy by 2050.
New York-Israel $2.5 Million Energy Innovation Challenge: The New York Power Authority is partnering with the Israel Smart Energy Association to launch a $2.5 million competition among innovative Israeli firms with expertise in energy efficiency and clean energy generation to support next-generation electric vehicle technologies, electric grid reliability, energy storage and demand flexibility technologies. The challenge will allow NYPA and ISEA to identify several innovative companies and give winners the opportunity to work with large utilities to help create significant advances in grid reliability, storage, sustainability and affordability, all of which benefit ratepayers, utilities and the environment.
Israel-Based Zero Energy Solutions, a Clean Energy Company, Will Open an Office in New York State: Israeli clean energy company Zero Energy Solutions will open an office in New York State with the support of a $400,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Last year, NYSERDA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Israel Innovation Authority to help identify Israeli energy companies that could help New York meet its energy and climate goals. Zero Energy Solutions creates automation technologies that enable commercial buildings to reduce energy use by an estimated minimum of 25 percent, thereby reducing energy costs.
NYPA Partners with Israeli Cyber Security and Grid Management Companies to Test and Demonstrate their Innovative Solutions in New York: NYPA will partner with Israeli firms CY-OT and SIGASEC Ltd as cybersecurity is a major issue for utilities throughout the world. Agreements in this area help position New York as a leader in this critical area. NYPA also will partner with Israeli grid sensor firms EGM and Vocal Zoom. Grid sensors systems enable utilities such as NYPA to take full advantage of emerging digital technologies.
NYPA Partners with the Israeli Electric Corporation: Mostly state owned, and the largest supplier of electricity in Israel, the Israel Electric Corporation will partner with NYPA, the largest state-owned public utility in the U.S., to conduct joint research in the areas of physical and cyber security, as well as in other areas of common interest, such as grid modernization, energy storage and electric vehicles. This joint research effort positions New York State as a leader in the essential areas cutting-edge energy innovation and cybersecurity.
Partnerships with Leading Israeli Life Sciences Innovators
New York Genome Center Partnership with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to fight ALS: The New York Genome Center and Technion will collaborate to complete the genetic mapping of all 600 ALS patients in Israel, including both Arabs and Jews, the first time such multi-ethnic mapping of Israeli ALS patients will occur. The resulting data will be compared to over 3,000 ALS genome sequences in the NYGC’s global ALS Consortium. Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie and Prof. Aaron Ciechanover, Nobel Laureate 2004, advisors to the Israel ALS Association, have worked with Dr. Hemali Phatnani, Director of the NYGC Center for Genomics of Neurodegenerative Disease and Dr. Tom Maniatis, NYGC’s Scientific Director and CEO, to establish this new research collaboration. This collaboration joins an Israel-wide program of IsrALS aimed at enrolling all of Israel’s ALS patients in the NYGC’s ALS Consortium.
Roswell Park Partnership with Maccabi Healthcare and the University of Haifa: Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center will be entering into two MOUs: one partnering with Maccabi Healthcare Services and the other with University of Haifa. Both MOUs will center around developing new approaches to better treat, detect and prevent cancer.
Northwell Health Hosting Israeli Health Companies: One of New York’s largest private employers and largest health systems, Northwell Health is renewing its MOU with the Israel Innovation Authority and will be hosting Israeli digital health companies in New York in September. The companies will work with Northwell on a series of innovations, including wearable sensors and other health assessment and tracking devices, as well as pharmaceutical therapeutics and clinical trials.
Partnership with Ben-Gurion University in Israel to Promote Growth in Cyber Security Industry
SUNY Expands New York-Israeli Homeland Security and Cybersecurity Partnership: The of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at SUNY Albany is the first standalone college dedicated to the topics of emergency preparedness, homeland security and cybersecurity. The college will be partnering with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel to promote international dialogue and growth in cyber security research, education and industry. The institutions will join together for a two-week exchange summit on cyber security, research and industry, as well as explore a dual degree program.
Israeli Securities Agree to Collaborate on Financial Innovating
Agreement between New York and Israeli on Financial Technology (FinTech) Cooperation: The New York State Department of Financial Services and Israel’s financial regulators, the Capital Markets Insurance and Savings Authority, the Israel Securities Authority, and the Bank of Israel, have signed an MOU to make it easier for FinTech innovators from each market to enter the other, promoting New York and Israel as innovation hubs for financial services technology. Israel has over 750 FinTech companies fueled in part by a deep talent pool of cyber experts produced through military training. Through this MOU New York and Israel will: refer FinTech innovators to each other, which can improve speed to market; exchange information about regulatory and policy issues; ensure that innovators in each other’s jurisdiction receive equivalent levels of support; share expertise, and coordinate training sessions.
Empire State Development President, CEO and Commissioner Howard Zemsky said, “New York’s robust economic development partnerships with Israel will be further strengthened today through initiatives as diverse as drone technology and cancer treatment, and build on our mutual strengths to advance the state’s innovation economy.”
DFS Superintendent Linda A. Lacewell said, “The New York State Department of Financial Services is pleased to partner with our Israeli friends and regulatory counterparts through this agreement and to work together to ensure that unnecessary barriers to FinTech development are removed and necessary consumer protections are in place to support current and future innovation. The well-established relationship between New York and Israel will be amplified and expanded through this agreement, which will ease the ability of entrepreneurs and innovators to work in both countries.”
Alicia Barton, President and CEO, NYSERDA, said, “Governor Cuomo’s nation-leading investments in emerging clean technologies is enabling innovative, forward-thinking companies such as Zero Energy Solutions to expand their operations and bring their products into the New York marketplace. Helping clean energy companies scale-up is vital to growing our green economy and combatting climate change, which is not only a New York priority, but a global issue, and we are proud to partner with Israel on this effort.”
Gil C. Quinones, NYPA president and CEO said, “Under Governor Cuomo’s leadership, the Power Authority’s partnerships with Israeli firms in the energy industry have been invaluable during NYPA’s digital transformation and we expect that these new agreements will yield far-reaching benefits as well. These new New York-Israel partnerships are a natural extension of our previous collaborations and will allow New York and Israel—two of the world’s leading technology hubs—to generate greater innovation and yield considerable lasting benefits for both parties and for utilities around the world. These innovations will help us both deliver against our bold goals for a resilient, safe, renewable and affordable energy system that enables us to address the challenges of climate change today.”
Ron Brachman, Director of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University, said, “We are very excited to take part in this initiative to explore new ways to harness emerging technology to tackle the biggest challenges facing New York State, the State of Israel, and the world today. Thanks to the leadership and vision of Governor Cuomo, this innovative collaboration builds on the terrific partnership between Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.”
Dr. Tom Maniatis, NYGC’s Scientific Director and CEO said, “This collaboration aims to advance the understanding of the genetic basis of ALS, and ultimately to lead to the development of new treatments. As we move forward, we hope to raise awareness of ALS and attract additional philanthropic resources to fund this important research.”
Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie said, “This is a unique project. Mapping every ALS patient in Israel will provide invaluable data to better understand the causes of this devastating disease. Israel will be the only country in the world where every single ALS patient will be studied. So far 81 patients were mapped and we do hope to attract additional philanthropic resources to complete this ambitious project. We are grateful to Governor Cuomo who initiated the Technion-NYGC collaboration that has led to this important project.”
Iftach Cohen, CEO, Zero Energy Solutions said, “We are very excited that the NYSERDA award is enabling us to open our North American office in New York City. We look forwarding to introducing our first learning Climate Intelligence platform, a smart plug and play energy optimization solution for commercial real estate properties, to the U.S. market. Our innovative technology will support New York State’s recently passed landmark climate legislation and help the state achieve it energy goals.”
Supervisor of Banks, Hedva Ber, said, “Promoting technological advancement and innovation in our banking system is one of the strategic goals of the Bank of Israel. I thank my colleagues and the partners from New York for this cooperation, which will support our ability to be in the frontier of technology while making sure risks of all types are managed according to best international practices.”
Head of Capital Markets, Insurance and Savings Authority, Moshe Bareket, said, “As in-charge regulator of non-bank FinTech operations in Israel, the Capital Market Insurance and Savings Authority is welcoming cooperation and joint work with other global and local regulators. I am sure that we will have fruitful and constructive exchanges on FinTech with our New York colleagues which will be mutually beneficial.”
Chairwoman of Israel Security Authority, Anat Guetta, said, “We understand that FinTech technologies can promote investor welfare, and to do so we need to identify and analyze what would be the potential value for the investors. The financial and the technological worlds operate almost without borders. Global integration is an important element of supervision and this agreement, together with other global activities of the ISA, is an important part of this integration.”
Major General (Res.) Yiftach Ron-Tal, Israeli Electric Corporation Chairman of the Board of Directors said, “I am extremely honored and proud to execute this MOU between IEC and NYPA. IEC, Israel’s largest critical infrastructure corporation, has developed top notch knowhow and processes as well as vast physical and cyber security experience, due to exposure to vast number of attacks from all over the world. I am sure this MOU will significantly contribute to the cooperation and partnership between IEC and NYPA, will improve our defense capabilities and will provide the basis to achieve progress in areas that are of vital interest to the two companies, and to the state of Israel and the United States.”
Elad Shaviv, CEO of the Israeli Smart Energy Association said, “We are excited to cooperate with NYPA to support the transformation of the energy sector. The New York-Israel Innovation Challenge, brings enormous benefit in bridging the challenging gap between innovative solutions and commercial usage, and will benefit both New York and Israel in building a healthier and safer environment while creating jobs and sector leadership.”
Amir Cohen, CEO of EGM said, “NYPA and EGM are collaborating on a demonstration project to smartly and efficiently monitor NYPA overhead transmission line systems based on smart sensors, optimized big data based forecasting and analytics technology developed by EGM. EGM’s analytics system processes the collected big-data and delivers real-time, meaningful useful information to inform the grid’s operation, maintenance and management. The NYPA-EGM project aims to modernize the grid by increasing grid resiliency capabilities, maximizing asset utilization, and improving security systems both for the grid and customers.”
Tal Bakish, CEO of VocalZoom said, “The Industrial IoT is only as good as the sensors that monitor machines. Unfortunately, most IIoT sensors are built on technology that makes predictive maintenance solutions expensive and unreliable for a number of important use cases. This project will field test new VocalZoom sensors with the goal of making power transformer monitoring more accurate and efficient. By improving NYPA’s monitoring capabilities, the project supports Governor Cuomo’s strategy to build a more resilient energy system.”
CEO and founder of Cybergym is Ofir Hason said, “CyberGym is honored to partner with NYPA, a key player in NY energy market. The mutual cooperation will assist CyberGym in expanding its foothold in NY, while significantly improving the cyber security level of the local power companies. We believe that the recently signed MoU will result a long term work plan and a more secured life, without investing in additional security products.”
Candace S. Johnson, PhD, President and CEO, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, said, “I’d like to thank Governor Cuomo for inviting Roswell Park to participate in trips like this. Each time we’ve walked away with relationships and partnerships patients across the world benefit from. In Maccabi Healthcare Services and Haifa University’s Tauber Center, we found teams that are just as passionate as we are about strategically applying our expertise and resources to make a difference for cancer patients and drive the science that will help us to not only control but prevent cancer.”
Michael Dowling, President and CEO of Northwell Health said, “For the past two years, Northwell Health has been collaborating with the Israel Innovation Authority on the development, validation and implementation of medical innovations that advance patient care. We look forward to furthering our collaboration with numerous Israeli start-up companies that are pursuing unique digital health solutions that promise to improve quality and better serve our patients. We thank the Governor for recognizing the possibilities that exist in health care and numerous other industries with these innovative Israeli companies.”
Ben Gurion University’s VP for Global Engagement Prof. Limor Aharonson-Daniel said, “We look forward to the expansion of the Homeland Security and Cybersecurity Partnership with SUNY Albany. BGU greatly appreciates and values the support of Governor Cuomo who conceived the CEHC in Albany in 2015, approved the connection with the BGU PREPARED Center for Emergency Response Research in 2017, and is now seeking to further expand the partnership.”
Robert P. Griffin, Founding Dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at UAlbany, said, “The Governor’s vision of a SUNY college dedicated to training those who will keep our families and communities safe knows no boundaries. The opportunity to share, work and learn with our friends and colleagues in Israel and at Ben Gurion University reflects UAlbany’s values and strategic mission in New York and around the world. I remain honored to be part of this vision, mission, and partnership.”
When Jews Invoke The Holocaust
By Gilad Atzmon | July 1, 2019
30 Jewish protesters were arrested on Sunday outside a privately managed ICE detention centre in New Jersey, which has been used to hold undocumented immigrants.
Invoking the Holocaust, demonstrators described the facilities in which immigrants are being held as concentration camps and spoke of the immigrant children who have died while being held by ICE. The Jewish protesters travelled from cities all over the USA. They were holding signs and singing and chanting in Hebrew and English.
The Jews behind the protest say about themselves, “we are #JewsAgainstICE because #NeverAgainMeans never again for anyone.” This sounds good enough to me and I have no criticism of the official objective behind this humanist protest. Yet the Jewish nature of the gathering raises some crucial and necessary questions:
Are these Jewish protestors willing to describe Gaza as a concentration camp?
Will the Jewish activists protest in front of the Israeli embassy invoking the holocaust, pointing out that the Palestinians are subject to long-term genocidal policies?
Will these Jewish protestors allow gentile pro Palestinian activists, for instance, to equate Israel with Nazi Germany or maybe invoke the holocaust is a Jews-only domain?
Would the activists consider a Jewish protest in front of Goldman Sachs headquarters or George Soros’ offices, pointing at the carnage these investors inflicted on states and millions of people around the globe?
How far are these well-meaning Jewish protestors willing to go to identify problems that might be related to Jewish exceptionalism, nationalism or racism?
But the Jewish protest raises a much deeper question. What kind of people make a conscious and collective effort to look humane and empathic? I guess one possible answer is that we are dealing with people who accept that some of the actions and politics associated with their tribe are deeply disturbing.
Newsweek reports that “the protest brought together Jews with a range of religious leanings, creating what Alona Weimer, a member of New York ‘s Yeshivat Hadar, described as an atypical cross-section of attendees for a demonstration.” Once again, it is not Judaism or a meta-Jewish ethos that unites these diverse good Jews and Tikkun Olam enthusiasts. One may wonder: what is it then that bonds this Jewish ‘cross-section’? Is it the phantasy of Jewish humanist DNA? Is it the Jewish revolutionary spirit, or is it the controlled opposition gene?
Unless Jews learn to fight for humanity as ordinary people, these questions may keep surfacing.
Israeli attack on Syria is a message for Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin met US President Donald Trump at Osaka on June 29, 2019
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | July 1, 2019
Although G20 summit in Osaka achieved nothing and there were no breakthrough decisions, a pleasant feeling had appeared momentarily that in the disjointed world situation, all the participants in the event at least reconfirmed their commitment to continue efforts to improve the global trade system, including work to reform the WTO. The G20 summits are generally convergent occasions and Osaka was no different.
The ensuing meditative reveries lingered on through Sunday like an opium-induced blurring of Romantic imagination out of Thomas De Quincey. However, by early Monday it dawned that life is real as the news broke that just past midnight Israeli jets stealthily approaching Syria via Lebanese air space had rained missiles at multiple targets in the suburbs of Damascus and Homs.
According to latest reports, sixteen people, including a baby, were killed and 21 others suffered injuries, including a month-old baby girl, who suffered burns and facial wounds. At one stroke, Israel demolished the chimera of global governance that the G20 symbolises. The missile attack constituted the violation of national sovereignty and territorial integrity of two UN member states — Lebanon and Syria. Israel committed a war crime by killing innocent unarmed civilians.
How is global governance possible without a rule-based order? The relentless promotion of trade war, protectionism and militarism that we are witnessing brings to mind the famous coinage of Thomas Hobbes — Bellum omnium contra omnes ( “the war of all against all”).
Yet, the much-awaited meeting between Trump and Putin at Osaka on Friday, which closely followed the ‘trilateral’ meeting of the national security advisors of the US, Russia and Israel in Jerusalem on Tuesday, was widely expected to produce some convergences regarding Syria and the situation around Iran.
Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, US National Security Adviser John Bolton, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev at a trilateral summit at the Orient Hotel in Jerusalem on June 25, 2019.
Israel had hyped up the meeting of the NSAs and during a joint press conference with the visiting secretary of the Russian national security council Nikolai Patrushev, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had boasted that “security cooperation between Russia and Israel has already contributed much to the security and stability of our region and has made a fundamental difference in the situation in the region.”
But it was only typical Israeli bluster. In fact, today’s missile attack is an act of ‘coercive diplomacy’ by Israel. The Israelis are showing that they have neutralised the Russian S-300 missile system which is supposedly guarding Syrian air space. This is Israel’s angry riposte to Russia’s refusal to break up with Iran in Syria.
On the Israeli missile attack on Monday, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, “We are establishing the facts now. We do not know what happened there. We want to gain insight into it, but the necessity to respect and execute the UN Security Council’s operating resolutions, that no one cancelled, is our principle which we will proceed from when assessing actions of any players in the region.”
Suffice to say that the Russian-Iranian axis in the Syrian conflict has far from outlived its utility — although the two countries would each have its specific interests in the Syrian situation. Thus, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov disclosed today in Moscow that another trilateral summit on Syria between Russia, Iran and Turkey is due to take place in the near future.
To quote Peskov, “They raised the issue at the meeting of President Putin and Erdogan (at Osaka). They did talk about such a summit. It is understood that it will be held soon.” There are also media reports that Turkey will host the trilateral summit in July. The previous such summits took place in Sochi (November 2017), Ankara (April 2018), Tehran (September 2018) and Sochi (February 2019). Evidently, the raison d’être of the Russia-Turkey-Iran format remains even in the conditions of the current US-Iran standoff.
No doubt, the situation in Idlib province in northeast Syria is fraught with profound contradictions, which need to be reconciled urgently. This is one thing. (Read an insightful report by Xinhua news agency, here, on the strong undercurrents in the Idlib situation.)
However, the big picture out of all this is that although Putin had a “good meeting” with Trump in Osaka on Friday and they held “very business-like and pragmatic” discussions that “covered practically the entire range of issues of mutual interest” (in Putin’s words), all he would say was that the discussions on regional conflicts were “overall… useful consultations.”
Putin sounded frustrated that Washington has shown no intentions even to expand economic ties with Russia or tap the vast potential of bilateral trade. He noted, “That is why I have no idea if they (Trump administration) will do anything or not. At any rate, one thing is sure — we are not going to ask for anything. No means no. And if there is interest, we will respond in kind and do everything we can to turn the situation around.”
Of course, the two presidents have instructed their respective foreign ministers to launch consultations on a New START treaty. But even here, Putin noted, “I do not know if those consultations will lead to the extension of the New START treaty, it is too early to speak about it.”
The paradox lies herein. For Trump, the prime consideration in the period ahead will be that there are no serious hiccups on the foreign policy front that might upset his apple cart during his campaign for the November 2020 election. The Victory Day Parade in Moscow’s Red Square next May offers a great photo-op for him, which he wouldn’t want to miss. But basically, Trump went to Osaka wearing velvet gloves with a focused mind on creating foreign-policy underpinnings for his bid for a second term as president.
Israel certainly factored in the inconclusive meeting between Trump and Putin while launching the missile strike on Damascus. It is a stark reminder that Israel will continue to fuel the tensions over Iran’s presence in Syria and draw Trump into it.
Activists scale Israel arms manufacturer building, demand end to UK complicity in rights violations
MEMO | July 1, 2019
Activists from the Manchester Palestine Action network have scaled the roof of the Israeli owned Elbit/Ferranti arms manufacturer in Oldham in protest of UK complicity in Israel’s human rights violations.
To commemorate the five-year anniversary of “Operation Protective Edge” in 2014, which killed over 2,000 Palestinians, activists draped large banners in front of the building which read “UK Stop Arming Israel”.
The group say that over the last five years the UK has raised their arms sales to Israel and are calling for an arms embargo and the closure of all Elbit factories in the UK.
A group of activists also entered the new, hi-tech, Discovery Industrial Park in Kent and headed towards Elbit’s, purpose-built Instro Precision factory. They blockaded both of the gates to the factory and scaled a shipping container forcing the factory to close.
In 2017 the Campaign Against Arms Trade reported that the UK issued £221 million worth of arms licenses to defence companies exporting to Israel which makes Israel the eighth largest UK arms market.
In the past half-decade Israel has brought over £350 million worth of UK military hardware.
During the Great March of Return Israeli snipers have killed over 180 Palestinian protesters including 57 children, yet the UK has approved some £14 million worth of arms sales during this period, according to the group.
Adie from Manchester Palestine Action said: “We think that arms companies like Elbit Ferranti should stop operating when it is clear their weapons are being developed through the mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. The crimes must stop and so must UK-based companies that are profiting from them.”
US Ambassador to Israel Participates in Israeli Underground Settlement Expansion
IMEMC | July 1, 2019
The US Ambassador to Israel, and longtime Israeli settlement financier, David Friedman, participated on Sunday in an underground excavation under the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, in East Jerusalem, actively participating in the illegal settlement action by bashing with a hammer a section of ancient underground wall located beneath Palestinian homes.
In addition to Ambassador David Friedman, the US “Peace Envoy” Jason Greenblatt also participated in the controversial and illegal excavation, along with Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who recently narrowly avoided prison time by negotiating a plea agreement in which she pleaded guilty to corruption charge.
The presence of US officials at the incident marks the first time that the US, or any country, has decided to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem. The Old City was declared an international space open to all during the declaration recognizing the state of Israel in 1948. But since 1967, Israeli forces have occupied the mainly Palestinian city and have used many measures, legal and illegal, to push out the Palestinian residents of the city.
This archaeological dig is to excavate a tunnel that Israeli state archaeologists claim was used by Jewish pilgrims thousands of years ago.
According to a statement by the Israeli non-profit Emek Shaveh, the group believes that this incident with the U.S. officials is “a further step in American support for the pro-settlement policy in Jerusalem, and particularly the touristic-settlement projects…. It is inexcusable to ignore the Palestinian residents of Silwan, carrying out extensive excavations of an underground city and to use such excavations as part of an effort to tell a historical story that is exclusively Jewish in a 4,000 year-old city with a rich and diverse cultural and religious past”.
In an editorial in the leading Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, the paper’s editors write, “The participation of American diplomats at an event sponsored by a right-wing group in East Jerusalem constitutes de facto recognition of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem’s historic basin. If anyone had any doubts about that, Friedman made clear in an interview with the Jerusalem Post that, ‘The City of David is an essential component of the national heritage of the State of Israel.” Giving it up, even in the context of a peace agreement, he said, “would be akin to America returning the Statue of Liberty.’”
The problem with this argument, according to the editors of Ha’aretz, is that, “This recognition doesn’t just put the American administration on the extreme right of the Israeli political map – thus undercutting the claim that American can be an unbiased broker between Israel and the Palestinians – but it also ignores the complicated reality in Silwan, East Jerusalem and the entire region. The tunnel, which was excavated using controversial methods from a scientific standpoint, harnesses archaeology to politics while ignoring the nuances of Jerusalem’s ancient past…. Anyone having even a passing familiarity with the Palestinian people knows that there’s no chance of arriving at any kind of agreement that will end the occupation so long as Israel continues to control East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Thus, by mere words and an event dripping with sweetness and smiles, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has sentenced Israelis to a life of constant conflict, or to an apartheid state in which there are two types of residents, those with rights and those without them.”
Over 300,000 Palestinians live in the city of Jerusalem, at least 20,000 of whom live in Silwan. These Palestinians have no citizenship rights and are not granted freedom of movement by the Israeli authorities. They are frequently displaced from their ancestral homes by Israeli settlers, particularly in Silwan neighborhood, which has been targeted by Israeli right-wing settlers for colonization.
Israeli ‘solution’ for Gaza includes massive military offensive and move to Sinai
MEMO | July 1, 2019
Two Israeli officials have proposed a “solution” for the Gaza Strip which includes another massive military offensive against the enclave and moving the Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Arabi21.com reported on Sunday. The end of the government led by Mahmoud Abbas is also suggested in a report published by the Jerusalem Institute for Public and State Affairs.
The purpose of the proposal is to make the humanitarian crisis in Gaza even worse, prompting a military confrontation. Its authors are Shimon Shapira, a former military secretary to Israel’s Prime Minister, and Shlomi Fogel, an official who has proposed numerous initiatives related to the Arab world. The phase which would follow the offensive would be based on economic and commercial development for Sinai backed by Egypt.
According to Shapira and Fogel, Gaza is still a crisis issue for Israel and the international community. They refer to a report issued by the International Bank in 2018 which said that Gaza’s economy is failing.
Saving Gaza will not be easy, the report claims, because Hamas, which controls Gaza, is seen by the US, EU and Israel as a “terrorist group”, while its ideological parent, the Muslim Brotherhood, is also regarded as a “terrorist” movement by a number of Arab states. Furthermore, the Gaza Strip and its residents have faced three massive Israeli military offensives against the largely civilian population since Hamas won the last Palestinian elections in 2006 and took full control of the coastal territory a year later.
The report describes the failure to deal with Gaza as a “ticking bomb”, not only for Israel, but also for the other countries in the region, including Egypt. It suggests an international aid package for Egypt coming mainly from the US and Gulf States to develop the infrastructure in Sinai. This, it is proposed, will help Egyptian workers by giving them work and improving their life, and will, it is believed, deter them from joining Daesh or attacking the Egyptian army. Workers from Gaza will also benefit.
As well as developing the port at El-Arish, Shapira and Fogel suggest the building of an airport for goods and passenger transport, as well as a new power plant run on Egyptian natural gas, a desalination plant and a railway from Gaza to the North Sinai coastal city.
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From the Archives
Israel Is A Genocidal Society
The Israeli Political Spectrum From The “Liberal Left” To The Far Right, Is United In Genocide
The Dissident | May 5, 2026
… The fundamental issue of Israel is not Benjamin Netanyahu, but the fact that Israel is overwhelmingly a bloodthirsty, war-ready, genocidal society.
Historian Zachary Foster has documented that the overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis have supported every Israeli war since the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, writing:
2006
86% of the Israeli adult population justified “the IDF operation in Lebanon against Hizbollah,” or 2006 Lebanon War, in which Israel killed 1,191 people, the vast majority civilians according to HRW (Note that the % of Jewish Israelis who supported the war was even higher)2008-2009
82% of the Israeli public thought that the 2008-9 war on Gaza was justified (in which Israel killed 1,417 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians.) Note that the % of Jewish Israelis who supported the war was even higher2012
90% of Israeli Jews supported war on Gaza ( in which Israel killed 160 Palestinians, 66% civilians)2014
95% of Jewish Israelis believed the war on Gaza was justified (in which Israel killed 2,310 Palestinians, 70% civilians)2021
72% of Israelis believed the war on Gaza should continue (as of May 21) after Israel had already killed 250 Palestinians in Gaza, vast majority civilians. The % of Jewish Israelis who supported killing more Palestinians was much higher.2024
A January poll found 95% of Jewish Israelis thought the Israeli military was using either the “appropriate” amount of force or “too little” force in Gaza at a time when Israel had already killed >25,700 Palestinians in Gaza.2024
In September, 90% of Jewish Israelis supported the war on Lebanon (in which Israel killed 800+, including hundreds of civilians)2025
In March, 82% of Israeli Jews supported the forced expulsion of residents of Gaza, Israel’s main goal in it’s genocide & war on Gaza.2025
In June, 82% of Jewish Israelis supported the war on Iran known as the “twelve day war”2026
On March 4, 93% of Israeli Jews expressed support for the war on Iran. 97% of “right-wing” Jewish Israelis support it, compared with 93% in the center and 76% on the left.
The overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis also have openly genocidal views towards Palestinians.
Polls in Israel have shown that:
- 84% of the (Israeli )public gives the IDF an excellent or very good grade regarding the moral conduct of the army
- 75% of Jewish Israelis agree with the idea that ‘there are no innocents in Gaza.’
- A vast majority of Israeli Jews – 79 percent – say they are ‘not so troubled’ or ‘not troubled at all’ by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza.
The fundamental problem in Israel is Zionism, not Benjamin Netanyahu. – Full article
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