24 Av 5780
14 August 2020
The News on the Israeli Street
The news on the Israeli street is all about the peace agreement with the United Arab Emirates, but before we get to that in today’s blog, here is the daily Corona (Covid 19) update as of 8 am this morning:
There are 89,822 confirmed cases—an increase of 1,671 since this time yesterday
64,746 of these confirmed cases have recovered—an increase of 2,637
371 are in critical condition–an increase of 2
110 of the most critically ill are on ventilators—the same as yesterday
651 have died–an increase of 12
There are 25,076 active cases.
Again, none of the numbers are good, yet all Israelis seem to be able to think about are the possibilities of going shopping, eating at restaurants, and traveling outside the country. Yesterday, the countries of Greece and Bulgarian further opened up to Israeli travelers.
TODAY’S BLOG
Netanyahu’s Faustian Bargain:
The Peace Agreement With The U.A.E.
“A Faustian bargain is a pact whereby a person trades something of supreme moral or spiritual importance, such as personal values or the soul, for some worldly or material benefit, such as knowledge, power, or riches.”
Definition from Encyclopedia Britannica online.
If there was ever example of a Faustian bargain, it is what PM Netanyahu has just agreed to with President Trump and U.A.E. leader Mohammed Bin Zayed (aka MBZ).
When PM Netanyahu proclaimed last night on Israeli television that this is the first time that Israel has ever made a peace agreement with an Arab country that did not involve land, it was an outright lie.
Once again this is a land for peace agreement–except that this time, the land is the spiritual and ancestral home of the Jewish people, Judea and Samaria.
This “land for peace” point has been emphasized in the last few hours by President Trump who said: “Sovereignty is more than just off the table, they’ve (Israel) agreed not to do it.” And top Emirati official Anwar Gargash who told reporters Thursday that the agreement dealt a “death blow” to the Israeli sovereignty movement.
At his press conference last night, a beaming Netanyahu waxed metaphorically about tourism agreements with the UAE that will allow direct flights from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi and possible Emirati investments in Israel especially in companies working on producing a vaccine for Corona.
Stop and think about that for a moment.
Israel’s ancestral homeland has been sold for flights from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi and Emirati investment in Israel. The pathetic irony is that Israelis are already traveling to and working in the UAE, albeit with 3rd country passports, and the Emirates already invest in Israeli companies.
Israel gains little of value from this agreement, and loses its soul.
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Oh, and even though we only have scant details of the proposed agreement, one part of it is that Israel will now allow “greater Muslim access” to the Al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Greater Muslim access? Israel already buses in Muslims from Gaza, Judea, and Samaria in the hundreds of thousands to worship there (more than 1,000,000 during the last non-Corona Ramadan). The subtext here is that Netanyahu has just agreed to greater Islamization of Jerusalem.
So what does the future hold?
Does anyone really think that the UAE is going to support Israel in any international venues? Now, more than ever in order to show they are “good Arabs”, the UAE will speak for the Palestinans.
Does anyone really think that the UAE won’t exert pressure on Israel not to fight against Hamas in Gaza, the PLO in Judea and Samaria, and Palestinian terrorists everywhere? Just wait and see how quickly the UAE raises its head the next time missiles from Gaza provoke an Israeli response.
Does anyone really think that the UAE won’t make a grand show of how it has contributed to the Islamization of Jerusalem? We can expect a visit from MBZ in the near future.
And what will happen if something happens to MBZ, or if a President Biden embraces Iran, or if . . . ? How much will it take until the UAE agreement with Israel becomes like the Jordanian agreement with Israel?
In short, Netanyahu has sold Israel’s soul for a paper of promises.
Three final thoughts on this black day:
1. Sovereignty for the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria is dead. The communities will limp along with the current status quo which permits a house here or there and illegal Palestinian building everywhere.
In his press conference last night, Netanyahu went on and on about he is obligated to bring sovereignty to Judea and Samaria, and that it is still on the top of his list of priorities.
What utter nonsense. No one on the “right” in Israel will ever again believe any promise Netanyahu makes.
2. Just a month ago, the head of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein presciently said this: “Bibi hasn’t established a single new settlement as PM, he hasn’t applied sovereignty as promised, he’s not a rightist.” How right Klein was! Benjamin Netanyahu has now firmly ensconced himself in the camp of Israeli prime ministers who saw “making peace” at the expense of the Israeli people as their highest priority and the source of their legacy (think “Rabin”, “Barak”, and “Olmert”).
What Netanyahu will now forever be remembered for (aside from being the first Israeli prime minister to serve while being indicted) is missing the opportunity of a millennium to cement Israel’s rights in Judea and Samaria.
3. It is beyond absurd for Netanyahu or anyone else to compare this agreement with the UAE with those of Egypt and Jordan or to talk about how it is “a historic moment” vis a vis the Arab world.
Egyptian and Jordan are on our borders and had fought costly wars with us. Egypt in particular was and is the largest Arab country in the world, and the Arab country with the largest army. The UAE has no border with us, has fought no wars with us, and can barely even be called “Arab.”
Of its 10,134.083 population, only 10% are citizens of the UAE. The rest are foreign nationals who do most of the work in the country. Some of the largest foreign communities in the UAE are Indians (3,420,000), Pakistanis (1,500,000), Bangladeshi (500,000), Filipino (estimated 700,000 people), Iranian (450,000), Sri Lankan (300,000), British (240,000), Chinese (180,000), and Afghans (150,000).
As you can see from the above, even Indians outnumber Emiratis 3 to 1. In total, foreign nationals outnumber Emirati citizens by more than 10 to 1.
3. This hardly seems like a political moment, but another “accomplishment” of Netanyahu is that he has boosted the stature of Benny Gantz immeasurably. Instead of being remembered as the incompetent buffoon that he is, Gantz will now be regaled by the leftist domestic and international community as the person who stopped sovereignty and thereby led the way to peace. In the process of accomplishing this, Netanyahu has alienated himself from his base, and set the “right” back decades.
In sum, this Faustian agreement is a disaster for Israel.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.