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Tlaib says she is humbled her ancestors provided ’safe haven’ for Jews after Holocaust
The Palestinian-American Democrat charged in an interview that Netanyahu could not look her grandmother in the eye and say ’you are as human as I am to you’
Allison Kaplan Sommer - May 11, 2019 11:10 PM
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Rep. Rashida Tlaib said that she “loves the fact” that her “Palestinian ancestors” were part an attempt “to create a safe haven for Jews” after the Holocaust, although the role “was forced on them” and took place “in a way that took their human dignity away.”

In an interview on the Skullduggery, Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat and the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress as well as one of the first two Muslim female lawmakers, also harshly condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “coming from a place of division and inequality” and refusing to acknowledge her grandmother, who lives in the West Bank, as his equal.

Having grown up in an African-American neighborhood of Detroit, Tlaib says that she viewed Netanyahu and his government through the lens of someone who understood “inequality and oppression” and that she condemns the Israeli leader’s endorsement of U.S. President Donald Trump’s border wall and his treatment of Palestinians.

“We can smell it from far away, that no - you don’t want to look at my grandmother in the eye, Netanyahu, and say ‘you are equal to me. You are as human as I am to you.’“

Tlaib referred to the recent commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day when asked about her decision to support a one-state solution, becoming the only Democratic member of Congress to buck her party’s position in favor of two states.

“There’s always kind of a calming feeling when I think of the tragedy of the Holocaust, that it was my ancestors - Palestinians - who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence, in many ways, has been wiped out … in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-Holocaust, post-tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time. And I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that in many ways,” said Tlaib.

“So when I think about one state, I think: why can’t we do it in a better way? I don’t want people to do it in the name of Judaism just like I don’t want people to use Islam in that way. It has to be done in a way of values around equality, around the fact that you shouldn’t oppress others. So that you can feel free and safe. Why can’t we all be free and safe together?”

Pressed as to why she was the only Democrat who has publicly “given up” on a two-state vision, she responded: “I didn’t give it up. Netanyahu and his party gave it up - the Israeli government gave it up.”

Tlaib said that the Israeli premier has the power to push for a two-state solution, if he “gets up tomorrow morning and decides: ‘I’m going to take down the walls, I’m not going to expand settlements, enough is enough.’”

If he were to do so, she said, perhaps “people like myself and others would truly believe in that. But uprooting people all over again? When you look at the landscape and map it out, it is almost absolutely impossible with how he has proceeded to divide, dissect and segregate communities.”

In the current reality, Tlaib said it was “impossible” for her “to see a two-state solution without more people being hurt.”

Tlaib said her one-state position should not be compared to that of Hamas and others who wished Israel’s destruction because “I’m coming from a place of love, for equality and justice, I truly am. I want a safe haven for Jews: who doesn’t want to be safe? I am humbled by the fact that it was my ancestors that had to suffer for that to happen. I will not turn my back and allow others to hijack it and say it is an extremist approach.”

She added emotionally: “But how can I say to my grandmother in her face, that she doesn’t deserve human dignity, that she is less than, because she is not of Jewish faith... I keep saying to people, how is that not wrong? How is it that we aren’t saying that we going to create a place that is safe for everybody in the state of Israel and in the Palestinian occupied territories?”

Tlaib has made waves on Capitol Hill by announcing her leadership of a summer trip to the West Bank that would counter the Israel trips organized by the American Israel Education Foundation, an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In the interview she said she did not envision the trip as involving any meetings with Palestinian or Israeli officials, but one in which both Israeli and Palestinian individuals would be heard.

“At a town hall - you want to talk to the people,” she said. “And I’m hoping this trip is a massive town hall.”

Is Saudi Arabia repaying Trump for Khashoggi by attacking Linda Sarsour?

A Saudi-owned website considered close to the royal family claimed that Sarsour, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are agents of Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood who declared a ’jihad’ on Trump

Allison Kaplan Sommer
Dec 10, 2018

►https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-how-saudi-arabia-is-repaying-trump-for-his-support-on-khashoggi-1.

There is nothing earth-shattering about seeing Women’s March leader and Arab-American activist Linda Sarsour criticized as a dangerous Islamist by the conservative right and pro-Israel advocates in the United States. But the latest attack on the activist comes from a new and somewhat surprising source: Saudi Arabia.
Al Arabiya, a Saudi-owned, pan-Arab news channel closely linked to the country’s royal family and widely viewed as reflecting Saudi foreign policy, published an article Sunday strongly suggesting that Sarsour and two incoming Muslim congresswomen are puppets planted by the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar to undermine the Trump administration.
The feature, which profiles Sarsour, seems to cast her as the latest proxy figure in the kingdom’s bitter dispute with Qatar, and its bid to strengthen ties and curry favor with the White House.
It also focused on two Democratic politicians whom Sarsour actively campaigned for in the 2018 midterms: Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar and Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, who are set to be the first-ever Muslim congresswomen when the House reconvenes in January.

The Al Arabiya story on Linda Sarsour’s links to the Muslim Brotherhood, December 9, 2018.Screengrab
Headlined “Details of calls to attack Trump by US ‘Muslim Sisters’ allied to Brotherhood,” the article is light on actual details but heavy on insinuation.
Activists like Sarsour, and politicians like Tlaib and Omar, the Saudi publication wrote, are “mujahideen” (a term used to describe those involved in jihad) – fighting against “tyrants and opponents of Trump’s foreign policies.”

The story says the policies they are fighting include “the siege of Iran, the fight against political Islam groups, and [Trump’s] choice of Saudi Arabia under the leadership of King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a strategic ally.”
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Tlaib and Omar, Al Arabiya asserts, are agents designed to “restore” control of political Islamist movements on the U.S. government by attacking Trump. The article says this effort is being directed by Sarsour – who, it writes, is purportedly funded and controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood - a claim it fails to provide any clear basis for.
Tamara Cofman Wittes, a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, Washington, says it should come as little surprise to those familiar with the region that “a state-owned Arabic news outlet would publish conspiracy theories about people whose views don’t accord with those of the government that funds it.”
Al Arabiya, based in Dubai, but Saudi-owned, was founded in 2002 as a counter to Qatar’s popular Al Jazeera TV station – which frequently runs material sharply critical of the Saudis – as well as other Arabic media outlets critical of Saudi influence and supportive of political Islam.
The article comes as rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Qatar has heated up in recent times, with Qatar’s emir skipping this weekend’s Gulf Cooperation Council summit hosted by Saudi Arabia, which has led a diplomatic war on its neighbor for the past 18 months.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and non-GCC member Egypt cut diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar in June 2017, charging that the country supports terrorism. Qatar denies the charges and says the Saudi boycott aims to curtail its sovereignty. Last week, the Gulf nation announced it was withdrawing from the OPEC oil cartel.
Islamists vs Islamists
“Democrats’ battle against the Republican control of the U.S. Congress led to an alliance with political Islamist movements in order to restore their control on government, pushing Muslim candidates and women activists of immigrant minorities onto the electoral scene,” the report states.
The “common ground” between Omar and Tlaib, the article adds, is to battle Trump’s foreign policy “starting from the sanctions on Iran to the isolation of the Muslim Brotherhood and all movements of political Islam. Those sponsoring and supporting the two Muslim women to reach the U.S. Congress adopted a tactic to infiltrate through their immigrant and black minority communities in general, and women’s groups in particular.
The article ties Sarsour to Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood through multiple associations with the Arab American Association of New York, which “was created by Palestinian Ahmed Jaber, a member of the Qatar International Foundation responsible for funding the association,” and also her attendance at an annual meeting of the International Network of Muslim Brotherhood in North America and Canada in 2016.
The article compares Sarsour’s rhetoric to that “used by Muslim Brotherhood teachings and in the views of Sayyid Qutb, a scholar and co-founder of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, as well as from Abul A’la Maududi’s books ‘Islam and Ignorance’ and ‘Fundamentals of Islam.’
“From all that is mentioned, we can touch the influence of Muslim Brotherhood in shaping the thoughts of American activist Linda Sarsour and consequently her declaring her ‘jihad’ against U.S. President Donald Trump, in addition to her call for the application of ‘Sharia,’ the rule of Islam in the United States of America,” the piece asserts.
No one knows for sure whether Al Arabiya received direct orders from the Saudi government to attack Sarsour, Tlaib, Omar and other politically active Muslim women on the American left.
Those familiar with Middle East media say conspiracy-minded attacks against figures in American politics aren’t particularly unusual in Arabic,
but what is unique about this article is the fact it appeared in English on the network’s website.
It seems to be a highly creative attempt to somehow repay the Trump White House as it deals with the fallout from the Jamal Khashoggi assassination. As Trump continues to take heat for staying close to the Saudis, they, in turn, are demonstrating their loyalty with their willingness to vilify people who were President Barack Obama’s supporters and are now Trump’s political enemies – even if they wear a hijab.

Allison Kaplan Sommer
Haaretz Correspondent

From New York to Michigan, is a wave of ’anti-Israel’ Democrats about to reshape U.S. politics - U.S. News - Haaretz.com

▻https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-from-new-york-to-michigan-is-a-wave-of-anti-israel-democrats-about

In a three-part video series, Haaretz’s Allison Kaplan Sommer explains how Israel, anti-Semitism and the Jewish vote are affecting the Midterms – and what the results could mean for all three.
Allison looks at the various key races and the likelihood of Democrats taking the House of Representatives, while Republicans will keep the U.S. Senate – unless of course a synagogue president in Nevada can take down the Republican incumbent as part of a blue wave across states like Arizona and Florida.
Part 1: Allison discusses some of the key races involving Jewish candidates and voters. It used to be that the American Jewish community could really unite around and rally together in order to keep their communities strong and safe. The mantra, the key word, for successfully supporting Israel and fighting anti-Semitism in America used to be bipartisan – but anyone paying attention now knows times have changed.

George P. Smith, lauréat du prix Nobel est un pro palestinien de longue date et militant de BDS
AURDIP - 5 octobre | Allison Kaplan Sommer pour Haaretz |Traduction CG pour l’AURDIP
▻https://www.aurdip.org/george-p-smith-laureat-du-prix.html

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Le scientifique « antisioniste » dit s’opposer à la « souveraineté ethnique juive sur d’autres peuples » et il apparaît sur le site internet de la controversée Mission Canary

George P. Smith, un des lauréats du Prix Nobel de chimie 2018 est un vétéran du soutien au mouvement de boycott, désinvestissement et sanctions, dans le cadre de son militantisme pro palestinien.

Smith, qui est professeur émérite de biologie de l’Université du Missouri à Columbia, a été désigné mercredi comme co lauréat du prestigieux prix pour ses efforts de maîtrise du développement de la production de nouveaux enzymes et anticorps.

L’activité politique de Smith en a fait une figure controversée à l’Université du Missouri, où il est professeur titulaire et une cible de groupes pro israéliens. On peut le voir sur le site internet controversé de la Mission Canary qui publie des dossiers en ligne sur des professeurs, des étudiants et des intervenants pro palestiniens sur les campus ; et il a été signalé par des représentants d’Israël dans le cadre du refus de laisser entrer des militants dans le pays. (...)

Democrat who slammed Israel for Gaza killings is shock winner of New York primary
U.S. News - Haaretz.com - Allison Kaplan Sommer - Jun 27, 2018
Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez, 28, scores decisive victory over House Democrat Joe Crowley after running on a socialist platform

▻https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-democrat-who-slammed-israel-wins-new-york-primary-1.6218292

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A young progressive Democrat who has sharply criticized Israel, including calling the killing of Palestinian protesters on the Gaza border in May a “massacre,” celebrated an upset victory over a leading House Democrat in a congressional primary race in New York City on Tuesday.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, scored a decisive win over powerful congressman Rep. Joe Crowley, 56. Many observers had believed he was a strong candidate to succeed Rep. Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House of Representatives.

Riding a wave of strong anti-Trump “resistance” sentiment in her New York district, Ocasio-Cortez – who belongs to the Democratic Socialists of America and is a supporter of Bernie Sanders – ran on a far-left platform. Her agenda included Medicare-for-all and clamping down on Wall Street.

Her victory is being seen as a bellwether for a Democratic Party that is shifting to the left and including more women and people of color as candidates. Crowley’s defeat is seen as a warning to other establishment Democrats. (...)

With Bannon banished from Trump World, pro-Israel hard-liners pin their hopes on Pence

Far-right U.S. Jewish Republicans believed the one-time Breitbart supremo had their back, but his fall from grace shifts their focus to the vice president and a very unlikely blast from the recent past

Allison Kaplan Sommer Jan 16, 2018

Few American Jews shed tears at the downfall of Steve Bannon, whose humiliation was made complete Tuesday when he stepped down from Breitbart News following his ugly estrangement from President Donald Trump – confirmed by the insulting new nickname of Sloppy Steve.
skip - Donald Trump tweet
The catalyst for his fate were his uncensored remarks in Michael Wolffs White House tell-all book, Fire and Fury, alienating Trump and then, fatally, the Mercers (Bannons arch-conservative financial backers who bankrolled both Breitbart and his endeavors to become a renegade Republican kingmaker.)
The vast majority of Americas overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic Jews viewed Bannon as either an anti-Semite or an anti-Semite enabler whose conspiratorial references to demonic global financiers awakened and emboldened white supremacists. His oft-quoted description of Breitbart as the platform for the alt-right white nationalist movement confirmed such views.
But for the minority of staunchly hard-line, pro-Israel Jews (and evangelical Christians) who support Israels settlement enterprise, oppose a Palestinian state and any form of territorial compromise, Bannon was an important force in the White House.
For this group, his out-of-the-box positions on Israel far outweighed any threats the views of the Trump-voting, alt-right fan base from which he drew his influence might pose.
Notably, it was Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America – who invited Bannon to address his organizations annual gala last November – who was the sole loyalist quoted as willing to speak up for Bannon in a lengthy Politico piece on Sunday. Klein said: If there is anyone, like Bannon, who is a strong supporter of Israel and a strong fighter against anti-Semitism and that person ends up having less influence on the administration, that is something that would sadden me.

In Fire and Fury, the extent to which Bannons position on Israel matched hard-liners like Klein was described in detail. The book not only revealed that Trumps then-strategic adviser planned to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Day One after entering the White House, but, moreover, had an extreme and highly unorthodox approach to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Let Jordan take the West Bank, let Egypt take Gaza, says Bannon in the book. Let them deal with it. Or sink trying.
He then claimed that both GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were all in on his plans.
Taken as a whole, it is a depiction of an extreme right-wing cabal, one that could find its place on the right fringes of Likud, that has been guiding if not running [President Donald] Trumps Middle East policies, Haaretzs Chemi Shalev wrote. Shalev described it as an axis that dominated Trumps Middle East policies during his first year in office. It is an alliance that Netanyahu appears to have cultivated, with the assistance, or at the direction, of his Las Vegas benefactor, Adelson. All three operate under the premise ascribed to Bannon that the further right you were, the more correct you were on Israel.
This hard-line trio of influence presumably acted as a counterweight against the more pragmatic former military men in the White House – most prominently National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, but also former Secretary of Homeland Security and current Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis – whom, along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the far right privately scorn as Arabists who are soft on Israel. It was also a bulwark against Trumps fantasies of making the ultimate deal, which they believed were being cultivated by Bannons nemesis – Trumps son-in-law and aide, Jared Kushner.
Bannons banishment from the White House, and now his political self-immolation and disappearance from Trumps circle of influence, comes as a deep disappointment to those who embraced and celebrated his outlook and that of satellite foreign policy Bannonites like Sebastian Gorka.
Sad, tragic and disappointing, one pro-Trump Republican on the Jewish far right told me, asking not to be identified by name. Israels lost a really important voice.
With that sadness comes concern over the increased influence of the generals, as well as Javanka (Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump), on Middle East policy. The Jewish Trump supporter said he believes the presidents son-in-law has got his head in a very dark place when it comes to this peace thing. I think Jared is really wrong on this whole peace plan and can only do damage, he noted.
But the hard-liners are still hopeful, attributing their optimism that the Trump administration will avoid any Kushner-fueled peace attempts to three factors.
First, and most prominently, their hopes are pinned on Vice President Mike Pence – who will visit Israel on January 22-23 – and the evangelical Christian base he represents. Rejecting the portrayal of a sidelined Pence in Wolffs book, they call him a powerful player, particularly on Israel.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, January 9, 2018. JOSHUA ROBERTS/REUTERS
Clear evidence for this, they argue, lies in the fact that last months declaration of recognizing Jerusalem as Israels capital and the plan for an embassy move came after Bannon left the White House. It was Pence and the evangelicals – not Adelson, Netanyahu and Bannon – who ultimately got something done, and they are the ones who will have Israels back in the post-Bannon era.
Secondly, there are the Palestinians themselves, who called the Jerusalem declaration a kiss of death to the two-state solution.
Third, there is Trump himself. Much as the president is portrayed as an utterly transactional empty vessel, his Jewish supporters dont believe his views were artificially foisted on him by Bannon, but instead come from his own core beliefs. It was the president himself who wanted to move the embassy at the very beginning of his administration, they say, and it was Netanyahu himself who told Trump it would be better to wait.
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Return of the Mooch?
If there is now a vacuum in the conduit between the far-right Klein/Adelson crowd and the Trump White House, one figure is clearly eager to fill it. Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci is not only different from Bannon – as slick and public as Bannon is unkempt and secretive – but he is also Bannons nemesis.

In this July 2017 file photo, Anthony Scaramucci blows a kiss after answering questions during the press briefing.Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
Call it a coincidence, but on the same day Bannon departed from Breitbart, it was also announced that Scaramucci – who spent the day dancing on his grave – would be a keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas. The RJC confab is set for early February at Adelsons Venetian hotel and casino. In the past, ZOAs Klein has described Scaramucci as being supportive of Israel in the ZOA way, not in the mainstream Jewish way.
Scaramucci has made a point of cozying up to the Adelson-backed Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. It was at a Boteach Hanukkah party that Scaramucci reportedly took a verbal detour from recounting his trip to Israel to insult Bannon, allegedly calling the former Trump aide messianic and a loser, warning that Hell be a stalwart defender of Israel until hes not. Thats how this guy operates. Ive seen this guy operate. He was a stalwart defender of me until it became better for him not to be.
In the end, it was not his failure to defend Israel that proved to be Bannons undoing. It was his failure to defend Donald Trump.

Allison Kaplan Sommer
Haaretz Correspondent

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Ehud Barak met en garde : Israël est face à « une pente glissante » vers l’apartheid
22 juin | Allison Kaplan Sommer pour Haaretz |Traduction JPP pour l’AURDIP
▻http://www.aurdip.fr/ehud-barak-met-en-garde-israel-est.html

Si Israël maintient son contrôle sur les Palestiniens, la conséquence inévitable en sera un État qui sera ou non juif ou non démocratique, déclare l’ancien Premier ministre israélien à Tim Sebastian, de Conflict Zone, lors d’une interview à la télévision Deutsche Welle.

Si la situation actuelle d’Israël n’est « pas encore un apartheid », le pays se trouve sur une « pente glissante » qui le conduit dans cette direction – déclare l’ancien Premier ministre israélien Ehud Barak lors d’une interview diffusée mercredi soir à la télévision allemande.

Sexy women, ’missions’ and bad satire: Israeli government app recruits online soldiers in anti-BDS fight

The missions include sharing positive news about Israel, reporting and complaining about designated YouTube and Facebook posts, and even emailing UNESCO’s director general to ask that her organization ’stop their bias toward Israel’

Allison Kaplan Sommer Jun 13, 2017 8
read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.795169

“Welcome to BDS News! Where we pretend to care about Palestinians, but really just want to see Israel disappear!”
Thus opens one of the videos the Israeli government hopes will go viral in what is billed as a new large-scale “cyber second strike” campaign. Supported and spearheaded by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, the campaign enlists Israel’s supporters as foot soldiers against online efforts to “demonize” and “undermine” the country’s legitimacy. 
The campaign, branded as 4il.org under the slogan “Stop the Hate,” is being paired with a mobile application developed by a trio of organizations in the U.S. and Israel. Two of them – the Israeli-American Council and the Maccabee Task Force – are nearly solely funded by American Jewish billionaire and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who is also Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s buddy. The third partner is the Interdisciplinary Center in Herziliya, to which Adelson is a major donor.
The app – geared to digitally-aware millennials – turns Israel advocacy into a competitive game in which young defenders perform “missions” on various social media platforms, earning points and badges. The missions include sharing and retweeting positive news about Israel, reporting and complaining about designated YouTube and Facebook posts to the platform’s companies, signing online petitions and even emailing UNESCO’s director general to ask that her organization “stop their bias towards Israel.”
The initiative was unveiled with fanfare last week in New York City at the Salute to Israel Parade by Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan, who promoted the project as being an “Iron Dome of Truth.”

Will Israel be a casualty of U.S.-Russian tension after Trump’s missile attack? - Syria - Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/.premium-1.782265

Putin might want to prove that an attack on Russia’s ally has implications for America’s ally. But Israel needs coordination with Russia over Syria’s skies

Zvi Bar’el Apr 08, 2017 7:30 AM
 
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013. AP
Analysis Syria strike marks complete turnaround in Trump’s policy
Analysis Trump challenges Putin with first Western punishment for Assad’s massacres since start of Syria war
Russia: U.S. strike in Syria ’one step away from military clashes with Russia’
A military strike was warranted but the likelihood was low − so U.S. President Donald Trump surprised everyone, as usual. Russian President Valdimir Putin was furious, Syrian President Bashar Assad screamed, but the 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired by the USS Ross and USS Porter weren’t just another tug-of-war or show of strength.
>> Get all updates on Trump, Israel and the Middle East: Download our free App, and Subscribe >>
Without a UN Security Council resolution and without exhausting diplomatic chatter, the U.S. strike on the air force base near Homs slapped Assad and Putin in the face, sending a message to many other countries along the way.
The military response was preceded by a foreign-policy revolution in which Trump announced that Assad can no longer be part of the solution. Only a few days earlier, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, announced that Assad’s removal was no longer an American priority.
Did American priorities change as a result of the chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun near Idlib, and will Trump now work to bring down Assad? Not yet. Will Trump renew the military aid to the rebel militias so they can fight the regime? Far from it.

Donald Trump after U.S. missiles strike Assad regime airbase in Syria, April 7, 2017JIM WATSON/AFP
>> Read top analyses on U.S. strike in Syria: Trump challenges Putin, punishes Assad for first time | Russia, Iran, denounce strike, Saudi Arabia praises it | Trump’s move could backfire | Trump’s 48-hour policy turnaround <<
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The American attack also provides no answers to the tactical questions. The Tomahawk missiles didn’t hit the warehouses where Assad’s chemical weapons may be stored, but rather the air force base where the planes that dropped the weapons took off.
It’s possible the chemical weapons are still safely stored away. The logic behind the attack on the air force base is understandable, but does it hint that Trump won’t hesitate to attack the person who gave the order and the president who gave the initial approval? For now the answers aren’t clear.
Trump did on a large scale what Israel has been doing on a smaller scale when it attacked weapons convoys leaving Syria for Hezbollah. Unless Washington decides to surprise us once again, it won’t return to being a power on the Syrian front, it won’t steal the show from Russia. Diplomatic efforts, as far as there are any, will be made without active American participation.
So the immediate and important achievement for Trump is an American political one: He tarred and feathered Barack Obama and proved to the Americans that his United States isn’t chicken. Trump, who demanded that Obama receive Congress’ approval before attacking Syria in 2013, has now painted Congress into a corner, too. Who would dare criticize the attack, even if it wasn’t based on “the proper procedures,” and even though the United States didn’t face a clear and present danger?

U.S. envoy to the UN Nikki Haley holds photographs of victims during a UN Security Council meeting on Syria, April 5, 2017. SHANNON STAPLETON/REUTERS
The question is whether as a result of the American cruise missile attack, Russia and Syria will opt for a war of revenge in order to prove that the attack didn’t change anything in their military strategy against the rebels and the civilian population. They don’t feel they need chemical weapons to continuously and effectively bomb Idlib and its suburbs. They don’t need to make the entire world man the moral barricades if good results can be achieved through legitimate violence, as has been going on for six years.
Such a decision is in the hands of Putin, who despite recent rifts with Assad is still committed to stand alongside the Syrian president against the American attack. This isn’t just defending a friend but preserving Russia’s honor. As recently as Thursday, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s support for Assad was unconditional and “it is not correct to say that Moscow can convince Mr. Assad to do whatever is wanted in Moscow.” But the Kremlin has said such things before, every time Russia has been blamed for Assad’s murderous behavior.
Read Russia’s response to the attack very carefully. Peskov called it “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of the norms of international law and on a made-up up pretext.” He didn’t embrace Assad and didn’t describe the attack as one that harmed an ally. And he didn’t directly attack Trump − just as Trump didn’t hold Putin responsible for the original chemical weapons attack.
It seems that despite the loud talk, which included a Russian warning about U.S.-Russian relations, neither country is keen to give Assad the ability to upset the balance between the two superpowers.
The only practical step taken so far by Russia − suspending aerial coordination between the countries over Syria based on the understandings signed in October 2015 − could turn out a double-edged sword if coalition planes start running into Russian ones. It’s still not clear if this suspension includes the coordination with Israel, which isn’t part of the Russian understandings with the United States.
But Putin is angry about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments about Assad, and might want to prove to Trump that an attack on Russia’s ally has implications for America’s ally. So he could freeze or cancel the agreements with Israel regarding attacks inside Syria.
This would mean the war in Syria puts Israel in the diplomatic crossfire too, not just the military one. It could find itself in a conflict between Trump’s policies and its needs for coordination with Russia.

Zvi Bar’el
Haaretz Correspondent

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Richard Gere to Haaretz: Settlements are an absurd provocation, the occupation is indefensible
Allison Kaplan Sommer Mar 12, 2017 2:00 PM
▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/culture/1.776584

http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.776585.1489266970!/image/1679191260.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/1679191260.jpg

Richard Gere says his decision to travel to Jerusalem last week for the Israeli premiere of his new film, ‘Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer,’ wasn’t easy.

Perched on a bench in the courtyard of the Jerusalem Cinematheque, a sweeping view of Jerusalem behind him, the movie star and human-rights activist told Haaretz that despite the fact he has traveled to the country numerous times in the past, this visit “was more complex than any other time I’ve come here.”

Over the course of a full month, Gere says he debated whether “it would be a good thing” for him to make the trip. With Israel swerving even further to the right in the Trump era, and an increasing tendency by the progressive left to embrace the tactic of boycott to protest Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, many of Gere’s friends and colleagues in both the Israeli and U.S. human-rights communities told him they feared a movie star’s presence in Israel “would be co-opted by a dark government.”

“I had people on all sides – those who have been close friends and people I barely knew – telling me not to come,” he recounts. Even Israelis warned him to think twice. “I had people living here who told me, ‘Look, no good will come of this. The bad guys will use you’ – ‘bad guys’ meaning the policy-makers of this government. It was a complex month of going back and forth: ‘I’m coming … I’m not coming.’”

During his month of indecision, Gere says he discussed his dilemma with “Norman” writer-director Joseph Cedar on a daily basis. In the end, he showed up. (...)

“Obviously this occupation is destroying everyone,” he says. “There’s no defense of this occupation. Settlements are such an absurd provocation and, certainly in the international sense, completely illegal – and they are certainly not part of the program of someone who wants a genuine peace process.” He pauses before adding, “Just to be clear about this: I denounce violence on all sides of this. And, of course, Israelis should feel secure. But Palestinians should not feel desperate.”

Gere’s rejection of “violent extremist factions on either side” is why he said he was “taken” with two groups he visited on the day of the premiere: Women Wage Peace, which rallies Israeli and Palestinian women together in political action; and YaLa, which trains youth for leadership, harnessing social media to learn communication, peacemaking and leadership skills and promoting ongoing dialogue.

“What I liked about both these groups that I met – it wasn’t that fatalistic, depressing energy … it was visionary, hopeful, filled with joy, love and commitment. And it wasn’t about one-off events expressing frustration. It was about, ‘We’re here until it’s over. We’re going to keep doing this.’”

Gere also met with representatives of the nongovernmental organization Breaking the Silence in New York before his trip, and said he planned to meet with them in Israel as well.

The demonization of the group by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others on the right appalled him, he said, as have the condemnations of J Street by the Trump administration’s new ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.

“It is all so counter to what I know of Jewish culture,” Gere says. “Questioning authority makes you a kapo? To question authority makes you a traitor? If you question bad policies you are a self-hating Jew? That is insane. And, of course it’s the last resort of tyrants.”

Bar Refaeli vs. Roger Waters: the Israel boycott showdown
quand un ancien Pink Floyd appelle au boycott

By Allison Kaplan Sommer
Haaretz
22nd of August 2013
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.542817

It’s not every day that a supermodel takes on a rock legend. But Bar Refaeli laid down a challenge to Roger Waters after the veteran musician published an open letter to his colleagues urging them to boycott Israel.

In a letter published this week, Waters, the former frontman of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd said: “I write to you now, my brothers and sisters in the family of Rock and Roll, to ask you to join with me, and thousands of other artists around the world, to declare a cultural boycott on Israel.”

#BDS