Jerusalem News. 21 August 2024, 17 Av 5789.
Contents:
1. Video of Value. Why America's Most Controversial Military Bases Exist
2. "Enriching Palestinians, A Zionist Eccentricity,"
by Daniel Pipes.
3. Dutch Family Helps Israel.
In Holland's Bible belt, a Christian family's pro-Israel empire shifts into overdrive.
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1. Video of Value. Why America's Most Controversial Military Bases Exist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf-eHVa-2zE
Duration: 54.06 minutes.
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2. Enriching Palestinians
A Zionist Eccentricity
by Daniel Pipes
https://www.danielpipes.org/22314/enrich-the-palestinians?utm_source=
Jerusalem Post (jpg)
August 18, 2024
Extracts:
J.P. online title: "Israel must give up managing the conflict and choose winning it"
From the 1880s until today, Zionist leaders have pursued a highly unusual, if not unique, policy toward their Palestinian enemy: wanting it not to suffer economically but to become prosperous, to adopt middle-class values, to settle into bourgeois good citizenry, and perhaps even to thank its Jewish neighbors. Whence come this strange idea and how successful has it been?
.... Founded on the assumption that Palestinian economic self-interest would push other concerns aside, enrichment hopes that gains in welfare will reconcile Palestinians to Jewish immigration and the creation of a Jewish homeland. From this emerged the Zionist hallmark, the unique idea that the movement's progress depended not on the universal tactic of depriving an enemy of resources, but on the opposite one of helping Palestinians to develop economically.
Thus, the first modern Zionist manifesto, published in 1882 by the BILU group of immigrants to Palestine, included a promise "to help our brother Ishmael [i.e., the Palestinians] in the time of his need." A.D. Gordon, Zionism's early advocate of manual labor, argued that Jews' attitude toward Palestinians "must be one of humanity, of moral courage which remains on the highest plane, even if the other side is not all that is desired. Indeed, their hostility is all the more reason for our humanity." Theodor Herzl's 1902 novel Altneuland, included a single Muslim Palestinian, a wealthy merchant who expressed a happy appreciation for "the beneficent character of the Jewish immigration."
David Ben-Gurion expected that Palestinians, grateful for the many benefits Jews brought them, would "welcome us with open arms, or at least will reconcile themselves to our growth and independence." Moshe Dayan used his power over Israel's initial decisions in the West Bank and Gaza after the Six-Day War to impose a benevolent regime, hoping (in the words of Shabtai Teveth, a contemporary observer) that "establishing mutual co-existence between Jews and Arabs" would create "a relationship of good-neighbourliness" and with that, a reduction in hostility. Shimon Peres envisioned "a Jordanian-Palestinian-Israeli 'Benelux' arrangement for economic affairs ... allowing each to live in peace and prosperity"; this then became the premise of Israeli diplomacy in the Oslo Accords.
Three decades later, Israeli Jews largely execrate those accords and the concept of enriching Palestinians. Nonetheless, helping West Bankers and Gazans to prosper remains government policy. In particular, the security establishment and the mainstream Right have adopted it.
The security establishment. Major General Kamil Abu Rukun, head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (known as COGAT), justifies humanitarian aid to Gaza because it "helps our security." An unnamed Israeli security official observed in early 2022 that "Gaza without an economy is less stable than Gaza with an economy." IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot argued for Israel helping Gaza in five areas: electricity, water, sewage, food, and healthcare. One IDF official had bigger plans: "We'd like to see a Gazan economy with its own manufacturing. Developments in agriculture and fishing, and future development of industry, of bigger projects."
The mainstream Right. Avigdor Liberman wants "to help Gaza succeed" and "replace jihad with prosperity." Nir Barkat seeks to triple Palestinian incomes because "eventually, if it's good for them, it's good for us." Yisrael Katz hoped to raise $5 billion in Chinese or Saudi funding for a mega-project of his own devising, namely an artificial island off the Gaza coast complete with seaport, airport, electricity generator desalination plant, and resort.
Benjamin Netanyahu has directly and indirectly turned large sums over to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Qatar's government provided the largest sums. In 2012, the emir of Qatar celebrated his visit to Gaza with a pledge of $400 million to Hamas. In 2013, he pledged $250 million on the occasion of the Arab League summit in Doha. News dribbled out of further grants: $31 million in 2016, $20 million in 2019, and $50 million in 2020. Qatari sources report a pledge of $500 million to Gaza in 2021 and total aid to Gaza as of September 24, 2023, of "more than $2.1 billion."
The eccentric policy of enrichment has obviously failed. Almost, with Palestinian attitudes remaining toxic, their actions violent. No less obviously, this strain of Zionism has deep roots and will be enormously difficult to dislodge. But eventually, if the Palestinians are ever to accept the Jewish state, Israelis need to abandon their odd, old, naive mentality of enrichment and adopt the normal one of economic warfare; to give up on managing their conflict and instead winning it.
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3. Dutch Family Helps Israel.
In Holland's Bible belt, a Christian family's pro-Israel empire shifts into overdrive
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-hollands-bible-belt-a-christian-familys-pro-israel-empire-shifts-into-overdrive/?utm_source
Since the October 7 Hamas massacre, the 45-year-old Christians for Israel's product sales, public engagement, and risk exposure , have vastly increased
By Canaan Lidor
Extracts:
The flag flies opposite a modern, three-story office building that�s the world headquarters of Christians for Israel, an international organization established in Nijkerk near Utrecht 45 years ago by the late pro-Israel activist Karel van Oordt and run by his family today.
A mix of a community center, a vehicle for advocacy, and a department store for made-in-Israel goods, the building is the largest of its kind in Europe and a testament to the deep attachment that many Christians have to Israel here.
In a society where both Christianity and Israel have become unfashionable or worse, the Christians for Israel building is also a unique rallying point, social club and activism hub for thousands of non-Jews for whom Israel is the manifestation of divine will and a key component of their own identity.
After October 7, the center became a source of solace for Huib Kriekaard, a regular who volunteers at the center.
Kriekaard, a 72-year-old historian, feared for Israel's existence after the Hamas onslaught that day, in which about 3,000 terrorists invaded border towns and cities, killing some 1,200 people and abducting another 251.
"If Israel disappears, my life will become pointless," Kriekaard said. To him, Israel's existence is "proof that God fulfills His promises to the People of Israel," said Kriekaard.
Other members of the Christians for Israel movement see Israel as an incarnation of divine goodness in a broader fight.
Antisemitic attacks in the Netherlands increased in volume by 245% in 2023 over 2022, mostly after October 7. Christians for Israel have participated in multiple demonstrations against antisemitism since October 7, sometimes providing most of the participants.
In March, Christians for Israel dispatched volunteers to pick 13 tons of oranges in affected groves in Israel's south. The group shipped the fruit to Nijkerk and sold them at cost. The oranges were sold out within days.
Christians for Israel's previous director, Frank's brother Roger van Oordt, visited the home of Dutch Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs after it had been vandalized for the fifth time in 2014. Roger said relatively little during the visit, expressing his solidarity with Dutch Jews and rejection of antisemitism. In typical van Oordt form, he then began clearing glass shards from the attack on the rabbi's home.
Supporters of Christians for Israel 'represent all that's beautiful in Dutch society. They are the hope for better times not only for Dutch Jews, but all Dutchmen,' Jacobs, a longtime ally of Christians for Israel, said at the exhibition opening whose ribbon he was invited to cut in May.
Frank van Oordt, right, introduces Israeli diplomat Fentay Alamu-Maharat as Dutch Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs listens to his speech at the headquarters of the Christians for Israel group in the Dutch town of Nijkerk, June 5, 2024.
Both Straatsma-Elzes and Kriekaard, the volunteers, lamented images of human suffering from Gaza, where some 38,000 have died during the war on Hamas, according to unconfirmed statistics published by the Hamas-run health ministry. The statistics don't differentiate between civilians and terrorists, of whom Israel says it has killed at least 15,000.
'You feel like 'this can't be' when you see the children,' Straatsma-Elzes said. 'With the children it's terrible,' added Kriekaard. But 'when the allies bombed Germany, we in the Netherlands didn't exactly think of the poor Germans,' he added. Both volunteers have had arguments with friends, colleagues and even family members over their support for Israel, they said.
This support is not only spiritual: The volunteers work at the Israel Products Center, or IPC, which spends millions of euros annually on goods from Israel, including from the West Bank.
Founded in 1980, the IPC has grown from a gift shop into a thriving business offering orthopedic soles, jewelry beauty products and gourmet wines, to name just a few of its hundreds of products. IPC became profitable for the first time in 2021 after decades of breaking even. Kriekaard is one of dozens of volunteers working in the IPC warehouse, which is the size of four tennis courts.
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