NIKKI HALEY US AMBASSADOR TO THE UN SLAMS ANTI-ISRAEL BIASIn her first press briefing, US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, came out swinging.

“We will not repeat the mistake of Security Council Resolution 2334 which castigated Israel for settlement building, instead we will push for action on the real threats in the Middle East.”

Haley mentioned Hezbollah’s illegal build-up of rockets in Lebanon, the money and weapons Iran provides to terrorists, strategies for defeating ISIS, and holding Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad accountable for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

None of these issues were raised at the meeting, Haley noted, yet the Council did find the time to castigate Israel.

Under Soviet influence and with the help of dozens of autocratic regimes in Africa, South America and the Middle East that are eligible to vote, the UN passed the 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution. It is the venue for the ludicrously named Human Rights Council, a body that gives special honours to moral luminaries such as Cuba, Pakistan, Russia and Syria while issuing more condemnations against Israel than against all other countries in the world combined.

The UNHRC’s agenda item 7 dictates that Israel’s purported human rights violations must be raised and discussed every single time the UNHRC convenes.

In 2016 the General Assembly adopted 18 resolutions against Israel and the Security Council adopted 12 Israel-specific resolutions, “more than those focused on Syria, North Korea, Iran and South Sudan put together,” as Samantha Power, Haley’s predecessor, noted in her speech in defence of the US’s inexplicable abstention on resolution 2334.

Now with the rise of what The New York Sun referred to in an editorial as “Haley’s Comet,” there is new-found optimism that an institution thought to be irredeemably and incorrigibly slanted against Israel can be salvaged for the benefit of all mankind.

It will not be easy. But Haley has no intention of giving up, and her indefatigable optimism that change is possible could be contagious. Maybe the UN really will abandon its obsession with Israel and begin living up to its true calling of mitigating conflicts and championing human rights. Before Haley’s arrival there was little reason for hope.

Attitudes toward Israel are changing with or without the UN. The Jewish state has succeeded in fostering new diplomatic relations, including with Muslim countries in Africa and Asia. And Iran’s increasingly bellicose behaviour has brought Israeli interests in line with those of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States. As Haley noted, Israel is recognised as a beacon of stability in a region overcome with turmoil. Its technological innovations and entrepreneurial spirit have made Israel a world leader in fields such as cyber security and water security.

Haley’s courage and moral vision come to the UN at a time when Israel’s standing in the world is changing. We are confident her first press conference is the opening salvo in a winning battle to end the UN’s bias against Israel. J-Post

Volume 25 – Autumn 2017 N E W S L E T T E R

PO Box 333, Dianella WA 6059 www.foiwa.org.au Email foiwa@amnet.net.au

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

David’s Sling – page 2

Caroline Glick – page 8

Balfour Declaration – page 4

Pride to the Tribe – page 7

CAROLINE GLICK IS COMING TO PERTH! SAVE THE DATE: 11 JULY

Page 2 FRIENDS OF ISRAEL WA NEWSLETTER

NEW DAVID’S SLING ANTI-MISSILE SYSTEM PROTECTS ISRAEL FROM LONG-RANGE THREATSThe IAF’s newest air defence system is about to make Israel’s skies a lot safer.

The David’s Sling system is capable of intercepting missiles fired towards Israel by enemy countries such as Iran and Syria. It will protect Israelis against large-calibre rockets, short-range ballistic missiles, and other developing threats. It was scheduled to be operational in April 2017.

“We see that Hamas and Iran continue to progress and develop their offensive capabilities. We are always trying to stay one step ahead,” said a senior air force official at a press briefing.

David’s Sling will strengthen the anti-missile defence already provided by the Iron Dome, Arrow 2 and Arrow 3.

Israel’s air defence systems are stationed throughout the country and are prepared to respond 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Last month, a rocket was fired at southern Israel. Within 15 seconds, an Iron Dome battery intercepted it, protecting thousands of Eilat residents and tourists.

Unlike the mobile Iron Dome, David’s Sling is stationary and can protect the entirety of Israel from its permanent location. The IAF received the defence system from the Defence Ministry in July. Since then, senior officers and soldiers have prepared for its deployment, studying the specificities and complexities of the new system.

The David’s Sling defence system will strengthen Israel’s defence efforts with its capability to intercept high-quality missiles. IDF

Tel Aviv helps Kenya build $14.5B ‘Silicon Savannah’ cityIsrael’s ‘start-up city’ Tel Aviv is helping Kenya to build its first tech hub in the new city of Konza, just outside the capital Nairobi.

The ambitious, $14.5 billion project will feature a science and business park, convention center, shopping malls, hotels and international schools, among other facilities. The new smart city will be built on 5,000 acres of land, about 37 miles south of Nairobi.

In the coming months, Tel Aviv – which was named the world’s smartest city and is home to hundreds of start-up and high-tech companies – will host entrepreneurs and developers from Kenya to meet with Israeli experts in order to “create urban and technological models for the new city.”

Headed by Tel Aviv Global, the city also plans to host seminars and meet-ups with local start-ups, in order to foster collaboration between Kenya and

Israel, and connect Israeli start-ups that market to African countries with the founders of the new city of Konza.

According to Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai, “Tel Aviv is one of the world’s main technology entrepreneurship centres, with the highest concentration of start-up accelerators, and a vibrant entrepreneurial community that has drawn techies from all over the world. We’ve been fortunate to collaborate with the developing world in recent years on projects that lead to creating innovative smart cities.”

Israeli companies have been involved in Africa for years, but the Holy Land’s own transition into a modern country can contribute to budding technology centres around the globe.

“Within two generations, Israel has transitioned from a developing country to a developed country, and this makes our ecosystem attractive to the developing world,” Eytan Schwartz, CEO of Tel Aviv Global, said in a statement. “We’re pleased to make a positive impact and serve as Israel’s ‘ambassadors’ in the world.” Einat Paz-Frankel, NoCamels

TRANSLATION OF BALFOUR POSTER ON THE FRONT PAGE:

On 2 November, the historic day of Balfour Declaration for our nation, the Jews of Jerusalem will convene for the opening celebration of the Keren Hayesod 1925/6 campaign

David’s Sling – IDF blog

Konza Techno City, Kenya. Photo SHOP Architects

Volume 25 – Autumn 2017 Page 3

Israeli group opens school for Syrian refugees in GreeceIsraeli humanitarian group works on an initiative to build a school for children of Syrian refugees living in a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.

To an outsider, the Israelis who disembarked from a flight in early March from Ben Gurion Airport to Athens were regular tourists. Most of them were, but five were on a confidential mission: To build a school for children of Syrian refugees living in a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.

Israel’s humanitarian aid to victims of the Syrian Civil War has been well documented. Dozens of Syrian combatants and civilians have been treated at Ziv Medical Center in Safed, and a rash of Israeli relief organisations have conducted fund-raising drives to ensure that refugees have sufficient food, clothes, medical supplies and more.

This time, however, the group’s mission was far bolder, an unprecedented initiative aimed at opening a pedagogical centre for refugee children so long estranged from the educational framework. Even more, the uniqueness of the project also shone through the mutual cooperation of its initiators.

The school, an initiative of Hashomer Hatzair, a Zionist-Socialist youth movement founded over eight decades ago to spearhead the establishment of kibbutzim and other pioneering efforts in pre-state Palestine, was the brainchild of Noah Leibel, the movement’s coordinator for educational activities in development towns, poor neighbourhoods, Arab villages and other deprived areas.

The Israeli project coordinators say they understand they may have to tread carefully among the refugee population so as not to arouse any antagonism, but also added that they have yet to encounter any major problems. They said they do not hide the fact they are Israelis, but they also do not flaunt it needlessly.

“(We behave) with sensitivity, tact and common sense. So far, it’s worked,” said Noah Leibel. Gili Eliyahu Adle|

THIS DEVICE CAN LITERALLY PULL CLEAN DRINKING WATER OUT OF THIN AIR

When kids learn about the planet’s water cycle, they’re taught a simple concept: our atmosphere is filled with water vapour that has evaporated from the bodies of liquid water we see around us. When the vapour’s temperature gets low enough, it gets turned back into water.

The presence of that vapour becomes especially apparent in the summer, when droplets collect on glasses of ice water and air conditioning units drip onto unsuspecting passers-by.

An Israeli company called Water-Gen does not think of that condensation as a by-product; instead, it has built machines specifically designed to create and harvest as much condensation as possible. Using a system that uses a set of plastic “leaves” to funnel air in various directions, the team has developed water generators that appear to create pure drinking water out of nothing.

“The target is to extract water from the air with minimum energy,” founder and co-CEO Arye Kohavi tells Business Insider. “We think our solution can solve the problem on the level of countries. It’s an immediate solution – governments don’t need to spend decades to make a big project.”

Water-Gen is one of seven Israeli companies which presented technological innovations at the United Nations General Assembly.

The company currently makes three sizes of water generating machines, each of which must be plugged into a power source. At 80 degrees and 60% humidity, the biggest can yield about 825 gallons per day, but Kohavi says the technology is easily scalable. The company’s medium sized unit produces 118 gallons per day under the same conditions, and the smallest – which is intended for use in a home or office – produces just under 4 gallons per day.

Water-Gen estimates that at current energy prices, the water generated will cost less than ten cents a gallon. Dana Varinsky

Photo Water-Gen

Page 4 FRIENDS OF ISRAEL WA NEWSLETTER

Palestinians and the Balfour Declaration at 100: Resisting the PastA striking aspect of Palestinian culture is its resistance to the realities of the pastOn 22 September, 2016, Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas addressed the UN. He said, “100 years have passed since the notorious Balfour Declaration, by which Britain gave, without any right, authority or consent from anyone, the land of Palestine to another people.”

He went on to demand an apology from Britain. Abbas has had previously threatened to sue London for damages resulting from the declaration and the creation of Israel.

This storm against the past was also on display at a recent conference at University College, London that brought together British Islamists and revisionist Israelis to demand that the British government apologise for the Balfour Declaration, with the ultimate aim of exposing “the illegality of the state of Israel while giving practical steps in campaigning towards an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”

What do such efforts tell us about Palestinian culture and the prospects for peace?The Balfour Declaration is a singular datum for Israelis and Palestinians alike. After lengthy negotiations between the British government and the Zionist movement, Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, issued his famous statement on 2 November, 1917.

Balfour’s letter to Zionist leader Lord Rothschild, in which he stated that the Cabinet viewed “with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” was only one of a series of British wartime communications regarding the fate of the Levant.

The correspondence between the British High Commissioner for Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, and Hussein Ibn Ali, Sharif of Mecca, and the secret Anglo-French agreement between Sir Mark Sykes and Charles Georges-Picot were no less consequential in the shaping of the contemporary Middle East.

It took the Arabs some time to voice their opposition to the Declaration. The British report on the 1921 Palestine riots noted that “The Mayor of Tulkarem talks about the Balfour Declaration, and, whether he has or has not a clearer notion of its import than other people, he certainly expresses his opinion about it very definitely.” Palestinian objections to Balfour are neatly captured by historian Bayan al-Hut: “This is a promise that was made by someone who had no right to give it to those who had no right to receive it.”

The British establishment itself was divided and began to respond negatively to Zionism and Balfour in the early 1920s. This reflected the fusion of the establishment’s traditional anti-Semitism with its growing realisation that the League of Nations’ mandate for the implementation of the Balfour Declaration was an impossible encumbrance on an empire

bled white and financially exhausted by war. This attitude was a pronounced undercurrent throughout the Mandate years. According to Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, one British official, Acting District Commissioner for the Galilee Blenkinsopp, used to circulate a “refutation” of the Balfour Declaration to his colleagues every year on 2 November.

Palestinians have cast the British Mandate as the illegitimate exercise of imperialismIn the past, Palestinians have cast the Mandate as the illegitimate exercise of British imperialism, where, as al-Hut put it, “One people grant[ed] a second people what belong[ed] to a third people.”

Nowadays, the opposition to the Balfour Declaration describes it as the beginning of “settler-colonialism.”

This innovation neatly saddles Britain’s carefully cultivated sense of post-imperial guilt with responsibility for “Israeli crimes,” including “complicity” in the supposed “cultural repression” of the Palestinians. At the same time, the approach promises to redeem the long-standing Palestinian sense of besmirched honour at having failed to “resist” Zionism.

But the current effort against Balfour also illustrates other standard Palestinian responses. For one thing, it paradoxically emphasises Palestinian powerlessness and Arab weakness in both the past and the present. “Resistance” against the British Empire and the Zionists, both non-violent and violent, failed – and therefore, consistent with historical Palestinian practice, the issue must be internationalised.

The irony, however, is that Balfour’s wholly legal commitment, ratified by the League of Nations in 1920, is assailed much the same way the 1947 UN Palestine partition recommendation was condemned: as illegitimate and unfair. For Palestinians, internationalisation must produce the result they want, despite the historical record of it rarely doing so.

There are other traditional elements in the campaign against the Balfour Declaration, not least being the mistaking of symbolism for practical action. Presumably an apology would achieve a partial restoration of Palestinian national honour and comprise another step towards the complete eradication of Israel.

However, despite vague talk from Palestinian activists demanding “compensation for Balfour” – which would be set against competing claims for compensation by Jewish refugees from Arab countries – it is difficult to see what direct value an apology would have in helping to establish a Palestinian state.

Demands for apologies and compensation have changed little since the UN’s Economic Survey Mission reported on a visit to Gaza in 1949: “In one of the camps, the refugees staged quite a demonstration. A large sign had been printed in English on which were the following, numbered as indicated:

Volume 25 – Autumn 2017 Page 5

Palestinians and the Balfour Declaration at 100: Resisting the Past1. Send us back home. 2. Compensate us. 3. Maintain us until we are refreshed. Just what they had in mind by ‘refreshed’ I leave to your imagination.”

The current Palestinian leadership’s sense of timing, and commitment to symbolism, deserves comment. Whereas from the 1960s onward Yasser Arafat navigated the Palestinian movement through the shifting currents of Third Worldism and the Cold War, today that skill is nowhere evident.

Protests over the Balfour Declaration anniversary are emerging just as the Arab state system finds itself at its lowest ebb. Syria, Yemen, and Libya are effectively no more, Iraq

is divided between an Iranian rump, a shrinking ISIS entity, and an independent Kurdistan (in all but name), and Lebanon is a Shiite-dominated shell. The Palestinian Authority is a pseudo-state that exists only thanks to foreign aid and Israeli security assistance.

The tone of the Balfour Declaration protests – “What is happening in Palestine is the biggest social injustice of our time,” as a conference organiser put it – is therefore not simply a lament for an era when Palestinians were ostensibly at the centre of Arab and Muslims politics, but resistance to empirical reality.

The Balfour Declaration in the Times of London, 9 November 1917.

The 1915-1916 McMahon-Hussein correspondence (left), and the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement were no less consequential than the Balfour Declaration in shaping the contemporary Middle East.

The Balfour apology campaign is yet another Palestinian effort to deny and rewrite historical factsThe Balfour apology campaign is thus another element in the Palestinian wars against inconvenient historical facts that must be denied, attacked, rewritten, or otherwise assailed, rather than debated, conceded, or shared. This approach accounts for such extraordinary Palestinian claims as Arafat’s denial that there was ever a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem; Saeb Erekat’s statement that the Palestinians are descendants of Epipaleolithic inhabitants, and thus the “real” indigenous population of the land; and the more consequential insistence that Jews are only adherents to a religion and not members of a nation.

Here “resistance” slides into stubborn fabulism. Reality must be made to conform on the basis of both religious ideology and fantastical invented elements. Palestinian examples must be set into broader contexts, from religious claims regarding perfidious and cursed Jews to plaintive historical claims regarding the Muslim discovery of America, the invention of flight, and, more darkly, Zionist attack sharks or the “conspiracy to destroy Islam.”

These concepts – redeeming fallen honour, perpetual victimhood, international responsibility, and achieving through guilt what politics and force of arms cannot – are cultural ideas, transmitted endlessly by Palestinian leaders and through their educational system and media. But they are also reflected in Palestinian politics. At every turn, negotiations get to a stage and then stop because compromise would preclude full “restoration” of what never was. Fighting century-old events and hoping to produce another outcome is consistent with this pattern. It is unlikely to build either a stable Palestinian society or peace with Israel.

Alexander H. Joffe, a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a historian and archaeologist. He is co-author, with Yaya Fanousie, of Monumental Fight: Countering the Islamic State›s Antiquities Trafficking

Page 6 FRIENDS OF ISRAEL WA NEWSLETTER

Jewish, Muslim and Christian – the girls and boys don’t appear to have much in common until Hendler starts the vocal warmup and a unified harmony fills the room.

Every weekly rehearsal concludes with a professionally facilitated, simultaneously translated dialogue that doesn’t aim for perfect harmony but for greater understanding.

“We go beyond simply singing together, delving deeper into one another’s identities, life experiences, communal narratives, religious traditions and national histories through dialogue, all within the safe space of the musical ensemble and the strong personal bonds and community it creates,” says Hendler.

“I live in Israel, I’m an Arab, there’s Jewish people… that’s what I know,” said choir member Samia. “But I never talked to them, I never knew them, I never knew their opinion. After joining this choir it changed my life. It made me know what they think. It made them know what I think.”

Hendler’s goal in founding the JYC was “to create a home for all of our singers and seek to show what Jerusalem could be,” emphasising inclusivity and equality.

“We do not sing about peace,” he hastens to add. “It’s easy to sing about peace and have no idea what you mean, and a lot of people do. Rather than sing directly about peace in the abstract, we sing about the building blocks that ultimately lead to it: love, community, overcoming loss and connection to home.”

At rehearsals, singers are grouped according to voice. The tenor and bass sections are overwhelmingly Arab, “probably because to be a teenage guy who sings is ‘cooler’

in Arab society than in Jewish society,” Hendler has found. Sopranos and altos are mostly Jewish because few girls from conservative Muslim families are free to participate in activities outside home or school.

Nevertheless, “You get to know the other side… you get to be together, you get to see what it’s like being with kids different than you,” says Avital, a Jewish Israeli chorister.

“The choir is beautiful and we enjoy it because we are Arabs and Jews together at the same time,” adds Ameer, a Palestinian member. Abigail Klein Leichman

Arab & Jewish teen choristers harmonise in JerusalemOne by one, Micah Hendler gives hello hugs to 30 teenagers from across the capital city as they arrive for choir practice at the International YMCA on King David Street.

ISRAELI SCIENTISTS DESIGN ROBOT TO SQUEEZE THROUGH SMALL INTESTINEBen-Gurion University researchers predict the snake-like, ingestible device will revolutionise colonoscopy tests

A tiny ingestible robot designed by Israeli scientists may one day have the capacity to slither its way through the small intestine, upgrading the effectiveness of the colonoscopy test.

Created by scientists at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the SAW (single actuator wave-like robot) will have the ability to navigate forward and backward through the cramped terrain of the small intestine thanks to its unique wave-like locomotion. It would be able to analyse the digestive tube using a small camera attached to the snake-like robot.

“The external shape of the robot is a 2D projection of a rotating helix. The result is a continuously moving wave. We can simply reverse the direction by reversing the direction of rotation of the motor,” explained mechanical engineer David Zarrouk.

The SAW is constructed using interlocking 3D-printed pieces of plastic that resemble vertebrae. While the demo version in its current state is still too large to be used to analyse human insides, it continues to be tinkered with and tested on a variety of contours.

The ability to swallow the miniaturised adaptation will signify a revolutionary breakthrough in colonoscopy tests. Times of Israel

A depiction of the SAW designed by Israeli scientists at Ben Gurion University

The Jerusalem Youth Chorus on tour in London

“Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!” Golda Meir

Volume 25 – Autumn 2017 Page 7

First played in 2006, and played every four years since 2009, The World Baseball Classic (WBC) is an international baseball tournament modelled after the FIFA World Cup. Professional players from the major leagues around the world, including Major League Baseball (MLB), also take part.

This year was the first time Israel had qualified for the tournament. Before this year’s WBC began, American Sports network ESPN considered Team Israel, ranked 41st in the world, to be the biggest underdog in the 16 team tournament. They even went so far as referring to them as the “Jamaican bobsled team of the WBC”. Israel’s odds to win the WBC were set at 200-1, before the tournament started. But, as Team Israel began to win games at the WBC, the team’s scrappy performance began being described as “a Cinderella story” and a “David vs. Goliath tale”.

In the first round of the WBC, Israel stunned the baseball world by winning Pool A with a 3-0 record to advance to the last eight. Team Israel, which is built around MLB-affiliated Jewish Americans, defeated South Korea, Chinese Taipei and then the Netherlands in Seoul before surprising Cuba in its first game in the last eight in Tokyo, to improve their overall record to 4-0.

However, a 12-2 loss to the Netherlands on the Monday complicated Israel’s situation. On the Wednesday, in a must-win game for Israel, Japan and Israel were tied at 0-0 for five innings until the Japanese team scored five runs in the sixth inning, a deficit which the Israeli team was not able to come back from. The 8-3 defeat to Japan sealed Team Israel’s fate and ended their hopes of advancing to the final round of the WBC in Los Angeles.

On the positive side, the top three from each pool automatically qualify for the 2021 WBC, so thanks to their success this year, Team Israel has already locked up a spot to compete in the next WBC in 2021.

Team Israel: Jewish players from all over the worldUnder WBC rules, any player eligible to be a citizen of a country is entitled to play for that country’s baseball team, even if the player has not obtained citizenship. Israel’s Law of Return gives anyone with a Jewish parent or grandparent,

or who is married to a Jew, the right to return to Israel and to be an Israeli citizen. The WBC rules thus allow non-Israeli citizens of Jewish heritage to play for Team Israel.

“We had to hunt far and wide and find the best guys who could potentially be eligible,” Peter Kurz, president of the Israel Association of Baseball, told USA Today Sports. Many of the players have had some major-league experience, with virtually all being Americans of Jewish heritage.

A visit to Israel“Playing for Israel is the last thing I thought I would be doing,” Ty Kelly, a utility player in the New York Mets farm system, said in an interview. “And there is nothing I would rather be doing. It really does have a deep meaning.”

Kelly was part of a group of players to visit Israel in January on a promotional tour aimed at increasing baseball awareness and boosting the number of players from its current level of around 1,000.

“When we went to Israel we saw the pride they have in their country,” Kelly said. “To be able to give the people another outlet to express that pride, by supporting a team in a sport that Israel has never been known for, it just feels really cool.” Yonatan Sredni

“This will get me in trouble – I have never said this before – but Palestine is Jewish land. I mean, come on, who doesn’t know this? Jesus came to Jerusalem. He came to the Israelites who were there. It is Jewish Land.” Australian Shi’ite Imam Mohammad Tawhidi

BRINGING PRIDE TO THE TRIBE

How Team Israel hit it out at the World Baseball ClassicFor years, rooting for Team Israel meant cheering for the country’s national soccer, basketball or Olympic teams. But this month, thanks to their surprising success at the World Baseball Classic (WBC), when sports fans talk about Team Israel, they mean baseball.

Members of Team Israel- Photo WBC Israel

Page 8 FRIENDS OF ISRAEL WA NEWSLETTER

ISRAEL’S SILENCED MAJORITY

Since their meeting, Trump’s prod that Israel curtail the property rights of Jews in Judea and Samaria has been the central issue that Trump’s chief negotiator Jason Greenblatt has discussed with Netanyahu and his representatives.

It is vital for Netanyahu to tell his cabinet ministers what is happening in his conversations with the Americans about Judea and Samaria. It is imperative that the cabinet determine a clear response to Trump’s apparent demand for a full or partial freeze on Jewish property rights in Judea and Samaria.

Such an agreed response is urgent because Trump’s position is antithetical to the position of the vast majority of Israelis. If the government caters to Trump’s demands it will breach the trust of the public that elected it.

This state of affairs was brought home with the publication of a new survey of public opinion regarding the Palestinian conflict with Israel. The survey was carried out among adult Israeli Jews by veteran Israeli pollster Mina Tzemach for the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs.

The results of the poll are straightforward. Since Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, Israeli support for territorial concessions to the Palestinians has collapsed. Whereas in 2005, 59% of Israelis supported the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza, Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria in exchange for peace, today a mere 29% of Israelis support such a policy.

And levels of Israeli opposition to territorial giveaways only grow when the specifics of withdrawal are considered.

Seventy-seven per cent of Israelis oppose full withdrawal from Judea and Samaria in the framework of a peace deal. Sixty-four per cent oppose a pull out under which Israel would trade sovereignty over the so-called “settlement blocs” for sovereignty over lands inside of the 1949 armistice lines.

Fifty-seven per cent of the public opposes an Israeli withdrawal from everything outside the settlement blocs even without such a trade.

The Israeli public has abandoned its support for the two-state paradigm because it believes that Israel’s past moves to implement it have weakened the country and that any attempt in the future to implement it will imperil the country.

This conviction is revealed by the fact that 76% of Israeli Jews want Israel to permanently retain sole responsibility for security in all of Judea and Samaria.

Eighty-eight per cent say that Israel must permanently control the territory bordering Ben-Gurion Airport. Eighty-one per cent insist that Israel must permanently control the land that bordering the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem highway Route 443.

Eighty-one per cent of Israelis say that Israel must control the Jordan Valley in perpetuity. Fifty-five per cent say that

Israel cannot defend itself without permanently controlling the Jordan Valley. Sixty-nine per cent of Israelis reject the notion that Israel can subcontract its national security to foreign powers that would deploy forces to the Jordan Valley in the framework of a peace deal.

In other words, Trump’s desire to mediate a deal between Israel and the PLO places him in conflict with anywhere between 60 and 85% of the Israeli public.

Throughout the US presidential race, Trump said repeatedly that his mastery of the art of the deal would enable him to succeed where his predecessors failed. It is possible that Trump is right about his relative advantage over his predecessors. But how well or poorly he negotiates is completely beside the point.

Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama didn’t fail to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians because they were bad negotiators. They failed because there is no deal to be had. This reality is what informs the Israeli public.

The Israeli public rejects the two-state model that is now informing Trump, because it has become convinced that Israel’s partner in a hypothetical deal – the PLO – has no intention of ever making a deal with Israel.

The people of Israel has come to realise that the PLO demands Israeli concessions – like a freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria – not because it wants to make peace, but because it wants to weaken Israel.

The reality that informs the position of the Israeli public has been borne out by every PLO action and position since July 2000, when the PLO rejected peace and Palestinian statehood and opted instead to initiate a terrorist war against Israeli society and launch a campaign to delegitimise Israel’s right to exist.

In contrast to the Israeli public, the American foreign policy establishment never accepted the obvious meaning of Yasser Arafat’s rejection of then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s peace offer at Camp David in July 2000, and his subsequent initiation of an all-out war of terrorism against Israel.

The Americans responsible for determining US Middle Eastern policy, along with the American Jewish community, never acknowledged the significance of the Palestinians’ refusal to accept sovereign responsibility over Gaza after Israel withdrew from the area in 2005.

They never accepted the obvious meaning of Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian elections in 2006 or the post-Israeli withdrawal transformation of Gaza into a hub of global jihad and a launching pad for continuous aggression against Israel.

During Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House in February, the premier was reportedly taken by surprise when Trump gently prodded – ahead of their meeting – for Israel to “hold back on settlements for a little bit.”

Volume 25 – Autumn 2017 Page 9

Unlike the Israeli public, the Americans closed their eyes to the significance of Mahmoud Abbas’s campaign to delegitimise Israel’s right to exist, to the PA’s refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist, to the PA’s finance of terrorism, and its indoctrination of Palestinian society to support and work toward the destruction of Israel.

The wilful blindness of the American foreign policy establishment and the American Jewish establishment to the reality that informs the position of the Israeli public was on display at AIPAC’s policy conference. Although the conference was held under the banner, “Many Voices, One Mission,” precious few voices were heard that reflected the view of the overwhelming majority of Israelis.

The view of the Israeli public that the two-state policy is entirely divorced from reality because there is no one on the Palestinian side who is interested in living at peace with a Jewish state, and that further Israeli concessions to the PLO endanger the Jewish state, was virtually ignored, particularly by the American speakers.

No senior American policy-maker explained that given the Palestinians’ commitment to the destruction of Israel, any policy that requires Israel to make territorial and other concessions is an anti-Israel policy – in substance if not in intent.

The reason the position of the majority of the Israeli public was ignored by the largest pro-Israel lobbying organisation in America is that no senior American policy-maker on either side of the partisan aisle is willing to allow the reality that informs the Israeli public to influence its thinking. Although an ideological chasm separates Martin Indyk – John Kerry’s chief negotiator – from Elliott Abrams – George Bush’s point man on Israel – the substance of their views of the goal of US

policy-making toward Israel and the Palestinians is largely the same. They both believe that Israel should surrender the vast majority of Judea and Samaria to the PLO.

The pressure the Trump administration is exerting on Israel to constrain the rights of Jews to property in Judea and Samaria is the direct consequence of the refusal of the American foreign policy establishment to reckon with the reality that Israelis have internalised.

The Israeli public today recognises that there is no deal to be had. The Palestinians will never make peace with Israel, because they remain committed to its destruction.

It doesn’t matter how effective the Americans are at negotiations. It doesn’t matter how many concessions they are able to extract from Israel in their endless attempts to coddle the Palestinians and convince them to negotiate. Indeed, the Americans’ collective refusal to come to terms with the reality that guides the Israeli public indicates that regardless of what their actual feelings toward Israel may be, in demanding Israeli concessions to the PLO, the Americans are implementing a policy that is stridently anti-Israel.

Netanyahu and his ministers must make clear to Trump and his advisers that there is no point in trying to reach a deal with the PLO. Trump’s predecessors’ failure to reach an accord had nothing to do with their failure to master the art of the deal. They failed because there is no one on the Palestinian side who is interested in making a deal.

Moreover, Netanyahu and his ministers must explain to Trump that all previous attempts to reach a deal by extracting concessions from Israel did nothing but weaken Israel. And the Israeli public will no longer accept any such concessions from their government. Caroline Glick

SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER – TUESDAY, 11 JULY 2017

FOIWA SCOOP – SAVE THE DATE!We are delighted to announce that CAROLINE GLICK is to visit Perth and will speak to the FOIWA membership.

Caroline is a foremost Israeli journalist, author and analyst.

As a commentator on Israel’s political and international relations, she is without peer. Further information to follow.

Caroline Glick was born in Chicago and made Aliya to Israel in 1991. She has a BA in Political Science from Columbia University and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard. She served in the IDF as an officer for more than five years. As an IDF captain from 1994 to 1996, she served as coordinator of negotiations with the PLO in the office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

She has served as assistant foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu; as strategic issues editor and chief diplomatic commentator for the Hebrew newspaper Makor Rishon, and in March 2002, she accepted the position of deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post.

Caroline is the senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Centre for Security Policy in Washington, DC and travels several times a year to Washington where she routinely briefs senior administration officials and members of Congress on issues of joint Israeli-American concern.

Page 10 FRIENDS OF ISRAEL WA NEWSLETTER

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New Israeli Ambassador to AustraliaLondon-born Mark Sofer is to become Israel’s ambassador to Australia following Ambassador Shmuel Ben-Shmuel’s completion of his posting to Canberra.

Ambassador-elect Sofer attained a BSc in economics and international relations at the London School of Economics before making Aliyah to Israel where he received an MA in international relations from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

According to Wikipedia, Mark Sofer joined the Israeli Foreign Ministry in 1981. He has held diplomatic positions in Peru, Norway and New York City. He served as ambassador to Ireland from 1999-2002.

He was policy adviser to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in the early 1990s. He is currently the head of the Asia department in the Foreign Ministry, and was appointed ambassador to India in 2008. J-Wire Mark Sofer. Photo Twitter

Chris Cannan

New Australian Ambassador to IsraelChris Cannan has been appointed as Australia’s next Ambassador to Israel.

In a statement, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said: “Australia and Israel’s warm relationship is underpinned by shared values, a mutual commitment to democracy, and common interests in a stable Middle East. We also enjoy a strong trading relationship, with two-way trade between our countries worth $1.3 billion in 2015-16.

“Our commercial relationship continues to flourish through the opening of the Australian innovation ‘Landing Pad’ in Tel Aviv, the conclusion of an air services agreement and an industrial research and development cooperation agreement, and the negotiation of a double taxation agreement. During Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to Australia in February 2017, we agreed to increase cooperation in sectors including cyber, innovation, science and technology.”

Mr Cannan is a senior career officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and was most recently Assistant Secretary, Global Development Branch. In

Canberra, Mr Cannan has held a range of positions in DFAT, including Chief of Protocol, and Assistant Secretary, Staffing Branch, Environment Branch, and Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe Branch. He served overseas with DFAT in Vienna and Manila, and with the Bougainville Peace Monitoring Group, as well as with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in Geneva.

Mr Cannan holds a Bachelor of Arts (Journalism) from the University of South Australia, a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Asian Studies from Flinders University and a Master of Arts (Foreign Affairs and Trade) from Monash University.

Chris Cannan thanks the outgoing Ambassador Dave Sharma for his outstanding contribution to advancing the Australia-Israel relationship since 2013. Dave Sharma was appointed by the then Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, in 2013.

Chris Cannan is expected to take up his duties in June J-Wire

Volume 25 – Autumn 2017 Page 11

The Jewish state’s quest to form lasting partnerships through agricultural cooperation around the worldSurrounded by an inhospitable mix of barren desert and malaria-ridden swampland, the fledgling State of Israel had little food with which to sustain its increasingly hungry inhabitants.

Fast forward a mere six-and-a-half decades, and the Little Country that Could is not only nourishing its own eight million citizens, but is also helping developing countries around the world do the same.

“We are the only country in the world that has come to such a high development stage in such a short period of time; it’s a miracle,” said Yakov Poleg, head of the Agriculture Ministry’s CINADCO (Centre for International Agricultural Development Cooperation). “The beauty is that Israel is willing to share all its development achievements with other nations.”Israel began its quest to become a key player in the international development sphere in 1957, with the launch of Foreign Ministry’s MASHAV (the Hebrew acronym for Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation). The creation of MASHAV was the result of then-foreign minister Golda Meir’s trip to Africa, a visit that strengthened Israel’s commitment to partnering with emerging nations in the neighbouring continent.“We were a country of refugees. There was a sort of austerity in Israel, but we transformed rather quickly to an OECD country – one of the 35 most developed economies in the world,” said Gil Haskel, head of MASHAV.Since its establishment, MASHAV has trained some 270,000 participants from 132 countries in its various courses both abroad and in Israel – of which

about 70% involve agriculture. While some of the instruction occurs in a traditional classroom setting, the Israeli government agency has gone out into the field, setting up a unique array of fully functioning farms around the world.“Project-wise, we established from the very beginning demonstration agricultural farms all over Africa,” said Haskel, who served as Israel’s ambassador to East Africa from 2011 to 2014. “It intensified in the beginning of the ’90s when we established relations with new countries.”Chief among them were India and Vietnam, while relations with Thailand received a significant upgrade. Sharon Udasin

Tel Aviv revolutionises city transportation with new $26m car-sharing serviceThe City of Tel Aviv has launched a $26 million car-sharing initiative, which will include 260 cars that can be shared by thousands of people every year, reducing both air pollution and car ownership rates.

The first town in Israel to invest in a city-wide shared vehicle fleet, and one of only a handful in the world, Tel Aviv is also the Israeli municipality that pioneered the highly popular city-wide bicycle-sharing system, called “Tel-O-Fun,” in 2011.

Subscribers to the Auto Tel service are expected to pay about $13 a month in subscriber’s fees, plus a daily or an hourly rate that hasn’t been determined yet. Still, the municipality claims the rates would be about 30 per cent cheaper than taxis.

With over 500 parking spots reserved specifically for these cars all over the city – Tel Aviv is notorious for its lack of parking space – subscribers will be able to leave their Auto Tel car pretty much anywhere across town.

According to the mayor’s office, similar car-sharing systems in the world have shown that every shared vehicle contributes to eliminating the use of at least four private vehicles. “This is our way of reducing traffic congestion and air pollution, but it also reduces the cost of living in the city,” meaning Tel Aviv residents don’t necessarily have to own a car.

According to Tel Aviv’s mayor Ron Huldai, “Car owners choosing to switch to Auto Tel could save up to $780 a month on their car expenses.” Huldai, who was joined by Car2Go CEO Gil Laser, spoke at a press conference held in Tel Aviv.

“This initiative is the first of its kind in Israel, and it shows that we can all do better. This project should become a national one, and I hope other municipalities will join us in our efforts. This could be the end of the private vehicles era.” Einat Paz-Frankel

Tel Aviv’s mayor and his deputy driving an Auto Tel car

Planting avocado trees in Ethiopia. Photo Gil Haskel

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