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Where conflict is news, stories of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation go missing
(JTA) — In January 2001, I was working at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, located on Kibbutz Ketura along the Israeli-Jordanian border. Since 1996, the institute has included Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, Moroccan, American and other college-age students from around the world. It also has several transboundary research centers, including our recently established Center for Climate Change Policy and Research, and our Center for Applied Environmental Diplomacy.
From Jan. 21-27, 2001, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators at Taba, Egypt, came as close as they ever have to reaching an agreement. I thought the work of the Arava Institute would make a perfect story — with the Institute modeling what the negotiators were trying to achieve some 45 miles south of us, just across the Egyptian border. I gathered materials in Arabic, Hebrew and English about the institute and headed there. The Israelis were very suspicious but let me through, while the Egyptians took my materials and put me in a room with a soldier and his machine gun outside the door. Eventually, a military official made a call to Cairo, and I was given permission to proceed.
In Taba, I found a group of reporters sitting at a round table. I made my pitch, inviting them to see the institute as an actualization of what the negotiators were working to achieve. Their response? I was told there is hard news, always to be covered, and soft news, if time permits and if it hasn’t been touched upon recently. My story was neither.
This past spring, I would once again be made aware of that lesson — I call it the “Asymmetry of the Sensational.”
In December 2020, Congress passed the Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act (MEPPA). Created through strong bipartisan effort, this is one of the most significant and innovative pieces of congressional legislation addressing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. MEPPA authorizes up to $250 million over five years to promote economic cooperation and people-to-people programs; advance shared community building; and engender dialogue and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.
Within the legislation, Congress appointed a Partnership for Peace Fund Advisory Board. Senator Patrick Leahy named me to the board, based on my decades’ involvement with the Arava Institute. In February, over three days in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Nablus, the board experienced a universe of Palestinian-Israeli collaboration, described by a young Israeli woman at TechSeeds for Peace as “statements of defiance, and friendships as radical action.”
Another program we visited was at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, which runs an Advanced Trauma Life Support curriculum for Israeli and Palestinian trauma surgeons. These activities optimize trauma care for local communities, creates shared experiences and builds deeper respect and lasting partnerships. Reflecting on such teamwork, Dr. Adam Goldstein told an interviewer, “In the coming days, years and decades, I hope the selflessness, the lack of ego, the teamwork and diversity and mutual respect — can be a model for our entire region.”
The goal is to bring these societies to a tipping point so they can see one another in a different light. These projects produce effective, measurable results that shape strong, respectful relationships between Israelis and Palestinians. The unending violence between Israelis and Palestinians signals they are stuck — they need an off-ramp. Greater knowledge of these programs is one way to that off-ramp.
With such positive results, why don’t more Palestinians and Israelis know about these programs and initiatives? Blame the Asymmetry of the Sensational.
In his poem “The Diameter of the Bomb,” the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai explores how an individual act of violence expands from its “thirty centimeters” to “distant shores.” The multiplier effect of violence and extremist language far outweighs the affirmative consequences of MEPPA programs, as well as the work of more than 170 Israeli and Palestinian institutions in the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP). On our MEPPA visit this past spring, it was so clear that, with all the positive results from these programs, fanatics need to do far less to have greater impact.
Why is the Asymmetry of the Sensational so effective? A part of our brain responds to trauma with fear, fight and flight responses. Violence and extremist voices play into and feed off that fear, creating a deadly spiral. That fear is real and leads to negative perceptions between people; the weekly headlines steer us in that direction. It is easy to see why there is so much distrust between Palestinians and Israelis.
The U.S. government over the years has invested millions of dollars, beyond MEPPA, in Palestinian-Israeli civil society. As large as $250 million is, it’s not enough. The International Fund for Ireland spent $40 per person in Northern Ireland on MEPPA-type projects. This relatively large expenditure was critical in paving the way for the Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of violence between Protestants and Catholics. At present, only $2 per person is spent on Palestinian-Israeli enterprises.
The international community needs to come together and coordinate vast increases in the support of these programs. That investment needs to be augmented by appointing someone whose sole task is to wake up every morning and focus on advancing peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians. Appointing a Liaison to Israeli-Palestinian Civil Society at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem would signal a greater integration of MEPPA, related U.S. funding and current policy.
In addition, Israelis and Palestinians need to grasp that peace is not the final destination. It is a means and not an end. Peace does not erase all disagreements. The Good Friday Agreement did not end tensions between the two communities in Northern Ireland, but it did take violence, death and extremism out of the equation so that a healthier reality could emerge.
MEPPA and ALLMEP create an essential step in that direction, with Palestinians and Israelis building mutual trust through their engagements with one another. Tareq Abu Hamed, the executive director of the Arava Institute, makes that point. “Water is not the scarcest resource in the Middle East, trust is,” he says. “We build trust between students and between researchers.”
Differences may remain, but trust creates the will to work together to overcome those gaps. Trust is fundamental to generating the conditions for Israelis and Palestinians to have the better future they deserve.
In the Asymmetry of the Sensational, one violent act or extremist statement quickly travels far and wide. We need to reverse that asymmetry and amplify quieter, transformative, positive actions between Palestinians and Israelis.
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The post Where conflict is news, stories of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation go missing appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Senators Urge Secretary of Homeland Security to Secure Northern Border From Gaza Refugees
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaking at a press conference about the United States restricting weapons for Israel, at the US Capitol, Washington, DC. Photo: Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Six US senators sent a letter to US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas this week requesting that he increase security measures along the northern border in response to Canada accepting an influx of refugees from Gaza, the Palestinian enclave ruled by the terrorist group Hamas.
The six Republican lawmakers — Sens. Marco Rubio (FL), Ted Cruz (TX), Joni Ernst (IA), Tom Cotton (AK), Mike Braun (IN), and Josh Hawley (MO) — said they were “deeply concerned” that refugees from Gaza could sneak into the United States. The senators warned that allowing unvetted Palestinian refugees to cross the border poses a serious national security threat.
“On May 27, 2024, the Government of Canada announced its intent to increase the number of Gazans who will be allowed into their country under temporary special measures,” the senators wrote. “We are deeply concerned and request heightened scrutiny by the US Department of Homeland Security should any of them attempt to enter the United States at ports of entry as well as between ports of entry.”
After arriving in Canada, the Palestinian refugees will be given a “Refugee Travel Document,” which serves as a valid form of identification, the letter claimed, adding that US Citizenship and Immigration Services recognizes these documents as a valid substitute for a passport. The senators warned that “individuals with ties to terrorist groups” could potentially enter into the United States.
The letter argued that the US should maintain “common-sense terrorist screening and vetting” for any individual attempting to enter its borders from a foreign country. The lawmakers lamented that the Biden administration’s “”ax border enforcement” has rendered the country vulnerable to potential terrorist attacks. From April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024, the US Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations intercepted over 233 suspected terrorists at the northern border, according to the letter.
“[T]he possibility of terrorists crossing the US-Canada border is deeply concerning given the deep penetration of Gazan society by Hamas,” the senators wrote. “It would be irresponsible for the US to not take necessary heightened precautions when foreigners attempt to enter the United States.”
On Oct. 7, Hamas launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre of 1,200 people across southern Israel. The Palestinian terrorist group also kidnapped over 250 hostages.
In response, Israel launched defensive military operations in Gaza with the aim of freeing the hostages and permanently dislodging Hamas from the neighboring enclave.
The vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as the West Bank, still support Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel that started the ongoing war, and they would prefer a “day after” scenario in which Hamas remains in control of Gaza rather than the Palestinian Authority, which governs in the West Bank, or other Arab countries, according to recent Palestinian polling. The same polling found that, when asked about support for Palestinian political parties and movements, a plurality chose Hamas.
US lawmakers are split along party lines as to whether the United States should accept refugees from Gaza. Republicans are largely opposed to importing refugees from Gaza, arguing that individuals from the war-torn enclave present “a national security risk” to the United States.” In May, Ernst and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sent US President Joe Biden a letter, urging him not to accept any refugees from Gaza.
In June, however, a group of 70 Democratic lawmakers sent Mayorkas a letter, requesting he create “pathways” for more refugees of the Israel-Hamas war to resettle in America.
The post US Senators Urge Secretary of Homeland Security to Secure Northern Border From Gaza Refugees first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Video of Masked Man Vowing ‘Rivers of Blood’ at Paris Olympics Over Israel Support Appears to Be Fake, of Russia Origin
Screenshot of a widely circulated video published on social media showing a masked man vowing that “rivers of blood will flow” at the 2024 Paris Olympics due to France’s support for Israel. According to reports, the video appears to be fake and of Russian origin.
A widely circulated video published on social media this week showing a masked man vowing that “rivers of blood will flow” at the 2024 Paris Olympics due to France’s support for Israel appears to be fake and of Russian origin, according to reports.
The video — published on Tuesday on social media networks including X/Twitter and Telegram — featured a keffiyeh-clad man with his face covered, delivering an Arabic-language address threatening France with violence due to the country’s alleged support for Israel amid its ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza.
Addressing “the people of France” and “French President [Emmanuel] Macron,” the masked individual said, “You supported the Zionist regime in its criminal war against the people of Palestine. You provided Zionists with weapons; you helped murder our brothers and sisters, our children.”
“You invited the Zionists to the Olympic games. You will pay for what you have done!” continued the man, who wore a shirt adorned with a Palestinian flag. “Rivers of blood will flow through the streets of Paris. This day is approaching, God willing. Allah is the greatest.”
The video, published on X/Twitter by the account @endzionism24 and retweeted by Palestinian activist Ihab Hassan, ended with the speaker holding a prop severed head complete with fake blood up for the camera.
He is not a Palestinian:
A video clip has surfaced showing an individual wearing a keffiyeh and a Palestinian flag badge, threatening France with a “river of blood” at the Olympic Games.
It is glaringly obvious to any Arabic speaker that this person is not Arab; his dialect… pic.twitter.com/rwWGkkbiAi
— Ihab Hassan (@IhabHassane) July 23, 2024
Hassan and other social media users immediately noted that the man speaking was clearly not a native Arabic speaker, citing his reasonably fluent but awkward and occasionally incorrect pronunciation.
Many social media users aware of the mispronunciations seemed to blame Israel for the video, implying the clip was a false flag meant to fearmonger and demonize Palestinians and Muslims. They did not address the fact that Israel has access to hundreds of thousands of native Palestinian Arabic speakers who would sound far more convincing than the man in the video.
On Wednesday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that “French secret services and their partners have not been able to authenticate the veracity of this video.”
According to researchers at Microsoft, however, the video appears to be part of a Russian-linked disinformation campaign meant to disrupt the Olympics, which began with the opening ceremony on Friday.
The researchers from Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center told NBC News that the clip appears to have come from a Russian disinformation group known as Storm-1516, an outgrowth of Russia’s Internet Research Agency.
The latest clip was linked to a similar disinformation video falsely alleging that Ukraine had sent arms to Hamas — a claim for which there is no evidence. According to the researchers, the more recent video appears to be part of a Russian scare campaign meant to disrupt the Olympics.
The video came just days before France’s rail infrastructure was hit on Friday, ahead of the start of the Olympics, with widespread acts of vandalism including arson attacks, paralyzing travel to Paris from the rest of France and Europe just hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympics. French authorities described the acts as “criminal” and “malicious.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that the sabotage of France’s high-speed rail network was directed by Iran, which Western intelligence agencies have for years labeled as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.
“The sabotage of railway infrastructure across France ahead of the Olympics was planned and executed under the influence of Iran’s axis of evil and radical Islam,” Katz wrote on X/Twitter. “As I warned my French counterpart [Stéphane Séjourné] this week, based on information held by Israel, Iranians are planning terrorist attacks against the Israeli delegation and all Olympic participants. Increased preventive measures must be taken to thwart their plot. The free world must stop Iran now — before it’s too late.”
Katz was referring to a letter he sent on Thursday to Séjourné raising alarm bells about what he described as a plan by Iran to attack Israel’s Olympic delegation.
Darmanin and French National Police both announced previously that they are taking increased security measures to ensure the safety of Israel’s Olympic delegation while they are in Paris amid mounting threats. These measures include providing them with round the clock security from French police. The Israeli delegation will also receive additional security details from Israel’s Shin Bet security agency during the Olympics.
The post Video of Masked Man Vowing ‘Rivers of Blood’ at Paris Olympics Over Israel Support Appears to Be Fake, of Russia Origin first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Top St. Louis Newspaper Endorses US Rep. Cori Bush’s Opponent, Argues Incumbent’s Israel Stance Is ‘Disqualifying’
US Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) raises her fist as US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses a pro-Hamas demonstration in Washington, DC. Photo: Reuters/Allison Bailey
The editorial board of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the largest daily newspaper in Missouri, has endorsed the opponent of US Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), pointing to the incumbent congresswoman’s lack of legislative accomplishments and stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
The Post-Dispatch argued that Bush’s position on Israel and the Gaza war should be “disqualifying” for any elected representative. The outlet took umbrage with Bush for equating a close democratic ally of the US with a genocidal terrorist organization.
“Israel’s conduct of the war has been far from perfect, but it remains a democracy fighting for survival against an evil terrorist organization. Bush’s tendency to equate both sides — and even to side with the terrorists, as when she cast one of just two House votes against a resolution to bar Hamas members from the US — should in itself be disqualifying for re-election,” the editorial board wrote.
Bush has established herself as one of the most vocal critics of Israel in the US Congress. Only nine days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel, Bush called for an “immediate ceasefire” between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group. As the war dragged on, Bush’s rhetoric toward Israel sharpened, with the congresswoman accusing the Jewish state of committing “genocide” in Gaza and “apartheid” in the West Bank. Bush has also accused Israel of inflicting a “famine” in Gaza without providing evidence.
Bush seems more interested in pandering to the far-left fringes of the progressive movement than serving her constituents, the Post-Dispatch argued. Bush’s membership in “The Squad” — a clique of far-left progressive, anti-establishment lawmakers in the House of Representatives — has rendered her completely incapable of “accomplishing anything” in the halls of Congress, according to the newspaper.
The editorial board urged its readers to vote for Wesley Bell, pointing to his moderated approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an example of his pragmatism and moral clarity.
“On Israel, Bell offers an appropriately measured stance, acknowledging the need to protect Gazan civilians and work toward a two-state solution, while supporting America’s closest ally in the Middle East,” the outlet wrote.
In contrast to Bush, Bell has expressed more sympathy to Israel’s military operations in Gaza, emphatically rejecting the notion that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing.”
Moreover, Bell has strengthened his ties with the Jewish community over the course of his campaign. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, donated a reported $5 million to Bell’s campaign through its United Democracy Project super PAC. A group of 30 St. Louis-area rabbis penned a letter endorsing Bell, accusing Bush of a “lack of decency, disregard for history, and for intentionally fueling antisemitism and hatred.” Bell also brought about an official “director of Jewish outreach” to increase turnout among the Jewish community.
A poll commissioned by McLaughlin & Associates and sponsored by the CCA Action Fund, a pro-Bell super PAC, showed Bell with a commanding 56 percent to 33 percent lead over Bush.
Supporters of Israel see the primary race as a prime opportunity to oust another opponent of the Jewish state from the halls of Congress. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), a progressive lawmaker, lost his primary race to a pro-Israel challenger on June 25. Over the course of his reelection campaign, Bowman accused Israel of committing “genocide” and enacting “apartheid” against Palestinians. Bowman’s comments incensed Jewish constituents in the leafy suburbs of Westchester County, New York.
Furthermore, observers are looking to the race as a potential indicator of the Democratic electorate’s position on Israel. Opinions of the Jewish state among Democrats have soured in the months following Oct. 7, calling into question whether anti-Israel views are still a liability with American liberals.
The post Top St. Louis Newspaper Endorses US Rep. Cori Bush’s Opponent, Argues Incumbent’s Israel Stance Is ‘Disqualifying’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.