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Israel-Palestine crisis: Modis government tries to read the page which cannot be written – Modern Diplomacy

Posted By on August 25, 2021

No progress has been made by parties in Yemen to reach a political agreement to settle the civil war, which is now in its seventh year, a senior UN official for the Middle East region told the Security Council on Monday.

It is imperative to resume an inclusive, Yemeni-led political process to reach a negotiated solution to the conflict, said Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General for Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, referring to a 2015 peace plan, which called for a nationwide ceasefire, the reopening of Sanaa airport, the easing of restrictions on fuel and goods flowing through Hudaydah port, and the resumption of face-to-face political negotiations.

Mr. Khiari said that the Houthis continue to make the opening of Hudaydah ports and Sanaa airport, as well as on the ending of what they call the aggression and occupation, conditions of their renewed participation in the political process.

Moreover, negotiations facilitated by Saudi Arabia on the Riyadh Agreement which were focused on the return of the Prime Minister and other ministers to Aden have yet to resume following the Eid break in July. Timely progress on the accords implementation remains vital to address the tensions in the south, he explained.

Meanwhile, military activity continues to ebb and flow, said Mr. Khiari, with sporadic fighting observed in Al Jawf and Taiz. Marib remains the key strategic focus.

In Al Bayda, gains made by Yemeni forces supported by the Saudi-led coalition were reversed by the Houthis, who have moved towards the border between Marib and Shabwa governorates, threatening the main arterial routes.

Mr. Khiari called on all parties to completely and immediately cease such attempts to achieve territorial gains by force.

On the economic front, he said the value of the riyal in Government-controlled areas reached a record low of 1,000 riyals to 1 United States dollar.

The Southern Transitional Council has threatened to enforce an independent local exchange rate in Aden and other areas under their control in southern Yemen, which would further complicate efforts to foster a cohesive economic recovery.

Turning to the issue of fuel supply, Mr. Khiari said that only three commercial fuel vessels were given clearance to berth at Hudaydah port since July. Four fuel vessels remain in the coalition holding area, and all but one petrol station in Houthi-controlled governorates have reportedly closed. Cooking gas shortages have pushed wait times to one month for refilling empty cylinders.

We reiterate our call on the Government of Yemen to urgently allow the entry of all essential commercial supplies including fuel ships to Hudaydah without delay, he stressed, pressing all parties to prioritize civilian needs and abstain from weaponizing the economy.

Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of the United Nations International Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF), acknowledged that little has changed since her last briefing on the situation two years ago. Each day, the violence and destruction wreak havoc on the lives of children and their families, she stressed.

In 2021, 1.6 million children have been internally displaced due to violence, she said, notably in Hudaydah and Marib, while essential health, sanitation and education services are incredibly fragile and on the brink of total collapse.

Gross domestic product (GDP), meanwhile, dropped 40 per cent since 2015, she continued a major concern, as one quarter of the population including many doctors, teachers and sanitation workers rely on civil servant salaries, which are paid erratically, if at all.

Ms. Fore said almost 21 million including 11.3 million children need humanitarian assistance to survive. Some 2.3 million children are acutely malnourished and 400,000 children under age five suffer from severe acute malnutrition.

In Yemen, one child dies every 10 minutes from preventable causes, including malnutrition and vaccine-preventable diseases, she stressed.

Two million children are out of school and one in six schools can no longer be used. Two-thirds of teachers over 170,000 of them have not received a regular salary for four years, due to the conflict, placing 4 million additional children at risk of dropping out, as unpaid teachers quit to find other ways of providing for their families.

The UNICEF chief said that she and her colleagues are deeply worried that the numbers do not adequately reveal what children in Yemen experience, from watching parents struggle to fight off starvation, to being killed by a bullet, explosion or landmine, recruited to join the war or forced into marriage.

Having experienced or witnessed horrific violence, children will carry physical and emotional scars for their entire lives: Being a child in Yemen is the stuff of nightmares.

UNICEF is making efforts on every level, she continued, including providing access to clean water and sanitation, along with health, nutrition, protection and education services. The agency is responding to COVID-19 vaccine needs and providing cash transfers to 1.5 million households every quarter.

Ms. Fore called on parties and the Council itself to place children first, stressing that UNICEF needs sustained humanitarian access to people in need, no matter where they are.

We must reopen the port of Hudaydah to commercial imports and fuel, she stressed. Millions could be plunged into famine if vital imports remain restricted.

War overshadows everything, said Martin Griffiths, briefing the Council for the first time in his capacity as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.

The offensive in Marib province, and clashes along nearly 50 other front lines have reportedly killed or injured more than 1,200civilians, as collapsing public services deprive people of clean water, sanitation, education and health care, and cholera and COVID-19 spread freely under such conditions.

With 20 million in need of humanitarian assistance and protection, a decimated economy is pushing the country to the brink, he said: five million people are one step away from succumbing to famine and the diseases that go with it, while 10 million more are right behind them.

Famine is not just a food problem, its a symptom of a much deeper collapse, he warned. People are starving not because there is no food, but because they cannot afford it.

Mr. Griffiths said that incomes are disappearing, especially salaries for civil servants, who represent a quarter of the population: the collapsed Yemeni currency is particularly disastrous for a country so heavily dependent on imports.

The Under-Secretary-General called for an end to profiteering and the implementation of a definitive ceasefire, which would give desperate civilians a break and create the space needed to address the drivers of the crisis.

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Israel-Palestine crisis: Modis government tries to read the page which cannot be written - Modern Diplomacy

Palestine Rodeo set to make its return in 2021 – WTHITV.com

Posted By on August 25, 2021

PALESTINE, Ill. (WTHI) -Things are usually pretty peaceful in downtown Palestine.But inside the Palestine chamber of commerce is a different story.That's where you'll find Vickie Perkins answering the phone.

Perkins says, "we are selling tickets here now over the phone. We have turned our PayPal off."

In 2020 the Palestine Rodeo was forced to be canceled.This year the rodeo is back on. That has kept the phone lines busy.

Perkins says, "We have people coming from Missouri and Tennessee. They come here for the camping and the enjoyment to get together."

Palestine's population sits just over 1,000 people.On average, the rodeo will bring the population in town to over three thousand.That's a big gain that was lost in 2020 for the small town.

Perkins explains, "We had no one in town. Of course, our restaurants and everything just suffered. But this year, it's just been a comeback."

The pioneer city arena is all set for Labor Day weekend.Signs for the rodeo began going up this week in downtown Palestine.Everyone is ready for this small town to make finally make that come back.

Perkins says, "We're getting excited. Very very excited."

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Palestine Rodeo set to make its return in 2021 - WTHITV.com

US footsteps in Afghan and the lessons for Palestine – Middle East Monitor

Posted By on August 25, 2021

Every political party cooperating with the US in our region must study what happened in Afghanistan. What happened in Afghanistan is an example of US policies, its management of its alliances, and its behaviour towards its allies. It is also an example of how Washington sets its priorities and deals with powerful parties.

In 2001, after the bombing of the World Trade Centre towers in New York, Washington developed a plan to occupy Afghanistan, and claimed that it was attacking an uncivilised society. The American political and media tools and their allies worked to distort the image of Afghan society, and subsequently the Taliban movement and then Islam.

The US occupied Afghanistan and claimed that it would build a civilised and democratic society there.

Washington started what it said was building Afghan society: building state administrations, training the army and security forces, holding elections, paying development funds, etc.

Western political and media tools have portrayed Afghanistan as an oasis of civility and liberalism. Successive US administrations have spent over 20 years and $2 trillion.

READ: Taliban should be encouraged to respect all human rights: UN rights chief

Washington's move was universally welcomed and praised by international institutions, but the US administration surprised the world with its decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Suddenly Afghanistan was removed from the American strategy and was no longer a part of its project to rehabilitate societies. Washington also abandoned its declared goals towards Kabul.

Washington talked to the Taliban about the mechanism of withdrawal from Afghanistan and tried to reassure its allies about Afghanistan's future. It praised the capabilities of the Afghan state and the army in dealing with developments.

However, within a few weeks, everything Washington had established in Afghanistan collapsed: the Afghan provinces fell, the lines of defence collapsed, the authority of the state was absent, the government was unable to deal with the Taliban, the army made up of 300,000 soldiers that Washington trained and equipped, failed, as did the security services.

Washington found itself in a dilemma, as it was not able to protect what it had established in Afghanistan and its institutions and centres, nor could it withdraw its agents in time. It destroyed secret contents in its embassy in Kabul.

The entire American project in Afghanistan has fallen. This is a history lesson for all those who ally with Washington.

READ: Airbnb to provide temporary housing to 20,000 Afghan refugees

Washington raised its allies in Afghanistan to the highest level, praised them and spent money on them, then suddenly abandoned them and left them to face their fate.

The most important thing in the case is that Afghan society opened up to the Taliban movement and agreed to its vision to get rid of the occupier. They welcomed its arrival and facilitated its control over the states, handing power over to them. Therefore, the Taliban advanced very quickly, and all American temptations fell in the face of the society's logic and interests.

The American-Western project in Kabul was defeated, the arrogance of European armies was destroyed, NATO was defeated, the Western theory that insulted Islam and the veil was defeated, and the image of the US was distorted. Moreover, the concept of the people's freedom triumphed, the principle of self-determination, independence and national sovereignty was victorious, and the concept of resistance prevailed. The Islamic forces in the region gained big and obvious wins.

There are many lessons that the Palestinians can learn from the Afghan situation, the most important of which are:

Perhaps these and other lessons will be subject to review in our Palestinian arena.

What is required today in our Palestinian arena, after the American-Afghan experience, is to strengthen the concept of national unity, adopt the people's interests, unify the vision towards the Israeli occupation, trust more in the resistance project, reduce some people's reliance on the US and learn from the defeat of the Kabul army, and the collapse of the institutions and devices established by Washington. We must really let the image of Washington's allies escaping sink in.

It is true that the US view of the conflict in the region and the relationship with Israel is different from any other issue in the world, but it is also true that the values of freedom, resistance, national unity, and independence always triumph.

This article first appeared in Arabic in the Palestinian Information Centre on 24 August 2021

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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The Irish Times view on Israel and the US: Pressing reset – The Irish Times

Posted By on August 25, 2021

Israels new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, hopes for what diplomats are calling a reset in the relations between Israel and the US in his first visit to president Joe Biden this week. And whatever emerges from their meeting will certainly be seen in that ambiguous, unambitious light. Both sides have already promised that their post-summit press conference will be low-key and uncontentious.

Bennett, a former settler leader who took over from Binyamin Netanyahu in March, is less abrasive than his predecessor, whom Biden viewed with suspicion, but every bit as right wing and nationalist. He is adamant that whatever the international community may wish there is no prospect of reopening peace talks with the Palestinians and opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.

His agenda will reprise Netanyahu themes, notably the need for the US to continue Trumps policy of blocking the Iranian nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and defence of Israels construction of what the world regards as illegal West Bank settlements as well as the blockade of Gaza. He has promised to expand settlements and insists that the blockade will remain as long as Hamas, which rules the territory, continues to arm itself and fire rockets at Israel.

Bennett knows that Biden, a self-proclaimed Zionist, has no appetite for an interventionist approach to the Middle East, although he has committed to reviving the JCPOA. And that he is likely to applaud Israels success in normalising its relations with some of its Arab neighbours.

Biden, obsessed with the strategic threat posed by China, will push Bennett, perhaps even with threats of retaliation, to abandon Israels co-operation with China, notably in the hi-tech sphere. The US is alarmed that Chinas investment in Israel has exceeded $19 billion in the past 18 years. Bilateral trade reached $17.5 billion last year.

Domestic political constraints and the USs preoccupation with its humiliating retreat from Afghanistan are more likely, however, to frame this first get-together as an amicable reset of relations.

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The Irish Times view on Israel and the US: Pressing reset - The Irish Times

‘Zionism Is Racism’ Myth Revived in New York Times News Articles, Including an ‘Extremely Weird’ One – Algemeiner

Posted By on August 25, 2021

The news articles of the New York Times are increasingly reporting the Israeli-Arab conflict through the Zionism is racism framing.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once described that falsehood as the Big Red Lie the last great horror of the Hitler-Stalin era. Back in 1991, even the New York Times editorial writers denounced it, as it had been expressed in a now-repealed United Nations resolution, as disgraceful.

Yet here we go again. Monday a Times news article began, MOUNT GERIZIM, West Bank In the occupied and largely segregated West Bank American readers of the paper will pick up segregated as a reference to pre-Brown v Board of Education schools, the separate-and-unequal Jim Crow era.

On Tuesday another Times news article, which, like the first one, carried the byline of Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Patrick Kingsley, paraphrased Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, director of Al Aqsa Mosque: The de facto change in policy is just part of a larger pattern of slights against Palestinian dignity across the occupied territories, he said. Then came a direct quotation: This is the prevalent reality, not only at the Aqsa Mosque, but also at checkpoints and other places in Palestine, he said. We face constant racist discrimination and infringement on our human rights.

Again, the reference to constant racist discrimination wont be lost on an American audience of progressive Times readers educated to be antiracist in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd. One could say its just a quote, not the Times itself, but the Times chooses which quotes to use and whether to frame them with context and fact-checking cluing readers in to reality. And a pattern is a pattern.

Racism and segregation are wrong. The application of this American framework to Israel is also wrong: clumsy, misguided, and inaccurate, as are similar efforts to view Israel and the Palestinians through the lens of South Africa and apartheid. Those who apply it often do it one-sidedly; they dont ask, for example, why its not discrimination for Ben & Jerrys to refuse to sell ice cream to Jewish residents of the West Bank.

The second article, about Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, has additional flaws. It says, To many Palestinians, the shift is provocative and unfair. They feel that Muslims have already made a big concession at the Western Wall, which is now used mostly by Jewish worshipers despite its also being important to Muslims. In 1967, Israel even razed an Arab neighborhood beside the wall to create more space for Jewish prayer.

Why was there an Arab neighborhood beside the wall? This Times article doesnt explain, but the online version at least does hyperlink to a Times article from 1971 that explains Continuously since the Middle Ages, according to archeological evidence, the 25 acres of the Jewish Quarter inside the walls was the core of Jewish piety and Orthodox culture in King Davids holy city. There were more than 50 synagogues in this crowded space, with a population of 16,000 Jews at the turn of the century The fall of the Jewish Quarter to the Arabs on May 28, 1948, was the blackest event in Israels War of Independence, Mayor Teddy Kollek wrote years later. From then until 1967, the medieval synagogues and shabby dwellings of the Jewish Quarter lay in rubble from the artillery of war. Squatters began to move in. Arab families gradually came to consider the quarter their home.

Thats not the only noteworthy omission of context. Yair Rosenberg, a senior writer at Tablet magazine, pointed out on Twitter: Extremely weird New York Times article about Jews praying at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem that fails to note anywhere that the Temple Mount is *the holiest site in all of Judaism.* The entire story doesnt make sense if you omit that essential fact! He added, The article explicitly says that the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif is the third-holiest site in Islam. It was a deliberate choice to leave out the fact that it is the holiest site in Judaism. The Times ought to correct and add basic religious context to the article.

A professor at Brandeis University and former State Department official, Yehudah Mirsky, wrote, Everything @Yair_Rosenberg writes in this thread about Jerusalem, journalistic practice and more is true. And his calling the Times omission here extremely weird is, lets say, very, very polite.

Thats New York Times coverage of Israel these days: omitting critical context while attempting to impose an irrelevant and inaccurate interpretative framework.

Ira Stoll was managing editor of the Forward and North American editor of the Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.

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'Zionism Is Racism' Myth Revived in New York Times News Articles, Including an 'Extremely Weird' One - Algemeiner

Can Zionism and Palestinian nationalism live together? – opinion – The Jerusalem Post

Posted By on August 25, 2021

It seems that a majority of Israelis and Palestinians would agree that the two-state solution is no longer a viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also seems clear that there is no other solution that has been presented that seems viable.

Equally unviable is the status quo of the bi-national non-democratic reality that includes the military occupation of the West Bank and the blockade on Gaza, which essentially imprisons more than two million people.

Within the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, half the population defines itself as Palestinian and the other half defines itself as Jewish-Israeli. At the root of this conflict has been a majority of people on both sides demand for the right to attain a territorial expression of their collective identity. This demand has been mainly expressed by the use of force and violence to achieve that right, and also to deny the other side its right as well.

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There have also been times over the past decades when there seemed to be a small majority on both sides willing to recognize the collective national rights of the other side, while significant minorities within both communities have insisted that no such right exists.

I do not know what the solution to this conflict is, nor do I profess or support any particular rendition of a solution. I came into this conflict as a graduate of a Zionist youth movement. I immigrated to Israel when I was 22 years old, already recognizing then that there were two peoples living in this land.

In 1978, my first year living as an Israeli, I began my search for equality and for peace. I spent my first two years in Israel volunteering as a community worker in the Israeli-Palestinian town of Kafr Kara. I knew that in order for there to be a solution to the conflict, there has to be mutual recognition of collective national rights. Denial of the existence of one of the peoples and their national narrative leads to the continuation of the conflict and the inability to converse with the aim of searching for modalities of how to live on the land in peace between the River and the Sea.

Recognizing the opposing narrative does not necessarily require accepting it as truth and legitimizing it in its entirety. It does mean placing a benchmark and accepting the existence of the other people and that the other people also has a right to self-determination on the Land.

Merriam-Webster defines self-determination as: determination by the people of a territorial unit of their own future political status. There are definitions of self-determination that include sovereignty, but sovereignty has many forms, and the concept of sovereignty has evolved over the centuries and has taken on different political realities.

For Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians who have suffered more than a century of acute conflict over control over the land, some form of self-determination and sovereignty is essential, and neither side is willing to give up their right to control their own destiny. Both sides have the need to ensure their identity and to provide security for their people and their land. No solution to the conflict can exist that will prevent or limit opportunities for economic growth, prosperity, equality, and free movement.

The economic disparities between the sides today are a function of the conflict, and the Israeli control over the territories and the economy of the Palestinians. The prevention by Israel of allowing the Palestinians to fully utilize their own land and resources is unacceptable in any possible solution. The lack of ability to make claims on previously owned land and properties by Palestinians is also something that must be addressed in finding solutions to the conflict, especially while Jews have the right to claim lands and properties in east Jerusalem and elsewhere from before 1948.

The Oslo two-state solution was based on the formula that the Palestinians would create a state on 22% of the land while Israel would be recognized on 78% of the land. The disproportionate partition formula was devised because the Palestinians failed to accept the partition resolution of the United Nations in 1947. The cost of non-recognition by the Palestinians was losing a large amount of the land area that they could have received within the framework of the resolution. According to the UN plan, which was also disproportionate granting the small number of Jews a larger share of the land, both states would have had large minorities of the other people within their state.

In the absence of the two-state solution, and in the wake of the failure of Oslo, the territorial parameters may have changed, and there may be a need to come to terms with the 50:50 population breakdown and the territorial aspects of large Palestinian populations within the green-line in the Galilee, the Little Triangle and the Negev. This does not necessarily mean the delineation of hard state borders on different lines, but in redefining the concept of self-determination and collective rights.

In a federal model, all residents of the whole territory could hold more than one type of identity documentation including citizen of the federal state and citizen of a sub-autonomous-unit within the federal state. Semi-autonomous zones could be created in which cultural expressions of identity are available that are state supported on an equal basis, and self-governing representative bodies are elected to provide services.

In a confederal arrangement, there could also be several possibilities for different types of identity documentation. It could be based on a two-states model on the June 4, 1967, lines, in which there could be a possibility to hold citizenship of both states which could be relevant for the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the Jewish citizens of Palestine. The first point of reference for citizenship would be the physical residence of the individual, and then a second possibility for requesting to hold citizenship of the second country. All citizens could be citizens of the Confederated State in the same way that citizens of the 27 countries of the EU hold their nation-state passports that are also EU passports.

These issues are important, but at the end of the day the most important questions relate to control and security. What is the source of authority, and who has the right to mobilize and utilize physical force? Here there is no solution that does not include mechanisms owned and operated by both sides together. That is also the basis to finding solutions that will make life in relative peace on this land possible it can only be done together with all relative parties at the table.

The process of stepping out of the box of failed solutions is tedious and challenging, but it one that we must engage in, and the sooner the better.

The writer is a political and social entrepreneur who has dedicated his life to the State of Israel and to peace between Israel and her neighbors. He is now directing The Holy Land Investment Bond.

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Can Zionism and Palestinian nationalism live together? - opinion - The Jerusalem Post

Religious Zionist Party to have membership drive in English – The Jerusalem Post

Posted By on August 25, 2021

The Religious Zionist Partys central committee passed a new constitution at a meeting in Neot Kedumim on Sunday night that includes holding a mass membership drive and then party primaries for its Knesset candidates.

To that end, the membership drive will have forms not only in Hebrew, but also in English, French, Russian and Amharic.

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The central committee was widened to include many religious-Zionist celebrities, including Rabbi Haim Druckman. The minimum age to be a member will be 17, and the minimum age to run, 21.

This is a night that will be remembered for making history, Smotrich told party activists. This is a night of change, correction and repentance, a night when the Religious Zionist Party became the home of religious Zionism and the entire Right.

The Likud is completing its membership drive on August 31. Nobel Prize-winning mathematician Prof. Robert Israel Aumann joined Likud in order to back former MK Uzi Dayan.

The Likud does not have membership forms in English.

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Religious Zionist Party to have membership drive in English - The Jerusalem Post

The Ingathering of the Exiles Is Not Over – besacenter.org

Posted By on August 25, 2021

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,133, August 24, 2021

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:Diaspora Minister Nachman Shais claim that it is not his job to encourage aliya to Israel negates the very purpose of Zionism, as understood and emphasized by the leaders of the founding generation. First and foremost among those leaders was David Ben-Gurion, who saw the ingathering of the exiles as the yearning, destiny, and mission of the State of Israel.

Diaspora Minister Nachman Shai is not the only public figure to have stopped seeing the ingathering of the exiles as a national goal. This is a negation of the essence and purpose of Zionism as understood and emphasized by the vast majority of the leaders of the founding generation. The most prominent of those leaders was David Ben-Gurion, who considered the redemption of Israel to be the states reason for being. He explicitly cited the words of Chazal in Tractate Brachot and consciously and consistently used religious Jewish expressions to explain his position on this issue.

Ben-Gurion said, Neither security nor the development of the country are the essence of the state. They are but essential conditions. The State of Israel is not like any other state The Jewish People has carried the yearning for redemption in its heart [for millennia]. The State is just the beginning of this redemption whereas the ingathering of the exiles is the yearning, destiny, and mission of the State of Israel. Without this destiny, it is devoid of its historical meaning and turns its back on the Jewish People today, in the generations that preceded us, and in the generations to come.

Returning to the Land of Israel is a national-religious obligation and also obliges the Jews who already live here. A state, like intimacy and love, is not a phenomenon that, once established, is on a static trajectory. It needs to be nurtured and regenerated daily. A state is in a constant process of establishmentespecially the Jewish State, where the ingathering of the exiles is its yearning, destiny, and mission. Being strong and prosperous is not an end in itself; the Jewish state must be strong and prosperous in order to accomplish its fundamental mission and destiny.

It is not for nothing that the term (aliya)roughly meaning ascentcannot be accurately translated, as it does not exist in any other language. As a concept, it is not equivalent to immigration. The Hebrew word aliya refers to one thing only: Jews coming to Israel. A Jew who moved from the USSR to the US is an immigrant, but a Jew who moved from the USSR to Israel is an oleh (one who ascends). A Jew who leaves Israel for another country is a yored (one who descends). Until a few decades ago, this was self-evident to every Israeli Jew. This is the context in which Jewish immigration and emigration are defined: there is one and only homeland, and a Jew living anywhere else is outside it.

Even during the aliya of Ezra and Nehemiah, in the early days of the Second Temple, most Jews chose to remain in the Babylonian exile. As the sages said, Because of our sins we were exiled from our land and moved away from our land. Jews pray three times a day: May a great shofar sound our freedom and act as a miracle to gather our dispersed people.

The writer A.B. Yehoshua has described the Jewish temptation toward exile as an ancient genetic defect. Zionism exists to correct this defect, and the determination to do so must be restated every day by every Jew.

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This is an edited version of an article published in Israel Today on August 12.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen is a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He served in the IDF for 42 years. He commanded troops in battles with Egypt and Syria. He was formerly a corps commander and commander of the IDF Military Colleges.

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The Ingathering of the Exiles Is Not Over - besacenter.org

Breaking out clashes with Zionists option on table for Hamas – Mehr News Agency – English Version

Posted By on August 25, 2021

"Every occupied nation is working to achieve its goals, and Palestinian resistance groups still have the option of breaking out a full-scale conflict on the table," he said, Sama News reported.

"The option of a full-scale conflict with the occupying Zionist regime is still on the table of Palestinian resistance groups," he noted.

Answering a question about Hamas' relation with Saudis, Marzuk explained, "We have no connection with Saudi Arabia because Riyadh denies this connection."

"We are doing our best to free the Palestinian detainees in Saudi Arabia, and we hope that Riyadh will respond to this call," he added.

He also informed that Hamas received a request fromJared Kushner, Former Senior Advisor to the President of the United States, for having a meeting with Hamas officials but refused it for Kushnersought to implement the 'Deal of Century' via this meeting.

"Hamas is not opposed to any serious negotiation as long as the talks donot harm the rights of the Palestinian people," he noted.

His remarks came as fighter jets of the Zionist regime targeted areas in the north, south, and west of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning with widespread and nonstop attacks.

Following the attack, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, announced that it has shot down a Zionist-owned drone in the skies of the Khan Yunis area.

This is while that UN Human Rights Watch issued a statement yesterday regarding the Israeli attacks on residential areas in Gaza Strip during the recent war.

The United Nations Human Rights Watch says Israeli airstrikes on four residential buildings in Gaza during the recent war have been a violation of war laws and are considered war crimes.

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Breaking out clashes with Zionists option on table for Hamas - Mehr News Agency - English Version

Zionists’ hostile action, real cause of tension in region – Mehr News Agency – English Version

Posted By on August 25, 2021

Reacting to the Israeli invasion of Syria on Thursday, Hazem Qassem Spokesman of the Islamic Resistance Movement in Palestine, Hamas, reiterated that Zionist regime is the real cause of tension in the region, Maan News Agency reported.

He further called for a real confrontation with this aggressive behavior of the Zionist regimeto prevent its hostile aggression.

News sources reported on Friday morning that Syrian Armys air defense was confronting hostile targets in sky of Damascus and Homs.

Accordingly, Zionist regime's media outlets reported that Israeli regime has fired missiles at targets on outskirts of Damascus.

In this regard, Lebanese Defense Minister and Acting Foreign Minister condemned the repeated violations of Lebanese airspace by Zionist regime fighters in order to attack Syria.

Lebanese Defense Minister stressed that these actions are a clear violation of international resolutions, especially Resolution 1701 (issued to end the 33-day war in 2006), a threat to security and stability in Lebanon as well as violation of its sovereignty.

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Zionists' hostile action, real cause of tension in region - Mehr News Agency - English Version


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