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The Rise of Danny Danon – From Little Pisher to the Big Apple: Gil Hoffman, Jerusalem Post, Aug. 17, 2015— Throughout his political career, Science, Technology and Space Minister Danny Danon surprised friend and foe with his chutzpah.
Improving Ties Between India and Israel: BESA, Aug. 6, 2015 — Relations between India and Israel are changing and improving.
Israel and Japan Are Finally Becoming Friends. Why?: Arthur Herman, Mosaic, Aug. 6, 2015 — Walk down a side street in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Eshkol and you may came across a group of students chatting loudly in Hebrew as they review their Bible lessons of the day.
The Nuclear Deal: No Pause in Iran’s Vow to Destroy Israel: Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, JCPA, Aug. 16, 2015— Sixteen years after his death, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s founding vision — that the eradication of Zionism is an inevitable precondition for redeeming contemporary Islam — keeps guiding the current generation of Iran’s religious, political and military establishment.
Danny Danon Confidant Says Hawkish Minister Will ‘Surprise Many’ as Israel’s UN Envoy: Dovid Efune, Algemeiner, Aug. 14, 2015
Israel’s Cabinet Approves Regulatory Scheme for Gas-Field Development: Sara Toth Stub, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 16, 2015
On the Future of Israel’s Natural Gas Reserves: BESA, July 15, 2015
Reforms – Prospects and Impediments: Daniel Doron, Jerusalem Post, June 30, 2015
American Jewry’s Fateful Hour: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, Aug. 13, 2015
THE RISE OF DANNY DANON – FROM LITTLE PISHER TO THE BIG APPLE
Gil Hoffman
Jerusalem Post, Aug. 17, 2015
Throughout his political career, Science, Technology and Space Minister Danny Danon surprised friend and foe with his chutzpah. When he first ran for leader of Likud in 2007, veteran Likud activists asked who is this “little pisher” Danon who dared challenge Benjamin Netanyahu? He only got 3.7 percent of the vote, but after that a lot more people knew who Danon was.
The year before, in 2006, Danon ran and beat Netanyahu’s closest political ally, Yuval Steinitz, in a race for head of World Likud. The year before that, Danon challenged then prime minister Ariel Sharon from behind the scenes when he tried to run an alternative candidate for chairman of the Jewish Agency, a post the prime minister usually picks without opposition. When he ran for Knesset in December 2008, he managed to beat an Israeli icon and veteran basketball star Tal Brody for a slot on the Likud list. Brody had famously “put Israel on the map.” But Danon had mapped out the Likud activists who decided the race.
He also was elected chairman of the Likud central committee despite opposition from Netanyahu and other top figures in the party. Danon is not the first Likud politician who succeeded by building support among the party’s rank-in-file. But he is the first, at least in many years, to employ the strategy of building himself internationally concurrently with his work among grassroots Likud activists. He employed respected public relations advisers – the late Charley Levine, Jonny Daniels and Elie Bennett. While many Likud MKs fight for good press in Israel Hayom and Yediot Aharonot, for more than a decade Danon has actively sought as many headlines as he could in The Jerusalem Post.
Danon wanted politicians in Washington and pastors in Texas to know who he was just as much as he wanted to reach out to Likud activists in Petah Tikva and Ashkelon. He reached out to Christian Evangelicals and Republican congressmen and even wrote a book criticizing US President Barack Obama as a freshman MK. Before too long, he was much more known in America than higher ranking Likud officials like Gideon Sa’ar and Gilad Erdan, who did not try as hard to build themselves abroad.
Building his reputation internationally made Danon seem worldly and bigger for the Likud activists who decided his political fate. His rebelliousness repeatedly irked Netanyahu but also forced him to take him seriously, which built Danon up further. When it came time to pick an ambassador to the United Nations, Netanyahu could have picked an ally like Minister-without-Portfolio Ophir Akunis. But instead he picked Danon, whose rebelliousness Netanyahu preferred to see in a different country.
If Danon is the Likud’s troublemaker, Netanyahu wants to sic him on the UN and have him wreak a little havoc over there among Israel’s enemies. Netanyahu’s associates said the prime minister learned to respect Danon’s chutzpah and thinks it could help Israel in the hardest of international arenas. So Danon is off to the Big Apple, in part because he was not afraid to show Israelis and the world that he is not a little pisher.
IMPROVING TIES BETWEEN INDIA AND ISRAEL
Prof. Efraim Inbar
BESA, Aug. 6, 2015
Relations between India and Israel are changing and improving. It was recently announced that Indian president Pranab Mukherjee will hold a state visit to Israel in October, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also expected to visit – the first visit of an Indian prime minister to Israel – early next year. In February 2015, Israeli defense minister Moshe Ya’alon visited India, during which the two countries finalized a major defense deal worth more than $1.5 billion.
No less significantly, we have witnessed a shift in India’s traditionally pro- Palestinian stance at the United Nations. New Delhi abstained from voting on a UN Human Rights Council motion in favor of the Palestinians. (The vote was to accept the Inquiry Commission Report on the 2014 Israeli strikes in Gaza, and transfer the file to the International Criminal Court). Indeed, India had already abstained in June on a vote to give UN recognition to an NGO with Hamas links. It should however be noted that India still does not vote with Israel and the United States, and that both abstentions were related to Hamas (an Islamist terrorist organization). It remains to be seen whether a similar shift can be expected on other Palestinian issues.
This long-awaited shift in India’s position toward Israel is the result of several domestic and international developments. First, the Hindu nationalist BJ Party (BJP) returned to power in May 2014. The BJP has always been more favorably disposed toward the Jewish State – a natural ally against Muslim extremism – than the left-leaning Congress Party. Moreover, the BJP’s charismatic leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been a good friend of Israel.
The BJP is also less sensitive to the large Muslim minority in India (180 million) that is believed to be more critical of close ties with Israel. And in any case, Islam in that part of the world is more tolerant than in the Middle East. While for many Muslims around the globe, Islam is the dominant component of their identity, this is not necessarily true of India’s Muslims. The Indian component of their identity, several thousand years old, precedes the Muslim one. Indeed, about 8 percent of India’s Muslims voted for Modi.
Second, a large part of the Indian political and bureaucratic establishment, which in the past had evinced a lukewarm attitude toward Israel, nowadays shares the view that the bilateral relations that have intensified since the mid-1990s are very beneficial to India. The multi-faceted interactions in the areas of defense industries, counter terrorism, intelligence, agriculture, health, science, and technology have blossomed in recent years. The defense ties, in particular, have been a significant factor in the increased closeness between Jerusalem and New Delhi. Moreover, the lobbies of the two states cooperate in Washington…
Third, international factors that had inhibited good relations with Israel have lost some of their power. As India gradually acquires greater global importance, it feels less pressure to please the Muslim, and particularly the Arab, bloc. The Arab world is in the midst of a deep sociopolitical crisis that will probably last for decades. Moreover, the balance of power in the international oil market has shifted largely towards the buyer. Hence despite the fact that over eight million Indians are employed in the Gulf, and that most of Indian’s oil comes from that area, the international leverage of the Arab countries has been weakened. India has also been bitterly disappointed by the lack of support it receives from Arab states on the Kashmir issue.
Fourth, India can still plausibly claim that its abstentions at the UN are not a betrayal of its historic support for the struggle of the Palestinians. Nevertheless, New Delhi realizes that Muslim and other states merely pay lip service to the Palestinian issue.
The shift in India’s position on Israel also reflects several international trends. First, it shows that India is gradually growing into its elevated status on the world scene and increasingly behaves in accordance with its own interests, and with diminished sensitivity to other actors. Although India has always claimed a special role in international affairs, following the end of the Cold War and the liberalization of the Indian economy its potential for great power status is coming to fruition.
Second, it reveals the true power of the Arab world. As the Arab tragedy unfolds, particularly since the so-called Arab Spring, the Arab world is in disarray and unable to wield much international pressure. Third, it indicates that the Indo-Israeli relationship has matured and entered into a new stage. India recognizes the importance of the relations with the Jewish State and is willing to take into consideration Israel’s interests. Obviously, the contents of the bilateral relationship are more important than votes at the United Nations – a morally bankrupt institution. But India’s gesture is welcome nonetheless.
Finally, India’s shift is likely to resonate beyond the corridors of the United Nations, and Third World countries might follow its example. After all, India is considered one of the leaders of the Third World bloc. We have already seen how African countries such as Nigeria have sided with Israel at the United Nations. Israel is a strong country with much to offer the international community, while its Arab enemies are losing influence in the international arena. Indeed, one important lesson from India’s behavior is that the fears of international isolation among Israelis are greatly exaggerated.
ISRAEL AND JAPAN ARE FINALLY BECOMING FRIENDS. WHY?
Arthur Herman
Mosaic, Aug. 6, 2015
Walk down a side street in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Eshkol and you may came across a group of students chatting loudly in Hebrew as they review their Bible lessons of the day. Hardly an extraordinary sight in Israel—except that these aren’t Israelis. They’re young Japanese on student visas who have assumed hybrid names like Asher Sieto Kimura and Suzana Keiren Mimosa. And they’re Makuyas: members of a Japanese religious group that’s been fervently supportive of Israel since 1948.
The movement’s founder—“Makuya” is Japanese for ohel moed, the biblical tent of meeting or tabernacle—was Ikuro Teshima, a Christian businessman who adopted the name Abraham in the belief that the birth of Israel marked the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. His dream, finally realized in the 1960s, was to send groups of young Japanese to Israel, there to study Hebrew and Jewish thought and to volunteer in hospitals, schools, and senior centers. Since then, over 1,000 Makuyas have attended the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the University of Haifa, the Technion, and other institutions of higher learning. In Japan itself, the Makuya newsletter reaches more than 300,000 subscribers.
Makuya aside, it is true, love of Israel used to be an anomaly in Japan. But it is much less of one now. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the first Japanese premier in almost a decade to visit the Jewish state, represents a political establishment that has undergone a significant shift in perception, to the point where a country once kept at arm’s length by Tokyo is now increasingly seen to merit a friendly and indeed a deferential bow. And the feeling is warmly reciprocated.
How significant is this? When one thinks of Israel’s relations with Asia, two countries may come to mind before Japan. First, India: a fellow democracy with which Israel’s trade ties have been fairly constant over recent decades and diplomatic relations, always cool, have been notably warming under the current premiership of Narendra Modi. Second, China: a country with which Israel’s trade ties are likewise substantial and growing— jumping from $51 million in 1992 to more than $11 billion in 2014—even as on the international scene China not only sides vocally with some of Israel’s and the West’s deadliest enemies but also remains a largely closed society within and militarily belligerent without. This is all the more reason to focus on the largely neglected story of Israel and Japan: another democracy, another American ally, and, with India, another Asian nation directly threatened by Chinese aggression and expansionism.
Before the 1990s, the best word for describing Japan-Israel relations was chilly. Although Israel’s first embassy in Tokyo opened in 1952, Japan’s embassy in Tel Aviv had to wait till the 1960s. Deep dependence on Middle East oil made observing the Arab boycott of Israel a diplomatic priority for decades. Japan did abstain from voting on the UN’s notorious Zionism/racism resolution of 1975, but to this day most Japanese politicians mouth the kind of kneejerk anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian rhetoric that prevails in international diplomatic forums.
It’s a matter of historical curiosity that, long ago, relations were once better. As early as 1918 the imperial Japanese government, echoing the words of Britain’s Balfour Declaration, endorsed “the ardent desire of the Zionists to establish in Palestine a National Jewish Homeland.” In 1934, Tokyo unveiled what came to be known as the Fugu Plan, encouraging Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to settle in Japanese-occupied Manchuria and Shanghai (the latter occupied in 1937). Jews in these places were to be given complete religious freedom as well as the right to set up their own schools and cultural institutions, funded, or so Tokyo hoped, by the world Jewish community. Although the Fugu Plan never found either sufficient settlers or sufficient funding, in the end some 24,000 Jews managed to escape Hitler either by immigrating through Japan to other countries or by living in places like Shanghai, which accepted 15,000 Jewish refugees.
Meanwhile, Japan’s true Raoul Wallenberg was Chiune Sugihara, briefly the Japanese consul in Kovno, Lithuania. From late 1939 until August 1940 when he was reassigned to Berlin, Sugihara allowed escaping Jews to travel and stay in Japan itself, ostensibly on their way to the Dutch island nation of Curaçao (which required no entry visa). Thanks to Sugihara, at least 6,000 Jews received Japanese transit visas. Some desperate refugees even learned to forge his signature.
But that was then. The Arab economic boycott, compounded in the mid-1970s by the OPEC oil embargo, terminated any residual warm feelings between Japan and Israel. And so things would long remain. Starting in the late 1990s, and accelerating as Israel’s own economic prospects began to boom, it was not Japan but South Korea and, especially, China that became the Jewish state’s most important East Asian trading partners. By 2013 Israeli was exporting to China four times more than to Japan. All this being so, it is no surprise that, in addition to playing foreign-investment catchup, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is now strongly encouraging Japanese companies to take the plunge into the buoyant Israeli market, and why an Israel eager to enlarge its own Asian export market is no less eager for a connection with the world’s third largest economy.
At least on the surface, the rapid thaw in Israel-Japan relations has centered primarily in consumer trade. At a Tel Aviv news conference during his January visit, Abe declared that “the economy is the one area which has the greatest potential for advancement of bilateral ties.” Israel’s government reciprocated by announcing the opening of a new trade office in Osaka and an increase in the number of trade officials at the embassy in Tokyo. In his response to Abe, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to invest tens of millions of shekels over the next three years “to strengthen the Israeli-Japanese partnership.” He added: “we all understand there is great untapped potential in our relations.”
Potential there certainly is—and it extends well beyond consumer trade. Abe’s January visit was preceded by May 2014 meetings that produced bilateral agreements concerning everything from cooperation on tourism and agriculture to space and cyber defense. Technology looms especially large. Japanese medical-device and other tech companies are queuing up to meet with their Israeli counterparts, and a road show of Israeli start-ups is headed for Tokyo this fall to show their wares to Japanese executives. Last October, Toyota held a first-ever “hackathon” at its InfoTechnology Center in Tel Aviv. By December, the Times of Israel was reporting on the first joint Israeli-Japanese start-up: fittingly, a start-up for start-ups that, at the click of a button, matches the ideas of Japanese entrepreneurs with Israeli venture-capital firms and enables meetings over the Internet.
Small stuff, perhaps, but it’s precisely small-scale innovation that is important for reviving the Japanese economy. Japanese companies “have awakened to the need to innovate,” says Vered Farber, director of an NGO working to bring Israeli and Japanese businessmen together, and “they realize few countries are as innovative as Israel”—especially in areas like robotics, medical devices, and information technology. But the interest in Israeli innovation goes beyond these areas to, especially, cyber and defense technology. Although, on both sides, defense officials are understandably reticent about their growing ties, and joint development of new weapons systems won’t happen anytime soon, Japan’s Ministry of Defense has started to send more teams of representatives to Israel and it’s not difficult to imagine where key visits will take place…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
NO PAUSE IN IRAN’S VOW TO DESTROY ISRAEL
Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall
JCPA, Aug. 16, 2015
Sixteen years after his death, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s founding vision — that the eradication of Zionism is an inevitable precondition for redeeming contemporary Islam — keeps guiding the current generation of Iran’s religious, political and military establishment. To him the destruction of Zionism was an axiom never to be questioned or strayed from and an objective to be perpetually and actively pursued. According to this vision, Israel should be fought as part of a protracted global struggle between Islam and the West, which “planted intentionally the Zionist Entity in the heart of Islamic World.”
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was faithful to this doctrine, making it the centerpiece of his foreign policy; current President Hassan Rouhani, his successor for the last two years, is also faithful to this doctrine, just less obvious. Notwithstanding, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei bears the torch and is the chief agitator for the extermination of Israel, spreading this message worldwide over social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, books1 and addressing various target audiences in English, Arabic and Persian.
The Iranian religious, political, intellectual and military elite support and repeat Khamenei’s messages. Members of the Iranian Army high command (as opposed to the Revolutionary Guards) have even declared their willingness and capability to destroy Israel, once the leader’s order is given. Practically speaking, the regime’s intelligence and international subversion agencies, mostly the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, massively support anti-Israel terror groups and stage repeated conferences in Iran dedicated to denial of the Holocaust and to the deligitimization of Israel’s right to exist.
Current Iranian anti-Israeli rhetoric is nothing but an adjustment of the battle cries from the 1979 Revolution to the unfolding of new Middle East geopolitics, especially the Islamic Awakening, as Iranian leaders refer to the Arab Spring uprisings, and the recent Israeli-Palestinian clashes.
Iran’s current leadership, especially Revolutionary Guards leaders who progress to assume political senior positions as Parliament (Majlis) members, cabinet ministers, provincial governors and captains of economy, interpret Iran’s perceived “divine” international achievements as signs of the Mahdi’s messianic coming, reaffirming to them Khomeini’s revolutionary, activist Shiism. These signs include Iran’s retaining its nuclear program, defying Western sanctions and signing a historical nuclear deal; the repeated successes of Iranian-backed Palestinian and terror groups, namely Hamas, and Palestine Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah, in standing up to Israel; the disintegration of Arab states and the Arab world; and the Islamic Awakening. They believe that just as Khomeini “prophesied” the downfall of the USSR and Saddam’s Iraq, his prophecy about Israel’s destruction must also come true. Iran can facilitate its downfall either by fighting Israel or by massively supporting anti-Israel terror groups. The nuclear deal establishing Iran as a threshold nuclear state with fast breakout capabilities to a nuclear bomb will enable Iran to increase its efforts in hastening Khomeini’s prophecy.
The intensive propaganda for the destruction of Israel is just part of the Iranian regime’s activities aimed at “exporting the revolution,” allowing Iran to pose as a champion of the Palestinian issue, as well as fulfilling Khomeini’s vision of destroying Israel. This championing assumes the form of supplying various weapons — from sniper rifles, anti-tank (AT) missiles, rockets and drones — to terror groups attacking Israel’s southern border (the Gaza-based Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad), and its northern border (Lebanese Hizbullah). Throughout the last year, and especially since the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, the Iranian Supreme Leader ran an extensive campaign to provide West Bank Palestinians with weapons “just like the Gaza groups have,” and was widely supported by the Iranian Army, as well as the Revolutionary Guards High Command.
The aforementioned conflict coincided with the Iranian holiday Yom Al-Quds, or Jerusalem Day, celebrated since 1979 not only in Iran but all over the Islamic world on the last Friday of Ramadan to demonstrate Muslims’ desire to “liberate” Jerusalem from Israeli domination. It is celebrated by anti-Israeli and anti-American belligerent rhetoric and with calls to destroy Israel, “the regime occupying Jerusalem,” and “Death to America.” In short, Khomeini’s teachings, including the wish to destroy Israel, keep defining the Islamic Revolution’s purposes…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Danny Danon Confidant Says Hawkish Minister Will ‘Surprise Many’ as Israel’s UN Envoy: Dovid Efune, Algemeiner, Aug. 14, 2015 —Hawkish Israeli Minister Danny Danon, just tapped to become Israel’s next envoy to the United Nations, “will surprise many” in his new role, a close confidant and adviser to the U.S.-educated Likud Party member told The Algemeiner on Friday.
Israel’s Cabinet Approves Regulatory Scheme for Gas-Field Development: Sara Toth Stub, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 16, 2015 —Israel’s cabinet Sunday approved a regulatory framework that will allow the stalled development of its large offshore natural gas fields to resume.
On the Future of Israel’s Natural Gas Reserves: BESA, July 15, 2015—On July 15, 2015, prominent academics, civil servants, corporate leaders and an audience of well over 300 people gathered at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies for a discussion of the strategic and geopolitical aspects of Israel’s newly-discovered natural gas deposits. Below is a summary of the conference.
Reforms – Prospects and Impediments: Daniel Doron, Jerusalem Post, June 30, 2015 —Israel’s last elections proved how right David Ben-Gurion was when he said that, in Israel, whoever does not believe in miracles is not a realist.
American Jewry’s Fateful Hour: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, Aug. 13, 2015—American Jewry is being tested today as never before. The future of the community is tied up in the results of the test.
