NETANYAHU SAYS LAUDER PEACE PUSH IS HIS BIGGEST CHALLENGE

ISI LEIBLER

Candidly Speaking: When I spoke to the prime minister, it was clear that Lauder’s intervention with Trump angered and distressed him.

Netanyahu and Lauder. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Last week, World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder released a series of statements confirming that he had encouraged US President Donald Trump to recognize that peace between Israelis and Palestinians was now attainable. He also stressed that he considers Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to be a moderate committed to peace.

Implicit in his narrative is that the Israeli government and especially Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had previously been insufficiently flexible but that Trump could succeed in his efforts.
We have just celebrated Independence Day and are approaching commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War and reunification of Jerusalem. The country is in great shape; the economy is booming and we have emerged as a formidable military power.

With a US administration that pulls no punches about its support and alliance with us, Israel is well-placed to achieve many of its long-term strategic goals, including resolution of borders, agreed parameters of settlement activity and ultimately, formal annexation of the major settlement blocs and Golan Heights.

But these require skillful diplomacy and sensitivity to Trump’s belief that he can negotiate a peace settlement with Abbas even though his predecessors have failed.

What has recently taken place among American Jews is somewhat surreal. Leaders of the progressive religious denominations are behaving as though possessed by a dybbuk.

But the situation has now become far more disconcerting.

Lauder, who over the years has conducted private meetings with Abbas, is seeking to persuade Trump, with whom he has enjoyed a close relationship for many years, that Abbas is sincere and genuinely willing to make peace.

I have personally known Lauder for over 20 years and can testify that since his tenure as US ambassador to Austria, he has devoted himself to the Jewish people and the welfare of Israel, to which he has made major contributions, both philanthropically and by direct investment. Lauder’s generous philanthropic contributions were largely responsible for the revival of the devastated remnants of Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe.

Last month, he was elected for a third term as president of the WJC, the international Jewish umbrella body. He successfully reinvigorated the organization after its collapse in the wake of the corruption scandal that engulfed it following discovery by the New York attorney-general of severe financial malpractice. Over the last decade, Lauder succeeded in recruiting top professionals, restructuring the organization, and restoring its status as the premier body representing Diaspora Jewry.

Lauder had a close, almost intimate relationship with Netanyahu and loyally supported him during his years of isolation after his 1999 defeat by Ehud Barak.

But the relationship ended some five years ago when, as a major owner, Lauder was unable to prevent Channel 10 from broadcasting a vicious campaign to demonize Netanyahu’s family. Since that time, Netanyahu has distanced himself from Lauder and the WJC.

Lauder has always dreamed that he would one day emerge as the Jewish leader to facilitate a genuine peace settlement. To this end, he has repeatedly insisted that Abbas genuinely seeks peace. He now claims that he has persuaded Abbas to make “major concessions.”

In a lengthy conversation with Lauder, I failed to dissuade him and convince him of the realities of the situation.

He spoke with an almost messianic fervor about the peace which we could now grasp. Setting aside the issues, I reminded him that he was breaching an iron law governing Diaspora Jewish leaders: Those not resident in Israel cross lines when they canvass foreign governments to intervene in the security policies of the elected Israeli government. I also emphasized that on these issues, Netanyahu was implementing policies supported by the clear majority of Israelis.

What makes his behavior even more outrageous is that Lauder confirmed that he had never discussed his plans with the prime minister. So, on whose behalf was he acting? He did claim that three formal efforts to engage in dialogue were initiated but Netanyahu had adamantly refused to meet him.

When I spoke to the prime minister, it was clear that Lauder’s intervention with Trump angered and distressed him. He referred to Lauder as “my biggest challenge to overcome” because he has immense influence on Trump and is promoting a peace program that had been rejected by Israel but was attractive to an American president possibly easily seduced into believing that a quick peace could be achieved.

I warned Lauder repeatedly that he was being conned by the duplicitous Abbas who is an inveterate antisemite but speaks with a forked tongue, portraying himself as a man of peace and moderation to the outside world while continuing to encourage religious hatred and antisemitism among his own people.

I asked him whether he could visualize the “moderate” Abbas:

• Coexisting with Israel as a Jewish state.
  Agreeing to Israel implementing whatever security is required to ensure that a Palestinian entity is demilitarized and prevent the Iranians from approaching.
• Accepting that the major settlement blocs will be incorporated into Israel.
• Bringing an end to the foul exhortations of hatred emanating from the mosques, schools and media depicting Jews as subhuman, calling for the destruction of Israel and inciting to murdering Israelis.
• Relinquishing the Palestinian “right of return” to Israel.
• Terminating weekly payments to murderers of Jews and pensions to their survivors.
• Ending the sanctification of mass murderers by naming schools, city squares and even football clubs to commemorate them.

I predict that Abbas would not concede to any of the above. All he seeks is to persuade Trump to carry on the negotiations – while ceding nothing but making false gestures and undermining Israel internationally.

Abbas, who has avoided democratic elections, is now despised by his people for his corruption, and has imbued them with such hatred of Israel that, even if he wanted to make concessions, he wouldn’t be able to do so without being toppled or assassinated.

I also asked Lauder, if Israel and the PA were to reach an agreement involving more territorial concessions, what would prevent Hamas from moving in on areas no longer protected by Israel? However, I failed to move Lauder. He told me he is being flooded with letters of support including many from former critics. I responded that this should not be perceived as positive, and that most responsible Jewish leaders were reluctant to offend him by telling him what they thought.

Although, like most Israelis, I pray for a genuine peace, I am fearful that despite his good intentions, Lauder may be inadvertently undermining one of the best opportunities we have ever had with the US as a genuine ally. Because of his proximity to Trump, the result of his intervention may be even more damaging than J Street’s campaign to undermine Israel. He insists that if his efforts fail, we will have tried, nothing will have been lost and we will simply return to the status quo.

There is no certainty that Trump will continue to be influenced by Lauder. Should that change, relations could be permanently affected by any fallout.

Lauder is a loyal and devoted friend of Israel. He has no second agenda. He is dedicated to the interests of the Jewish people and his good intentions are not in question.

But he should take a step back and recognize the possible dire consequences if, as most of us fear, his well-meaning but seriously misplaced personal intervention could backfire.

He should immediately come to Israel and meet with the prime minister, who must set aside their differences, engage him in dialogue and seek to persuade him to back down before Trump makes his final moves and visits the region.

The writer’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com.

He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com.

New York City Council Member Raises Pressure on CUNY Over Honoring of BDS Advocate Linda Sarsour

Ben Cohen

Anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour (center). Photo: Facebook.

As the row continues over the forthcoming honoring by the City University of New York (CUNY) of Linda Sarsour – a prominent advocate of the BDS campaign targeting Israel – a leading New York City Democrat is calling on fellow progressives to recognize her as a bigot.

Rory Lancman – a member of the New York City Council from Queens – told The Algemeiner in an interview on Monday that it was “inappropriate” for CUNY to honor Sarsour, given her persistent record of antisemitic and anti-Zionist statements. Sarsour is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at a June 1 commencement ceremony for CUNY’s Graduate School of Public Health.

Although Sarsour has been lionized by Democratic Party leaders – including former President Barack Obama, who named her as a “Champion of Change,” as well as New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who penned a tribute to Sarsour in Time magazine – Lancman takes a much less sanguine view of her public outbursts. These include tweets declaring that “nothing is creepier than Zionism” and open incitement against the anti-Islamist writers Brigitte Gabriel and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whom Sarsour said deserved an “a$$ whipping,” before adding that she wished she could have their “vaginas taken away.”

read more: …BDS Advocate Linda Sarsour

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AP refutes claims it helped Nazis

JTA & Arutz Sheva Staff

Associated Press publishes review concluding its staff did not help the Nazis or their cause during World War II.

Associated Press offices in ManhattanReuters

The Associated Press has concluded following a review that its staff did not help the Nazis or their cause during World War II.

German historian Harriet Scharnberg last year revealed archival material which detailed how AP struck a deal with Adolf Hitler’s regime for access inside Nazi-ruled Germany.

In an article for the Studies in Contemporary History journal, Scharnberg revealed that in return for that exclusive access – by 1935 all other international news agencies had been forced to leave Germany – AP signed up to what was known as the Schriftleitergesetz, or editor’s law, which meant it pledged to toe the Nazi party line and not publish any material “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home.”

On Wednesday, however, AP refuted those claims in its, though the news agency did acknowledge that German staff members clashed with propaganda officials, “with some doing a better job of resisting Nazi demands than others.” It also acknowledged that AP paid the salaries of several photo service employees who were drafted into propaganda units covering the fighting.

But given the restrictions of operating under the totalitarian regime, AP acted as “forthrightly and independently as possible,” the review said.

“We recognize that AP should have done some things differently during this period, for example protesting when AP photos were exploited by the Nazis for propaganda within Germany and refusing to employ German photographers with active political affiliations and loyalties,” the report says.

“However, suggestions that AP at any point sought to help the Nazis or their heinous cause are simply wrong. Due in large part to the AP’s aggressive reporting, the dangers of the Nazis’ ambitions for domination in Europe and its brutal treatment of its opponents were revealed to the wider world.”

According to AP’s own article on the review, the news agency’s reporting in the 1930s “alerted readers in the United States to the acts of anti-Semitism and cruelty of the Nazi regime both in words and photos.”

The yearlong review was written by Larry Heinzerling, an adjunct assistant professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and retired AP deputy international editor, and AP investigative researcher Randy Herschaft.

PM Netanyahu just ROCKED the world in this 2 minute speech