Archaeologists Unearth Ancient City of Famous Biblical Battle - MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN/JNS.ORG CHARISMA NEWS

The site's casemate walls are reminiscent of the type of urban planning found only in Judah and Transjordan. (Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman/Jns.org)

Archaeologists Unearth Ancient City of Famous Biblical Battle

9/16/2016 MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN/JNS.ORG  CHARISMA NEWS

Archaeologists believe they have found evidence of King David's footprints in a mysterious two-gated city from 3,000 years ago, mentioned in the Bible's story of David and Goliath.

The site is known by its modern name, Khirbet Qeiyafa, in Israel's Elah Valley.

After nearly seven years of excavations, the public can now explore the archaeological findings of Qeiyafa through "In the Valley of David and Goliath," a new Bible Lands Museum exhibition that opened earlier this week in Jerusalem. The Qeiyafa findings have sparked debate and intrigued historians and archaeologists since they were first revealed. 

The city was discovered between Sokho and Azekah, on the border between the Philistines and the Judeans, in the place where David and Goliath battled. It's mentioned in the Torah in 1 Samuel 17:1-2.

Carbon-14 dating of some 28 charred olive pits found during excavations date the city as existing around the end of the 11th century BCE, until the early 10th century, in the days of Saul and David. 

"No one can argue with this data," said Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, Yigal Yadin Chair of Archeology at the Institute of Archeology at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He, along with Sa'ar Ganor from the Israel Antiquities Authority and Prof. Michal Hazel of Southern Adventist University of Tennessee, led the excavations. 

Among the site's highlights are its two gates: the western gate, which faced Philistia, and the southern gate, which faced Judah. Having two gates for a relatively small city of 5.7 acres is unusual, according to Bible Lands curator Yehuda Kaplan. Gates are the weakest part of any city. The two gates are what led excavators to identify the site with Sha'arayim (Hebrew for "two gates"), a city mentioned in the David and Goliath story in the Book of Samuel, which reads, "...And the slain Philistines lay along the way of Sha'arayim, as far as Gath and Ekron" (1 Sam. 17:52). It's also in Judges 16:5 and in Jeremiah 17:19-20.

The gates were corroborated by additional evidence of Jewish activity at Qeiyafa, including thousands of sheep, goat, cow and fish bones, and the absence of non-kosher pig bones, Kaplan said.

Evidence of cultic activity throughout the city was also unearthed, as well as two inscriptions written in the Canaanite script. One was incised on a jar and contains the Hebrew name Eshbaal, son of Beda. The second was inscribed on a pottery shard with only a few identifiable words, including "king" and "judge." Many of the letters seem to reflect Hebraic writing. Garfinkel suggests this is the earliest writing documentation of the Hebrew language discovered to date.

Among the pottery on the site, less than 2 percent was typical Philistine pottery. Kaplan said if the community had been Philistine, a minimum of 20 percent of Philistine design should have been found. Of the 24 weapons and tools discovered, 67 percent were made from iron and 33 percent from bronze. Use of iron during this period by other sites in Judah, such as Arad and Beersheva, helped archeologists identify Qeiyafa as a Judean site.

Finally, casemate walls—two thinner, parallel walls with empty space in between and a belt of houses abutting the casemates, incorporating them as part of the construction—are reminiscent of the type of urban planning found only in Judah and Transjordan.

Garfinkel explained that before the period of King David, people lived in small farming communities. Around 11th BCE, these agrarian communities became urban societies.

"In this, the biblical tradition has historic memory," Garfinkel said. "If we ask, 'Where is archaeology starting to support biblical tradition, Khirbet Qeiyafa is the beginning." 

There's only one other archaeological reference to King David found in Israel, the Aramaic inscription from the mid-9th century BCE found at Tel Dan. This inscription, on display as part of the new exhibit, is attributed to Hazel, king of Damascus, who boasts about killing a king of Israel and a king of Judah, the latter of which is referred to in the inscription as "King of the House of David."

While the site stirs the biblical imagination, it also serves a political role. 

Biblical Minimalists, a band of biblical scholars and archaeologists trying to eradicate the connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel by claiming there's not reliable evidence for what had happened in ancient Israel, can be negated by some of Qeiyafa's findings. Within 10 days of his publishing the first paper on Qeiyafa, another article claimed the site as Palestinian, Garfinkel said.

"This happens a lot," said Jacob L. Wright, associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University in Atlanta. "In no other area of the world do you have such a connection to biblical imagination."

Wright said there's likely a middle ground. While he believes Garfinkel has placed Qeiyafa in the right time period and that it's likely a Judean community, experts aren't certain that King David had anything to do directly with the site. 

"One has to separate the bible and archaeology," Wright said. "The minimalists want to deny the state of Judah and Israel; they are politically driven and have a loose agenda. ... But it does not help when the maximalists try to connect everything they find on the ground with Jesus or King David."

Bible Lands' Kaplan is confident in the exhibit and the story it's telling of Qeiyafa.

"Everything you touch at Khirbet Qeiyafa brings you to this biblical period," he said. 

For the original article, visit jns.org.

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Tourists to Israel Expected to Increase to Five Billion Annually By JNS - BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS

A woman rides a camel in the Judean Desert, Israel (ChameleonsEye / Shutterstock.com)

Tourists to Israel Expected to Increase to Five Billion Annually

By JNS April 1, 2016  BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS

“He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel.” Lamentations 2:1 (The Israel Bible™)

By Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman/JNS.org

Twenty-five years ago, when Nancy Broth started her business, she signed a contract with El Al (the only airline that flew to Israel at the time) and helped people book their flights abroad. Today, Broth—owner of Caves Travel in Baltimore, MD.—works with multiple airlines, dozens of Israeli hotels, and a group of touring companies and guides. She says traveling to Israel has become not just for Jews, but an alluring vacation for people of all ages, sexual orientations, and creeds.

“It’s the Old City of Jerusalem, Masada, Ein Gedi, the Dead Sea,” says Broth, naming some of the most popular tourist attractions in Israel. “More seasoned people like to go to the Galilee, to Eilat, to visit Petra (the ancient city in Jordan). They go to the spa and the wineries—they all love the wineries.”

“Israel is the only place in the world where students, women, and kids can go by themselves to swim in the Tel Aviv beach at sunset, bike through the mountains, or jog through one of the central parks,” echoes Amir Halevi, director general of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism. “There is no other place where there is so much to do and people can feel safe doing it.”

Halevi tells JNS.org that he has seen a steady rise in people from all over the world traveling to Israel, even during times of heightened security concerns such as the current wave of terror—and despite the high travel costs. Hotel prices in Israel have increased by 70 percent over the last decade. Broth points out that even with alternatives to El Al, such as Turkish Airlines and Austrian Airlines, taking a plane halfway around the world is expensive.

Enter Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, who is trying to make Israel travel more affordable. In late February, Levin presented a bill designed to reduce the cost of vacationing in Israel by 20 percent over five years. The bill passed its first Israeli Knesset reading, and Halevi says it is expected to come up for second and third readings within the next few weeks and hopefully pass.

The bill changes the status of hotels in Israel from commercial venues to national infrastructure, which would allow their construction to be approved through a fast and simple procedure by the country’s National Infrastructure Committee. Further, independent local committees would be able to approve hotels’ addition of up to 20 percent of their rooms for residential purposes, which would reduce the risk of investment for the entrepreneur and increase financing sources, meaning faster return on investment.

Halevi says the tourism minister projects that if the bill passes, some 15,000 hotel rooms will be added within five years in Israel, and about 27,000 in 10 years. During the last decade, only about 3,000 new hotel rooms were built in Israel. Likewise, Israeli tourism officials expect the number of annual tourists in the Jewish state to increase from 3 billion to 5 billion within the next three to five years.

The Yad Sarah organization—Israel’s largest group of volunteers (6,000 members) providing a spectrum of free or nominal cost services designed to make life easier for the sick, people with disabilities, senior citizens, and their families—is also playing a role in making travel to Israel more accessible. About a year and a half ago, Yad Sarah opened a tourist services program that allows people who might not have been able to travel to the Jewish state because of sickness or disability to fulfill their dreams.

“We make it so that people, no matter their boundaries, can come and travel in Israel,” says Nadia Alalu, director of tourist services program.

Yad Sarah offers hospital beds, hoists, commodes, oxygen concentrators, and any other equipment that might be needed to make a tourist comfortable and provide for his needs while in Israel. The organization’s wheelchair-accessible vans can pick up travelers at the airport and bring them directly to their destination. Additionally, tour guides who specialize in accommodating people with physical disabilities can be recommended or arranged through Yad Sarah for a nominal fee.

“They come to us because they are having a bar mitzvah and they want their elderly grandmother to be there,” says Alalu, providing an example of the requests she receives. Sometimes, people come from abroad to receive special medical treatment. Then, too, Yad Sarah can set up their hotel room like a home-hospital.

Yad Sarah is available every day from the early morning until 7 p.m., and for emergencies 24/7, says Alalu. A tourist who falls and sprains his ankle, for example, can borrow a pair of crutches from Yad Sarah, just like an Israeli citizen could do through the organization.

“There is nowhere else in the world where services like this exist for free,” Alalu says.

“Everybody just loves Israel,” says Broth, who notes that she is always exploring the creation of new tour packages. “What is not to love?”

Israel vs. the Foreign Media: When the Headlines Make Their Own Headlines - MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN/JNS.ORG CHARISMA NEWS

Israel vs. the Foreign Media: When the Headlines Make Their Own Headlines

6:00AM EST 3/4/2016 MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN/JNS.ORG   charisma news

Israeli rescue personnel respond to a Palestinian terrorist attack near Jerusalem's Damascus Gate on Feb. 3, 2016. The initial CBS News headline for a story about that attack stated, "3 Palestinians killed as daily violence grinds on," failing to identify those Palestinians as the terrorists who carried out the attack and neglecting to mention the attack's Israeli victim, policewoman Hadar Cohen. (Johanna Geron/Flash90)

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no stranger to making headlines, a brewing spat between the Israeli government and foreign media means that the headlines themselves—and the journalists behind them—become the story.

A CBS News headline from last month, "3 Palestinians killed as daily violence grinds on," failed to identify those Palestinians as the terrorists who carried out the attack and neglected to mention the attack's Israeli victim, policewoman Hadar Cohen.

CBS changed the headline—first to "Israeli police kill 3 alleged Palestinian attackers," and then again to "Palestinians kill Israeli officer, wound another before being killed"—after receiving multiple complaints from media watchdog groups and Israel's Government Press Office (GPO). On Feb. 9, Member of Knesset Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) as well as the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee summoned leaders of the Foreign Press Association in Israel for a hearing. Livni said she was troubled by the CBS headline. 

The Knesset hearing—which came less than a week after GPO Director Nitzan Chen threatened to revoke credentials from reporters over inaccurate reporting—led the chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Israel, Reuters regional bureau chief Luke Baker, to slam the messaging of the Israeli government, army, and police.

"We do not agree that the foreign media are biased, and the legitimacy of Israel's campaign against terrorism is entirely determined by how Israel conducts that campaign. It has nothing to do with the foreign media," Baker said at the hearing. 

Baker's reportedly hostile attitude at the hearing was not indicative of an isolated frustration, but rather a growing and nearly explosive antagonism between foreign media and the State of Israel. During a mid-February panel discussion in Jerusalem hosted by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Joseph Federman—bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories at The Associated Press (AP)—said Israel's increasingly strong condemnations of the foreign press are "on the verge of incitement."

"It has become very unpleasant being a journalist in this country," he said.

Last summer, the Israeli Foreign Ministry was forced to take down a 50-second satirical animated video on how Gaza is presented abroad following criticism from the foreign press that the video was mocking them. The clip featured a foreign correspondent painting an unrealistically rosy picture of a purported "liberal and pluralistic" life in Gaza, while ignoring terrorists carrying and firing missiles. 

Baker argued that the video depicted not how foreign media cover Israel, but instead how the Israeli government perceives that coverage.

"Suggesting foreign journalists are stupid, ignorant, or clueless is a strange way of conducting foreign policy," Baker said.

Simon Plosker, managing editor of the Israeli media watchdog organization HonestReporting, told JNS.org that Baker is "underestimating the extent of the problem" on foreign press coverage of Israel. He chuckled at Baker's assertion that among 750 Reuters headlines about the current wave of terrorism, only one (which was later corrected) received complaints, while maybe three or four headlines published by other outlets drew complaints.

Plosker argued that headlines, which go on to make their own headlines, are examples of a systemic problem, rather than isolated incidents. The HonestReporting website lists hundreds of examples of media bias against Israel over the years, including a recent headline by the Los Angeles Times that stated, "Four Palestinians are killed in Israeli violence," when in fact two of the teens mentioned in the headline were killed while carrying out stabbing attacks—cases of Palestinian violence, not Israeli violence. The other two Palestinians were killed in violent demonstrations initiated by Palestinians.

Baker explained that there are several reasons why hostilities may be surfacing between Israel and the foreign press. For starters, he said that while larger news outlets tend to send their most experienced and knowledgeable people to Israel to cover the conflict, the growth of online-based news outlets and social media means that more "younger, thrusting, eager, and less experienced reporters" are part of the picture. The Foreign Press Association in Israel is comprised of a "non-monolithic" 400 reporters (plus about 200 freelance writers), and their work should not be defined with a single brushstroke, said Baker.

Israel hosts many more foreign correspondents than other Middle East countries who are also engaged in conflicts, in part because Israel is the only country in the region with a free press. Reporters in Israel can get visas, pass a basic security check, and obtain a press card. 

In other Mideast countries, the process is much more difficult. Iranian-born academic Majid Mohammadi wrote in December 2015 that Iran keeps visiting journalists on a tight leash in order to control the country's image overseas. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported last summer that Syria "remains an extremely risky place for the press. ... The media are at the mercy of all sides in the conflict, which have consistently shown ... a willingness to use journalists for their own deadly purposes." 

The robust foreign media presence in Israel is also a manifestation of news outlets' prioritization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, argues Matti Friedman, a former Jerusalem bureau reporter for the AP and now a popular commentator on media bias.

"Staffing is the best measure of the importance of a story to a particular news organization," Friedman wrote for Tablet magazine in August 2014. "When I was a correspondent at the AP, the agency had more than 40 staffers covering Israel and the Palestinian territories. That was significantly more news staff than the AP had in China, Russia, or India, or in all of the 50 countries of sub-Saharan Africa combined. It was higher than the total number of news-gathering employees in all the countries where the uprisings of the 'Arab Spring' eventually erupted."

But is the foreign press corps' size, in and of itself, a factor that sways news reporting against Israel? The American Jewish Committee (AJC) raised the possibility in a blog post that reacted to Friedman's 2014 Tablet article, listing "disproportionate staffing numbers" among what the post called the "Top 3 Reasons for Anti-Israel Media Bias." 

Yet AJC acknowledged, "It's unclear whether the disproportional staffing is a result of the world's seemingly endless appetite for news from Israel and Palestinian territories, or whether the vast production ability of all of those staffers serves to create the market."

HonestReporting's Plosker told JNS.org that he doesn't know whether media bias against Israel has grown in recent years, but he did say that the bias has grown more obvious. Whereas the bias used to be buried somewhere within the narrative of a given article, today Plosker said he sees that more headlines "are screaming bias in people's faces." For instance, an MSNBC reporter on live television recently reported than an unarmed Arab man was shot while charging Israeli police, even though the Arab was filmed with a blade in his hand. A 2014 CNN headline, "4 Israelis, 2 Palestinians dead in Jerusalem," failed to explain that the two Palestinians murdered the four Israelis.

Echoing the Foreign Press Association's Baker, Plosker noted that the trend of news organizations "parachuting in" inexperienced reporters to cover Israel means the journalists likely lack the nuanced perspective that is needed to write about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The framework through which most of the world sees the conflict is that Israelis are the aggressors and the Palestinians the victims," Plosker said. "When you have incidents in which Israelis are being stabbed and the terrorists are being shot at during that act of terror, it can mess with that framework. That's why you see these headlines in which the Palestinian becomes the subject and even the victim of the headline, which personally I find highly unethical."

At the Conference of Presidents panel discussion, AP's Federman was heckled when he said that the news agency prefers to avoid use of the word "terrorist." Baker told JNS.org that Reuters also has that policy.

"We don't use 'terrorist' or 'freedom fighter,'" said Baker. "Those are value-loaded words. We describe what people do and allow the readers to understand and make their own conclusions. ... This is not an attempt to take sides, but an attempt not to take sides."

During the event, Barbara Opall-Rome, the Israel bureau chief for Defense News, said that if media use the term "terrorism" to refer to violence against unarmed civilians, the same term should not be used to denote crimes against soldiers or police.

"We do not consider that acts of terror, because the victims were in uniform at the time," she said.

What about when incidents occur in disputed areas like Judea and Samaria, such as January's murder of Israeli mother of six, Dafna Meir, in her Otniel home? 

"She is an unarmed civilian no matter where she lives, but the fact that she lives in Otniel ... blurs the lines for other [media] organizations," Opall-Rome said, noting that for some outlets, attacks that occur outside of Israel's 1967 borders are seen as "collateral damage, the bloody price that we all have to pay for this interminable conflict."

And what about the recent rise in stabbing attacks carried out by Palestinian adolescents?

"I mean, what do you call a 12-year-old wielding a knife, what about a 15-year-old with scissors in her school bag? Is she a terrorist? ... I would argue that this is not bias, that in the case of these lone-wolf attackers, we would call them 'assailants,' we would call them 'perpetrators.' And when the motive is not quite clear, we would call them 'alleged offenders,'" Opall-Rome said.

Baker said media watchdog organizations are starting to overstep their bounds and are too closely aligned with the government, describing them as "lobby pressure groups."

"The best journalists tend to hold a mirror up to any society," he said. "Sometimes, when we (foreign journalists) hold up that mirror, people find the reflection difficult to deal with or different from what the domestic media are writing. They assume it is not accurate, but it may just be a different perspective."

Plosker countered that HonestReporting is an NGO whose job is simply to inform the government, and that the organization has no intention to infringe on freedom of the press.

"Freedom of the press," said Plosker, "sets us apart from our Arab neighbors—but to ensure that the press understands that with freedom comes responsibility."

For the original article, visit jns.org.

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In Israel, US Jewish Leaders Study 'Timely, Realistic, Frightening' Middle East - MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN/JNS.ORG CHARISMA NEWS

In Israel, US Jewish Leaders Study 'Timely, Realistic, Frightening' Middle East

2/17/2016 MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN/JNS.ORG  charisma news

Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses visiting leaders from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations at the Inbal hotel in Jerusalem on Feb. 14, 2016. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

"Timely, realistic and frightening" were the words that William Daroff, senior vice president for public policy and director of the Washington Office of the Jewish Federations of North America, used to describe reports about the Middle East security situation. 

Speaking on the second day of the leadership mission of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Daroff's remarks came after an hour-long session focused on Iran after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, and just before another hour-long panel discussion on "the Middle East volcano."

The 42nd annual Israel mission for the Conference of Presidents, an umbrella body representing 50 U.S. Jewish organizations, kicked off Feb. 14 as the group of more than 100 delegates was welcomed with a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

The meeting minutes and panel discussions reflected the current gloom-and-doom picture of the region.

"Syria will leave us with two bad options: We will have either Daesh (Islamic State) or Iran on our border," said Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon on Feb. 15.

"I don't think Israel has lost. I think the world has lost," Member of Knesset Yair Lapid, the Yesh Atid party's leader, said regarding Iran.

The Middle East has always been a region wrought with contradictions, but the conference highlighted how in the realm of security, Middle East experts are now unsure what is truth and what is façade, if what will happen tomorrow will be indicative of what will happen in 10 years, and if those we assume are our enemies might just be our friends (or vice versa).

Take the Iran deal. Dr. Emily B. Landau, senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), quoted IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot as saying at the INSS conference last month that the Iran deal entails both opportunities and dangers. Landau said both are true. 

"We are working on different timelines; there is a five-year timeline and there is a 15-year timeline," she explained. "On the five-year timelines, yes, this is a strategic turning point because [Eizenkot] believes the threat has been delayed. ... Iran will be focused on upholding the deal to get the economic and diplomatic benefits of the deal."

But nothing has changed in terms of Iran's strategic goals, and in 15 years Iran will likely have nuclear weapons, which translates into a nuclear Middle East, according to Landau.

"Delaying a threat is not taking care of a threat," she said.

Here's the next dichotomy: Conference experts said that while they feel the JCPOA has stunted the immediate growth of Iran's nuclear program, the deal has empowered Iran in other ways. The reintegration of Iran into the world economic system has led to a real change in Iranian behavior, said Michael Segall, senior analyst for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think tank. He said Iran has moved from covert operations in the Middle East to overt operations.

"No one is trying to hide behind secrecy anymore," said Segall. "We see Iran going from being perceived as part of the problem in the Middle East to part of the solution."

But Segall said that is only a perception and that Iran remains a very dangerous threat for Israel. While Iran partners with Russia to keep in power Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who the Americans were confident would be out of office a few years ago, the Islamic Republic is simultaneously training and bolstering the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah. Even if Hezbollah is beaten down and banged up by its participation in the Syrian civil war, Segall said that ultimately, "Hezbollah will come out strong and experienced in fighting. Hezbollah will be even more threatening in the future."

How could the United States let this happen? Delusion? Ignorance? Innocence? It is likely a combination of all of the above, according to what Dr. Michael Doran, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, told the Conference of the Presidents. There lies the next contradiction: a world superpower entrapped by what Doran called "fantasy."

"The president (Barack Obama) doesn't understand Iran the way we do," said Doran. "The president represents a trend in the U.S. national security elite, which sees Iran as a natural ally of the U.S. This is a strongly held secret opinion. They don't like to advertise it because it is unpopular politically."

Doran said this false belief is widely held—not only by Democrats but by Republicans too. He said President Obama has convinced himself that in the end, Iran and the U.S. have the same interest of defeating Islamic State and that Iran doesn't really want to destroy Israel. 

"That is what Iran tells the U.S. behind closed doors. ... I don't believe it for a second," said Doran. 

In the meantime, according to Segall, the U.S. has lost its place in the game—and it lost it in August 2013 when Obama's "chemical redlines were crossed" by failing to push through military action against Syria following Assad's use of chemical weapons. Russia has moved in to fill the American void.

"We all know the end result," Segall said.

In Israel, the U.S. seems to be losing its foothold too. In January, one Israeli poll named Russian President Vladimir Putin as its "person of the year" for 2015. Putin, whose country in 2015 was considered by international analysts to have surpassed North Korea as the United States's greatest adversary, was the clear winner of the Jerusalem Post poll, with almost 30 percent of the vote. 

Netanyahu told the Conference of Presidents, "We live in an era where there are two parallel but contradictory trends regarding the State of Israel." On the one hand, Israel faces ongoing diplomatic hostility from longtime friends, including from the European Union and its member countries. On the other hand, nontraditional partners like India, China, Japan, Russia, and African and Latin American nations are warming up to Israel.

"The first reason is the concern with the spread of militant Islam, which has become a global plague and the terrorism that it produces," said Netanyahu. "And countries want to have, to benefit from Israel's experience, our intelligence. I mean military intelligence, special service intelligence, operational experience. They want to partake of that experience to help defend themselves."

The old Middle East is gone, said Segall, and we don't really know what the end result of the shifting dynamics will be.

Avi Issacharoff, the Middle East correspondent for the Times of Israel, added, "The new Middle East is not about black and white. It's about 50 shades of gray."

For the original article, visit jns.org.

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In Israel, US Jewish Leaders Study 'Timely, Realistic, Frightening' Middle East - MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN/JNS.ORG CHARISMA NEWS

In Israel, US Jewish Leaders Study 'Timely, Realistic, Frightening' Middle East

 2/17/2016 MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN/JNS.ORG   charisma news

Photo above: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses visiting leaders from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations at the Inbal hotel in Jerusalem on Feb. 14, 2016. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

"Timely, realistic and frightening" were the words that William Daroff, senior vice president for public policy and director of the Washington Office of the Jewish Federations of North America, used to describe reports about the Middle East security situation. 

Speaking on the second day of the leadership mission of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Daroff's remarks came after an hour-long session focused on Iran after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, and just before another hour-long panel discussion on "the Middle East volcano."

The 42nd annual Israel mission for the Conference of Presidents, an umbrella body representing 50 U.S. Jewish organizations, kicked off Feb. 14 as the group of more than 100 delegates was welcomed with a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

The meeting minutes and panel discussions reflected the current gloom-and-doom picture of the region.

"Syria will leave us with two bad options: We will have either Daesh (Islamic State) or Iran on our border," said Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon on Feb. 15.

"I don't think Israel has lost. I think the world has lost," Member of Knesset Yair Lapid, the Yesh Atid party's leader, said regarding Iran.

The Middle East has always been a region wrought with contradictions, but the conference highlighted how in the realm of security, Middle East experts are now unsure what is truth and what is façade, if what will happen tomorrow will be indicative of what will happen in 10 years, and if those we assume are our enemies might just be our friends (or vice versa).

Take the Iran deal. Dr. Emily B. Landau, senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), quoted IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot as saying at the INSS conference last month that the Iran deal entails both opportunities and dangers. Landau said both are true. 

"We are working on different timelines; there is a five-year timeline and there is a 15-year timeline," she explained. "On the five-year timelines, yes, this is a strategic turning point because [Eizenkot] believes the threat has been delayed. ... Iran will be focused on upholding the deal to get the economic and diplomatic benefits of the deal."

But nothing has changed in terms of Iran's strategic goals, and in 15 years Iran will likely have nuclear weapons, which translates into a nuclear Middle East, according to Landau.

"Delaying a threat is not taking care of a threat," she said.

Here's the next dichotomy: Conference experts said that while they feel the JCPOA has stunted the immediate growth of Iran's nuclear program, the deal has empowered Iran in other ways. The reintegration of Iran into the world economic system has led to a real change in Iranian behavior, said Michael Segall, senior analyst for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think tank. He said Iran has moved from covert operations in the Middle East to overt operations.

"No one is trying to hide behind secrecy anymore," said Segall. "We see Iran going from being perceived as part of the problem in the Middle East to part of the solution."

But Segall said that is only a perception and that Iran remains a very dangerous threat for Israel. While Iran partners with Russia to keep in power Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who the Americans were confident would be out of office a few years ago, the Islamic Republic is simultaneously training and bolstering the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah. Even if Hezbollah is beaten down and banged up by its participation in the Syrian civil war, Segall said that ultimately, "Hezbollah will come out strong and experienced in fighting. Hezbollah will be even more threatening in the future."

How could the United States let this happen? Delusion? Ignorance? Innocence? It is likely a combination of all of the above, according to what Dr. Michael Doran, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, told the Conference of the Presidents. There lies the next contradiction: a world superpower entrapped by what Doran called "fantasy."

"The president (Barack Obama) doesn't understand Iran the way we do," said Doran. "The president represents a trend in the U.S. national security elite, which sees Iran as a natural ally of the U.S. This is a strongly held secret opinion. They don't like to advertise it because it is unpopular politically."

Doran said this false belief is widely held—not only by Democrats but by Republicans too. He said President Obama has convinced himself that in the end, Iran and the U.S. have the same interest of defeating Islamic State and that Iran doesn't really want to destroy Israel. 

"That is what Iran tells the U.S. behind closed doors. ... I don't believe it for a second," said Doran. 

In the meantime, according to Segall, the U.S. has lost its place in the game—and it lost it in August 2013 when Obama's "chemical redlines were crossed" by failing to push through military action against Syria following Assad's use of chemical weapons. Russia has moved in to fill the American void.

"We all know the end result," Segall said.

In Israel, the U.S. seems to be losing its foothold too. In January, one Israeli poll named Russian President Vladimir Putin as its "person of the year" for 2015. Putin, whose country in 2015 was considered by international analysts to have surpassed North Korea as the United States's greatest adversary, was the clear winner of the Jerusalem Post poll, with almost 30 percent of the vote. 

Netanyahu told the Conference of Presidents, "We live in an era where there are two parallel but contradictory trends regarding the State of Israel." On the one hand, Israel faces ongoing diplomatic hostility from longtime friends, including from the European Union and its member countries. On the other hand, nontraditional partners like India, China, Japan, Russia, and African and Latin American nations are warming up to Israel.

"The first reason is the concern with the spread of militant Islam, which has become a global plague and the terrorism that it produces," said Netanyahu. "And countries want to have, to benefit from Israel's experience, our intelligence. I mean military intelligence, special service intelligence, operational experience. They want to partake of that experience to help defend themselves."

The old Middle East is gone, said Segall, and we don't really know what the end result of the shifting dynamics will be.

Avi Issacharoff, the Middle East correspondent for the Times of Israel, added, "The new Middle East is not about black and white. It's about 50 shades of gray."

For the original article, visit jns.org.

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