Israel-China Relations

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Israel Holds High-Level Tech Summit with China after Consultation with U.S. - Barak Ravid
Israel coordinated with the Biden administration in advance of a technology and economy summit held virtually with Chinese officials on Monday, led by Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan. The meeting followed low-profile consultations on China last month between the U.S. and Israeli governments. Israeli officials stressed they were cognizant of U.S. concerns about Chinese investments in Israel and wanted to proceed with maximum transparency. (Axios)
See also The China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation Convenes (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
See also Israeli Ambassador Lauds 30 Years of Israel-China Cooperation
Ties between Israel and China are booming, with "substantial" political, economic, cultural and people-to-people exchanges since they established diplomatic ties 30 years ago, Israeli Ambassador to China Irit Ben-Abba has said. Bilateral trade has grown from $50 million in 1992 to $22.8 billion in 2021. (Xinhua-China)
See also China Congratulates I srael on 30th Anniversary of Diplomatic Ties (CGTN-China)

Israel to Crack Down on Chinese Attempts to Obtain Israeli Defense Technology - Arie Egozi
Israel is launching a new effort to crack down on Chinese attempts to obtain Israeli defense technology as a result of increased Chinese efforts, sources in the Israeli defense establishment say. Several months ago, the Biden administration warned Jerusalem that China is operating a web of companies inside Israel as part of a dedicated effort to acquire advanced defense technologies. Some efforts have already been uncovered and foiled.
Defense firms in Israel have strict orders not to have any contact with China on issues that have a "smell of security or de fense," a security official in one of the Israeli defense industries said. The Israel Security Agency has been in charge of countering these efforts. In recent months, the Israel Ministry of Defense has issued a set of new instructions. Any attempt to make contact with an Israeli defense company is to be brought immediately to the ISA and the security department of the Ministry of Defense. (Breaking Defense)

Other Issues

Call the Houthis in Yemen "Terrorists" - Col. Richard Kemp
This week, Ansar Allah ("Supporters of God"), also known as the Houthis, an Iranian-backed armed militia in Yemen, launched missiles against civilian targets in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Immediately after he took office, U.S. President Joe Biden removed the group's Foreign Terrorist designation. He also ended support for Saudi Arabia's offensive military operations against the group. These steps emboldened Ansar Allah and their Iranian sponsors and reduced Saudi Arabia's capacity to fight against them.
These moves were a classic example of the failure of appeasement. The Iranian ayatollahs were not won over. Instead, they have increasingly demanded more U.S. compromises in exchange for fewer restrictions on their nuclear weapons project - a typical Iranian regime response to perceived weakness. Meanwhile, Ansar Allah has stepped up its aggression, including increased drone strikes against U.S. allies in the region.
Ansar Allah now controls Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and 60% of the country, with around 50% of the population, under a tyranny reminiscent of the Islamic State. Its motto is: "Allah is greater, death to America, death to Isr ael, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam."
The writer, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, was chairman of the UK's national crisis management committee, COBRA. (Gatestone Institute)

Unapologetic Zionism Is the Key to Reform Judaism's Survival - Interview with Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch by Armin Rosen
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, a flagship of the Reform Movement, spoke in a Friday night sermon in November of a letter signed by American rabbinic students criticizing Israel during the May 2021 conflict with Palestinian terror groups based in Gaza. "It isn't that you are critical of Israel," he said. "Go ahead. We need critics. The issue is that you ne ver seem to speak about Israel's enemies or their threats against us." Ammiel Hirsch is the most prominent Reform rabbi who is willing to publicly challenge his colleagues' alleged complacency toward the movement's commitment to Israel.
Hirsch explained, "I think there is a risk in our movement that we will revert to the default position of liberalism, which is the elevation of universalism at the expense of Jewish peoplehood, not as an extension of Jewish peoplehood." Without peoplehood, and without commitment to a shared purpose and destiny, liberal Judaism risked losing its ability to stand for anything recognizably Jewish. (Tablet)

Why I'm Opposed to Ilhan Omar's Bill Against Islamophobia - Masih Alinejad
As so meone who has been repeatedly targeted by a vicious authoritarian regime - like countless others - in my home country of Iran, I worry that other Americans might be creating precedents that could undermine our freedom to speak out. In December, the House passed the Combating International Islamophobia Act by a vote of 219-212.
There is no question that the U.S. government should act to defend Muslims overseas wherever it sees crimes being committed against them - as in the cases of the Uyghurs in China or the Rohingya in Myanmar. But the U.S. government is already doing these things, and without needing to establish a new office. The bigger risk is that creating a mandate to monitor Islamophobia comes with its own risks.
The legislation does not provide a clear definition of Islamophobia, nor does it make any clear effort to exempt the crimes of Islamist states against their own people. Is criticism of the Taliban a form of Islamophobia? What about criticism of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Can one criticize Hamas or Hizbullah as terrorist organizations? Many women who live in countries such as Iran, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia have a rational fear of sharia laws. To call out laws that treat women as second-class citizens is not Islamophobia.
The writer, an Iranian journalist and women's rights campaigner who was thrown out of Iran after launching a campaign against compulsory hijab, hosts a talk show on Voice of America's Persian service. (Washington Post)

Jewish Security in America

Jews Must Take Responsibility for Their Own Security - Cpt. (ret.) Micah Q. Jones
The Jan. 15 hostage situation at a Jewish congregation in Texas reinforces the belief that Jews must be responsible for their own safety and security. Jewish places of worship should have both armed security, as well as encourage those congregation members with the appropriate training and credentials to be a part of that security apparatus.
Most of all, there must be a mindset change and a realization that law enforcement response time will likely be slow. The Jewish community or congregation must assume that no one will come to rescue them, and must be prepared to protect themselves. Through increased training and readiness, Jewish communities and congregations ensure that they will be able to react quickly and effectively if an emergency arises.
The writer, who served in U.S. Ar my Military Intelligence, is a publishing adjunct at the Miryam Institute. (Jerusalem Post)

We Need to Protect Jews, Just in Case - Rabbi David Levy
On my first day as a newly ordained rabbi in a New Jersey pulpit in 1988, I was shown the location of panic buttons installed in various places, "just in case." Over the next 30 years, and especially after the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in 2018, "just in case" came to include active shooter training, situational awareness and security audits with local, state and federal law enforcement.
"Just in case" meant uniformed security at the door, local police in the parking lot, and plainclothes security in the sanctuary. It included becoming a grant writer so m y synagogues could install electronic door locks, hardened entry doors, security lighting, video surveillance, blast-proof window coatings, and truck-stopping bollards. A security consultant even suggested my lectern be lined with Kevlar.
After the hostages in Texas escaped, my daughter tweeted, "it's why at Jewish summer camp, we practiced lockdown drills and had to know where we would be able to hide the kids across camp if someone armed made it onto camp." This is Jewish life in America in 2022.
The writer is Director of the American Jewish Committee New Jersey Regional Office. (Star-Ledger-NJ)

After Texas Attack, U.S. Lawmakers and Je wish Groups Push to Boost Security Funding for Houses of Worship - Ben Samuels
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a major push to double the funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program from $180 million to $360 million, after 10 major Jewish organizations - spearheaded by the Jewish Federations of North America - urged President Biden to do so. They wrote: "Unfortunately, less than half the applications submitted in fiscal year 2021 were funded and $220 million in requests were left unfulfilled." (Ha'aretz)

Security Training Offered to All in Jewish Community - Ilana Keller
In the wake of the terror attack in Texas, Jewish Federations around the nation are encouraging com munity members to partake in the Secure Community Network's new safety training program. Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker of Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville credits security training from SCN with helping him and his congregants escape the hostage situation.
"In Monmouth and Greater Middlesex counties, Jewish Federation in the Heart of NJ and its partners like SCN bring security training to synagogues and Chabads, schools, camps, JCCs and cultural centers...Rutgers Hillel and many more - routinely and free of charge - training nearly 300 leaders and countless more community members multiple times each year," said Susan Antman, executive director of the federation.
A new program from SCN, called "BeAware: An Introduction to Situational Awareness," begins on Jan. 27. BeAware training is designed for all members of the Jewish community across the U.S. - from parents to professionals and receptionists to rabbis - to "provide attendees with an improve d ability to recognize suspicious behavior and criminal activity, guidance on how to report it, and strategies to protect themselves and others from violence."
SCN is the "official homeland safety and security initiative of the organized Jewish community in North America." It was founded in 2004 by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. (Asbury Park Press-NJ)

Philanthropist Pledges $1 Million to Install Advanced Security Platforms in 500 U.S. Locations - Zachy Hennessey
An anonymous philanthropist has pledged $1 million and enlisted friends to match his gift in order to install the Gabriel Network advanced security platform in 500 locations across the U.S. to protect synagogues, campus facilities, and schools. The security suite provides integrated video, audio, gunshot detection, hot-zone mapping, geo-fencing, robust communication and instant situational awareness for responders. It can be used with pre-existing security camera systems. (Jerusalem Post)

Weekend Features

Non-Jews Still in Touch with Jews They Saved from the Nazis - Kirsten Grieshaber
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2022, Polish man Andrzej Sitkowski, 93, is still regularly in touch with Hadassah Kosak, now 84, after his mother agreed to hide the little Jewish girl from the Nazis at their home on the outskirts of Warsaw in 1943, when he was 15. "Of course, we were afraid, but fear was our daily dish during those years anyway," Sitkowski said. For their efforts to help save the lives of Kosak, her sister Marion and their mother Bronislawa, Andrzej and his mother were named "Righteous Among the Nations" in 1995, a title bestowed by Yad Vashem on non-Jews who took great risks to save Jews during the Holocaust.
After the war, Kosak immigrated via Israel to the U.S. where she became a professor of history in New York. "One of the amazing things about the rescuers is that not only did they rescue the specific person who was hidden, but all of their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren - an entire family tree," said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany.
Kosak's mother and sister ended up in Britain, where Marion married Ralph Miliband and where their two sons Ed and David, two well-known politicians with the British Lab our Party, were born. (AP)

The Houdini of the Vilna Ghetto - Jeffrey Meyers
Abraham Sutzkever (1913-2010), the leading modern Yiddish poet, lived in Nazi-occupied Vilna, Lithuania, until the liquidation of the ghetto in September 1943. In March 1944, Sutzkever, considered a cultural treasure, was helped by the influential Soviet-Jewish writer Ilya Ehrenburg and flown to Russia in a dramatic rescue. His journal was published as From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg.
Sutzkever had many amazing escapes from death. He hid in a coffin, in a common grave and in a lime pit. He jumped out of a high window. He hid in the sewers. He gave brief journalistic accounts of horrific events that he actually experienced or heard from e ye-witnesses. Nazi doctors drew blood from Jewish children for transfusions to Germans and "extracted the most delicate facial skin for use in cosmetic surgeries on wounded and burned German soldiers."
Sutzkever took an active part in sabotage campaigns. Resistance fighters stole bullets, pistols, rifles, machine guns and gunpowder to make bombs from German factories, bunkers and armored cars. They blew up a train and killed 200 soldiers, blew up a bridge and killed another 200.
Torn between overwhelming sorrow and a burning desire for revenge, Sutzkever had the chance to smuggle a gun into the Nuremberg trial and execute Hermann Goering. But as a Russian citizen he would have antagonized the Americans, who would not have believed he acted on his own. He was forbidden to exact revenge, and Goering took poison before he could be hanged. (The Article)

The Extent of Palestinian-Nazi Collaboration - Adin Haykin
On March 31, 1933, two months after Hitler came to power, Haj Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, called on Heinrich Wolff, head of the German Consulate in Jerusalem. Wolff reported that Husseini said: "Muslims inside and outside Palestine welcome the new regime in Germany and hope for the spread of fascist, antidemocratic state leadership to other countries." In March 1935 the Husseinis formed the Palestinian Arab Party. Its president, Jamal Husseini, boasted that it was inspired by German Nazism. It included the "Al-Futuwwa" youth, modeled on the Hitler Youth, and for a while was actually called the "Nazi Scouts."
In February 1941, 88% of Arab Palestinians polled expressed support for Germany, while only 9% supported England. Accordin g to the Jewish Sentinel of June 1, 1941, "Axis agents stationed in Syria and Iraq have been smuggling large quantities of weapons and ammunition to renegade Arab tribes in the desert and mountains of Palestine." In addition, Nazi war planes taking off from Iraq dropped leaflets inciting the Arabs for a "holy war" against the British and the Jews. According to a CIA report from August 1942, a majority of the Palestinian Arabs was fiercely "anti-Jewish" and saw in the approach of Rommel an ideal opportunity to murder all Jews and seize their property. (Medium)

Observations:

Israel Wins the War of Ideas - Bret Stephens (Sapir: A Journal of Jewish Conversations)

I am often asked, "Why does Israel have such lousy PR?" The problem is that Israel's usual defenders keep trying to win over the wrong kinds of people with the wrong kinds of arguments in the wrong kinds of places.
The wrong kinds of people are anti-Zionists who deny Israel's very right to exist as a Jewish state, who belong to the Blame Israel First crowd, who think that the words "apartheid" or "genocide" or "racist" attach to Israel the way that "juice" attaches to "orange," and whose views stem either from ignorance or hostility. Merely to engage with t heir charges (e.g., "Why does Israel kill so many Palestinian children?") legitimizes bogus assumptions and bigoted arguments.
The wrong kinds of arguments include the Israel-as-the-bigger-victim case. A major military power is never going to win an international pity contest, nor should it want to: Israel came into being to end Jewish victimization, not to showcase it. Moreover, such arguments rarely do more than preach to the converted.
As for the unconverted, the best argument is that Israel is under no obligation to justify its existence to anybody, least of all those who despise it; that, like any democratic and sovereign nation, it has every right to do what it must to safeguard its vital interests and security; that it isn't interested in winning popularity contests; and that sincere and constructive criticism is always welcome, but its policies won't be swayed b y those who fundamentally wish it ill.
Year after year, positive perceptions of Israel among the American public at large have generally risen, according to Gallup, from 58% in the wake of 9/11 to 75% in March 2021.
Outside the U.S., things look even more promising. Israel has forged increasingly close relations with formerly unfriendly states, from Uganda to Greece to India to the United Arab Emirates. These countries do not want better ties because Israel caved to the demands of larger powers, but rather because Israel resisted them. They are less interested in Israel's concessions than they are in its resourcefulness, its capabilities, its ability to add value in common causes.

The writer, a New York Times columnist, is the editor-in-chief of Sapir.

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