Kemp also said President Trump would not remain committed to the memorandum of understanding if it failed to achieve its objectives.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Former British Army commander Col. Richard Kemp said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will continue to put Israel’s security interests first despite close ties with the United States, while also warning that rising antisemitism has left many British Jews questioning their future in the country.

Speaking in an interview with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News at the JNS International Policy Summit, Kemp rejected suggestions that Israel has become subordinate to Washington following the agreement with Iran.

“I think Israel is far from a proxy or a vassal of the US,” Kemp said.

While describing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s relationship with President Trump as “extraordinary,” Kemp said the Israeli leader remains guided by Israel’s national interests above all else.

“Under Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has, by the way, an extraordinary relationship with President Trump, even through thick and thin, they don’t always see eye to eye. But as I understand it, they understand each other,” he said.

Kemp added that Netanyahu’s “number one priority is not America. It’s not even relations with America. It’s Israel’s national interest,” and said he expects the prime minister to define Israel’s security red lines and maintain them, “particularly” regarding Lebanon.

Addressing criticism of President Trump’s handling of the Iran agreement, Kemp said some Israelis may believe the president “made the wrong decision” or “betrayed Israel,” but argued that the U.S. president is pursuing broader American strategic interests.

He also said President Trump would not remain committed to the memorandum of understanding if it failed to achieve its objectives.

“I don’t think it’s the end of the war. And I don’t think it’s necessarily a failure either. It’s probably a bump in the road,” Kemp said of the agreement.

The former British commander also expressed concern about the state of Britain’s Jewish community, saying antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment have driven many Jews to consider leaving the country.

“I think the situation is quite bad,” he said, adding that many British Jews “either have left Britain, are thinking about leaving Britain or are in the process of leaving.”

Kemp also commented on British politics following the resignation of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, saying the news would likely be welcomed by many voters because Starmer had been deeply unpopular. However, he cautioned that a change in leadership was unlikely to improve Britain’s relationship with Israel, arguing that opposition to Israel remains widespread among the governing party’s supporters.

The post Former British Army Commander Richard Kemp: ‘Israel is Not a Proxy of the US’ appeared first on World Israel News.

Colonel Richard Kemp says Hamas is collapsing, but true victory requires crushing any resurgence, rescuing hostages, and preparing for a likely military clash with Iran.

The post WATCH: ‘The IDF is making mincemeat of Hamas’ – Col. Richard Kemp appeared first on World Israel News.

Col. Richard Kemp, former British commander in Afghanistan, appeared on Life, Liberty & Levin to discuss ongoing U.S. negotiations with Iran, warning that a nuclear-armed Iran would be the greatest threat to global security since World War II.

The post WATCH: Col. Richard Kemp analyzes Iranian nuclear talks with the US appeared first on World Israel News.

Exploding beepers were intended only for terrorists who are ‘legitimate and lawful targets for attack as Israel seeks to defend its citizens from violent aggression.’

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

The former commander of British military forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, praised the beeper offensive against Hezbollah as “precise and discriminatory” and effective at weakening the morale and capacity of the Lebanese terror group.

The offensive on Tuesday involved the spontaneous explosion of thousands of beepers used by Hezbollah terrorists, wounding thousands and killing over a dozen.

Additional injuries and deaths occurred on Wednesday in Lebanon and in Syria, where 19 IRGC terrorists were killed and 150 were injured.

Kemp told Israel National News that three salient factors make the beeper mission uniquely effective.

“First, it will have done immense damage to the terrorist organization, taking a large number of its fighters and leaders out in one go. Plus, of course, it severely undermines their communications capability,” Kemp said.

He added, “Second, it will have intimidated Hezbollah, potentially frightening some members into leaving the group or scaring off recruits from joining.”

Kemp explained, “The psychological impact will be enormous, with every Hezbollah terrorist now fearing that almost everything he owns or touches, including cars, guns, laptops, radios, and other electrical items, could potentially be weaponized against them.”

He added the constant anxiety Hezbollah members may feel now is a “far cry from the supposed glory of battlefield martyrdom they were promised.”

In addition, Hezbollah may retreat from the notion of a full-scale offensive against Israel since now they realize their terror group operations and technology have been infiltrated.

“Third, it has humiliated Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that struts its power on the world stage, presenting itself as one of the strongest armies in the Middle East.”

Israel’s outsmarting them with this terror attack has led to Hezbollah’s “demoralization.”

Kemp also praised the mission because it effectively targeted only terrorists and limited civilian casualties.

“It’s hard to think of a more precise and discriminating method of attack than detonating pagers known to be specifically assigned to individual terrorists, using devices that limit the potential for collateral damage.”

He added that the exploding beepers were intended only for terrorists who are “legitimate and lawful targets for attack as Israel seeks to defend its citizens from violent aggression,” he said.

The post Former commander calls beeper offensive against Hezbollah ‘precise and discriminating’ appeared first on World Israel News.

Former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan Col. Richard Kemp gives an in-depth analysis concerning the ceasefire being pushed by numerous countries to prevent Israel from destroying Hamas.

The post WATCH: Col. Richard Kemp – ‘The US and others are doing everything they can to prevent Israel from defeating Hamas, Iran’ appeared first on World Israel News.

Former British military commander Richard Kemp says the attack was too sophisticated for Hamas, without help from Iran and Russia.

By World Israel News Staff

The war launched by the Hamas terror group in Gaza on Saturday was jointly orchestrated by Iran and Russia, former British military commander in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, said on Sunday.

Over 700 Israelis were killed, 2200 are injured and more than 100 are being held captive in the surprise attack, which began with a coordinated breach of Gaza’s border fence and thousands of rockets targeting southern Israel.

“This attack has been called Israel’s 9/11 by some people, or Israel’s Pearl Harbor, both of which were also accompanied by tragic intelligence failure,” Kemp told Israel National News.

“Iran’s hand was behind this attack… Iran is dedicated to the annihilation of the Jewish State as their leaders have repeated again and again,” he said.

Kemp also pointed to Russia’s involvement, citing their alliance with Iran and shared activities in the Ukraine war. “Leaders of Islamic Jihad and Hamas have visited Moscow in the last few months meeting senior Russian government officials,” Kemp said.

According to the former commander, Russia’s objective is to cause turmoil in the Middle East, thereby diverting U.S. attention from Ukraine.

Both countries also aim to thwart the budding normalization discussions between Saudi Arabia and Israel, he said. Commenting on the implications, he stated, “It is hard to assess the impact this will have [on the negotiations with Saudi Arabia], but it will certainly complicate negotiations and may even lead to their temporary abandonment.”

Regarding Israel’s potential response, Kemp stated that Israel might need to employ unprecedented measures against Hamas and Islamic Jihad, possibly resulting in extended ground operations in Gaza. “I think the immediate goal will be to destroy Hamas and Islamic Jihad as viable terrorist bodies,” he commented.

Addressing the issue of hostages, Kemp called it Israel’s greatest challenge. While he believes rescuing the dispersed hostages might prove difficult, he emphasized Israel’s unwavering commitment to attempt rescues. Kemp also hopes for international pressure on the terrorists holding the hostages.

“Rescuing large numbers of people no doubt dispersed in secure locations around Gaza may well be impossible but I have no doubt the Israeli government, intelligence, and IDF will make every conceivable effort to do so.”

Kemp concluded by urging Western nations, particularly the U.S., to acknowledge Iran and Russia’s roles in the conflict. He called for solidarity with Israel, advocating for active countering of “the anti-Israel narrative that will be boosted by Israel’s necessary actions to defend its population.”

The post Colonel Richard Kemp: Iran, Russia behind Hamas attack appeared first on World Israel News.

Prince Harry’s new memoir has made headlines for it’ accusations against the Royal Family, but it’s his chapter on his army service in Afghanistan, during which he killed Taliban fighters, that is raising eyebrows among the Royal Armed Forces.

Retired British commanding officer Col. Richard Kemp discusses his concerns with i24News.

The post WATCH: Will Prince Harry’s new memoir serve jihadist propaganda? appeared first on World Israel News.

Michael Blume, commissioner against anti-Semitism for the German state of Baden-Württemberg, has called the late British Gen. Orde Wingate a ‘war criminal’ and ‘British murderer.’

By JNS

A German official has been pressed to resign or be fired immediately for making accusations about a decorated World War II British Army hero and icon in Israel, reported Fox News.

Michael Blume, commissioner against anti-Semitism for the German state of Baden-Württemberg, has called the late British Gen. Orde Wingate a “war criminal” and “British murderer.”

Wingate advocated starting in 1937 about the need to create a Jewish state and stop Nazi leader Adolf Hitler from exterminating Europe’s Jewish populations. Streets and squares in Israel are named after him, as well as the Orde Wingate Institute for Physical Education and Sports. He was killed fighting in World War II and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told Fox News, “Wingate’s spirit and disruptive thinking were an inspiration to the founding fathers of the IDF, and he is deeply admired until today.”

Last year, the Simon Wiesenthal Center included Blume in its list of “Global Top Ten Anti-Semites”.

Sandra Hagee Parker, chairwoman of the Christians United for Israel Action (CUFI) Fund, told Fox News following Blume’s remarks: “Given his history of anti-Jewish bigotry, that [he] is allowed to stay in his present role is an embarrassment to the people of Germany and makes a mockery of the fight against anti-Semitism. Mr. Blume is plainly an anti-Semite who should be fired immediately.”

Retired Col. Nelson Mellitz, national commander of the Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A., said Blume should resign or Baden-Württemberg officials should “immediately remove him from office.” Mellitz added that “as a decorated British Army officer during the 1930s and World War II, Wingate’s service is revered by Israelis, Americans and the British.”

Historian and former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, a military historian and expert on Wingate, also called on Blume to resign, as did Col. (ret.) Richard Kemp, who commanded British troops in Afghanistan.

Wingate “bravely defended Jews in Palestine against murderous Arab gangs in the 1930s. He was a committed Zionist, revered as a hero and friend in Israel,” Kemp told Fox News.

“Germany, of all of the countries in the world, has a responsibility to fight Jew-hatred at every turn,” he said. “And for one of its public officials—whether or not he’s an anti-Semitism commissioner—to support this sickness is a cause for national disgrace. Herr Blume shames Germany and should resign or be fired.”

The post German official calls British officer who defended Jews a ‘war criminal,’ urged to resign appeared first on World Israel News.

British Col. Richard Kemp compared the UN’s Pillay Commission of Inquiry to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “propaganda machine.”

Palestinian ambassador tried to silence me at the UN Human Rights Council today and failed. He can’t handle the truth. https://t.co/5ZBXT2F6n6

— Rɪᴄʜᴀʀᴅ Kᴇᴍᴘ ⋁ (@COLRICHARDKEMP) June 14, 2022

The post WATCH: Palestinian envoy ‘tried to silence me but failed,’ says British Col. Richard Kemp appeared first on World Israel News.

“Jewish people today on campus can be tolerated, protected or abused. At no point are they treated as equals.” — David Collier, Academia, January 18, 2021.

By Richard Kemp, Gatestone Institute

“The goal is achieved! No more Jews at German universities,” the leading Nazi student newspaper, Die Bewegung, triumphantly proclaimed in 1938.

Of course, nothing like it could ever happen again. Except something like it is happening again — now, and in Britain. According to a report published this week by David Collier, a British researcher, some UK universities are now virtually Judenfrei: free of Jews.

This is a chilling indictment not just of British academia but of a liberal democratic society that has tolerated, often through ignorance or complacency, a wave of discrimination against Jews that has swept through the universities over recent decades.

From these halls of learning anti-Semitism has spread out, driving and empowering what is now a solid movement that threatens Jews in various parts of society and has led to many of them leaving. This is not just in Britain. Collier characterizes academia as “the epicentre of global anti-Semitism”.

Skulks behind veneer of anti-Zionism

This Jew-hate is cloaked in anti-Zionism, a doctrine that claims the Jewish state, alone among the nations, has no right to exist. It seeks to whip up anti-Israel hatred by focusing on three core lies: accusations of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and settler-colonialism.

As Jewish students and professors were hounded out and eventually banned from universities and high schools by German state edict, today in Britain anti-Zionist academics and the students they influence have created an environment that alienates many Jews, by using the pretext of their support for the Jewish State. Of course, not every Jewish student supports Israel and very few are uncritical, as with their own country. Nevertheless, Collier says:

“Jewish people today on campus can be tolerated, protected or abused. At no point are they treated as equals. The best they can hope for is protection and tolerance in a hostile environment. On the campus the prevailing wisdom is that their beliefs in Jewish identity are fundamentally wrong.”

Specifically, Jews are grotesquely branded as members of a race that has no place in the land of Israel, but is a “white” colonialist occupier and oppressor of the indigenous peoples.

Collier asks: “Why would an openly Jewish student want to go to a university where they will be vilified by other students and victimised by lecturers?”

The reality in Britain today is that many Jewish students choose their university not by the course content or the quality of teaching, but by the extent of anti-Semitism they will find there.

Baroness Ruth Deech, formerly Britain’s Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, and an accomplished academic and former principal of an Oxford college, previously commented that “amongst Jewish students there is gradually a feeling that there are certain universities that you should avoid.”

You can meet many Jewish students in Britain and in several other Western countries who attest to this, who will tell you of some universities that are relatively safe for them and others that need to be sidestepped.

I speak frequently at universities on a range of subjects. Only when speaking at the invitation of Jewish or pro-Israel groups have I experienced any hostility as opposed to open debate. In virtually every case, some form of physical protest as well as social media abuse is guaranteed — not to disagree but to silence.

This has taken place in the UK, U.S., South Africa and Australia, where one talk was so severely disrupted that it led to an in-depth investigation by the university authorities with rare disciplinary action taken against the perpetrators that included academic staff.

Collier’s research shows that:

“If they [Jewish students] are abused, it is far less serious than an offence against someone from the Muslim, BAME or LGBTQ communities. If an academic is responsible for the abuse (see Bristol, Leeds, Warwick) it is the academic who will be protected and the complaining Jewish student who will be victimised – even if the student can prove abuse.”

In a classic pattern of radicalization, there exist in some universities networks of academics who widely contaminate their students with their bias and hatred. Most effectively in terms of perpetuating the spread of anti-Semitism, some will indoctrinate their students through supervision of PhD studies that can lead to hard-core activism and further lateral and vertical transmission, often from university to university and from country to country.

Their influence is not confined to the universities. Some write libel-filled books, publish twisted columns in national newspapers and are called on to spread their bias in the broadcast media. NGOs, government organizations and international corporations consult and partner with these individuals.

They often play leading roles in movements such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and activist groups like the so-called Palestine Solidarity Campaign, inciting anti-Jewish hatred far and wide, sometimes damaging property and intimidating Jews on the streets.

Corbyn’s defenders from academia

The staunchest defenders of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party came from the academic world. University professors were involved in dozens of events accusing those who opposed Corbyn of smearing him and his henchmen with politically-motivated lies.

Unfortunately for them, Labour became the first ever mainstream political party to be investigated by the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission. The EHRC found Labour guilty of the very thing these armies of academics were denying — illegal discrimination and harassment against Jews.

Britain cannot be compared to Germany in the 1930s, but similarities exist in some of the objectives and methods of the Nazi bully-boys at German universities in that era. Before Jews were finally excluded, members of the National Socialist Students’ League often disrupted lectures, provoked altercations and intimidated Jewish students. All of this can be seen in British university campuses today.

Responding to a violent protest by students at King’s College London protesting a visiting Israeli speaker, Lord Eric Pickles, UK Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust issues, said in Parliament: “If we need to know who the new fascists are, we need only look at those who perpetrated that attack.”

As Robert Festenstein of the UK’s Jewish Human Rights Watch, who have been working for years to combat anti-Semitism in British universities, told this author: “Jews are being educationally ethnically cleansed from certain universities in the UK.”

The anti-Semites’ goal

The objective of today’s academic bullies is not so much to drive the Jews out but to shut them up and shut them down — to suppress any dissent from their own radical anti-Zionist agenda aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish State. They often succeed, forcing Jews to go elsewhere, to keep quiet about facts regarding Israel and even to cause them to hide their Jewish identity.

Quite understandably, many young Jews just want to get on with their studies and their lives, not to engage in potentially damaging political confrontations and to risk vilification or worse, which could also have adverse effect on their examination results and employment prospects.

Why should any Jew, as any member of any race or religion, be victimized because of who they are? Why should any proud Jew that wants to express his or her support for the Jewish state be afraid to do so? Israel is one of Britain’s most important allies, supplying us with life-saving intelligence and technology, and is an increasingly strong trade partner.

Above all, contrary to the twisted precepts of the Jew haters, Israel is not guilty of the false claims they make to undermine it. At any rate, in a civilized society it must be possible to openly put across the opposing argument without fear.

In 2016, the British government adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism, which provides a tool to enable public bodies to act against such discrimination as is rife in our universities. The government has been working to persuade universities to adopt the IHRA definition, including by warning that funding streams may be removed.

Often bitterly contested by academic staff desperate to remain unchallenged in their bully pulpits, as of last autumn only 29 of 133 higher education institutions had complied, although a few others have apparently done so since. More pressure needs to be piled onto the rejectionists, as well as rigorous monitoring, to ensure adherence on the campuses, if need be enshrining the definition in law.

It is also necessary to shine a light on the plight of Jewish students — hardly any British people will have the slightest inkling of what has been going on in our so-called seats of learning. This is where David Collier’s work is vital. His report is the starting point of a project to map the anti-Semitic networks in every one of Britain’s universities, to understand where and how the hostility exists and to put a stop to it.

Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army Commander. He was also head of the international terrorism team in the U.K. Cabinet Office and is now a writer and speaker on international and military affairs.

The post Analysis: Jews are being ‘educationally ethnically cleansed’ from UK universities appeared first on World Israel News.

It goes against editorial agendas to report on the Jewish state in a positive light unless they can somehow twist a good story to turn it bad.

By Richard Kemp, Gatestone Institute

Prejudice against the Jewish state is so intense in the Western media that praiseworthy actions guaranteed to hit the headlines if attributable to any other country are frequently ignored, diminished or denigrated when it comes to Israel.

When there is a disaster anywhere in the world, for example, Israel is often the first, or among the first, to offer assistance and send in relief workers. Most recently, last month the Israel Defense Forces dispatched a team to Honduras following the devastation of category 4 hurricanes Eta and Iota which left thousands homeless.

In the last 15 years. IDF relief missions have deployed in Albania, Brazil, Mexico, Nepal, the Philippines, Ghana, Bulgaria, Turkey, Japan, Columbia, Haiti, Kenya, the US, Sri Lanka and Egypt — and many other countries in the years before.

Under Operation Good Neighbour, between 2016 and 2018, the IDF set up field hospitals on the Syrian border to treat civilians wounded by violence in their country and sent vital supplies directly into Syria, a nation which is at war with Israel, to help suffering people there.

Few outside Israel, Jewish communities around the world and the places that have benefited from IDF assistance have any idea of any of this because the media is not interested. In some cases, news items about countries contributing teams to disaster relief have omitted Israel despite knowing the IDF was playing an important role.

All the good twisted

The same negative policy extends to other major benefits that Israel has brought to the world, including scientific innovation, medical technology and life-saving intelligence. It goes against editorial agendas to report on the Jewish state in a positive light unless they can somehow twist a good story to turn it bad.

This week we have seen exactly that in newspapers and broadcast media on both sides of the Atlantic as they contort themselves — and the truth — to bash Israel over its remarkable success in vaccinating against Coronavirus. In the UK, the Guardian newspaper reported:

“Two weeks into its vaccination campaign, Israel is administering more than 150,000 doses a day, amounting to initial jabs for more than 1 million of its 9 million citizens — a higher proportion of the population than anywhere else.”

With the world so focused on coronavirus and national reactions everywhere, papers such as the Guardian could hardly avoid reporting Israel’s achievement, much as they would likely have preferred not to. So the article had to be headlined: “Palestinians excluded from Israeli Covid vaccine rollout as jabs go to settlers.”

Effectively accusing Israel of racism by neglecting Palestinian Arabs, the Guardian wrote: “Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza can only watch and wait.”

Across the Atlantic, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) gleefully headlined its article on Israel’s success with: “Palestinians left waiting as Israel is set to deploy COVID-19 vaccine.” The Washington Post published similarly malign sentiments under the headline: “Israel is starting to vaccinate, but Palestinians may have to wait months.”

Predictably the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs leapt onto this rickety bandwagon, publishing on its website a joint statement by a range of human rights organizations, leveling the same criticism and erroneously claiming violations of international law.

Ken Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch — an organization which its founder, the late Robert L. Bernstein, left precisely because of its unjust stance against Israel — in a tweet alleged: “Israel’s discriminatory treatment of Palestinians” and claimed in a separate tweet: “it has not vaccinated a single Palestinian.”

Unwilling to be left out of these gratuitous efforts to attack Israel, Amnesty International also leveled accusations of contravening international law by not vaccinating Palestinian Arabs.

Vaccine slanders

As with most Israel-related stories in the mainstream media and the propaganda relentlessly churned out by so-called human rights groups, these slanders are entirely false. Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank, and Gaza, are not even Israeli citizens and they are not signed up to Israeli healthcare providers.

Under the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s, which created the Palestinian Authority (PA), it alone and not Israel is responsible for the health care of Palestinians, including vaccinations. Nearly 150 UN members recognize “Palestine” as a state, yet these media and human rights bodies, displaying deplorably predictable bias, cannot bring themselves to allow it agency.

The Palestinian Authority has its own plans for vaccinating its people, including in conjunction with the World Health Organization’s Covax scheme, which have been reported in the same media that is attempting to traduce Israel.

At the time when Israel was planning its vaccination program and procuring vaccines, the Palestinian Authority had broken off relations with Israel. Since contact has been restored, until now, neither the PA nor the Hamas terrorist regime that runs the Gaza Strip have asked Israel for any help with vaccinations, evidently preferring their own paths.

However, as late as January 5, a Palestinian Authority official claimed the PA is now discussing with Israel the possibility of some vaccines being supplied to them, which the Israeli authorities are reportedly considering.

Reports also suggest that some doses of vaccine had already been secretly provided by Israel to the Palestinian Authority, following earlier unofficial approaches. The reason for this smoke-and-mirrors approach is the embarrassment the PA has at publicly seeking assistance from Israel, which it unfailingly rages against and vilifies at every opportunity. None of this is likely to be known or covered by the majority of media: it doesn’t fit their agenda.

The idea advanced by some media and human rights commentators that Israel might be allowed to vaccinate the citizens of Gaza, whose rulers have been firing lethal rockets at Israeli territory before and since the pandemic began, is derisory. What are these media commentators and so-called human rights groups doing to persuade the international community to help Gazans in their plight?

Contradicting allegations of a racist or “apartheid” policy, Israel has been vaccinating its Arab citizens since the program began. Given some reluctance to be vaccinated among these communities, the Israeli government, in conjunction with Arab community leaders, have been making concerted efforts to encourage them, including a visit by Prime Minister Netanyahu to two Arab towns in the last few days for this purpose.

Jerusalem Post journalist Seth Frantzman personally confirms that Arabs in eastern Jerusalem have been and are being vaccinated. These people are classed by Ken Roth as Palestinian citizens, by his own lights giving the lie to his assertion that Israel “has not vaccinated a single Palestinian.”

According to Frantzman, there are cases of non-citizens in Israel getting vaccinated by showing up at the mass vaccination points. He cites the example of a Palestinian citizen in Judea who was vaccinated by Israeli authorities despite not having an Israeli health card, illustrating that “Israel’s health authorities are doing all they can to vaccinate as many people as possible, regardless of whether they are Arab or Jewish.”

As anyone who actually knows Israel even slightly would expect, its government will be doing everything it reasonably can to help Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and in Gaza with their fight against coronavirus.

Despite the usual allegations to the contrary, the IDF say they have accepted and facilitated all requests for medical assistance of any kind into the Gaza Strip, including ventilators, oxygen generators and coronavirus testing equipment. This accords with their track record of making all possible efforts to coordinate humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza, even during periods of intensive conflict initiated by Gaza terrorists.

The New York Times also takes a swipe at Israel but from a different angle. While noting the criticisms over “failure” to vaccinate Palestinians, the paper majors not on that but on strong and labored implications that Israel’s success is driven by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s desire to “bolster his own battered image.” One way or another, journalists are determined that Israel’s achievements must not be painted in a positive light.

Abraham Accords derided too

The same approach can be seen over the Abraham Accords of 2020, historic achievements in a hitherto elusive peace between Israel and the Arabs. These have often been received with callous cynicism in the media as well as among veteran peace processors, whose own prescriptions have repeatedly failed.

Many political leaders in Europe have followed suit. Their decades-old opposition to the Jewish state was actuated largely by a self-interested desire to take sides with an Arab world vehemently opposed to Israel’s existence even to the point of battle.

Lord David Trimble, former First Minister of Northern Ireland and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, in November nominated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the prize, along with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi.

Lord Trimble recognized that Netanyahu is the driving force behind the Abraham Accords, whose origins date back to his speech to a joint session of U.S. Congress in 2015, when he made a stand against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Netanyahu’s solitary stance was seized on by Arab leaders, who began to realize they had common cause with the State of Israel, which could lead to a brighter future for them than one encumbered with unnecessary animosity.

There has been no greater move towards peace anywhere in the world in decades. We will see whether Netanyahu receives the Nobel Prize in October. If not, it will be due to the same contempt that the New York Times and many self-proclaimed Western intelligentsia have for this prime minister who, though controversial both at home and abroad, represents the Israeli spirit that they seem determined to denigrate at every turn — even in the face of such monumental achievements as the Abraham Accords and a world-beating vaccination program.

Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army Commander. He was also head of the international terrorism team in the U.K. Cabinet Office and is now a writer and speaker on international and military affairs.

The post Opinion: Media bashes Israel with vaccine smears even as its program beats world appeared first on World Israel News.

Col. Richard Kemp, a retired British army officer and counter-terrorism expert, explains the true agenda behind the “peaceful” Hamas protests.

The post WATCH: Military, counter-terrorism expert explains goal of Gaza protesters appeared first on World Israel News.