Yemen's Remnant Jewish Community Faces Fresh Persecution - But why are there any Jews still in Yemen?

The safety of the less than 100 Jews remaining in Yemen has deteriorated since Houthi "militants" solidified control of the country in February, The New York Times reported.

The remnant Yemeni Jewish community lives mostly in the northern town of Raida and in the capital of Sana. 

Among the 55 Jews in Raida—  children, elderly people, very few singles— are Abraham Jacob, 36, who like most of his male coreligionists is identifiable by his curly earlocks or payot, the Times reported.

The plight of the Jews has only gotten more precarious since the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh was overthrown by the Houthis, who are Shiite Arabs (of the Zaidi sect) aligned with the Shiite Persians of Iran.

The official Houthi slogan is "Death to America, death to Israel, damnation to the Jews."

Note that radical Islamists don't get bogged down in the distinction between Jews and the Jewish state. 

When he goes to the market Jacob is routinely taunted as a "dirty Jew"

"We have no friends," he told a Times reporter, "so we just try to stay away from everyone as much as we can."

Saleh had been prevailed upon to create a protected ghetto for the Jews in Sana near the U.S. embassy. 

Now both the U.S. embassy and the former strongman are gone. 

There are an estimated 20 to 40 Jews in the capital living under virtual house arrest, the Times reported.

Suleiman Jacob, 45, Abraham's eldest brother tucks his earlocks under an Arabic-style headdress to avoid bullying. "It's a shame that we have to do that sometimes, but we do," he said.

"Honestly," Suleiman said, "we are a little afraid of the Houthi takeover and don't know what to do about it." He adds, "There isn't a single one of us here who doesn't want to leave. Soon there will be no Jews in Yemen, inshallah," meaning "God willing" in Arabic.

Community members would prefer to emigrate to the United States, which they say is safer than Israel, according to the Times.

Worth keeping in mind that what little they know about Israel is filtered through the local Arabic-language media. 

Saleh, though Shiite, had opposed the Houthis and aligned Yemen with Washington. Sunnis comprise about 65 percent of the population and al-Qaida has a strong presence in the country.

The Sunni majority is being wooed by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The Sunni tribes may not like al-Qaida but with the Shiite Houthis banging at the door they may be forced to align with Sunnis "militants." 

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that AQAP has been taking advantage of the political vacuum in Yemen -- capturing military bases formerly loyal to the strongman Saleh.

To make matters murkier, some Sunni tribes are hooking up with the Islamic State – abandoning al-Qaida – as a balance against the advancing Shiites.

The rule of thumb in Arabia and throughout the Arab world is always align with the Strong Horse. The barbarians of the Islamic State seem like a safer bet than the al-Qaida fanatics.

Back to the Jews. 

Yemen's Jewish community predates the founding of Islam in the 7th century C.E.  Ponder that: there were Jews in Arabia before there were Muslims in Arabia.

There was never a reliable modern-era census of Jews in Yemen. Some 16,000 Jews emigrated to Palestine prior to Israeli independence in 1948.

By 1950, 43,000 Jews had been airlifted out of Yemen to Israel. 

In 1968 there were believed to be 200 Jews in the country, according to the Encyclopedia Judaica.

The Times story begs the question: why would any Jews opt to stay in Yemen even during the comparatively better days before the Houthis?

There are very human reasons for that. People will often choose the familiar (language, landscape, and "home") over starting a new life elsewhere. 

Those portrayed in the Times piece must be stalwarts of the better-the-devil-you-know worldview. And kudos to the Times for doing the story (even if it includes a subliminal zinger at Israel).

Incidentally, the staunchly anti-Zionist Satmar hassidic sect has worked to discourage Zionist-oriented aliya to Israel. On the other hand, they've been involved in rescuing the remnant Jews of Yemen for years – even moving some to South America as an interim measure. No one else seemed much interested, apparently, since the remnant chose to stay when they could have left for Israel.

Footnote: Saudi Arabia which already is building a security barrier along its border with Yemen is embarking on a security fence with Iraq as well. Egyptian troops are being deployed in Saudi Arabia along its border with Iraq.

All this illustrates (again) how mistaken is the myth that the Palestinian Arab struggle to destroy Israel is the root of Middle East instability.

Political Delineation after Paris

Doves/left-libs compelled to argue there is no war of civilizations.

Hawks/realists see the war of civilizations for what it is.

Hawks/realists also see that war of civilizations is playing out foremost within Islamic civilization.

Doves/left-libs/post-Zionists/anti-Zionists -- the gang at The New York Times and Guardian -- want Europe to maintain its policy of anti-Israelism.

They want Israel pushed back to 1949 Armistice Lines and the creation of a Palestinian state that, deep down they know, sooner rather than later will become an Islamist bastion.

World leaders marching in Paris today are united against a tactic… "terrorism." 

As AIPAC takes a lesser role on Capitol Hill, Muslim Americans Begin to Flex Their Political Muscle

More than 15,000 delegates attended this year's annual convention of the Muslim American Society and the Islamic Circle of North America in Chicago. The gathering which ran from December 25 to 29 was held at the mammoth McCormick Place convention center in Chicago, according to OnIslam.

Only 500 delegates took part in the first convention just after the al-Qaida attacks on the U.S. in 2001.

This year's convention speakers included Tariq Ramadan, grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna, Jamal Badawi, a Muslim scholar sympathetic to Hamas, and Kristiane Backer, a German television presenter and convert to Islam. ‏

Organizers had reportedly planned for Indiana Democratic Rep. André Carson to take part on a Ferguson panel with Mazen Mokhtar. He has been tied by law enforcement authorities in the U.S. and Britain to al-Qaida's website and to fundraising efforts for the Taliban.

Carson was a featured speaker at the convention. One of two Muslims in Congress— the other is Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison— Carson spoke on the "importance of civil engagement and developing leaders in the community," according to a statement  put out by his office. 

He said that he only attended the dinner and did not take part in any panel devoted to Ferguson. Carson added that he would "never associate with any individual or organization trying to harm the United States of America or its citizens."

Pro-Islamist groups in the U.S. have contributed at least $34,000 to Carson's congressional war chest. He also spoke at the 2012 convention where he advocated that U.S. schools look to Muslim madrassas, which teach the Koran, as an educational model, according to the Middle East Forum.

A promotional video for the just concluded event emphasized that Muslim Americans needed to work together to spread the values of Islam. 

There are about 6-8 million Muslims in the U.S. according to convention organizers.  This year, non-Arab Turkish Americans also took part in the convention, World Bulletin reported.

AIPAC seems to be taking a more backseat role -- doing less real public advocacy.  Many U.S. Jews are not particularly concerned about Israel. Some, paradoxically, express their Jewishness by jumping on the bandwagon to "end the occupation" -- in other words, to force Israel back to the 1949 Armistice Lines and install a Palestinian polity in Judea and Samaria that will be a real and present danger to life in Israel.

If Muslims manage to melt a bit more into the melting pot as Jews continue to melt away through out-marriage and illiteracy of their heritage -- the American lobby for Israel will become totally reliant on our Christian friends.

Israel's 2015 Knesset Elections -- Our Own House of Cards Moment

It is way too early to hazard a guess as to which party will be asked to lead the next Israeli government.

Right now, though, Israelis are experiencing a House of Cards moment.

What I can't figure out is who our Frank Underwood or Francis Urquhart is. I wonder if we should, perhaps, be thinking along the lines of a Claire Underwood or Elizabeth Urquhart.

Just as the marriage of convenience between Avigdor Lieberman and Benjamin Netanyahu shattered and Lieberman positioned his Yisrael Beiteinu Party as a potential coalition partner to the ideologically malleable Labor Party (starring former Justice Minister Tzipi Livni as... herself) police began arresting or interrogating one top official of Yisrael Beiteinu after another.

More than a dozen party pols and hangers-on have been questioned (some arrested) by police as part of a wide-ranging corruption investigation.

No one who follows Israeli politics imagines that Lieberman is a paragon of ethical behavior.

Still, were one suspicious, one might say someone waited until Lieberman was no longer of any use to them politically before allowing police investigators to go public with their suspicions of wrong doing – graft, nepotism, and patronage that crosses the line into breach of trust – even in Israeli political culture. 

You might say that, but I could not possibly comment.

It's worth recalling that Netanyahu held Lieberman's foreign ministry portfolio open while the Yisrael Beiteinu chief was enduring the long culmination of an even longer investigation into charges of corruption. 

But that was when Yisrael Beiteinu and Likud were talking about a formal merger.

Now, public money often winds up serving political or parochial interests in Israel. That's because the political system is broken and is hyper-pluralistic.

Whenever a politician or party is targeted in a corruption probe the natural questions arise: why now? And, cui bono?  

Quite justifiably, Lieberman is asking just that: how is it possible that when it comes to my party there are never elections without police investigations?

Lieberman had purportedly been making plans to jettison several principled politicians who lent his party a less sectarian (read Russian) and more hawkish tone – Yair Shamir, Uzi Landau, and Shlomo Aharonovitch.

Some of Yisrael Beiteinu's base will dig in their heels in the conviction that "Russians" are being picked on by the entrenched Israeli establishment. Other voters will take a pox on your house attitude and move on to Moshe Kahlon's Kulanu Party, I imagine.

Meantime, Israel's tendentious press – led by the anti-Netanyahu tabloid Yediot Aharanot and Channel 2 -- is trying to connect Netanyahu to the Lieberman scandal. Barking up a wrong tree, there; but part of their unrelenting efforts to channel votes away from Netanyahu toward anybody but him.

Bottom line: there are no heroes, no princes, no shinning lights in Israeli electoral politics.

We have a fundamentally broken political system. No constituency representation. No individual accountability to voters. A low threshold to all fringe parties a disproportionate influence.

No politicians stands out as deserving of support – though some are less bad than others.

   

Primer on Israeli Politics: What You Ought to Know About Israeli Knesset Elections 2014 Even if it Makes You Sad

When are new Israeli Elections Scheduled?

Snap elections are scheduled for March 17.

Is it too early to predict who will form the next government?

Yes. But if elections were held today, I'd wager the "Labor Party" would form the next government. All Israeli governments since 1948 have been cobbled together. No party has ever won a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

Why put Labor Party in quotation marks?

Because it is running with the Tzipi Livni Party on a unified list. And political economy are not big on their agenda.

What happened to Benjamin Netanyahu's popularity?

Good question. All the polls showed him leading Labor Party Leader Isaac Herzog by a considerable point spread. But his popularity has lately been sliding. Suddenly, voters seem to be suffering from Bibi- fatigue.

Any reasons in particular?

Well, he's been in office since 2009. Netanyahu has a track record of being unable to keep the people near him loyal.  His biggest political rivals are people who once were close to him including Avigdor Lieberman to Naftali Bennett.

He's not a guy who generates loyalty and he's always ready to stab a follower in the back.

What else?

He's been inept in managing the cabinet – look at what happened during the summer 2014 Gaza War. An embarrassment of anarchy.

He's been especially bad at managing the relationship with the White House.

But what can Netanyahu have done? Barack Obama is predisposed against Israel.

True. True. In the sense that he has no particular empathy for the Zionist cause.

But for Obama it became personal because Netanyahu is so close to Sheldon Adelson and Adelson was a mega contributor to Mitt Romney. What's more, Netanyahu sent Ron Dermer to be his U.S. ambassador and Dermer was seen to be especially anti-Obama and pro-Romney. 

It's not a good idea to get in a spat with a president already predisposed to siding with the Arabs.

How does this impact on U.S. policy?

The U.S. might not use its veto in the Security Council to protect Israel in a very important vote that could happen any month now…

The Palestinian Arabs (Fatah and Hamas) want the EU and the U.S. at the UN to set a date for when Israel must pull back to the 1949 Armistice Lines … to end what they call the "occupation."

In other words, the Arabs get too have the first installment on Yasser Arafat's phased-plan for Israel's destruction without even having to bargain for it; handed to them on a silver platter. 

I'm not suggesting Romney would not have done the same at the UN – only that by showing open contempt for Obama, Netanyahu didn't help matters. If the U.S. turns against us in the Security Council, we're in trouble. Big trouble.

Ah, but Netanyahu is strong on security…

Oh, Gimme a break! Netanyahu is responsible for the Shalit prisoner exchange. The worst security mistake Israel made on the Palestinian front since Oslo in 1993…

But that's what Israelis wanted….

Yes. But the prime minister is supposed to lead the country. He led from behind.

Anyway, so what?

So the Oct. 2011 exchange  of 1,027 terrorists with blood on their hands was a tipping point. The following year Arab attacks in Judea and Samaria went from 320 to 578.

Attacks in Jerusalem increased significantly to 282 in 2012 from 191 in 2011.

Since Arab "non-violent" protests often involve the throwing of Molotov cocktails and stones the security situation deteriorated. Enemy gangs also used explosives and firearms more than they had in the recent past.

Hamas began intensifying its bombardment of Israel from Gaza and readying tunnels for new kidnappings of soldiers and civilians.

Netanyahu's Operation Pillar of Fire in November 2012 proved inconclusive. 

But the terrorists all signed forms promising not to engage in terrorism

Ahah. Nevertheless, many of the released terrorists some of them operating out of Turkey resumed their old roles or are mentoring  the current generation of Palestinian gunmen. 

2012 wasn't terrible...but 2013 was particularly violent: IDF soldiers killed; civilians attacked.

The third intifada was underway even before we realized it  – albeit on a low-flame.

Then in June 2014 Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Shaar, and Naftali Frenkel, were kidnapped and murdered by a gang with Hamas connections.  

The barbaric retaliatory murder by a group of Jewish low-lifes of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair, who lived in a northern Jerusalem suburb, located near the Jerusalem light rail, added fuel to an already volatile situation.

Next, Netanyahu allowed the summer war in Gaza to drag on for 50 days and the neither-here-neither-there outcome further undermined Israeli deterrence.

So much for Netanyahu's security credentials. 

But the cabinet of 2011 voted for the Shalit deal

True. All but Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Uzi Landau, and then-Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon

A leader sometimes has to make concessions...

Fine. But get something in return. When Netanyahu throws in the towel he does so in a way that still leaves us appearing intransigent and we get no points for our troubles. This was true on the settlement-building moratorium and on the 74 prisoners Israel released to "help Abu Mazen" return to the negotiating table.

Yeah, but look at how Netanyahu handled the Iranian nuclear threat.

Exactly, I rest my case.

To be fair, that threat was the responsibility of Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert more than Netanyahu. They dropped the ball. But all Bibi's bluffing didn't help Israeli deterrence and it antagonized Obama further. Did anyone really expect the U.S. to go to war with Iran?

So hope rests with Tzipi Livni and Herzog?

Let me be delicate. Livni is a vacillating politician branded by her husband, PR executive Naftali Spitzer. She's way out of her depth.

Herzog like Livni can ride on his pedigree. But he redirected Labor back to the sour, dishonest position on settlements and returned to that fusty mantra that Mahmoud Abbas is a viable peace partner. Shelly Yachimovich had tried to de-emphasize all such nonsense when she led the party but got the boot.  Now, under one roof you've got Herzog, Amir Peretz, and Livni. They might  throw in Shaul Mofaz who let himself be outsmarted by Netanyahu and bears an understandable grudge.

Ah, so Israel's hopes rest with the Orthodox parties…

Yeah, right. The Jewish Home Party, formerly the National Religious Party is a mish mash of interests and rightist factions. Not clear today they'll hold together. Part of the party has made a fetish of defending the settling of hilltops in Judea and Samaria -- making a mockery of centralized Zionist authority.

The party's position on church and state can be deemed enlightened only when transposed against the positions of the ultra-Orthodox haredi parties. There's no Family Court in Israel. It's all controlled by the religious courts. 

Party leader Bennett fancies himself a military genius and clashed with Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon during the Gaza war. His main strength: he's got very good English and is a plain talker on security issues.

You're not a fan of the Agudah and Shas ultra-Orthodox parties either…

I favor a separation of State and Synagogue. I respect the haredi parties for advocating for their constituencies. But I oppose the insularity they espouse, and their Tammany Hall style, as unhealthy for the Jewish body politic.

OK. So that leaves Yair Lapid

I always felt Lapid was a flash in the pan and I still do. Israelis always look for "third parties" to save them. And they're invariably disappointed. So what do they do? They await yet another third party…

Lapid talks out of both sides of his mouth on security. He's a suave TV personality and highly accessible tabloid writer. But he was a fool to allow himself to be saddled with Treasury by Netanyahu. Not clear what he is for except being against the haredim.

What, or who, does that leave you with?

Not much.

So by a process of elimination—if Moshe Kahlon (the ex-Likud minister), Lieberman, and Lapid manage to form a unified bloc, I'll hold my nose and maybe go with them – feeling I have little choice. There is time until March to re-think whether Netanyahu is, in the last and final analysis, the lesser of all bad choices.

Any forecast at this early stage?

If I had to predict an outcome today—though the situation is fluid – I'd wager Herzog and his lot will form the next government.

And that the next leader of Likud – if Netanyahu loses big -- will be Moshe Feiglin. He's a man of honor. But alas, his goals are theocratic.

In other words, Likud will become the tea party; "Labor" the Republican establishment. I say that because even Labor will quickly become despised by the Europeans and Obama when they balk at making suicidal and unilateral concessions to the Palestinians…which I'd like to think Herzog and Livni would do when push comes to shove.

Why is the Netanyahu camp so angry at Lieberman?

Both men have few principles. Liebermann is willing to enter a government with just about anybody…he'd go with Labor if the price is right.

All this sounds so dispiriting...

Yep. The only way to begin to set things right is to reform the political system – I'm talking constitutional and electoral reform. And I'm not holding my breath....