A non-profit Israeli institute that researches Palestinian society has found a troubling possible linkage between US aid to the Palestinian Authority and the scope of deadly terror attacks against Israelis.

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The Palestinian Media Watch published a study this week that analyzed statistics taken from periodic reports published by the US Congressional Research Service, from 2011 (the year the non-profit exposed the PA's terror-rewarding pay-for-slay policy) through 2022.

It found that when aid to the PA dropped, such as during the Trump administration, attacks against Israelis also decreased. However, when such aid was high, such as during the Obama and now Biden administrations, more Israelis were killed.

There are three types of US aid to the PA: the Economic Support Fund, the International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement, and US aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Between 2009 and 2017, the Obama administration provided the PA with 6.4 billion dollars in aid. Within that time, 140 Israelis and foreigners residing in Israel were killed in terror attacks, an average of 17.5 a year.

Over the next four years, the Trump administration gradually decreased aid to the Palestinians to as little as 670 million dollars. Within that time period, 42 Israelis and foreigners were killed in Palestinian terror attacks, an average of 10.5 people a year.

Since the Biden administration took office in January 2021, the PA has received a billion dollars in aid. In that time, 46 Israelis and foreigners have been killed, an average of 23 a year. In January and February this year, when US aid to the PA continued unabated, 14 Israelis and foreigners were killed in Palestinian terror attacks.

Maurice Hirsch, head of Legal Strategies at the PMW, said, "The correlation is also annual. In a year when extensive economic aid to the Palestinians flows, the number of attacks increases – and vice versa. The Palestinians interpret American support, as far as it is expressed in financial aid, as approval for terrorism and the murder of Israelis.

"US support is ostensibly dedicated to promoting peace, but in practice, the Palestinians see its support as an opportunity to promote terrorism. While US aid to the Palestinians flows freely, Palestinian terrorists feel empowered and kill Israelis. Only when the US demonstrates moral clarity and stops the aid, the Palestinians will understand that terrorism does not pay."

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On January 27, 1945, the date that has come to be known as the day when Auschwitz was liberated, a smaller event took place several hundred miles to the west, at the Stalag IXA Nazi detention camp, where many American POWs were held. 

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One of the US service members there was Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds. A day earlier, the Nazi commanders told him that as the one in charge of all other POWs, he must make sure Jewish inmates report themselves the following morning by standing outside their barracks. 

A simple soldier from Knoxville, Tennessee, Edmonds would not betray his values and ordered all the American prisoners – Jews and non-Jews – to present themselves outside their residences. 

The Wehrmacht officer who showed up the next morning to take the Jews immediately realized what had happened and told Edmonds: "They can't all be Jewish." Edmonds, without missing a heartbeat, replied, "We are all Jews."

The officer drew his gun and put it against Edmonds' temple, but the latter would not flinch. "If you shoot me, you will have to shoot everyone here, and after the war, you will be tried for war crimes." The Nazi officer eventually put the gun back in his holster and left. 

Edmonds kept this act of bravery to himself, withholding it even from his wife and kids. His actions were only discovered after his death when one of his family members began reading his diaries. Eventually in 2015, Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel recognized Edmonds as Righteous Among the Nations.

As is customary, the ambassador in the country where the honor is bestowed gets to preside over the event, and in this case, the ambassador was the Israeli envoy to the US, Ambassador Ron Dermer. Dermer was extremely awed by the story behind the Edmonds heroism and decided that the event should be held at the embassy, with President Barack Obama getting the honor. 

Just weeks earlier, Dermer was engaged in an all-out effort to derail the nuclear deal Obama had concluded with Iran and even managed to partially succeed. Several news outlets in Israel and the US cast him as the enemy of the Obama administration. They even said claimed that because of his activity the Democratic president had resolved to boycott him and that he might as well leave Washington. These claims were accompanied by various analyses. The longer Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Dermer remained in their position, these pundits sounded a harsher tone. 

Everything was thrown at the kitchen sink in order to besmirch the two. Netanyahu was described as a Republican senator; Dermer was portrayed as a party hack; and the two were accused of effectively helping Mitt Romney –who ran against Obama in 2012 as the GOP nominee – unseat the president. They were accused of neglecting the Democrats and dealing an almost-deadly blow to the bipartisan support Israel had traditionally enjoyed. 

One of Channel 12 News' senior pundits put it even more bluntly when he covered Bennett's visit to the White House in August 2021: Netanyahu aligned himself with the Republican Party for a very long time, in a very clear cut way. Despite Israel trying to keep ties with both camps since its founding, Netanyahu stood alongside the Republicans and did not hide his support for Romney, and of course, highlighted the importance of his ties with Donald Trump. He completely neglected the other side, the Democrats."

The so-called "neglect" of the Democrats

Netanyahu's political rivals doubled down on this media-concocted myth. Now those rivals are in the government, but they continue to accuse him of this conduct. "After years in which the previous government neglected Congress and the Democratic Party, and inflicted substantial damage to Israel-US relations, we are rebuilding the trust between Israel and Congress," Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said in September as the House ran into difficulties passing the special Iron Dome funding budget. 

So widespread has this urban legend spread that even among the civil service in Israel – i.e. the Foreign Ministry – it is accepted as gospel. "Everyone knows that Netanyahu supported Romney. He even stated as much publicly," one senior official in the ministry recently told me. I pressed the official to provide me with the proof and quotes that can base this claim, but to no avail. Even after 20 minutes of looking for such proof, he had nothing to report back with. 

There is an obvious explanation for the official's wild goose chase: Netanyahu never expressed his support for Romney, either publicly or behind closed doors. There is not a single person who can credibly say that Netanyahu tried to help Obama's rival and there is not a single report where Netanyahu is quoted to that effect or even goes beyond what is normally acceptable. So what has been reported? Claims, subjective analyses, and overall assessments. But they all lack one thing: facts. 

This also applies to the fabricated allegation that "Netanyahu has neglected the Democrats." The fact of the matter is that this could not be further from the truth: Netanyahu would meet all congressional delegations when they arrived in Israel during his premiership, regardless of their party affiliation. Some of the Democratic lawmakers have remained his personal friends ever since. Here is a sample of the meetings he held as prime minister with US lawmakers: Jan. 22, 2020, a bipartisan delegation led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Oct. 3, 2019, a meeting with a bipartisan delegation led by Democrat Alcee Hastings; Aug. 7, 2019, a bipartisan delegation of 40 Democratic lawmakers led by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer; Aug 7, 2017, an 18-member delegation of Democratic lawmakers led by Hoyer.

Scholars who scrutinize Netanyahu's ties with Democrats will find a plethora of additional meetings. They were not secret, but out in the open and official, and reported by the Prime Minister's Office. But many journalists and pundits in Israel – as well as local politicians – just won't let the facts get in the way. 

In other words, the claim that Netanyahu aligned with Republicans undermined the relations with the Democrats or harmed the bipartisan support for Israel is divorced from reality. Did he clash with the Democrats over Iran and the Palestinians? Of course, he did, because he was convinced that the US posture hurt Israel and insisted on being true to his convictions. His predecessors acted the same way, and this is what Israelis expect from their prime minister. The claim that he meddled in US politics is nothing but a figment of people's imagination. The facts are simply not there. 

One could have easily dismissed this as nothing more than analysis had the Israeli policymakers not used this falsehood to pursue their agenda. 

For example, Lapid keeps slamming Netanyahu for supposedly undermining Israel's relations with Congress. But everyone knows this is just nonsense because Netanyahu himself relied on Capitol Hill to counter Obama's problematic policies, culminating with his address to a joint meeting of both chambers in 2015 to rally against the nuclear deal. The speech was delivered in Washington, not in Jerusalem, in the very Congress that Lapid claims that Netanyahu neglected. It's just mind-boggling that someone like Lapid – who wants to project a serious aura as an Israeli leader – engages in such buffoonery. 

To glorify his new policy, Lapid also made it be known that he had had a phone conversation with Hoyer, to imply that, unlike Netanyahu's supposed boycott, he actually engaged the senior Democrat. But the archive is replete with pictures showing Netanyahu and Hoyer in the same frame, including some depicting the two embracing each other – unlike the photos, Lapid so far has to share. So the average Israeli must once again ask: shouldn't Israeli leaders be professional and informed? 

Lapid has blamed Netanyahu for the recent road bump in Congress over the Iron Dome budget, which was a consequence of the progressive "Squad" in the House trying to derail it. But Lapid's effort to lay the blame on Netanyahu just doesn't hold water. Does Israel's Foreign Ministry really think Squad is anti-Israel because of Netanyahu? Can Netanyahu convince them to support Israel rather than hate it? Just who does Lapid think he is fooling using this populist attack? Perhaps himself, not the public. 

To think that such incorrect assessments are made time and again by the strongest figure in the cabinet is just frightening. He is tasked with making consequential decisions. Do we really deserve such shallowness? It's not just him of course, this conduct has become rampant among our very best diplomats, who lack basic knowledge on Israel-US relations. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his advisers are no exception, and they too have taken part in this spin charade. This should be a source of great concern. 

If Netanyahu really was into boycotting Democrats as he has been accused of, then-Ambassador Dermer would not have dared to invite Obama to the ceremony in honor of Edmonds. In fact, Dermer himself signed that invitation to the president. Dermer knew the facts, and after having the honor of then-Vice President Joe Biden attend the embassy's event to mark Israel's independence day that year – at the height of the clash over the Iran deal – he rightly believed that Obama would accept the invitation. 

In December 2015, then-President Reuven Rivlin met with Obama, Dermer joined the meeting, as is customary on such visits. When the two leaders began their one-on-one, Dermer approached Obama's Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and told him about Edmonds' heroism. He then formally invited the president to the event. "You will get a response within two weeks," McDonough told Dermer. 

Obama, the snow, and the ceremony 

Two weeks had passed without a response, and Dermer's advisers told him he should stop holding out hope that Obama would come. But Dermer would not lose hope; he remained convinced that precisely because of the recent clash over Iran, the president would seize this opportunity to show his commitment to Israel's security and the Jewish people

As the days went by, there was no sign of a response. The date for the ceremony was set for January 27, 2016, and the embassy began sending out invitations. But there was no set speaker's list or timetable because Dermer was still expecting Obama to get back to him. In early January, Israeli officials at the Foreign Ministry began making background conversations with reporters in which they slammed him for not properly preparing for this important event. A senior member of Yad Vashem also called him, making it clear that the organization was outraged. 

On January 12, a week out from the date of the ceremony, the White House chief of staff sent Obama's response. The president will attend, he informed Dermer but asked that this not be made public yet. "The White House house will deal with the media-related aspects," he said, before surprising Dermer by asking, "What else can I do for you?"

Dermer had a ready response. He said that because of the preparations for the event, he would not be able to get to Capitol Hill to attend the State of the Union address. "I go every year, but all the roads have already been blocked because it's about to start," Dermer said.

"McDonough once again responded with a surprising gesture: 'Not a problem. Come with us.' And so it was. The Israeli ambassador, who was accused by Israeli pundits and officials of burning bridges with the Obama administration, arrived with the presidential motorcade to Capitol Hill to watch the State of the Union Address. 

When Friday arrived, the White House made the final preparations for the president's visit. Dozens of Jewish leaders – including some that had criticized Dermer in the media on background by claiming that he is boycotted by the Democrats – flooded his office with requests to attend the event. 

The biggest obstacle for this even to go forward was the weather: The capital was hit by a blizzard and the snow piled up in the embassy, making it inaccessible. The event was scheduled for Wednesday. Sunday was a weekend, on Monday there was some other holiday. So the only day left for clearing up the snow and setting up a security tent was Tuesday. 

When his staff told him that they would not be able to make all the necessary preparations on time, Dermer was adamant. "This is a historic event; there is no way this will be postponed. Find someone who can clear the snow, or else I will bring my kids and we will shovel it ourselves," he said. 

On the Monday before the event – just 48 hours before the ceremony – Dermer began shoveling as he had promised to do. Many on embassy staff joined along and miraculously a contractor company was hired to finish up the job. 

On the day of the event, the Edmonds family members arrived, along with President Obama and Chairman of Yad Vashem Yisrael Meir Lau. Some 150 guests were in attendance. Dermer said that Edmonds, through his actions, provided humanity's response to God's famous question to Abraham in Genesis, "Where art thou?"

Obama said that everyone should ask themselves if they would have acted the way Edmonds did had they been in the same situation. The president concluded his remarks with the words "God bless you. God bless the United States of America. And God bless the State of Israel."

Nine months later Obama signed off on the largest-ever military assistance US aid package to Israel. These are the facts on Israel and the Democrats during the Netanyahu era, and it is about time Lapid, Bennett, and others doing their bidding stop spreading fairy tales. 

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According to the report, the US believed that Israel was on the verge of attacking the Islamic republic in 2012, and at one point discovered that Israel was allegedly carrying out extensive intelligence operations without its knowledge through Azerbaijan.

The Times said that the information was gathered through "interviews with dozens of current and former American, Israeli and European officials over several months reveal the startling details of how close the Israeli military came to attacking Iran in 2012."

The interviews also showed "the extent to which the Obama administration felt required to develop its own military contingency plans in the event of such an attack, including destroying a full-size mock-up of an Iranian nuclear facility in the western desert of the United States with a 30,000-pound bomb; how Americans monitored Israel even as Israel monitored Iran, with American satellites capturing images of Israel launching surveillance drones into Iran from a base in Azerbaijan; and previously unknown details about the scope of Netanyahu's pressure campaign to get Trump to leave the Iran deal."

Netanyahu is quoted in the report as saying "this [the potential attack] was not a bluff – it was real. And only because it was real were the Americans truly worried about it."

"If I'd had a majority, I would have done it," Netanyahu said. "Unequivocally."

The Times reported that "a parade of top American officials began flying to Israel during Barack Obama's first term to take the measure of the Israeli planning and to convince Netanyahu and [then Defense Minister] Ehud Barak that the United States was taking the problem seriously and that Iran was hardly on the brink of getting the bomb."

Regarding the possibility that the Trump administration would strike another deal with Iran rather than continue the pressure on Tehran, Netanyahu told the Times that "this time, we will have far greater ability to exert influence [compared to during the Obama presidency]."

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Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer was appointed six years ago and according to a Channel 12 report from Saturday, Netanyahu was told he could not extend his term at this point because Israel was in the midst of an election period.

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During such a period, the government becomes a transition government and is barred from making major decisions.

But Netanyahu insisted Sunday that Dermer's was not going to leave his post for at least another 12 months after he completed his term this September, saying: "He is a fantastic ambassador. I have good news – we will extend his term by at least another year."

During his tenure, Dermer has had a contentious relationship with the Obama administration but a close one with the Trump White House.

Before being appointed in 2013, Dermer, who was born in Florida and moved to Israel in 1996, served as Netanyahu's senior adviser to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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"At the time, I was no longer the ambassador," Oren tells Israel Hayom.

"I was serving as an MK, but I suggested, among other things, that the US and Israel prepare a document in which they would jointly define what would be considered a violation of the nuclear deal and agree ahead of time on how the US would respond to any violations. At the end of the list, I included a request for American recognition of the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory. Netanyahu brought the matter up, but Obama laughed in his face," Oren says.

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Oren served as ambassador to the US for over four years, but his intimate knowledge of bilateral relations started long before that. He grew up in New Jersey in the 1960s, the son of a Conservative Jewish family who lived in a mostly Catholic neighborhood, where he racked up a few experiences with anti-Semitism.

"So I'm not upset about or wonder at what's happening today," he says.

He joined the Habonim Dror Zionist youth movement, which wound up changing the course of his life.

In 2012, when Oren finished his ambassadorial role, he told Israel Hayom: "When I was 15, we went to Washington with the movement, and the height of the visit was a meeting with Yitzhak Rabin, who had been IDF chief of staff in the Six-Day War and was at the time Israel's ambassador to the US. Rabin talked to us some, and I felt that it was the best moment of my life. I told myself that I wanted to represent Israel in Washington. That was my life's dream."

After Ron Dermer replaced him as ambassador in 2013, Oren continued to focus on US-Israel relations. He went on a speaking tour of the US to promote his new book, "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present."  The book came after a long series of studies and other published books, some of which were bestsellers in the US and Israel, and mainly focused on American history and as it relates to Israel.

Take advantage of the window of opportunity

So Oren, both as a historian and as one who has sometimes had a hand in history, has his own perspective.

"The Trump administration is the most friendly toward Israel since the state was founded. In this administration, there isn't a single official who is problematic for Israel. Even in good administrations such as the ones of [Bill] Clinton or [George W.] Bush, there were senior officials who made trouble. But with Trump, there's no Condoleezza Rice, there's no Caspar Weinberger, and there's no James Baker," he says.

Q: From a historian's point of view, how does the current period of US-Israel relations look?

"Bilateral relations have undergone a process of evolution over the years. President [Harry] Truman is remembered as a friendly president because he recognized Israel, but he actually boycotted us during the War of Independence when we had our backs to the sea. [Dwight D.] Eisenhower was very tough on us and his secretary of state, John Foster Douglas, was a real anti-Semite. President John F. Kennedy was very critical. He was the first who met with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, but it wasn't at the White House, it was at a hotel in New York and the meeting was a difficult one.

"The big change came in the 1980s under [Ronald] Reagan, but at the beginning, he boycotted us too, because we blew up the [Osirak] reactor in Iraq. He stopped the shipments of F-16 jets and voted with Iraq against us in the UN Security Council. Today, who could imagine a scenario like that? Under Reagan, two principles that characterize [US-Israel] relations were formed: no surprises and no outward discrepancies. If we were shouting at each other, it had to be behind closed doors and not in the open. For example, when Bush Jr. published the road map [peace plan] in 2003, Arik Sharon had received it two weeks earlier. Obama was the one who violated these principles, but the current administration has reinstated them."

Q: Is this administration is the best Israel has ever had, what will a historian who looks at this period 50 or 100 years from now see?

"A lot depends on the question of how we take advantage of the opportunity and the time we have left. We don't know if the current president has another year and a half or five and a half years in office, but in any case, it's not long. We need to take advantage of this window of opportunity to address all the important issues, like Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the Palestinians, and so forth."

Q: Practically speaking, do you suggest taking action against Hezbollah while Trump is still in office?

"We should consider it. Hezbollah has 130,000 missiles [stored] underneath homes in 200 villages. The IDF projects a rate of fire of 2,000-4,000 missiles per day, compared to 200 to 300 per day in the Second Lebanon War. So the IDF won't have a choice but to launch an operation, and in a war, we'll need ammunition. Would a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren administration give us ammunition? A move like that would entail heavy civilian casualties and not only on the Lebanese side of the border. Who will give us diplomatic and legal protection? Who will give us a diplomatic Iron Dome in the UN Security Council and at the International Criminal Court in The Hague? The current administration certainly will."

The challenge of bipartisan support

When he was appointed as an ambassador to the US in 2009, Oren gave up his American citizenship. Until then, like most US Jews, his family had tended to support the Democratic Party, which in the 20th century supported Jews and their state more than the conservative Republican Party did. But in recent years, Oren has personally felt, as an individual and as an emissary, that the Democrats are distancing themselves from Israel, while the Republicans are embracing it.

"In May 2010, after the Mavi Marmara flotilla, I was summoned to a meeting with all of Obama's staff at the White House. They were exerting heavy pressure to establish an international investigative committee that would probe the incident. We opposed [this], suspecting that a committee would reach foregone conclusions. During the discussion, I asked Obama's advisers if they would be willing to defend us against possible sanctions at the ICC in The Hague. I showed them a law Congress had passed in 2003, which says that if anyone tried to put American soldiers on trial, or soldiers of an American ally, the US would take steps against the nations trying to do so. I showed them the law and they answered, 'Do you really want us to boycott Norway?' I said, 'Yes,' but they laughed at me. That's how it was with Obama. The current administration doesn't laugh, it boycotts."

Q: Can relations only deteriorate after this administration?

"I don't know. There are a lot of demographic processes that indicate that the Democrats will return to power, if not in 2020 then the next time. There are Democratic candidates who are very good for Israel, but there are also others [who are not]. I don't know if a Democratic president would maintain the same policy toward Iran, or if they would return to the nuclear deal Trump pulled out of. I also don't know if American recognition of the Golan would remain in place, or the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the relocation of the US embassy in Israel. Bernie Sanders, for example, would certainly return to the nuclear deal and undo the embassy move. He is one of the leading Democrats and there are other progressive leaders like him."

Q: Is Israel losing the important asset of bipartisan support?

"We haven't lost bipartisan support, but it is being challenged when it comes to the question of what issue is being discussed. If it's loss of life (among Arabs), you see the cracks. In the time of Obama, there were instances like that … after Operation Cast Lead in 2009 and Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012 or after the Marmara flotilla. When it comes to Iran, for example, we've lost bipartisan support because the Democrats aren't with us. On the other hand, on the two-state solution, there is bipartisan support, and even AIPAC is in favor of it – but the Israeli government is not. So bipartisan support is being challenged from all directions."

Q: Are these processes that Israel can influence?

"We can't solve all the problems, but we do need to set a strategic goal of maintaining support among the progressives. That is a top priority, even if our success is partial. We need to bring as many delegations as possible [to Israel] and send as many representatives as possible there. We need to show ourselves that we're doing everything possible to preserve bipartisan support and all sectors of the Jewish people. Thus far, we haven't."

Q: How should Israel prepare for an era in which the US has lost its standing in the world?

"I would always tell Bibi that we need to thank Obama. Because before Obama, we had 40 years in the 'nest.' Mommy America protected us. He came and threw us out of the nest. He forced us to stand on our own two feet. We always knew that the crisis would come, and as a result of it, the prime minister went to China, to India, and to Africa, and our diplomatic situation has never been better. Israel isn't a kid anymore, it's older than half the states in the UN. The US will remain an important ally, but we are strong and can stand on our own two feet."

Despite the bleak prospects about the attitude of the Democratic Party toward Israel, Oren wants to mention one moment during the Obama administration in which they did rush to Israel's aid.

"It was 6 p.m. in Washington, 1 a.m. in Israel. I was on my way to the White House for the annual Hanukkah party," he recalls.

In Israel, it was a time of mourning. Half a day earlier, 44 firefighters, prison guards, and police had been burned alive in the worst wildfire in Israel's history. Oren and the Jewish leadership were invited to the annual White House Hanukkah party.

"I went in and my phone rang. The prime minister was on the line and said, 'Michael, we have a problem. I need you to see what the US can do. We don't have the tools to get the fire under control and we need as much flame retardant and firefighting aircraft as possible, as quickly as possible.' I told him I would speak to the president."

When Obama was available, Oren explained the situation briefly and asked for America to do everything it could.

"Obama replied, 'Give Israel everything it asks for.' We opened an emergency room in the White House and we were there most of the night to handle the crisis. Representatives of the National Security Council and Homeland Security were there with us. A few hours later, eight American firefighting aircraft that had been scrambled from US bases in Europe landed in Israel, carrying cargoes of flame retardant."

"By the way, Obama himself took off that same night for a flash visit to Afghanistan. The first call he made when he landed was to see if Israel had gotten everything it asked for. That's how it is. Even with Obama, the picture is always complicated."

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According to the annual statistical review put out by the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research every year ahead of Jerusalem Day, the areas added to the city in 1967 are currently home to 216,000 Jews, compared to 215,000 last year – an increase of only half a percent compared to the growth of 1.8% seen in the city's Jewish population as a whole, and the 2.7% increase in the city's Arab population.

The latest figure is just the tip of the iceberg of a years-long trend that is rarely discussed – namely, that the Jewish population in east Jerusalem is declining steadily. In the first two decades after 1967, those neighborhoods became home to about 50% of the city's Jewish population, but since then, the number has been dropping, and now stands at only 39%.

These two trends – the near-freeze in growth in the Jewish population in east Jerusalem and the comparative drop in the total population there – are the result of years of a construction freeze and low construction (as opposed to high-rises) in these parts of the city. For the eight years former U.S. President Barack Obama was in office and pressured Israel to free construction in Jerusalem and the settlements, the Netanyahu governments built only 550 housing units per year for Jews in east Jerusalem. In comparison, some 1,500 housing units per year were built in the western half of the city. In neither east nor west Jerusalem does the average availability of new housing units meet the enormous demand, which has doubled.

Even after two years with U.S. President Donald Trump in office, there have been no dramatic changes in what the Netanyahu government is doing in east Jerusalem. In 2017, the government doubled the number of east Jerusalem housing units for Jews to 1,081, but concentrated construction in two neighborhoods – Ramot and Gilo, with near-zero construction in the 10 other Jewish neighborhoods in the east of the city. In 2018, the numbers reverted back to what they were in Obama's time – only 661 new apartments for Jews were built in east Jerusalem, 500 in Ramat Shlomo, which was frozen during Obama's terms, and the rest scattered around the other Jewish neighborhoods. The number of residents of Gilo and East Talpiot did not increase this past year, and the large Pisgat Zeev neighborhood in the northeast has grown by only 1% in the past 11 years!

Government officials explain the drastic decline in construction for Jews in east Jerusalem by pointing to the decrease in available zoned land there, but that's only partly true. A report by Israel Kimchi draws a different picture. Kimchi, current head of the Jerusalem studies desk at the JIPR and former head of the city's planning policy department, looked into the construction plans for Jewish settlements in Jerusalem that have been currently shelved. He used data from the Jerusalem Municipality, the Interior Ministry, the Israel Land Authority, and the Construction and Housing Ministry. Kimchi's report revealed potential for 25,000 more housing units for Jews in east Jerusalem, which the national and city governments barely utilize: by 2040, some 4,000 housing units could be built in Atarot; 1,800 in Pisgat Zeev; over 2,000 in Ramat Shlomo; more than 4,000 in Ramot; some 2,000 in Har Homa; and 13,000 in Gilo!

But for the most part, these plans are not being given a green light for political reasons. Two "frozen" neighborhoods, Givat Hamatos and a neighborhood in E1, the corridor that connects Jerusalem to Maaleh Adumim, are not the only ones. Little if any construction is permitted in Jewish neighborhoods beyond the Green Line, and additional plans are not being moved through the planning approval stages. When it comes to this point, there is little difference in Netanyahu's action in the Trump era to his actions in the time of Obama.

The JIPR's annual statistical review and a probe by Israel Hayom turned up other surprising numbers. For one, the population of the Muslim Quarter in the Old City is shrinking. In fact, the population of the Old City has dropped by some 10% in the past five years, from 37,710 to 34,140. This is mainly attributable to the loss of some 4,000 residents of the Muslim Quarter, whose population currently stands at 24,500. The Jewish Quarter is home to 3,130; 4,180 people live in the Christian Quarter; and the Armenian Quarter is home to some 2,300.

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"The United States supports the Iranian people and calls on the regime to respect its citizens' basic rights to peacefully express their desire for change," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters.

Borrowing from a response playbook it has used before, Iran's government blamed the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Britain for the protests. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 78-year-old supreme leader, said Iran's enemies were using money, weapons, politics and spies "to create problems for the Islamic system, the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolution."

On the sixth day of protests, riot police were out in force in several cities, footage on social media showed, as security forces struggled to contain the boldest challenge to Iran's clerical leadership since unrest in 2009.

U.S. President Donald Trump also voiced his support for protesters in a series of tweets.

"The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their pockets," said Trump, who has been tweeting daily in support of the protesters.

One U.S. official assessed that Trump's tweets were playing into the government's hands and allowing it to accuse enemies of the Islamic Republic of fomenting the unrest.

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley praised the courage of Iranian demonstrators and said protests across the country were spontaneous, not driven by outside forces.

After she read out social media posts written by Iranians in support of the protests, Haley dismissed Iranian leaders' contention that the protests were designed by Iran's enemies.

"We all know that's complete nonsense," she said. "The demonstrations are completely spontaneous. They are virtually in every city in Iran. This is the precise picture of a long oppressed people's rising up against their dictators."

Haley said the United States was seeking emergency sessions on Iran at the United Nations in New York and at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"We must not be silent," she said. "The people of Iran are crying out for freedom."

Iranian authorities have sought to suppress the protests in part by shutting down key social media sites protesters use to communicate, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and the messaging app Telegram.

On Tuesday, Undersecretary of State Steve Goldstein urged Iran's government to unblock the sites. "They are legitimate avenues for communication," Goldstein said.

He said the U.S. has an "obligation not to stand by."

Iranians seeking to evade the blocks can use virtual private networks, Goldstein said. Known as VPNs, the services create encrypted data "tunnels" between computers and can be used to access overseas websites blocked by the local government.

The primary U.S. goal is to ensure enough global attention to deter Iranian authorities from violently cracking down on protesters with impunity, said a senior State Department official involved in Iran policy. The official wasn't authorized to comment by name and demanded anonymity.

For Trump, the protests have served as an unexpected but welcome opportunity to rally the world against Iran, and U.S. officials said the administration was actively encouraging other countries to back the protests. Early U.S. attempts to get European allies to coordinate their messaging with the U.S. has run into obstacles, but several countries including France and Italy have joined in expressing concerns.

In the U.S., Trump's full-throated support for the protesters has renewed the debate about how best to encourage change in Iran, whose government Trump deems a top national security threat.

Under former President Barack Obama, the U.S. took a more cautious approach during the last major wave of anti-government protests. It was concerned about enabling Iranian authorities to exploit longstanding suspicions of the U.S., dating back to American and British support for a 1953 coup toppling Iran's elected prime minister.

Ben Rhodes, Obama's former deputy national security adviser, said "too much ownership" of the protests by Trump would likely be counterproductive.

"I can't imagine that the people marching in the streets of Iran are looking to Donald Trump for inspiration or support," Rhodes said. "I just don't think it helps things for the White House to make this into a U.S.-versus-the-Iranian-government circumstance."

But former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a staunch Iran critic, said it's a given Tehran will portray dissent as externally provoked.

"That's a very weak excuse for American inaction and inconsistency with our own interests and values. I'm glad President Trump is not following that advice," Lieberman said in an interview.

It wasn't immediately clear what effect Trump's support was having on the protests, although Iran's state TV reported his tweets and some Iranians shared them online.

In a tweet on North Korea, meanwhile, Trump said possible talks between North and South Korea held mixed potential, while sanctions were beginning to take a toll on Pyongyang amid tensions over its nuclear and missile programs.

"Sanctions and 'other' pressures are beginning to have a big impact on North Korea. Soldiers are dangerously fleeing to South Korea," Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.

"Rocket man now wants to talk to South Korea for first time. Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not – we will see!" Trump added, in a reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

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