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Wednesday, March 06, 2019

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Nothing new in Ramallah
Abbas clearly intends to adhere to this fatwa, as he made clear during a trip to Egypt in January.

"I will not end my life as a traitor," he told reporters in Cairo. "I can say 'no,' and I have a people that can say 'no' beside me. … The doors are closed to the U.S. As long as it does not retract its decisions against the Palestinian people, no Palestinian should meet with the American leadership, no matter what their role is."

More recently, on a visit to Iraq on Monday, Abbas told leaders in Baghdad that the Trump administration "is encouraging Israel to be a state above the law," as well as "biased and not suitable to be a sponsor of peace talks."

So much for the "deal of the century," whose details have yet to be revealed. So much for the fantasists in Israel and abroad who continue to harbor any hope.
Honest Reporting: Debunking the ‘Disproportionate Force’ Charge
It’s unequivocal that greater numbers of Palestinians than Israelis have been killed or injured during periods of intense conflict. This has repeatedly led to accusations that Israel has employed “disproportionate force” for security measures and during military operations over the years.

The term has has been abused by activists, journalists, non-governmental organizations and politicians who have employed it without bothering to research precisely what disproportionate actually means in terms of international law. One thing it does not mean an imbalance in casualty figures proves Israeli disproportionate force.

So what does it mean? Here are some explanations.

Operation Cast Lead

The UN’s Goldstone Report into the 2008-09 Operation Cast Lead, later recanted by its author Judge Richard Goldstone, asserted that Israel had launched a “deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”

Back in 2011, former commander of UK forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp stated in response:

no one has been able to tell me which other army in history has ever done more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone.

In fact, my judgments about the steps taken in that conflict by the IDF to avoid civilian deaths are inadvertently borne out by a study published by the United Nations itself, a study which shows that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza was by far the lowest in any asymmetric conflict in the history of warfare.

The UN estimate that there has been an average three-to one ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in such conflicts worldwide. Three civilians for every combatant killed.

That is the estimated ratio in Afghanistan: three to one.

In Iraq, and in Kosovo, it was worse: the ratio is believed to be four-to-one. Anecdotal evidence suggests the ratios were very much higher in Chechnya and Serbia.

In Gaza, it was less than one-to-one.
Critics of America's Support for Israel Cannot Escape History
Certain of our recently elected congressional representatives view U.S. support for Israel as inexplicable. They are dismissive of explanations of shared values or strategic importance. They ask what reason other than a malignant influence could possibly explain why the U.S. has supported Israel and Zionism.

They fail to appreciate the extent to which the restoration of the Jewish people to sovereignty in their ancient homeland has been deeply ingrained in the religious, political and social fabric of America.

Even before there was a U.S., our Founding Fathers and even their forefathers longed to restore the Jews to their ancient homeland. The Puritans saw themselves as a "New Israel." Increase Mather, the Puritan leader, taught his followers that one day the "Jews would return to their homeland and establish the most glorious nation in the world." The Yale University coat of arms is adorned with the Hebrew words meaning "light and perfection."

Benjamin Franklin recommended that the Great Seal of the United States be an illustration of the Hebrews fleeing Egypt for their homeland. John Adams wrote in 1819: "I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation." This all occurred when the Jews in America numbered only in the thousands.

Abraham Lincoln wrote of "restoring the [Jews] to their national home in Palestine" and that relieving their oppression was "a noble dream and one shared by many Americans." This support was echoed by Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover.

While recent congressional critics of America's support of Israel might dismiss this history, they cannot escape it.
Gallup: Americans still overwhelmingly support Israel, antisemitic conspiracy mongers hardest hit
The Democrat Party is trying to come to grips with the antisemitic agitation by Minnesota Rep. Ihlan Omar, backed by Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that Americans who support Israel do so for money and have pledged allegiance to Israel.

These dual-loyalty and disloyalty accusations are echoed by left-wing and Islamist Democrat activists.

We have made the point in the past that support for Israel was at historical highs, as measured by Gallup. When Gallup released its results in March 2018, Gallup: Americans’ support for Israel increases to historical high:

These findings reinforce a point I’ve made many times. The so-called “Israel Lobby” is the American people.

Gallup just released its 2019 report, and finds that support for Israel over the Palestinians has dropped slightly, returning to the level in 2009. This drop was largely due to a drop in support among Republicans, which is hard to understand. So we’ll have to see if this is a blip, or a long-term trend. As other polling has showed, the weakest support for Israel comes from liberal Democrats.

Gallup reports, Americans, but Not Liberal Democrats, Mostly Pro-Israel:
The majority of Americans remain partial toward Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with 59% saying they sympathize more with the Israelis whereas 21% sympathize more with the Palestinians. While still widespread, sympathy toward Israel is down from 64% in 2018 and marks the lowest percentage favoring Israel since 2009. Meanwhile, the 21% sympathizing more with the Palestinians, statistically unchanged from a year ago, is the highest by one point in Gallup’s trend since 2001.

These results are based on Gallup’s annual World Affairs survey, conducted each February. The 2019 poll was conducted Feb. 1-10 prior to Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s recent remarks questioning U.S. support for Israel and suggesting that some supporters of Israel are pushing for “allegiance to a foreign country.” ….

Tuesday, March 05, 2019

From Ian:

Abbas’s legacy
Abbas’s response was again quick to come. If Israel dares to implement the law, he will refuse to accept any of the remaining taxes.

Without these funds, the PA will no longer be able to provide essential services to the innocent Palestinian population or pay the tens of thousands of its law-abiding civil servants.

As if positively choosing to deprive the law-abiding Palestinians of hundreds of millions of shekels a year while instead squandering it to pay financial rewards to terrorists was not enough, Abbas is now positively choosing to inflict financial ruin on all the Palestinians. The PA has announced that public employees and employees in the private sector will have to take pay cuts in order for the PA to continue paying terrorist murderers in full.

In the absence of any other clear legacy, Abbas will certainly be remembered as the PA chairman who paid the most in financial rewards to terrorists, at the expense of and to the detriment of the millions of law-abiding and productive Palestinians.

The writer is head of legal strategies for Palestinian Media Watch, and a retired lieutenant-colonel who served for 19 years in the IDF Military Advocate General Corps, most recently as director of Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria.
Hamas's Systematic Use of Civilians to Promote Terrorism
Since seizing power in a 2007 violent coup, Hamas has developed a range of cynical ways to exploit civilians in the Gaza Strip to build up its military wing and promote lethal terrorist activities.

Within Gaza, around its borders, and away from it, Hamas's military wing sends out tentacles disguised in civilian camouflage.

These tactics including importing equipment for its military build-up program, embedding rocket launchers in civilian neighborhoods, using human shields to protect its armed operatives, digging attack tunnels into Israel, and exploiting civilian infrastructure needs for terrorist purposes. Hamas regularly exploits humanitarian efforts, designed to save Gazan lives, in order to enable terrorist atrocities designed to kill Israelis.

Exploiting humanitarian traffic

Hamas frequently tries to exploit Israel's practice of allowing humanitarian crossings in from Gaza to send cash and explosive materials to its West Bank terror cells.

For example, when the Palestinian Authority stopped medical equipment supplies to Gaza, as part of its pressure tactics against Hamas last May, and reduced the number of medical referrals for Gazans that allow them treatment in West Bank hospitals, Israel increased the number of permits allowing Gazans to visit Israeli hospitals.

Israel did this despite having multiple intelligence warnings of Hamas intentions to take advantage of the measure.

A 65-year-old Gazan woman, received a permit last April to receive cancer treatment in an Israeli hospital. The woman was stopped at the Erez border crossing with enough explosives to blow up four buses.
What media ignored: 15-year-old killed at Gaza border was active military member of terror groups
On February 23rd, 2019, a 15 year-old Palestinian, Yusef al-Daya, was shot in the chest at a weekly event called the March of Return. The event is held every Friday at the Gaza border. Al-Daya was rushed to a local hospital where he was resuscitated but a short time later, succumbed to his wound.

Prominent media outlets such as Reuters stated; “Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teen.” The article makes no mention of important facts about al-Daya and what he was doing at the security fence.

This is a common framing of the “protests” at the security fence, which portray the participants as civilians and highlight people under 18 (“children”) killed. The death received considerable media attention, and came not long before the UN Human Rights Council issued a report condemning Israeli killings of “civilians” at the Gaza security fence.

Al-Daya wasn’t just a civilian protesting, he was a member of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement who have a military wing called Mujahideen Brigades.
"The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement mourns its knight: The knight of the Mujahideen / Yusuf Sayeed al-Daya, who was martyred during his participation in the March of Return and Breaking the Seige east of #Gaza." #Israel pic.twitter.com/tRGtLYnZgK
— Joe Truzman (@Jtruzmah) February 22, 2019

Caroline Glick: Time to walk away from Afghanistan
While curtailing U.S. support for Pakistan, the Trump administration has been working steadily to solidify a strategic alliance with India. Most significantly, last September, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis met with their Indian counterparts in New Delhi and signed an agreement that increased the interoperability of the U.S. and Indian armed forces, paving the way for Indian purchase of U.S. military technology that had been out of bounds until then.

That brings us to Afghanistan. The current U.S. policy is to leave after finalizing an agreement with the Taliban and other stakeholders through ongoing talks in Geneva. The talks are reportedly leading to an outcome that will see the Pakistan controlled-Taliban return to power in Afghanistan supported by Turkey on the one hand, and Iran on the other. This outcome, which may be inevitable in light of the balance of forces on the ground, is not one that redounds to the U.S.’s benefit.

Given that the outcome of the talks will not be a good one for America, the U.S. has no interest in being a party to such an agreement. The U.S. would be better off not signing any deal and walking away, rather than acquiescing to a settlement that isn’t in its interest. By walking away with no agreement, the U.S. would reserve its right to attack enemy targets, as it deems necessary, in the future.

Pakistan’s policy of using terrorism and nuclear brinksmanship to force India to accept its belligerence, like its policy of sponsoring the Taliban and other groups attacking U.S. forces in Afghanistan even while serving as the logistical base for U.S. operations, shows that it is well nigh time for the U.S. to follow through on Trump’s campaign policy of walking away from Afghanistan.

Just as there is nothing to be gained by taking a neutral stance between India and Pakistan, so there is no point in permitting Pakistan to play the U.S. for a fool in Afghanistan.

There are downsides to walking away from Afghanistan and Pakistan, but they are far smaller than the price the U.S. pays by funding the wars Pakistan wages against it.

Sunday, March 03, 2019

From Ian:

Texas blacklists Airbnb over West Bank settlement boycott
The state of Texas has blacklisted the global vacation rental company Airbnb over its boycott of West Bank settlements.

“We welcome this decision very much and we hope that it will be emulated by other states and other countries in the world,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said on Saturday night.

On Friday, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Glenn Hegar, publicly updated the list of businesses on the state’s “List of Companies that Boycott Israel” to include Airbnb.

Texas’s move followed a decision by Florida in January to place Airbnb on its list of scrutinized companies.

Airbnb has a 90-day period to prove that it has not boycotted Israel before any action is taken against it. Under the Texas regulation that governs the list, should the Israel boycott continue, “the state governmental entity shall sell, redeem, divest, or withdraw all publicly traded securities of the company, except securities.”

HonestReporting: Pinkwashing or Brainwashing the Israeli Eurovision?
Anything good Israel does is just an insidious way to distract the world from the “occupation” of Palestine.

Planting trees to make the desert bloom? That’s what critics call greenwashing the occupation. Israeli humanitarian to disaster zones abroad is bluewashing. Israeli ties with indigenous North American peoples is redwashing while ties with African-Americans is blackwashing.

When it comes to Israel, trees, a helping hand and friendship — things the world needs more of — are purely perfidious plots against the Palestinians. Period.

Which brings us to one more example of Palestinian activists wrecking the color wheel. The Independent gave an op-ed soapbox to Haneen Maikey and Hilary Aked to take Israel to task for “pinkwashing” — which is exploiting the Jewish state’s LGBTQ+ rights to distract everyone from “its systematic denial of Palestinian rights.” Aked’s a third-rate academic writing a book on the Israeli lobby for a company that publishes anything disgusting about Israel.

They myopically argue:

It could not be clearer that nothing is apolitical where Israel is concerned. That’s why the idea that holding Eurovision in Israel is “just a bit of fun”, is so misguided.

Translation: Israel’s acceptance of gays means absolutely nothing as long as the Mideast conflict — which is not a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender (LGBT+) issue — remains unresolved.

Palestinians have a reputation for homophobia in the West Bank and in Gaza, but rather than have an honest conversation about it, Maikey and Aked blame Israel.
Iceland band planning anti-Israel protest gets Eurovision nod
Iceland on Saturday made its pick to represent the country at the upcoming Eurovision song contest, choosing a band that has threatened an onstage protest against Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and has issued a challenge to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a bout of Scandinavian combat known as trouser wrestling.

Hatari themes its performances on bondage, domination, and sadomasochism, known as BDSM — not to be confused with BDS, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

The group won the local selection contest with its song “Hatrid Mun Sigra,” Icelandic for “Hatred will prevail” and will now go on to compete in the semifinals scheduled for May 16, in Israel.

In a February interview with Iceland’s biweekly Stundin newspaper, band members spoke of their strong identity with the Palestinian cause, saying they felt it was their duty to use the Eurovision contest as a platform to broadcast their views.

Under the terms of the contest, participants are prohibited from making political statements at the event.

Hatari criticized its home country for not boycotting the contest because it is being hosted by Israel, a country it said violates human rights.

Thursday, February 28, 2019

From Ian:

The Palestinians' Automatic "No" to Peace
The Palestinian issue—once at the heart of Arab political discourse in our region—has been pushed to the margins. Mahmoud Abbas might still be able to extract a promise out of the elderly Saudi king not to go "behind the Palestinians' backs," but the entire world knows about the business his son conducts with Israel. The Arab world has a hard time understanding what the Palestinians want, and why they allow themselves to continue managing their affairs in such a failed manner.

"If you want to free all of Palestine—ahlan wasahlan ('welcome'), but you need to unite. If you want a state alongside Israel, why do you keep saying 'no' again and again when offered one?" one Egyptian TV anchor wondered.

Since automatic Palestinian refusal is a given, what exactly motivates Jared Kushner, Trump's point man on the peace process? Is he still hoping the Palestinians change their minds when they learn the details of the plan? Probably not. He didn't even bother giving an interview to a Palestinian media outlet, and instead directed his comments to the Arab world, mostly the Gulf nations (Sky Arabic, to which he gave the interview, is funded by the United Arab Emirates). In other words: he's thinking about the day after the Palestinian "no," when Arab countries could come to them and say: "You once again rejected a generous proposal, we won't remain hostages to your intransigence."

It seems farfetched, but work preparing the Arab street for relations with Israel that could be defined as "on the scale of normalization" has been going on for a few years.

"If the Palestinian leadership used the money donated by the Arabs since 1948 for Palestine, it would've already built 50 cities like Tel Aviv, 40 cities like Dubai and 30 cities like Riyadh," tweeted an Iraqi journalist this week —and got a shower of likes.

PMW: PA will cut all Palestinian salaries, except for terrorists and their families
Impending PA financial crisis follows Abbas decision to not accept Israeli transfers of approx. 670 million shekels/month after Israel decided to deduct 41 million shekels/month from PA tax money equivalent to the amount PA pays terrorist prisoners

“PA Minister of Finance announced that the [PA] government will pay the salaries of the public employees on time, but they are likely to be partial, other than the pension stipends and the allowances of the families of the Martyrs, the wounded, and the prisoners, which will be paid in full.”

PA TV: “Our Martyrs and prisoners (i.e., terrorists and murderers) are the source of our glory and pride. They are more honorable than all of us.”

PA Prime Minister: “The payment of the money to the prisoners and Martyrs' families is our responsibility, not a gift or grant but rather an inseparable part of the social contract between the state and its citizens.”

PA Minister of Finance: “There is an official decision... not to accept the tax money if even a single penny is missing from it."


Wednesday, February 27, 2019

From Ian:

Palestinians and the Disastrous Politics of Rage
Palestinian victimhood knows no reconciliation with Israel because central to identity politics is the conviction that permanent victim status must be maintained.

Palestinian identity politics hamstrings Palestinian aspirations for a better life. Grassroots criticism of the Palestinian leadership is disallowed because it threatens the collective Palestinian identity.

Failing to establish the institutions of a functioning state, Palestinian leaders turn to globetrotting in a look-busy-while-doing-nothing action plan of self-righteousness. They insist the world must come and save them.

Palestinians pluck the chords of European colonial guilt in order to receive generous aid, discouraging Palestinian self-agency and personal responsibility.

Palestinians routinely call for "days of rage," where the rage is an end in itself that fuels an identity predicated on victimhood.

The narrative of victimization loosens moral standards. When a Palestinian murders a Jew, it is explained and excused as "a natural outcome of the occupation." Ironically, Palestinians ignore just how racist their own narrative of victimization really is.

To maintain that any Israeli Jew is a fair target for murder simply because he is an Israeli Jew - is racist. To maintain that any Palestinian has license to murder simply because he is Palestinian - is racist.

Palestinian leaders will "keep the conversation going" about reconciliation interminably because of the capital they accrue with world leaders by doing so.

CAMERA Op-Ed: The Rise of Fatah, Fifty Years On
February 4, 2019 marked an important, albeit unheralded, date: the fiftieth anniversary of the ascension of Fatah in Palestinian politics. On Feb. 4, 1969, the movement’s founder, the Egyptian-born Yasser Arafat, was appointed chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). For most of the half century since, Fatah has dominated Palestinian affairs—with fateful consequences for the Middle East and beyond.

Arafat, his biographer Barry Rubin wrote, “succeeded at creating and remaining the leader of the globe’s longest-running revolutionary movement.” Yet both he and Fatah would also lead “his people into more disasters and defeats than any counterpart.”

It was a swift, but uneven, rise for both.

Arafat and about fifteen others founded Fatah on Oct. 10, 1959 in a private home in Kuwait. At the time, Arafat was an engineer working for Kuwait’s Department of Public Works. Most of his compatriots were young Palestinian students or workers employed in the country, which was then experiencing an oil boom and economic growth. They called themselves Harakat al-Tahrir al-Filastiniyya (Palestinian Liberation Movement), whose acronym reversed spells Fatah, which means “conquest.”

Arafat himself was deeply influenced by his time at King Fuad University in Cairo, where he received military training from Muslim Brotherhood members who were active on the campus. Arafat, Rubin records, would later seek “to play down his connections with the Brotherhood since it posed political problems” for him in future dealings with Arab nations that viewed the organization as a threat.

But the Muslim Brotherhood nevertheless influenced his ideology. Arafat and Fatah’s role models “did not come from Arab nationalist leaders or thinkers” like the Syrian or Iraqi Ba’athists or Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, “but from the struggle of the early Muslims for whom only total victory over infidels and Crusaders was acceptable.” Indeed, as Rubin pointed out, Arafat’s chosen nom de guerre was Abu Ammar—in honor of a man the Palestinian leader described as “the first martyr of Islam.”
Caroline Glick vs. Donald Trump
Continuing his meet the candidate series, Gil Hoffman interviews New Right Knesset candidate and former Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick.

Two years after she was the keynote speaker at an influential pro-Trump rally in Jerusalem, Glick vows to “absolutely” be the opposition who stops the plan by pressuring Netanyahu to reject it.

She says she will be in the Knesset to prevent “the partition of Jerusalem and giving 90% of Judea and Samaria to terrorists,” because the plan is a “danger” and “antithetical to the US’s national security interests almost as much as it is to Israel’s.”

As a Knesset member, she promises to send that message to the Trump administration. Gil also reveals how he got the scoop on a rabbi who compared the views of an Israeli political party to Nazism.




Thursday, February 21, 2019

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: "The Slap of the Century"
Under the current circumstances, when Arabs are being widely shamed and condemned for sitting in the same room with an Israeli prime minister, it is hard to see how the Trump administration will be able to convince Arab states and leaders to normalize their relations with Israel. Some of these Arab leaders may be privately telling US administration officials things they like to hear about peace and coexistence with Israel. The very same leaders, however, are fully aware of the opposite sentiments, not only in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but throughout the Arab world.

All that is left for the Trump administration to do is to try and persuade the Arab states to abandon the Palestinians, and to continue focusing on the regional threat from Iran. If the US completes its pullout from Syria, Iran will successfully complete its long-desired "land-bridge" to the Mediterranean through Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. This encirclement of the area will position Iran, via its proxies, to be the hegemon controlling the region, as it has clearly been trying to bring about. Russia, of course, is standing in the wings, thanks to the gift that then US President Barack Obama handed Putin in 2011 by pulling American troops out of Syria.

For decades now, not only Palestinian leaders but Arab ones as well, have been radicalizing their people against Israel. Using every available platform, including mosques, media outlets and United Nations organizations, these leaders, with the collaboration of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, have demonized Israel. They have poisoned the hearts and minds of their people with the hate that exists towards Israel all over the Arab world. To promote normalization with Israel, a leader must prepare his people for the possibility of peace with Israel. Meanwhile, Arab leaders are doing the exact opposite -- which is why some of them are currently being denounced as traitors and pawns in the hands of Israel and the US. It would be wise for President Trump's advisers, if they wish to grasp what is really going on in the Arab world, to listen to the voices of the Arab street.
U.S. envoy Friedman knocks Oslo, says hand open to Palestinian people
United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman knocked the 1993 Oslo Accords and said his hand was open to the Palestinian people, when he spoke in Jerusalem on Thursday at a joint Israeli-Palestinian business forum sponsored by the Judea and Samaria Chamber of Commerce.

“To all the Palestinian friends who are here, the US is with you, the people of the US are with you, the President of the US is with you,” Friedman said.

He spoke of his support for the grassroots initiative that brings together settlers and Palestinian in the West Bank in joint business ventures, which was started last year.

“To my Israeli friends, I say the same. We are all with you, together to support you in new out-of-the-box thinking, to build a safe and more prosperous world for Israeli and Palestinians alike,” Friedman said.

The gathering comes at a time when there are no relations between the US and the Palestinian Authority. The US has cut most of its funding to the PA, and the PA in turn has rejected all US funding, including for humanitarian projects. In a climate with few opportunities for cooperation, Israeli-Palestinian public meetings are rare.

But on Thursday, Friedman’s comments made it seem as if settlers, who are often portrayed as a stumbling block to the peace process, are now leading the way in an arena with few opportunities for joint cooperation.

David Singer: Israel jettisons PLO as Negotiating Partner on Trump Peace Plan
Israel’s decision to withhold US$138 million dollars in tax revenues collected for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – equalling the estimated annual payments made to Palestinian Arabs (or their families) carrying out random and indiscriminate attacks against Israeli civilians – marks a watershed in Israel-PLO relations.

Israel’s action will see the PLO being finally jettisoned as a possible negotiating partner on President Trump’s long-delayed peace plan – deferred yet again until after the Israeli elections in April.

The release of the Trump plan could now be further postponed as the president continues his so far unsuccessful search to find other Arab negotiators willing to replace the PLO – which had already rejected having anything to do with Trump’s plan well before Israel’s latest decision.

The law authorising the freezing of these PLO funds was passed by the Israeli parliament in July 2018 – three months after similar legislation – the Taylor Force Act – passed by the US Congress – was signed into law by President Trump.

Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked stressed the funds withheld would be used to pay “fat salaries to murderers who are in prison”.


Friday, February 15, 2019

From Ian:

Gerald Steinberg: Mutual Recognition Never Happened, Palestinian Leaders Are Stuck in 1948
In the Israeli election free-for-all, the prospects for peace with the Palestinians will get some attention, but without engagement from the other side, there is little to discuss.

At the same time, many Israelis are aware of the need for a change to the “temporary” status quo, which has lasted 51 years. The fundamental question that remains unanswered is: how will Israel continue to be Jewish and democratic if millions of Palestinians are included indefinitely? Although Israelis are wary of the “ultimate peace deal” that U.S. President Donald Trump promises to push after the election, it adds to the momentum for rethinking the issues.

For most Israeli political parties, the two-state formula (very few Israelis think a “solution” is realistic) has run its course, without yielding any results. Proposed in 2002 by then-U.S. president George W. Bush and grudgingly accepted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009, the hope was that the Palestinians would finally accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state, in exchange for their own sovereign nation.

But this never happened – Palestinian leaders are stuck in 1948, still hoping to reverse the creation of Israel altogether. Dreams of returning to the 1949 armistice lines, including re-dividing Jerusalem, are obvious non-starters. They are also busy fighting each other, with Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah governing the West Bank. At the same time, terror and incitement continue, and Israelis are not convinced that the two-state approach will improve the situation (most think it will make things worse). The “international consensus” that presses Israel to take all the risks, while exempting the “powerless” Palestinians from any responsibility, has no traction here.

In this political vacuum, a number of civil society institutions are discussing alternatives, in part to pre-empt the Trump plan. After a hiatus of a decade or more, think tanks are publishing maps showing which parts of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) should be annexed to Israel for pragmatic, security, historic or other reasons, and which areas should be relinquished, and under what conditions.
The Key to Middle East Peace Is Getting Palestinians to Say "Yes"
The necessity for the Palestinians to make peace with Israel as a prerequisite for the establishment of a Palestinian state isn't arbitrary or the result of inherently "unfair" imbalances of power. It is a reflection of the reality that the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan of November 29, 1947, establishing two states, in favor of open-ended war. This rejectionism continues to this day.

The Palestinians have been given multiple opportunities to reverse their historic own-goal and accept statehood many times since then but have always broken off talks at the moment of truth, refusing the very independence they claim to pine for if the price is to end their conflict with Israel. Martin Indyk, President Obama's special envoy on the Middle East, told Al Jazeera in 2016: "We have [Israeli Prime Ministers] Barak and Olmert offering the Palestinians 95-97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, and they didn't take it." Since 2014 the Palestinian leadership has refused to negotiate at all.

Israel cannot make peace on its own, nor can it be expected to accept the creation of a hostile, armed state on the doorstep of its major cities without a viable peace agreement. Unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood would be rewarding the Palestinians for continuing to say "no."

Evelyn Gordon: Gaza’s self-inflicted health crisis shows why peace remains a fantasy
Gaza’s health system is on the verge of collapse, Israeli defense officials warned last week. Their report echoed an international aid agency’s findings that Gaza hospitals are severely short of doctors, especially specialists, and lack 60 percent of necessary medications, including basics like painkillers and antibiotics. Entire hospital departments have closed due to the inability to offer treatment, and patients with cancer, diabetes or renal failure are simply being sent home.

You might think this situation would prompt at least one of the Palestinians’ two rival governments to take action. But you’d be wrong.
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The Palestinian Authority, which repeatedly proclaims itself the sole legitimate government of both the West Bank and Gaza and is recognized as such internationally, receives billions in international aid to provide for humanitarian needs in both places. It ostensibly budgets 150 million shekels a year ($41.3 million) for medical supplies for Gaza. But it hasn’t paid this money in months.

Yet this same P.A. has no trouble finding $330 million a year to pay salaries to jailed terrorists. Evidently, paying terrorists is more important to it than its people’s health.
Dr. Martin Sherman: 2019 Intelligence Assessment- implications for Gaza
Last December, I was excoriated by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, for reaching what I consider to be an inescapable, fact-based conclusion that, “Eventually, there will either be Arabs in Gaza or Jews in the Negev. In the long run, there will not be both!”

Accordingly—since there appears little chance of the Palestinian-Arabs in general, and the Gazans in particular, morphing into something they have not been for over hundred years—for anyone who favors the option of Jews remaining in the Negev, there is little option but to reconcile oneself to the lamentable fact that “The solution to the problem of Gaza is its deconstruction—not its reconstruction.”

Indeed, I would be intrigued to hear what my detractors have in mind for Gaza and how they envisage the fate of the hapless enclave in, say, ten to fifteen years from today. For already, its unfortunate inhabitants are in dire straits, with most of their natural water sources polluted, with raw sewage flowing into the streets, and with electrical power available for only a several hours a day.

Significantly, this grave situation has been precipitated despite the fact that Gaza has received one of the world’s highest levels of international aid and massive flows of humanitarian merchandise from Israel, which have, almost invariably, been promptly expropriated by Hamas. Ominously for the people of Gaza, this aid appears to be diminishing, making the future seem even bleaker than the present.

Saturday, February 09, 2019

From Ian:

Bret Stephens: The Progressive Assault on Israel
To say, as progressives sometimes do, that Jews are “colonizers” in Israel is anti-Semitic because it advances the lie that there is no ancestral or historic Jewish tie to the land. To claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, when manifestly it is not, is anti-Semitic because it’s an attempt to Nazify the Jewish state. To insist that the only state in the world that has forfeited the moral right to exist just happens to be the Jewish state is anti-Semitic, too: Are Israel’s purported crimes really worse than those of, say, Zimbabwe or China, whose rights to exist are never called into question?

But the most toxic assumption is that Jews, whether in Israel or the U.S., can never really be thought of as victims or even as a minority because they are white, wealthy, powerful and “privileged.” This relies on a simplistic concept of power that collapses on a moment’s inspection.

Jews in Germany were economically and even politically powerful in the 1920s. And then they were in Buchenwald. Israel appears powerful vis-à-vis the Palestinians, but considerably less so in the context of a broader Middle East saturated with genocidal anti-Semitism. American Jews are comparatively wealthy. But wealth without political power, as Hannah Arendt understood, is a recipe for hatred. The Jews of the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh are almost surely “privileged” according to various socio-economic measures. But privilege didn’t save the congregants of the Tree of Life synagogue last year.

Nor can the racial politics of the United States or any other country be projected onto the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as some have desperately sought to do. Nearly half of all Jewish Israelis have Middle Eastern roots; some, in fact, are black. Martin Luther King Jr. preached nonviolent resistance; Yasir Arafat practiced terrorism. The civil rights movement was about getting America to live up its founding ideals; anti-Zionism is about destroying Israel’s founding ideals.

As for the oft-cited apartheid analogy, black South Africans did not have a place in the old regime’s Parliament, as Israeli Arabs have in the Knesset; nor were they admitted to white universities, as Israeli Arabs are to Israeli universities. Israel can do more to advance the rights of its Arab citizens (just as the United States, France, Britain and other countries can for their own minorities). And Israel can also do more to ease the lives of Palestinians who are not citizens. But the comparison of Israel to apartheid South Africa is unfair to the former and an insult to the victims of the latter. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Palestinians Oppose an Anti-Iran Coalition
Osama Qawassmeh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction, also lashed out at Iran:

"Iran has not provided anything for the Palestinian people. It is shameful that some think that the economic crisis in Iran is because of its support for the Palestinians. We never heard that Iran helped build a school or hospital or university or any other developmental project."

Iran's support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, he explained, does not mean that it supports the Palestinian people. "This is a huge misconception and mistake," he said.

In addition, Abbas loyalists have accused Iran of supporting Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007. One official claimed that the Hamas terrorists who staged a coup against the Palestinian Authority back then had received military training in Iran and "some Arab countries."

Another sign that the Arab countries have turned their backs on the Palestinians was provided by the recent convening of Arab foreign ministers in Jordan to build a consensus among Arab states on regional security issues. The Palestinians were not invited.

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank city of Ramallah should ask itself why is everyone disparaging the Palestinian cause," said Palestinian political analyst Fayez Abu Shamaleh. "Why is the Palestinian cause no longer at the center of the attention of Arabs and Jews? Even the candidates running in the Israeli election have ignored the Palestinian issue."

The Palestinian fears do not seem unjustified. Several Arab countries appear completely fed up with the Palestinians, particularly the continued bickering between Fatah and Hamas. Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Arab countries have tried in the past decade to help the two rival parties resolve their differences, to no avail. Egyptian intelligence officials have devoted years trying to convince Hamas and Fatah to work together for the benefit of the Palestinians.

Instead of doing so, however, Palestinian leaders are preoccupied with blocking Arab participation in a conference that could see the creation of a coalition against Iran -- the same country that Abbas and his loyalists hold responsible for the ongoing divisions among the Palestinians. Might it be possible that the Arab countries are finally rousing themselves from their long slumber and beginning to seek better lives for themselves and their neighbors?
Michael Lumish: "Palestinians" and BDS
Note the use of "Palestinian" in quotes by the creator of the image below.

The reason for this is because he understands that the Arabs who live in the Land of Israel -- which is to say, the land of the Jewish people -- only came into recognizable existence around the time that Paul McCartney was writing "Yesterday."

The people who we call "Palestinians" come from throughout the entire Arab world and that world is a world of conquest by Arabs against non-Arabs. This is not a matter of debate. It is a matter of fact.

It is a matter of known historical knowledge.

Were Israel to be the twenty-third Arab-Muslim state, rather than the lone, sole Jewish state, it would be hailed as the most enlightened country throughout the Middle East. It is only hated by Arabs and their western-left allies because it is the single Jewish state.

Thus, many of us who favor the ongoing well-being of the Jewish people in an entirely hostile world often put the word "Palestinian" in quotes.

Wednesday, February 06, 2019

From Ian:

Marco Rubio (NYTs): The Truth About B.D.S. and the Lies About My Bill
A bipartisan supermajority in the Senate passed the Combating BDS Act on Tuesday. Yet a few of my colleagues recently echoed false claims made by anti-Israel activists and others that the bill violates Americans' First Amendment rights.

That line of argument is not only wrong but also provides cover for supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, who embrace an international campaign of discriminatory economic warfare against Israel, a fellow democracy and America's strongest ally in the Middle East.

In a high-profile case in 2014, the BDS movement drove the Israeli company SodaStream from the West Bank. Five hundred Palestinian employees were left jobless by the move.

The Combating BDS Act does not prohibit Americans' right to engage in boycotts. It focuses on business entities - not individuals - and, consistent with the Supreme Court, it focuses on conduct, not speech. It does not restrict citizens or associations of citizens from engaging in political speech, including against Israel.

Rather, the bill merely clarifies that entities - such as corporations or companies - have no fundamental right to government contracts and government investment.

"Anti-discrimination restrictions on government contractors are commonplace and a normal requirement for government funding," Eugene Kontorovich, a law professor at George Mason University, notes.
Senate Passes Anti-BDS Measure by 77-23
The U.S. Senate approved in a 77-23 vote a bill that codifies $38 billion in defense assistance to Israel and which provides legal cover to states that target the boycott Israel movement.

The bill, sponsored by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., had stirred controversy because a number of Democratic senators said that while they oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, they were also concerned that state laws aimed at BDS impinged on speech freedoms.

Among the Democratic dissenters were declared presidential candidates like Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California. Non-declared but likely presidential contenders who voted included Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sherrod Brown of Ohio who voted against; and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota who voted for. The sole Republican voting against was Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Rubio, writing Wednesday in The New York Times, defended the bill against charges that it would violate free speech. Democrats supporting the anti-BDS component included Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

The bill now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives where the Democratic majority will break it up into its components, and its leadership is likely to bury the anti-BDS section while advancing the other components.

In addition to the money for Israel and the proposed anti-BDS laws, the bill intensifies sanctions on Syria’s Assad government and reinforces ties with Jordan.
David Singer: Hamas and PFLP Embroil USA and EU in Plans to Destroy Israel
A look at just one organisation – Al-Haq – headquartered in Ramallah and operating in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), the Netherlands, France, and Northern Europe – indicates the modus operandi that similarly exist in the others.

Al-Haq (established in 1979):
  • Has Governmental Sponsors: European Union, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland
  • Received Grants from Governmental Sources, 2014-2018: Over $3 million
  • Published with a group of French NGOs a report in March 2017 entitled “The Dangerous Liaisons of French Banks with the Israeli Colonization”.
  • Leads the legal effort to delegitimize Israel at the International Criminal Court in The Hague
Shawan Jabarin, General Director of Al-Haq since 2006, served as a senior PFLP official in the past and at least until recently maintained close ties with PFLP operatives in Judea and Samaria. Jabarin was tried and convicted for his military activity in the PFLP and has served multiple prison sentences.
Jabarin was described in a 2007 Israeli Supreme Court case by the presiding judge as:
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Some of his time is spent in conducting a human rights organization, and some as an operative in an organization which has no qualms regarding murder and attempted murder, which have no relation whatsoever to rights. Quite the opposite, they reject the most basic right of all, without which there are no other rights, that is, the right to life.”

Three other PFLP members arrested by Israel are also identified as working or having worked for Al-Haq: Ziyad Hmeidan, Zahi Jaradat and Majed Abbadi.

European and American funding of these organisations should be banned, their offices in the USA and EU closed – and those identified as Hamas and PFLP members deported.

Terrorists in suits denigrating and delegitimising Israel in slick racist and ongoing deceptive public relations campaigns of lies and half-truths – can be just as dangerous as terrorists armed to the teeth.

The EU and America must stop being played for suckers by these Jew-hating organisations.

Thursday, January 31, 2019

From Ian:

Palestinian Support for Two-State Solution Seen Declining
Among the Palestinians in recent years there has been growing interest in the idea of a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is in part linked to the growing connection between Palestinians in the West Bank and the Arab sector in Israel.

It is also related to the collective sense that the Palestinian national movement is currently at an all-time low, with growing alienation between the public and the Palestinian leaderships in the West Bank and Gaza, the lack of public belief in their ability to achieve the goal of independence, and the sidelining of the Palestinian issue from the focus of the regional and international agenda.

Consequently, there is a growing argument in the Palestinian discourse that all other strategies for realizing national objectives have been tried and failed.

Moreover, the growing support for the idea of one state is fed by internal trends. Above all, there is the collective desire to retain a relatively stable standard of living in the West Bank, together with a widespread trend toward de-ideologization and depoliticization, reflecting exhaustion after many years of violent conflict driven by revolutionary fighting slogans, which ultimately failed to achieve any Palestinian national objectives.

The lessons from the severe decline that engulfed Arab societies in the region following the Arab Spring revolutions has led to increased fear of sharing this fate.

In addition, most of the younger Palestinian generation are concerned with personal fulfillment and development, and harbor suspicion and even alienation toward the sources of authority around them, including the Palestinian leadership.

Benjamin Netanyahu and the “Strongmen”: Another Myth in the Making
In the past few months, numerous articles have appeared in the Western press about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s diplomatic outreach to “strongmen” and proponents of “illiberal nationalism.” Some have even accused him of abetting some of these leaders’ alleged anti-Semitism. Lahav Harkov explains how this narrative migrated from left-leaning Israeli publications to the diaspora press and from there to mainstream publications like the New York Times, and notes that it has been used to justify not just criticism of Netanyahu but forthright anti-Zionism. As she observes, such analyses recognize no distinctions among very different sorts of leaders, and pay little attention to diplomatic realities:

There are two elements at play in the claims of a nefarious new direction in Israel’s foreign policy: one is a pearl-clutching disgust at Netanyahu’s supposed embrace of illiberal regimes; the other concerns relations with leaders whose policies specifically impact Jews and . . . distort the memory of the Holocaust. . . . The new talk of Netanyahu and strongmen . . . conflates these two categories, [lumping] the necessary compromises of conducting international relations . . . with troubling assaults on the legacy of the Holocaust [by such figures as Hungary’s Viktor Orban].

Moreover, many analysts who lament Israel’s cozying up to strongmen ignore research showing that East European Jews feel safer from anti-Semitism than do those in the West, which may be because they perceive the greatest threat to their lives coming from Islamist violence rather than the populist right. . . . In general, it appears that East European Jews may not view their situation in the dire terms used by some of their self-appointed advocates in Israel and the West. . . .

It is, [furthermore], no defense of human-rights violators to say that Israel must sometimes hold its nose and keep up ties with [them]. As the Knesset member Avi Dichter—a Likudnik and former Shin Bet chief who could never be accused of being a bleeding heart—said before [the Philippines’ President Rodrigo] Duterte visited: “We may have to take a pill against nausea to receive him.”

But there are some too pure for such distasteful compromises. The leader of [the hard-left] Meretz party, Tamar Zandberg, wrote a letter to Netanyahu telling him not to strengthen relations with Brazil, one of the largest economies in the world, because it elected a president from the far right, months before Jair Bolsonaro even began his term. Yet Zandberg has also been photographed visiting the grave of Yasir Arafat, not a leader known for his exemplary human-rights record. And neither she, nor anyone else on the left, has called on Israel to cut ties with the Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas, who wrote his dissertation denying the Holocaust, and whose regime jails people for criticizing him online or, God forbid, selling land to Jews.

Friday, January 25, 2019

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Is Israel’s Inevitable War With Iran Already Underway?
Meanwhile, the Iranian regime — weakened by restored US sanctions and the massive unrest of its subjugated populace — is boasting about its military prowess. This is par for the course in Tehran, particularly as the ruling mullahs are marking the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, which ousted Shah Reza Pahlavi and ushered in Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s reign of terror.

In an interview with Iranian state TV on Tuesday, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, went as far as to flaunt the regime’s nuclear achievements, thanks in large measure to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the nuclear deal signed with world powers in 2015 — which, he said, “marinated” Iran’s right to enrich uranium.

The only drawback he mentioned was the fact that “for Europeans, a centrifuge takes eight years from designing to become operational, while the process takes us 10 years.”

Salehi then announced that he would be traveling at the end of the month to Ardakan “to oversee the transport of 30 tons of yellowcake produced … there to [the Uranium Conversion Facility at] Isfahan, [which] means that the Ardakan site has become operational.”

It would be a grave mistake to dismiss Salehi’s words as mere saber-rattling, given the Iranian regime’s stated intention and increasingly overt attempts to annihilate Israel, even at its own potential peril. Rather than looking the other way, at best — or, worse, condemning Israel at international forums — the world should be thanking the Jewish state for doing its dirty work. The inevitable war against Iran should have been fought by America decades ago. Today, it is up to the IDF.

When the snow melts on Mount Hermon, we Israelis will be back in shorts and sandals, heading for the polls this spring to elect the next Knesset. The only question at this point is whether we will be doing so in bomb shelters.
House Majority Leader Calls for US Recognition of Israeli Sovereignty Over Golan
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has called for the United States to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the congressman’s office told Jewish Insider.

The Golan spans about 700 square miles and directly abuts what is now a civil-war-torn Syria.

This development comes as members of Congress have called for the Trump administration to formally acknowledge Israeli control of the Golan Heights, a geographical security barrier for Israel in the fight against terrorism from Hezbollah, with its growing arsenal of missiles and rockets, and other Iranian-backed groups.

Earlier this week, Iranian fighter jets fired a surface-to-surface missile at the Golan Heights, prompting Israel to launch a massive attack on numerous Iranian targets in Syria.

Last week, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) sent a letter to US President Donald Trump calling for the official recognition.

Gottheimer followed Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who introduced a resolution last month that stated, “Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights is critical to Israel’s national security,” and that “Israel’s security from attack from Syria and Lebanon cannot be assured without Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.”
Jonathan S. Tobin: Israel’s Foes Finally Admit That Rocks Can Kill
As far as the mainstream media is usually concerned, when rocks are thrown in the Middle East, it’s nothing to get too worked up about. When Palestinian mobs throw rocks at Israeli soldiers at the Gaza border fence as part of their effort to cross into the Jewish state and commit mayhem, such actions are generally depicted as a non-lethal form of protest.

Ever since the Palestinians launched an intifada — a “national uprising” — in December of 1987, rock-throwing has been treated as a popular form of protest against Israel. Indeed, the act of throwing rocks at Jews has long since become an iconic symbol of the “resistance” to Israel, glorified in Palestinian culture, poems, and songs. Throwing rocks at soldiers and settlers — or their cars and buses — has become something like a national sport, as well as a rite of passage for Arab youth.

Incidents of stone-throwing at Jewish targets are a daily occurrence, and so numerous that Israel barely bothers to keep statistics on them. But we do know that at least 14 Israelis have been killed as a result of car crashes caused by rock-throwing or direct blows. When Palestinians are arrested in connection with such crimes, they are either depicted sympathetically as legitimate combatants using the only weapons available to them, or as children who are unjustly harassed or even tortured by the Israeli army and police for what is, at worst, nothing more than so-called teenage mischief-making.

But after more than 30 years of such stories in the media, the international press has finally decided to treat this “harmless” activity in the West Bank as a crime.

A Palestinian women was killed in October when she was struck in the head by a stone thrown by what police believe was a group of Israeli teenagers. Aisha Rabi, a mother of nine, was with her husband and two of their children driving in a car when the crime occurred. The suspects are students at a West Bank yeshiva high school — one of whom remains in custody since being arrested in December due to the fact that, according to Israeli authorities, traces of his DNA was found on the stone that killed Rabi.

The case raises a lot of uncomfortable questions for both Arabs and Jews.

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: The 'Political Detainees' No One Talks About
Palestinians say that Shaheen and Fattash are among dozens of "political detainees" who are being held in Palestinian Authority (PA) prisons and detention centers in various parts of the West Bank. According to some human rights organizations, the Palestinians held in PA prisons are often subjected to various forms of torture.

In a letter to Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a number of Palestinian human rights organizations recently demanded that the international agency speak out against the politically motivated arrests by the PA in the West Bank. It is highly unlikely, however, that the human rights organizations will receive any reply from the UN, whose various agencies continue to be obsessed only with Israel.

The UN does not seem to care about human rights violations committed by the PA against its own people. These are the type of stories that evidently do not interest either the UN or the international media because they lack an anti-Israel angle. The only "abuses" they see are those that can be blamed on Israel.

What is happening in the PA-controlled territories and prisons in the West Bank is a tiny taste of what life for the Palestinians would be like under a totalitarian regime that does not tolerate any form of criticism. In both the PA-controlled territories and Gaza, Palestinians must resort to the desperate measure of closing their mouths to food because they cannot open their mouths to demand decent treatment.
David Singer: “State of Palestine” set to confront Trump at United Nations
The bizarre Handover ceremony of Egypt’s Chairmanship of the Group of 77 to the “State of Palestine”for 2019 will enable this non-existent and non-member State of the United Nations to play a leading role in the 74 years old farce – “TheQuestion of Palestine and the United Nations” (PUN).

“The State of Palestine” does not meet the criteria for statehood required under the 1933 Montevideo Convention.

The Group of 77 (“the Bloc”) contains 133 of the 193 member states of the United Nations – ensuring the automatic passage of all United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions they propose.

UNGA ResolutionA/RES/73/5 – adopted on 16 October 2018 – put this illusory “State of Palestine” centre stage for PUN’s 2019 New York season – recognising it as the Bloc’s public face in all matters brought before UNGA and at meetings of representatives of other major groups.

146 countries voted for this Resolution whilst only three – Israel, the U.S. and Australia – voted against, 15 countries abstained and the remaining 29 states did not vote.

US Deputy UN Ambassador Jonathan Cohen called out the hypocrisy of the vote:
"We cannot support efforts by the Palestinians to enhance their status outside of directnegotiations. The United States does not recognize that there is a Palestinian

state.... Only U.N. member states should be entitled to speak and act on behalf of major groups of states at the United Nations."


Australia’s UN Ambassador Gillian Bird asserted:
"Australia's decision to vote no on this resolution reflects our long-standing position that Palestinian attempts to seek recognition as a state in international fora are deeply unhelpful to efforts towards a two-state solution."

The Deal of the Century Has No Buyers in the Arab World
For Jordan, the main problem is finding the solution to the refugee issue at its expense. Jordan would have to come to terms with the fact that millions of Palestinians would finally get full citizenship and participate in domestic politics – and what might be worse – would have to settle within Jordan’s territory refugees from Lebanon to help Lebanon restore its ethnic balance. While the issue remains open, an option may remain for them to return to “Palestine,” whether inside the West Bank or inside Israel itself.

Meanwhile, the Bedouin sector, which is the mainstay of the Jordanian army and administration, refuses to surrender any power to Palestinians and is currently relatively calm.

Jordan is not prepared for such an agreement, not even for the hefty funds that would be offered as part of the deal. It is concerned that if it refuses, Saudi Arabia will pressure it with regard to Jordan’s traditional tie to Jerusalem, but there are no signs that Saudi Arabia is interested in Jerusalem. However, from Jordan’s point of view, happy is the person who is always worried.

Egypt has two reservations: It does not want to take responsibility for Gaza, and it seeks to limit its connections with Hamas to security issues in Sinai only. However, its main reservation is the issue of the Arab version of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

Wednesday, January 09, 2019

From Ian:

Elliott Abrams: Abbas Celebrates 14th Anniversary of His Four-Year Term
On January 9, 2005—exactly 14 years ago today—Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority. For a four-year term.

Today Abbas begins serving the fifteenth year of his four-year term.

That 2005 election was actually a milestone for Palestinians. Yasser Arafat had died the previous November, and this election was to choose his successor as head of the PA. It was a good election—free and fair in the sense that the votes were counted accurately and people could campaign against Abbas. There were loads of international observers, including a U.S. team led by former President Jimmy Carter and then-Senators Joseph Biden and John E. Sununu. According to The New York Times, Javier Solana, who was then the European Union's foreign minister, said "It has been a very good day. The moment is historic."

Abbas won only about 62 percent of the vote (compare Egyptian president Sisi’s ludicrous claim to have won 97 percent of the vote in the 2018 election there) and one challenger won 20 percent. Hamas boycotted the election, but was not forced to do so—as we saw when it competed in the elections for the Palestine Legislative Council (PLC) in 2006.

That 2006 parliamentary election was the last parliamentary election held in the Palestinian territories, and there has similarly been no presidential election since 2005. Abbas just holds on and on and governs by decree. He has now undertaken machinations that will in fact eliminate the PLC entirely, replacing it with an unelected PLO organ. The PLC has been dissolved by the Palestinian constitutional court--whose own term of office expired over a decade ago.
Dissolved Palestinian Legislative Council removes PA president Abbas from power
In the latest development in the rift between Palestinian factions, the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza voted to remove Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas from power on Wednesday.

In a text submitted by prominent Hamas political committee member and spokesperson Salah al-Bardawil, the assembly called the president an "enemy of the state" for committing "a number of constitutional, legal, security and humanitarian violations, which seriously and seriously affected the Palestinian national project."

The resolution then asked the politician to immediately step down, or face constitutional proceedings aimed at his destitution. It also appealed to national, regional and international institutions to "stop dealing" with the president or any of his delegations.

The PLC, which has largely had a symbolic function since the last elections in 2007 due mainly to the impossibility of assembling in one location. It was dissolved by Abbas at the end of 2018.

The Fatah leader dissolved the institution, in which Hamas has a majority, in order to put pressure on the Gaza-based movement as reconciliation talks between the two factions degenerate into an open conflict.

Last week, Hamas called dozens of Fatah members in the coastal enclave for questioning, and de facto prevented a rally that was meant to commemorate the movement's 54th anniversary.


PMW: Abbas’ deputy participates in burning “coffin” with photos of US Pres. Trump and PM Netanyahu
Celebrating the 54th anniversary of the Fatah Movement, which is commemorated on the day of its first attempted terror attack against Israel, Abbas' deputy chairman of Fatah, Mahmoud Al-Aloul, participated in a ceremony at which a black "coffin" decorated with photos of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and US President Trump was burned in front of a large crowd.

A red "X" is painted over the faces of Netanyahu and Trump. [Official Fatah Facebook page, Jan. 3, 2019]

Text on coffin: "The deal of the century (i.e., Trump's as yet unpublished Middle East peace plan) will not pass, to hell with it and good riddance"

At the event, Al-Aloul praised the terror attacks and the Palestinian waves of violence and terror against Israel (the intifadas) as "accomplishments" of Fatah's "self-sacrificing fighters," and "battles of honor," which have "brought glory to the nation":
"The Palestinian revolution... depended on our people's will and was characterized by suffering, sacrifice, and pain. However, it was also full of victories and achievements that Fatah's self-sacrificing fighters (Fedayeen) accomplished on the ground; and they returned the spirit to the nation. Starting from Eilabun (i.e., attempted bombing of Israel's National Water Carrier) ... the intifadas (i.e., Palestinian wave of violence and terror against Israel killing approximately 200 Israelis from 1987-1993, and PA terror campaign killing approximately 1200 from 2000-2005), and the rest of the battles of honor and heroism with which the Fatah Movement has brought glory to the nation."

He pointed out that Fatah "is loyal to the team of Martyrs (Shahids)" and that the movement's identity is one of a "national liberation movement that is fighting for our people's freedom and independence":
"We in Fatah are not being lured away by anything - neither power nor government - and we again emphasize our identity as a national liberation movement that is fighting for our people's freedom and independence. We will complete the path, without any shadow of a doubt, and we still see that our most important priority is to fight our primary enemy - the occupation - and those who assist it."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 4, 2019]

Monday, January 07, 2019

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinians' Uncivil War
The biggest losers from this internal bloodletting are the Palestinians living under these leaders in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas-ruled Gaza.

The dispute between Hamas and Fatah is not over who will bring democracy and a better economy to the Palestinians. They are not fighting over who will improve the living conditions of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by building new schools and hospitals. They are not fighting over who will introduce major reforms to the Palestinian government and end financial and administrative corruption. They are not fighting over the need for freedom of expression and a free media.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Hamas leaders correctly argue, is not a rightful or legitimate president. If Abbas were to sign a deal with Israel, people could come along later and say that he lacked the legal authority to do so; they would be right.

In order for any peace process to move forward, the Palestinians first need to stop attacking each other. Then, they need to come up with new leaders who actually give a damn about their people.

Melanie Phillips: The terrorist murder of Aisha Rabi
The security agency also reportedly claims to have identified an effort to slander and delegitimise its interrogation methods, which it maintains are carried out in accordance with the law and under the supervision of the State Attorney’s office.

It is unlikely that Israeli Jewish terror suspects would be treated worse than Palestinian Arab ones. It is unlikely that either group would be handled with kid gloves, but the details the lawyers have revealed of the boys’ treatment, although harsh, hardly amounts to torture:

“’From morning to night (my client) was shackled to a chair, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, in a small cell’… the interrogators had ‘cursed, spit on and even sexually harassed’ his client. He claimed that the Shin Bet agents had even performed a jailhouse informant exercise with cops posing as inmates who pressured the suspects to confess.”

More worryingly, when one of these lawyers, Itamar ben Gvir, was asked why he hadn’t criticised the Shin Bet’s interrogation tactics against Palestinian suspects, he denied that the murder of Aisha Rabi was terrorism at all.

“‘When a Jew throws a rock at a Palestinian, it is not terrorism. When a Palestinian throws a rock at a Jew, it is terrorism because it’s part of a larger effort to wipe us out from our land,’ he argues.”

That is wrong and repellent, hardly mitigated by his lame addendum that the “extreme” tactics used by the Shin Bet against his client should not be used against Palestinian inmates either.

The murder of Aisha Rabi was indeed a foul and murderous act of terrorism – violence against the innocent carried out for political motives. Whether or not it was committed by the boys currently in custody, not only the perpetrators but also those who tried to obstruct justice on their behalf should feel the full force of the law.

Unlike the Arab communities in the disputed territories, where the murder of Jews – whose incitement is institutionalised within Palestinian society – is celebrated with sweets and fireworks by jubilant throngs, Jewish terrorism is rare and is viewed by the vast majority of Jews with horror and revulsion.

But it exists; and however small, it is a foul stain on the Jewish conscience. It must be dealt with.
'Anti-Zionist' Jewish teens allegedly kill Palestinian woman
The five Jewish teenagers from Judea and Samaria who were arrested over the past several days were allegedly involved in the deadly attack that led to the death of a Palestinian woman, Aisha al-Rawbi, in October, Israeli authorities said on Sunday.

The five teens who were arrested are students at a yeshiva in Rechelim, close to where the attack took place, on a road near the community. The attack, investigators say, targeted a Palestinian car, causing it to veer off the road and crash. Al-Rawbi, from the Arab village of Badi and a mother of eight, suffered a fatal head injury. Her husband, Aykube, survived.

It is unclear if all five teens are suspected of being the direct perpetrators of the attack. According to the Shin Bet security agency, the breakthrough in the investigation was made possible in part by intelligence gathered close the scene of the attack. The detective work showed that a day after the attack, during the Jewish Sabbath, a group of settler youth traveled from the community of Yitzhar to Rechelim, where they were briefed on the tactics needed for countering Shin Bet interrogations.

The Shin Bet further said that the evidence collected showed "that the arrested had anti-Zionist and extremist views" that included a video in which some of them burn an Israeli flag. One of the arrested youths had also written "death to the Zionists" and drew a swastika on an Israeli flag.

Sunday, January 06, 2019

From Ian:

IDF strikes Hamas posts in Gaza after explosive flown into Israel
The Israeli Air Force struck two Hamas positions in the eastern Gaza Strip on Sunday in response to an explosive device that was flown into southern Israel earlier in the day, the army said.

On Sunday morning, a bomb was flown into Israel using a large cluster of balloons and a drone-like glider device, landing in a carrot field in the Sdot Negev region of southern Israel shortly before noon.

In retaliation for the cross-border attack from Gaza, Israeli military helicopters attacked two observation posts east of Khan Younis that are controlled by the coastal enclave’s Hamas rulers, the Israel Defense Forces said.

“IDF attack helicopters struck two military positions belonging to the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip in response to the balloon-borne explosive device, which was launched by a model drone,” the army said.

In addition to the posts near Khan Younis, Palestinian media reported that the IDF had attacked targets near Jabalia, in northern Gaza, and in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, in the central Strip. The IDF refused to comment on those reports.

The military did not say who it believed flew the bomb into southern Israel, but said it held Hamas responsible as the rulers of Gaza.

“The IDF will continue to act in defense of the citizens of Israel and against terrorism from the Strip,” the army said.

Suspicious drone-shaped device from Gaza explodes in Israeli field; no injuries
A drone-shaped device from the Gaza Strip exploded in an agricultural field of an Israeli kibbutz northeast of the coastal enclave on Sunday, causing neither injury nor damage, police said.

Security forces had been sent to the carrot field in the Sdot Negev region where the object landed, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The object was shaped like an unmanned aerial vehicle, with a wingspan of over 1.2 meters (4 feet), and was carried into Israel by dozens of colorful helium balloons. Though similar to a drone in appearance, the device was apparently not capable of flight.

The name of a Gazan engineering college was printed on the side of the drone lookalike.

Police said the device exploded as a bomb disposal robot examined it. The drone lookalike was then carried away.
'LA Times' publishes column excusing antisemitism
The Los Angeles Times published a column on Friday evening excusing the charges of antisemitism against the leaders of the Women’s March.

The op-ed, written by the newspaper’s columnist Robin Abcarian was titled, “Can you admire Louis Farrakhan and still advance the cause of women? Maybe so. Life is full of contradictions.”

In the column, Abcarian claimed that she thinks “it is possible to be repulsed by [Farrakhan’s] hateful rhetoric about white people, especially Jews, and still appreciate some of the empowerment work that he has done in the black community.”

Though she criticized the Women’s March organizers for taking too long to respond to accusations of antisemitism, Abcarian wrote that the fruits of the march were so inspirational as to eclipse that.

“While organizers of the Women’s March battled over who said what to whom about Jewish people when, and the merits of a noted antisemite, American women stood up by the millions and changed the country,” Abcarian wrote. “For that, everyone involved in the Women’s March can take a bow.”

But many people – Jewish and non-Jewish alike – were far from moved by Abcarian’s dismissal of antisemitism by both the Women’s March and Farrakhan.

A tweet from the newspaper’s “L.A. Now” Twitter account with a link to the article was subject to what’s known on Twitter as “the ratio.” As of Sunday morning, the tweet had been liked just 294 times, while it had been the subject of close to 2,500 irate replies on the social media platform.


Thursday, December 20, 2018

From Ian:

Ben Judah: Bibi Was Right
The arc of history was not supposed to look like this, I thought, as I followed Matteo Salvini, the most powerful man in Italy, through the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem. Another day, another world leader was in Israel to meet Benjamin Netanyahu, known to most here simply as “Bibi.” And just like Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, Rodrigo Duterte, and Jair Bolsonaro before him, Italy’s populist interior minister was not coming to scold the Israeli prime minister. Here was another strongman both happy to be in Jerusalem and ready to work with Bibi.

That night, as Salvini relaxed on his market walkabout and shared a beer with his Israeli handlers, he smiled for the cameras in order to show how safe he felt in the hands of such an expert counterterror force. “I love the people,” he said, telling me how much he was looking forward to working with Bibi. I felt a crushing weight on my shoulders: the feeling of having been wrong.

Without a resolution to the Palestinian question, the arc of history was supposed to have bent toward consigning Israel to pariah status—not this. The U.S. embassy has transferred to Jerusalem. A slew of other nations have moved to support some or all of Israel’s claims to the city, including Guatemala, Brazil, the Czech Republic, and even Australia. Meanwhile, the threat of a common anti-Israel European foreign policy, sanctions and all, has imploded so utterly that Bibi can snub Federica Mogherini, the bloc’s foreign envoy, as though she were an irritating pro-Iranian NGO chief—then play the lavish host to Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian strongman.

And there is more: the love-in with India; senior Chinese officials flying in; not-so-secret talks, and even coordination, with Saudi Arabia; photo ops with the sultan of Oman; regular audiences with Vladimir Putin. And all with not even a hint of the peace process or pressure over settlements. Israel, it seems, is paying no price for its treatment of the Palestinians.

In Ramallah, too, pessimism is the order of the day. There is a deep sense of abandonment. Nasser al-Qudwa, a senior Fatah official and a nephew of Yasser Arafat, dejectedly told me he feared that the populist, anti-Arab “transformation” of the West had only just begun. “There has been an unexpected rise of Christian Zionism in countries like Brazil,” he lamented. “America succeeded in persuading Saudi Arabia,” he added, “that Israel and the United States can protect them from Iran.”

Salvini met with nobody from the Palestinian Authority.

Watching Salvini’s press conference, I felt forced to admit that Bibi was right and I was wrong about the shape of the 2010s. My theory of history had failed me. Back when Bibi was elected in 2009, I believed fervently that Obama was on the right side of history—and that Netanyahu, and Israel, were destined to suffer for their failure to reach a just settlement with the Palestinians.

I was convinced that Obama and yet more Obama was the future of Western politics; that demographic and generational change would lead, inevitably, to a more liberal, less Israel-friendly approach. Bibi, it was clear to me, was endangering the future of his country by resisting.

PMW: Killing 3 innocent Israelis "is a great thing," says Fatah official
Last week, a terrorist shot and murdered 2 Israelis and seriously wounded 2 others in a shooting attack next to Givat Assaf, near Ramallah. The terrorist fled the scene and as of Dec. 20, 2018, has not been apprehended.

Responding to these murders, senior Fatah official Abbas Zaki said it was "a great thing." Applying a twisted logic, Zaki indicated that this terrorist shooting was legitimate "blood vengeance" for Palestinians killed by Israel. However, he did not differentiate between deaths of innocent Israelis targeted by terrorists and the deaths of the terrorists who had murdered Israelis and were killed during Israel's attempt to capture them:
"We are proudly following the events in the West Bank. The young Palestinians are avenging a blood vengeance - three Martyrs (Shahids) for three Israelis. This is a great thing."
[SHMS News Agency, Dec. 13, 2018; official Facebook page of Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki, Dec. 13, 2018;
official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 16, 2018]

The "three Martyrs" are the terrorist murderers Ashraf Na'alwa, who murdered two of his Israeli coworkers in Barkan, and Saleh Barghouti who murdered a baby and wounded 7 others near Ofra. They were both killed while resisting arrest. The third "Martyr" is possibly terrorist Majdi Mteir who was killed while committing a stabbing attack. (See notes below.)

The three Israeli victims referred to by Zaki are probably the baby Amiad Yisrael Ish-Ran who died three days after he was born prematurely by emergency c-section after his mother was shot and critically wounded, and the two victims from Givat Assaf.

PMW: Israelis are “blood suckers,” says mother of 6 terrorists who murdered at least 10
For Fatah and the PA, the fact that Um Nasser Abu Hmeid's 6 sons are terrorist murderers responsible for the deaths of at least 10 Israelis, is something to brag about.

This cartoon (above) that Fatah publicized shows Abu Hmeid heroically for being a mother with numerous armed men emanating from her and going on the attack with their weapons poised.

Posted text: "The Khansa of Palestine, Um Nasser Abu Hmeid" [Official Fatah Facebook page, Dec. 15, 2018]

The name of honor "Khansa of Palestine" given by the PA to Abu Hmeid is yet another expression of the PA's encouragement of Palestinians to willingly sacrifice their sons as "Martyrs." The name refers to the woman Al-Khansa who lived in the earliest period of Islam who sent her four sons to battle and rejoiced when they all died as "Martyrs".

Abu Hmeid is the mother of 4 convicted terrorist murderers serving 18 life sentences combined for having murdered at least 10 Israelis. Another terrorist son was killed while resisting arrest after he murdered a member of the Israeli security forces, and the PA refers to him a "Martyr." The Abu Hmeid family's house was demolished on Dec. 15, 2018 after a sixth son admitted to murdering an Israeli soldier, and is now standing trial. (Israel has shown cases in which Palestinians have stopped terror attacks by their sons for fear their homes would be destroyed.)

The PA has turned mother of 6 terrorists Abu Hmeid into an icon and frequently honors her, as Palestinian Media Watch has documented. Recently, Abbas invited her to meet with him in the PA headquarters. Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners' Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr and District Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh Laila Ghannam headed a "solidarity visit" to Abu Hmeid's home before it was demolished by Israel. The Palestinian officials praised her and glorified her terrorist sons as "a crown of honor":


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