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Monday, April 09, 2018

From Ian:

PMW: Murder of 11 was "greatest and most wonderful quality operation," says Fatah in video and Facebook post
In March 1975, eight terrorists traveled by boat from Lebanon to a Tel Aviv beach. They took over the Savoy Hotel and took guests as hostages. The next morning, while Israeli forces tried to free the hostages, the terrorists murdered eight hostages and three soldiers. Seven of the terrorists were killed.

For Abbas' Fatah Movement this attack was the "greatest and most wonderful quality operation." In a video and post on Facebook, Fatah's Nablus branch honored the terrorists who carried out the attack as "heroic" and "pure."


The video shows pictures of each of the terrorists who committed the Savoy terror attack posing with weapons, as well as the planner of the attack, arch-terrorist Abu Jihad who the PA has credited with planning attacks in which they claim 125 were murdered.

Text on screen: "Heroes of the Savoy self-sacrificing operation March 5, 1975
Heroic Martyr Abdallah Khalil Abdallah Kleib
Heroic Martyr Ahmed Hamid Ahmed Abu Qamar
Heroic Martyr Khader Ahmed Jarram
Heroic Martyr Muhammad Diya Al-Din Al-Hilwani
Heroic Martyr Musa Al-Abd Abu Thuraya
Heroic fighter Musa Jum'a Hassan
Heroic Martyr Naif Najd Ismail Al-Saghir
Heroic Martyr Omar Muhammad Mahmoud Al-Shafai
The one supervising the operation, Martyr leader Khalil Al-Wazir

May Allah's mercy be upon our pure Martyrs
Long live the memory - the revolution will continue!
Group picture of those who carried out the self-sacrificing Savoy operation"
[Facebook page of the Fatah Movement - Nablus District Branch, March 6, 2018]

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that PA District Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh Laila Ghannam honors the Savoy murderers with a wreath of flowers on their grave every year.


Honest Reporting: The Gaza Clashes: What’s Really Happening
Re-cap of events
  • On April 1, we posted this explanation and analysis of the events up to that date. It was immediately clear that the “protests” also included molotov cocktails, burning tires, rock throwing, and in one case even live gunfire at the IDF. There were ongoing attempts by rioters to breach the border fence and enter Israel.
  • Of the 30,000 Palestinians present, 16 were reportedly killed by IDF sniper fire. The figure later increased to 19.
  • It was well known since April 1 that at least ten of the casualties had clear affiliations to terror groups, including Hamas. An analysis of open-source information from Palestinian media brought that number up to 15, and HonestReporting was the first to publish that new information on April 5.
  • Another protest/riot on April 6 brought 20,000 people and new violence: including the burning of what may have been 10,000 tires, and further attempts to both attack IDF soldiers and to infiltrate Israel under the resulting smokescreen. Meanwhile, and this is not a joke, Hamas is now blaming Israel for what it claims is a “shortage” of tires in Gaza. Seriously. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.
  • A number of Palestinians criticized Hamas for publicizing the deaths of its members, including holding military funerals and rallies. The main objection can be summarized as follows: by revealing that so many of the deaths were actually terrorists, Hamas undermines the PR illusion that this was a “peaceful protest.”
  • As of yesterday morning, Haaretz put the total number of Palestinian casualties at 29, while a slightly later AP story puts the number at 32. One casualty was Palestinian photojournalist Yaser Murtaja. Though the not all the facts are known yet, this story is making some strong waves in the press. The IDF says it is investigating and that it does not deliberately target journalists. Most of the information known so far is from the Hamas controlled Gaza Ministry of Health or from Hamas itself.
Col. Kemp: SHOULD BRITISH FORCES HIT BACK OVER CHEMICAL ATTACK?
If the latest chemical attack in Syria is verified, the US should hit back and Britain must play a leading role.

President Trump’s cruise missile strike following a Sarin nerve agent attack one year ago failed to deter Assad which means much stronger action is needed this time.

Russia’s presence makes the risks of escalation greater. Assad is counting on that to deter Western retaliation.

We should not fear Russia but we should avoid hitting their forces on the ground in Syria.
Why should we take such risks? As a permanent member of the UN Security Council we have global responsibilities – including prevention of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.Rightly outraged by Russian use of nerve agent against one person in Britain, we cannot confine ourselves to ineffective speeches in the Security Council while the world’s most violent despot gases hundreds of his own people.

There are even bigger stakes. President Obama’s failure to enforce his red line against Syrian chemical weapons use in 2013 emboldened not only Assad but also Russia.

Putin’s aggression in the Ukraine and his intervention in Syria were the consequences.

Sunday, April 08, 2018

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: Why Israeli Rule in the West Bank Is Legal under International Law
An interview with Professor Eugene Kontorovich by Sarah Haetzni-Cohen
A version of this interview first appeared in Hebrew in Makor Rishon on March 23, 2018.

Professor Eugene Kontorovich is the head of the international law department of the Kohelet Policy Forum and a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He teaches at the Law Faculty of Northwestern University. Born in Ukraine, Professor Kontorovich spent most of his adult life in the United States. Several years ago, he moved to Israel with his family.

Q: From the viewpoint of international law, how can the legal position of Judea and Samaria [West Bank] be defined?

Professor Kontorovich: The question that should be asked is: What were the borders of Israel when it was first established? What defines this is the borders at the moment of independence. Israel was created, like most countries, after a successful war where no one came to its aid. In international law, there is a clear rule regarding the establishment of new countries: the country’s borders are determined in accordance with the borders of the previous political entity in that area. So what was here before? The British Mandate. And what were the borders of the British Mandate? From the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.

The UN General Assembly’s declaration on November 29, 1947, was a recommendation for partition rather than an operative resolution. What actually defined the situation was what the Mandate did, and it neither accepted the recommendations nor put them into force. During the War of Independence, Jordan and Egypt conquered territories from Israel illegally, and it was almost universally agreed that neither Jordan nor Egypt had any legitimate claim of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria or Gaza. But Israel did. When Israel liberated the territories in 1967, it renewed its control over lands that it had sovereignty over based on the Mandatory borders.
Why Does The Left Get A Pass On Anti-Semitism?
This week, an assemblywoman from Brooklyn — the New York City borough with approximately 2.7 million people, not some far-flung hamlet in flyover country — went on an near-hour-long rant in which she accused Jews of conspiring to gentrify her district and steal her home. In the midst of this outburst, Diane Richardson reportedly referred to one of her rivals as the “the Jewish senator from southern Brooklyn.”

This incident comes not long after a DC Council member named Trayon White Sr., a Democrat who represents the Eighth Ward of the capital of the free world in the twenty-first century, posted a video offering some of his thoughts on how “the Rothschilds” were controlling the climate to squeeze money out of the oppressed.

Both of these people have been treated as raving lunatics, which they might very well be. But a person could easily imagine the fate of any elected official in a large city had he or she aimed similar conspiracies at African-American neighbors. We would almost assuredly be plunged into a national conversation about the shameful bigotry that plagues our cities.

That’s not to argue that we should overreact to these incidents. Although certainly a serious concern, anti-Semitism is a relatively minor problem in American life. It is, however, getting difficult not to notice a trend among liberals of either ignoring, rationalizing, or brushing off anti-Semitism, which seems to be more commonplace on the Left than it has been in a long time.

But when identity politics and class warfare propel your movement, as it does the progressivism that’s becoming increasingly popular on the American Left, it’s almost inevitable that the Jews, who’ve tended to successfully navigate meritocracies, will become targets. This hate has traveled with socialists since Karl Marx first declared that “Money” was the god of the Jews.
JCPA: The Hamas Gimmick that Failed
The “Friday of Tires” protest failed to achieve its main objective, which was to impede the actions of IDF marksmen on Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians did not manage to infiltrate the territory of the State of Israel in their vast numbers, and the Israeli deterrent was preserved.

The Palestinian “Return” campaign has also failed to mobilize Arab states and the West Bank. But there is still a month ahead for the campaign to run, on various notable dates, culminating in Nakba Day on May 14 and 15, the scheduled dates of the transfer of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and Nakba

On May 15, the month-long fast of Ramadan, which is sacred to the Muslims, is set to begin.

According to official statistics released by the Palestinian Health Ministry, 10 Palestinians were killed during the “Friday of Tires” in Gaza. Around 1,400 were injured, 33 of whom were in serious condition.

The second week of the “return” campaign organized by Hamas ended in failure, according to IDF estimations, which the Palestinians do not deny. Only around 20,000 people took part in these events, compared to 40,000 people who participated during the previous week.



Saturday, April 07, 2018

From Ian:

US blocks Arab-led UN call for independent probe of Gaza protests
The United States for a second week in a row blocked a UN Security Council statement supporting the right of Palestinians to “demonstrate peacefully” and endorsing Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call for an independent investigation into deadly protests in Gaza.

Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told reporters at UN headquarters in New York on Friday evening that 14 of the 15 council nations agreed to the statement, but the United States, Israel’s closest ally, objected.

Mansour called the US rejection “very irresponsible,” saying it gave Israel “the green light to continue with their onslaught against the civilian population” in Gaza.

In response, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said the council “should condemn Hamas, which uses children as human shields while risking their lives, and must call for the end of these provocations which only increase the violence and tensions.”

Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered along the Gaza border on Friday, burning tires and throwing firebombs and rocks at Israeli soldiers, who responded with tear gas and live fire, the army and witnesses said, as Palestinians held a second “March of Return” protest.

Mansour said that nine Gaza civilians were killed and over 1,000 wounded in the clashes, and again urged the UN Security Council to demand an independent investigation into the deaths.

He told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York that one child was among the dead and a large number of children were injured, at least 48 according to one report. He said his information came from the Hamas-run Health Ministry and Red Crescent officials in Gaza.
Haley Touts Israel and Cuba Policies: ‘Leading From Behind Is Over’
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley spoke at Duke University Thursday and credited the Trump administration with strengthening American leadership role at the U.N.

She criticized previous administrations for being too deferential to international opinion, saying she is not hesitant to resist the majority at the U.N. She described how the U.N.’s Security Council and Human Rights Council regularly single out Israel but leave authoritarian regimes alone.

"Soon after coming to the U.N. last year, we decided we weren’t going to silently accept that anymore. Israel is our great friend," Haley said to applause. "And Israel is a lonely voice for democracy and human dignity in the Middle East."

"We’ve made these changes to have the back of our friend and ally Israel, absolutely, but we’re also sending the message that the era of the United States leading from behind is over," she added.


US slams Gaza leaders who send children to border, ‘knowing they may be killed’
The White House on Thursday called on Palestinians to engage in solely peaceful protests and stay at least 500 meters from Gaza’s border with Israel, on the eve of fresh demonstrations supported by Gaza’s Hamas terrorist rulers along the border.

While the UN issued a warning to Israel to use “extreme caution” in facing the mass protests, US President Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt put the onus squarely on Palestinians.

Greenblatt said protesters “should remain outside the 500-meter buffer zone; and should not approach the border fence in any way or any location.”

He added, in a statement: “We condemn leaders and protestors who call for violence or who send protestors — including children — to the fence, knowing that they may be injured or killed. Instead, we call for a renewed focus by all parties on finding solutions to the dire humanitarian challenges facing Gazans.”

Earlier on Thursday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged Israel to exercise “extreme caution,” and to allow Palestinians to protest peacefully along the border.

“I particularly urge Israel to exercise extreme caution with the use of force in order to avoid casualties. Civilians must be able to exercise their right to demonstrate peacefully,” Guterres said in a statement.

Explosives hurled at IDF troops guarding Jewish worshipers in Nablus
A Palestinian hurled explosives at Israeli soldiers protecting a crowd of Jewish worshipers in the West Bank city of Nablus overnight Wednesday-Thursday, causing no injuries or damage, the army said.

A thousand Jewish worshipers flocked in the early hours of Thursday to Joseph’s Tomb for Passover prayers under military escort.

In a statement, the military said that before the worshipers entered the site, observations indicated “suspicious activity” in addition to the explosives that were hurled. Soldiers arrested three suspects and found weapons, including rifle magazines, bullets and a knife on a nearby roof.

The worshipers, who included the head of the Shomron Regional Council Yossi Dagan, prayed, sang and danced at Joseph’s Tomb, believed to be the burial site of the biblical figure.

Thursday, April 05, 2018

From Ian:

Eli Lake: Palestinian Casualties Are No Accident for Hamas
Leave it to Hamas to make nonviolence violent.

This is what happened over the weekend as thousands of Gazans swarmed the Israeli border crossing on what they called a "march of return." It's not just that the Israeli Defense Force claims to have video showing peaceful marchers interspersed with militants wielding Molotov cocktails and burning tires. The organizers of this civil disobedience, Hamas, are themselves devoted to bloodshed.

As the Qassem Brigades helpfully announced on Sunday, five of the 16 marchers killed during the march were members of this Hamas militia -- which shares a name with the short-range rockets its members launch at Israeli towns and cities. You may remember them. In 2014, their kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers sparked the last major war between Israel and Hamas.

In case the point was missed this time around, the statement from the Brigades promises: "The blood of the pure martyrs will not go to waste. The enemy will pay a price at a time and place and in a way that the resistance decides.”

None of this is to say that Gazans do not have legitimate grievances. They face a triple blockade from Israel to its north, Egypt to its south and the Palestinian Authority, that last year sought to choke off the strip from the electric grid in Israel. The fact that at least 16 Palestinians were killed in the march compounds this suffering.

And that suffering demands attention from people of conscience. But this attention should not treat the arsonist like the fire victim. The arsonist is the march's organizer, Hamas. For this group, any Palestinian casualties in the march were a feature and not a bug. Like its tactics in previous Gaza wars, where it launched rockets from apartment buildings and schools, Hamas seeks Palestinian casualties to earn legitimacy for its armed struggle.
Honest Reporting: Exposed: More Palestinian ‘Victims’ Identified as Terror Org Members
Total of 15 persons with actual military identification. Another 4 whose connection to military activity has not been proven.

Note: Failure to find any connection publicly in the Palestinian media does not mean that they are not military activists.

Another important factor to consider when examining the identity of the dead and their affiliation is the fact that out of the 19 killed, it is possible to clearly identify 15 military activists, i.e. around 80% of those killed at a minimum.

The entire Gaza Strip has fewer than 70,000 military operatives, including from all the various organizations. Gaza has a population of 2 million today. That is, the percentage of military activists out of the total population is lower than 3.5%.

Thus, the dry facts show that although the share of military activists in the population is only 3.5%, in practice, 80% of those killed are military activists. That is 23 times the rate of their percentage in the population. This high rate among those killed is even more amazing given the fact that they were dressed in civilian clothes and could not be identified in advance as military activists.
New Reports: 80% of Gaza Casualties are Terrorists


Ahead of fresh standoff, Hamas reveals payouts to injured protesters
Hamas has distributed payments to Palestinians injured in protests in the border region between the Gaza Strip and Israel and to the families of those killed, according to a report on the Islamist movement’s official website.

Palestinians critically and moderately wounded in the protests respectively received $500 and $200, while families of Palestinians killed were given $3000, Hamas spokesman Hazim Qassim is quoted as saying.

Since the start of the six week-long, Hamas-backed protests in the border region last Friday, which has been dubbed the “The Great March of Return,” the IDF has killed 21 Gazans, including 12 individuals whom Israeli authorities identified as militants.

The IDF has described the protests as “violent riots,” asserting that many protesters have thrown Molotov cocktails and rocks at its soldiers, opened fire on them, attempted to infiltrate Israel’s borders and set tires on fire. Videos shared on Facebook and Twitter appear to show some protesters participating in violent actions, while several others did not.

However, several human rights organizations have said that the IDF has targeted “unarmed civilians.” Adalah — the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said in a statement last Friday that Israel opened fire on “unarmed civilians” and violated international legal obligations to distinguish between civilians and combatants. Videos shared on Twitter and Facebook appear to show Israeli soldiers shooting Palestinians who do not seem to present any imminent threat to their lives.

Qassim said the payments were made as a part of Hamas’s “social and national responsibility to strengthen the steadfastness of our people in its struggle for return, freedom and breaking the siege.”


Friday, March 30, 2018

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Western Media Are Hamas's Partners in the War Against Israel
On Friday, the Palestinian terror group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, is inaugurating what it is calling “The March of Return.”

According to Hamas’s leadership, the “March of Return” is scheduled to run from March 30 – the eve of Passover — through May 15, the 70th anniversary of Israel’s establishment. According to Israeli media reports, Hamas has budgeted $10 million for the operation.

Throughout the “March of Return,” Hamas intends to send thousands of civilians to the Israeli border. Hamas is planning to set up tent camps along the border fence and then, presumably, order participants to overrun it on May 15. The Palestinians refer to May 15 as “Nakba,” or Catastrophe Day.

The first question that observers of this spectacle need to ask themselves is whether Hamas believes that it will be able to overrun Israel.

The obvious answer is, of course it doesn’t.

So this brings us to the second question.

If Hamas doesn’t expect its civilians to overrun Israel, what is it trying to accomplish by sending them into harm’s way? Why it the terror group telling Gaza residents to place themselves in front of the border fence and challenge Israeli security forces charged with defending Israel?

The answer here is also obvious. Hamas intends to provoke Israel to shoot at the Palestinian civilians it is sending to the border. It is setting its people up to die because it expects their deaths to be captured live by the cameras of the Western media, which will be on hand to watch the spectacle.

In other words, Hamas’s strategy of harming Israel by forcing its soldiers to kill Palestinians is predicated on its certainty that the Western media will act as its partner and ensure the success of its lethal propaganda stunt.

Given widespread assessments that Iran is keen to start a new round of war between Israel and its terror proxies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, it is possible that Hamas intends for this lethal propaganda stunt to be the initial stage of a larger war. By this assessment, Hamas is using the border operation to cultivate and escalate Western hostility against Israel ahead of a larger shooting war.
Evelyn Gordon: Use UNRWA’s financial crisis to end its shameful apartheid system
The status quo is also bad for Israel—and not just because of the anti-Israel incitement taught in UNRWA schools and Palestinians’ use of UNRWA facilities as weapons depots. By denying Palestinians the ability to assimilate into Jordan and the P.A., UNRWA effectively tells them that “returning” to Israel is their only hope of escaping refugee status. Nurturing such fantasies of mass relocation merely perpetuates the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; peace is obviously impossible if Palestinians condition it on turning Israel into a Palestinian-majority state.

Yet the status quo is even worse for millions of Palestinian “refugees,” who are forced into dead-end lives with no hope of ever integrating into the places they should be able to call home.

Admittedly, there’s no guarantee that UNRWA will implement constructive reforms; it might instead slash essential services to blackmail the world into coughing up more money. But even in this worst-case scenario, at least America will no longer be propping up UNRWA’s shameful apartheid system and its perpetuation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. If European or Arab countries want this abomination to continue, let their taxpayers fund it.

There’s also a risk that even constructive reforms could produce enough short-term pain to provoke violence. But Israelis understand that sometimes, you have to do what’s right, even if it comes with a price. That’s why, in a poll published just last week, 69 percent of Jewish Israelis said the U.S. Embassy should move to Jerusalem in May as planned, despite the fact that most believed the move would spark violence.

UNRWA reform is no less critical. And after 70 years of stasis, it’s clear nothing short of a financial crisis has any chance of bringing it about.
Melanie Phillips: Corbyn isn’t the cause of Labour’s antisemitism – he’s its product
This lie embodies the deeper calumny that the Jews falsify history to serve their own interests by oppressing and dominating another people. The “dispossession” lie thus leads directly to the deranged and paranoid conspiracy theories about the Jews with which the left is now riddled.

For this view of Israel is their default position and championing the Palestinian cause is their signature motif. And that means these British “progressives” all support Palestinians who pump out Nazi-style antisemitism, incite the mass murder of Jews and are led by a Holocaust denier, Mahmoud Abbas, who venerates the Arab Nazi ally Haj Amin al-Husseini.

Why then are these Labour “moderates” shocked when Corbyn’s friends spew out identical bigotry against the Jews? The Left thinks it embodies virtue itself and so it is impossible for it to be viciously bigoted toward Jews. But it is.

Corbyn may be an extreme ultra-leftist with the most extreme anti-Israel baggage, but he is not the cause of Labour’s antisemitism.

He is its product.

The Left embraced antisemitism when it embraced Palestinianism. And that’s without factoring in the Muslim voting bloc which is becoming ever more significant for British politics and for the Labour Party in particular, and which is infused with hatred of Israel and the Jewish people.

The antisemitism in Labour’s ranks is an existential crisis not just for the party but for the Left as a whole.

It is a delusion to imagine that purging the most demented antisemites will make the Labour Party safe again for Britain’s Jewish community. It’s not just Jeremy Corbyn who poses such a threat. It’s the party itself and the left wing culture it embodies.

The Conservative Party may be in power in Britain, but the Left controls the universities, the BBC and the artistic and cultural world. It is Britain itself that’s no longer safe for Jews.
Melanie Phillips: OPEN AND SHUT CASE
An open letter backed by more than 2,000 supporters of Jeremy Corbyn has claimed that the Jewish community’s protest against antisemitism in the Labour Party was the work of a “very powerful special interest group”, the Independent reports.

Some 2000 people turned up at Monday’s demonstration. There are around 65 million people in the UK. The Jewish community numbers about 270,000. There are an estimated 2.8 million British Muslims.

The letter says the organisers of the demonstration had mobilised its “immense strength” to “employ the full might of the BBC” in order to launch an “onslaught” against the Labour leader. It also says the organisers sought to use their “history” and ”influence” to “dictate who the rest of us can vote for or how we vote”.

So 2000 people said that those falsely accusing Jeremy Corbyn of facilitating deranged claims that the Jews were an all-powerful and malign conspiracy manipulating events to serve their own interests were an all-powerful and malign Jewish conspiracy manipulating events to serve their own interests.

I think that is what is called an own goal.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

From Ian:

PMW: PMW Exclusive: PA publishes new budget; continues to defy US and Europe by rewarding terror
- 7.47% of the PA's operational budget is for salaries to terrorist prisoners, released terrorists, and payments to families of "Martyrs" and wounded

- The PA has 2 budget categories rewarding terror; together they equal 44% of anticipated foreign aid

- New in 2018 Budget: For the first time since 2014, the PA is directly paying the Commission of Prisoners, which pays the salaries to terrorist prisoners; as a result, the PA now fits Israel's criteria to be declared a terror organization

Total PA 2018 operational budget: 16.559 billion shekels ($4.76 billion)
Salaries to terrorist prisoners: 550 million shekels ($158 million)
Payments to families of "Martyrs" and wounded: 687 million shekels ($197 million)
Total expenditure in budget categories rewarding terror = 1.237 billion shekels ($355 million)
For comparison: PA Ministry of Health which serves the entire population of 5 million has a budget of 1.787 billion shekels, a mere 44% more than 1.237 billion shekels serving the recipients in the two budget categories rewarding terror

In the same week that the United States passed the Taylor Force Act, which cuts off nearly all US aid to the Palestinian Authority if it continues paying salaries to terrorist prisoners and allowances to families of terrorist "Martyrs," the PA publicized the main parts of its 2018 budget. In open defiance of the US, other donor countries, and Israel, the PA's new budget shows it is continuing to reward terror. The amount the PA has budgeted to spend on the two categories that reward terror (salaries to prisoners and allowances to families of "Martyrs" and wounded) is 7.47% of the total operational budget. The amount equals 44% of the funding the PA hopes to receive in foreign aid in 2018, which is 2.79 billion shekels according to the budget.
Murder of 11 at Savoy hotel in 1975 was “greatest and most wonderful quality operation,” says Fatah


Congress threatens to cut UN funding for voting against Israel
United Nations agencies that single out Israel may soon be on the hook to lose a certain portion of US funding.

According to a little-noticed provision in the massive government spending bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last week, UN agencies and entities that act against the United States or its allies, including Israel, could lose 5% of their US contribution.

The new law requires the secretary of state to consult with the US ambassador to the UN to determine if an “agency or entity has taken an official action that is against the national security interest of the United States or an ally of the United States, including Israel.” Israel is the only US ally that is explicitly named in both the bill’s text and its accompanying report language.

In an effort to sway UN policy, the law stipulates that the UN agency must take steps to change the policy in question before receiving the withheld funds. Otherwise, the funds are subject to reprogramming for other international organizations.

Josh Reubner, the policy director for the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a coalition of groups supporting Palestinian statehood, denounced the new law as “yet another example of how the United States bends over backward to shield Israel from valid criticism at the UN.”

“It also shows how the Republican-led Congress is closely coordinating with the Trump administration to make good on its threat to punish the UN for criticizing Israel’s separate-and-unequal policies toward Palestinians,” added Reubner.

But US lawmakers and successive US administrations have long held that the UN singles Israel out for unfairly harsh treatment relative to other countries. Nonetheless, the Trump administration is considering options to make the UN more favorable to Israel.
'There's a tendency in Israel to demonize Sweden' (not satire)
Sweden’s ambassador to Israel on Tuesday claimed there was a tendency in Israel to “demonize” his country and in particular foreign minister Margot Wallstrom.

In an interview with i24news, the ambassador, Magnus Hellgren, also insisted he doesn’t see the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement as anti-Semitic.

Relations between Israel and Sweden have been tense in recent years. Wallstrom in particular has come under fire for her harsh anti-Israel comments.

In 2014, then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman denounced Sweden’s decision to recognize the Palestinian Authority (PA) as "the State of Palestine", saying that “relations in the Middle East are a lot more complex than the self-assembly furniture of IKEA”.

Wallstrom later replied and said she would be “happy” to send Liberman some IKEA furniture “and he will also see that what you need to put that together is, first of all, a partner.”

Following that incident, Wallstrom accused Israel of being “extremely aggressive” and accused the Jewish state of “irritating its allies”.

In December of 2015, she attacked Israel again, claiming during a debate in parliament that Israel was “executing” without trial terrorists who carried out stabbing attacks in Israel.

Saturday, March 24, 2018

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Denying Jewish history
With statehood evading them – mostly due to their own intransigence – the Palestinians are continuing their efforts to hijack Israel’s and the Jewish people’s national history and treasures in a failed and misguided bid to advance their cause.

According to Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Palestinians are likely to use a meeting of UNESCO this summer to claim that the archeological site of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls found there decades ago actually belong to them.

The Palestinians apparently have a list of 13 sites they want to register under “Palestine” at UNESCO and have already had some success.

The World Heritage Committee ascribed to “Palestine” Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity in 2012; the agricultural terraces of Battir, site of the ancient Jewish fortress at Betar, in 2014; and Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs in 2017. And there was of course, UNESCO’s infamous resolution last year that ignored any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

This all comes as another UN agency – the Human Rights Council – is considering a resolution to ban the sale of arms to Israel. As expected, the draft resolution was sponsored by members that are real beacons of peace and human rights – Bangladesh, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Jordan, Pakistan, Venezuela and the Palestinian Authority.

The sad fact that UN institutions are biased against Israel is well-known and is nothing new. This is a shame on the UN and many of its members. What the Palestinians are now doing – trying to steal the Jewish people’s national history – is something completely different that should make any self-respecting government question whether Mahmoud Abbas really is a proponent of peace as he claims.

Caroline Glick: Checking the smart Abbas
Monday’s speech was not Abbas’s first statement of this sort. In January, he bitterly attacked Friedman and US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and called for Trump’s “house to be destroyed.”

In the same speech, he said Israel was hooking Palestinian youth on drugs, that Zionism is an imperialist plot cooked up by Oliver Cromwell and that the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel are dead.

Taken together, these two speeches make abundantly clear that Abbas has no interest whatsoever in any accord with Israel. Indeed, they show that Abbas remains the same antisemitic terrorist he was when he wrote his PhD dissertation and a bestselling book both proclaiming the Holocaust was a Zionist plot.

But unfortunately with everything having to do with Abbas, Saul Bellow’s famous quip, “A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep,” seems to obtain at the White House.

Trump’s chief negotiator Jason Greenblatt’s response to Abbas’s diatribe was a textbook case of willful ignorance.

“The time has come for President Abbas to choose between hateful rhetoric and concrete and practical efforts to improve the quality of life of his people, and lead them to peace and prosperity.

Notwithstanding his highly inappropriate insults against members of the Trump administration – the latest iteration being his insult of my good friend and colleague Ambassador Friedman – we are committed to the Palestinian people and to the changes that must be implemented for peaceful coexistence.”

Greenblatt added, “We are finalizing our plan for peace and we will advance it when circumstances are right.”

Greenblatt’s statement demonstrated that the Trump administration will not walk away from the conceptual framework the Clinton administration adopted in 1993. That framework places the PLO – and Israeli concessions to the PLO – at the center of US policy in the Middle East.

By saying that the US will present its plan “when circumstances are right,” Greenblatt said that there is no US ultimatum to the PLO. If Abbas doesn’t want a deal, they will wait him out and offer it to his successor, or his successor’s successor.
Taylor Force Act Signed Into Law As Part of Spending Bill
The Taylor Force Act was signed into law on Mar. 23, as it was included in the $1.3 trillion spending bill to fund the government.

President Trump officially signed the spending bill in a signing ceremony, stating that while he had multiple reservations about the overall bill, it needed to be signed for the defense spending.

When the bill passed the Senate on Mar. 22, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the authors of the Taylor Force Act, hailed the law as “one of the most significant pieces of legislation I’ve been involved with.”

“The powerful message from the Force family, along with effort from the pro-Israel community led by Sander Gerber, have made this possible,” Graham said.

The Taylor Force Act, named after the United States veteran who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in March 2016, ends funding to the Palestinian Authority (PA) until they stop providing financial incentives for Palestinian to commit acts of terror against Jews.

“The Taylor Force Act was made possible in part due to the work of two of the IAC’s biggest supporters — Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson – representing both sides of the aisle to promote this important legislation,” the Israeli-American Coalition (IAC) for Action said in a statement. “Despite their political differences on some other issues, Mr. Saban and Mr. Adelson worked hand-in-hand to promote broad bipartisan support for this bill and prevent American taxpayer dollars from continuing to subsidize terror.”

Thursday, March 22, 2018

From Ian:

IDF Blog: The Intel operation behind the attack on the Syrian nuclear facility in 2007
For two years, the Military Intelligence Directorate worked with the Israeli intelligence community to collect information about the growing Syrian nuclear facility. It began with a hunch and a collection of sensitive information, continued with the recognition of suspicious buildings, and ended with the identification and destruction of the nuclear facility. Here’s the intelligence process behind the operation, step-by-step:

The beginning stages of intel-gathering

After major discoveries were made from 2005 until the beginning of 2007, it was determined that Syria was acting secretly within the nuclear field.

The Military Intelligence Directorate began to take-on the challenge: the Research Department of the Directorate established a large-scale team to analyze indications of Syrian nuclear efforts and strategies. Later on, the intelligence collection units outside of the military assisted in gathering information.

During this period of time, the Military Intelligence Directorate collected a number of key details that became the grounds for the attack:

  1. Towards the end of 2004: Military intelligence and the Mossad collected information that foreign specialists were aiding a nuclear project in Syria.
  2. January 2006: This was the first time it was suggested that a nuclear facility was being established in Syria. This was an important turning point in the understanding of it. Following this, the Military Intelligence Directorate collected vital information regarding the beginning process of a nuclear facility.
  3. April 2006: A nuclear facility was identified as a result of research conducted by the Military Intelligence Directorate and intelligence community.
  4. November 2006: Additional activity in the nuclear field was observed. With time, more aspects of Syrian nuclear efforts were revealed, specifically intensive contact with nuclear elements necessary for the operation of a nuclear facility.
Palestinian claim to Dead Sea Scrolls may be next up at UNESCO
The next “prize” the Palestinians will likely claim as their own at UNESCO will probably be the archeological site of Qumran and its Dead Sea Scrolls, Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said on Wednesday.

He spoke at a panel on the denial of Jewish history in international organizations at the Foreign Ministry-sponsored sixth Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem.

Samuels chronicled the Palestinians’ success at having attributed to themselves biblical and cultural sites, including Jewish ones, on the World Heritage List since joining the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a member state in 2011.

The World Heritage Committee ascribed to “Palestine” Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity in 2012; the agricultural terraces of Battir, site of the ancient Jewish fortress at Betar, in 2014; and Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs in 2017.

The Palestinian Authority has a tentative list of 13 additional sites it seeks to register at UNESCO.

Out of that list the Palestinians are next likely to seek cultural ownership of the Qumran Caves and Dead Sea Scrolls, said Samuels, who is the director of international relations for the Wiesenthal Center.

This request may come up at the next meeting of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee this July in Bahrain, he told the conference.

Saturday, March 17, 2018

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: Ellison ‘Has to Be Fired Immediately’ From DNC
Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz on Friday said Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.) should "be fired immediately" as Democratic National Committee deputy chairman for falsely claiming he had ended his relationship with Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan.

Dershowitz joined "Fox & Friends" to discuss his new book, The Case Against BDS: Why Singling Out Israel for Boycott Is Anti-Semitic and Anti-Peace. Co-host Steve Doocy introduced the topic of Farrakhan's contraversial relationship with some members of the Democratic party, first playing a compilation of clips where the Nation of Islam leader slams Jews and white people as "satanic" and deserving to die.

"I hear the Jews don't like Farrakhan, so they call me [Adolf] Hitler. Well that's a good name. Hitler was a very great man…Your country has been taken from you by the synagogue of satan… The satanic Jews… Because you see white people deserve to die… White folks are going down," Farrakhan said.

Co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked Dershowitz, a lifelong Democrat and supporter of Hillary Clinton, whether he thought that more Democrats should speak out against Farrakhan and separate themselves from his views.

"I think Keith Ellison has to be fired immediately as the deputy chairman of the DNC. Not only has he become close to Farrakhan, but he's lied to the American public about ending his relationship with Farrakhan," Dershowitz said. "We know that he continued to meet with Farrakhan even after he said he longer met with him. This is the leadership of the Democratic Party. Farrakhan is a bigot. He is far worse than David Duke. Why? Because Farrakhan has a large following. David Duke is a joke.


Karl Marx’s Jew-Hating Conspiracy Theory
When God became sidelined as the source of ultimate meaning, “the people” became both the new deity and the new messianic force of the new order. In other words, instead of worshipping some unseen force residing in Heaven, people started worshipping themselves. This is what gave nationalism its spiritual power, as the volksgeist, people’s spirit, replaced the Holy Spirit. The tribal instinct to belong to a sacralized group took over. In this light, we can see how romantic nationalism and “globalist” Marxism are closely related. They are both “re-enchantment creeds,” as the philosopher-historian Ernest Gellner put it. They fill up the holes in our souls and give us a sense of belonging and meaning.

For Marx, the inevitable victory of Communism would arrive when the people, collectively, seized their rightful place on the Throne of History.11 The cult of unity found a new home in countless ideologies, each of which determined, in accord with their own dogma, to, in Voegelin’s words, “build the corpus mysticum of the collectivity and bind the members to form the oneness of the body.” Or, to borrow a phrase from Barack Obama, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

In practice, Marxist doctrine is more alienating and dehumanizing than capitalism will ever be. But in theory, it conforms to the way our minds wish to see the world. There’s a reason why so many populist movements have been so easily herded into Marxism. It’s not that the mobs in Venezuela or Cuba started reading The Eighteenth Brumaire and suddenly became Marxists. The peasants of North Vietnam did not need to read the Critique of the Gotha Program to become convinced that they were being exploited. The angry populace is always already convinced. The people have usually reached the conclusion long ago. They have the faith; what they need is the dogma. They need experts and authority figures—priests!—with ready-made theories about why the masses’ gut feelings were right all along. They don’t need Marx or anybody else to tell them they feel ripped off, disrespected, exploited. They know that already. The story Marxists tell doesn’t have to be true. It has to be affirming. And it has to have a villain. The villain, then and now, is the Jew.
'Jerusalem is not holy to Muslims, enough with this lie!'
Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein spoke on Thursday night at the National Council of Young Israel's annual dinner, debunking the myth that Jerusalem is holy to Muslims.

"Jerusalem was the capital of Israel, under King David, 3,000 years ago," Klein said. "It was never, ever, the capital of any other nation except Israel. When the Arabs conquered Palestine in 716, they made Ramla their capital, not Jerusalem."

"The Jewish holy books mention Jerusalem 700 times. it is never, ever mentioned in the Quran. Even about Mohammed allegedly going from Jerusalem to heaven, in the Quran...this is described as a dream. He simply has a dream, and it says he went 'from the farthest place to heaven.' ... And the nearest place, in the Quran, is Palestine. So clearly, it was not from Jerusalem."

Klein also noted that the Arabs, historically, have not cared enough to invest in Jerusalem.

"When the Arabs controlled Jerusalem from 1948-1967, when Jordan controlled it, they built everything of importance in Amman, not in Jerusalem," he said. "They allowed it to be a slum. There was no water, no electricity, no plumbing there. They destroyed the 58 synagogues in eastern Jerusalem."

Calling on his listeners to help debunk the lies, Klein said, "We must now tell everyone: It is not holy to Muslims, enough with this lie! Enough with the lie of occupation, there is no occupation, this is Jewish land, enough of the lie that settlements are the reason we have no peace. Settlements comprise 2% of all Judea and Samaria, there hasn't been a single new settlement built since 1993."

Friday, March 16, 2018

From Ian:

Evelyn Gordon: Understanding Israel’s Love Affair With Trump
Bipartisanship was the watchword at last week’s AIPAC conference, but it’s no secret that pro-Israel Democrats have trouble swallowing Israelis’ enthusiasm for President Donald Trump, whose approval rating in Israel hit 67 percent even before he decided to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They can understand Israel’s joy over that decision. But they can’t understand its seeming disregard of Trump actions that harm Israel, like abandoning Syria to Iran and Russia or divulging classified Israeli intelligence to Russia’s president.

The explanation is simple, but unfortunately, Democrats won’t like it: Barack Obama set the bar for US-Israeli relations so low that there’s literally no Israel-related issue on which Trump has been worse than his predecessor. And there are many on which he’s been not just modestly better, but spectacularly so.

In Trump’s negative column, Syria is “Exhibit A.” Anyone who has heard Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lately knows that Iran’s growing presence there is a top security concern. Moreover, thanks to Russia’s presence in Syria, Israel can’t handle this problem alone; Russia is way out of its weight class. Consequently, it needs America’s help, which hasn’t always been so forthcoming.

Nevertheless, it’s not Trump who abandoned Syria to Iran and Russia; that was Obama’s decision. When Syria’s civil war first began, America could have prevented Tehran and Moscow from moving in at relatively low cost. But by the time Trump took office, both were well-entrenched; ousting them now would be far more difficult and costly.

Granted, there are still things America could do — and Israelis wish America would do them. But thanks to Obama’s choices, low-cost solutions no longer exist. In this situation, many US presidents would have opted for inaction. Certainly, Trump’s Democratic rival would have; as Obama’s secretary of state, Hillary Clinton was party to his decisions. So despite their dismay about the current situation, Israelis can’t blame Trump for this.
A New Entebbe Movie, Hijacked by Bad Ideas
The answer, to all but high-minded screenwriters intent on making serious movies about moral conundrums, is not too complicated: as long as there are bad guys with guns trying to kill us. In 7 Days, however, the bad guys aren’t that bad—they’re German intellectuals, which means that, periodically, they must put aside their AK-47s and debate the dialectical nature of history.

The villain-as-grad-student paradigm isn’t inherently terrible, nor is it historically inaccurate. Wilfried Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann, the plane’s two German kidnappers, were, by many survivors’ accounts, prone to lengthy conversations about justice and virtue and other abstractions, and there is something about the airless, dusty African terminal, with ultimatums afoot and the clock ticking down, that could’ve made for a fine piece of existential, almost abstract, theater. One can imagine an Entebbe film that, secure in the knowledge that we all know the action-packed fairy tale by now, would abandon the explosions and the gunfire for two hours of tense dialogue, a sort of Twelve Angry Men between hostages and their tormentors.

And, at times, that appears to be just the movie the actors portraying Böse and Kuhlmann—Daniel Brühl and Rosamund Pike—have in mind. When Kuhlmann telephones a lover back home in Germany and wearily recounts the hijacking, she seems eager to escape not just Uganda but the film itself, both of which deprive her of a role that much transcends a few angry shouts and nervous convulsions.

You can hardly blame her. Like much of Hollywood these days, 7 Days believes that a movie’s primary responsibility is to make progressive statements, not unfettered art. The message is the medium, and the message is best delivered in bursts of political speechifying. Sadly for the bien pensants, however, we unwashed masses go to the movies to be entertained, not educated, which leaves the film in a bind. Disinterested in the true depths of terror, and disdainful of the sheer kineticism of a good action sequence, it opts for something in between. The film’s climactic scene, for example, the raid on the terminal, is shot in infuriating slow-motion and cross-cut with a modern dance performance, forcing you to embrace its sophomoric war-as-metaphor theme one last, frustrating time. Whereas Chuck Norris, the hero of a previous Entebbe-inspired magnum opus, once blasted baddies with his rocket-launching dirt bike, lithe ballerinas now throw themselves on a bare stage. Catharsis is not permitted. Neither is fun.
Col Richard Kemp: Aussie Diary
He died in 1900, but my great grandfather, Archibald Richardson, outback explorer and early Rockhampton pioneer, is even today spoken of with respect in central Queensland. To me though he is a grave disappointment. I’ve been bragging about being descended from a criminal transported to the Australian colonies. But I learn from the Rockhampton Historical Society that Richardson made the journey of his own volition, destroying any street cred I had down under.

Shortly after I arrive in Sydney news breaks that Israeli intelligence foiled an Islamic terror plot to blow up a passenger plane flying out of here last year. I know of many other times Israeli intelligence has saved the lives of Australians – as well as Brits, Americans and Europeans – in our cities and on the battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. The Israelis are not alone in their impressive track record against jihadists. The ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence system enables seamless cooperation between Australian, New Zealand, British, US and Canadian services. Asio and Asis, like their MI5 and MI6 counterparts in the UK, have prevented many more terrorist plots than have succeeded.

In TV and radio studios I’m asked the question: what do we do about Islamic State returners? My answer is the one I give in Britain: ban them. They chose to join an orgy of mass murder, torture and rape in the Middle East; let the ones we cannot kill with airstrikes rot there rather than return and threaten people here. To snowflakes who complain this breaches their human rights, I reply that no sane government would allow the rights of these savages to take priority over those of their innocent Australian victims.

Europe could learn a thing or two from Australia about putting a stop to the mass illegal immigration that jihadist groups use as a cover to infiltrate terrorists into our countries. But Australia’s successful strategy is too politically incorrect for the lily-livered European politicians who prefer to appease would-be attackers and their sympathisers. One of the main architects of that strategy is General Jim Molan, the distinguished soldier who was also chief of operations for the coalition in Iraq. I catch up with him in Canberra the week he takes his seat in the Senate.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

From Ian:

PMW: Murderers are needed, says Fatah, glorifying killer of 10
Murderer of 10 is "heroic prisoner" "We are proud of you... our people needs men like you"
In letter from prison, murderer called for "resistance" - A Palestinian euphemism for violence and terror

A branch of Abbas' Fatah Movement has announced that the Palestinian people needs murderers. In a post on Facebook glorifying murderer Thaer Hammad who killed 10 Israelis in 2002, Fatah in Bethlehem stated that the people "needs men like you":
"Heroic prisoner Thaer Hammad, we are proud of you. Allah willing you will soon be among us, our people needs men like you."
[Facebook page of the Fatah Movement - Bethlehem Branch, March 2, 2018]

Palestinian Media Watch exposed a video by Fatah, which visually presented murderer Hammad as a successful agent on a military mission. The video glorified the murder of the 10 Israelis as "one of the most famous operations."

Thaer Hammad is serving 11 life sentences for murdering 3 Israeli civilians and 7 soldiers by shooting them with a sniper rifle from a hilltop in Wadi Al-Haramiya between Ramallah and Nablus on March 3, 2002.

In a letter he sent from prison, murderer Hammad called for a return of the "resistance" - a Palestinian euphemism for violence and terror attacks against Israelis:

"Hammad demanded to resume and revive the spirit of the revolutionary movement, from which the Fatah Movement arose, and the idea of resistance, given that it is the ideal way to protect our cause and our existence in the shadow of the great challenges and dangers that surround us." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 7, 2018]

In another Fatah post, terrorist Hammad was praised as a "prince" and "the sniper from Wadi Al-Haramiya":
Dr. Martin Sherman: Gaza - let their people go!
The crisis in Gaza is not one that funding can solve.

The recent spate of reports warning of the looming humanitarian crisis in Gaza shows the magnitude of the failed attempt to give Palestinian Arabs self rule over a quarter of a century.

The US has given over 5 billion dollars to the Gazans in aid, making them one of the countries which receives the most foreign aid funding per capita in the world.

Three major US priorities of interest have not been met. They are:
1. Promoting the mitigation of terrorism towards Israel
2. Self government, stability and prosperity that might make Gazans more amenable to peace with Israel.
3. Meeting humanitarian needs.

None of these priorities have been achieved. The Gazans are governed by a corrupt and uncaring leadership.

The entire civilian infrastructure is on the verge of collapse,with perennial power outages, failing sanitation services, untreated sewage, polluted water, all due to a dysfunctional government - and all of this has nothing to do with Israel.

What is Gaza manufacturing? Missiles. What is it constructing? Terror tunnels.

Quo Vadis, Palestinians?
Palestinian Arabs are constantly urged by their leaders to engage in rage. Indeed, Abbas walked out of the UNSC meeting, not bothering to hear Ambassador Haley’s speech. As the clock ticks with time seemingly not on their side, changing political landscapes in the USA and Europe, frustration by traditional Arab allies nervously watching Iran and with UNRWA being reassessed and seen as part of the problem, Palestinians can only be dismayed as their lives seem to be going nowhere.

The less charitable might say they are going down. Unfortunately rage, greed, misappropriation of international aid and ongoing victimization are not policies, let alone providing a promising future for talented Palestinian Arabs dreaming of a prosperous and peaceful life.

While experts consider various solutions to the Palestinian Arab problem, ranging from a 2-state solution, land swaps, a single state, a Jordan solution, a Gaza- Sinai solution, population transfer with compensation, and other variants,- none of which have satisfied the PA - Chile is an example of what could be possible.

Chile reportedly has the largest Palestinian Arab community outside the Middle East, estimated at 500,000 in a total population of nearly 18 million dwarfing the Jewish community of 25,000. Palestinian Arabs therefore are a much higher proportion of Chile’s population than Jews anywhere in Europe. In France, there are also about 500,000 Jews, but in a population of almost 67 million.

In addition to the despairing educated PA millennials in Judea/Samaria, all but forgotten Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon and Syria have been impoverished and massacred. On the other hand, Palestinian Arabs in Chile continue to enjoy significant success, by any standards.

Palestinian Arabs arrived in Chile in the second half of the nineteenth century, mostly poor and illiterate, having embarked on ships from Haifa, Beirut and Alexandria. This occurred during Turkish Ottoman rule, long before Israel’s establishment in 1948.

Saturday, March 03, 2018

From Ian:

Women’s March Co-Chair Cites Anti-Semite to Prove She’s Not an Anti-Semite
A Women's March organizer who came under fire this week for attending a sermon by rabid anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan responded to criticism by tweeting a defense from a rapper who shared Farrakhan's bigoted views.

Tamika Mallory was called out by CNN's Jake Tapper after she attended Farrakhan's annual Saviours' Day address, during which the Nation of Islam leader attacked "that Satanic Jew," called Jews "the mother and father of apartheid," and declared that "when you want something in this world, the Jew holds the door."

One of Mallory's defenders was Bronx rapper and political activist Mysonne, who denied that Mallory was an anti-Semite. In appreciation, Mallory shared his tweet on Twitter and Instagram.

But in his defense of Mallory, Mysonne then made a series of comments agreeing with Farrakhan's view that Jews were uniquely to blame for the plight of black people.

"…farakhan[sic] has a view of Jews based on the pain and harm that he can prove they've inflicted on blacks for hundreds of years!" he tweeted to one user who compared him to David Duke, another anti-Semite.

"To disagree with farakhan[sic] is understandable," he tweeted to another user, "but to act as if the violence, pain, control and destruction that people he has evidence that are in fact Jewish have imposed on Blacks is not Realistic.


Evelyn Gordon: State Department Backs Lebanese Land Grab against Israel
State Department officials have spent a lot of time in Lebanon recently. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited the country two weeks ago, and Acting Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield made an appearance last week. Among other issues, they are trying to mediate two Lebanese-Israeli disputes. The problem is that only one of these is a quasi-legitimate conflict; the other is a patently illegitimate Lebanese land grab. By treating that claim as legitimate, the State Department is not only encouraging aggression but proving, once again, that international guarantees to Israel are worthless.

The quasi-legitimate dispute relates to where the maritime border between Israel and Lebanon runs. As I noted back in 2011, Beirut is currently claiming maritime territory that it didn’t consider Lebanese as recently as 2007, when it signed (but ultimately didn’t ratify) a deal demarcating its maritime border with Cyprus. That makes the State Department’s proposal to award Lebanon 75 percent of this territory outrageous. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Israel and Lebanon have no agreed maritime border, and international law doesn’t provide an unequivocal answer as to where it should run. So State’s mediation is justifiable, even if its proposal isn’t.

The second dispute, however, is over Lebanon’s claim that Israel’s planned new border wall encroaches on Lebanese territory in 13 places. And on this, there should be no question whatsoever, because a recognized international border, known as the Blue Line, already exists and the UN has twice affirmed that Israel isn’t violating it.

The first time the UN affirmed realities on the ground was after Israel unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. Then, the UN Security Council unanimously confirmed that all the areas Beirut now claims were, in fact, on Israel’s side of the border. The second was earlier this month when the UN Interim Force in Lebanon reaffirmed that all the new construction is on Israel’s side of the border.

Thursday, March 01, 2018

From Ian:

Prince William to visit Israel this summer, in first official trip by UK royal
Prince William will travel to Israel this summer, in the first-ever official visit by the British royal family to the Jewish state, his residence declared Thursday.

While royals have traveled to Israel in the past, no member of the British monarchy has ever come to country on an official tour.

The official visit will be the first in Israel’s almost 70-year existence, during which time nearly every other country in the world has been visited by a representative of the Crown.

“The Duke of Cambridge will visit Israel, Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the Summer,” Kensington Palace‏ announced on Twitter.

“The visit is at the request of Her Majesty’s Government and has been welcomed by the Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian authorities,” the statement added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the announcement of the upcoming trip by the second-in-line to the throne.

“This is a historic visit, the first of its kind, and he will be welcomed here with great affection,” Netanyahu added. “I have ordered the Foreign Ministry director-general to coordinate preparations for the visit to ensure its success.”

100 years after Balfour, Britain still shaping the region, say pair of authors
Since the release of the Balfour Declaration 100 years ago, Britain has repeatedly found itself in the middle of a Middle East tug-of-war between Arab and Israeli interests.

How this pull has shaped the relationship between Britain and Israel was the topic of discussion at a Times of Israel event with authors Azriel Bermant and Elliot Jager on Tuesday evening at Mishkenot Sha’ananim in Jerusalem.

The event was produced by the Sir Naim Dangoor Center for UK/Israel Relations and moderated by journalist Matthew Kalman.

The experts discussed the historical significance of British-Zionist relations based on research each conducted while writing their recently published books.

Author Elliot Jager’s book, “The Balfour Declaration: Sixty-Seven Words – 100 Years of Conflict,” is a look into the personalities and interests of the characters who brought about the short statement that legitimized the idea of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.

Tel Aviv University lecturer Bermant’s book, “Margaret Thatcher and the Middle East,” reveals new findings on Margaret Thatcher’s relationship with Israel based on recently released British and Israeli documents.

Thatcher is often remembered for being the first British premier to visit Israel in 1986 and for her warm relations with the Jewish community. Bermant shared why a deeper look into Thatcher’s Middle East policy exposes a more complicated legacy.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

From Ian:

Saeb Erekat Looks for Excuses Not to Negotiate with Israel
In an op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times, the longtime PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat declared the U.S. ineligible to broker talks between Israel and the Palestinians given, among other sins, its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Noting Erekat’s two-decade history of prevarication—including his absurd and libelous claims of a “massacre” in Jenin in 2002—Elliott Abrams explains why Erekat cannot be taken seriously. The column, writes Abrams, is in fact about something else entirely:

Erekat returns in the Times to the usual, and sad, Palestinian victimhood trope, criticizing President Trump for failing to recognize “the painful compromises the Palestinians have made for peace, including recognizing Israel and trying to build a state on just 22 percent of the land in the historic Palestine of 1948.” It is striking to call those “compromises”: the first requires Palestinians to do no more than recognize reality, and the second to make their best efforts on behalf of their people. Trying to build a state that can live in peace and engage in economic and social development would not normally be called a huge sacrifice.

Erekat’s message in the Times is that peace efforts must now be multinational, with the United States joined as equal partners by the European Union, Russia, India, Japan, South Africa, and China. PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will soon address the UN Security Council on this point. Good luck with that. There is zero chance that such a group could be formed or could possibly do anything to promote a peace agreement. This is not a serious proposal for moving toward peace but a fantasy designed to forestall any real pressure on the PLO for compromises it does not wish to make. . . .

Erekat concludes by writing that “we are planning to move toward national elections in which all Palestinians, including our diaspora, can take part, with the goals of better representation, more support for our refugees, and strengthening our people’s steadfastness under occupation.” But Abbas has refused to hold elections in the area he controls, the West Bank, since 2006, despite repeated promises to do so. Note that his “national elections” will include the diaspora. This suggests that the “national elections” will not be Palestinian Authority presidential and parliamentary elections that could threaten Abbas’s hold on power. . . .
Palestinians: Abbas's Lies and Falling Mask
For the past two decades, the anti-Israel rhetoric of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership has radicalized many Palestinians, to a point where they are no longer willing to accept any form of compromise or peace with Israel.

By accusing the Trump administration of hostility to the Palestinians, the Palestinian leadership has delegitimized the US to a degree where many Palestinians now feel that Americans are legitimate targets for violence and terror attacks.

How, exactly, do these condemnations conform with Abbas's other claims that he seeks to resume peace talks with Israel? The mask on Abbas's face has fallen once again. That mask has, in fact, been falling for many years. Perhaps one day the world will even see that.

Gaza Needs to Look in the Mirror for Its Problems
Gaza is broke. As Monday’s front-page New York Times feature explained at length, the conflict between the Gaza Strip’s Hamas overlords and the Fatah party that runs the West Bank has resulted in a cash crunch that has left many of the area’s two million people without money. Along with Gaza’s inadequate infrastructure, the resulting poverty from this crisis contributes to a general picture of despair for many Palestinians.

Of course, the notion that everyone in Gaza is starving is an exaggeration. As journalist Tom Gross points out, Gaza’s thriving malls continue to operate, as does its water park, restaurants, and hotels — inconvenient facts that are missing from the Times story and most of the coverage of the current crisis.

But even if we concede that the talk of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is probably exaggerated, there’s no question that most of the people there are poor and have little hope of improving their plight.

This means, as it almost always does, that Israel will be blamed for this awful situation. Since most of the world believes that Israel is still “occupying” Gaza, and is therefore responsible for the coastal territory’s problems, it is only natural that the worse things get there, the more opprobrium will be directed at the Jewish state in international forums and the press.

This is wrong — but not just because Israel hasn’t occupied Gaza since 2005.

Wednesday, February 07, 2018

From Ian:

Why the Reduction in U.S. Aid to UNRWA Is Justified
Europe has ignored important reasons for the Palestinians' distress - such as Hamas' huge annual investments of hundreds of millions of dollars in the manufacture of rockets and the construction of attack tunnels, all at the expense of Gaza's needy residents. No one has ever inquired how much money from humanitarian contributions ends up in the private bank accounts of Palestinian leaders.

The Europeans started asking questions only when it was proved to them that the Palestinian Authority was using aid contributions to pay sizable salaries to Palestinian terrorists who had been convicted and imprisoned in Israel, and to build public institutions and name them after terrorists.

According to the Congressional Research Service, since the Oslo Agreement the U.S. has given the PA $5.2 billion, the highest American foreign-aid total per capita. During the same period, the U.S. gave UNRWA $4.5 billion. The Obama administration doubled American allocations to both the PA and UNRWA. In 2008, the PA received $400 million; in 2009, $900 million. In 2008, UNRWA received $184 million; in 2009, $268 million.

The reduction in aid to UNRWA is justified because this agency perpetuates the Palestinians' status as refugees. Most of its employees in Gaza are affiliated with Hamas, and its schools preach hatred of Jews and Israel. Rockets are stashed beneath the floors of these schools and fired at Israel from their vicinity.

UNRWA should have been closed down long ago and its functions transferred to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which deals with refugees on a worldwide basis.
UNRWA: The greatest obstacle to peace
The United States' definition of a refugee is similar to that of other counties. According to this accepted definition, refugee status is not passed down by inheritance and is not valid for those persons who are citizens of other countries or who live in what is supposedly their own territory. In contrast, more than 2 million Palestinian "refugees" live in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, lands they claim constitute part of their territorial homeland.

If we remove from UNRWA's list of refugees those people who do not meet any of the three criteria, we will then come back to a more reasonable number of somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 Palestinian refugees from the 1948 War of Independence. The remainder could, of course, request humanitarian aid, but they would not be considered refugees by UNRWA.

If the countries of the world are interested in funding genuine humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, this can be done through a variety of alternative channels, whose aim is to create a better future for the population. But first, they must stop using the term "refugees." This is not just a question of semantics: A change in terminology could give the Palestinians hope for a better future instead of ensuring they maintain the victimhood mentality and pass it on to future generations. Second, they must only release funds for the Palestinians on the condition they are then integrated into their host countries or alternatively, those Palestinians living outside Judea, Samaria Gaza find a third country to which to emigrate. Third, they must ensure the funds do not go toward terrorism and incitement.

The implementation of these steps will lead the PA to acknowledge its defeat in the war against the Jewish people's right to self-determination and will put an end to the Palestinian leadership's cynical use of their people and their supporters for the prevention of a solution to the conflict and finally bring about peace.
Reporter to UNRWA: 'Where has all the flour gone?'
The Israel Resource News Agency and Center for Near East Policy Research, an agency founded by American immigrant David Bedein in Jerusalem retains local professional (read that "Arabic speaking") journalists who cover UNRWA facilities in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza, producing stories about UNRWA, Hamas and the PA.

Bedein reports that a study he did of memos from UNRWA to Holland, the US, Canada, Australia and the Israel Civil Administration over last year, shows that UNRWA gave assurances that new textbooks and the atmosphere in UNRWA schools would now reflect peace advocacy. They were to be free of the indoctrination to violence which characterized both the previous UNRWA school books translated by the agency and the contents of talks with UNRWA students interviewed over the past few years.

The news agency's local journalists recently acquired the 2018 school books provided by the PA for UNRWA and have checked the contents thoroughly. A report on the textbooks and the screening of two short films of interviews with UNRWA students will take place at the Jerusalem municipality on Thursday, February 8, at 4:30 p.m.

Arutz Sheva received a preview of the report, which shows that except for two pages about peace in new PA/UNRWA school books, UNRWA indoctrination continues, in all UNRWA schools, UNRWA school books and the UNRWA public domain.

It also reveals that although 68 donor nations continue to pour food, medicine and cash into all UNRWA camps, the UNRWA workers union, under tight control of Hamas for the past 18 years, hoards all humanitarian supplies, while contracting foreign press to witness and record a staged UNRWA humanitarian crisis. "If there were a UNRWA Universal Studios, they couldn't do better," Bedein quips.

Tuesday, February 06, 2018

From Ian:

PMW: Fatah honors last month’s murderer of father of 6 as “young lion”
Abbas' Fatah Movement was quick to honor as a "Martyr" Ahmed Nasr Jarrar who led the group of terrorists who shot and murdered Rabbi Raziel Shevach, father of 6, in a drive-by shooting last month. The terrorist was killed by Israeli soldiers yesterday while resisting arrest. Fatah posted the picture of Jarrar with his father, calling him the "young lion":

Texts below faces: "Martyr Nasr Jarrar ... Martyr Ahmed Nasr Jarrar" [Official Fatah Facebook page, Feb. 6, 2018]

The image shows terrorist Ahmed Nasr Jarrar (left) and his father, terrorist Nasr Jarrar, who is holding an assault rifle. The father was a Hamas terrorist who planned two attacks in central Israel - a double suicide bombing in the Sheba Hospital and a truck bombing in a multi-story building - attacks that were thwarted when he was killed and other members of his terror cell were caught by Israeli soldiers in 2002.

After the attack, Palestinian Media Watch documented that Fatah celebrated that "a settler was killed." Fatah also uploaded a graphic image (see below) of the body of the dead terrorist Jarrar with weapons beside him, honoring him for "facing" the Israeli soldiers rather than running away:

Posted text: "'He faced forward and did not turn his back' Martyr (Shahid) Ahmed Nasr Jarrar"
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Feb. 6, 2018]

Fatah also posted the video footage of the Israeli Arab terrorist Abd Al-Hakim Adel murdering Rabbi Itamar Ben-Gal, the 29 year old father of 4, yesterday, calling the terror attack an "operation."

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: The Atrocities No One Talks About
Why the need to keep reminding the world of the plight of the Palestinians in Syria? It is because the international community and pro-Palestinian groups around the world do not seem to care about the atrocities that are being committed against Palestinians in Syria or any Arab country because they were not committed by Israel.

The 82-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, has made clear where his priorities stand. Instead of searching for ways to help his people in Syria and the Gaza Strip, where hospitals are facing a deathly shortage of fuel and medicine, Abbas has just spent $50 million to purchase a "presidential plane."

Abbas, however, could not care less. In his view, the needs of his people are the responsibility of the world. He wants everyone but himself to continue funneling financial aid to the Palestinians. For him, delivering a speech before the EU Parliament or the UN General Assembly easily takes precedence over the Palestinians who are dying due to lack of medicine and food.
Melanie Phillips: Nunes memo, Obama/Farrakhan, Poland
Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the Nunes memo, shock at the Obama/Farrakhan picture and the new Polish law against claiming Poland was involved in the Holocaust.


Monday, February 05, 2018

From Ian:

US envoy: Hamas squandering Iran's 'blood money' on terror
American envoy Jason Greenblatt lashed out at Iran and at Hamas on Sunday over their efforts to destabilize the Middle East.

"Hamas should be improving the lives of those it purports to govern, but instead chooses to increase violence and cause misery for the people of Gaza," U.S. President Donald Trump's Special Representative for International Negotiations tweeted Sunday.

The tweet included a link to a Jerusalem Post article about a recently foiled effort by Hamas to smuggle large amounts of explosives disguised as medical supplies into the Gaza Strip.

"Imagine what the people of Gaza could do with the $100 million Iran gives Hamas annually that Hamas uses for weapons and tunnels to attack Israel!" Greenblatt tweeted.

He also demanded that Hamas return the remains of two Israeli soldiers – Lt. Hadar Goldin and Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul – that the organization has been holding in Gaza since Operation Protective Edge in mid-2014. As well as the bodies of the two soldiers, Hamas is believed to be holding three Israeli civilians who crossed into Gaza voluntarily.

"Hamas must also permit the release of Israeli civilians Avraham Abera Mengistu, Hisham al-Sayed and Juma Ibrahim Abu Ghanima," Greenblatt tweeted.

PMW: Fatah celebrates murder of “126 Zionists”
Fatah's Bethlehem branch honored terrorist Raed Al-Karmi who was responsible for the murders of 9 Israelis during the PA's terror campaign, 2000-2005 (the second Intifada). In several posts on Facebook, Fatah posted photos of the terrorist wearing a military uniform and brandishing assault rifles. The photo above was posted with text in which Fatah highlights "the killing of more than 126 Zionists," and refers to the many murders of Israelis during the terror campaign:

Posted text: "Raed Al-Karmi, a commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (i.e., Fatah's military wing) who prevented the settlers from moving around.

When Raed Al-Karmi died as a Martyr (Shahid), the response to his assassination was the killing of more than 126 Zionists and the wounding of many of them by bullets of the Raed Al-Karmi squads of the Fatah Movement Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
Praise to the Martyrs who are more precious than all of us together"
[Facebook page of the Fatah Movement - Bethlehem Branch, Jan. 14, 2018]

Posted text: "Tomorrow, Jan. 14 [2018], is the anniversary of the death as a Martyr of the eagle of the [Al-Aqsa Martyrs'] Brigades, Raed Sa'id Al-Karmi May Allah wrap his soul in thousands of mercies Master of the quick response"
[Facebook page of the Fatah Movement - Bethlehem Branch, Jan. 13, 2018]

In another post glorifying Al-Karmi, Fatah also honored two of the planners of the Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972:

The image shows terrorists Salah Khalaf and Fakhri Al-Omari of the Black September terror organization that murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, and Raed Al-Karmi, and Hayel Abd Al-Hamid (clockwise from the top). Al-Karmi is carrying an assault rifle.
JPost Editorial: New Egyptian era
It is no secret that new and surprising alliances have been formed between Israel and a number of Arab states in the region.

Iran has been killing Arab Sunnis and taking control of their land in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. Islamic State and other proponents of political Islam have posed a threat to regimes in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, to name a few.

Israel, with its military capabilities, extensive intelligence and advanced technologies, is viewed by many Arab regimes in the region as an important and perhaps even an essential ally in the fight against Islamists, whether they be Sunnis or Shi’ites.

The New York Times revealed yet another example of how Israel has proven to be critical to continued regional stability. According a report published over the weekend, for more than two years, unmarked Israeli drones, helicopters and jets have been carrying out clandestine attacks – over 100 of them – against Islamists operating in Sinai, in full coordination with Egypt’s military regime headed by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

The cooperation serves both Egyptian and Israeli interests, according to the Times report. For Egypt, the Israeli military involvement is critical for the successful fight against Ansar Beit al-Maqdis and other Islamist terrorist groups operating in the Sinai.

Before Israel’s reported involvement, it seemed that Egypt was losing the battle. On July 1, 2015, Islamists briefly captured control of the northern Sinai town Sheikh Zuweid. In October of the same year, the terrorists shot down a Russian charter jet, killing all 224 people aboard. The air strikes – which according to the report, Israel launched at the end of 2015 – tipped the tide in favor of the Egyptians, say American sources quoted by the Times.

Israel, meanwhile, has a vested interest in ensuring that Islamists are prevented from taking control of Sinai, which is located on Israel’s southern border.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

From Ian:

Michael Oren: Obama saw Israel as the problem - Trump sees it as the solution
Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the US now serving as Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister`s Office, praised President Donald Trump’s recent decision to withhold some $65 million in funding for a United Nations agency which supports self-described ‘Palestinian refugees’, effectively cutting the amount of US money to the agency in half.

Earlier this month, the US froze a $125 million grant to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – representing one-third of all US aid given to the agency every year.

On Tuesday, a State Department official said that the US had released $60 million to UNRWA, but was withholding the other $65 million, adding that the a “fundamental re-examination” of US aid to UNRWA was needed.

"There is a need to undertake a fundamental re-examination of UNRWA, both in the way it operates and the way it is funded," the official said.

On Wednesday, Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the US, now an MK from the Kulanu party and the Deputy Ministry of the Prime Minister’s Office, spoke with Arutz Sheva about President Trump’s decision and the United Nation’s reaction.

While UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed “concern” Tuesday about the American cuts to UNRWA, Oren called Trump’s move “excellent”.

“He [Guterres] is ‘very concerned – well, let him be concerned,” Oren told Arutz Sheva.

“President Trump’s decision to cut funding for UNRWA is an excellent decision, both for us and for the whole Middle East. [UNRWA] is a corrupt and bloated organization that perpetuates a refugee problem that doesn’t exist.”
Einat Wilf: 1967 | As long as the Arab world views Israel as a temporary aberration to be conquered, Israel will stand fas
Given the Arab understanding of Zionism as a temporary historical aberration whose life span is a mere few decades, it made sense for the Palestinians to repeatedly choose to suffer the daily humiliations of living under a military occupation rather than to accept the far greater humiliation of permanent Jewish sovereignty on land they considered exclusively their own. In refusing to end the military occupation by making a permanent peace with Israel, the Arab Palestinians were making a conscious choice that was based on their understanding of Arab history and Islamic ‘justice’. As Arabs and Muslims, the Palestinians were not hapless victims, but rather masters of a historical narrative, at the end of which their resistance and patience would be rewarded with victory, in the form of Zionism’s disappearance. While they might suffer in the interim period, the choice they made was for what they perceived as the far greater good – defeating Zionism and driving away the sovereign Jewish presence from their land.

How to end the occupation: stand fast, stand longer

How can a temporary 50-year military occupation of most of the West Bank by Israel come to an end, if the Muslim, Arab and Palestinian view of history is that 50 years of Israeli occupation matters significantly less than the countdown of the remaining 19 years on the crusader clock? It is necessary to demonstrate to the Muslim-Arab world that their view of history is wrong, and that rather than constituting a second crusader state, Israel is the sovereign state of an indigenous people who have come home. This can only be achieved through Jewish power and persistence over time. And given the vast numerical imbalance between Jews and Arabs, it can only be achieved if those who truly seek peace support the Jewish people in sending the message to the Arab world that the Jewish people are here to stay.

The essence of the conflict between Zionism and the Muslim Arab world is a battle over time, a race of mutual exhaustion. The question that will determine how the conflict is ultimately resolved revolves around who will give up first: will the Zionists give up on their project in the face of unrelenting violent resistance, or will the Muslim Arabs give up on their project of erasing the sovereign Jewish presence in their midst, and finally come to accept it as a part of their history, rather than an affront to it?

Only time will tell.
Caroline Glick: Palestinian Leader’s Anti-American Rant Gives Trump Cause to Cut Funding
So if Abbas isn’t planning to retire, why is he cursing Trump and his senior advisors? Why is he recycling anti-Jewish blood libels from the 12th century and announcing that the deals he signed with Israel and the peace process as a whole are dead?

The simple answer is that Abbas is acting as he is because he is certain that he can. This is how he has always acted. There is nothing new in his speech. And he doesn’t think that he will suffer any consequences for behavior.

Abbas expects President Trump to disregard his statements and continue to bankroll his terror-supporting regime in the name of “the peace process,” or “humanitarian assistance” just as Bush and Obama did.

Abbas gave his speech at start of a two-day conference of the PLO’s Central Committee, which he convened to determine a response to President Trump’s announcement on December 6 that for the first time in nearly seventy years, the U.S. recognizes that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.

Trump’s Jerusalem declaration placed Abbas and his colleagues in a conundrum. On the one hand, his declaration had no practical implications. Trump signed a waiver delaying the transfer of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. No immediate plans have made to move the embassy.

Moreover, the State Department insists that there is no practical significance to Trump’s statement. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Satterfield told reporters the day after Trump’s announcement that his statement does not change U.S. policy barring American citizens born in Jerusalem from listing Israel as their country of birth on their official documents. Indeed, Satterfield refused to answer a question regarding whether Jerusalem is even in Israel.

On the other hand, simply by recognizing the basic fact that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and has been Israel’s capital for nearly 70 years, Trump broke with the longstanding U.S. policy of denying observable reality in relation to Israel in order to advance “peace” between Israel and its Arab neighbors. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Jerusalem Post Columnist Caroline Glick Joins Breitbart News
Caroline Glick, the conservative American-Israeli columnist renowned for her powerful criticisms of the Middle East peace process, has joined Breitbart News.

Glick, the long-serving senior contributing editor and chief columnist for the Jerusalem Post, is one of the world’s most widely-read commentators on Israel and international affairs. She also writes about American politics from a staunchly pro-Israel perspective.

She is the author of several books — including, most recently, The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East (2014), which calls for Israel to annex the West Bank.

Glick, a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Assistant Foreign Policy Advisor in 1997 and 1998. In 2003, she covered the Iraq War from the front lines as a journalist embedded with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, and was the first Israeli journalist to report from liberated Baghdad.

She is also the adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC. A recipient of several major journalism awards, Glick travels around the world to advise policymakers about issues relating to global security.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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