Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Caroline Glick: John Kerry's Jewish best friends
Anti-Semitism is not a simple bigotry. It is a complex neurosis. It involves assigning malign intent to Jews where none exists on the one hand, and rejecting reason as a basis for understanding the world and operating within it on the other hand.Isi Leibler: Candidly speaking: Proposed PA-Hamas union based on common objectives
John Kerry’s recent use of the term “Apartheid” in reference to Israel’s future was an anti-Semitic act.
In remarks before the Trilateral Commission a few days after PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas signed a unity deal with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups, Kerry said that if Israel doesn’t cut a deal with the Palestinians soon, it will either cease to be a Jewish state or it will become “an apartheid state.”
Leave aside the fact that Kerry’s scenarios are based on phony demographic data. As I demonstrate in my book The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, Israel will maintain a strong and growing Jewish majority in a “unitary state” that includes the territory within the 1949 armistice lines and Judea and Samaria. But even if Kerry’s fictional data were correct, the only “Apartheid state” that has any chance of emerging is the Palestinian state that Kerry claims Israel’s survival depends on. The Palestinians demand that the territory that would comprise their state must be ethnically cleansed of all Jewish presence before they will agree to accept sovereign responsibility for it.
This is the time for the government to launch a passionate global campaign to disseminate the truth. The PA-Hamas union is still far from implementation.Dennis Prager - The Middle East Problem
The personal hatred between the leaders remains intense and the negotiations could fall apart at any time. Israel would again face renewed pressures to make further concessions to the “moderate” Palestinians. As of now, our case can be presented in absolute black-and-white terms and we should maximize this opportunity.
The government must rally all the resources of the Jewish people including the Foreign Ministry, the Jewish Agency, global and national Jewish organizations and Jewish personalities and all friends of Israel.
The prime minister should consider convening a global conference, along the lines of the successful gathering inaugurated by the Shamir-Peres national unity government which invited Jewish and non-Jewish friends of Israel to Jerusalem to demonstrate solidarity with the Jewish state. Ideally, this should precede the UN General Assembly convening in New York in October – which the Palestinians will undoubtedly seek to transform into a bigger-than-normal hate fest against us.
Prof. Efraim Karsh: Running Away from Statehood, Again
The Palestinian Authorities’ decision to strike an agreement with Hamas instead of with Israel is of little surprise. Since before 1948, the Palestinian leadership has continually rejected any possibility of attaining statehood, in favor of a commitment to violence and promoting their self-inflicted plight for their own financial benefits. With the possibility of another failed round of peace talks, one wonders whether the Palestinian leadership is even interested in independent statehood of any kind.'The Palestinians Outmaneuvered Us'
Attorney Elyakim Haetzni, a former Knesset Member and an influential nationalist pundit, thinks Palestinian Authority (PA) chief Mahmoud Abbas has outmaneuvered Binyamin Netanyahu and Israel is in danger of losing more ground in the diplomatic chess game with the PA.Rand Paul: Cut aid to Palestinians unless they recognize Israel as Jewish state
A worried Haetzni asked his Arutz Sheva interviewer where the famous Jewish cleverness had gone, in the face of the PA's moves. "Do we still not understand that Abbas made sure to first go to the UN for recognition, before signing the unity pact with Hamas? Now, after being recognized as a state by the UN, all avenues are open before them in the struggle over Israel's sovereignty.”
Paul (R-Ky.), a likely contender for the Republican presidential nod in 2016, said the law was needed because of the interim governance agreement last week between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.Arab League pledges financial support for Palestinian unity
He said he would introduce the legislation this week if there is no such statement after five weeks — the deadline set by Hamas and the Fatah faction to establish an interim government that would lay the ground for elections.
“In the absence of such a clear, unambiguous statement on the part of the newly unified Palestinian government, the United States should act to enforce the law and cut off aid to the Palestinian government until they recognize Israel’s right to exist,” Paul said.
Citing Israel’s threat of sanctions against the Palestinians following the deadline for the peace talks mediated by US Secretary of State John Kerry, the permanent League envoys decided to contribute millions of dollars to the Palestinian coffers, as well as to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).Israel Begins to Implement Sanctions on PA
During the emergency meeting, the envoys praised the recent reconciliation pact between Fatah and Hamas, declaring their “full support of this accomplishment” and urging the two Palestinian factions to implement the agreement between them quickly.
Sanctions were also taken against the PA earlier in the month in response to its breach of talk conditions by applying to join 15 international conventions. Those sanctions put a near end to diplomatic contact, but not concerning the peace talks or the Defense Ministry.Palestinian Authority to Ask UN to Boycott Israel
According to Walla!, among the sanctions that Israel is considering against the PA is cancelling the VIP passes of various senior PA officials, which allow them free movement within Judea and Samaria, and at the crossings into Israel and Gaza.
Israel is also considering imposing a freeze on the drilling in the natural gas field off the Gaza coast.
The Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) held a special meeting on Sunday, headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.EU Doublethink on the Palestinians
Following the meeting, Abbas released an official statement confirming that the PA will submit a formal request to the UN to boycott companies and institutions which support Judea and Samaria and the "Judaization" of Jerusalem.
Ashton at once lauds the importance of democratic elections while also endorsing Palestinian head Mahmoud Abbas as having a mandate, insisting on the importance of non-violence and Palestinian recognition of Israel, and yet at the same time welcoming the Hamas-Fatah unity agreement. These various sentiments are simply incompatible with one another. So what is going on?Netanyahu Corrects Crowley On Israel’s Negotiation Stance Toward the Palestinians
Coming from Brussels, that insistence upon Israel’s right to exist is no doubt supposed to be considered wildly pro-Israel, although there is of course no reference to anything about a Jewish state. But what is so strange is that in the very same speech, Ashton declares that the EU has always supported “intra-Palestinian reconciliation.” And yet to hold these two positions, Eurocrats are obliged to believe two contradictory things at once. Because Hamas, who this much favored intra-Palestinian reconciliation must necessarily concern, is innately the antithesis of all the things that Ashton outlined above.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu corrected CNN host Candy Crowley after she gave voice to a discredited attack on Israel’s negotiation stance toward the Palestinians Sunday on State of the Union.Abbas Shows True Colors in Merging With Hamas
“One of the criticisms,” Crowley said, “has been prior to this when you were dealing with Abbas, you had said, look, I don’t know who I’m supposed to negotiate with. There’s Hamas and then there’s Abbas and Fatah. So now there’s a unity government and you still don’t want to talk to them. There’s criticism here that this was an excuse for you to walk away —”
“I said right from the start, I said look, I could wait until President Abbas represents the entire Palestinian people. But in this case we’ll wait until eternity and we won’t have peace. I chose deliberately, openly, specifically, and explicitly to negotiate with that part of the Palestinian people that said it was willing to make peace with Israel. I said we’re not going to try to include the other part that seeks our extermination. That’s what I did. I’ve been very consistent on this.”
Every few weeks, Mr. Abbas honors another suicide bomber in the streets of Ramallah, throwing parties and paying out millions of dollars to those who have dedicated their lives to murdering Israeli civilians.Will Israel Save Hamas and Fatah Again?
As if this public exposure is not enough, Palestinian children are taught to hate simply by turning on their TV sets. On PA TV, children are watching shows called “Raids of the Prophet” and “Sights of Jerusalem.” The former teaches children, through the use of various cartoon characters, that Jews are conspiring with the Devil. The latter, which is produced by a EU funded NGO, compares religious Jews to crows, Israeli soldiers to rats, and portrays the common Israeli as a “foreigner.”
It goes on to teach that the city of Jerusalem should never accept any language other than Arabic, and any nationality other than Palestinian. Various other channels show children repeating the vitriol, calling Jews “barbaric monkeys” and “wretched pigs.” And then, people wonder why violence against Jews continues to rise.
The announcement of "reconciliation" may actually be an attempt to form a united front. Or more likely, it could be a mechanism for Abbas to end negotiations that cannot succeed. If that is so, it could serve as a great clarifying moment in which Israel comes to see that perpetuating the fraud of a competent Palestinian government is more of a losing proposition for Israel than for its adversaries. Perpetuating the fraud of a competent Palestinian government carries no chance of a negotiated peace. There will always be a John Kerry who says the Israelis have to do more, therefore Israel will always be subject to the disapproval of those who expect Israel alone to fix the problem.Anne Bayefsky: Secretary Kerry's willful ignorance of the lessons of the Holocaust
A better system was the one that both sides had before the U.S. Administration intervened with its pipe-dreams. Both were working on day-to-day security issues and employment. That is where SodaStream came from. The Israeli leadership figured that if the next generation of Palestinians had a stake in the system, they would negotiate more seriously. The Palestinian leadership figured that if people were eating, they would not overthrow the current government. It was working until the U.S. demanded an end to the conflict.
What do the allegation of “apartheid Israel” and Yom Hashoah, the annual commemoration of the Holocaust, have in common?John Kerry exposes his anti-Israel bias
The former is the modern face of anti-Semitism. The latter is the reminder that anti-Semitism begets violence, horrible violence – crimes against humanity.
So when Secretary of State John Kerry suggested on April 25, 2014 just prior to Yom Hashoah, that Israel is on the verge of becoming an "apartheid state," it was more than a libel. It was dangerous.
Apartheid, as everyone knows, is a set of laws designed to create ‘separation’ between races that existed in South Africa between 1949 and 1994. It was much more than mere racial segregation, being a complete system to ensure that blacks (and ‘coloreds’) would have inferior status in every sphere and be unable to obtain political influence. Nothing remotely like it exists in Israel (on either side of the Green Line) nor is it contemplated, even by the most right-wing members of the Knesset.Say What? Top 10 Controversial Kerry Comments on Israel
To be completely fair, apartheid is much closer to Islamic Shari’a, under which non-Muslims’ rights are severely limited. And racism more appropriately characterizes Mahmoud Abbas’ demand for a Jew-free ‘Palestine’ than Israel in any sense. But never mind, this isn’t a contest.
David Letterman probably won’t be making this a “Late Show” top 10 list anytime soon, but here’s a sampling of some of the most controversial things Secretary of State John Kerry has said about Israel since he rose to the post of America’s top diplomat last year:Kerry’s Apartheid Slur Sabotages Peace
1. Israel could become an “apartheid state” if a two-state solution doesn’t pan out.
2. Israel announced 700 new settlement units and “poof, that was sort of the moment” the peace talks were imperiled.
Whether the Palestinians are ever able to take the leap of faith to make peace or not, Israel will remain a full democracy within its borders. More to the point, the continuation of the situation in the West Bank will be one that is not a matter of a Jewish minority willfully dominating the Arab majority as was the case in South Africa for blacks and whites. Rather it is one in which a largely belligerent power—the PA—prefers the current anomalous situation over actual peace with Israel since signing a treaty would obligate them to end the century-old war they have been fighting against Zionism. And the more Americans throw around the apartheid slur, the less likely they will ever be to take such a decision.Cruz Calls on Kerry to Resign After ‘Apartheid’ Remark
Kerry may, as he indicated in the tape, present his own peace plan to the parties at some point on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. But his ability to influence events in a positive way is finished. By injecting the apartheid slur into the negotiations, Kerry has poisoned the waters in a manner that will only make it more rather than less difficult for Palestinian leaders to do what they must to bring about peace. Rather than pushing the parties toward an agreement, he has sabotaged the process. Just as the end of the conflict will have to wait until a new generation of Palestinians is willing to put aside their rejection of a Jewish state, so, too, must a productive American intervention be put off until Kerry leaves the diplomatic stage. (h/t Norman F)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) demanded on the Senate floor Monday that Secretary of State John Kerry resign from his post following highly controversial remarks about the state of Israel.Group Calls for U.S. Secretary of State Kerry to Resign Over Israel Comments
Kerry came under fire from lawmakers and a variety of pro-Israel organizations after he told world leaders in a closed door meeting that Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state” if it fails to reach peace with the Palestinians.
The Emergency Committee for Israel on Monday called on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to resign after describing Israel, in the absence of a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority, as having scope to become an “apartheid state,” a term specifically condemned by U.S. President Barack Obama when running for office in 2008.Krauthammer: Kerry Should Resign for His ‘Pernicious and Extremely Harmful’ Apartheid Remarks On Israel
To compare Israel’s treatment of Arabs with the systemic racism of apartheid in South Africa, Krauthammer said, was “truly appalling and hurtful” and agreed with Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) that Kerry should offer his resignation.Krauthammer's Take: Kerry's 'Pernicious' Israeli Apartheid Comment A 'Resigning-Type Statement."
“it’s beyond nonsense,” he said. ”It’s pernicious and extremely harmful. What the Secretary of State of the United States has succeeded in doing in what he thought was a private comment is to echo and therefore to legitimize the worst of the libelous (claims) against the Jewish state. If there is one minority in the Middle East that enjoys the rule of law and protection and democracy, it is Arabs in Israel … This is beyond something requiring an apology. I think this is a resigning-type statement. This is an injury to an ally that will echo, because it will be repeated. People will say, ‘I’m not saying this, it is the Secretary of State of the United States.’ It’s untrue, it’s pernicious and it’s truly something that demands at the very least an immediate apology.”
Michael Coren on John Kerry's "Apartheid" slander
Boxer: Kerry Comments 'Nonsensical and Ridiculous'
On Monday, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) blasted Secretary of State John Kerry’s reported comments that Israel was in danger of becoming an “apartheid state,” taking to Twitter in outrage:After “Apartheid” Apology, Kerry Not Sure Why Everything Not All Better Now (satire)
"Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and any linkage between Israel and apartheid is nonsensical and ridiculous.
— Sen. Barbara Boxer"
An otherwise seemingly intelligent man, Kerry appeared genuinely flummoxed by the sudden uproar, as if no one could foresee the use of a politically loaded term as a bad move. Further, analysts expressed puzzlement over the secretary’s apparent ignorance of modern technology and media, as if things said behind closed doors could ever really be expected to remain so in the smartphone age.
“A cynical person might find it disingenuous that Secretary Kerry didn’t really expect this reaction, didn’t really mean to use the word,” said Huryu Kidding of the Center for Realism and Peace (CRAP), a think tank. “But even we cynical people don’t even know what to do with Kerry and Obama anymore,” he conceded. “We’re having trouble differentiating between genuine hypocrisy and plain old incompetence.”
