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Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Newsweek: Defeating the Arab Dream (Judean Rose)



"Has Israel finally won the war and defeated the Palestinian dream? Read our cover story," said the tweet with a gif of an Arab child in an empty doorframe looking like Jesus on the cross, whom, after all, the Arabs claim as a native son. 

I looked to see who dared to intimate that Israel's entire reason for being is to quash Arab dreams. I thought some alt right or neo Nazi group perhaps. Someone who thinks the Rothchilds sit at some never-ending mahogany table, smoking cigars and directing the world to implode.

But no. It was Newsweek. The magazine that used to be our window on the world as we sat in the dentist's office, waiting our turn for the drill. It's the magazine a high school adviser told my sister to read with a dictionary by her side. "Look up every word you don't know. You'll ace the verbal half of the SATs," she said.

Back then, it was a reputable magazine. Now, apparently, it's dreck.

The article was long. Too long to unpack and keep you with me. But brevity is impossible when faced with so much bias and so many lies.

Let's begin with who "won the war."

All of the Mandate for Palestine was promised to the Jews to be their national home. This promise was made by both the British and the League of Nations, as set forth in the Balfour Declaration and as agreed upon during the San Remo Conference. The Arabs, however, complained bitterly. And so the British took 78% of the Mandate for Palestine, land they'd already promised the Jews, and gave it to the Arabs. That became the Arab national home in the Mandate for Palestine, Transjordan, or Jordan, for short.






So who won that war?

The Arabs.

They won that war by cajoling the Brits into giving them 78% of the land formerly promised to the Jews. Unless my math fails me, that leaves the Jews with only 22% of the land they'd originally been promised. Land they can prove is their indigenous territory.

So the Jews lost that war. And then lost another when the UN put forward the Partition Plan, which would leave the Jews even less territory—territory now indefensible—to give the Arabs yet more of the territory promised to the Jews. Land that is indigenous Jewish territory. Land we shouldn't have to beg to have. Because it's ours by inheritance, by right.

Partition

But we gave in, being graceful losers, and acceded to Partition. The Arabs, of course, knew they could get more by never giving in, so they attacked Israel. With 7 armies. (It wasn't enough to get 78% of the land. It wasn't enough to get more Jewish land from the Partition Plan. They wanted the Jews OUT. They wanted them gone.)

Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria during the fighting, in contravention of international law, vis a vis the UN vote on Partition. So who won that war? The Jews who share the name of their people with the name of the Jordanian-occupied territory known as "Judea?"

Six-Day War

Israel won some of its land back in the miraculous Six-Day War in 1967. Quashing Arab dreams was the last thing on Israel's collective mind, at the time. It was an existential battle, a fight to live, to exist.

And let us be clear: Israel has always wanted to live in peace with its Arab neighbor. Always. If you walk through an Israeli hospital you know this, by seeing Arab patients treated with equality and kindness. If you go shopping, you see Arabs examining clothing items alongside Jews. Arabs sit beside Jews on buses and Israeli trains. It is everywhere in Israel this way.

Not so in any Arab country. They don't let Jews put a toe inside their countries.

Who won this war?

Equality

The Arabs. They have equality in Israel. Israeli Arabs can travel in every part of Jerusalem.

What about the Arabs of Judea and Samaria? Aren't they under "occupation?"

Not at all. They have autonomy: their own government, their own elected officials. And their villages are completely Judenrein.

So who won that war?

The Arabs, of course.

Disengagement

In Gaza? Israel expelled 11,000 Jews to make Disengagement happen. Israel gave the Arabs yet another Arab state (in addition to Jordan and Area A of Judea and Samaria). Israel left them greenhouses worth a whole lot of money. The Arabs destroyed them.

The Arabs won big time. Quashing dreams? That would be the dreams of Israeli settlers who were expelled from their beautiful homes, who lost access to their businesses, and who were utterly betrayed by their own people. For what? Missiles raining down like Hurricane Harvey.

So much for the premise of the Newsweek piece. Jews winning? Ha! Jews wanting to quash Arab dreams? Sure. That's why we agreed to Partition. It's why we expelled 11,000 of our own people from their homes. Pshaw.

But let's look at the article itself which begins with a clip that is supposed to summarize the recent violence that erupted over the Temple Mount, but fails to note the event that was the catalyst for the added security measures and subsequent protests. Those measures that included installing metal detectors at entrances to the Temple Mount compound. As the clip begins we see Arabs rioting. There's a caption: 

"Clashes erupted in Jerusalem as Palestinians protested new Israeli security measures."

Nothing about the terror attack in which Arabs shot and murdered two Israeli policemen.

But we are told how Israeli policemen shot stun grenades into the crowd of rioting Arabs. This is supposed to sound really inhumane. Still nothing about the terrorists who shot and killed policemen, though.

The viewer is informed that metal detectors were placed at the entrance to the Al Aqsa Mosque, which is not true. The metal detectors were placed at the entrances to the Temple Mount compound, a large area which includes the mosque. The viewer is not told that the terrorists stashed weapons in the mosque, having smuggled them into the compound. This is why the metal detectors were deemed necessary: to prevent further loss of life after Arab terrorists murdered two policemen.

Next we are told how awful it is in Gaza, with no electricity. 

"This summer’s power crisis is merely the latest in a long list of shortages of everything from drinking water and cooking gas to cement and cars. But this time, one thing is different: The problem has been created by other Palestinians."

Um, no. Actually, all of these shortages and difficulties are due to their own Arab people. The world is just POURING money into Gaza, into Hamas and PA coffers, and the people see no benefit. Except for terrorists and their families, who get nice salaries. And government people with their hands in the till. NONE of this is on Israel. All this Arab woe is 100% Arab-made.

In spite of this, Newsweek obtains a juicy quote from a Gaza resident: "I never thought the one making my life difficult would be another Palestinian."

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

I read the caption of a photo: 

"Though Israel’s status as a Jewish and democratic state in the very long term is still imperiled, five decades after the occupation began, the Palestinian national movement has been largely defeated."

Oh, yeah. Someone is always threatening us that if we don't "end the occupation" Israel will cease to be a democratic state. But the only occupation is the Arab occupation of Jewish land. I mean, they don't like it here, let them leave. We absorbed all the 850,000 Jews they expelled from their 22 Arab states, couldn't they absorb their own, too?

This is all a self-created problem. Democracy is not at all threatened by Arabs refusing to leave Israel, trust me. It is also not threatened by them wanting more territory and not getting it.

"The Palestinians, living under occupation or scattered across the diaspora, have long been the weaker party in the conflict with Israel."

Sure. Because when little Israel is attacked by 7 invading Arab armies, the Arabs are weaker than Israel?

When Hamas is shooting tens of thousands of missiles into Israel and Israelis are told by Obama to hold back and depend on Iron Dome, the Arabs are weaker than Israel?

When Abbas demands and Obama puts it to Israel to freeze building for ten months, the Arabs are weaker than Israel?

*shakes head*

Crock of bull pucky.

"The climax came in the late 1980s, with the start of the first intifada, a homegrown movement of mass protests. Israel responded with brute force, killing and wounding thousands of demonstrators—what then–Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin called its 'broken bones' policy."

Mass protests? Is that what you call the more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or explosives by Arabs against Israelis that made zero distinction between civilians and soldiers? Is that what you call the Arabs stabbed, hacked with axes, shot, clubbed and burned with acid during this time by Yasser Arafat's henchmen? (Their crime? Sometimes they were employees of the Israeli Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria. Or maybe a guy talked to a Jew and someone saw.)

"Optimism soon collided with the second intifada, a grisly campaign of suicide bombings that silenced the peace camp in Israel. From there, the Palestinian strategy diverged. Hamas fought three wars. Young Palestinians carried out hundreds of lone wolf attacks in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Israel. The PA, meanwhile, waged a diplomatic battle against Israel, joining the International Criminal Court and winning recognition from the United Nations and a number of European states.

"Yet none of these moves forced Israel to make concessions." 

Concessions

Israel made no concessions?

·         The Jews agreed to Lord Peel's proposal to divide the Mandate into a Jewish and an Arab state
·         The Jews agreed to Partition, leaving them with less than 20% of the land promised to them
·         In 1948, the Jews agreed to take in 100,000 Arab refugees in exchange for a peace agreement
·         After winning the Six-Day War, Israel agreed to return most of the land it won in exchange for a peace agreement
·         In 1979, Israel dismantled settlements and gave Sinai to Egypt, and offered autonomy to its local Arab populace
·         In 1993 and 1995, Israel signed the Oslo Accords, agreeing to withdraw from most of Gaza and Judea and Samaria in exchange for peace. Israel withdrew from some 80% of Judea and Samaria, and from 40% of Gaza, and turned over most of the civil administration and authority in these areas to the Arabs
·         In 1998, Israel agreed to withdraw from another 13% of Judea and Samaria in exchange for a promise from the Arabs to deal with terrorists, weapons smuggling, and incitement to violence
·         In 2000, Ehud Barak offered to withdraw from 97 percent of Judea and Samaria and all of Gaza. He also agreed to dismantle 63 isolated settlements. Barak agreed that Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem would serve as the capital of a new state. The Arabs were also guaranteed the right of return to this new Arab state and a $30 billion international fund would be established to serve as reparations.
·         In 2005, 11,000 Jews were expelled from their homes in Gaza and Northern Samaria in order to cede Gaza to the Arabs unilaterally. In other words, for absolutely nothing in return.
·         Ehud Olmert offered to withdraw from 94% of Judea and Samaria
·         Israel has given up all of Gaza and half of Judea and Samaria. Israel has ceded 94% of the land it acquired during the Six-Day War
·         Israel took in 200,000 Arab refugees and has offered to take more

"Over the past decade, Palestinians have killed about 200 Israelis, less than half the number they killed in a single year, 2002, at the height of the second intifada. Lawmakers treat the violence as inevitable. Even at the peak of the last Gaza war, the largest pro-peace rally in Tel Aviv attracted a scant 5,000 protesters. Nearly half a million Israelis, by contrast, turned out in the summer of 2011 to protest the high cost of living. Meanwhile, Abbas's diplomatic efforts haven’t amounted to much: Joining the International Convention Against Doping in Sport has not, it seems, placed any meaningful pressure on Israel."

Oh, so they killed fewer of us. But that's because we're FARTHER away from Oslo. Every time Israel tries to negotiate for peace, the Arabs blow up our buses, shoot missiles into our city centers, ram us with cars, and stab us in the supposed sanctity and privacy of our homes. THAT is what peace means to us. It means Arabs murdering Jews.

We have had enough of that. And not negotiating with them is what drives down the number of our dead. Theirs, too.

Next we see a photo of the pathetic sad dad of the Halamish murderer. The caption tells us only that his son stabbed "three Israelis" in a "settlement." The caption doesn't say this occurred during what was a happy family Sabbath gathering to celebrate the birth of a new baby. The caption doesn't say the terrorist slaughtered a grandfather and two of his children, and stabbed a grandmother, too. It doesn't say how children huddled upstairs in a room with their mother while the terrorist stabbed their father over 30 times.


The article also does not mention the Fogel massacre.



Next, the article goes on to describe the hunger strike in the prisons, because jailed Arab terrorists wanted to be able to see their families more often. "At one point, the Israeli Prison Service even set up a sting, planting cookies and candy bars inside Barghouti's cell, then filming as he noshed in the bathroom."

Um, no. There was no sting. There was security footage. Barghouti got the treats all by his lonesome, and got caught on film eating the stuff. Idiot. A lokh in kop.

Of the achievements of the hunger strike, Newsweek writes:

"Even this victory was a defeat for the PA. Until the summer of 2016, prisoners were entitled to two family visits. It wasn't Israel that reduced the number. It was the Red Cross, which coordinates the trips and wanted to cut costs, mostly related to busing. The money to pay for the extra visit will come from the Palestinian Authority, which is already struggling to close an $800 million gap in its annual budget."

This is a defeat? They want something and they're paying for it. How they manage with their extensive budget is all on them, Habibi.


Moving right along.

"[Hamas] seized power in Gaza in 2007, after a lengthy period of infighting that followed its victory in legislative elections the previous year. Since then, it has fought three wars against
 Israel. The most recent one, in the summer of 2014, dragged on for 51 days, far longer than anyone expected. It was devastating for the Palestinians: Israeli bombs killed more than 2,200 people, left 100,000 homeless and destroyed the strip’s infrastructure."
Well, maybe if they had not shot tens of thousands of missiles and mortars into Israel, Israel would not have had to respond.

"But Hamas kept firing rockets until moments before the August 26 cease-fire. It counts the war as a victory, not because it achieved any of its strategic goals, but simply because it survived."

Our HERO. Brave Little Hamas with its tens of thousands of missiles. With its rocket launchers in mosques, hospitals, schools, and daycare centers.

"Despite all of the hardships, though, Hamas claims it liberated Gaza from the occupation’s daily indignities, and the group is loath to give up control."

Um, no. There is no occupation of Gaza. Israel is GONE, gone, gone from the territory. Yes, there's a maritime blockade. But again, that is the fault of a people who keep using whatever Israel gives them to wield terror against Israelis.

Next we're shown a photo of Israeli "activists" in Ofra. We're told that Israel's High Court ruled the house in the photo had been built on private (Arab) land, though there is absolutely no proof that this is so. Someone made a claim to the land. The claim cannot be proven. We're told "Many Americans now support sanctioning Israel over illegal settlements."



That caption is meant to be suasion. It's supposed to make us want to support that too. But what is an "illegal" settlement, anyway? These settlements are on land we won fair and square in a defensive war. That makes it legally ours. Not to mention the indigenous thing.

Next we're shown a photo of the Meir family at the funeral of their wife and mother, Dafna. The caption states: 

"A Jewish Israeli father with his children at the funeral for his wife, who was murdered by a Palestinian attacker. Neither violence nor diplomacy has forced Israel to make concessions."


We again fail to receive the backstory. That Dafna was cooking dinner in her home, that her daughter saw her mother struggle with the Arab intruder and watched him stab her mother to death. We're told once again that no matter how many of us they slay, Israel won't make concessions, though clearly, based on the bulleted list above, this is a huge lie. HUGE.



There is so much more to unpack in this article. But I'm at 3000 words. Not as long as the Newsweek article, alas. But hopefully long enough to show the duplicity and ugly bias of Newsweek and the author of this piece, Gregg Carlstrom.

Defeating the "Palestinian" dream? More likely Israel, by its continued existence, defeating Newsweek's dream of a Jew-free Middle East. And this apparently really gets their goat.

How else can we understand this dishonest and disreputable excuse for journalism?



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