Palestinian PM tells businesspeople: "Invest in us, because our economy will be great when we kick Israel out!"

Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh spoke at an investment conference he set up, with about 45 Jordanian potential investors in attendance. It was at the Fourth Economic Empowerment Conference in Hebron.

His pitch was a little unconventional.

Usually, when speaking to foreign audiences, he emphasizes how difficult things are and how all of the Palestinian Authority problems are coming from Israel. He says how helpless they are and how they need more foreign aid because all of their money is being stolen by Israel. In other words, his usual message is one of pure victimhood and helplessness.

But to this audience, suddenly the Palestinian territories are a fertile ground for investment and a sure thing to make money.

"Despite the occupation and the challenges it poses, Palestine is full of promising investment opportunities in various commercial and industrial sectors, and it deserves a visit, solidarity and strengthening the steadfastness of its people, and it is an appropriate and feasible place for investment because it achieves a meaningful return for investors."

See? Things are great economically! It just depends on the audience!

The "moderate" PM then spoke about the supreme importance of "resistance." He continued,  "For us, the government's strategy is based on several components, on top of which is strengthening the steadfastness of the resistance. This occupation cannot disappear unless it becomes costly, and when we succeed in the economy and promote it, the occupation becomes costly, and when the Arab countries embrace Palestine, the occupation becomes costly."

Just yesterday, the PA government rejected Israel's offer to help them out economically, if they would just reject funding terrorist families and stop inciting violence against Jews. That was not a good enough deal for the PA. 

I wonder what the investors think about investing in a government that prefers antisemitism and terror to helping its own people. 

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What the @NYTimes left out from their story on Palestinian kids wanting to be "martyrs"

Raja Abdulrahim continues in her tradition of using her platform as a New York Times reporter to shade the facts away from the reality.

She has a tragic story about how teenagers in the West Bank are writing out "wills" in the expectations of being killed by Israeli troops.

The farewell testaments reflect a prevailing sense among many young men that death is heroic, meaningful and inevitable during what is now the deadliest period for Palestinians in nearly two decades in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

With the intensifying violence, many young Palestinians feel added pressure that they themselves must become involved in the struggle against Israel and act.

Palestinian society has long lionized “martyrs” — anyone killed by Israeli forces — with many of their images displayed on walls and banners in Palestinian cities and, more recently, on social media platforms like Instagram.

Farewell messages are often published by the Palestinian news media and shared widely on social media, inspiring more young Palestinians to write their own.

Dr. Samah Jabr, the head of the mental health unit for the Palestinian Authority, said the writing of such wills was wrapped up with  generational traumas for Palestinians living in the occupied territories, dealing with checkpoints and near daily raids by Israeli troops. Many young people feel a duty to take on adult roles, including confronting Israeli troops.

“It’s not that they want to die, but it’s that they feel like there’s nothing else to give to Palestine except martyrdom,” [writer Jalal]  Abukhater said. 

Abdulrahim buried the lede. 

Palestinian society is suffused with turning all those killed by Israel into heroes. Just calling them "martyrs" is a powerful incentive. TV programs celebrate "martyrs," schools and camps and sports tournaments are named after "martyrs," the Palestinian Authority and Hamas pay families of "martyrs" - it is a death cult where being killed is the surest way of being honored. And this is a society that craves honor.

 Yet outside the half sentence on how Palestinian society lionizes "martyrs," Abdulrahim doesn't describe this fundamental part of Palestinian society. She tries to make this sick mindset relatable to the West, pretending that the kids have no choice in a place where they have no future. 

Think about it. There are about two million Palestinians under 20. The number who are killed is a tiny percentage of that number, while many more go on to live dignified and successful lives. But there are  few if any TV shows and music videos about them. 

When a child gets killed by Israel, he (or she) is instantly hailed as a hero by their media, social media and role models. That is the reason so many choose to go that route - not desperation, not because of "no choice." They are not being given any mainstream messages that getting killed while attacking Jews is stupid or counterproductive or evil. They do it because they want to, not because they are forced to, and their entire culture supports this goal, implicitly or explicitly.

That's the story the article is purposefully ignoring. Instead of blaming the Palestinian leaders - teachers, actors, musicians, poets, and other role models - for creating a death-centered culture, it pretends that somehow the Israelis have given them no choice but to want to get killed. 

“We can counsel the students, but we can’t prevent the army from raiding the camp,” [a school counselor]  said. “The occupation is the biggest driver among the youth who ask why they should stop when they are subjected to war and death.”

Is anyone - anyone at all - telling the kids to stay off the streets when there is an IDF raid? They aren't shooting at innocent people's houses. Only the ones who want to act macho and throw firebombs or shoot guns  are the ones getting killed. It isn't a difficult concept to stay away from the fighting, but one that is apparently too difficult for adults and other role models to tell the kids. 

The solution is obvious: to shame the people who commit suicide by IDF instead of honoring them. If the message in the Palestinian media is to teach kids to grow up and to try to build a  decent society, instead of turning terrorists into heroes, things would change in weeks. 

But no one wants to talk about solutions (unless it is the State of Israel committing collective suicide.) 

This is a systemic failure of Palestinian society - and that is something the New York Times will never, ever discuss. 

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Islamic Jihad leader: "We follow Iran's orders, and our only terror targets are Jews"

The secretary general of the Islamic Jihad terror group, Ziyad Al-Nakhala, gave an extensive interview to an Iranian newspaper, and he mentioned a few things that the Western media rarely reports.

While most people understand that Iran funds most of Islamic Jihad's operations, Al-Nakhala admits that Islamic Jihad essentially is part of Iran's military, and that its decisions originate in Iran.

First he praises the Iranian regime for providing the technical expertise to build weapons:

We gained from the Islamic Revolution other expertise in the level of manufacturing and arming. Today, we see the action of the resistance taking different roles from the past, and the Palestinian has more experience than before, and today the Palestinian manufactures many weapons with which he confronts the occupation and manufactures them locally, with the exception of machine guns. Missiles, anti-tank weapons, and explosives are manufactured locally. An important part of this expertise was gained by the Palestinian people from our brothers in the Islamic Republic, and this has a great impact, and what we are witnessing today of resistance action in which missiles are used to strike the occupied cities, and in particular Tel Aviv, and all the central cities of Israel. These experiences from the Islamic Republic benefited the resistance and the Palestinian people , in addition to the expertise of mortars and explosives.

But then he says that it was Iran's leader who called for local armed groups in West Bank towns like Jenin:

When His Eminence [Ayatollah Khamenei] called for the arming of the West Bank, ...everyone cooperated in order to bring about change and a qualitative shift in the Palestinian situation, and programs were developed for this, whether through smuggling of weapons or by purchasing weapons from the Israelis themselves. The important thing is that there was a lot of focus in order for the West Bank to move from a state of coexistence and calm to a state of resistance that we see today, and this, of course, was completely consistent with the directives of His Eminence the Leader on the possibility of arming the West Bank.  During our visit to Iran and during the meeting with His Eminence the Leader, His Eminence confirmed  once again to develop the armament of the West Bank, and the development of resistance work in the West Bank.

Interestingly, Nakhala also downplays the amount of money Iran provides for terror operations and "martyr" families, because he is aware that there is a backlash in Iran of how much it provides to Palestinians while Iranians are in severe financial straits. "I say this so that people can be reassured, because it is possible for them to think that the Palestinian people took all the money of the Islamic Republic," he says, which means that this is a very sore point and Iranian citizen anger is a threat to terror groups like Islamic Jihad.

Al-Nakhala then emphasized that the targets of terrorists are specifically Jews, and the purpose of terror attacks is to frighten Jews into fleeing:

We are optimistic and we will win even if 10 or 15 years pass. years, but we are optimistic that if we exert more effort, the Zionist project will disintegrate, because the reality of the Jews in Palestine is that they came to this country in order to live in peace, stability and an opportunity for life, but when the opportunity for life and peace is not available and when the Jew finds only the place where he is killed is Palestine, he will inevitably leave.  He came to Palestine to live in safety and stability. When he does not find this stability and peace, so he returns to where he came from, because there is no Jew in the world today whose life is threatened like the Jews in Palestine. Jews in other countries live and prosper. The only Jew who is killed is in Palestine. We must work to change the conviction of the Israeli that the chance of life here is non-existent and that the only place in which the Jew is killed is Palestine, and therefore he must leave this country. 

So while these terror groups claim in English that they have nothing against Jews, they freely admit that their targets are specifically Jews and the only people they want to terrorize are Jews. 

Notice also that Al-Nakhala admits that the purpose of Zionism is for Jews to live in peace and security - not to steal land, as they usually tell the West and each other. (h/t kweansmom)

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Jordan's unemployment rate is much worse than in PA-controlled areas

Palestinians have it easy. 

Whenever there is any statistic announced that shows that life for them isn't perfect, they have someone to blame: Israel. 

So, for example, when there are some people in Gaza who are food insecure, it must be Israel's fault - even though it is much worse in neighboring Egypt, and even though Israel does not limit food into Gaza at all.

When the unemployment rate in the West Bank is at 14%, that sounds very high. It must be Israel's fault. Except that neighboring Jordan's is at nearly 22%.

Whose fault is that?

To the world, Palestinians have zero responsibility for their own problems. That is mostly because Palestinians insist that this is the case. This way they avoid doing any actual nation-building, and the EU keeps sending experts who do the work for them. 

For three decades. 

The fact that Palestinians choose to spend about 6% of their budget on terrorist "salaries" and family payments hundreds of millions of dollars that could go to help normal Palestinians - does not faze the rest of the world. 

And the fact that Israel employs some 125,000 Palestinians, with salaries more than double their domestic worker counterparts, doesn't mean anything either. 

The only narrative allowed  - in the media and from NGOs - is that all Palestinian problems come from Israel. 

And the world is happy - nay, eager - to believe it.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Palestinian prime minister says Israel killing the murderers of three women "horrific." But not the murders themselves.

Times of Israel reports:

Two Palestinians accused of killing Lucy Dee and her daughters Maia and Rina in a shooting attack in the Jordan Valley last month were shot dead by Israeli troops Thursday morning in the West Bank city of Nablus along with a third Palestinian gunman.

In a joint statement, the Shin Bet security agency, Israel Police, and Israel Defense Forces said troops entered the Nablus Old City in order to arrest Hassan Qatnani and Moaz al-Masri, the Hamas terrorists who allegedly carried out the deadly attack on April 7.

The Palestinian prime minister responded: 

Prime minister Muhammad Shtayyeh condemned the Israeli aggression on the Old City of Nablus, which resulted in the death of three young men, holding the occupation government responsible for these crimes against our people.

Shtayyeh called on the international community to unify standards and hold Israel accountable for its horrific crimes and continuous violations against our people.

The spokesperson for Mahmoud Abbas, and other PA and Fatah officials also condemned the IDF operation to arrest the murderers.

But not one of them ever said anything resembling a regret, let alone a condemnation, for the murders of the Dee family itself.

They inhabit a world where everything is backwards - murderers are heroes, justice is a crime, women driving a car are aggressors and those who riddle them with bullets at point blank range are the victims.

Over the past few years, the "progressives" including "human rights experts" have eagerly adopted this perverted view of the world.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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03/08 Links Pt2: Expedia, Tripadvisor urge tourists to visit biblical heartland in ‘Palestinian territory’

From Ian:

Remembering The Scorpion Pass Massacre of 1954

March 17 this year will mark 69 years since one of the worst terrorist attacks on Israelis since the establishment of the State in 1948. Although I was only nine years old, this episode, called the Scorpion Pass Massacre, has a prominent place in my memory, perhaps because of the intense discussions it aroused in the Jewish community of Montreal that I was a part of, or perhaps because I was the same age as the Israeli boy who was severely injured. Or, perhaps it was the exotic name of the site of the attack, Scorpion Pass (Maale Akrabim).

The name obviously comes from the common appearance of scorpions (akrabim in Hebrew), venomous animals with two pincer claws and an articulated tail and stinger. Scorpions resemble crustaceans such as lobsters or crayfish, but are in fact related to spiders, mites and ticks. With an evolutionary history going back hundreds of millions of years, they were certainly around in biblical times. Maale Akrabim appears three times in the Tanakh (Numbers 34:3, Joshua 15:3 and Judges 1:36), as an indicator of the southern boundary of the Land of Israel.

The attack took place in 1954, when the population of Israel was 1.6 million and the southern port of Eilat, Israel’s only connection to the Red Sea, was a small development town with 500 inhabitants. As is true today, travellers from Eilat to central Israel could either fly (Arkia began flying from Eilat to Lod Airport, now Ben Gurion Airport, in 1950), or drive the 150 miles to Beersheba. In 1954 the drive to Beersheba was a lonely one that included a long and narrow grade with 18 hairpin turns, known as Ma’ale Akrabim. The ascent, about 60 miles south of Beersheba, is a 1000 foot escarpment that connects the Arava Valley of the south-eastern Negev to the central Negev plateau.

The attack was carried out in the middle of the day on an Egged bus (Israel’s largest bus company) containing 14 passengers plus a driver. The attackers shot at the bus as it was travelling very slowly around one of the hairpin bends, killing the driver. They then boarded the bus and shot most of the passengers. Eleven riders (ten passengers and the driver) were killed and three passengers were injured. One of the injured a nine year-old boy, Chaim Fuerstenberg, survived in a semi-conscious and paralysed state for 32 years, dying in 1986.

Morningstar lowers investment ratings of 28 Israeli companies for operating in contested territory

(This article has been taken down by the Jerusalem Post, apparently for inaccuracies.)

The Jerusalem Post has learned that Morningstar, a financial services firm that rates companies’ investment potential, has reduced the ratings of 28 Israeli companies due to their operations in what the firm’s ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) rating subsidiary Sustainalytics considers to be Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Of the 28 companies, 15 have been given a human rights score of “category 3” (significant controversy) or higher. The list includes several leading companies such as Elbit Systems and Caterpillar, as well as Israel-operating banks and telecommunications companies including PayPal Holdings and Motorola Solutions, which have been given their high controversy ratings due to their operations within East Jerusalem, the West Bank and/or the Golan heights — which Sustainalytics considers to be a human rights abuse.

Considering Morningstar’s significance within the financial ratings market, its negative rating of these companies is cause for concern to those who consider such actions to be in-line with BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) activity.

As well, over 30 American states have laws that prohibit investment or contracts with companies that cause economic harm to those based in Israel. As such, even if just one Israeli company is unfairly targeted on a Morningstar watchlist, it could potentially violate state laws.

Morningstar is now in the process of consulting with human rights experts in order to determine how to proceed with its assessment of these companies.

Dem Senators Blasted Ticketmaster Over Taylor Swift Debacle. They Have Nothing to Say About It Raking In Cash From Farrakhan Hate Rally.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) and Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) last fall trained their fire on Ticketmaster after bungled sales for Taylor Swift's concert tour led to price-gouging and automated scalping, calling on the Department of Justice to investigate the ticketing giant. But when the company doled out tickets to Louis Farrakhan's rally—in which the Nation of Islam leader defended Adolf Hitler and predicted another Holocaust against Jews—the Democratic duo had nothing to say.

Blumenthal went on a crusade against Ticketmaster in November, saying "consumers deserve better than this anti-hero behavior." Klobuchar said she had "serious concerns" about Ticketmaster's failure to get the so-called Swifties tickets efficiently and wrote to the company's chief executive officer demanding answers.

Neither Blumenthal, who has warned that the "horrors of the Holocaust" could happen again if Americans don't fight anti-Semitism, nor Klobuchar, who has pledged "to confront anti-Semitism," have criticized Ticketmaster for profiting off of the Farrakhan ticketing sales. The two senators, who sit on the Senate's Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism, did not respond to requests for comment.

Farrakhan during his speech claimed that Jews control the levers of power in Washington, Hollywood, and global finance and are using these powers to corrupt the world. "Somebody has to take on the synagogue of Satan," he said. "We cannot let them take the country." Critics had urged Ticketmaster, which charges service fees on each ticket it sells, to drop the Farrakhan event from its sales platform, but the ticket giant did not budge.

Among House Democrats, there has also been silence from lawmakers who criticized Ticketmaster in the past. Last November, more than two dozen House Democrats sent a letter to Ticketmaster, saying it "strangled competition for ticketing in the live entertainment marketplace." The Washington Free Beacon reached out to 28 members who signed the letter and are still in Congress to get their thoughts on Ticketmaster’s decision to sell seats at the Farrakhan event. None of them responded.

Democrats who signed the letter included Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.).

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"Pay for Slay" might have killed the Yaniv brothers

Hallel and Yagel Yaniv

Yesterday, the IDF killed Abdel Fattah Hussein Kharousha, a 49 year old Hamas terrorist who had murdered brothers Hallel and Yagel Yaniv.

Palestinian media are now treating Kharousha as a hero, and their description of the last time his family saw him before the murder indicates that he may have murdered the Jews for Palestinian Authority money.

In his last conversation with his wife before killing Hallel and Yaniv he told her that he was "going to the noon prayer and then looking for a job" that would provide him with a decent living.

Palestinians who kill Jews guarantee their families a handsome income for life, far more than the average Palestinian salary.

He also intended to die. He had spent some time already in Israeli prisons, most recently a 40-month sentence for planning, along with his son, a shooting attack at an Israeli bus.  He told a colleague after his recent release in December that he did not want to return to prison, and he wished for "martyrdom."

It seems quite likely that if it wasn't for the "pay for slay" policy of the Palestinian Authority, Kharousha would have had less incentive to kill Jews. Without Pay for Slay, he would have left them in very bad financial shape by dying; with Pay for Slay he ensures their living in comfort as long as the Palestinian Authority exists. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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