Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Abbas liar

Showing posts with label Abbas liar. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Moderate peace-loving Abbas happily poses with murderers of Jews

The purported leader of a state that virtually the entire world agrees must exist greets people who have murdered Jews.

That's not news anymore.

What is amazing is that no western leader finds these images to be disgusting.

No academic notes the hypocrisy of a "peace partner" welcoming, in person, murderers and terrorists.

No mainstream journalist or editorialist says the obvious - that a people who lionize murderers are clearly not deserving of any Western support, let alone a state.

There is not one word of condemnation from the enlightened West that Mahmoud Abbas - personally and proudly - poses with and praises people with blood on their hands.

Photos that would instantly torpedo the career of any other politician on the planet are not newsworthy when the politician is "President of Palestine."

The world agrees: Palestinian Arab leaders are moderate, peace-loving victims and that the people that their people murder are evil colonialist oppressors who deserved to be shot, stabbed and bludgeoned to death.

There is no other interpretation.

At the end of this video showing the celebrations, one of the murderers says, to the cheers of the crowd, "All of Palestine from the river to the sea":

Fatah poster shows diplomacy is a tactic, just like terror. When will the West wake up?

Palestinian Media Watch has been monitoring Fatah's official Facebook page, and it seems that every day Mahmoud Abbas' party shows its support for terrorism.

This graphic they posted is pretty clear:

Under the headline "Fatah - All means of struggle until statehood" the administrator of the Fatah Facebook page posted three pictures showing different "means of struggle." One picture represents diplomacy as a "means of struggle," exemplified by a picture of PA Chairman Abbas speaking at the UN. The other two pictures represent the use of different kinds of violence as a "means of struggle." One shows a man wearing an Arab headscarf throwing a stone, while the other shows a man holding a rifle.

(no link, I received this via email and it does not seem to be posted yet.)

There is no abhorrence for violence - it is a necessary tool. The Western world can be duped by seeing the Fatah-dominated PLO talk to them only about peace and diplomacy while in Arabic there has been no change of heart regarding terror.

It isn't like we didn't know that they regard diplomacy is a tactic, not a strategy. Fatah has said it many times, and it is part of its official platform - a document that has been utterly ignored by the Western world. (I'm not aware of anyone who translated it into English besides my excepts.)

In that same platform, Fatah calls for relationships with Israel's "peace camp" but emphasizes that this is in no way "normalization" with the enemy. It's just another tactic - weaken Israel with words that fools gullible US, UN and EU officials all the while celebrating terror.

Hell, even Arafat swore that he gave up terror in 1993, and then he directed the suicide bombing spree of the 2000s.

These are basic facts that can be checked by anyone. It is the willful blindness of diplomats, pundits and the media, combined with the willful lies spouted by the Israel-haters, that tells the world a story that is much different from the truth.

Abbas says "No peace without Jerusalem as capital of Palestine"

The PA's official WAFA news agency writes that Mahmoud Abbas has stated "I will not compromise on the 1967 borders as the border for our Palestinian state, there is no peace without Jerusalem as its capital."

I have yet to see a single journalist, columnist or politician ask him the simple question, "Why?"

Why is this a pre-requisite for peace? Why is a city that was ignored by Arabs for centuries suddenly so critical that peace is held hostage to it? Why, practically, can Ramallah not serve as a capital of a state, which it is effectively doing now?

The Jews accepted, reluctantly, the 1947 partition plan where Jerusalem was to be an international city. They didn't want to lose Jerusalem, but it was more important to have a land that Jews could flee to when they are persecuted, and it was promised (ha!) that Jerusalem would still have open access to all. They were people who were desperate to achieve their national aspirations and were willing to sacrifice, very dearly, their very souls for the chance.

Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, don't seem to be very desperate. There is no sense of urgency for their supposed aspirations for a state. Instead of reluctantly accepting compromises that would lead to a state, they pile on ultimatum after ultimatum, threat after threat, if their maximal demands aren't met.

By saying "no peace" without dividing Jerusalem, Abbas is threatening terrorism if he doesn't get his demands.

This is not how people who want a nation act.

It is how crime-lords act.

Abbas lies to UN, as usual

Abbas' speech to the UN was filled with the usual lies, but this one was a beauty:

...We keep reaching out to the Israeli side saying: let us work to make the culture of peace reign...

From official PA TV, last month:

PA TV host: “We will now take a short break – to the poetry section by the girl Tala...”
Girl: “When I was young I was taught that Arabness is my honor...
and that our lands extend from one end to the other,
and that our wars were for the Al-Aqsa Mosque,
and that our enemy is Satan, Zion with a tail,
and that our nation's armies are outstanding.”

How's that for a "culture of peace"?

Here are the Jewish American "leaders" who fawned over Abbas

Earlier today I wondered what idiotic Jews were going to a lecture and Q&A with Mahmoud Abbas without challenging him with a single damning question.'

The answer is here:

The dinner, hosted by Center founder and chairman Dan Abraham and Center president Congressman Robert Wexler at the Plaza Hotel, was organized at the request of Abbas.

Abraham, Wexler and Abbas opened the discussion with brief introductory remarks. Abbas then answered questions from the assembled guests. The event lasted one hour and a half.

Guests included former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, and former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer; Professor Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University; Wolf Blitzer, host of CNN’s The Situation Room; Congresswoman Nita Lowey; Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism; Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center; Nancy Kaufman, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women; Peter Joseph, president of the Israel Policy Forum; Daniel Lubetsky, founder of OneVoice; Eli Broad, founder of the Broad Foundation; Professor Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize recipient; Abby Joseph Cohen, board member of the Jewish Theological Seminary and other American Jewish community leaders and foreign policy scholars.

These are not American Jewish leaders. They are prominent American Jews who were handpicked to ensure that it would be a swell evening with the Holocaust minimizing, Olympics massacre-funding, terrorist-supporting, human-rights denying, intransigent dictator of the Palestinian Authority.

Instead of asking questions to expose Abbas as the liar and extremist that he is, he was fawned over by these so-called "leaders." Some of their questions are would make anyone cringe:

Alan Dershowitz: If only the people at this table were responsible for making peace I think we would have peace. Virtually everyone here is opposed to Israel’s settlement policy and wishes it would end. …

My question is this – Bill Clinton once said to me in a conversation, the real problems is, dammit Israel is a democracy and the PA is a democracy. Therefore before you make peace both sides have to persuade their constituents. And sometimes good things produce bad results. Let me give you an example. Many of us in this room were very active in bringing a million Soviet Jews to Israel. That was a great thing but it produced an extreme right wing in Israel which made peace more difficult. My question to you is how do you and we together work to persuade the constituencies on both sides that are opposed to the two state solution that it is in their interest to bring about a two state solution. How can we use democracy to help us rather than serve as a barrier to peace?

I could fisk his answer, about how most Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews want a two state solution (it isn't true) like I have fisked his lies dozens of times, but the problem here isn't the answer - the problem is the question. Here we have Alan Dershowitz, who is a wonderful defender of Israel's right to exist, telling the enemy (and yes, Abbas is the enemy) that Israeli democracy is a problem because so many Israelis aren't as bowled over by Abbas as Dershowitz is.

In reality, Russian Jews in particular are attuned to how dictatorships work, what real oppression is, and what anti-semitism is - and they see it all in Abbas' Palestinian Authority. Dershowitz' chutzpah is to say that American Jews know what is best for Israelis and Israelis don't - so he wants to work with a certifiable terror cheerleader to short-circuit Israeli democracy!

Not to mention his absurd characterization of the PA as a democracy. Unreal.

I met Dershowitz, I like Dershowitz, but this is sickening.

And so are practically all of the other sycophantic, deferential questions asked by these prominent liberal Jews.

The problem goes even beyond the wishful thinking I've noted many times before that trump any possibility of an honest ability to weigh the facts. The problem is this: just like Arabs tend to project their own violent history and desires onto Jews in Arabic, liberal Jews want to project their own fervent desire for peace onto any Arab dictator who wears a suit and mouths nice things in English.

It is closer to psychosis than it is to realism.

Right-wing Jews want peace too. Russian Jews want peace. Religious Jews want peace. Likudniks and Naftali Bennett want peace. Practically everyone wants peace - but they are not willing to risk their own families' lives for empty promises. And nothing that the PA has done gives any of them security that real peace is the objective of their Arab neighbors.

The Israeli and Western press is filled with talk about peace, plans for peace, methods to achieve peace, references to peace studies, quotes from so-called experts who work at "peace centers" like the one that hosted this talk.

But the Arabic press essentially never mentions peace.

Their media has lots of talk about justice, and about rights, and about perceived Israeli violations of both. But the yearning for peace that these prominent Jews take for granted is simply not there. It doesn't exist. Nada.

This is the reality. Wishing it away and forcing parties to sign a piece of paper will not change this reality. Right now, the word "normalization" is a dirty word in Egypt, in Jordan and in the PA-controlled territories. Arabs who talk about real peace with Israel are ostracized. I am not exaggerating one bit. Ask Khaled Abu Toameh.

I can barely recall every reading any Arabic op-ed or article that talks about real peace with Israel. (Rarely, there are backhanded compliments of Israeli innovations in science, to contrast it with the Arab world. That's the most complimentary I've ever seen in some nine years of reading Arab media.)

Ignoring these facts is not just stupid, but potentially deadly. I wish, more than anything, that I was wrong. But giving Abbas a free pass does not serve the cause of peace; it only strengthens the fantasy.

Real peace cannot be built on lies and dreams, and it is about time that prominent American Jews woke up to the reality, no matter how unpalatable it might be.

(h/t E ben Abuya)

Who are the US Jews that Abbas met, and why are they so stupid?

From WAFA:

President Mahmoud Abbas urged leaders of the American Jewish community to support efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.

He told a group of Jewish community leaders he met in New York Monday evening that this is the time to make peace.

“We have a real opportunity to achieve lasting, just, and comprehensive peace,” he said on the eve of the opening sessions of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). “We can do it, make no mistake. No one gains more from reaching an agreement than Palestinians, and no one loses more if we fail to reach an agreement. Failure in not an option for us,” he said.

“We need your support to ensure the successful conclusion of the peace negotiations so that the State of Palestine can live side by side with the State of Israel in peace and security on the 1967 borders,” said Abbas.

Abbas said that he speaks the same language everywhere in the world, urging the Jewish community leaders to listen to his speech at the UNGA in which he will reiterate the Palestinian position of an independent state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital along with resolving all final status issues.

I cannot find any mention of this meeting in the news media. (UPDATE: TOI has the story now, h/t Ian.)

Which brings up two questions:

Who are these "leaders" that are so eager to meet Abbas?

And if they are pro-Israel, why are they so ignorant that they cannot ask him any real questions?

For example:

If you are so interested in peace, why did you go out of your way to meet with child-murderer Samir Kuntar?
Why does the PA name institutions after terrorists who targeted innocent civilians?
Why is there still daily incitement on PA TV against Israel?
Do you believe, as Arafat did, that there was never a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem? Do you realize that this position is at odds with what Muslims said openly before 1967?
Do you agree with many of your people that there should be no "normalization" with Jews in Israel?
Why did you threaten your citizens who dared to shop in a Jewish-owned supermarket that has low prices?
Recently you said that you believe that the Holocaust occurred. You wrote a book that claimed that it was exaggerated. Were you lying then, or are you lying now?
Do you really believe that Jews are raising dogs and wild boars and training them to attack Arab farms, as you have stated?
Do you really believe that Hamas would accept Israel's existence if you reconcile with them? Do you actually read any of their material?
Why does the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group still exist, if you are the leader of Fatah? How do they get funded?
Do you agree with the Fatah platform that terrorism is legal under international law?
Why does some 6% of the PA budget go towards terrorist prisoners and released terrorists?
Do you consider the Mufti of Jerusalem who collaborated with Hitler to be a hero?

There are plenty more questions like these that an educated Zionist leadership should know to ask. I have lots of examples of Abbas' lies and outrageous actions through the years.

Any Western politician who could be accused of any one of these positions would be mercilessly pilloried if they met with these same "leaders," but Abbas is given a free pass with only perfunctory questions that he knows how to sidestep.

So were the "Jewish leaders" simply members of J-Street and writers for Open Zion, or were they clueless heads of local federations, or what? And even if they were J-Streeters or Peter Beinart's gang - shouldn't intellectual honesty force them to ask these questions of Abbas anyway?

The boars are back in town! Evil Zionist pigs return to destroy (only) Arab farms

It's been over a year since I last reported on the perennial stories, often in Ma'an, of "Jewish settlers" releasing wild boars to wreak havoc on Palestinian Arab farmers.

But the boars are back!

Palestinian farmers in Salfit on Tuesday accused settlers of releasing wild boars onto their land to damage their crops.

Wild boars damaged a number of plum trees, fig trees, vineyards and other agricultural crops, farmers in the Wadi Shaer area of Salfit told Ma'an.

Farmers accuse settlers of deliberately releasing the boars onto their land.

Residents and local officials in the area have for several years complained that settlers release boars, which have caused injuries and destroy land in the rural communities.

This time, instead of reporting it as actual fact as it used to, Ma'an quotes a seeming authoritative source:

The Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem says that while Israel claims it cannot control the wild boar population in the area, and the purposeful release of pigs cannot be confirmed, Israel's separation wall has pushed the animals to search for new habitats.

However, as I have documented, the ARIJ has directly blamed the boars on Jews in the past - by quoting Ma'an!

Since the boars are indigenous to the region, and they attack Jewish farms as well, the idea that the security barrier keeps them concentrated on only the eastern side is equally ludicrous. But, hey - this is Ma'an.

Its not like anyone important parrots the absurd accusations, right?

Abbas continues to push his lies at both houses of British Parliament

The number of foreigners who have spoken at both Houses of British Parliament is pretty small - only 15 since 2000.

Now, Mahmoud Abbas - the Holocaust denying, terrorist-supporting, Jewish Temple denying financier of the Munich Olympics massacre, who has publicly charged Jews with training pigs to attack Arabs - has joined this formerly illustrious and exclusive club.

Abbas is not a great orator. He has zero charisma. But he does have something that the Europeans lap up: the ability to speak in sound bites that have, by their very repetition, become accepted as facts - even when the real facts are known.

Here is his speech. Plenty of lies, although not quite as many as Abbas has spouted in the past. But note how many times he says "1967 borders" using his Goebbels technique - which has worked wonders.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am honored once again to be in this chamber, with the distinguished members of the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

Last month we resumed negotiations on all core issues. This could not have happened without the active and constructive efforts made by President Obama and Secretary Kerry, and also the efforts of Europe, Russia and the United Nations. I hope that the U.S. and the Quartet will be a full partner in these negotiations. We will address all permanent status issues: Jerusalem, Borders, Settlements, Refugees, Security, and Prisoners.

A time period of 6-9 months has been designated to achieve a comprehensive agreement including end of claims and end of conflict. If the Israelis honor their commitment to release the 104 Palestinian prisoners from pre-1993 I commit not to accede to any of the U.N. agencies or conventions, during the 6-9 month period.

We also agreed to continue fulfilling our security obligations during this time, and we will shoulder all commitments emanating from agreements signed, The Road Map and the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002.

If Israel withdraws from the territories occupied in 1967, 57 Arab and Muslim nations will normalize relations with Israel. [Even Egypt and Jordan haven't "normalized relations."] In a region experiencing a period of deep unrest, this would be a most significant and beneficial development and we hope that the Israeli government will consider it seriously.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

We hope that the Israeli government will honor its commitments including a halt on settlement activities, which have accelerated drastically in the past six weeks. It should be noted that (4019) new housing units have been announced in Israeli settlements since the negotiations resumed in Washington D.C. July 30, 2013.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest appreciation for the recent E.U. Guidelines on Israeli settlements. This step, which reinforces the 1967 border and the two-state solution, provides a constructive atmosphere for negotiations. I hope that these Guidelines will enter into effect in January 1st, 2014, as announced. Moreover, we hope that you, as Britain, and as a member of the EU, will continue to take steps aimed at realizing the two-state solution, which are a natural translation of your clear policy on Israel’s settlement enterprise, and which will help us to finally achieve peace for the benefit of both Palestinians and Israelis.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Last year 138 nations voted for Palestine as a non member state in the U.N. I hope the day will soon come when Great Britain will recognize the State of Palestine with East- Jerusalem as its capital on the 1967 borders.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

On incitement I propose to revive the trilateral committee on anti-incitement. (U.S. Palestinian, Israeli). [What he means is "I propose to push the issue off because if anyone looks closely at how I and my people speak in Arabic, I'm screwed.]

As for the reconciliation:

We will do it when Hamas accepts to go to elections (Presidential and legislative).

Reconciliation will not be a burden on negotiations. Hamas have agreed that if a peace agreement is reached, and put to referendum, then they will accept that agreement. [I think Hamas will disagree, and a brief glance at any Hamas media outlet shows this to be a risible lie.]

Meanwhile we will continue our institutions building for the State of Palestine. I thank Britain for its generous contributions in this endeavor. I assure you that the State of Palestine takes its responsibilities as an international actor very seriously, and will continue working in the fields of democracy, human rights, women rights, accountability, transparency and the role of law.

On the changes in the Arab World:

Democracy and peace are essential. We are taking a neutral position (Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Elsewhere).

Ladies and Gentlemen:

You may have many questions that you want to ask. I will distribute a booklet that I prepared after meetings held in U.S., Europe, Latin America, and Palestine with countless Israeli and Jewish leaders.

We need your active support to ensure the successful conclusion of the peace negotiations so that the State of Palestine can live side by side with the State of Israel in Peace and Security on the 1967 borders.

By any objective measure, Abbas is more like Bashar Assad than any Western leader.

Just today, it was revealed that the PLO's claim that the US wrote a guarantee signed by John Kerry, assuring that negotiations would start at the "1967 borders," was fiction. Once again, there are no consequences to Arabs lying - it is expected so therefore not punished.

The willful blindness of the West, combined with extreme wishful thinking that Abbas is a peace partner, ensures that the lies, corruption, incitement and human rights abuses of the PLO continue to be swept under the rug.

A brand-new Palestinian Arab lie

What is the fourth holiest spot in Sunni Islam?

We all know that the top three are the mosques Mecca, Medina and the one that was built on top of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. But what is number 4?

According to Wikipedia, many Muslims consider the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus to be the fourth holiest site.

Others consider Kairouan, in Tunisia, to have the honor.

Still others consider it to be the Eyup Sultan Mosque in Turkey, a site that attracts many pilgrims.

Harar in Ethiopia is yet another city that has made this claim, and UNESCO agrees.

However, our "peace partners" in Fatah have made up a new 4th holiest mosque in Islam, one that no one else on the planet ever designated as such, as far as I can tell. Not surprisingly, it is at the second holiest place of Judaism.

The caption the Tomb of the Patriarchs on their Facebook page as "The Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, which is the fourth holiest mosque for the world's Muslims."

That would be news to most Muslims.

Obviously, this is being done to push Jews out of Hebron. Just like Mecca and Medina are off-limits to non-Muslims, our "peace partners" are trying to elevate the holiness of Jerusalem and Hebron so they can kick the Jews out - in the name of Islam. (They are trying something similar at Rachel's Tomb, pretending that it is the ancient "Bilal bin Rabah Mosque," something that was made up in the 1990s.)

See also this previous post.

That "dismantled" terror group keeps making appearances

Back in January 2008:

A dozen Palestinian gunmen surrendered to Palestinian forces on Tuesday, and the top Palestinian security official said this means a violent West Bank militia, is now defunct. However, Israeli officials are skeptical of such claims, and say gunmen still pose a threat to Israel.

The gunmen who gave themselves up Tuesday are from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a violent offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.

Al Aqsa was formed at the start of the Palestinian uprising in 2000, and at its height had hundreds of members who carried out scores of shooting attacks against Israelis. Most recently, Al Aqsa was involved in the killing of two off-duty Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the West Bank last month.

In recent months, Abbas' security forces have tried to assert control in the West Bank, particularly in Nablus, the West Bank's second largest city and a former militia stronghold.

As part of the campaign, they have urged Al Aqsa gunmen to surrender their weapons, in exchange for a promise of amnesty from Israel and the prospect of jobs in the security services. Hundreds have so far taken up the offer, but holdouts have remained.

In Nablus, a small Al Aqsa splinter group, which called itself The Knights of the Night, was the last to surrender, Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razak Yehiyeh said Tuesday.

This is the last military group of Al Aqsa to hand over its weapons, Yehiyeh told The Associated Press. The Al Aqsa Brigades have been dismantled.

Five and a half years later, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades still maintains its webpage, and you can see its latest activities.

For example, they greeted one of their old comrades when he was one of those released by Israel as a "goodwill gesture."

You can almost read their minds: "Israel made a goodwill gesture, maybe we should reciprocate and send a hail of bullets back to those swell guys."

A couple of weeks before, as the new round of negotiations were just getting underway, this group - as proud members of Fatah,whose leader is Mahmoud Abbas -showed off their arsenal of weapons that inexplicably managed to make their way through the much-praised PA security forces and declared, "Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine, we will continue developing our own weapons to crush the enemy, wherever he is."

There are only two alternatives: either Mahmoud Abbas approves of a terror group under his own command, or he is too weak to stop them.

The US is pressuring Israel to sign a "peace agreement" with someone who either supports this terror group, or who is too weak to control his own political party, let alone his political opponents.

It doesn't really matter which it is.

Sickening photos of Abbas celebrating with murderers

Every single person released from prison by Israel on Tuesday was involved in murder.

Some went out to kill any Jew that would pass by; others targeted specific civilians. One killed a Holocaust survivor. Another killed an 84 year old man with an axe. Yet another targeted a 51 year old woman in the car where she would give rides to Arab workers.

These people are beneath contempt.

To Israel's "peace partner" Mahmoud Abbas, and to his people, they are heroes.

The idea of any sort of agreement with these people openly celebrating murderers is nauseating.

(If someone knows the names of the people in these photos with Abbas, please let me know.)

Those Palestinian Arab "moderates" sure love to incite violence

Ha'aretz reports:

A 64-year-old Palestinian security prisoner died of on Tuesday morning at the Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva, sparking clashes in Hebron between protesters and Israeli security forces and the declaration of a three-day hunger strike by other Palestinians jailed in Israel. Security was beefed up in prisons in case of further unrest.

Maysara Abuhamdieh, from Hebron, had been serving a life sentence since 2002 for attempted murder, membership in Hamas and weapons possession.

After being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in February, Abuhamdieh was under the medical care in Be'er Sheva. A week ago, after his condition was judged to be terminal, the Israel Prisons Service initiated an early release request for Abuhamdieh, who died before for the request could be processed.

I am deliberately quoting Ha'aretz because if there was the slightest possibility that Israel was responsible for Abuhamdieh's death, they would report it.

Mahmoud Abbas has no such qualms, as his official WAFA news agency reports:

The presidency Tuesday held the Israeli government fully responsible for the death of Palestinian prisoner Maysara abu hamdiya, who died due to medical negligence by the Israeli prison services.

President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that the arrogance of the Israeli government stopped in the way of responding to Palestinian efforts to secure the release of the prisoner Maysara Abu Hamdiya, who died in prison due to medical negligence by the Israel Prison Service.

“We tried working on Abu Hamdiya’s release due to his medical condition, but the Israeli government refused to respond to the PA’s efforts in releasing him, which led to his death,” he said.

What did our new favorite PA NGO, Miftah - that claims to be dedicated to the "philosophy of promoting accurate and credible information" - have to say?

Miftah said it deplored his death "following medical negligence in which he... did not receive the care and proper treatment by the management of prisons of the occupation."

This is similar to how both the PA and Miftah responded to the death of Arafat Jaradat. The same Ha'aretz article reports

In February Arafat Jaradat, a 30-year-old Palestinian prisoner, died of a heart attack in Megiddo Prison. Other inmates claimed that he was in good health and that his death was the result of torture while in prison at the hands of Israeli security forces. Poisoning and torture were ruled out as causes of death in Jaradat's autopsy.

How did Miftah report it?

His family, and frankly the entire Palestinian people, knows better. Jaradat, seen also by a Palestinian doctor who participated in the autopsy, was covered in wounds, bruises and contusions. He had two broken ribs – which Israel claims is the result of CPR efforts to revive him – and massive bruising on his chest, shoulders and face. According to Prisoner Affairs Minister Issa Qaraqe, Jaradat also had broken bones in his neck, arms and legs. During a court session in the middle of his interrogation process, his lawyer, Kameel Sabbagh said Jaradat was extremely fatigued and had complained to him of severe pains from the beatings and from being tied in the same position for several hours on end.

Other bits and pieces of Jaradat’s story are surfacing, all which incriminate Israel and its interrogators in his brutal death. According to his family members, the night he was arrested, an Israeli intelligence officer brought him briefly back to see his family so he could “bid them farewell.”

There is zero evidence for broken bones in his "neck, arms and legs," nor of alleged torture, nor of the absurd story about "bidding farewell." But Miftah reports them as fact.

The most absurd rumors and lies gain currency in the PA, not from fringe characters but from the PA itself as well as from Western-funded NGOs who will blindly believe the most absurd, uncorroborated reports and dismiss any information that comes from Israel.

Is inciting Arabs to start riots something you would expect from "peace partners" and from NGOs that claim to support peace and democracy?

Abbas won't save Palestinian Arab lives - on principle!

Yesterday there were reports that implied Mahmoud Abbas might allow thousands of imperiled Syrian Palestinians to enter the West Bank, as opposed to what had been reported last week.

Last night, however, Abbas made it very clear that he will not act to save the lives of these people in danger - because of the principles involved.

Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina repeated on Monday evening that President Mahmoud Abbas rejected Israel's condition to allow up to 150,000 Syrian Palestinians to the relative safety of the PA.

Israel said it would allow them to come to the West Bank if the immigrants would sign that they are giving up their claim to move to Israel itself.

Abu Rudeina said that Abbas rejected this condition "categorically." He said "The issue of Palestinian refugees and the right of return are final status issues, and one may not act against international resolutions providing for their return to their homeland and their homes, which they fled, in particular resolution 194, which provides for the right of return of Palestinian refugees."

You see? They must die because the principle of misinterpreting a non-binding UNGA resolution and to avoid "final status" issues in a moribund "peace process" is more important than human lives!

Note also that Abbas is not giving the Syrian Arabs of Palestinian descent even the option of making their own decision in this matter. He is dooming perhaps hundreds more to death, because to him and other Arab leaders, their entire utility is to act as pawns to pressure Israel on the bogus "right of return" - and if they are not acting as these pawns, they might as well just die.

People say that Abbas is taking pages out of the Zionist playbook in trying to build a state, but the contrast between how Zionists were willing to compromise on their state in order to save Jewish lives and how callously Palestinian Arab leaders act towards their "people" could not be starker.

(Remember when the world media breathlessly reported that Abbas was softening on the "right to return" a couple of months ago? Yet another example of wishful thinking trumping explicit Palestinian Arab statements? Good times.)

Four more Palestinian Arabs were killed in the past few days in Syria. Their families should send a "Thank You" card to Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas says Israel wants to assassinate Saeb Erekat (updated)

Al Medayeen will broadcast a wide-ranging interview with Mahmoud Abbas this Friday, and part of what he says is being teased ahead of time.

Abbas said, "I challenge anyone to deny the relationship between Zionism and Nazism before World War II."

This is, of course, a sickening implication. There were contacts before World War II as Zionists tried to save Jews from Germany; for example, the Ha'avara Agreement. Abbas is however trying to spin it as if Zionists and Nazis were cooperating in genocide, which puts him beneath contempt.

Abbas also says that "Palestine" requested to save 150,000 Palestinian Arab refugees from Syria, and Israel agreed to it. Unless something has changed, Abbas had rejected Israel's conditions, so the details will be interesting.

Furthermore, Abbas charged that Israel wanted to get rid of Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the PLO, saying they wanted to assassinate him like they did to Arafat.

Mahmoud Abbas seems to be turning paranoid in his old age.

UPDATE: Yoel writes:

According to Maariv Abbas also said that he will write 70 books that prove the ties between the Zionist movement and the Nazis before WWII. He challenges any Jew to prove him wrong. Abbas also hinted 3 times that there are people who want to kill him and get rid of him, not Erekat.

Abbas' lie of the day: "Jews were not expelled from Egypt"

Mahmoud Abbas said in Cairo last night that Jews were not expelled from Egypt, but that they all left voluntarily.

As usual, he is lying.

From Wikipedia:

In the immediate aftermath of trilateral invasion during the Suez Crisis of 1956, on November 23 by Britain France and Israel, a proclamation was issued stating that 'all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state', and it promised that they would be soon expelled. Some 25,000 Jews, almost half of the Jewish community left, mainly for Israel, Europe, the United States and South America, after being forced to sign declarations that they were leaving voluntarily, and agreed with the confiscation of their assets. Some 1,000 more Jews were imprisoned. Similar measures were enacted against British and French nationals in retaliation for the invasion. In Joel Beinin's summary: "Between 1919 and 1956, the entire Egyptian Jewish community, like the Cicurel firm, was transformed from a national asset into a fifth column." ...

After the Six-Day War in 1967, more confiscations took place. Rami Mangoubi, who lived in Cairo at the time, states that nearly all Egyptian Jewish men between the ages of 17 and 60 were either thrown out of the country immediately, or taken to the detention centers of Abou Za'abal and Tura, where they were incarcerated and tortured for more than three years. The eventual result was the almost complete disappearance of the Jewish community in Egypt...

Abbas predicts a state in 2013. Sounds familiar.

From Times of Israel today:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rang in the New Year Monday night by declaring that 2013 would be the year that saw Palestinian independence.

April, 2010:

Citing Mahatma Gandhi, Palestinian Premier Salam Fayyad has said his people would not tolerate injustice after enduring decades of Israeli occupation and predicted an independent Palestinian state by August 2011.

December 31, 2001:

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has predicted that 2002 will bring independence to the Palestinians.

Mr Arafat delivered his year-end speech on Palestinian television after thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip took to the streets to hold rallies and to bury those killed a day earlier in confrontations with Israeli troops.

The Palestinian leader has made similar forecasts for the past several years, when ongoing peace negotiations with Israel offered the prospect of a resolution to decades of conflict in the Middle East.

May, 1996:

Arafat also predicted that an independent Palestinian state would be created by the end of this century, saying, "It is coming. No one can hide the sun with his fingers."

What a surprise: Abbas proven a liar again.

We all knew that Mahmoud Abbas was a liar. We proved it in 2007, we proved it in his speech to the UN, we proved it again and again and again, even quite recently.

And here are two more:

Former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday confirmed the accuracy of her account of a 2008 meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in which he had told her why he couldn’t accept then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert’s terms for a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. In an interview at the weekend, Abbas had denied that the conversation Rice described and quoted in her memoir had taken place at all.

“Dr. Rice stands by her account of the conversation and what she wrote in her book,” Rice’s chief of staff, Georgia Godfrey, told The Times of Israel.

During an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 news that aired Saturday night, Abbas denied a crucial passage in Rice’s memoirs about his failure to accept Olmert’s peace offer.

In “No Higher Honor,” Rice records making a visit to Ramallah in May 2008, immediately after Olmert had detailed the offer to her, during which she “sketched out the details” of the Israeli proposal, which included an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank with one-for-one territorial swaps, the division of Jerusalem between Israel and a new Palestinian state, and an international trusteeship to control the Old City. Olmert suggested symbolic and practical solutions to the Palestinian refugee issue, and offered to allow a limited number of Palestinian refugees to live in Israel, being the first Israeli prime minister to do so.

Regarding the refugee question, Abbas said according to Rice’s account: “I can’t tell four million Palestinians that only five thousand of them can go home.”

During Saturday’s interview, however, Abbas denied making this statement, adding that no such conversation between him and Rice ever took place. When the interviewer, Danny Kushmaro, asked Abbas specifically about the quote in Rice’s book, he responded: “I absolutely did not say that.”

Was Rice lying, Kushmaro, then asked. “I’m not calling her a liar,” the Palestinian president replied. “I am saying that we never had that conversation.”

In the same interview, Abbas also denied making a statement attributed to him by a senior US journalist. In 2009, the deputy editorial page editor of The Washington Post, Jackson Diehl, wrote that he met Abbas and discussed with him Olmert’s 2008 peace proposal and why the Palestinian side turned it down. “The gaps were wide,” Abbas said, according to Diehl’s account at the time.

“I didn’t say that,” Abbas said in Saturday’s interview when Kushmaro asked him about that quote.

But Diehl, like Rice, insists the quotes in his piece were accurate. “I stand behind the 2009 column I wrote about the meeting that my colleague Fred Hiatt and I had with Mahmoud Abbas, and all of the quotations it contains,” Diehl told The Times of Israel.

He may be in inveterate liar, but he's a moderate inveterate liar, so Israel really should give in to his ever-growing list of demands and make an agreement with him. It wouldn't be worth the paper it is written on, but the goodwill of the world towards Israel should last a good three or four days.

(h/t/ Sasha)

Mahmoud Abbas writes entire article full of lies about Iraqi Jews

Last week I noted a new book in Arabic that claimed that Jews were forced out of Iraq by Iraqis who were colluding with Zionists. Because of this collusion, the Iraqis took away the rights of Jews and eventually forced them out,

As nutty as that was, Mahmoud Abbas' idea of history is even more filled with lies.

He wrote an article in Ma'an two weeks ago, translated now by MEMRI, where he claims there was a Zionist-British-Iraqi conspiracy to expel the Jews. He further claims that Iraqi Jews had no desire to leave the country but a Zionist terror spree in Iraq convinced them to go.

We've seen these bizarre conspiracy theories before, and they have been debunked thoroughly. Here is another opportunity to show that Mahmoud Abbas is a liar.

Here is how the American Jewish Yearbook contemporaneously described life for Jews in Iraq before Israel was declared a state:

Iraq's position at the crossroads of Russian and Western influences made her the target for conflicting propaganda from Russian sources on the one hand, and American and British on the other. Whenever these cross-currents resulted in student demonstrations, strikes or even the fall of a government, as in January, 1948, the Jews were the first to be endangered by the restless elements.

As a result of the growing economic discrimination against Jews, a number of them emigrated from Iraq, and many went to Palestine, usually illegally. The Arab League boycott of "Zionist goods," in which Iraq had already distinguished itself in 1946, furnished a ready pretext for commercial discrimination. The boycott was against all goods coming from and via Palestine. Typical of the stupidly blind fanaticism was a case reported in October, 1947, when Swiss goods arriving in Baghdad by an airplane which had landed at a Palestinian airport were confiscated and burned at once.

When the UN partition decision was announced, a storm broke out in Iraq as in all other Arab states. Nevertheless, the Iraqi government did not allow any serious bloodshed or pillage to develop. It contented itself with nonviolent economic pressure. To protect Iraqi Jews, Chief Rabbi Sassoon Kedmi of Baghdad was compelled to declare to the Iraqi press the "complete solidarity of Iraqi Jews with other Iraqis in the denunciation of Zionism and in their determination to continue living in brotherly Iraq, as they have lived for hundreds of years."

However, the fury had been let loose. After December 1, 1947, no Jews were permitted to leave Iraq, and those who had not yet left could not now escape. At first the Iraqi assault on local Jewry was financial, Jews being forced to contribute large sums to the fighting fund for the Palestinian Arabs. From January to May, 1948, life in Iraq was extremely unpleasant. Anti-Jewish feeling ran high, especially as Iraqi troops were defeated and the Arab refugees began arriving from Palestine. However, there was an outward calm. There were no pogroms in Iraq then, at least none that received any publicity abroad.

The storm really broke on May 15. Then, Jews were treated in Iraq as enemies within the gate, spies, agents provocateurs. Iraqi Jewry's only hope for the future lay in emigration.

When Iraq joined the other Arab nations in the war against Israel in May, 1948, the antagonism and bitterness, which had been stored up against the Jews of Iraq during the six months that followed the United Nations decision to partition Palestine, found an outlet. There were demonstrations by angered mobs and riots in some of the smaller towns in Iraq which resulted in some loss of life and damage to property. But for the most part Iraqi Jewry suffered from forms of official persecution, such as travel restrictions, dismissal of Jewish government officials, excessive taxation, and "voluntary contributions" to "general welfare" causes.

All Jews were classed as enemy aliens, and all Zionist activities were characterized as treason. Imposing martial law, the government embarked on a program of searching Jewish homes "for illegal weapons," since, under martial law, arrests or searches could be made on the sole basis of suspicion. Many Iraqis found this a convenient way of settling long-standing personal feuds with their Jewish neighbors. All in all, 310 Jews were arrested in Bagdad alone during the initial period of the war; about half of these were released after questioning, and the rest were held for trial. Similar acts occurred in other towns and villages.

The anti-Jewish repressions also served as a lucrative source of income for the government, which imposed heavy fines upon arrested Jews, thus replenishing its treasury and helping to finance the cost of the war. In addition, the government requisitioned buildings owned by the Jewish community, as well as some Jewish-owned private buildings, to house Arab refugees from Palestine. The sequestration of Jewish property and business, and blackmail, official and unofficial, proved profitable undertakings. The Jews found themselves forced to become the heaviest contributors to government campaigns for funds to continue the war and to provide for the Arab refugees, as the alternative to being branded enemies, Zionists, Communists, or spies. Thus, the wave of arrests of wealthy Jews was especially productive financially. The dismissal of almost all Jewish officials from government jobs, to "insure the better guarding of state secrets," proved of benefit to the large number of Iraqi Moslems who replaced them. Jews were also prohibited from enrolling in government schools of higher education.

The anti-Jewish persecutions reached their height with the arrest and execution of Shafiq Ades, an Iraqi Jew, on the charge of dealing with the enemy by selling arms to Israel. Surplus material which Ades had purchased two years previously from the British army was found in Palestine during the fighting. Ades claimed that he had sold the equipment to Italy. Because Ades threatened to expose several Moslem high government officials as having been involved in the deal, his trial was held behind closed doors. He was convicted in September, 1948, and his hanging in the public square in Basra was followed by the confiscation of his property, officially valued at $20,000,000. The execution of Ades was a shock to most Iraqis, Jews and non-Jews alike, because he had never associated himself with the Jewish community or contributed to its institutions.

No Jew was spared in the outburst of Iraqi antagonism, not even Chief Rabbi Sassoon Kadourie, who was arrested in October, 1948, allegedly for having, in the course of his Yom Kippur sermon in the synagogue, exhorted the Jews to "acts contrary to the safety of the state."

Contrary to Abbas' claims, there was persecution against Iraqi Jews before Israel; Iraqi Jews risked their lives to make aliyah before Israel was declared; the Iraqi government was the only party behind the decision to expel their Jews and grab their property; the Jews who said that they were anti-Zionist were often forced to say that in order to keep their jobs or money (and even then it did not help them.)

I also would like to call attention to an AP article written during the first phase of the Iraqi exodus, that shows that many Jews were anxious to leave Iraq and go to Israel:

Abbas is once again proven to be a liar.

Abbas lies to the Arab League

Some lies are repeated so much that people tend to ignore them due to sheer exhaustion of debunking them. But that only emboldens the liars.

Today's Exhibit A is Mahmoud Abbas, who went in front of the Arab League meeting in Baghdad today to rail against "ethnic cleansing" of Arabs in Jerusalem.

Abbas accused Israel of carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, and said that the occupation authorities are using unprecedented and most brutal means and the most serious in the implementation of what it sees as the final chapter in the fight to remove the Islamic and Christian character of the Holy City through taxes, punitive house demolitions and land confiscation.

He stressed that the PA would not resume negotiations with Israel until it stops settlement activity, particularly in Jerusalem.

Using the term "ethnic cleansing" is now considered part of the normal discourse when referring to Israel. It is not only a lie but a deliberate slander. Yet within the Arab world it is considered as controversial as saying that the sky is blue.

Here is a chart of the Arab population of Jerusalem since Israel reunified it in the Six Day War:

There is no way you can call this "ethnic cleansing."

Not only that, but the proportion of Arabs in Jerusalem have also increased:

The proportion of the Jewish population fell from 74% in 1967 to 72% in 1980, and 65% in 2008. Conversely, the Arab population rose from 26% in 1967 to 28% in 1980, and 35% in 2008.

These are the facts. Abbas is a liar.

And it is usually not a great idea to sign an agreement with a liar.

(Ma'an didn't report his "ethnic cleansing" comments in English.)

Abbas inciting Arabs in Doha with bald-faced lies about Jerusalem

There is a conference in Doha this weekend called the "International Conference on Jerusalem." Participants include some of the most extreme Israel-haters on the planet, including Knesset members Haneen Zoabi, Ibrahim Sarsur, Jamal Zahalka, and members of Neturei Karta. Also there are representatives from UNRWA and other UN agencies as well as many prominent Arabs.

One keynote speech was given this morning by Mahmoud Abbas, and it proves yet again what a liar and inciter he really is.

Among his statements:

The Israeli occupation authorities, using the ugliest and most dangerous methods, are accelerating in an unprecedented way the implementation of plans ...to erase and remove the Arab-Islamic and the Christian character of East Jerusalem.

The occupying power is attempting to change the parameters and the structure of the Maqdisi scene the smallest details, believing they can wipe from the memory of the world and consciousness that are immediately evoked by the name of Jerusalem the image of the shimmering golden dome Dome of the Rock, the remarkable image of the juxtaposition of the brotherhood of the minarets of mosques and the domes of the churches, in the shadow of the city walls that are witness to the history and memories and facts, and the illusion that they are able to replace them, and bring a different scene serving illusions of superstition and arrogance of power, and they are by virtue of brute force that are able to invent history and install their allegations, and the abolition of facts, religious and historical.

Hurva before its destruction in 1948

Abbas here is not claiming that the Jews are trying to destroy the Dome of the Rock. He is referring to the building of synagogues in the Old City, specifically the Hurva. When the Hurva was rebuilt and dedicated, on the exact spot that it had been destroyed by Jordanian troops along with some fifty other Jerusalem synagogues in 1948, the major objection by Palestinian Arabs was that - given that the Jewish Quarter is on a hill - the Hurva's dome is taller than that of the Dome of the Rock. (Islamic law says that the tallest structure in a city must be a mosque.)

So now photos of the skyline of the Old City prominently show a synagogue, just as they did before 1948. This is what Abbas is objecting to, as he hypocritically is claiming that Israel is fabricating history of the city. And he himself is now claiming that Jerusalem historically only had churches and mosques - but no synagogues. In other words, the liar Abbas is trying to destroy the Jewish character of Jerusalem, today, while he falsely claims that Israel is destroying its Christian and Muslim character.

Since the occupation authorities to remove the Mughrabi neighborhood after the 1967 war in the Old City of Jerusalem, they still continue to demolish houses that carry symbolic importance, such as historic generosity of the Mufti and others, and build settlements in more than one site on land confiscated from the citizens of the holy city.

Israel demolished the area in front of the Kotel in 1967 in order for Jews to be able to worship there, as the Arab homes there would have made that impossible. Here is how Israel's UN representative described the area at the time in response to similar complaints by Jordan:

The Jordanian Government deliberately profaned the sacred character of the Wall by erecting adjacent to it structures of secular services, warehouses and toilets, and converting its immediate precincts into a slum. It accordingly became essential to remove these installations and restore the dignity and the sanctity of the Holy Place as a very first step after the battles in Jerusalem had ceased. Moreover, archaeological excavations are being conducted in order to remove part of the earth and refuse that have accumulated at the Western Wall in the course of time and which cover its lower layers. This is a proper archaeological operation, and it is being conducted in a way that assures that nothing will damage the Wall or jeopardize its character as a Holy Place or impair in any way the Haram esh-Sharif area situated beyond the Wall.
It is to be noted that the Western Wall is a recognized antiquity and was treated as such also by the Mandatory Government, which also assumed responsibility for its maintenance and upkeep.

...The contention in the letter of the Permanent Representative of Jordan that "the Wailing Wall and the entire adjacent area are an integral part of Al-Haram esh-Sharif" is a wilful attempt to confuse the issue. The Mughrabi Quarter, consisting of a group of dwelling houses, to which the letter of the Permanent Representative of Jordan makes particular reference, is not a holy site. It faces the Wall but is also entirely separate from it. Its status is no different from that of secular property, whether or not owned by religious institutions as a source of income, in any other city in the world.

No modern civilized Government or municipal administration would have tolerated the slum conditions which the Jordanian Government created in this Quarter. One of the first things which the Government of Israel had to do was to embark on a programme of urban improvement, which included resettling the unfortunate inhabitants of this Quarter in respectable conditions.

The Mufti reference is to the Shepherd Hotel, an eyesore that was purchased legally by a Jew and whose only historic importance is the fact that is was once owned by an unabashed anti-semite.

Abbas goes on:

[The occupation wants to] carry out continued excavations that threaten to undermine Al-Aqsa Mosque, in order to extract evidence that supports the Israeli version of Judaism. They failed miserably, but that did not prevent her from implementation of all that would create a Jewish character to the city, ... the preparation of models of what they call the Temple in order to build on the ruins of Al Aqsa, to the establishment of a so-called biblical garden at the expense of the lands and houses of Jerusalem.

Here Abbas is stating as fact that Israel plans to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque, a lie designed to incite Muslims to rise up against Jews.

He is also lying in saying that Israeli archaeological work has not found any evidence of Jewish history in Jerusalem. In fact, the most important findings in recent years came not from Israeli digs - but from sifting the discarded remains of the disgusting wanton destruction of priceless artifacts by the Waqf on the Temple Mount, in the news again today. Beyond that there have been exciting findings nearly every week that prove beyond all doubt the ancient Jewish character of the city - as if that is even in dispute by anyone.

The occupation authorities carried out ethnic cleansing, with all that entails, against the Palestinian citizens, to make them at best a minority in their city, their resident status only for strengthening the Jewish presence to build more settlements.

Of course, Jews have formed the majority of Jerusalem's population since the mid-1800s. And there is no "ethnic cleansing" - there are more Arabs in Jerusalem now than at any time in history.

The occupation authorities work through the impoverishment of the holy city and the destruction of its infrastructure and hit its economy, which has always been in all ages the booming center and head of economic activity and tourism, medical, educational, and an incubator for cultural, intellectual and artistic endeavors in Palestine.

In 1967, the eastern part of Jerusalem was essentially a neglected slum. There was even a UNRWA refugee camp called Mascar in the old Jewish quarter that UNRWA closed - in 1965! - because conditions there were so horrendous and unsanitary.

Between 1948 and 1967, Jerusalem was a neglected backwater of the Arab world. There were essentially no Muslim pilgrims going there. And while thousands of Christians would indeed visit Jerusalem every Easter, that number increased dramatically after Israel regained possession of the holy city.

Abbas is pushing lies and incitement, and his speech is filled with hypocrisy about things like freedom of worship when he would ban (or, at best, severely restrict) Jews from ever visiting their holy sites in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and elsewhere if given half a chance.

This speech reveals the ugly face of Mahmoud Abbas and how he is not interested in peace or co-existence at all, let alone the truth.

(h/t Alex for link to program)