Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: From the River to the Sea

Showing posts with label From the River to the Sea. Show all posts

Sunday, April 16, 2023

Seth Frantzman points out the hate behind the Foreign Affairs "one state" article

This Twitter thread by Seth Frantzman is too important to leave to Twitter alone.

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It was interesting to once again read an article about “one state” and see how it relies on the same false premises as the previous recent claims regarding this at HRW, Amnesty, etc; very similar language employed to advance the theory

The key sentence to always look for is “river to the sea” which is a classic far-right extreme national Palestinian talking point that has always asserted that Palestine must be “river to the sea” to remove Israel from the map

This is important because the “river to the sea” is not a policy Israel has pushed, it’s solely a talking point historically of Palestinian extreme nationalism. And it’s all about Gaza. The key focus is always to force Israel to reoccupy Gaza

It’s important to always be keyed into what is going on in these articles. Israel withdrew from Gaza but the goal of the “River to sea” Hamas movement and extreme nationalists was always to continue to define Gaza as “occupied”

This was a lesson of the withdrawal. It didn’t matter if Israel withdrew and kept withdrawing, because it would always be defined as “occupying” so as to keep the “River to sea” narrative.

It’s an important phrase to look for, because when we hear “one state” this is never about a one state of equality, this is solely about creating one Palestinian state from “the River to the sea” like every map used in a Hamas classroom.

The bait and switch with any article on “one state” is it pretends to be about getting rights for Palestinians, but ignores the fact that Israelis also deserve rights and Israelis don’t want to run Gaza or “the River to the sea”

What’s interesting is the article suggests the US seek to terminate Israel’s military rule…except when Israel has ended military rule, like leaving Gaza…the “River to the sea” crowd demand Israel re-occupy or define it as occupying anyway.

This is a key point. Because under Oslo the PA received autonomous areas run by a U.S.-backed Palestinian Security Force…but the goal of “River to the sea” is to make sure Israel returns to military rule in Ramallah. It doesn’t want more withdrawal.

Now look at the bait and switch…they want an end to military rule. But also say “River to the sea” and then say “equality”. How do they suggest Israel will return to rule Gaza which is run by Hamas except via military force…but then bring in equality?

Of course another part of the scam of “River to the sea” is to turn Hamas into just a random organization that “brooks little dissent” ; whereas Israel is described as having the most harsh draconian rule…of course no mention that Hamas is a far right extremist hate group

I just wonder if under the term “brooks little dissent” is included mass murder ethnic cleansing genocidal hate crimes that Hamas carried out? All the bus bombings were just “not brooking dissent”. No mention of rockets that can go 100km…

Anyway, back to the premise. To get to the “River to the sea” and reoccupation of Gaza the claim has to be made that this is all a single state, which it is not. Anyone who drives from Tel Aviv to Ramallah and Gaza knows it’s not one state

Nevertheless we get sentences like this…is the Gaza-Egypt border controlled by Israel? It’s not right? So the whole premise is based always on bad information. Israel doesn’t control all entry points to Gaza. But the whole premise is based on Israel controlling Gaza

And we can see how problematic this is by just looking at how the same publication ran an article on Nagorna-Karabakh above the same piece…but that conflict is described totally differently.

When they discuss that conflict somehow the same logic and standards about controlling the entry of goods and people isn’t applied…so we can see that the analysis about Israeli control is solely applied to Israel to force Israel to re-occupy Gaza

The irony of the push for one state today is that Israel is MORE divided from the West Bank Palestinian Authoriry areas and Gaza than in the past. This isn’t the 1980s…Gaza and the WB have been ruled by Hamas and the PA for more than a generation.

Think about it. Someone born in Gaza in 2005 is now 18 years old. And this “River to the sea” nonsense suggests that they will be under one state along with Tel Aviv? How? How would that happen?

Israel was told to withdraw. It did withdraw from Gaza and all it got was Hamas and rocket fire and endless attacks and Iran exploiting the withdrawal to send in middle tech; and it was told even if it withdraws it still “occupies”

The goal of “River to the sea” was always to prevent Israel leaving. The more Israel leaves, the more it is told it is one state. Because the goal was always One Palestinian State. Greater Palestine. Not two states.

Here is the piece in full

Let me add a few more aspects to this. When people push for one state of “equality” but without “military rule” they premise this on everyone being peaceful. These ideas, like “federation” might work in some place living in peace and coexistence, like in parts of the EU…

But how can anyone force Israel and Hamas in Gaza under one state? It doesn’t make sense, it is trying to force groups to live together that have grown apart and despise one another.

The one state people are purposely naive. They know Gaza can’t be ruled by the same polity that rules Tel Aviv and Ramallah and Jerusalem. They know this. These people would suggest turning Serbia and Kosovo into one state…

The lie of one state is like suggesting that after years of brutal war, like in Ukraine, that somehow Ukraine and Russia and Belarus will be “one state”…it’s so ridiculous…and yet the theory keeps getting play because no one has to answer tough questions

The theory is based on so many false premises, the worst of which is trying to force Israel to reconquer Gaza to force it into one state…but mostly it’s based on a lie that ignores the reality of division on the ground. It purposely ignores this

The reason they don’t mention Iran arming Hamas or rockets or bus bombings is because to get to one state one has to ignore the extremist hate rhetoric that underpins much of Hamas rule and the PA. When people are educated for hate for generations how can they be one state

These articles always are tough on Israel right wing government but they don’t ask questions about the far-right in Ramallah and Gaza, to get to one state how does anyone suggest forcibly putting together groups that viscerally oppose one another?

In essence the program is for civil war, and that’s why River to the sea was always the motto, just like in 1947…it was about removing the desire of two groups for two states to force one state on them. They didn’t want it in 1947 or today.

One could argue the one state lobby is a colonial lobby designed to create new states like in the eras of the past where lines would arbitrarily be drawn and peoples forced together, wars resulting.

Although this article falls under the overall context of opinion and analysis…it still deserved fact checking regarding who controls the Gaza - Egypt border; it’s misleading to claim Israel controls it and on this hinges a key part of the one state argument.

I also double checked the piece and couldn’t find any reference to Egypt throughout. How can you mention Gaza and not Egypt? Also Iran is mentioned only twice…kind of ridiculous considering it helped massively arm Hamas and this caused the Gaza blockade

How can anyone suggest Israel must control all this area and extend equal citizenship to everyone but not mention that a foreign power is plowing weapons in that prevent this very thing…it’s deceptive and misleading

It’s also interesting how the logic always applied to Israel is never applied to any other “occupation” like Afrin (no one demands Ankara extend equal rights there)…never used as analysis for any other disputed area or autonomous region or conflict.

Also it’s interesting how they claim Israel is one of the most “illiberal” states but of course they never see that in other states the prioritize the rights of one group over others like Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, etc. they only find this in Israel…

I’d be more willing to accept articles like this if these folk were also writing about how Kurds deserve equal rights and Ankara shouldn’t occupy Afrin and Yugoslavia should be one state again or whatever…but it’s never consistent. It’s only about Israel “River to the sea”

Also if these kinds of articles treated Hamas as the far right extremist Greater Palestine organization that it is…instead of always claiming Israel’s right is extreme but downplaying Palestinian nationalist far rightism.

Another assertion in the piece that rings hollow is critiquing the Abraham Accords and monarchies that normalized…but somehow not minding those “thrones” that didn’t normalize in Doha or Kuwait…like one monarchy bad, others good…be consistent if you don’t like monarchies

You can’t be against authoritarianism when it makes peace with Israel “but doesn’t represent the people” but then not mention the authoritarians in Syria and Iran who also don’t represent “the people”. Which is it? Authoritarians are bad only when they normalize…

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Donations to groups that encourage Palestinians murdering Jews are tax deductible in the US

Last year, a group of anti-Israel groups co-sponsored rallies in New York City titled "By Any Means Necessary."

The phrase isn't even a dog whistle, It literally is a call to murder Jews in Israel. it says that bus bombs, suicide bombings of pizza shops and Passover seders and murdering children via sniper are all legitimate "resistance." And if they thought that murdering Jews around the world would help their cause, then that is included in "any means necessary."

One would think that groups that literally call for murdering Jews would be banned. But not only are they legal - incitement to murder Jews is apparently free speech - but donations to these groups are tax deductible.

The Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network was founded and is led by members of the PFLP terror group. It proudly promotes the PFLP which recruits children to attack Jews. Yet donors to Samidoun get a tax deduction, as it launders the donations through the Alliance for Global Justice, which claims to support "peace, anti-war and liberation." But AGJ happily partners with a group that openly advocates terror.

"Within Our Lifetime" apparently coined the phrase "Globalize the Intifada," which they explicitly say means "to win liberation by any means necessary."

In this case, it sounds even more like a threat to Jews worldwide, not just in Israel.

Yet donations to Within Our Lifetime are also tax deductible, laundered through Wespac, which describes itself as wanting a more "just and peaceful world" - which apparently includes blowing up Jews.

The Palestinian Youth Movement, another co-sponsor of "By Any Means Necessary," also launders its donations through Wespac.

It seems to me that IRS rules against terrorist organizations are general enough to include any of these groups that say they support violence against civilians as a legitimate means of "resistance." The organizations that launder the money, Wespac and the Alliance for Global Justice, should be examined and put on notice - the contents of these groups' websites should be enough to make an initial determination that they support terror.

This is way overdue.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Pure hate at Northwestern U

Last week, junior at Northwestern University Lily Cohen wrote an op-ed for the campus newspaper the Daily Northwestern about her pride at being Jewish in the face of antisemitism. It took up a full page in the print edition, with the headline "I am more proud of my Jewish identity than anyone can ever hate me for it."

She described how the slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" is a hateful attack on Jews that hurts her personally:

“From the River to the Sea” is a slogan used by Hamas — a terrorist organization — as a rallying cry to destroy the entire State of Israel and all of its Jewish inhabitants. The phrase originated more than 30 years ago, evolving from language in the 1988 Hamas charter that promoted the destruction of Jews, echoing Adolf Hitler’s messaging on the merits of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

This is where I draw the line.

When that slogan is plastered around the walls of buildings where I study, when it’s hung across The Arch that I walk under every day, when it’s painted over The Rock that I helped paint only five hours earlier — in support of voting for gun safety and reproductive rights — I take offense. I feel hurt. I get angry.

Spewing hate will never end in peace, and tearing down other causes is not a constructive way to promote your own.

When similar situations have taken place on campus in the past, I’ve remained silent, writing down how offended, hurt and angry I am, leaving it in the safety of my Google Drive. But, nothing ever changes, so I’m done staying silent. I’m done being blamed for the actions of the Israeli government. I’m done being told I’m undeserving of a safe, secure Jewish homeland.

I will still go on Birthright. I will still attend Hillel services. I will still don my Hebrew necklace. I will not relinquish my pride in my Jewish identity just because someone doesn’t like all that my identity entails.

In response, antisemitic students decided to directly attack her pain.

They took 42 print copies of her print column and used them as a background to a large poster saying the very words that she said hurt her.

The amount of time and effort it took to make this sign and aim it directly at Lily Cohen shows, with no doubt, that this was an act intended to hurt her and to tell the campus that Cohen's feelings and opinions are to be utterly disregarded and ridiculed.

This is not microaggression. This is aggression against a specific student.

Let's see if Northwestern takes this at all seriously.

(h/t Andrew P)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Yes, extremist rhetoric can normalize violence - and that includes "anti-Zionist" rhetoric

Historian Matthew Dallek writes in a New York Times op-ed:

The assault on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, last week shocked even those who have become inured to rising violence in the United States. The erosion of norms restraining extreme behavior that began well before the election of Donald Trump in 2016 appears to have accelerated. Society looks as if it is coming apart at the seams.

...Under Mr. Trump’s leadership, groups on the right have felt increasingly comfortable incubating, encouraging and carrying out violence.

The consistency of the rhetoric (“enemy of the people”; “Our house is on fire”; “You’re not going to have a country anymore”; “the greatest theft in the history of America”; “Where’s Nancy?”) has ingrained dehumanization of Republican opponents in parts of the political culture; conservatives have often painted their critics as enemies who must be annihilated before they destroy you. As the Department of Homeland Security has reported, domestic violent extremism — such as the white supremacist Charlottesville riots and the Jan. 6 insurrection — is one of the most pressing internal threats facing the United States.

I don't disagree with any of this except for the term "conservatives" instead of "the far-right" in the paragraph above - there is little conservative about those who support political violence.

Dallek makes a half-hearted attempt at even-handedness:

Some on the left, too, have increasingly abandoned norms of civility and respect for rules and institutions. The gunman who in 2017 targeted Republican members of Congress and shot five people playing baseball — the Republican House whip, Steve Scalise, was seriously wounded — drew inspiration from his hatred of Republicans and Donald Trump. In June, a California man was arrested outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home and charged with attempted murder after posting on the social platform Discord that he was going to “stop Roe v. Wade from being overturned.”

But then Dallek draws a distinction that isn't really there, as the rest of the article ignores far-Left incitement:

While Democratic leaders for the most part are quick to condemn violence, Republican leaders increasingly minimize its severity or turn a blind eye.

But Democrats are no less guilty at minimizing the violence on their side.

One obvious example: Hundreds of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 were violent, but the political Left emphasized that 93% of the protests were peaceful - as if the hundreds of violent protests shouldn't be reported.

Has anyone reported on the percentage of rallies on the Right that are violent compared to non-violent? I'm sure the percentage that are non-violent is far higher than 93%.

Both sides are guilty of emphasizing the excesses of the other side and downplaying those on their own, not just the Right. And the Left's blind side is not only for anti-racist protests but also for anti-Israel rhetoric that can easily escalate into violence.

Most of the anti-Israel protests in the US are sponsored by far-Left groups like Samidoun and Within Our Lifetime. They feature chants that call for violence against Zionist Jews, sometimes implicitly and sometimes explicitly. After all, the chants of "Globalize the Intifada" are a call for violence against Jews worldwide. "From the river to the sea" is a call to ethnically cleanse Jews from the Middle East. "By any means necessary" is explicit support for terror attacks against Jews. Yet this incitement is minimized by the larger Left.

Some of these protests have indeed escalated into violence, as we saw last year in New York and Los Angeles. The vicious beating of a Jew in New York was blandly reported as "clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protesters." Only this past week, a yeshiva boy in New York was attacked by someone who demanded he say "Free Palestine", mirroring a similar attack in May. The line between Leftist rhetoric and violence against Jews has already been crossed multiple times - but it is downplayed, over and over.

Overseas, the same socialist sponsors chant pro-violence messages that are even more explicit, and they can be seen as a preview of what we will be seeing soon in the US. This past weekend in Brussels, a rally organized by Samidoun included these chants:

Stand firm until it ends, by throwing a stone or shooting bullets. My people have a war and have no fear, either with a stone or with a Kalashnikov. And fire your rockets, O Motherland...O Motherland, we are coming to you. O my love, O Grand Rocket, hand over this land to me. In war and sword, we will return.

The rally featured people dressed up as masked Palestinian terrorists and holding signs supporting specific terrorists.

This is not just inciting to violence - it is romanticizing it. And the ideological basis for murdering Jews comes from the socialist PFLP, whose philosophy of violence against Zionist Jews was written in the 1960s are remains unchanged today. The PFLP is a terror group that has been behind countless attacks on civilians worldwide.

How many people on the political Left call out the PFLP and Samidoun and Within Our Lifetime when they call for violence? On the contrary, the Left supports the PFLP as a social justice political party that has founded human rights groups.

Incitement to violence is wrong no matter who does it. It will not stop until those on the same political side are brave enough to call it out, even if it means there will be dissent within the party.

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!

Elder Comix: Nothing against Jews!

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!

Original sources of the Arab threat to "drive the Jews into the sea"

Back in 2014, I looked at the origins of the phrase "drive the Jews into the sea," because some have claimed that the expression was a hoax by Jews and Arabs never used that phrase in reference to Jews in Israel.

I found solid evidence that it was used after 1948, and then saw that the phrase was documented in the book "O Jerusalem" as having been used first by a Jerusalem police chief Kamal Irekat, adopted by the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem and then used by Fawzi el Kaukji, an Arab League field commander.

Yisrael Medad looked at the issue and found a British memo from August 1948 from Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin:

It is quite untrue to suggest that we have let the Arabs down or failed in any obligations towards them. We did not urge them to intervene by force in Palestine, nor did we promise them support if they did so. They went in of their own accord, in most cases without telling us beforehand. Very small measure of military successes which they achieved shows that their forces, while capable perhaps of occupying friendly territory, were not prepared for and incapable of undertaking major military operations, which would have been necessary to achieve the announced object of the Arab states, namely to drive the Jews into the sea.

I wanted to see if I could find an earlier version in contemporary newspapers.

An AP dispatch from June 10, 1948, said that Jews were amused at Arab claims that they already had thrown Jews into the sea:

This article from the News York Daily News in April 1948 quotes Fawzi al Kaukji directly:

An AP analysis from February 8, 1948, uses quotation marks for the phrase referring to Arab leaders in 1947:

The earliest quote I can find is from AP from a December 19, 1947 dispatch, quoting "Arab informants:"

That is a lot of different sources for an identical expression. It sounds like this was a common Arab response to the 1947 partition plan.

Medad also found this cover of an Egyptian pamphlet literally titled "Throw the Jews into the sea" before the 1967 war:

A "cultural intifada" to destroy the Jewish state

The latest stunt to try to blame all of Palestinian Arab woes on Israel, called the "Freedom Bus," flew completely under the radar.

From Bikya Masr:

On Monday, the Freedom Bus marked the final stop of its tour across the Israeli-occupied West Bank by hosting a concert in Bet Sahour.

Over a hundred people came to Bet Sahour’s old city to watch Palestinian performers such as the rap group DAM, Haifa-based reggae band Ministry of Dub-key, and Toot Ard, a Syrian band from the occupied Golan Heights.

It sounds like there were more people in the bands and their crews than there were in the audience.
Outside of this article, there seems to have been no media attention given to yet another stunt designed to ensure that Palestinian Arabs do nothing to better their situation and put all of theior efforts into blame, blame and more blame. The "Freedom Bus" website even calls its purpose to wage a "cultural intifada." (And it has a quote from Judith Butler supporting the infantilization of the cause.)

972mag, abandoning what little pretense it had of being a news site, simply copied a press release from the Freedom Bus' spokesperson instead of bothering to actually report on what appeared to be a major fail. The "pro-Palestinian" crowd simply hasn't figured out that the world is sick of their whining and refusal to take even a scintilla of responsibility for their lives.

But let one of the featured bands talk about their view of how the Middle East should look:

Palestine Street, a local rap group from the nearby Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem, brought the crowd to their feet during their performance, dedicating their closing song to Palestinian refugees living in exile. “Palestine will be free, from the Jordan River to the sea,” they shouted at the end of their set, arousing immense applause from the crowd.

As long as they choose to deny the reality of Israel, there will be Freedom Bus-like gimmicks for another 65 years, and beyond.

Continued Palestinian Arab fantasies, fed by stunts like this, are the biggest impediment to peace. Which means that this "intifada" will ultimately be as counterproductive for the daily lives of average Arabs in the territories as the last two were.