Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Mahmoud Abbas

Showing posts with label Mahmoud Abbas. Show all posts

Sunday, July 09, 2023

"Pro-Palestinians" justify their intransigence and hate in revealing response to my cartoon

Last week, Peter Beinart tweeted this:

People in Jenin can't become citizens of the country in which they live. Can't vote for the govt that determines if they live or die. Can't return to the lands from which their families were expelled. This underlies everything happening now. The American press rarely mentions it

Beinart complains that Palestinians do not have a state of their own where they can vote and make their own decisions, but wants to imply that this is entirely Israel's fault..

He blocks me but I tweeted a response:

Palestinian Arabs rejected plans that would have given them their own state in 1937, 1947, 2000, 2001, 2008, 2014, and 2020. They will not accept the existence of a Jewish state on ANY borders.
This underlies everything happening now, and for the past 8 decades.

And Peter Beinart never mentions it - because his agenda exactly matches theirs.

I decided to make the point in a more acerbic way, with a cartoon:

The more my memes and cartoons tell the truth, the angrier the Israel haters (masquerading as "pro-Palestinians") get. And the many angry responses to this cartoon prove my point.

Are you willing to give a bunch of squatters your land? If you say yes then you are a liar.

That's because the Zionists are dishonest and have an agenda of occupying most of the middle east by force anyway. There is no reaching an agreement with Zionists. People see you.

Revisionist history. Didn’t learn from the pain of Holocaust denial.

thats like asking are you willing to have a gang of theiving ni66ers move into your house? ckuf NO, every single time

Without proper peace deal & Jerusalem NO.

Everybody knows those are false. Zionists need war to survive. They need chaos. Only with chaos and war, they can expand - under pretext of “defending themselves”. If there was peace, Isra*l won’t be as big as it is now.

Can you agree to share your house ownership with me?

Can I come to your house and live in one of your rooms coz my parents kicked me out? I'll slowly occupy your whole house & then kick you out.

Off course “BIG NO” It’s like asking: 🤔 do you accept Zionists who are coming from Western Europe and some African countries to steal your homeland!!? Zionists are very sick

Zionists stole Palestine through terrorism and massacres. WHY would any government agree to be occupied? Especially by European Jewish terrorists?

The history of your settler colonialism proves the opposite you never wanted any coexistence.

The analogy with the house is false. There was no Palestinian state before 1948 and there isn't one now. The peace offers aren't taking away land - they are offering a nation where none existed. The ones since 1948 involve Israel willingly giving away land it controls, something that is practically unprecedented in history.

But there is a second layer to the responses. Only some say it explicitly, but the message is that there is a preference for Palestinians to remain stateless and without a nation than for them to join the community of nations.

Mahmoud Abbas himself said, in retrospect, that the Palestinians should have accepted the 1947 UN partition plan. But you cannot turn back the clock and say that you retroactively accept the peace plan of 75 years ago.

What the Palestinians and their supporters simply refuse to accept is the existence of a Jewish state on any borders. That is the only consistent position that they have had throughout history. And today, Palestinians and their "supporters" maintain that even if there is a two state solution somehow, it is only meant to be a stage on their path to destroy Israel altogether.

Chaim Weizmann famously argued when the 1937 Peel Commission recommended a tiny, indefensible Jewish state - covering only 20% of the British Mandate, divided geographically, with no Jerusalem - that “The Jews would be fools not to accept it, even if the Jewish state were the size of a tablecloth." He understood that something is better than nothing.

It is a lesson that the Palestinian side strenuously disagrees with: they would prefer nothing if the something includes the existence of a Jewish state.

It is worse even than a zero-sum mentality. They are claiming that they would prefer not being citizens of any country than to accept a Jewish state on any borders. Instead of compromising and getting something, they prefer to remain with nothing, as long as there is a Jewish state as well.

This isn't just spite - this is pure antisemitic hate. And the only people this attitude hurts are Palestinians themselves.

Israel, sometimes with reservations, accepted all these peace plans and frameworks. Palestinians rejected them all, even though they all would have given them the independence they supposedly want. What their responses to these plans, as well the responses to this cartoon, prove is that it was never about gaining an independent Palestinian state but the destruction of the Jewish state.

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!

Abbas: "Commemorating the Nakba must be our highest priority"

Palestinian dictator Mahmoud Abbas gave a speech to a number of dignitaries during a Ramadan Iftar meal on Saturday night at his presidential headquarters in Ramallah.

Part of his message was that the United Nations will officially commemorate for the first time, on May 15, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Nakba.

Abbas said, "Commemorating the Nakba must be at the top of our priorities in order to preserve our narrative, which we must adhere to and convey to the whole world, which has become a shining truth with which we confront all lies and false narratives that attempt to distort history and facts."

His regard for truth included his saying "What we witnessed today in terms of attacks on our people celebrating the 'Sabbath of Light' in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in occupied Jerusalem, which was preceded by attacks on worshipers in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and the desecration of its courtyards, is something condemned and rejected, and it reveals the falsity of the occupation, which claims to allow freedom of worship in the Holy places."

In truth the Israeli police were enforcing agreements with the church officials and the Waqf for both those incidents.

The Nakba narrative that Abbas espouses is as false as everything else he says. But he has no disincentive to lie - after all, the UN really will commemorate the "nakba" on May 15 which will regard the establishment of the Jewish state in the wake of 2000 years of persecution of Jews to be an unparalleled evil.

The lying antisemites are winning, and the media and academia are happily colluding with them.

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!

You can learn a lot from this Palestinian press release

The website of the Palestinian National Council published a warning:

The head of the National Council, Rawhi Fattouh, warned of the call made by the criminal extremist and the extremist National Security Minister Ben Gvir, in which he called on all Jews to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Jewish Passover holiday.

Fattouh said in a statement issued on Sunday evening that the incitement of the fascist government and its ministers against the danger of the storming, and the so-called extremist groups of the Temple Mount, erecting an altar on the southern wall of the walls of Jerusalem, and conducting exercises to offer the "oblation" of the Jewish Passover, and the ceremonies that It will be held near Al-Aqsa Mosque, and will ignite the region and plunge it into a religious war for which the fascist far-right government bears responsibility.

He added that the volume of incitement, oppression and abuse against the worshipers of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and what extremist groups are planning, fears that the massacre of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron will repeat, or that an insane act will be carried out and the burning of Al-Aqsa Mosque will be repeated.

Fattouh called on the international community to immediately intervene to curb this terrorist madness led by the fascist occupation government, whose impact will not be limited to the occupied Palestinian territories only.

First of all, what is the Palestinian National Council?

The Palestinian National Council (PNC) is the legislative authority within the PLO, and is responsible for formulating the organisation’s policies. It acts as a parliament that represents all Palestinians, except for Palestinian citizens of Israel.

A full quorum of the PNC convened between 30 April-3 May 2018 in Ramallah to elect a new Palestinian Central Council (PCC) and PLO’s Executive Committee (EC). This was the first meeting of the full PNC since 1996. This meeting was boycotted by the PFLP, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, and was seen by analysts as an effort by Mahmoud Abbas to consolidate his hold on power by promoting supporters, while marginalising his political rivals. During the meeting, the PNC reportedly transferred its legislative powers to the PCC.

In January 2021, Abbas issued a presidential decree announcing that a new PNC (formally including Hamas) would be formed by 31 August.

It is a puppet organization, controlled by Mahmoud Abbas, that reportedly gave up all of its powers - its entire reason of existence - to another puppet organization. And then Abbas created his own law, which never seems to have been implemented, to create a brand new PNC - proving once again that Abbas is a dictator who manipulates the many political organizations he controls to make things appear slightly more democratic.

The website appears to be nothing more than a sounding board for Rawhi Fattouh, since there are no PNC meetings. I'm not sure who elected him but it sure wasn't a transparent election.

Now, let's look at Fattouh's warning: that Jews play-acting a Passover sacrifice outside Al Aqsa "will ignite the region and plunge it into a religious war."

It isn't the Jews who are threatening violence. It is the Arabs inciting against the Jews who are threatening violence. The message, which we have heard so many times from Palestinians of all ranks including dictator Abbas, is that Palestinians are animals who have no self-control, and the sight of Jews doing Jewish rituals fill them with so much rage that they can ignite the region into a new war, or new wave of terror, or sometimes to get all Muslims to join in to start a world war.

Palestinians spend a great deal of time telling the West that they cannot control themselves against becoming violent. For over a century they have tried to manipulate the West by warning of impending jihad that would turn the region into a bloodbath - a jihad that they cannot control (when they don't declare it themselves) because their people are so inherently violent.

At the same time they tell Westerners that they are savage beasts who cannot be expected to adhere to normal social mores, they claim that the West is guilty of "orientalism" by stereotyping them as those same savage beasts they tell the West that they are.

One more detail about this press release. It is accompanied with this photo:

They took a regular photo of Jews visiting their holiest site and removed the color from the Jews. It is a subtle but unmistakable attempt to dehumanize Jews as unworthy beings who are swarming the sacred Muslim site like cockroaches.

These three absurdities are not anomalous. They are seen every day in Palestinian media. And no one calls it out. Palestinian antisemitism and hypocrisy are accepted as normal and the Bizarro world where the rules are different for Palestinians becomes more and more mainstream in the real world.

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!

In October, the Palestinians enacted their own draconian judicial reforms. The West ignored it.

Abbas with members of the Supreme Constitutional Court that he appointed

During these tumultuous times of anger and angst over the future of Israel's judiciary, it is worth looking at recent changes to the judicial system under the Palestinian Authority that received next to no Western coverage.

On October 28, Mahmoud Abbas issued a presidential decree creating the Supreme Council of Judicial Bodies and Authorities.

This Council has full control over the the Palestinian Authority‘s judicial system - the Supreme Constitutional Court, the Supreme Judicial Council, the Court of Cassation, the Supreme Administrative Court, the judicial authority of the security forces, the Shariah Judicial Council, the ministry of justice and the attorney general.

The head of this council? Mahmoud Abbas, himself!

Abbas has complete and direct control over the entire Palestinian judiciary.

A few years ago he created the Supreme Constitutional Court and handpicked all the members, he then used that court to dissolve the Palestinian Legislative Council so he could be the head of the legislative branch of the government as well as the executive. And he uses his power to create hundreds of laws by presidential decree using the excuse that there is no legislative branch to do the job.

The media is silent. NGOs are nearly silent (Amnesty gave this a brief mention in their annual report, Human Rights Watch didn't mention it at all.)

A website by the European Council on Foreign Relations, called Mapping Palestinian Politics, describes in detail how Mahmoud Abbas has complete control of nearly every important Palestinian institution.

Since succeeding Yasser Arafat as Palestinian leader in 2004, Abbas has consolidated his grip on power within the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), and Fatah. Over the years, Abbas has steadily purged or constrained his political rivals, monopolised the various Palestinian decision-making processes, and pursued increasingly authoritarian measures to stifle dissent and shrink the space for Palestinian democracy and popular participation.

Why is there so much global criticism of Israel considering changes to the judiciary, and near complete silence when the Palestinian president rips up any pretense of a division of powers and installs himself as the head jurist as well as dictator? More importantly, how can anyone look at the Palestinian Authority and think that this should become an independent state when it its current state it runs roughshod over the rights of its citizens?

The bigotry of low expectations hurts Palestinians. And it is ingrained in the world's psyche - mostly because the Palestinian leaders have encouraged this bigotry by blaming all of their problems on the 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!

How Palestinian laws are made. Step 1: Mahmoud Abbas declares them. (There is no step 2.)

Today, a new law is on the Palestinian books.

The General Intelligence Law No. 17 of 2005 said said that the head of Palestinian general intelligence must be less than 60 years old and can only remain in the job for three years, perhaps extending to four. (Oh, and he also is not allowed to be married to a non-Arab woman.)

But Mahmoud Abbas likes his loyal intelligence chief, "Major General" Majed Faraj, who has been in office for well over three year now, so Abbas changed the law as an early 60th birthday present to him.

Faraj now can stay in office forever, or until Abbas removes him. He is also now promoted to the rank of minister.

That's it.

No legislative meetings, no committees to discuss the law, no input from the the PLO Executive Committee or Palestinian National Council or Palestinian Central Council or Palestinian cabinet.

Mahmoud Abbas decided to change a law, he wrote it, he implemented it and that's it.

At a time that Israel is struggling over balancing powers between the legislative and judicial branches, there are no such problems in the Palestinian territories.

Because they have a dictator who decides everything.

And no one - media, politicians, pundits, diplomats - seems to be gnashing their teeth over this.

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!

To China, Israel must be marginalized

There has been a great deal of analysis about the Chinese-brokered improvement of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

As AP notes,

The agreement was seen as a major diplomatic triumph for China, coming as Gulf Arab states perceive the United States as winding down its involvement in the Middle East.

“I think it is a sign that China is increasingly confident in taking a more assertive role in the Middle East,” said Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, an Indonesian academic affiliated with the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

China’s economic interests increasingly draw it into conflicts far from its shores. It’s by far the biggest customer for Middle Eastern energy exports, while the U.S. has reduced its need for imports as the country shifts toward energy independence.

Chinese officials have long argued that Beijing should play a more active role in the region, said June Teufel Dreyer, a political scientist at the University of Miami specializing in Chinese politics.

Meanwhile, U.S.-Saudi frictions have created “a vacuum that Beijing was happy to step into,” Dreyer said.

Absurdly, the Chinese Foreign Ministry published a statement claiming that Beijing “pursues no selfish interest whatsoever..”

Clearly, this is all about Chinese interests - in sidelining the US as a power broker in the Middle East, in extending its own power and influence - solidifying its status as a superpower.

Where does Israel fit in this Chinese calculus? Apparently, as an obstacle.

On Saturday, PA dictator Mahmoud Abbas hosted a delegation headed by the Chinese special envoy for the Middle East, Zhai Jun.

The President referred to the historical relations between China and Palestine, and the Palestinian leadership's keenness to strengthen and develop them for the benefit of the two friendly countries, appreciating the support provided by China to the Palestinian people and their just cause in all fields, stressing that Palestine will remain supportive of China in international forums despite all pressures .

In turn, the Chinese special envoy affirmed the firm and principled Chinese position in support of the Palestinian people and their just cause, and that China, whether during its presence in the UN Security Council or in all forums in which it is present, will remain supportive of the Palestinian people's right to freedom and independence..

As far as I can tell, Zhai Jun is not visiting Israel. He last visited a year ago and briefly said that while China and Israel do not agree about Iran, China "understands" Israel's concerns.

Both China and Israel seek to expand their influence in the region, and in that sense they are rivals - and China is the 900 pound panda.

In 2021, Zhai Jun published a manifesto of sorts describing China's goals for the Middle East: "China and Middle Eastern Countries: Towards a Brighter Shared Future." Israel is barely mentioned., only named in the 2,800 word article as an afterthought: "China has by far established 14 strategic partnerships with regional countries and the League of Arab States, and an innovative comprehensive partnership with Israel, adding strong vitality to the friendship and cooperation between the two sides."

Even when the document discusses the moribund peace process, it manages to avoid mentioning Israel by name:

In 2002, the Chinese government appointed its first Special Envoy for the Middle East. Over the past 18 years, five successive special envoys have made more than one hundred trips to the Middle East to promote peace talks and worked tirelessly for resolving the question of Palestine and other issues in the region. China’s Special Envoy for Syria and Ambassador for China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) Affairs, two roles created later, have also conducted shuttle diplomacy and contributed their wisdom to resolve relevant hotspot issues. This is another example of how China upholds justice and assumes responsibility as a major country. Such efforts have been widely applauded and supported by the parties concerned.

China sees an opportunity to exploit the US incompetence in the region under the Obama and Biden administrations and it is exploiting it. Israel is at best a distraction and at worst an enemy in Chinese ambitions to dominate the region economically and diplomatically.

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!

Palestinians try to hijack UN Conference on Least Developed Countries

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas went to Doha to speak at the 5th UN Conference on Least Developed Countries.

As is always the case, he spent more time attacking Israel than to discuss the topic at hand.

Our Palestinian people have been living the ravages of the Nakba and the refugee catastrophe for 75 years, and they are facing the crimes of the occupation, which, since 1967, have turned into a continuous colonialism that violates the resolutions of international legitimacy, delves into practices of ethnic cleansing and racism, persists in changing the identity and character of the occupied city of East Jerusalem, and violates Al-Aqsa Mosque. It assaults the historical and legal status of Islamic and Christian sanctities, uproots Palestinians from their land, demolishes their homes, continues settlements, plunders resources and withholds Palestinian funds, and kills Palestinians in Nablus, Jenin, Jericho, Jerusalem, Hebron, and other cities, villages, and camps .

On top of that, terrorist settler gangs commit crimes of burning Palestinians and their property, as happened recently by burning dozens of homes, shops, and hundreds of vehicles in the town of Hawara, and calling on ministers in the occupation government to incite killing and destruction and to wipe this town out of existence. We call on the international community to stop and punish this Israeli terrorism against our people, and to work towards ending this occupation of the land of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Despite all this, our people will remain steadfast, continuing to defend their land and sanctities .

The State of Palestine will continue to confront the occupiers and their violations of international law, signed agreements, and their unilateral practices, and go to international forums and courts. We will also continue to carry out our international responsibilities, as happened when the State of Palestine chaired the Group of 77 and China in 2019, in addition to continuing our efforts to combat extremism and international terrorism .

Yes, the people who literally invented international terrorism, the people who supported Al Qaeda far longer than any Arab country, the ones who literally pay terrorists and their families as an inviolable part of their annual budget, claim to be fighting terrorism.

We look forward to continuing your support for our endeavor to defend our people's legitimate right to self-determination, and their right to freedom and independence. We will also continue our commitment to implementing the sustainable development plan and its goals, and the special situation of the least developed countries. We have succeeded in launching a very important document entitled "Atlas of Sustainable Development 2020", with the aim of documenting development efforts .

I couldn't find this Atlas of Sustainable Development 2020. One would think that if it was such an important document, it would be referenced in Palestinian websites. All I found was a video about this document, written in English, which indicates that it is one of the hundreds of reports that have been pushed by the EU or UN, mostly created so the Palestinian Authority can show the West that it is acting like a normal government that cares about its people.

Yet the recommendations in these reports are never implemented, unless more Western money is dependent on progress.

UPDATE - it is here. It is a point in time document showing how the Palestinian territories are doing against UN goals. It might be important, but it doesn't mandate any improvements. (h/t GnasherJew.)

The Palestinian Authority has never acted like a real government - for good reason. The only issues that they are passionate about are anti-Israel, not pro-Palestinian. When you look at everything it does, everything they say in international forums, every statement they issue, this is obvious. And this speech by Abbas is simply more proof that Palestinian nationalism is a cover for destroying Israel by any means possible.

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!

Palestinians in an uproar over Abbas "shekel tax" on phones "to support Jerusalem"

Yesterday, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas announced that every Palestinian with a mobile or landline phone will have to pay an extra shekel every month "to support Jerusalem."

Palestinians received a message on their mobile phones saying, "In compliance with President Abbas' decision, one shekel will be added to your bill every month for a period of 12 months as part of an initiative to support the steadfastness of our people in Jerusalem."

The tax would raise about 60 million shekels ($18M) annually.

The reaction was immediate and fierce. Absolutely no one believes that the money would go to Jerusalem Arabs and nearly everyone assumes it would enrich Abbas and his Fatah friends.

Palestinians ridiculed the decision on social media, many saying that they refuse to pay or that they would rather cancel their phones. Some called in "theft in broad daylight."

Others noted that the earmarking of funds to "Jerusalem" was incredibly vague and could be used for anything.

Some Jerusalem Arabs said that they don't need any money, but rather an army to "liberate" them.

Still others pointed out that imposing such a tax without official approval from the Legislative Council is illegal under Palestinian law.

Many Palestinians recalled a previous fundraising initiative by Abbas. In 2016, he announced a project to build the "Khaled Al-Hassan" cancer hospital on 20 dunams of land in Ramallah, at an approximate cost of $140 million, not including medical equipment costs. Tens of millions of dollars were raised, but the hospital was never built, while the government claims that the money raised was put in a "special fund."

This prompted many to jokingly say that the phone tax will pay for the Jerusalem branch of the Khaled al-Hassan hospital.

This episode proves that there is absolutely no trust in Mahmoud Abbas' government. A majority of Palestinians consider both the PA and Hamas to be corrupt.

Beyond that, it shows how out of touch Abbas is from the people. The reaction was predictable, even as he probably thought that no one would care about such a small increase in their phone bill.

The story shows how precarious and corrupt the PA is.

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!

01/18 Links Pt2: Moshe Dayan’s Tragic Blunder; Mahmoud Abbas’ Dissertation; Why Israel’s enemies will hate the Louvre; No room for anti-Israel bias at Kennedy School

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: Moshe Dayan’s Tragic Blunder

There is an argument to be made for permitting wider access and the right to pray for Jews at the site of the biblical Temples. In part, this argument charges that defense minister Moshe Dayan, in electing not to fully realize Israel’s sovereignty over the Mount immediately after its breathtaking capture in the 1967 war, helped facilitate the resonant Palestinian lie that the Jews have no connection to our ancient homeland—for surely, if the Temple Mount was historically ours, religiously ours, we would not have handed it back to them.

Dayan self-evidently thought otherwise. Anxious to avoid a full-on confrontation with the entire Muslim world, and utilizing the halachic argument that Jews should not set foot on the Mount for fear of defiling the sacred ground where the Temple and its Holy of Holies once stood, he allowed Jordan’s Muslim Waqf to continue to administer the compound’s holy places.

Netanyahu, Horovitz continued, had “wisely” adopted Dayan’s approach previously, but now the prime minister had “sanctioned” an act of “potential pyromania.” Horovitz’s account leaves out the fact that the decision of the ardently secular Dayan was founded on total disregard for what the Temple Mount meant to religious Jews.

After his paratroopers broke through Jordanian lines in 1967 and reached the site, Mordechai Gur exultantly exclaimed that “the Temple Mount is in our hands.” Dayan, in contrast, infamously reflected, “What do I need this Vatican for?” As the Israeli journalist Nadav Sharagai has documented, Dayan’s actions were based in the presumption that the Temple Mount is not of any religious significance to Jews at all:
Dayan thought at the time, and years later committed his thoughts to writing, that since the Mount was a “Muslim prayer mosque,” while for Jews it was no more than “a historical site of commemoration of the past…one should not hinder the Arabs behaving there as they do now and one should recognize their right as Muslims to control the site.”

But of course the Temple Mount is more, for Jews, than a commemorative locale of the past: It is the holiest site in Judaism, the one toward which Jews pray all over the world, because they believe that God dwells there in a special way. Dayan’s decision did indeed facilitate Palestinian claims, rampant today, that no Temple ever stood in Jerusalem and that the entire Jewish connection to Jerusalem is a fabrication. This is why more and more religious Jews are realizing that visiting the site is essential. It is not only far-right figures who are visiting the Mount. Entering certain sections of the Mount in a manner sanctioned by Jewish law is becoming more and more mainstream among Orthodox Jews. And that is why opposition to Jewish access to the Mount is growing more and more frantic by the day.

All this points to a profound irony. The return of Netanyahu has been met with the journalistic gnashing of teeth and the rhetorical rending of garments by writers and public figures about the danger that the (democratically elected) government of Israel poses to democracy. And yet it is these very critics who are often so dismissive of the most elemental of democratic injustices: denying Jews in Israel the right to visit, and to pray at, Judaism’s holiest place. Perhaps, when it comes to the history of the democratic liberties of mankind in the eyes of those who piously intone on the subject, it is only the rights of religious Jews that do not matter.

Mahmoud Abbas’ Dissertation

On Feb. 1, 1972, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union issued a directive “On further measures to fight anti-Soviet and anti-communist activities of international Zionism.” The social sciences section of the Soviet Academy of Sciences soon established a permanent commission for the coordination of scientific criticism of Zionism, to be housed at the academy’s prestigious Institute of Oriental Studies. Over the next 15 years, the IOS would serve as an important partner in the state’s fight against the imaginary global Zionist conspiracy that Soviet security services believed was sabotaging the USSR in the international arena and at home. In 1982, the IOS would grant the doctoral status to one Mahmoud Abbas, upon the defense of his thesis The Relationship Between Zionists and Nazis, 1933-1945.

Abbas’ dissertation has been a subject of considerable interest over the years. The thesis isn’t publicly available: By all accounts, it is kept in an IOS special storage facility requiring special authorization to access. But if one visits the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, one can easily get the Palestinian leader’s so-called avtoreferat—an extended dissertation abstract. Written to the standards of the Soviet State Commission for Academic Degrees and Titles and authored by the candidate, the 19-page document outlines the dissertation’s relevance, methodology, main arguments and unique contribution to the field. It also provides a literature review and lists the individuals and institutions that were involved in shepherding the work through to completion. It therefore offers a peek not only into Mahmoud Abbas’ academic accomplishment, but also into the system that produced it.

Using the social sciences to support political and ideological agendas set by the Communist Party was a matter of course in the USSR. Entire academic disciplines had been established to grant scholarly legitimacy to the state’s guiding ideology. “Scientific atheism,” for an example, was tasked with proving scientifically that God did not exist and that religion was the opiate of the masses. “Scientific communism” was supposed to supply scientific proof that communism was the superior stage of social and economic development and would supersede both Soviet socialism and global capitalism. When, instead, capitalism superseded Soviet socialism and the cushy budgets that sustained these disciplines vanished, they, too, quietly dissolved.

As a field, “scientific anti-Zionism” never took root in the Soviet academy as broadly as the other two subjects. Like them, it died as soon as its primary client—the Soviet state—disappeared. Soon a million Soviet Jews resettled in Israel and the newly independent former Soviet states restored diplomatic relations with the country.

I grew up in Akademgorodok—a suburb of the Siberian city of Novosibirsk that was home to the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences. Adults around me lived and breathed science—real science, like physics and biology. It was well-known that portions of the academy were corrupted by ideological agendas. The antisemitism in its math division and elsewhere was a fact of life. Humanities and social sciences in particular were ruled by ideological priorities. But seeing the intellectual corruption that is evident in the story of Abbas’ dissertation is disturbing nonetheless.

Why Israel’s enemies will hate the Louvre

The Palestinian Authority and its supporters have a new enemy: the Louvre.

The world’s most-visited museum, the famous French institution that holds some of the greatest works of art and antiquities, is likely to find itself on anti-Israel boycott lists around the world.

This is because among the Louvre’s storied collections is a slab of stone with an inscription that affirms the ancient connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.

The stone, known as the Mesha Stele, was first discovered in 1868 near the Dead Sea, but its inscription, written in the language of the ancient Moabites, was only partially understandable due to centuries of wear and damage. The inscription recounts a war between King Mesha of Moab and the Jews—the same conflict described in the third chapter of the Book of Kings. In addition, the words “House of David” appeared to be included in the inscription, but damage to the artifact meant this could not be proved conclusively.

Linguists and historians associated with a University of Southern California research project recently analyzed the artifact with a new technology called Reflectance Transformation Imaging that “takes digital images of an artifact from different angles and then combined to create a precise, three-dimensional digital rendering of the piece,” according to an article by two of the researchers, André Lemaire and Jean-Philippe Delorme, in the latest issue of Biblical Archeology Review.

This allowed the damaged section of the stele to be read. As was long suspected, it indeed referred to the “House of David.” So, once again, archaeological discoveries have affirmed what was already written long ago in the Hebrew Bible.

Do you know what is not mentioned in the inscription? “Palestine” or “Palestinians.”

01/10 Links Pt1: The perpetual dictator and the missing peace: The story of Mahmoud Abbas; Ambassador Nides’ delusions about Palestinian terrorism

From Ian:

Bassem Eid: The perpetual dictator and the missing peace: The story of Mahmoud Abbas

During these long 18-plus years, peace has eluded the region primarily through Abbas’s personal obstinance. In 2008, Abbas walked away from a third Israeli peace offer that would have relinquished Israeli control over the Old City, location of the holiest site in the Jewish faith, the Temple Mount. Under his rule, Palestinian public education and news media fully normalized and are even saturated in antisemitism, often featuring explicit calls for violence against Jews. Abbas’s public statements and speeches place all of the onus for peace on Israel, as the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt succinctly wrote: “The Abbas approach should be rejected by the international community, not merely because of its bias against Israel, but also because it recycled the same-old ideas that have pushed Palestinians down the pointless loop of delegitimizing Israel rather than the hard climb of reaching compromise.”

Over 2 million Palestinians live under the tyrannical power of Abbas’s PA in the West Bank, including me and many of the people I care most about. Abbas is the real occupier of our cities and our homeland, not our future partner Israel, which has consistently had a majority in favor of peace and not Benjamin Netanyahu, a leader who has explicitly supported the idea of a Palestinian state so long as Israel maintains the necessary security controls.

Abbas has offered us neither democracy nor independence, but we remain a free people. It is time for the Palestinian nation to reach a new agreement with Israel and the international community, abolishing the dictatorial rule of Abbas and the PLO and instead granting our people what we truly deserve: peace with dignity alongside our neighbor, the Jewish State of Israel.

Netanyahu government breaks sharply with predecessor in dealings with PA

On Jan. 5, Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a series of retaliatory measures against the Palestinian Authority. These included sanctions against senior Palestinian officials, the withholding of Palestinian funds collected by Israel and a halt to illegal Palestinian construction in Area C of Judea and Samaria.

The measures were swiftly implemented: Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, on returning from a trip to Europe, found himself waiting in line at the Allenby Bridge crossing after Israel stripped him of his VIP pass. On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the transfer of $40 million in confiscated Palestinian funds to Israeli victims of terrorism, money that would have gone to support terrorists had it reached P.A. hands.

“The difference that we’re seeing, the actions of the government on all fronts, is really quite substantial,” IDF Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, director of legal strategies for Palestinian Media Watch, told JNS.

The measures, coming less than two weeks into the tenure of the country’s new government, are partly a response to the P.A.’s orchestration of a vote at the United Nations on Dec. 30 calling on the International Court of Justice to render an opinion on the legal status of Judea and Samaria. (Al-Maliki’s VIP pass was reportedly confiscated because of a meeting he had at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.)

“What the government did is focus on punishing the P.A. leadership. The government is saying that there’s a cost and a consequence for these actions,” said Hirsch. “P.A. subversion at the United Nations is a complete and utter breach of the Oslo Accords. The VIP permits are a function of the Accords. There’s no reason why we should have to continue as if nothing happened. They have to pay the price,” he added.

Israel’s move to freeze taxes and tariffs it collects on behalf of the P.A.—and which the P.A. uses to award terrorists and their families as part of its “pay-for-slay” program—is also a welcome decision, according to Hirsch. An Israeli law to withhold the funds has been on the books since 2017, but only half-heartedly enforced, he noted. “This will be particularly effective and forceful with the P.A.,” he said, as it will cost them 100 million shekels ($28 million) a month.

US: Israel’s Withholding of Funds over Palestinian Terrorism ‘Exacerbates Tensions’

US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday described a series of Israeli measures meant to curb and punish Palestinian terrorism as a “unilateral move” that “exacerbates tensions.”

Israel’s Security Cabinet last week approved the measures in response to what it described as the Palestinian Authority’s ongoing “political and legal war” against the Jewish state. The previous week, the U.N. General Assembly, at the urging of the P.A., passed a resolution calling on the International Court of Justice to “render urgently an advisory opinion” on Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian territory.”

“We have continued to make the point that unilateral actions that threaten the viability of a two-state solution, unilateral actions that only exacerbate tensions—those are not in the interests of a negotiated two-state solution,” said Price.

He added that Washington has “been consistent in our own strong opposition to the request for an ICJ advisory opinion concerning Israel…. We believe this action was counterproductive.”

As part of the measures, Israel on Sunday transferred $39.5 million of taxes and tariffs collected for the P.A. to the victims of terrorism and their families.

At a press conference, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “We promised to fix this, and today we are correcting an injustice. This is an important day for morality, for justice and for the fight against terrorism. There is no greater justice than offsetting the funds of the Authority, which acts to support terrorism, and transferring them to the families of the victims of terrorism.”

Palestinian Prime Minister calls new Israeli sanctions 'final nail in the coffin'

Mahmoud Abbas was elected on January 9, 2005 to a four year term term as president of the Palestinian Authority, scheduled to end January 15, 2009.

He is about to start the 19th year of his "four year term."

During his time in office, he has not only stopped any possibility of further elections. He also has taken over the legislative and judicial branches of government, changed laws to ensure that his people remain in all leadership roles, and consolidated his hold on Fatah, expelling any potential threats to his power either within his party or within his government. And he remains the head of the PLO, which is the real political leadership of the Palestinians, an organization that the Palestinian Authority reports to.

He has used the people of Gaza as hostages in his attempts to defeat Hamas there, regularly blocking delivery of medicines and fuel. He has mercilessly jailed and murdered protesters. He has passed laws that make any criticism of him or his cronies into crimes. He has played potential successors against each other.

He's a dictator in every sense of the word, every bit as ruthless as Bashar Assad or Vladimir Putin.

Yet how many Western articles about him mention the word "dictator?" They dance around it, they will sometimes quote a critic or two, but you won't hear the "D" word in mainstream Western media or analysis.

Arab analysts, on the other hand, have no such qualms.

The latest comes from an interview of several analysts in (Hamas') Felesteen news site.

Omar Assaf, a member of the National Democratic Assembly, confirms that Abbas fears losing power, so he prevents anyone from the Fatah movement or other factions from gaining any.

"Abbas monopolizes the three centers of power; executive, legislative and judicial, and enshrines the one-man rule that was tried in many countries of the world, and its results were disastrous, and the continuation of this situation means further deterioration at all levels," he said.

The writer and political analyst, Rashid Al-Bably, says that after 18 years of monopolizing the position of the head of power in an unconstitutional manner, and in light of the clear absence of the Legislative Council, Abbas has become the only figure in control of the three authorities, and even increased his power with his leadership of the PLO, the Fatah movement, and other positions. Ultimately,he is a dictatorial figure controlling all aspects of all official decisions.

Activist and political researcher Suhaib Zahda says Abbas constitutes a model of dictatorship and authoritarian rule by refusing to hold general elections and allow the renewal of the leadership.

"Abbas is using the security services and the outside to continue clinging to the rule and power, refusing to hold any elections, and continuing his work as president illegally."

The article notes a number of times that Abbas postponed the planned elections last year after it became apparent that he would lose. Abbas' excuse that he postponed the elections because it wasn't clear that Jerusalem Arabs could participate is not even considered to be an issue in any Arab media - everyone knows that the issue could have been resolved if there was any political will.

So why are the Western media and politicians so reluctant to criticize a dictator? There are two, related reasons.

One is that the alternative is probably worse. If elections were held, Hamas would likely win, and no one wants that - Hamas is a designated terror group in the West.

The other, more compelling reason is that there is a deep narrative of Israeli intransigence embedded in Western discourse. As long as the West can pretend that Abbas is a moderate - the word attached to him in the media far more often than dictator - they can continue to blame Israel for any tensions or lack of peace. If they would admit that Abbas is not a peace partner, Israel's position since the collapse of talks in 2001 is proven to have been correct all along. Moreover, if Hamas wins an election that is forced by the West, no one can blame Israel for there not being a horizon for peace.

The willful blindness of the West about Mahmoud Abbas is meant, above all, to keep alive the fiction that Israel is the obstacle to peace.

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!

Abbas going to the Security Council about Jews visiting the Temple Mount?

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency reports:

The President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, decided to assign the Palestine Mission in New York to take immediate action in the United Nations and the Security Council to condemn and stop the attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque by members of the Israeli government and extremist groups, in a serious violation of the historical and legal status in occupied Jerusalem.

His Excellency stressed the importance of this international move to stop this dangerous Israeli escalation against Islamic and Christian sanctities, noting that this move is taking place in coordination with the brothers in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and working with brotherly and friendly groups in the United Nations.

Haaretz adds:

The United Arab Emirates – a member of the United Nations Security Council – is expected to call for an emergency meeting of the council in order to discuss the violation of the status quo on the Temple Mount, following Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's visit to the holy site on Tuesday.

I look forward to this.

Because either the Security Council will throw the issue out, because nothing in the status quo was violated in any sense, or it will prove itself to be an utterly worthless organization.

I am looking forward to seeing the wording of the draft resolution. It will reveal a great deal about the UAE, the larger Arab world and the Palestinians. And the vote, if it happens, will starkly show which members of the Council have any integrity whatsoever.

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!

A few reminders on the 58th anniversary of Fatah's first terror attack

January 1 is considered the 58th anniversary of the Fatah movement.

Just a few reminders about what exactly that means:

1. Fatah was founded in the 1950s, but it doesn't celebrate the date of its founding. It celebrates the date of its first attempted terror attack, against Israel's national water carrier. It was the definition of a terror attack, an attempt to make most Israelis die of thirst.

Fatah defines itself as a terror group.

2. The Palestinian Authority is run by Fatah.

3. Mahmoud Abbas controls Fatah - meaning, he is the head of a group that openly celebrates terror.

4. Fatah has never stopped actively supporting terror, as its current party platform makes clear.

5. This attack happened in 1965 - before "occupation." Fatah then had, and now has, a goal of the destruction of Israel, not an end to "occupation."

6. Hamas congratulated Fatah on this occasion, saying "We congratulate our brothers in the Fatah movement on their 58th anniversary, and we affirm our firm strategy with the inevitability of joint national action on the grounds of adhering to the principles of our people, and the struggle in all its forms, to restore its just national rights, foremost of which is liberation."

There is no fundamental difference between the two.

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!

Mahmoud Abbas' Christmas message was entirely slander and incitement against Israel (plus calling a mass murderer a "hero")

From the official English translation of Mahmoud Abbas' Christmas message:

Today we are facing the policies and actions of our occupier with unity, commitment to our national values, steadfastness on our land, and with the world standing on the side of truth and justice. We will not accept the continuation of the occupation’s colonial-settlement policies targeting the Christian presence and Christianity in our region, which is an integral part of the social fabric of our people and of our region, something we always affirm and will continue to encourage all to preserve the mosaic of religious heritage that Palestine is proud of.

On this occasion we commend the positions of the Heads of Churches in Jerusalem, in which they accused extremist Zionist groups of carrying out continuous attacks on churches, intimidating Christians, attempting at expelling them and seizing their property.

We assure that we will continue to present our Palestinian narrative, refuting the false Zionist narrative, confronting any racist measures aimed at erasing our national identity, including our Christian and Muslim heritage. We will confront attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Holy Sepulcher, Mount of Olives, Jaffa Gate, New Gate, the Armenian Quarter and others and attacks on every inch of the homeland.

We will not accept the practices of the colonial-settlement occupation and will confront them with peaceful popular resistance, in all international forums and courts. On this blessed occasion we call upon the international community break its silence and take concrete measures to stop Israeli crimes, including colonial-settlement expansion and ongoing annexation, the consolidation of a racist Apartheid regime, attempts at changing the identity and the character of the city of Jerusalem, the desecration of its Christian and Muslim holy sites , the seizure of church properties and all Palestinian properties, the forcible displacement of Palestinians from their homes, demolitions, as well as murders and other crimes and violations of international law. The homeland is mourning its martyrs, and we shall do everything we can to hold the criminals accountable.

Our hearts are squeezed with pain and suffering due to the killings of the Israeli occupation that led to the martyrdom of hundreds during this year, including the martyr journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, as well as the recent martyrdom of the hero Nasser Abu Hmeid, who died denied of his basic human rights as he was in the last stages of his struggle with cancer. We insist in the need for the international community to assume its responsibility to protect our people.

We affirm that the only way for our people, and all peoples of the region, to enjoy security, stability, prosperity and good neighborliness is for Palestinians to fulfil their legitimate and long overdue rights in accordance with international law and resolutions, including the end of the Israeli occupation and the freedom of the State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, including our Muslims and Christian sanctities, the right of return of our people and living in our homeland in freedom and dignity.

I extend my greetings and congratulations to our people wherever they are, and I say to them, be proud of your history and identity, tell the world that Christmas is a Palestinian message of hope which our people continues to embrace with love and hope to achieve justice, freedom and peace in the Holy Land.

In short: Jews are criminals who have no business to live here, people who murder Jews are heroes and we intend to destroy the Jewish state via "return."

7 paragraphs that were anti-Israel, and only two that talked about the usual Christmas messages of peace on Earth, goodwill towards men,

This is what happens when you define your entire purpose - and the purpose of your people - as destroying the Jewish state.

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!

Instead Of Violating The Taylor Force Act, Maybe Biden Should Let It Do Its Job (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

This week, America First Legal sued President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken for violating the Taylor Force Act. The group represents Stuart and Robbi Force, the parents of Taylor Force who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists, Sarri Singer, a survivor of a 2003 terrorist attack, and US Congressman Ronny Jackson (R-TX).

Taylor Force was murdered on March 8, 2016, and despite the fact that he was neither Jewish nor Israeli, the Palestinian Authority repeatedly praised the terrorist who killed Taylor as a martyr:

Biden was Vice President at the time and was in Israel, in Tel Aviv where the attack took place.

“I don’t know exactly whether it was a hundred meters or a thousand meters,” Biden, on a visit to Israel, told reporters about Tuesday’s assault.

“It brings home that it can happen, it can happen anywhere, at any time,” he said, after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Abbas offered condolences at the same time that the official PA News was praising the murderer.

The Taylor Force Act was signed into law in 2018 to stop Abbas and the PA from incentivizing terrorism. According to the summary of the bill:

(Sec. 4) This bill prohibits certain FY2018-FY2023 economic support assistance that directly benefits the Palestinian Authority (PA) from being made available for the West Bank and Gaza unless the Department of State certifies that the PA, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and any successor or affiliated organizations:

o  are taking steps to end acts of violence against U.S. and Israeli citizens perpetrated by individuals under their jurisdictional control, such as the March 2016 attack that killed former Army officer Taylor Force;

o have revoked any law, decree, or document authorizing or implementing a system of compensation for imprisoned individuals that uses the sentence or incarceration period to determine compensation;

o  have terminated payments for acts of terrorism against U.S. and Israeli citizens to any individual who has been fairly tried and imprisoned for such acts, to any individual who died committing such acts, and to family members of such an individual; and

o  are publicly condemning such acts of violence and are investigating such acts.

During the Trump administration, payments to the PA were frozen. When he first started resuming aid to the Palestinian Authority, Biden did more than simply undo Trump's policy -- he attempted to bypass the law passed by Congress. When it was announced in March 2021 that the Biden administration would renew funding of the PA despite their refusal to stop "pay for slay" payments to the families of terrorists, it was unclear how the administration intended to avoid the restrictions of the Taylor Force Act:

The State Department has yet to explain how it will resume U.S. aid without violating that law, known as the Taylor Force Act.

A State Department official familiar with the matter told the Washington Free Beacon that "any decisions related to resuming assistance to the West Bank and Gaza will be consistent with requirements under relevant U.S. law."

The question is how the Biden administration will attempt to explain away its violation of the Taylor Force Act.

Concerns were already raised back in 2020 on how they would do this. Yossi Kuperwasser, a senior intelligence and security expert, expected the PA to continue its claim that the payments were based merely on financial considerations. He expected that the Biden administration would pull the same trick as the Obama administration in 2014, when it asked the PA to move the agency in charge of the payments from the PA to the PLO. On that basis alone, the State Department then claimed that the PA was making efforts and that things were moving in the right direction.

But nothing really changed and no action to prevent the payments was taken.

Instead, in April 2021, a package was put together for the Palestinian Arabs that was supposed to avoid circumventing the Taylor Force Act:

o $150 million went to UNRWA
o $75 went to economic development programs in the West Bank and Gaza
o $10 million went to "peace building" initiatives.

According to Blinken at the time, the money would not violate the Taylor Force Act because it would not go directly to the PA. Instead, the money would go to agencies that are independent of both the Abbas government and Hamas.

Jonathan Tobin notes that according to a Government Accounting Office report that preceded Trump's cutoff of funds, money given to the Palestinian government by US officials was not closely monitored and wound up in the hands of terrorists. While the report indicated that better oversight could solve the problem, it remains unclear how the Biden White House and the usual bureaucracy are going to succeed what they have previously failed to do.

Another issue is that Palestinian NGOs receiving the funding are not really independent of the Palestinian governments, whether these groups deal with Abbas and Fatah in the West Bank or Hamas in Gaza.

An additional point Tobin makes is that the money itself is fungible. The money received by the NGOs is money that the Abbas government might otherwise have had to spend for those non-government purposes. The money from the US thus allows Abbas to divert the money it saves due to US largesse on other purposes, including those that are terror-related.

The State Department itself acknowledged that there is a problem of Abbas funneling money to terrorists. In a March 18 non-public report in 2021,

The State Department admitted it was "unable to certify" to Congress that the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization are complying with the Taylor Force Act, primarily because they have "not terminated payments for acts of terrorism to any individual, after being fairly tried, who has been imprisoned for such acts of terrorism and to any individual who died committing such acts of terrorism, including to a family member of such individuals," according to the report. [emphasis added]

In a separate memo, the State Department also admitted that the PA had "not taken proactive steps to counter incitement to violence against Israel." In other words, they could not certify for Congress that the PA had fulfilled repeated promises to end incitement and recommit itself to peace negotiations.

There is a problem of Abbas encouraging terrorist attacks.
The State Department admits there is a problem.
The Biden Administration has failed to present a clear plan on how provide funding for Palestinian Arabs without it being used for encouraging the murder of Israelis.

Maybe its time to let the Taylor Force Act do the job it was intended for.

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!