Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Mustafa Barghouti

Showing posts with label Mustafa Barghouti. Show all posts

Monday, February 15, 2021

The story that the media ignores: Palestinian leaders are against even being friendly with Jews

The New York Times published a feel-good story about how the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem has a program where ten year old religious Jewish kids play and learn along with ten year old Arabs who live in east Jerusalem.

As is often the case with the mainstream media, the real story is in what they choose not to report.

For the most part, Israeli Jews have always thirsted to be friends with their Arab neighbors, across the street and across the Middle East. There have been many such programs in Israel, some homegrown and some financed by the EU or the US - sports programs, support groups. scientific programs.

The Palestinians have always been dead-set against these programs. They regard them with the worst possible insult: "normalization."

Over this past weekend, there was an conference held by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean. Because Israel sent a delegation, the Algerian delegation quit the conference.

Palestinian groups praised the Algerians, saying, "Confronting normalization in all its forms is a moral, Arab and religious duty." Palestinian officials joined in.

Also this past weekend, there was a forum against normalization with Israel with participants from across the Arab world. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the PLO Central Council who is considered a moderate, said, "Normalization constitutes a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people."

Palestinians are planning later this month the " the first international conference to resist normalization with the Israeli occupation."

For years, the Palestinian leadership has been against any of the peace programs exactly as described by the New York Times - because they are "normalization."

Palestinian schools - including those operated by UNRWA - refused to participate in the "Seeds of Peace" program, a program that now-President Biden has endorsed. The reason? Because any joint Israeli-Palestinian project, unless it is designed to eventually destroy Israel, is considered "normalization."

And normalization translates to humiliation and shame, in Palestinian-speak.

Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah organization is against any sort of Palestinian/Israeli peace program. Yet it is funded by the EU.

There are numerous examples of how even the thought of friendship between Palestinians and Jews is anathema to most Palestinians.

The only people who oppose programs like the Bible Lands Museum's are Palestinians and their supporters. That is the real story - and it is a story that is rarely broached by the mainstream media.

Everything the media has been telling you about Israel, vaccines and Palestinians has been false. Oops.

Haaretz reports:

Israel has provided coronavirus vaccines to the Palestinian Authority, the government said on Tuesday, rolling back its previous claim that the Palestinians have not received any vaccines.

The government told the High Court of Justice that a shipment of 100 vaccine doses was provided in response to the Palestinians' request and that another shipment is expected to arrive in about a week and a half. The delivery was approved by Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, according to the government.

According to Ma'an, the vaccines went to medical workers in Palestinian hospitals.

Which means that Israel is acting exactly as international law demands under the laws of belligerent occupation, which Israel's High Court uses as a basis for its rulings.

Israel doesn't have to provide vaccines unless the local authorities ask. When they asked, Israel responded and gave it to them.

Practically every article about Israel not providing vaccines, and everything that NGOs accused Israel of, are lies.

The Palestinians don't want to publicly ask for vaccines, and they are set to get large quantities over the next two months. Israel transferring the vaccines publicly is also politically sensitive - the family of Hadar Goldin is suing for Israel not to provide any aid to Gaza until his body is returned by Hamas.

And the Palestinian political leaders are taking propaganda advantage of the worldwide condemnation of Israel scrupulously adhering to international law. This article in Palestine News Network shows that their primary concern isn't actually procuring vaccines, but castigating Israel and recruiting celebrity Westerners to help:

Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative Movement, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti confirmed that, thanks to the Palestinian efforts to expose Israeli policies, a major global campaign was launched against the Israeli policy of apartheid and racial discrimination aimed at denying Palestinians access to vaccines against Corona disease.
Barghouti confirmed the launch of a global signature campaign against the Israeli policy of “ Medical”, demanding the immediate provision of safe vaccines for the Palestinian people.
Tens of thousands of internationals have signed the campaign petition so far, including prominent international doctors and scientists, thinkers and artists such, including Judith Butler, Daniel Barenboim and Noam Chomsky.
He affirmed that the solidarity committees with the Palestinian people have been mobilized in various parts of the globe to participate in this campaign, which is taking place under the slogan of condemning this type of apartheid.
Dr. Barghouti added that the gravity of the Israeli crime of racial discrimination in the matter of providing vaccines and protection from the dangerous Corona disease revealed the reality and truth of the Israeli apartheid regime, which will pay dearly for its criminal denial of human rights and for the necessity of unity and solidarity with humanity in facing epidemics.

Does this sound like their priority is Palestinian lives, or attacking Israel?

All lies. And none of the "progressive" groups that claim to "care deeply about Israel" will apologize for spreading these lies.

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Mustafa Barghouti accidentally admits that there would be no Palestinianism without Zionism

Al Ahram has a fairly stupid article by Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, where he argues that Zionism has failed.

As with virtually every Palestinian "thinker," Barghouti defines Zionism as a movement to destroy Palestinians rather than a movement to recreate a nation-state for the Jewish people. Early Zionists had no intention of expelling non-Jews, on the contrary they felt that they would bring great economic and social benefits to the non-Jewish population. And they did. (Compare the infant mortality rates and life expectancy of Arabs under Israeli rule to those of neighboring Arab countries.Compare the number of universities built in the territories under "occupation" with zero built under Arab rule.)

But Barghouti instead builds a straw man:

The Zionist movement did not triumph but is living its worst crisis because it was founded on realising two objectives. The first was seizing the land, and this was carried out through criminal violence, waging wars and occupation. The second was displacing the Palestinian people and ethnically cleansing the land of Palestine, in which it failed. Despite the forcible displacement that took place in 1948, the Palestinian people learned from their experiences and stood fast on their land and today their numbers on the historic land of Palestine exceed that of Israeli Jews.

No one even blinks at these lies any more.

Part of the lie is simple psychological projection. Because, indeed, Palestinian nationalism is not built on the desire for an independent nation state for the "Palestinian people." That goal could have been accomplished a half dozen times since 1947. Palestinian nationalism is centered around the destruction of the Jewish state by any and all means possible.

So naturally Palestinians see Zionism as a projection of what they themselves want. A goal that Palestinians freely admit in surveys.

Barghouti unwittingly admits this. Later on in this essay he says "the Zionist project has awakened Palestinian nationalism."

Exactly. There would be no Palestinian nationalism if it wasn't for Zionism. They would be part of a greater Jordan or Greater Syria or Greater Egypt - there never would be any interest in an independent Palestinian state if Israel never existed.

All of the insistence that Palestinians are a historic people is a fiction that was created ex post facto to support the nationalist claims. One could just as easily prove that residents of the Hauran area of Syria or the Northern Sinai are a "people" since they may have customs distinct from others even in the same nation.

Beyond that, of course, Barghouti's main thesis - that Zionism has failed - is a bit absurd as Israel is about to celebrate its 70th birthday, and the Palestinian project to destroy Israel is no longer of interest even to their fellow Arabs.

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"Moderate" Mustafa Barghouti lies repeatedly to justify Hamas war crimes (video)

Here are excerpts of an interview on Australian TV with Mustafa Barghouti showing how much "moderate, pacifist" Palestinian Arabs will lie to justify Hamas war crimes.

(h/t Ahron)

A whopping Palestinian Arab lie gets even bigger!

I have noted in the past an absurd statistic, given by some Palestinian Arab NGOs like Addameer and repeated by the UN and others like The Lancet and Jimmy Carter.

They claimed that over 650,000 - and then 750,000 - and then 800,000 and even 900,000 Palestinian Arabs have been jailed by Israel since 1967.

I've proven that these statistics were complete fiction. Every Israeli arrest is documented by PCHR, and they average about 25 arrests a week, which would make at most 1300 a year - but for these numbers to be increasing as fast as they claim in recent years, there would need to be over 50,000 people not just arrested but jailed every year!

(There are about 5000 Palestinian Arabs in Israeli jails, a number that has been pretty consistent for the past couple of years.)

Now, Mustafa Barghouti in Irish Times beats everyone else in his ability to lie:

Now there is almost no Palestinian family that did not have someone in jail. More than 44 per cent of Palestinian adults have been to jail in one way or another.

This means that even if every prisoner has only been jailed just once in his or her life, based on the current population in the territories, 1,060,000 people have been jailed! (There are about 2.4 million Palestinian Arab adults in the territories.)

Of course, Irish Times doesn't bother to check his very specific sounding statistic. (Liars like to use very specific numbers to make them sound more authentic.) Just like Time magazine, the Goldstone Report, and countless others have cited the inflated and patently absurd statistics as truth, no one even considers that when intelligent looking Palestinian Arabs say something with a straight face, they might be lying.

Barghouti is lying. The Irish Times is gullible.

And so is the rest of the world.

(h/t Adam)

Mustafa Barghouti was injured by Arabs, not the IDF

During Friday's Land Day protests in Qalandia, member of parliament Mustafa Barghouti was injured - and, of course, he blamed Israel for what he described as a tear-gas canister hitting him.

The IDF denied the report.

As reported in Ma'an:

On Saturday, the aide told Ma'an he was injured by a tear-gas canister fired by Israeli forces. She said the police were informed of the circumstances during their visit to the hospital.

An Israeli military spokeswoman disputed Barghouti's account and said he was attacked by other Palestinians. He was "trying to convince youth in (Qalandiya) to riot," she said on Twitter.

A report on the case released by the police media office said Barghouti was injured in an altercation and taken to hospital. Police opened an investigation to determine the circumstances, the report says.

Barghouti heads the Palestinian National Initiative and is a former presidential candidate.

So what happened? As usual, the IDF seems to be correct and the Palestinian Arab accusers were lying.

From (of all places) Mondoweiss, quoting an account by Jalal Abukhater:

As I arrived to Qalandia, first thing I saw was a large crowd of protesters with most carrying Red PFLP flags and orange PNI [Palestinian National Initiative] flags. As I walked down, I saw Mustafa Barghouti being evacuated into an ambulance at the Qalandia field hospital and Fateh guys were attacking PNI people. As Mustafa entered the ambulance, angry crowds continued to attack Mustafa and his group, a fight broke out between both sides. Mustafa was also beaten inside the ambulance. Weapon used in fighting was sticks which held flags. The ambulance which carried Mustafa had its rear glass broken and it rushed away. A while later I saw PNI organizers calling on all PNI people to leave the demo, clashes continued and hundreds remained present at the demo.

Reason behind all this, according to eye witnesses who were there before I was, is that PNI group acted separately and didn't follow the general plan agreed upon by all groups, and they marched towards the checkpoint rushing during the prayer to beat all other groups and be first there. Also, none of them carried Palestinian flags..all carried PNI flags.

JPost adds a telling detail:

The Palestine News Network reported that Barghouti’s office phoned its editors and requested that they refrain from publishing the news about the assault.

Ah, the truth hurts - so lets resort to censorship.

I cannot count the number of times that I have reported where Palestinian Arabs claim to have witnessed an attack by Israelis where Arabs ended up injured or dead, the IDF denies it, and it turns out the IDF is right.

Yet when these incidents are reported the IDF denial - when mentioned at all - is always stuck around paragraph 12 after the reader already assumes that the Arab witnesses are telling the truth.

Every reporter should put IDF denials in the first paragraph of any report like this, and should note that the IDF's track record on admitting and denying its activities has been pretty good. There certainly has been spin, but the track record for lies belongs, hands down, to the Palestinian Arabs.

(h/t Michael)

The "moderate" Mustafa Barghouti

One way to see how far from reality Palestinian Arabs are is to look at what their so-called pragmatic, moderate leaders say. One such leader is Mustafa Barghouti. His moderate bona-fides include publicly advocating non-violent resistance, strongly criticizing Fatah and PLO corruption, and heading an NGO dedicated to health care in the territories.

Today, Barghouti published an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which tries very hard to tell Americans that supporting Israel is...un-American.

I believe that under an Obama administration Israel will no longer have carte blanche to lay waste to Gaza. But the new administration must recognize that there can be no peacemaking without talking to the whole Palestinian political spectrum following democratic elections in 2006.

I brokered the first Hamas-Fatah agreement in 2007. The same can be done now, but there must be assurances from the West that a unity government will be recognized.
Despite the Obama administration’s reluctance to deal with the government Palestinians elected, a breath of fresh air is clearly blowing through Washington. And just in time....

The Obama administration, alert to the closing window of opportunity for a two-state outcome, will have to counter Netanyahu’s prescriptions for Palestinian economic development — a Potemkin village on the West Bank — as a substitute for Palestinian freedom.
Netanyahu’s plan is a fig leaf. My recent conversations in Washington suggest it will be seen as such. Economic development cannot replace political freedom. The question is whether American officials will have the courage to stand up to Netanyahu and an Israel lobby that for the most part lacks the moral courage to criticize Lieberman’s racism, let alone Netanyahu’s intransigence on ending the occupation.

The administration can help level the playing field by taking three steps. First, insist Israel immediately stop all settlement activity. Second, reject Israel’s embrace of apartheid. One set of laws for Jewish settlers and another for Palestinians is unacceptable. Third, accept our democratic choice.

I am convinced that an evenhanded mediator such as former Sen. George Mitchell will soon find that we are not the recalcitrant party. He will uphold American principles and serve American interests if he has the courage to say so. And let us hope that more American officials go see for themselves the harm Israel is causing Palestinians — and long-term Israeli interests — with American tax dollars.

Notice that Barghouti does not think that Palestinian Arabs have any responsibilities whatsoever in a peace agreement. They deserve rights, Western aid, respect - but they do not have to earn any of those. A unity government that he is advocating can openly call for Israel's destruction, it can adopt the Hamas charter in total romanticizing the genocide of all Jews, and it can include daily calls for "death to America" - but Barghouti is trying to say that this is irrelevant, because it is supposedly the democratic choice of the Palestinian Arabs.

He is knowingly pushing a false logic: that a nation that supports democracy must respect the democratic choices made by another people, even if those choices are in fact bigoted and terrorist.

Barghouti doesn't say that Hamas must accept Israel or eschew terror. Barghouti doesn't say that Palestinian Arabs have to stop incitement, or criminalize terror groups, or stop shooting rockets at Israeli civilians. Barghouti is trying to manipulate his American audience to think that a democratically elected leadership has carte-blanche to act however they want, and they must be respected.

Unless, of course, the democratically-elected leadership was elected by Israelis. Suddenly, democracy is not so important to Barghouti. Washington must uncritically accept Palestinian elections of terrorists but must reject Israeli elections of anyone he personally finds distasteful. Washington must not send American tax dollars to a true friend and reliable ally in the Middle East - but it must send unlimited amounts of money to a people who dance in the streets when Americans die.

This is how a Palestinian Arab "moderate" thinks.

(h/t jh in the comments)

Mustafa Barghouti condemns Jews daring to stay alive

From Arutz-7:

Shortly after 11 AM not far from the Old City of Jerusalem's Jaffa Gate, an Arab terrorist grabbed the gun of a guard in a building belonging to Yeshivat Ateret Cohanim. The Arab managed to shoot at the legs of the guard, while another guard opened fire and killed the Arab. Nine other passersby were hurt in the incident as well, some by bullet grazings and others as they fell while running away. The guard and two passersby sustained moderate wounds.

So of course, we need to hear from "Dr." Mustafa Barghouti, one of the more moderate members of the PA government (autotranslated from Palpress:)

MP Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, Secretary General of the National Initiative, denounced the Israeli crime perpetrated by a Jewish extremist (this) afternoon, and led to the martyrdom of the Palestinian people and injuring eleven others wounded in the old town of Jerusalem.

Al-Barghouthi feet to guard Jewish extremist killed in a Palestinian neighborhood of Jerusalem Christians and wounded 11 others suffered light to moderate volume and the viciousness of the Israeli crimes and shed Palestinian blood on the hands of the occupation.

You see, according to our allies in the PA that we are giving millions of dollars to, the Jewish guard should have just let himself be killed. This is considered the natural order in the Arab world - Jews cower in fear for their Arab superiors and they are forbidden to do anything to defend themselves. If, Allah forbid, they actually try to stop themselves from being murdered in cold blood, then they are clearly violating the rules that have been passed down in Arab tradition from time immemorial.

Thus we have the conflict in a nutshell. Even the most moderate, anti-corruption, educated, suit-clad Palestinian Arab will never allow any Jews to live in a position of power in the Middle East if he can help it. They claim that every Jewish activity is offensive - building a wall, immigrating, building a synagogue - every single activity that is not done from a position of dhimmitude is automatically deserving of condemnation. The very existence of guards to protect Jews in Jerusalem is thoroughly offensive to these bigots.

They would much prefer to see all the Jews slaughtered, because that would herald a return to the good old days of Muslim rule.

These are the people we are showering with millions of dollars because of their moderation, pragmatism and pro-Western thinking.

The extremism and bigotry of PA "moderates"

One never hears the word "extremist" associated with the Fatah-led PA West Bank government. That word is relegated to Israeli settlers and groups like Islamic Jihad. In the Western media, the PA is uniformly considered "moderate."

There has been a lot of press lately about (possibly illegal) PA "prime minister" Fayyad taking the word "resistance" out of the PA cabinet platform:

Radical groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad Sunday accused moderate Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of abandoning Palestinian "resistance" by omitting mention of it from his cabinet program.

The Fayyad government "has abandoned the mother of all principles of the Palestinian people, accepted and recognized by everybody," the groups said in a statement.

Fayyad, a respected economist and former employee of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, was appointed to head the Palestinian cabinet after the Islamist Hamas overran the Gaza Strip in a bloody takeover June 15.

The cabinet program, which was published over the weekend, does not contain the term "resistance," used by the Palestinians to describe armed struggle against Israeli occupation.

The term was included in the program of the previous Palestinian cabinet headed by Hamas premier Ismail Haniya.

The text says that among the top priorities of the government will be "working to put an end to the occupation, and to create an independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital, on all lands occupied in 1967."

The two groups railed against the omission of the term.

"This condemnable position shows the true face of this government and of its members, who have abandoned the resistance, the blood and the suffering of the wounded and prisoners."

The statement said the cabinet took such action "with the aim of satisfying the Zionist enemy and the biggest devil in the world, America, and to receive dollars."

Certainly, compared to what Islamic Jihad is saying, the PA position is more moderate. But is it truly moderate?

Fayyad is unquestionably the most reasonable Palestinian Arab ever to gain a position of power, even if large numbers of PalArabs do not accept his unelected position. Even so, his platform is the non-starter of evicting some 475,000 Jews from Israel and the West Bank (this number includes Jews in the Jerusalem area that Israel never counts in its census of "settlers.") For some reason, the forced transfer of nearly a half-million Jews is not considered an "extremist" position by the international community.

The equally "moderate" Mustafa Barghouti, who has fought passionately against Fatah corruption, has this to say:

Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghuothi the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative faction confirmed today that the Israeli allegations of the peace initiative are simply deceiving. Adding, it is just another way of by passing the final status of peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

The Palestinian official said that no Palestinian will accept the creation of a Palestinian state, without sovereignty over Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. He also reiterated the hazards of creating a Palestinian temporary state, without the dismantling of all illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank in addition to the Israeli withdrawal of all the lands it occupied in 1967. The new Israeli peace plan according to Al-Barghuothi is meant to disrupt the idea of an independent Palestinian state turning it to cantons, following example of the South African apartheid regime.

Al-Barghuothi pointed out that Bush was convening an international meeting and not an international peace conference, highlighting the most serious campaign statements made by Bush and Olmert in an attempt to separate the Palestinian state on the final issue. This will mean converting a fully sovereign Palestinian state into a state within temporary boarders.[sic]

Fayyad's statement is a platform, but Barghouti's statement is far stronger - he self-righteously declares that "no Palestinian" would accept a state without these maximal demands being fulfilled. This does not leave any room for compromise, and it is the exact opposite of moderate. (I would love to see a poll of real PalArabs that asks them this question.)

The gap between the most liberal PalArabs and the real world is huge, and the most moderate of them explicitly advocate a racist state that they do not want to set up until the area is ethnically cleansed of all vestiges of Jews - exactly how Jordan treated the area in 1948-49. Except in 1948, there were some 17,000 Jews expelled from Arab areas, and today's "moderates" want to see 475,000 of them forcibly evicted - a number not too much lower than the entire number of Palestinian Arab refugees in 1948.

Why does the free world choose to ignore the explicit and admitted racism and bigotry of these so-called "moderates"? Why does Israel itself choose to prop up people who will tell anyone willing to listen that their red-line demands are not "only" the settlers, but also most of the Jews living in the Jerusalem area?

UPDATE:

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has said Palestinians have a legitimate right to resist Israeli occupation, even if the phrase does not appear in his new government program.

"We are certainly an occupied people and resistance is a legitimate right for the Palestinian people as an occupied people," Fayyad told reporters in Cairo, where he is leading the Palestinian delegation to an Arab League meeting on Monday.

Mustafa Barghouti's lies: Why Rafah is closed

The PA has a new professional spokesliar, doing for Mahmoud Abbas what Saeb Erekat did for Yasir Arafat for many years. He is Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, and he has been issuing daily statements about Israel that are filled with lies and half-truths.

His latest lies concern the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt:

PLC member and secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative, Dr Mustafa Barghouthi, said on Saturday that the Israel denying reentry to Gaza to 6,000 Palestinians trapped at Rafah Crossing is endangering their lives.

Barghouthi said in a press release that "28 Palestinians have died at the crossing since June 1st and the world has remained silent on Israeli actions, which transformed the strip into an open-air detention centre."

He added that a large number of Palestinians trapped at the crossing are in urgent need of medical treatment.

Barghouthi explained that even the deceased were not immune to Israeli punishment as they were denied entry to the strip and held in morgue in Egyptian hospitals.

Now, let's look at the truth:

Israel has offered to allow any stranded Gazans to enter through the Kerem Shalom crossing.
As soon as this offer was made, Hamas and Islamic Jihad shelled that same crossing and threatened the lives of any Palestinian Arabs who attempt to use it.
The next day, Egypt prevented thousands of stranded Palestinians from going to the Kerem Shalom crossing.
The EU is responsible for Rafah, and the agreement that opened Rafah to begin with specified that Fatah would be responsible for control there. The EU considers Hamas to be a terror organization and they cannot according to their own agreement allow Hamas to re-open the crossing.
The bodies of those who died at Rafah were transferred to Gaza through Kerem Shalom.

I think that's enough to prove that Barghouti is a liar.