Apparently, the only unilateral moves opposed by the US and EU are those by Israel

In yesterday's State Department briefing there was this exchange between Said Arikat and spokesperson Ned Price:

Q: The Arab press and the Israeli press are both reporting that Israel is planning a – like a – to accelerate the demolishing of – the demolition of Palestinian homes in Area C and in other areas. Do you have a comment on that?

MR PRICE: Our comment on this is – remains the fact that we believe it’s critical for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution. This includes the annexation of territory, settlement activity, and demolitions.

I just went through a selection of press briefings that used the word "unilateral" in respect to Israel and Palestinians over the past year, and while the spokesperson often says that the US is against either side making any unilateral moves that could increase tensions, I cannot find a single example where any Palestinian actions are considered unilateral.

Not them submitting complaints to the ICC. Not them building entirely new Arab settlements in Area C. Not them praising suicide bombers and other terrorists. Not paying terrorists and their families lifetime salaries.

Someone should ask Ned Price explicitly what Palestinian unilateral moves the US opposes.

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11/11 Links Pt1: How to defeat the PLO and UNRWA; Pro-Israel watchdog alleges ‘sham hearings’ by controversial UN commission; Iranians protest nationwide, mark "Bloody Friday"

From Ian:

How to defeat the PLO and UNRWA

Below is a list of doable steps that will make all the difference:
1. Recognize the new paradigm: Fatah can no longer be defined as a "partner for peace."
2. Neutralize COGAT (Israel's Civil Administration), and its blind protection of the PA and UNRWA.
3. Present PA and UNRWA Indoctrination as a primary factor in the war on Israel.
4. Since the PBC (Palestine Broadcasting Corporation) continues to incite, close all Israeli government frequencies used by the PBC.
5. Define PA and UNRWA schools as warlike entities that deserve no support.
6. Reinstate? oversight of all texts and teachers? in PA/UNRWA education.
7. Advocate the repeal of "Pay for Slay" legislation as a condition for aid
8. Disarm all Palestinian Arab entities, including the PSF, trained by US and Israel.
9 Arrest anyone who pays killers who have ?carried out acts of murder.
10. Encourage confiscation of all funds set aside by the PA to pay salaries for life to anyone who kills a Jew.
11. Organize conference of the descendants of the Dalal Mugrabi 1978 terror attack, where 35 Jews were murdered. Dalal is lionized by the PA and in UNRWA education.
12. Advocate harsh conditions in jails for terrorists, because current terror cells have turned into summer camps and universities.
13 Commission new films of UNRWA and PA SCHOOLS. Seeing is believing.
14. Oversee all funding to PA and UNRWA: Demand accountability for cash allocations ?to PA and UNRWA. Hold all PA funders criminally responsible for PA transgressions (NGOs have no diplomatic immunity).
15. Create a new think-tank to monitor and fight Arab terror.
16 Hire a community organization social worker to create a new Arab health and social welfare system, one that is independent of ?the corrupt PA and UNRWA. 17. Transform "victims of terror" into an effective organization to present the human face of those who have suffered the consequences of Arab violence. 18. Launch inquiry into private investments in the PA. 19. Foster an effort for UNRWA policy change - Counter "Right of Return by Force of Arms". Instead, advance the resettlement of Arab refugees from 1948 and their descendants.

That's all it takes, folks.

Israel's democracy is its strength over Gaza -opinion

A good friend drew my attention to the article by the Palestinian publicist Dr. Ibrahim Abrash. A resident of the al-Breij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, formerly the Minister of Culture in the Palestinian government.

Abrash has an education in law and lectures on law and political science. He is a veteran Fatah member, who lives and operates in the ruling districts of Hamas, and despite this, he is known for his independent views and his critical writing.

On Sunday, he published on one of the Palestinian news sites his take on the election results for the 25th Knesset. "You can talk at length about Israel as an imperialist, racist and terrorist entity. You can also talk about the right-wing tendency of Israeli society, and say that the election contest is mainly conducted within the extreme right. Benjamin Netanyahu's return to the prime ministership, in a coalition with extremists like him, portends difficult times."

"But we must recognize that in everything related to the organization of internal politics and the management of the affairs of the regime and the government, a positive thing happened that must be credited to them: the insistence on returning to the public five times over the course of four years to decide who will rule the country, and this without Netanyahu or another political leader, not even the army, contemplating a coup or casting doubt on the election results," Dr. Abrash continued.

In the opinion of the Gazan writer, democracy is one of the reasons for Israel's strength and advantage over others in the region. "This is a card they use to promote themselves in the world," Dr. Abrash explained.

JPost Editorial: Israel's defense diplomacy is just what the Jewish state needs

Reports emerged Wednesday afternoon that the United States has given Israel its approval in principle to export the advanced Arrow-3 ballistic missile defense system to Germany. America has asked – as it has for years – that some battery production be in the US.

These talks came just one week after Defense Minister Benny Gantz held discussions with his American counterpart, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, to discuss the deal.

The Arrow 3, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries as a joint Israeli-US program, is one of Israel’s most advanced air-defense systems. It is capable of intercepting ballistic missiles at altitudes of over 100 kilometers, with a reported range of up to 2,400 kilometers.

This deal – and the hype surrounding it internationally – represents something far greater than any previous defense deal for Israel.

Something far greater than any previous defense deal for Israel
Germany began to eye Arrow-3 earlier this year in March, just as the Russian invasion of Ukraine was in full swing and it therefore increased its budget for defense spending. The concern in Berlin, and in much of Europe, is that the missiles landing on Ukraine could one day land in Germany.

In September, just a few months later, Prime Minister Yair Lapid met in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and said that “the future possible deal [on the Arrow 3] has to do with our total commitment to the safety of Germany.”

Although no deal has been signed yet, Germany has requested that the first Arrow system be operational in the country by 2025.

The deal is supposedly still on the table and being negotiated, as both Israel and the US have to approve it in order to move forward.

Nevertheless, the fact that this has reached an advanced stage shows, above all else, that Israel has made itself a leader of the pack in terms of the development of defense systems.

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Where is the State Department outrage at Mahmoud Abbas personally honoring child-murderers?

Times of Israel reports:

US State Department spokesman Ned Price condemned far-right MK Itamar Ben Gvir’s attendance at a memorial event for Meir Kahane on Thursday, in what was the first public rebuke from the Biden administration of the Religious Zionism-Otzma Yehudit lawmaker aiming to become Israel’s next public security minister.

“Celebrating the legacy of a terrorist organization is abhorrent. There is no other word for it. It is abhorrent,” Price said when asked during a press briefing about Ben Gvir’s participation in the memorial event hours earlier. Price was referencing the Kach group that the American-born rabbi founded in 1971 and its offshoot Kahane Chai.

If celebrating the legacy of Meir Kahane is abhorrent, then certainly the State Department would be even more appalled at....Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.

Because by any metric, Abbas has celebrated and praised far worse people than Meir Kahane.

For example, Abbas has repeatedly praised the rabidly antisemitic Nazi collaborator Mufti of Jerusalem.

Apologists might argue that Abbas was not praising the Mufti's antisemitism and the pogroms he organized, but only his leadership of Palestinians. 

But Mahmoud Abbas has personally honored many, many people whose only accomplishments in life have been killing Jews. And not just Jews - Jewish children.

Here is Abbas in a private meeting with Amna Muna, who pretended to be a teenage girl to seduce a 16 year old Israeli boy in a chat room to meet her - and she had him brutally murdered. 

The video of the meeting is still on Abbas' own YouTube channel! He is proud of her - today.

That is not the only child murderer Abbas has honored. In a 2008 visit to Lebanon, Abbas went out of his way to visit and pay homage to one of the most notorious terrorists in Israeli history, Samir Kuntar.

Abbas also planned to honor another child murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, who was behind the Sbarro pizza shop bombing - he changed his mind after Israeli outrage. 

Abbas has honored Maryam Farhat, whose only accomplishment in life was to raise three Hamas terrorist sons, one of whom murdered five students studying in a yeshiva. 

And Abbas eulogized Ahmad Abu Sukkar, saying his life was "a journey of struggle full of exceptional giving and devoted activity for Palestine and for the freedom and honor of our people."

Sukkar murdered 15 people in a Jerusalem bombing in 1975, including an 11-year old boy and girl.

 Of course, Abbas also has personally met with and praised plenty of other famed Palestinian terrorists.

Meir Kahane didn't kill anyone. But Mahmoud Abbas celebrates Palestinians who have directly murdered Jewish men, women - and children.

When will the State Department describe Mahmoud Abbas as "abhorrent"?

(h/t Dovid L)

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Palestinian reporter sneaks antisemitism into @StateDept briefings (@StateDeptSpox)

Said Arikat is the Washington bureau chief for the Palestinian Al Quds newspaper. Every day, he attends the State Department press briefings, and more often than not he asks a question or two.

The questions themselves are often loaded; they are attempts to drive a wedge between the US and Israel, or to put unfounded accusations against Israel on the record. Arikat tries to get the spokesperson to condemn Israel for anything and everything conceivable. Generally, the spokesperson - currently Ned Price - does not take the bait.

Yesterday, however, Arikat sneaked some antisemitism into a follow-up question about the Iran deal:

Last question. Are you concerned with the level and intensity of Israelis rallying opposition to this deal? I mean, this is – this comes out in modes of expression or statements by Senator Cotton, for instance, or Senator Lindsey Graham, or Senator Ted Cruz, and so on. Or are you just fine with that; they do whatever they want?   

His question presupposes the idea that Israel controls many prominent members of the Senate. Furthermore, it assumes that no one would oppose the Iran deal based on their own analysis; the senators are slavishly following the dictates of the Jewish state. 

The "they" in the final phrase is referring to Israel, not the senators - is the US fine with Israel freely controlling much of Congress?

This is not a hard hitting question by a journalist trying to uncover the truth. This is propaganda, an attempt to normalize anti-Israel and antisemitic attitudes in the US. The audience is the other reporters and the people who watch the briefings; Arikat wants them to subconsciously accept the idea that the US has a "Zionist occupied government."  And every day, he is given a platform to do exactly that - a platform provided by the US government itself. 

Ned Price brushed aside the question as if Arikat was asking whether the senators can do whatever they want, not Israel: " I’m going to let lawmakers speak for themselves." This was not the proper response. Arikat's antisemitism should have been called out, immediately and forcefully. 

Because otherwise, it takes root and grows.

(h/t YMedad)

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

 

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