Palestinian zero sum game: "Israeli embassy in Manama is an attack on Palestinians"

One of the consequences of the Arab honor/shame culture is the zero-sum mentality. If one party is honored, then their rival is considered shamed, even if there is nothing in reality  that shames the other party.

This is illustrated by the statement issued today by the PFLP terror group. 

The PFLP announced that "the opening of a headquarters for the Zionist embassy in the Bahraini capital, Manama, represents a state of increasing decline of the Bahraini regime" and hat continued normalization between Israel and Bahrain is "an integral part of the aggression against our people."

Has Bahrain turned anti-Palestinian? I don't see any evidence of it. But to Palestinians, if Israel gains something, then they lose - by definition. 

It is a very childish way of looking at the world but it is accepted as normal, at least for Palestinians and most Arabs. 

A great part of the profound changes happening in the Gulf, and the reason that the Abraham Accords are so important, is that they represent a sea change in the old zero-sum mentality, and towards a win/win culture in the UAE and Bahrain. There is no contradiction between having relations with Israel and supporting Palestinian nationalism, unless you look at everything as zero-sum - or if you view a Palestinian state not as a goal but as a means to destroy Israel. 

The PFLP goes on "warn of the dangers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia embarking on normalization with the Zionist entity, especially since there are channels that have been opened in the sports and media fields, in addition to opening Saudi airspace for the passage of Zionist planes, which paves the way for the possibility of announcing full normalization with this entity. This would represent a major stab wound to the Palestinian cause."

If Israel wins, Palestinians lose - and vice versa. Which partially explains the celebrations and glee that accompany terror attacks that kill Jews. To Palestinians, any dead Jew is a loss for Israel and therefore a gain for Palestinians.

It is a sick mindset. And not enough people are fighting against it. Which is another reason why the Abraham Accords is so important - it introduces a different way of thinking into the Arab world, one that is attractive both because it is more optimistic but also because it is true. 

It is worth mentioning that while the West generally adheres to a win/win mentality, socialists like the PFLP and those in the "progressive" Left indeed do believe in a zero-sum game - that the world has a fixed amount of resources and if the rich gain, the rest of the world inevitably loses. Simplistic and ultimately wrong zero-sum thinking is something that the far Right and far Left have in common.

It cannot be a coincidence that the main fans of zero sum thinking also happen to hate Jews. I don't know whether that is a cause or an effect, probably both, but eradicating the zero sum mentality is perhaps the best  and most comprehensive way to combat antisemitism. 

---

---

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!

 

Read More

Harvard partners with Palestinian university that rewards and supports terrorism

From Harvard University's FXB Center:

The Institute of Community and Public Health (ICPH) at Birzeit University, the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights, and the World Health Organization in the occupied Palestinian territory have launched the Palestine Social Medicine course. This intensive course is part of the activities of the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights, a partnership between ICPH at Birzeit University and the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, United States. The course is supported through Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation funding to WHO occupied Palestinian territory Right to Health programme.

Birzeit University is a center of antisemitic, pro-Jihadist terror.

Last December, it hosted a PFLP march where they exhorted students to "blow up the settler's head!"

Also last year, Birzeit's Hamas group hosted a reception for new students where they celebrated a famous Hamas bombmaker, Yahya Ayyash, who was a graduate of Birzeit U:

This display of Nazi-style salutes, a model of a rocket and of a suicide belt was not in Gaza, but in Birzeit University:

Does it sound like Birzeit is a center of "health and human rights?" Is it appropriate for Harvard to partner with a university that is a center for incitement of violence against Jews?

Actually, maybe it is. Because Harvard's own recent record is one of sacrificing academic integrity for "social justice" causes such as hating Israel.

The entire Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights appears to be far more concerned with bashing Israel than in actually helping promote Palestinian health.

The FXB Center's Health and Human Rights Journal recently dedicated an issue to Palestinian health. The entire thrust of the journal was to call Israel "racist" and "apartheid" and "settler colonialist":

Its studies pre-suppose that Israeli policies are fatally hurting Palestinian health and work. And when biased people look for evidence of their thesis, they can invariably find it - as long as they ignore any counter-evidence.

Similarly, Harvard's School of Public Health offers a course that looks at Palestinian health through the lens of Israeli "settler colonialism" making the initial assumption that health services are drastically impacted by Israeli policies.

Yes, a Harvard University course actually highlights "The Map that Lies" that has been thoroughly debunked and retracted by numerous organizations. 

Yet in real life, Palestinian healthcare - and indeed, Palestinians' general quality of life - is better than that of neighboring Jordan which does not suffer from "settler colonialism" or "Israeli apartheid:"

In fact, it is difficult to find studies that look at and evaluate Palestinian healthcare on its own merits, or that compares it with the rest of the Arab Middle East - something that is basic in studying the healthcare of every nation on the planet.  One rare example that does is this obscure paper, "Experiences of Palestinian patients with hospital services: a mixed-methods study" which employs a standardized survey used throughout the world to evaluate patient experiences in Palestinian hospitals. They aren't great, they aren't terrible, and the study makes recommendations on how to improve them. 

Palestinians themselves blame their governments, not Israel, for healthcare shortfalls. A recent survey says that one third of Palestinians say they do not have enough hospitals, 24% complained of scarcity of supplies, 20% said the lack of skilled medical professionals was the biggest problem, and 10% said it

was the high costs of care or the lack of medical insurance. 

But looking at the real issues is not how Palestinian health is studied in the West. Instead of caring about how to improve Palestinian healthcare, these seminars and courses and studies are all designed to sacrifice Palestinian healthcare on the much more important altar of using every possible social means to demonize Israel. By viewing everything Palestinian through a "settler colonialist apartheid structural racist" lens, actual daily Palestinian healthcare is neglected and ignored. 

Demonizing Israel is a higher "human rights" imperative than improving the lives of Palestinians. 

So perhaps it is appropriate that Harvard, which has already hijacked Palestinian healthcare as  ammunition to be used against Israel, partners with Birzeit University, which glorifies those who use actual ammunition against Israel. 

---

---

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!

 

Read More

Amnesty campaigning on behalf of a despicable terrorist (update)

From Amnesty International:

The Israeli authorities should release Walid Daqqah, a terminally ill Palestinian prisoner, so he can access specialist medical care and spend his remaining time with his family, Amnesty International said today. Walid Daqqah, 62, suffers from chronic lung disease and bone marrow cancer, and the clinic at Israel’s Ayalon Prison is ill-equipped to deal with his conditions. Following his cancer diagnosis last year, the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) denied Walid Daqqah access to a potentially life-saving bone marrow transplant by refusing to transfer him to a civilian hospital.   

Amnesty doesn't even hint at his crime until paragraph 13, and even then downplays it:

Walid Daqqah, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was arrested in March 1986. A year later, a military court convicted him of commanding a group affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which had abducted and killed Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984. He was not convicted of carrying out the murder himself, but of ordering other members of the group to kill Moshe Tamam. 

Amnesty doesn't mention that Tamam was brutally tortured, disfigured, and sexually mutilated  by the terror cell led by Daqqa. 

Why should their readers know about that? The only torture they mention are Daqqa's own false allegations of being tortured by Israel.

When Daqqa was up for parole, the special committee ruled that his medical condition was not reason enough to violate Israeli anti-terror legislation that forbids early release for prisoners convicted of terrorist acts.

Amnesty didn't mention that either.

It does everything it can to humanize a disgusting murderer while demonizing the country that is attempting to carry out justice for his victim. Any information that shows what a monster Daqqa is, or why his parole was denied, is simply not to be reported.

Not coincidentally, as Daqqa is a member of the PFLP,  the PFLP and its associated NGOs have been heavily campaigning to free Daqqa, and Amnesty is quite friendly with many PFLP officials in other "human rights" NGOs. 

There is one delicious irony here, though. Daqqa was supposed to be released earlier this year, but two years were added onto his sentence because he smuggled cell phones into prison. 

Which means that the likelihood of his dying in prison is his own damn fault. 

UPDATE (4/9/24): The mutilation accusation seems to be a rumor.

---

---

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!

 

Read More

Terrorist reactions to house demolitions indicate that the policy might be effective in discouraging attacks

This morning, the IDF demolished the home of the Hamas terrorist who killed  brothers Hallel Yaniv, 21, and Yagel Yaniv, 19, as they drove through Huwara in February.

I always wondered whether this policy actually deterred some terror attacks. Reading between the lines of the angry reactions from major terror groups, it appears that they may indeed act as a deterrent for at least some attacks.

Islamic Jihad issued a statement saying  "the demolition of the house of the martyr Abd al-Fattah Kharousha in Nablus will not weaken the resolve of the resistance fighters, but rather they will increase their determination and adherence to resistance and jihad....the crime of demolishing houses will not achieve the deterrence goals that the enemy army is looking for."

That is a lot of words to protest a policy that they claim is ineffective.

Similarly, the PFLP said, "The policy of demolishing the homes of the martyrs will only increase our people's determination to continue the path of freedom and dignity that was paved with the blood of our martyrs, the sacrifices of our families, and the struggles of our people with all its components."

Hamas said, "Our people and their factions will remain a support for our steadfast people who are targeted by the enemy by demolishing their homes and property. This struggling people will continue to unite with the heart of one man in the face of the occupier, until our rights are fully recovered, no matter how long it takes and no matter how much they sacrifice." It also said that this was "a Zionist policy of impotence, which proved its failure to quell the resistance and affect the morale of the fighters."

If the home demolition policy only encourages more terror, and these groups want to recruit more members, then why are they so insistent on how the policy is ineffective? These statements appear to be more a message to Israel to stop the demolitions and to their own people not to be deterred from attacking Jews because of the knowledge that their families will lose their homes.

Israeli authorities know far more. They interview the actual terrorists and know whether some of them say that the demolition policy affects their fellow terror group members. Almost certainly these interviews are what prompts Israel's High Court to continue to allow that policy, as the objective of discouraging terror attacks is a higher priority than the issue of collective punishment that is the usual argument by NGOs against the policy. 

This is indirect proof, of course, but the strident reactions to the destruction of Abd al-Fattah Kharousha's home in Nablus seem to indicate that the policy does indeed cause some militants to think twice before attacking, and the leaders of the terror groups are trying to quash that reluctance.

---

---

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!

 

Read More

From the Left to the Right, Palestinian groups unanimously support murdering Jews

Last Sunday, Palestinian groups met in Cairo in yet another quixotic attempt at unification.

There were no agreements, but the groups announced that they will form a committee to further look at the matter.

Now, one of the attendees, Omar Murad of the PFLP, was interviewed by Ultrapal, where he criticized Mahmoud Abbas for insisting that he does not support "armed resistance" and that the Palestinians must adhere to international law, only supporting non-violent resistance.

Murad then said that the PFLP  met with the Hamas movement and all the other factions attending the meeting, including Abbas;' own Fatah movement, and that all those groups agreed on 90% of their positions, meaning support for terrorism. 

Only Abbas himself is against an official return to terror. 

The PFLP official complained,  "The president, with this age and this experience, believes that he is more knowledgeable than us, and is more zealous for the Palestinian interest than we are. We respect his age, but we have our positions and decisions."

That assertion of 90% agreement is remarkable. The PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist group that has little in common politically with the Islamist Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups that attended. They have completely different concepts of what a Palestinian state would look like. The only thing they have in common is the desire to destroy the Jewish state. 

Yet that hate is enough for them to collude and cooperate in their terror activities. 

As we see partisanship tear apart nations around the world, and those on the political Left and Right hardening their positions to the detriment of their own countries, the Palestinian factions have struck upon a formula to ensure virtual consensus across all political philosophies: the burning desire to murder 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!

 

Read More

Palestinian leaders *want* Gaza to be an open-air prison

JNS reports:

Residents of the Gaza Strip may soon be able to fly to Turkey via Israel’s Ramon Airport near Eilat.

The pilot program could start as early as July when two flights are anticipated, Channel 12 reported. The final decision is subject to approval by the security and political echelons.

Gaza sources say the flights will be available to residents ages 35 and older. They will be shuttled to the airport from the Erez crossing to the northern Gaza Strip.

At present, Gazans travel via the Erez crossing by land to Jordan and fly abroad from there.

The announcement follows a similar one from the Israel Airports Authority in August 2022 that Palestinians from Judea and Samaria would be able to take charter flights from Ramon Airport to Turkey.

The first flight from the airport with Palestinian Arabs on board departed on August 22. Its destination was not Turkey but rather Cyprus.

While the announcement is not official, Palestinian travel agencies are already advertising the trips.

Right now, for Gazans to travel anywhere, they need to get permission to enter Egypt, which is difficult to get to begin with, and then travel by bus directly to Cairo's airport - a six hour trip - and then wait hours more for their flights.

The trip from the Gaza crossings to Ramon is about three hours.

The Palestinian Authority announced that it opposes this and will do whatever it can to block Palestinians from traveling to Ramon Airport, saying that this will hurt relations with Jordan and Egypt, which would lose out on revenues from Palestinians traveling through those countries to get to Amman and Cairo, respectively. 

The leftist terror groups Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which are closely linked with many "human rights" NGOs, issued  condemnations for allowing Gazans to fly to Turkey through Ramon Airport. 

Their reasons are a perfect example of the blind hatred that Palestinian leaders have for Israel - so much so that they are eager to make their own people miserable for nebulous political gain.

They called on Palestinians to boycott Ramon airport, saying that Israel is using this as a means to reduce terror from Gaza.

PFLP political analyst Zulfiqar Swergo said in an interview with Al-Hadaf News Portal, "This step is meant to 'neutralize' the Gaza Strip through offering political bribes to [Hamas]  in order to ensure calm and not create a state of inconvenience to the occupying state."

He continued, "The Gaza government must carefully consider the strategic interests of the Palestinian people, and not forget that it is a government of resistance, and that this step will harm the idea of ​​resistance that our people are now strongly adopting in the West Bank, and it must be aware that the 'neutralization' of the Gaza Strip It is a major blow to the escalation of resistance in the West Bank."

That's the logic.  Terror is the top priority of the Palestinian people, and anything that makes their lives easier and reduces their continuous anger towards Jews is something that must be fought.

To the PFLP, it is better for Gaza to be what their NGO partners call an "open air prison" than to give travel options for residents of Gaza.

The DFLP had a different objection: using the Ramon Airport helps Israel economically, so therefore it must be boycotted, even if it costs Palestinians far more time and money. 

DFLP political analyst Mahmoud Mardawi complained that “there is an economic goal for the occupation behind this matter, especially since none of the Zionists went to use Ramon Airport when it opened."

He warned about "the political motives and the affirmation of the apartheid policy that the occupation practices day and night against our people" and called for all Palestinian institutions to "thwart this racist project."

So Israel helping Palestinians travel is an apartheid, racist project. 

Cutting through the doubletalk, it is clear that the Palestinian leaders want Palestinians to suffer for their own political gain - they cannot recruit more terrorists from people who aren't angry. 

---

---

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!

 

Read More

Arabic language media deliberately hiding the truth of the PFLP-GC "work accident" that killed 5

This morning, there was a large explosion in a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command location in the Bekaa region in southern Lebanon, near the Syrian border.

The PFLP-GC immediately issued a press release saying that this was an IDF airstrike.

Arabic-language media spread the word about the Israeli aggreesion.

Since then, two things happened:

- The IDF denied doing any activity in Lebanon at all.

- Multiple Lebanese security sources reported what did happen:

Five fighters from a pro-Syrian Palestinian militant group were killed in an accidental explosion at a base in eastern Lebanon, a Lebanese security source said Wednesday.

"An old rocket exploded in an arms depot on the base and five fighters were killed," the security source said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

In Beirut, a Lebanese military official said the explosion was the result of a blast within the base, adding that there was no airstrike. An official with a regional group allied with the Syrian government, said the explosion was the result of a “human error” that occurred when militants were handling ammunition. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

Yet looking at the last several hours of Arabic media reporting on the explosion and its aftermath, the Israeli denial is barely mentioned on a couple of Western-oriented Arabic sites, and the report about an old missile explosion has been ignored completely.

This is even after wire services like AFP reported on the rocket explosion. 

This is not government-level censorship. This is an unofficial policy for Arabic media to censor facts that do not fit the narrative or that can cause unease among some of their readership. 

If they even published it as a competing set of claims, as The National (UAE) did in English, any thinking person would see that the PFLP-GC is lying and Israel's denial is truthful - and that means that Arabs are less trustworthy than Jews, which contradicts the mega-narrative of Jews being dishonest and Arabs being honorable and trustworthy. 

---

---

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!

 

Read More