Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Palestinians

Showing posts with label Palestinians. Show all posts

Friday, November 17, 2023

Poll shows yet again: Palestinians across the board overwhelmingly support the most heinous terror attacks

In October, I predicted "If polls come out about the Simchat Torah massacre, the results (from Palestinians) will almost certainly be overwhelmingly in support. 84% supported the Mercaz Harav massacre in 2008, 77% a 2008 suicide attack that killed a woman in Dimona, 80% supported the wave of stabbing attacks in 2014 including the murder of four rabbis in Har Nof."

I was right.

A new poll from AWRAD, Arab World for Research and Development, shows that the vast majority of Palestinians support the October 7 pogrom. 75% of all Palestinians supported the massacre while only 12.7% opposed it.

The Gazans polled were generally in temporary housing in southern Gaza, and "only" 63% supported the murder and raping spree. But in the "moderate" West Bank, an astonishing 83% supported the massacre.

This poll was taken after the details were publicized, after the videos were shared, after everyone know the death toll. That didn't dampen their enthusiasm for the attack - it may have increased it.

Palestinian women are just about as bloodthirsty as the men are with their enthusiasm for murdering Jews well within the margin of error for the poll.

When asked about their preference between a one-state solution for Jews and Arabs, a two state solution for two peoples, or a single Arab Palestinian state from the river to the sea, things were just as lopsided. 75% want to see a Judenrein Arab Palestinian state from the river to the sea - the question used those exact words. All the apologists for the term who claim it means a single state with equal rights are gaslighting everyone: only 5.4% of Palestinians support their utopian dream.

And the attack made Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades terror wing the most popular entity in the territories, with nearly 89% of all Palestinians feeling positive about that group, higher than every other political party, terror group or country.

The poll is crystal clear and cannot be spun: Palestinians overwhelmingly support the most heinous terrorism against Jews. Palestinians want to rid the Middle East of Jews.

As I've been emphasizing, the obstacle to peace isn't Israel. It is Palestinian Jew-hatred, hatred that predates the "occupation" and "siege" and "nakba." Unless there is a new Palestinian leadership and a generation of Palestinians who grow up learning about coexistence and tolerance, there is no chance for peace.

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Final BRICS statement shows how little the Palestinian issue matters even to their allies

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency reports:

The President of the Palestinian National Council, Ruhi Fattouh, welcomed today, Thursday, the final statement of the fifteenth BRICS summit, which was held in the Republic of South Africa.

Fattouh said that this position is a victory for the justice of the Palestinian cause, and an expression of standing with the Palestinian people in their defense of their legitimate national rights, condemnation and rejection of the fascist occupation and its criminal practices in the occupied territories, the orgy and crimes of settlers against Palestinian civilians, and their continuous violations.

The actual BRICS declaration issued at the end of this week's summit has 94 paragraphs. Only one paragraph is about the Middle East, and the Palestinian issue is not even in the top three issues it addresses:

17. We welcome the positive developments in the Middle East and the efforts by BRICS countries to support development, security and stability in the region. In this regard, we endorse the Joint Statement by the BRICS Deputy Foreign Ministers and Special Envoys for the Middle East and North Africa at their meeting of 26 April 2023. We welcome the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran and emphasize that deescalating tensions and managing differences through dialogue and diplomacy is key to peaceful coexistence in this strategically important region of the world. We reaffirm our support for Yemen’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity, and commend the positive role of all the parties involved in bringing about a ceasefire and seeking a political solution to end the conflict. We call on all parties to engage in inclusive direct negotiations and to support the provision of humanitarian, relief and development assistance to the Yemeni people. We support all efforts conducive to a political and negotiated solution that respects Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity and the promotion of a lasting settlement to the Syrian crisis. We welcome the readmission of the Syrian Arab Republic to the League of Arab States. We express our deep concern at the dire humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories due to escalating violence under continued Israeli occupation and the expansion of illegal settlements. We call on the international community to support direct negotiations based on international law including relevant UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative, towards a two-state solution, leading to the establishment of a sovereign, independent and viable State of Palestine. We commend the extensive work carried out by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and call for greater international support for UNRWA activities to alleviate the humanitarian situation of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian situation is barely a footnote. Haiti gets its own paragraph.

This is a far cry from how things were ten years ago, when the Palestinian issue was consistently put forward in every non-aligned venue as being the pre-requisite to Middle Eastern peace and stability.

The Joint Statement by the BRICS Deputy Foreign Ministers and Special Envoys for the Middle East and North Africa referred to in the declaration had a more expansive section on the Palestinian issue, but it is remarkably even-handed:

8. They expressed their deep concern at the deteriorating situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as a result of continued occupation and the expansion of settlements. They noted with concern that there is neither a proposal being currently discussed for a permanent solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict nor any perspective of resuming negotiations in the foreseeable future. They shared the view that the mere “management of the conflict” does not constitute an acceptable way forward towards peace and stability in the Middle East. They also acknowledged with great regret the current escalation of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, which underscores the pressing need to advance towards a politically just and lasting solution for the conflict. They stressed that the question of Palestine must be resolved through direct negotiations based on International Law. They reaffirmed the position that the two-state solution achieved through such direct negotiations without preconditions remains the internationally recognized basis for the peaceful resolution to the conflict. They reiterated their support for the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate rights including but not limited to their right to self-determination. They reaffirmed their call for greater solidarity among all parties of Palestine to achieve internal reconciliation. They encouraged Palestine and Israel to resume peace talks based on a negotiated two-state solution. They called on the international community to intensify its efforts in support of UN-led effort with a view to achieving a comprehensive, lasting and just settlement that allows Israel and Palestine to live side by side in peace, security and stability while recognising the legitimate security needs of Israel and Palestine. They stressed that efforts should be made to leverage respective strengths, actively promote peace talks, and to help Palestine develop its economy, ease its humanitarian situation, and improve its people’s welfare. They commended the extensive work carried out by UNRWA to alleviate the humanitarian situation of the Palestinian people. They reiterated the call for the international community to provide developmental assistance to support UNRWA activities to increase its reach amongst the Palestinian community.

There is not a word here that could not have been expressed by the US State Department:

Almost certainly the Palestinians - who want to join BRICS - lobbied for a much stronger anti-Israel statement, using the language of :"apartheid" and "racism." That verbiage is now common in the UN. Yet even in venues where the US and Western democracies are absent, BRICS is almost completely in alignment with the West in their stated position towards the conflict.

The Palestinians might be publicly calling this a victory, but these statements are not at all what they wanted to see.

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A surprising number of Arab youth in the UAE, Egypt and even Algeria(!) support normalization with Israel

From reading the media, the impression one gets is that while Arab governments are considering the benefits of closer relations with Israel, the populations are completely against it.

It turns out that this is not exactly true.

The 2023 Arab Youth Survey mentions that nearly 17% of Gulf citizens and 11% of North African youth now see Israel as a strong ally or somewhat of an ally of their country, and notes that "these modest approval ratings would have been unthinkable several years ago."

The most surprising results come from when Arab youth were asked how strongly they support their government's normalizing relations with Israel.

Among the Abraham Accords countries, there was strong support from the UAE youth, with 75% supporting normalization. For Morocco it was 50%, while it was only 30% in Bahrain and a mere 3% in Sudan.

More interesting were the results from other Arab countries.

An incredible 73% of Egyptian youth support normalization with Israel, which is a complete surprise for anyone who monitors Egyptian media that is virtually unanimous in opposing Israel.

47% of South Sudan youth want to see normalization, along with 39% of youth in Oman.

Even more astonishing is the attitudes of youth in other Arab countries.

Fully 31% of Algerian youth support normalization, at a time when its media is among the most antisemitic - and hugely against Morocco's relations with Israel.

Also surprising is that 19% of Syrian youth want to see normalization with Israel - and in Yemen, 19% strongly support such normalization.

These are numbers that simply would be inconceivable in years past.

Yet in Jordan, which is benefitting from ties to Israel in deals to provide the kingdom with much-needed water and natural gas, only 6% of youth want to see normalization with Israel.

And 100% of Palestinian youth never want to see normalized relations with Israel.

The survey includes this eye-opening graphic:

With the notable exception of Egypt, the countries that are the most antisemitic tend to also be the countries whose youth most reject ties with Israel.

The media has once again dropped the ball on reporting from the Arab world. There are real consequences and policy decisions that can be made based on these results, but the people whose jobs are to analyze these sorts of trends are clueless and instead parrot what "everyone knows."

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"Palestine" ranks better than most countries in "multidimensional poverty" and "human development index"

The UN Human Development Reports of the UN Development Program defines a "Multidimensional Poverty Index" (MPI.)

The MPI looks beyond income to understand how people experience poverty in multiple and simultaneous ways. It identifies how people are being left behind across three key dimensions: health, education and standard of living, comprising 10 indicators. People who experience deprivation in at least one third of these weighted indicators fall into the category of multidimensionally poor.

The MPI score is based on these metrics:

How do Palestinians do?

Pretty good, actually.

While Western nations are not listed in this chart, the Palestinians are shown to be in far better shape than over 100 countries that are listed. I call out some of them.

Anti-Israel activists like to pretend that Palestinians have "no choice" but to turn to terror, and one of the reasons they like to trot out is how impoverished they are.

If that was the case, then why are we not seeing the same support for terror in the 100 countries who have a higher poverty score than they do?

Until COVID, Palestinians had also been steadily getting better scores every year in UNDP's Human Development Index, but even after a brief setback they are ranked "high" in various metrics.

Israel haters hate context like this. Because by any metric, Palestinians aren't in nearly as bad shape as people in over a hundred countries - but Palestinians get far more aid per capita than every single one of them.

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About that poll saying Democrats favor Palestinians over Israelis - it doesn't.

Israel haters are absolutely gloating over a recent Gallup poll. As NBC reports:

More Democrats have sympathy for Palestinians than for Israelis amid their ongoing conflict, according to recent polling from Gallup. The shift marks the first time since Gallup began collecting this data in 2001 that members of either party have been more sympathetic to the Palestinians.

The survey finds 49% of Democrats saying they're more sympathetic to Palestinians, while 38% say they’re more sympathetic to the Israelis.

Now, it is true that this is the first time that the question garnered more sympathy for Palestinian than for Israelis. But there is another part of the poll that, for some reason, the Israel haters and mainstream media are ignoring.

The poll had one other question: "I’d like your overall opinion of some foreign countries. What is your overall opinion of [country]? Is it very favorable, mostly favorable, mostly unfavorable or very unfavorable?"

For that question, 56% of Democrats answered that their opinion of Israel was favorable, while only 36% felt favorably towards the Palestinian entity.

In fact, the "favorable" question has shown a large preference for Israel that has been fairly consistent of more that 40 percentage points over time.

And while the media loves to make it sound like Democratic support for Israel is at an all-time low, it isn't so - they gave worse ratings in 2004 and 2010, for example.

To be sure, the Democratic support for Israel among the young has been flagging. There is reason for concern, as the anti-Israel players have the media and academia solidly on their side. But more Americans, including Democrats, feel warmly towards Israel and far fewer feel that way towards the Palestinian Authority even now.

There's another problem with the "sympathy" question. It reflects an either/or mentality, and there are good reasons to sympathize with Palestinians - I myself do. They are led by corrupt leaders and intimidated by their own terror groups, their leaders are against any serious peace deal, kids are taught in schools that their highest aspiration is to die as martyrs - there are very good reasons to sympathize with Palestinians. And if forced to choose between two sides for sympathy, Palestinians are in much worse shape than Israelis are.

The proper response should be that the question is flawed. It assumes a zero-sum game - that you can only pick one side for sympathy, that there is a winner and loser.

That is false.

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Arab people still overwhelmingly oppose recognizing Israel, but there is a silver lining

The Arab Opinion Index for 2022 has been released by the Doha Institute, and it shows that Arabs in the countries surveyed overwhelmingly oppose their countries recognizing Israel:

Moroccans were the least opposed, but that is only 20% of those surveyed.

Unfortunately, Bahrain and the UAE were not part of this survey.

One other question where Israel is a prominent component was more interesting.

When asked which world country is the biggest threat to their home countries, Israel received over 50% from only two set of nationals: Palestinians and Lebanese.

The other answers are fascinating:

In 2014, Israel's and the US' scores were much higher as to being considered a threat:

Look how Saudi Arabia's score for Israel plummeted from 40% to only 3% thinking Israel is their biggest enemy. Iraq's score also dropped a huge amount, from 42% to 7%, Libya's from 44% to 7%, Tunisia from 42% to 9%.

I would say that while the diplomatic recognition question reflects sky-high Arab antisemitism, the "threat" question is more reflective of whether the respondents believe the anti-Israel conspiracy theories claiming that Israel wants to take over the entire region, as well as a more sophisticated understanding of how Arab states relate to each other and to other nations.

At any rate, far fewer Arabs look at Israel as their main enemy than eight years ago. That is a very big deal. It means that the opportunities are opening at least for the possibility of dialogue and to discuss common interests, something impossible with a perceived enemy.

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The Israeli Civil Administration in the territories is often biased - against Jews

Bulldozers demolishing Jewish vineyard with illegally built mosque nearby, untouched

Here's a story that you won't ever see in the media.

From a press release by Regavim (received via email):

This morning, the Civil Administration uprooted a Jewish vineyard near Yitzhar, only 300 meters away from an illegal mosque for which demolition orders were issued 15 years ago.

The Civil Administration – under the auspices of the Ministry of Defense - uprooted a vineyard near the Yitzhar community this morning, following a petition submitted by Palestinian Arabs to Israel’s High Court of Justice. Despite the fact that no Arab ownership of the land on which the vineyard was planted, some four years ago, has ever been proven, the Jewish owners of the vineyard received a “Disruptive Land-Use Order.” This unique military order allows removal of agriculture, even when no conflicting claim of ownership is submitted or proven – and is used by the Civil Administration exclusively against Jews.

Only 300 meters away from the uprooted orchard, in Area C on the outskirts of the nearby Arab town Burin, stands an illegal mosque for which the Civil Administration issued a demolition order over 15 years ago. The Regavim Movement appealed to the High Court of Justice to force the Civil Administration to enforce the demolition order, and the government gave its solemn commitment to uphold the law – but the illegal mosque stands, undisturbed, to this very day - and dozens of additional illegal structures have been built around it in the interim.

Regavim’s spokesperson called upon Minister Betzalel Smotrich to tackle this absurdity on his very first full day in office: “The Disruptive Land-Use Order is a draconian measure that has been applied in a wildly discriminatory fashion, and should be struck down without delay. This was the conclusion reached years ago by the Special Commission headed by Justice Edmond Levy, and we call upon Minister Smotrich to take this long-overdue step.”

Moshe Shmueli, Regavim’s Field Coordinator for Judea and Samaria, added: “For 15 years, the Civil Administration has failed to enforce the law against nearby illegal Palestinian construction – despite its commitment to the High Court of Justice. On the other hand, it has taken swift, even brutal enforcement action and uprooted a Jewish vineyard, costing the owners hundreds of thousands of shekels in losses. The rule of law must be equal, or it cannot be called the rule of law. This morning’s demolition is one more example of how far off track the Civil Administration has strayed.”

Arabs will take over whatever non-claimed land they can find in Area C, often with EU support. But often when Jews try to do the exact same thing, the Israeli Civil Administration steps in.

Regavim is not an anti-Arab organization. They just want the laws to be applied equally.

Interestingly, Regavim has a decent chance to be heard in the new government - because its founder was Betzalel Smotrich. (h/t YMedad)

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Jordan bans Palestinian olive oil, even from Palestinian visitors

Jordan has banned Palestinian visitors from bringing any olive oil into the kingdom - even a token bottle as a gift.

The Jordanian crossings officials informed the Palestinian General Administration of Borders and Crossings that as of Tuesday of this week, Palestinians cannot bring any olive oil through the Allenby Bridge crossing to Jordan, even small quantities.

Jordan already bans Palestinian olive oil imports.

Jordan and the Palestinian Authority regularly come out with statements about how Jordan supports the Palestinian cause, but when you look a little beyond the sound bites, Jordan acts like every other country - it puts its own interests first. But you will not find "pro-Palestinian" activists attack Jordan for acting in its own self-interests.

Even when they happen to be humiliating for Palestinians.

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The difference between a "Palestinian" and an "Arab Palestinian" - according to the PLO

The 1968 Palestinian National Covenant (Charter) has an interesting paragraph:

Article 6:
The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.

The Palestine Ministry of Information notes that the year of the "Zionist invasion" is considered to be 1917. It does not appear that they are including descendants of those Jews, so the issue is moot, but it points to something interesting in official Palestinian language.

This is one of the few uses of the word "Palestinians" in the document. Most of it refers to "Palestinian Arabs." So, for example:

Article 3:
The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and have the right to determine their destiny after achieving the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will.

If the only people that have the legal right to the land are Arabs, then the Jews - even those they call "Palestinians," who had been there continuously for thousands of years - do not.

In other words, the Charter gives legal rights to Arabs that it withholds from non-Arabs.

Isn't that apartheid?

This is besides the explicit antisemitism in the charter itself - which has never been revoked - that denied the existence of the Jewish people to begin with. "Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong."

Now look at the 2003 Palestinian constitution. There, they refer repeatedly to the Arab Palestinian people. The first paragraph of the preamble says:

The continuous attachment of the Arab Palestinian people to the land of their fathers and forefathers, on which this people has historically lived, is a fact that has been expressed in the Declaration of Independence, issued by the Palestine National Council. The strength of this attachment is confirmed by its consistency over time and place, by keeping faith with and holding onto national identity, and in the realization of wondrous accomplishments of struggle. The organic relationship between the Palestinian people, their history and their land has confirmed itself in their unceasing effort to prompt the world to recognize the rights of the Arab Palestinian people and their national entity, on equal footing with other nations.

Why the need to emphasize "Arab Palestinian people"? By 2003 (and unlike 1968), the term "Palestinian" was well known.

It appears that the term is used specifically to exclude Jews from calling themselves "Palestinian."

The Palestinian Arabs are well aware that the term "Palestinian" usually referred to Jews before 1948. They want not only to make sure that they are the only "Palestinians" with rights to the land but to ensure that they assert that Jews have no historic or legal rights to the land.

That explains why they call themselves "Palestinian Arabs" or "Arab Palestinians."

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Palestinians funding illegal settlements -- in Kurdistan

You know how Palestinians say that occupation and settlements are the worst human rights abuses in world history?

It appears that they mean "only if done by Jews."

From Kurdistan 24:

A delegation of Kurds from Afrin visited the Palestinian Consul in Erbil, Nazmi Hazouri, and handed over a letter of protest of a Palestinian foundation building housing units for displaced Syrians in Afrin.

Levant 24 reported that the Palestinian organization Wafaa al-Mohsenin Charitable Foundation delivered 34 housing units to displaced Syrian Arabs in Jindires, in Afrin.

The organization says the project is funded by “the donation of the people of Al-Zaeem village in the city of Jerusalem”

Turkish-backed factions have occupied Afrin since March 2018, when the Turkish Army launched a cross-border offensive against the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

Kurds used to make up 96 percent of Afrin's population, but now represent only 25 percent after 2018, over two dozen organizations said in a letter last year.

In a letter, handed over to the Palestinian Consul, the delegation complained over the fact that the demography of Afrin have been changed since 2018, and the orignal people of Afrin have been replaced by Arabs and Turkmens, with the aim of Arabizing the region.

Also two years ago, there were reports that said a Palestinian NGO called “Association for Living with Dignity for the 48 Palestinians” funded Turkish NGO Beyaz Eller to construct a mosque in the Tal Tawil village in Afrin.

In a report released on 6 May 2021, the Syria Justice and Accountability Center, focuses on the role of "Kuwait and other regional governments in financing Turkish-led reconstruction efforts on land in Afrin belonging to displaced Kurdish populations."

The Syria Justice and Accountability Center said the "foreign-funded housing projects are desperately needed to meet the humanitarian needs of IDPS currently residing in the area."

But it noted that the "the manner of their implementation means that they are also contributing to processes of demographic change that many have seen as the explicit intent of Turkey and its proxies."

"By funding the construction of settlements that hinder the return of the original residents displaced by Turkish-backed forces, foreign donors may be complicit in the forced transfer of populations – a crime against humanity under international criminal law," the report concluded.

Yes, Palestinians are helping to build illegal settlements on occupied territory.

(h/t Tomer Ilan)

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The UN doesn't care when Palestinians are killed by Palestinian rockets

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the territories, OCHA-OPT, issues biweekly reports on civilian casualties and other issues.

After Operation Breaking Dawn, it summarized:

During the escalation, 49 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip, of whom at least 22 were civilians, including 17 children and four women, according to OHCHR.

The report implies that all the Palestinians were killed by Israel, but in its statistics section showing the cumulative casualties during the year (there were no deaths in Gaza before August) it adds a footnote:

The report itself says nothing about Palestinian rockets that fell short; you need to read between the lines of the statistics to find out that the UN was still investigating how these 13 - or, if you do the math of 49-35, 14 - were killed.

So what happened to this footnote in the latest bulletin?

It disappeared, yet the number of those killed in Gaza - 35 - remained the same.

This means that between August 15 and August 29, the UN determined with certainty that 14 Palestinians - including many children - were killed by Gaza rockets.

But they never reported that fact.

Even though their entire purpose is to protect civilians, when Gaza civilians are killed by Palestinian militants, they go out of their way to not report it - and instead, their report text still implies that Israel killed them.

This isn't a mistake or an oversight. The UN consciously counted the casualties, determined that 14 were killed by Islamic Jihad and their allies, and chose not to report those civilian deaths instead of reporting to the world that Gaza terrorists kill their own people.

Sometimes, the bias can be seen in the details. And once you see it here, there is no other way to interpret the text of these two reports outside of a desire to maximize blame to Israel and minimize it for Islamic Jihad.

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Protestors shut down Gaza UNRWA headquarters

This morning, angry protesters burned tires at the entrance of UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City, upset at the lack of compensation for the 2014 Gaza war.

As of this writing, no Western media has even mentioned this. The main UN agency that provides aid to Palestinians is shut down by Palestinians themselves, potentially affecting tens of thousands, but it doesn't fit the narrative so it doesn't get covered.

The last such protest in Gaza was in April. But other protests against UNRWA happen often, especially in Lebanon. And they are equally underrerported.

Notice the amount of security that UNRWA uses in Gaza. Heavy metal gates, with spikes on top, and barbed wire atop that.

This is to protect UNRWA from the people it serves!

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Opposition to Ramon Airport plan proves the hypocrisy of "pro-Palestinian" groups

Here's yet another way to know that the biggest self-described supporters of Palestinians really don't give a damn about them.

As we've been reporting, Israel is setting up a plan for Palestinians to be able to travel through Ramon Airport in the southern Negev.

This will make it easier for most Palestinians to travel internationally.

Assuming that the passengers are vetted for security, no one should oppose this. Human rights advocates should be celebrating. For years, they have been complaining about Palestinian "freedom of movement" - and here, Palestinians are about to be given an easier, heaper and more convenient option to escape their supposed prison.

Yet not one of the groups that claim to support Palestinians are happy. And because this makes no sense whatsoever, each one is making up their own reasons to oppose it (or to ignore it altogether.)

The Palestinian Authority is against the plan, threatening any Palestinian who takes advantage of Ramon Airport. Their stated reason? Because they insist they should have their own airports. Apparently, their people must suffer because they want something that is not going to happen in the foreseeable future. (And for some reason, traveling through Jordan or Egypt to get to airports is fine, but traveling though Israel is a crime.)

The head of the Palestinian transportation ministry added that they feared that Palestinian criminals would be able to escape justice through Israel. That reason makes as little sense as the other one.

And the head of Human Rights Watch used an unfounded - and clearly false - rumor as an excuse for his opposition to the plan. Which shows that HRW doesn't care about Palestinian rights - instead, they subscribe to the old Arab idea that anything that benefits Israel in any way must be inherently bad.

Jordanians are also decrying the plan - and they are pretending that they are opposing it for the Palestinians' own good. A group called the National Forum to Support the Resistance and Protect the Homeland urged Palestinians to boycott Ramon Airport - because using it would be considered "normalization" with Israel!

They went on to say:

The National Forum affirms the popular position that normalization is treason that constitutes the greatest service for the Zionist entity to market itself as providing humanitarian facilities by facilitating movement and travel for Palestinians who suffer the scourge of the continuous Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people and their sanctities. ...The occupation wants to cover up its crimes and whitewash its ugly image in front of the world...

Their twisted logic says that Israel only wants to treat Palestinians nicely in order to cover up the fact that Israel treats Palestinians poorly.

The real reason that Jordanians oppose the idea is because right now they have a captive customer base where West Bank Palestinians have no choice but to go through Jordan, which helps Jordan's economy - especially when they are forced to pay "VIP" fees to try to reduce their interminable wait times at the border crossing to Israel. They want to retain their right to treat Palestinians like dirt, and Palestinians know that the Israeli side of the crossing treats them far better than the Jordanian side does.

Closer to the truth is what a PA official said in July: “Israel failed to the turn Ramon Airport into an international terminal. Now, the Israelis are offering us something that didn’t work for them."

Yes, this would benefit Israel. But it would also benefit Palestinians. Why cut off your nose to spite your face?

What about B'Tselem, which has lots of articles on Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement? Shouldn't they support this plan?

They haven't said a word.

What about Gisha, an Israeli NGO whose entire goal is to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians? Surely they must have written something positive about a plan that helps Palestinians travel internationally?

Actually, not only has Gisha ignored this story - they also said nothing about the huge delays at the Jordanian crossings that make travel for Palestinians a giant hassle. Not on their website, not on their Facebook page, and not on Twitter, as far as I can tell.

Palestinians can choose to use Ramon Airport if they want. They can choose to continue to use Jordan's airport if they want. This plan does not and cannot hurt a single Palestinian, and it has potential to help thousands of them save hours of time and hundreds of dollars. There is no rational reason to oppose it - if one really cares about Palestinians.

Which is the entire point.

People and organizations who swear that they support Palestinians really don't. The multiple and disparate reasons they give to oppose making Palestinian lives easier is proof that they have no good reason to oppose this plan.

The only consistent thread through this negative reaction, or non-reaction, to a plan that can only benefit Palestinians is that these groups aren't "pro-Palestinian." They are anti-Israel. And anything that benefits Israel in any way is to be strenuously opposed.

And indeed these groups oppose anything Israel does that helps Palestinians. They have built their quasi-governments and organizations on the falsehood that Israel is unparalleled evil. When Israel does anything to help Palestinians, this threatens their entire business model. Their funders don't want to read reports about how Palestinian lives have improved due to Israeli decisions. These organizations' existence is based on churning out papers and reports and articles and interviews that will be eagerly read and paid for by modern antisemites.

Ramon Airport is proof positive of the hypocrisy of so-called "pro-Palestinian" groups.

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