Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Saeb Erekat

Showing posts with label Saeb Erekat. Show all posts

Monday, April 10, 2017

Erekat claims Coptic church bombings aimed at Palestinian cause

There is no news story that Palestinians don't try to twist to be about them.

Saeb Erekat, the secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said that the bombings that targeted churches in the cities of Alexandria, Tanta were "terrible crimes."

Then he said that they were aimed at Egypt and Egypt's principles, including Egypt's support of Palestinians.

This is especially ironic since Palestinian officials, including Erekat, routinely claim that terror attacks like these wouldn't happen if it wasn't for "occupation" and other Israeli policies. In other words, usually they claim that IS terror attacks are in support of Palestinians, albeit misguided; but when it is in their interest they will claim that IS attacks are actually against Palestinians.

The ironies multiply because Erekat has also justified unprovoked attacks on civilians as "self-defense." Furthermore, he has said that the PLO will never consider Hamas, well known for its own bombing attacks against civilians, to be a terrorist organization.

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Erekat tries to co-opt the phrase "draining the swamp" to apply to Israel

You've got to hand it to him, his propaganda ability approaches that of Goebbels.

From Fateh News:

Erekat: Draining the swamp of occupation is the key to stability and security in the region

Secretary of the Executive Committee of the PLO, Saeb Erekat, stressed that to drain the swamp of the Israeli occupation is the key to stability, security and guarantee to defeat terrorism in the region.

This came during a political forum, held on Sunday evening in Jericho, on the importance of the history of the Palestinian revolution from historical, political and militant perspectives to get to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, as part of the celebrations of the fifty-second anniversary of the start of the Palestinian revolution and the Fatah movement.

Erekat stressed that the Palestinian national struggle was launched based on a set of rights and national principles seeking to achieve national self-determination and that the Palestine culture and civilization is a bridge that enhances security and world peace.

He pointed to the importance of the vote of 177 countries for the Palestinian right to statehood at the United Nations, as well as the political and national value of the Security Council resolution condemning settlements and calling for an end to occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

He added that this diplomatic and political victory in international forums is the result of the Palestinian struggle and the wisdom and statesmanship of President Mahmoud Abbas, alluding to his meeting which is scheduled to be at the Vatican with Pope to raise the flag of Palestine, followed the next day by the Paris International Conference on the national rights of the Palestinian people and the need for a two-state solution.

He also added how important it is to unify with Hamas, ignoring the fact that Fatah is now on a propaganda campaign against Hamas to take advantage of electricity shortages in Gaza which the people are blaming on Hamas, not Israel. Here's a cartoon about it from the Fatah website.

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Saeb Erekat threatens "chaos, lawlessness and extremism"

Saeb Erekat continues to do what he does best - threaten the world with terror if people don't toe the Palestinian line.

On Friday:

A senior Palestinian official warned on Friday that implementation of Donald Trump’s pledge to relocate the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would destroy any prospects for peace with Israel, even as a spokesman for the U.S. President-elect said he remained committed to the move.
Erekat said he would like to look Trump and Friedman in the eye and tell them “if you were to take these steps of moving the embassy and annexing settlements in the West Bank, you are sending this region to more chaos, lawlessness and extremism."

Nobody took Erekat's Friday warnings seriously. so, like a child trying to get attention, he upped the ante on Monday:

If the incoming Trump administration moves the US embassy to Jerusalem, the PLO will revoke its recognition of Israel, the prospect of a two-state solution will be over, and any hope of Israeli-Palestinian peace in the future will vanish, the top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat warned on Monday.

Speaking on a conference call organized by the Wilson Center policy forum in Washington, DC regarding expectations from the Trump administration, Erekat reeled off a list of what he said would be the consequences of President-elect Donald Trump honoring his campaign pledge and relocating the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Erekat said he would immediately resign as the chief Palestinian negotiator, and that “the PLO will revoke its recognition of Israel” as well as all previously signed agreements with Israel.

Furthermore, said Erekat, all American embassies in the Arab world would be forced to close — not necessarily because Arab leaderships would want to close them, but because the infuriated public in the Arab world would not “allow” for the embassies to continue to operate.

Erekat noted that he held meetings last week in Washington with State Department officials, but failed to secure meetings he had sought with incoming Trump administration officials. “I don’t know any of them,” he said of Trump’s personnel.

I can't wait for the embassy to move - because exactly none of these things will happen. Erekat won't resign, Arabs won't close US embassies, the PLO won't tear up its agreements, and there will be no additional terrorism in the region.

Let's take the threats one by one.

As I've mentioned, I've been looking in Arab media to see if there is any groundswell of anger over the idea of the embassy moving. There is virtually none outside an odd cleric or two in the Palestinian territories themselves. Arabs have real problems to worry about, and this is not on their top hundred issues.

The PLO won't tear up any agreements with Israel, because it stands far more to lose than to gain. After all, it now runs a fairly independent territory in Areas A and B and despots don't give up their power so quickly to make a point.

But notice how Erekat threatens Israel for US actions.

Will Erekat resign? Sure he will - and then he will unresign again, like he's done many times before. From the Matthew Kalman blog, documenting 20 years of Erekat's "resignations:"

Erekat is a joke, and the Arab world knows it.

The incoming Trump administration knows this as well. And this is what terrifies him to make these baseless threats, hoping against hope that the time honored Arab tradition of gaining political leverage by threatening violence still has a little bit of power over stupid Westerners who still believe that these people want peace.

By the way, NATO defines terrorism as "the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence against individuals or property in an attempt to coerce or intimidate governments or societies to achieve political, religious or ideological objectives."

The United States Department of Defense defines terrorism as "the unlawful use of violence or threat of violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies."

Saeb Erekat and Mahmoud Abbas, with their threats of terrorism, chaos and riots in order to achieve political aims, are terrorists.

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Erekat compares Israel to ISIS

At the Doha World Policy Forum, today, Saeb Erekat was up to his usual lies, pretending that the Palestinians don't treat this like a religious conflict and that Jews are just like ISIS.

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Saeb Erekat calls terrorists heroes, too

From Palestinian Media Watch:

The Palestinian Authority often assures its people that among its top priorities is the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel - most of whom are convicted for terrorist crimes including murder.

Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat recently reiterated this, terming actions of terrorist prisoners as "acts of heroism", and stating that Palestinians "bow [their] heads in admiration and honor of the prisoners' sacrifices, for their acts of heroism":

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 19, 2016]

"Our brave prisoners, who gave and sacrificed their freedom for Palestine and its freedom, are worthy of aid, support, and constant activity by us in order to release them and put an end to their suffering. The prisoners' cause is a national and central cause, and we bow our heads in admiration and honor of the prisoners' sacrifices, for their acts of heroism, and for their ongoing battle with the occupation."

Too bad CNN won't bother asking him about this the next time they let him spew his lies on international TV.

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Saeb Erekat's Lie of the Day

Saeb Erekat published a statement on the 34th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in which he does not say one word about the Christian Phalangists who actually murdered hundreds of Palestinians in Lebanon in 1982. Instead, he blames Israel and only Israel.

In his statement, he makes a claim that he has made before:

Erekat said that Israel was accepted as a United Nations member under the commitment to honor partition of Palestine resolution 181 and right of return of refugees resolution 194 as well as the UN Charter.

While the UNGA resolution that gave recognition to Israel mentioned the earlier UNGA resolutions, nothing in its language says that Israel's becoming a member of the UN is contingent on its acceptance of those non-binding resolutions. On the contrary, it explicitly notes that Israel had its own interpretation of them and took note of that.

Here is the text of UNGA 273 that shows Erekat is a liar:

Having received the report of the Security Council on the application of Israel for membership in the United Nations,
Noting that, in the judgment of the Security Council, Israel is a peace-loving State and is able and willing to carry out the obligations contained in the Charter,
Noting that the Security Council has recommended to the general Assembly that it admit Israel to membership in the United Nations,
Noting furthermore the declaration by the State of Israel that it "unreservedly accepts the obligations of the United Nations Charter and undertakes to honour them from the day when it becomes a member of the United Nations",
Recalling its resolutions of 29 November 1947 and 11 December 1948 and taking note of the declarations and explanations made by the representative of the Government of Israel before the Ad Hoc Political Committee in respect of the implementation of the said resolutions,

The General Assembly,
Acting in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its rules of procedure,
1. Decides that Israel is a peace loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations;
2. Decides to admit Israel to membership in the United Nations.

There is no caveat to the UN's acceptance of Israel as a member. Erekat lies again.

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Saeb Erekat keeps showing his hypocrisy

PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat writes in Wafa:

It is time for Israelis to confront reality: when the Zionists came to Palestine, there were another people living here. Over 100 years ago, a Zionist mission was sent to Palestine and their report acknowledged this fact: "The bride is beautiful but she is married to another man." And this: soon plans to displace Palestine's population were unveiled.

The "bride is beautiful" quote is fiction.

And where were these supposed plans to forcibly displace Arabs in Zionist writings?

"Palestinians are Arabs who immigrated to Israel. We Jews fended off the attacks by seven Arab armies in self-defense." These declarations deny the very existence of the Palestinian people, continue to justify the atrocities committed against us, and deny Palestinian refugees' legitimate right of return.

Well, they are also true (actually five armies.) I'm not clear how the fact that Arab armies invaded Israel denies the existence of the Palestinian people. But the fact that there was no distinctive Palestinian people before 1948 is tough to deny. I've looked for evidence of distinctive customs, cuisines and other artifacts for years and have found nothing; the closest was some goods like Nablus soap or Bethlehem costumes that were not "Palestinian" but local specialties.

The hypocrisy is that while Erekat says that Israel denies the existence of the Palestinian people today - which is certainly does not - Erekat denies the existence of the Jewish people. The basic anti-Zionist argument is that Jews are not a people, but merely a religion, which flies in the face of thousands of years of history. Yet Erekat and the PLO explicitly deny this fact.

Pot, meet kettle.

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Today's list of lies by Saeb Erekat

Haaretz reported on Sunday:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed Sunday that despite the arson-murder of a Palestinian family and recent reports of growing Jewish extremism, there was no room for comparison between Jewish acts of terrorism and Arab acts of terror.

"There is a difference between Arab terror and Jewish terror," Netanyahu said at the beginning of the government's weekly meeting. "Here we condemn and they [the Palestinians] praise," the prime minister said.

Netanyahu noted that unlike Jewish terror, which is limited in scope, Arab terror "attacks us incessantly and is wide-spread." According to Netanyahu, while in Israel both the government and informal leaders condemn Jewish terror, in the Palestinian Authority they name squares and streets after terrorists.

"There is a difference between Israeli society's healthy attitude, which condemns terror and works against it, and the Palestinian Authority's, which encourages terror and incites," Netanyahu said. "I suggest we remember these distinctions at a time when we are fighting terror and inciters, wherever they may be."

The PLO's top negotiator Saeb Erekat responded to this with yet another torrent of lies:

Mr. Netanyahu is claiming that the killing of any human being by a Jew is not comparable to the killing of a Jew by a non-Jew.

He said no such thing. In fact, he specifically referred to Jewish terror, and you will never hear Erekat or Abbas refer to "Palestinian terror" no matter how heinous the attack. (Today's Al Quds says explicitly that there is no such things as Palestinian terror, only Jewish terror.)

Mr. Netanyahu’s referral to “Palestinian incitement” as an excuse for Israeli terrorism is a further attempt at erasing his political and legal responsibility as the head of a belligerent occupier that violates the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people on daily basis, including its very right to be free.

Netanyahu said no such thing.

The State of Israel honors the memory of terrorists who were responsible for the assassination of thousands of Christians, Muslims and Jews, including those who assassinated the UN Mediator Count Bernardotte in 1948...

I am unaware of any shrine to the memory of Yehoshua Cohen, who killed Bernadotte.

A prominent case is that of the terrorist Baruch Goldstein who killed 29 Palestinians at the Ibrahim Mosque in Hebron, and who has a shrine at the illegal Kiryat Arba settlement, across a park named after Meir Kahane, another Israeli terrorist.

The Israeli government bulldozed the shrine in 1999 after Israel's Supreme Court prohibited shrines to terrorists ; now there is only a gravestone in a park because Goldstein was not allowed to be buried in a Jewish cemetery based on another legal ruling. The state never honored Goldstein.

As far as I can tell, Saeb Erekat has a perfect record of lying in every public statement he makes. As I wrote last year, this is his strategy:

He literally lives his life by the saying "if you don’t stop a man who is lying after 24 hours, the lies turn into facts."

No one has the guts to tell him that he is a liar to his face and list all his lies, chapter and verse. And it is a very long list.

Erekat knows that once he puts his lies out there, no one will counter him - after all, he is a "moderate" and a "peacemaker," and reporters aren't conditioned to believe that a soft-spoken man in a suit who is considered a "moderate" will lie right to their faces.

There is literally no negative repercussion to Erekat's constant lies. So...why shouldn't he continue them?

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Justifying terror, Saeb Erekat says that stabbing random Jews is considered "self defense"

From the NYT:

“East Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine,” Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official, said on Voice of Palestine radio. “If they think that they can reach security with these measures, they are wrong. The Palestinian people will continue to defend themselves.”

The bolded sentence is a direct threat - Israeli defensive measures are useless, Erekat is saying, because Palestinians will always be able to break through the defenses and kill Jews.

But his next sentence defines these stabbings as "defend[ing] themselves."

The reason is clear:

Erekat knows that this current unrest is making Palestinian Arabs look bad,

He cannot deny that there have been many stabbings, car rammings, shootings and stonings against innocent Israelis.

So he needs to cast the terror spree as "self defense." Because self defense is justifiable.

Saeb Erekat is saying that Arabs have the fundamental human right to murder random Jews in Israel.

Too bad no reporter ever calls him on statements like these.

Hey, it's been a solid couple of weeks since I last caught him lying. But this time he is accidentally telling the truth - he, and the Palestinian Arab leadership, really support the terror spree as moral even if they don't want to suffer the consequences.

Saeb Erekat lies again, claims he was arrested at 13 for graffiti when he was throwing stones

The PLO's Negotiations Affairs Department recently issued a pamphlet supporting the right to "popular resistance." In that pamphlet, Saeb Erekat writes a short essay that begins this way:

A few days after Israel occupied my hometown of Jericho in 1967, I was arrested by Israeli soldiers while writing graffiti:“down with the occupation, free Palestine.” This act of peaceful resistance sent a 13-years old boy to prison. From the very beginning of Israel’s occupation, a zero tolerance policy was adopted by the new conquerors and the love that an armless teenager had for his country had no place under Israel’s military control. Our message was too much for the occupying army to handle or fathom.

Was Erekat arrested a few days after the Six Day War for writing graffiti saying "Down with the occupation, Free Palestine"?

The story falls apart in pieces.

First of all, he wasn't 13 in the days after the Six Day War - he was 12.

According to an online biography:

Israeli occupation began when he was twelve; first jailed at thirteen; usual childhood offences, stone-throwing, cutting wires, fighting with soldiers, PLO graffiti etc.

So he was doing a bit more than just writing graffiti, it seems.

In fact, he admitted it himself in this interview from 2000:

I was 12 years old when Israeli troops occupied my town, my country. I went to jail for my first time when I was 13 years old. I had no choice but to post flyers and throw stones to stand up for our freedoms and rights that were taken away.

But it is not like this is the first time we have caught Saeb Erekat lying.

And not the last, as his next paragraph indicates:

Since 1967, around 900,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned and confined including a large number of children.

We've disproved this statistic back when it was "only" 750,000.

It is astounding, and very revealing, that Western media has no time for the slightest bit of critical thinking when it comes to the lies spouted daily by the leaders of the Palestinian Authority.

If you accuse Israel of "genocide" and compare it to ISIS, you are welcome to speak at J-Street!

Guess who is speaking at the annual J-Street conference?

PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat!

Yes, the same Saeb Erekat who recently compared Israel to ISIS.

The same Saeb Erekat who routinely accuses Israel of "genocide."

The same Saeb Erekat who claimed that 96% of those killed in Gaza were civilians.

The same Saeb Erekat who claimed that his family had been in Palestine for 9000 years (they came from Jordan in the 19th century.)

The same Saeb Erekat who compares Mahmoud Abbas to Mother Teresa and Thomas Jefferson.

The same Saeb Erekat who believes that Jews cannot live in "Palestine."

The same Saeb Erekat who once accused Qatar of investing in Jewish settlements.

The same Saeb Erekat who once said "Everybody should be aware that the only threat in the region is Israel’s occupation and not Iran."

Yup - he's a perfect fit for "pro-Israel, pro-peace" J-Street.

(Eric Fingerhut, the president of Hillel International, withdrew from speaking at J Street’s conference when he found out Erekat was a featured speaker.)

Saeb Erekat under pressure to resign because of Schabas affair

PA officials are blaming PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat for his role in forcing the resignation of William Schabas from the UNHRC's commission of inquiry/kangaroo court on the Gaza war.

There are rumors that Erekat might resign for his role in this affair.

The sources say that since the PLO had paid Schabas for legal work, he was somehow forced to lie to the UNHRC about not having any financial ties to any party under investigation in order to become the head of the commission. They are blaming Erekat for not foreseeing this issue.

Apparently Erekat should have been positioning Schabas to be able to do much more damage against Israel instead of burning his potential influence with a measly $1300 for an unimportant paper that ended up torpedoing his role in the upcoming UNHRC report.

If it wasn't for Erekat's paying Schabas, the notoriously anti-Israel lawyer would have remained in his role to craft the pre-ordained anti-Israel UNHRC document under the pretense of objectivity.

The critics say that Erekat has been boasting about the PLO negotiations unit's ties with Western legal experts such as Schabas rather than keeping them low-key and allowing the sympathetic Westerners to one day take over important anti-Israel roles in international bodies under the pretext of objectivity.

Schabas was already well-known for his anti-Israel positions before this entire affair. Some 65 anti-Israel NGOs signed a letter to the UNHRC supporting Schabas (or Christine Chinkin) to be the "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967" to replace the notoriously anti-Israel Richard Falk.

Given that Erekat had already pretended to resign from his role and yet still remains in it, I somehow doubt that he will resign over this.

(h/t Anne)

Saeb Erekat says "settlements" are just as heinous as beheading people

From Ma'an:

Top PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat has called the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank "terrorism," even making comparisons between Israel and the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria.

"There is no difference between the terrorism practiced by the group led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Israel's terrorism," he said, referencing the leader of the IS group during a speech at a festival celebrating the Prophet Muhammad's birthday in Jericho on Monday.

He added that "ending settlement activities is a prerequisite for eliminating terrorism."

Funny. I don't think there is any difference between Saeb Erekat and Joseph Goebbels.

There has been nearly zero physical expansion of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria in over 25 years. Moreover, when the argument suits him, Saeb Erekat himself admits that the settlements take up only 1.1% of the areas Palestinians want for a state.