Abbas' annual UN speech filled with lies, incitement and antisemitism, as usual

We've come to expect Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to fill his UN speeches with lies and libels, and he did it again on Thursday.

He claimed that the Kotel (Western Wall) was exclusively Muslim:

The occupation government is also violating the city of Jerusalem and its people, assaulting our Islamic and Christian sanctities there, and violating the historical and legal status of the holy places, especially the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, which international legitimacy has recognized as an exclusive right for Muslims alone, including the Bab al-Rahma prayer hall and the Buraq [Western] Wall, according to the report. League of Nations in 1930.

While the travesty of the Wailing Wall Commission did indeed determine that the Waqf owned the entire Temple Mount, the Wall and Moroccan Quarter, the Muslims made quite clear that they did not accept anything the commission was going to say. So Abbas is trying to have it both ways.

Not only that, but the Muslims claimed ownership by conquest - meaning that according to their arguments then, Jews clearly have the ownership rights to all of Jerusalem today!

Also, before 1930, Muslims did not identify the Kotel with the Buraq Wall. 

I hereby call on the international community to assume its responsibilities in preserving the historic and legal status of Jerusalem and its holy sites, specifically the Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.

Translated, this means he wants to revert to the situation before 1967 when Jews were banned by law from visiting their holiest places in Jerusalem and Hebron. He defends this antisemitic attitude as the "historic and legal status." 

Abbas then demanded compensation from Great Britain and the US for their role in the Balfour Declaration.

 He claimed:

Our people defend their homeland and their legitimate rights, through peaceful popular resistance as a strategic option for self-defense.  

Tell that to Eli (48) and Natalie Mizrahi (45), Rafael Ben-Eliyahu (56), Asher Natan (14), Shaul Chai (68), Irina Korolova (59), Ilya Sosonsky (26), Shlomo Liderman (20), Yaakov Yisrael Paley (6), Asher Menahem Paley (8), Hallel Yaniv (21) Yagel Yaniv (19), Elan Ganeles (27), Or Eshkar (32), Lucy Dee (48), Maia Dee (20), Rina Dee (15), Alessandro Parini, (35), Inga Avramyan (80), Meir Tamari (32), Ofer Fayerman (64), Harel Masood (21), Elisha Anteman (17), and Shmuel Mordoff (17), Chen Amir (42), Aviad Nir (28), Silas (Shai) Nigreker (60) and Batsheva Nagari (40). They were all murdered this year by Abbas' "peaceful popular resistance."  

Absurdly, Abbas blamed Israel for the Palestinians not having an election in 19 years. In fact he celled off the last election when it was clear that his Fatah party would lose badly. 

What this supposed champion of democracy pointedly doesn't mention is that he is a dictator in every sense. He controls the executive, legislative and judicial branches of his government. He writes and passes all laws.  Plus he controls the PLO which overarches it all. If he cared about democracy, he would have stepped down after his four year term was up.

Abbas again falsely claimed that Israel's recognition by the UN was conditional on accepting resolutions 181 and 194. That is a lie, as anyone can see by reading the text of the  resolution accepting Israel. There is no conditional language. 

However, the Arab world and Palestinian Arab leaders thoroughly rejected both resolutions and Arab states voted against them. 

Abbas is a liar.

Abbas also showed appreciation for the successful Palestinian brainwashing campaign denying any Jewish rights or history in the land. He said:

For several years, we have presented our Palestinian narrative, and the story of our people, which has been deliberately distorted by the Zionist and Israeli propaganda.  We are relieved that the peoples of the world and many of its countries have begun to believe our narrative and sympathize with it, after having been misled for decades.   

Notice he doesn't say "facts" or "history." Only "narrative" and "story."  Palestinians want to erase the Jewish ties to the land, discard facts and rewrite history. 

And Abbas drinks his own Kool-Aid. The Palestinian Arab "narrative" has stated for a century that Jews are endangering Al Aqsa, and he channeled the infamous Mufti of 100 years ago saying, "The occupying Power is also feverishly digging tunnels under and around Al-Aqsa Mosque, threatening its collapse, or the collapse of parts of it, which will lead to an explosion with untold consequences. "

The Holocaust denier went further than just pushing a false version of history. He wants to make sure the rest of the world is forced to accept those lies. 

I call upon you today to criminalize the denial of the Nakba and designate the 15th of May of each year an international day to commemorate the anniversary of the Nakba, to commemorate the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were killed in massacres committed by Zionist gangs.  Palestinians whose villages were demolished and who were forcibly displaced from their homes. The number of these refugees reached 950,000 in 1948,

"Hundreds of thousands" is a gross lie. "950,000 refugees" is a lie. Most of them were not "forcibly displaced from their homes."  Abbas wants me to go to prison for pointing out his lies.

The Palestinian dictator wants the entire world to submit to his rules of newspeak. I bet not one mainstream media outlet will condemn him for his opposition to freedom of thought and speech.

There are only some of his most outrageous lies and statements. 

He might not have the charisma of Yasir Arafat, but he sure can lie as well as his predecessor did. 

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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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12/08 Links Pt1: Lies, libels and the justification of terror; 12% of Gazans Have Fled Gaza Since Hamas Took Over; The UN envoy to Hamas; Far-Left Groups Accused of Campaign to Delegitimize IDF Soldiers

From Ian:

Lies, libels and the justification of terror

Nov. 29 marked the 75th anniversary of United Nations Resolution 181, which called for the creation of two states, a Jewish state of Israel and an Arab state of Palestine. The Jewish community accepted those terms, and declared the State of Israel, while the Arab community refused, and launched a war that they then lost. Over time, however, Palestinians developed their own version of the “big lie” in the form of the “nakba” myth, a retelling of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war in which the would-be genocidal Arab armies that failed in their mission to eliminate the Jewish state are reimagined as the helpless victims of a horrible catastrophe (or “nakba,” in Arabic) of destruction and displacement. The legend of the nakba is at the heart of much of modern anti-Zionism.

Right on cue, on Nov. 30 the United Nations General Assembly voted to officially commemorate the founding of the State of Israel as a nakba. U.N. resolutions are not legally or morally binding, and they obviously cannot create truths. But they do lend a sheen of credibility to an otherwise ridiculous claim. Such a resolution makes it easier for the big lie to spread, because people can rely on and appeal to the GA’s “authority” on the matter without having to defend or even care about the details of such a heinous accusation. And once a lie has become officially acceptable to speak in the halls of power, it is only a matter of time before it gets picked up and amplified by popular culture. This one certainly did not take long.

On Thursday, Netflix began streaming the Jordanian film “Farha,” which purports to focus on the experiences of a young girl during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The hero watches as Israeli soldiers, portrayed as inhumanly cruel, brutally and graphically murder innocent Palestinian families, including children. While the film claims to be “based on” true events, the director has admitted that it is not factual, and that these scenes did not actually occur. But that does not mean they will not have a very real-world effect on anti-Jewish hate and violence, because many will watch the movie, and few will read the disclaimer.

There are two reasons to publicly correct the record on the nakba. First, it is simply not true. There are primary sources, from the Jordanian side, attesting to the fact that the vast majority of Arabs who left their homes did so voluntarily, or under orders from the invading Arab armies, not the invaded Israelis. Many left confident that the combined armies of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt would quickly overwhelm the tiny Jewish state. As the Jordanian newspaper Filastin reported, “The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.” But as another refugee quoted in another Jordanian newspaper, Ad Difaa, explained that “The Arab government told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in.”

Second, it is incredibly dangerous. In 1976, Mahmoud Abbas said that “The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live” (emphasis added).

Israeli Ambassador to Ireland Lironne Bar Sadeh (Irish Times): Israel Is Not an "Apartheid" State

The letter in the Irish Times, "Israel and the Palestinian people" (Nov. 30), signed by various Irish luminaries, repeats the usual canard that Israel is an "apartheid" state.

This is an outrageous falsehood. Israel is in fact the only long-lasting liberal democracy in the entire Middle East. It is the only country in the region with freedom of speech, party, press, and association and judicial transparency.

It has equality under the law for all its citizens, a fifth of whom by the way are Israeli Arabs, both Muslim and Christian. It is also the only country in the region with rights and equality for the LGBTQ+ community. In terms of its legal and political systems, its vibrant press and rich civil society, Israel is remarkably similar to Ireland.

Those who signed the letter think they are helping in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, but in fact they are not. By constantly demonizing Israel and ignoring the deep flaws on the Palestinian side, such as the Islamic fundamentalism of Hamas, and the squalid corruption of the Palestinian Authority, they make themselves morally and intellectually bankrupt.

People who genuinely want to help the Palestinians should encourage democratic, moderate forces within Palestinian society and those who will eventually realize that peace with Israel can only come about through dialogue and mutual compromise, not by demonization and intransigence. It is tragic that some people in Ireland, instead of supporting Israel and the moderate Arab forces in the region, prefer to demonize Israel as much as possible and fail to condemn Iran and the forces of extremism which blight the region.

12% of Gazans Have Fled Gaza Since Hamas Took Over

In the 15 years since Hamas seized control of Gaza, 12 percent of the Strip’s population has fled, according to a study released by an organization associated with the terror group. The report appears to mark the first time Hamas is acknowledging — indirectly — widespread Gazan emigration since it violently seized control of the Strip in 2007.

The report, written by the Hamas-affiliated Council on International Relations, was published in September and recently seen by the Tazpit Press Service. It claims that over 60,000 Gazan residents have migrated from the Gaza Strip in recent years to escape poverty and war.

The CIR report blamed Israel’s blockade of Gaza for the Strip’s poverty driving Gazans to flee. Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza in 2007 to prevent weapons smuggling.

The Strip has seen several waves of immigration due to dire unemployment rates, growing poverty, sanctions imposed by the Palestinian Authority, and rounds of conflict with Israel. The CIR did not acknowledge Hamas’s authoritarian rule as a contributing factor.

“Gaza is being emptied of its residents,” the authors of the report said.

The Palestinian Authority has no data on the scope of migration from the Gaza under Hamas rule. Till now, Hamas hid the data, making accurate numbers difficult for human rights organizations to gather. The CIR’s chairman of the board is Basem Naim, who is also a senior figure in Hamas.

Various estimates in the past year shed some light on the Gaza exodus.

Between 2007-2021, approximately 236,000 Gazans left the Strip, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, WAFA, reported during the summer. That number is also about 12 percent of the total residents of the Strip.

Based on those numbers, it appears that an average of around 17,000 Palestinians have left Gaza every year since 2007.

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12/01 Links Pt1: UN to mark ‘Nakba Day’ - Israel’s establishment as catastrophe; UNGA call for Israeli-Palestinian peace parley in Moscow; 75 years since UN partition vote: A self-inflicted Palestinian tragedy

From Ian:

UN to mark ‘Nakba Day’ - Israel’s establishment as catastrophe

The UN General Assembly voted Wednesday afternoon in favor of holding a commemorative event in honor of the 75th “Nakba Day,” the Palestinian name for Israel’s establishment, which translates to “catastrophe.”

The vote was 90-30, with 47 abstentions. The United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom were among those who opposed the move. Most of the European Union also rejected the motion, save for Cyprus which supported the measure.

Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan tweeted that the UN in "passing such an extreme and baseless resolution, the UN is only helping to perpetuate the conflict."

In a UN General Assembly plenum debate prior to the vote, Erdan called for the UN to “stop ignoring the Jewish Nakba,” referring to the 750,000 Jews expelled from Arab and Muslim countries in the aftermath of Israel’s establishment.

“What would you say if the international community celebrated the establishment of your country as a disaster? What a disgrace,” Erdan said.

Erdan showed the General Assembly a front page of The New York Times from May 16, 1948, with a top headline stating: "Jews in grave danger in all Moslem lands."

Today the #UNGA passsed a shameful resolution calling for an official event to commemorate the Palestinian “Nakba” on the 75th Anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel. By passing such an extreme and baseless resolution, the UN is only helping to perpetuate the conflict pic.twitter.com/RH3cHVWdT1

— Ambassador Gilad Erdan ???? ???? (@giladerdan1) November 30, 2022

UN passes resolution calling Israel's founding a 'catastrophe'

The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution to mark Nakba Day, recognizing the Palestinian version of events that depicts the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948 as a "catastrophe".

CORRECTION @Palestine_UN: You want to end the conflict? Recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish, renounce terror and stop paying salaries to Palestinian terrorists. https://t.co/E9teskOw8z

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 30, 2022

UNGA call for Israeli-Palestinian peace parley in Moscow

The United Nations General Assembly called for an International conference in Moscow to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine which has turned it into an international pariah.

The call was included in a broad-based text called the "peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine" which was approved 154-9, with ten abstentions.

Even Ukraine voted in favor of the resolution.

Overall, the 15-point resolution called for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks based on the pre-1967 borders with east Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state and an end to Israeli settlement activity.

Item number three in the text called for 'the timely convening of an international conference in Moscow as envisioned by the Security Council in is resolution 1850 (2008) for the advancement and acceleration of the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement." 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (credit: REUTERS) 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (credit: REUTERS) Who was in opposition?

The revolution was part of an annual group of more than a dozen pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli texts, which the UNGA approves every year.

The UNGA passed five of those texts on Wednesday afternoon. The countries that opposed this specific text were: Canada, Hungary, Israel, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and the United States.

Australia, which has historically voted again the text, chose this year to slightly downgrade its support for Israel at the UN and abstained.

The Australian representative at the meeting said that the shift did not signify a lack of support for Israel.

"Australia shifted from 'no' to 'abstain' on the resolution .. because we believe in a just and enduring two-state solution negotiated between parties," she said.

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11/30 Links Pt1: Murdering Jews Should Be as Unacceptable as Murdering Druze; Biden Rewards Palestinians for Terrorism, Incitement; UNRWA Finds ‘Man-Made Cavity’ Under Gaza School

From Ian:

Israel’s UN ambassador: Mideast Jews were victims of the ‘real Nakba’

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan inaugurated an exhibit on Tuesday highlighting the expulsion of Jews from Middle East countries, calling the story of these Jewish refugees the “real Nakba.”

The Palestinians have long used the Arabic term “Nakba,” or catastrophe, to describe Israel’s creation and the resulting displacement of some 700,000 of Palestinian Arabs during the 1948 war initiated by Arab nations to destroy the nascent Jewish state.

Marking the 75th anniversary of the U.N.’s adoption of a resolution to create Israel, Erdan said that “those who really suffered from ‘Nakba’ following the decision were Jews—almost a million were expelled from Arab countries and Iran. Since the vote [on Nov. 29, 1947,] which the Arabs rejected, the United Nations has been telling a completely false story about the ‘disaster’ the Palestinians brought upon themselves,” he added.

While the vast majority of Jewish refugees from Arab countries were absorbed into Israel, the United Nations, by contrast, created the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to tend uniquely to Palestinian refugees. Today, the organization recognizes some 5 million Palestinians as “refugees,” having effectively transformed the status into a hereditary trait applicable only to Palestinians.

“A day after the [partition] decision, Jews were violently and cruelly expelled from Arab countries and Iran. This year, after a long struggle, we managed to place an exhibition with photos that document the story of the real Nakba. I will continue to fight for the truth and against the false narrative that the Palestinians and their supporters spread,” said Erdan.

#OTD, as we celebrate 75 years since the #PartitionPlan, I am at the United Nations, with a reminder that, 75 years later, whereas #Israel continues to say Yes to peace, the Palestinian leadership is still saying: No, No, No! @The_ILF pic.twitter.com/ICXyh8Z8yM

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 29, 2022

75 years ago today, the UN General Assembly voted on and passed Resolution 181. Watch the historic vote that laid the groundwork for the establishment of the State of Israel: pic.twitter.com/nouCKB91bS

— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) November 29, 2022

On this day in 1947, the UN passed #Resolution181, paving the way for the establishment of the State of Israel as well as an Arab state, with Jerusalem under international control.
33 countries voted in favor; 13 voted against; and 10 abstained. pic.twitter.com/NI0yznDRJU

— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) November 29, 2022

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75 years ago today: An Arab declaration of war against the Jews. Not Zionists - Jews.

In the hours before the UN voted to partition Palestine into a Jewish and Arab states, the Secretary General of the Arab League, Abdul Azzam Pasha, warned that such a decision would result in a war of genocide against Jews in the Middle East.

This is the most complete text I can find of what he said, as the representative of the entire Arab world. speaking in English to a Western audience. 

It is worth studying, because it is a blueprint for virtually every Arab statement about Israel since then, including those of Mahmoud Abbas today. 

The speech is a combination of threats, bullying, fearmongering, hyperbole and incitement to genocide against Jews. 

From the International News Service, November 29, 1947:

Arab Official Says Partition To Mean War Against Jews

Abdul Azzam Pasha. secretary general of the Arab League, warned today that a United Nations decision to partition Palestine could mean only one thing for Arabs —war against the Jews." 

In a statement made as the UN general assembly prepared to vote on the explosive issue he declared: 

"Such a decision would mean the end of the first phase of the Arab struggle to have Palestine become an independent Arab state. The second phase of the struggle will now begin . . . the Arabs will have a long run of victories even it it takes us until 1950 or 1960.

"We have justice. time and numbers on our side—everything but arms— and we shall get them too." 

He said that tribesmen in Iran. Iraq and Saudi Arabia are "itching to fight." 

Azzam Pasha. just back from a six-weeks' tour of Arab states. said a meeting of the Arab League is scheduled for the near future. He added: "There is no question of the Arab countries leaving the United Nations or severing diplomatic relations with nations which vote for partition." 

The Arab spokesman said that if Haganah. army of the Jewish agency for Palestine. tries to enforce a partition decision after the British leave and Palestine Arabs seek the help of other Arab states "we shall not hesitate."

He declared: "Every Arab from Morocco to Afghanistan would rise in answer to the call of their Arab brethren." 

He forecast "disturbances" and "persecution" of Jews in neighboring Arab countries "in an atmosphere of hatred and animosity which will prevail in case of trouble." The spokesman added: 

"Palestine Arabs will not stop to find out who is Zionist and who is not. They will be fighting one enemy--Jews." 

Azzam Pasha said it is impossible to estimate the strength of Arab volunteers who would fight for Palestine. 

He explained that Arab men will not rally in great numbers if the Arabs are victorious from the start but that "if we suffer any defeats in the beginning then the Arabs will rally in huge numbers because it will be a question of racial pride."

Let's analyze this.

"The Arabs will have a long run of victories even it it takes us until 1950 or 1960" - As always, Arab predictions are wrong - but the intent behind them has not changed. Arab media today, outside of those from the Abraham Accords countries, still has the subtext that Israel is an aberration that will be wiped out as soon as the Arabs can get their act together. Instead of saying Israel will be destroyed in a decade, they often point to the Crusades, where it took about 200 years to reverse the Christian control of Jerusalem, saying that they are equally patient as their ancestors were. 

 "We have justice. time and numbers on our side—everything but arms— and we shall get them too." The theme of "justice" has been taken up by the Left against Israel, even though in this speech we see what it means - the total destruction of Jews in the Middle East. It is brilliant rhetoric meant to obfuscate genocidal intent.

 "There is no question of the Arab countries leaving the United Nations or severing diplomatic relations with nations which vote for partition." This was a baseless threat, but Arabs can engage in hyperbole in threatening the West without consequence. And the Western world still remembers the oil shock of the 1970s: when the Arab nations had the power to use economic means to seriously threaten Western support of Israel, they did so. The repercussions, combined with the threat of Palestinian terror in Western cities, continue today. 

"Every Arab from Morocco to Afghanistan would rise in answer to the call of their Arab brethren." This entire speech is part of  pattern of the past 150 years where Arabs and Muslims take advantage of Western perceptions of them as irrational savages. The spectre of hordes of Arabs, willing to die for their cause, brandishing scimitars under a flag of jihad, is one that the Arabs have played to the hilt - and the West still falls for it. 

But there is a grain of truth to it. Most Arabs just want to raise their families in peace, and have little interest in fighting wars for "Palestine." However, decades of antisemitic incitement in their media and schools results in a small percentage who swallow that narrative. These are the ones who join ISIS and Islamic Jihad and Hamas. This is useful to the Arab leaders, as Pasha continues:

"He forecast 'disturbances' and 'persecution' of Jews in neighboring Arab countries 'in an atmosphere of hatred and animosity which will prevail in case of trouble.'" The Arab leaders may not support the fanatics, but they are quite willing to keep them around for a game of good cop/bad cop. Their consistent message is that if world doesn't do what they demand, they cannot stop the crazies (or the "Arab street") from doing horrible things. If the fanatics slaughter the Jews, the Arab leaders who incite that slaughter in Arabic cannot be blamed - it is the West's fault for not listening to their sage advice. 

"Palestine Arabs will not stop to find out who is Zionist and who is not. They will be fighting one enemy--Jews."  Pasha is again pretending to distance himself from the Palestinian Arab fanatics when Arab leaders were directly inciting exactly such a bloodbath in Arabic. And note how he tries to manipulate the West in the aftermath of the Holocaust: his message is that "you didn't protect the Jews for the past decade, if you want to avoid another Holocaust you should do what we demand."

"It will be a question of racial pride" - this is what passed for politically correct antisemitism in 1947. Of course Arabs cannot accept Jews in positions of power, for racial reasons. He is saying that Arabs are a racial group and Jews are considered inferior - it would be an insult to Arab pride to accept Jews as equals. 

This Nazi ideology made some inroads into mainstream Arab thought, and Abdul Azzam Pasha was still comfortable enough after World War II to evoke that same ideology. 

In the end, though, it wasn't Nazi racial theories that animated this speech. It was age-old antisemitism.

When Mahmoud Abbas threatens that there will be worldwide terror unless Palestinians get their demands met, he is engaging in exactly the same threats that Pasha did. When Arab leaders pretend that Western capitulation to their demands will weaken, rather than embolden, Islamist terrorists, they are using Pasha's playbook. When an Arab leader like King Abdullah only yesterday threatens the West with more "escalation, violence, and extremism" unless Palestinian demands are met, he is copying Pasha's tactics.

The Arabs keep using that methodology because it works.

As mentioned, the predictions by Arab leaders are often way off, but the intent behind these threats are not. And that is a problem the West continues to ignore.

The Western reaction to these kinds of genocidal threats haven't changed in 75 years. There is no direct response, but the message becomes accepted. The myth of "linkage" of the Palestinian issue to every other Middle East problem comes from statements like Pasha's, and the West never called the Arab world on it. Instead, they believed it. 

These statements are threats and incitement, and the Western world should respond with outrage, not meek acquiescence and winks that "they don't really mean it." 

Finally, the other thing that hasn't changed in 75 years is that the "anti-Zionism"stated here was indistinguishable from antisemitism. The threats were of genocide against Jews, both within and without Palestine, with barely a pretext of the coming bloodbath being about Zionism. 

Apologists will keep trying to draw a tortuous line between the two, but they are the same thing. And they always have been. 

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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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11/27 Links: Israel does not need anyone’s permission to exist; The FBI should investigate the attack on US citizen in Jerusalem bombing; How Israel lets the Palestinians get free power while taking over land

From Ian:

Israel does not need anyone’s permission to exist

This November, Iraq is hosting a celebration to honor 90 years since the British gave it independence. Iraq will be joined by Jordan, which will mark 76 years since the British Mandate for Transjordan ended. In attendance at these ceremonies will be United Nations officials. A keynote speech will be delivered by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who will reflect on Britain’s role in the creation of two major Arab countries.

Except this won’t happen.

After World War I, the League of Nations created five mandates in the Middle East: Syria, Transjordan, Palestine, Mesopotamia and Lebanon. All those mandates, with the exception of Palestine, became sovereign nation states, retaining the borders identified by the League of Nations. Not one of them had ever before held sovereignty over that territory. The Jews alone had once maintained a sovereign kingdom in the Levant.

Yet the only country still celebrating its right to exist by genuflecting before the world is Israel, which hosts annual celebrations of the 1947 U.N. Resolution 181 that partitioned British Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

This year is no different. For example, in Los Angeles, the Consul General of Israel is organizing a 75th anniversary celebration of the event. Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicate by email and never miss our top stories

Resolution 181 is now a staple in Jewish and Israel education in the Diaspora. When I attended Jewish day school, our teachers, with pride and tears in their eyes, would show us film of the outburst of applause and standing ovation as the U.N. consecrated the Jewish people’s right to their historic and ancestral homeland.

No one can deny that Resolution 181 was historic and significant. Israeli-American philosopher and computer scientist Judea Pearl called it “the encounter between the Jewish people and history.” But this mythology of the resolution has contributed to the Jewish people’s recurrent need for external recognition.

Seventeenth-century French philosopher Rene Descartes’ emblematic declaration, “I think, therefore I am,” was a pivotal moment in our understanding of the nature of knowledge, forging a philosophical connection between self-awareness and existence. Sadly, for the Jews, Descartes’ exultant affirmation reads more like, “The non-Jews think, therefore we are.”

This concept has long been applied to Israel, whose legitimacy is constantly in question, and to the Jew, who during his 2,000-year exile from the Land of Israel was considered a nuisance and later a pariah. The “Jewish Question” was, at its core, the non-Jewish world’s attempt to grapple with the existence of the Jew. During the French revolution, non-Jews gave an answer to this question: To the Jew as a citizen, everything; to the Jews as a nation, nothing. Tragically, many Jews embraced this form of partial acceptance.

a re-enactment of the vote, videos and testimonies from the period, school choirs and more. I will provide A Witness's Reflections.

For background, see
The Forgotten Miracle: Nov. 29, 1947 https://t.co/f394qsFFdJ

— Judea Pearl (@yudapearl) November 22, 2022

The FBI should investigate the attack on US citizen in Jerusalem bombing

US law does not restrict the pursuit of terrorists who harm Americans overseas only to those who kill Americans. It also includes anybody who “attempts to kill” a US citizen (18 US Code 2332).

Palestinian Arab terrorists have murdered 146 American citizens, and wounded 204 more, since 1968. Yet, not one of those killers has ever been handed over to the United States for prosecution.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to discuss this matter with senior officials of multiple administrations, Republicans as well as Democrats. The excuses I have heard as to why they don’t pursue Palestinian Arab killers of Americans have ranged from evasive to downright disingenuous.

For example, they have claimed that the US “can’t find” the suspects, even when they are hiding in plain sight, by serving openly in the Palestinian security forces or – in the case of Sbarro pizzeria killer Ahlam Tamimi – hosting a radio show in Amman, Jordan.

US officials also have claimed that nothing can be done because America does not have an extradition treaty with the Palestinian Authority – even though the US frequently arranges for the transfer of criminal suspects from countries with whom it does not have formal treaties.

In fact, the real reason that the FBI is not investigating the latest attempt to murder an American citizen in Israel is the same reason it has never pursued any of the other Palestinian terrorists who have killed or injured Americans: because it would interfere with the administration’s goal of maintaining friendly relations with the Palestinian Authority in order to bring about the creation of a Palestinian state.

The PA will resist any request to hand over killers of Americans, since it regards the killers as heroes. For the United States to pursue justice, it would have to be willing to confront the PA, including putting political and financial pressure on the PA leadership. That would interfere with the Biden administration’s warm relationship with the PA.

And so, justice is sacrificed in order to avoid angering the PA. That’s why the FBI will investigate the accidental death of an Arab-American in Israel who placed herself in a dangerous situation, but not the deliberate murder and attempted murder of Jewish Americans in Israel. That’s why terrorists will be extradited and transferred to the US from around the world – but not if they are Palestinian Arab killers of Americans. And this outrageous double standard will continue until American Jewish leaders make it clear to the Biden administration that they will no longer stand for it.

The writer is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.

Canadian lawmaker vows to defend Israel, Jews

She’s a Jamaican-born lawyer who immigrated to Canada with her family at age five. She made history by becoming the first woman of color to run for the Conservative Party leadership in Canada and is well-known for tweaking the establishment view with her unabashedly socially conservative opinions. And she’s also a staunch supporter of the State of Israel.

Meet Canadian MP Leslyn Lewis, the new chair of the Canadian Parliamentary Israel Allies Caucus, a cross-party faith-based parliamentary lobby that seeks to strengthen the bonds between the two nations.

“The existence of Israel is at the cornerstone of our faith as Christians,” Lewis, who represents Haldimand—Norfolk in southern Ontario, says in a telephone interview with JNS from Ottawa. “As both Canadians and Christians we stand in support of the only democracy in the Middle East.”

Lewis sees a direct link between the increasing levels of antisemitism both in Canada and around the globe and the narrative coming out of the BDS movement that seeks to delegitimize and demonize Israel, conceding that it is becoming increasingly challenging to reach the hearts and minds of the next generation at a time when pro-Israel students are being silenced and demonized on university campuses.

“Young people are more focused on things that pull at their heart-strings—so when you throw out words like racism and Apartheid of course their view is ‘I want to fight against that,’ ” she said. “When they tie it in with racism, it becomes very visceral. As a person of color I can see it.”

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Let's list the lies in Abbas' UN speech (part 3)

Continuing on listing Mahmoud Abbas' lies at the UN on Friday.

Since its inception, Israel has committed brutal crimes against our people, when it destroyed 529 Palestinian villages, expelled their residents from them during and after the 1948 war, and expelled 950,000 Palestinians, more than half of the Palestinian people at the time, from their homes, according to the records of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).  and committed more than fifty massacres since 1948 to this day, which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of children, women, the elderly and innocent people, and everyone remembers the massacre of children in the war on Gaza last year, which killed 67 children.    

Every single one of these numbers is a lie. 

Some of the supposed villages listed in one database had zero population - and zero area - in 1948, but somehow magically they have "refugee" descendants!

Most historians (Morris, Khalidi) estimate far fewer depopulated villages and towns. 

Most Palestinian Arabs were not expelled in 1948, they left on their own out of fear.

UNRWA doesn't claim 950,000 refugees - it said there were 725,000. Even that is an exaggeration.

50 massacres by Israel? Only 15 rate mention in Wikipedia, where anyone can post anything. 

Tens of thousands of children, women, the elderly and innocent Palestinians killed by Israel?  That is absurd. You can do the math here.

Even the claim of 67 children killed in Gaza in 2021 is a lie (the UN says fewer), but nearly all were killed when Israel aimed at legitimate targets of war.

We do not accept that we remain the only party that adheres to the agreements we signed with Israel in 1993, agreements that no longer exist on the ground, due to Israel's continued violation of them.  

The Palestinians certinly do not adhere to the most basic parts of the Oslo process, starting with the initial 1993 letter signed by Arafat claiming to end all support for terror. I recently listed many violations by the Palestinians of Oslo agreements. I haven't seen the Palestinian list of Israeli violations so I cannot easily show how that is a likely lie. 

Therefore, I present today to this UN organization, the title of international legitimacy in this world, with a formal request to implement General Assembly resolution 181, which formed the basis for the two-state solution in 1947, as well as resolution 194 calling for the right of return of Palestine refugees. 

The entire Arab world unanimously rejected both of those resolutions. Israel accepted both of them (194 with reservations on which specific refugees could be returned.) Now, Abbas says he wants to implement them, seven decades later?

This is a joke. 

UNGA 194 did not call for the "right of return." It quite specifically did not use the language of rights. Israel allowed many to return and offered to allow many more - and this was rejected. 

The "right of return" is a myth that is meant to destroy the Jewish state. And that is exactly what Abbas is demanding now. Isn't it strange that a purported national leader demands that his people go to his enemy that he considers an apartheid state? Either he knows the apartheid libel is a lie or he doesn't cre much about his own people's welfare.

Perhaps I need to remind you that Israel's commitment to implement these two resolutions was a condition for the acceptance of its membership in your esteemed international organization.

This is yet another Palestinian lie. There is no conditional language in the resolution accepting Israel as a UN member state. 

All glory to the righteous martyrs of the Palestinian people who enlightened the path of freedom and independence with their pure blood.

Unlike the rest of the speech, this is not s lie.

This statement, and his subsequent language honoring prisoners, is explicit support for terrorism and terrorists. 

And no one at the UN or the media called him out on this.

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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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The UN Commission of Inquiry says Israel's legal basis is UNGA 181. That is not true at all. (But they are lying for an anti-Israel reason.)

UN investigator Miloon Kothari gave a half-hearted, obviously insincere apology for his statements from over a week ago that the "Jewish lobby" controlled social media and his questioning of Israel's legality altogether, saying "I would go as far as to raise the question as why are they [Israel] even a member of the United Nations." 

His response to that was, 

I also wish to clarify that my comment on Israel's membership of the United  Nations was made to highlight the fact that every member of this body should uphold. and respect findings and recommendations issued by it. in accordance with relevant UN General Assembly resolutions. What I wanted to highlight is the non-compliance of Israel with UN decisions related to its obligations under international law, a concern the Commission extensively covered in its first report to the Human Rights Council. At no place in the interview did I question the existence of the State of Israel. On the contrary, in several instances, during the media interview in question, I have defended the existence of the State of Israel. This is fully consistent with the position of the Commission, as also stated in our first report and stressed in the letter of our Chair to the President of the Council: “The Commission does not question the status or United Nations membership of either of the concerned states of its mandate. The foundations for the legality of the State of Israel, alongside that of the State of Palestine were laid out by General Assembly resolution 181 and are not and never will be in question by this Commission” I did not intend to suggest that Israel should be excluded from the United Nations.

He is asserting that UN General Assembly Resolution 181 is the legal basis for the State of Israel.

This is not remotely true.

First of all, General Assembly resolutions do not have the status of international law. 

Secondly, you can read Resolution 181: it did not declare the Jewish and Arab states in Palestine. It recommended the Security Council implement the provisions listed there and suggested that if either or both states declare their independence then the UN should treat their application for membership with sympathy.

When the Arabs rejected the resolution, it became a dead letter. It is valuable in the sense that it showed that the UN overwhelmingly supported a Jewish state in Palestine, but it is has no legal weight.

Some people claim that Israel itself has used UNGA 181 as its legal basis in its Declaration of Independence. It is true that Israel's Declaration of Independence referred to the resolution as onne of many reasons supporting the right of the Jewish people to a state, but that is not the legal basis for it. The Declaration says:

In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.

This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.

The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations.

Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland.

In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom- and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations.

On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.

This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.

ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.

Resolution 181 was one of many pieces of evidence showing that Jews have the right to a state of their own. It was not the legal basis for that state.

So what is the legal basis for the State of Israel?

This 2004 legal analysis notes:

Sir Lauterpacht, a renowned expert on international law and editor of Oppenheim’s International Law, clarified that, from a legal standpoint, the 1947 UN Partition Resolution had no legislative character to vest territorial rights in either Jews or Arabs. In a monograph relating to one of the most complex aspects of the territorial issue, the status of Jerusalem,⁷ Lauterpacht wrote that to be a binding force, the “Partition Plan” would have had to arise from the principle pacta sunt servanda,⁸ that is, from agreement of the parties at variance to the proposed plan. In the case of Israel, Lauterpacht explains:

“… the coming into existence of Israel does not depend legally upon the Resolution. The right of a State to exist flows from its factual existence – especially when that existence is prolonged, shows every sign of continuance and is recognised by the generality of nations.”

Reviewing Lauterpacht’s arguments, Professor Stone added that Israel’s “legitimacy” or the “legal foundation” for its birth does not reside with the United Nations’ “Partition Plan,” which as a consequence of Arab actions became a dead issue. Professor Stone concluded:

“… The State of Israel is thus not legally derived from the partition plan, but rests (as do most other states in the world) on assertion of independence by its people and government, on the vindication of that independence by arms against assault by other states, and on the establishment of orderly government within territory under its stable control.”⁹

That is Israel's legal claim to statehood - surviving and being recognized as a state. And if the COI doesn't know that basic fact, it is incompetent to do anything. 

But it does know the truth, and it is lying for a specific reason.

Kothari is making two wrong assertions here: that Israel's legal foundation is based on Resolution 181, and also that the "State of Palestine" has the same legal basis. This is doubly absurd: not only is 181 not legally binding, but the Palestinian Arabs of the time rejected it - which is the exact reason it cannot be legally binding!  They cannot turn back the clock and say that, sorry, we now accept UNGA 181 decades after we ripped it up.

It seems that the Commission making up the claim that 181 is the legal basis for Israel in order to pretend that Palestinians have an equal claim to nationhood as Israel does!

That is a breathtakingly cynical twisting of international law to create a legal basis for Palestinian statehood - and once you realize that this is a lie, one may wonder what exactly the legal basis for a nonexistent State of Palestine is to begin with?

This analysis shows that this commission is pretty much founded on lies. 

(h/t Myths and Facts)

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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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